The Mystery of El Cid's Swords Tizona and Colada

[Reventlov]

Hi Roland,
May I ask what sources are you referring to? To the best of my knowledge, the only study of the (Falces) Tizona's metallurgy is that performed by Antonio Jose Criado and his team, which concluded "the blade was forged from low-carbon steel, and subsequently a surface layer... was produced by carburizing." Alan Williams has written that this metallic structure "differs little from many other examples of medieval swords, axes, and knives... such a blade might have been produced almost anywhere in Europe over a thousand years from Roman to Early Modern times."

According to family tradition the sword was a gift from King Ferdinand, which is plausible, but there is apparently no (surviving) evidence to corroborate this story. As mentioned in my article (and by Gonzalo above), the earliest source that confirms that the sword was owned by the marquis of Falces is Prudencio de Sandoval, in a chronicle published in 1615. Sandoval saw the sword in person, but instead reports that he was told it had been directly inherited from El Cid by the kings of Navarre, then given to an unnamed family ancestor. This version is not believable in itself, but it does not exactly bolster the case for the traditional story...

best,
Mark

Criado et al, "Metallographic study of the steel blade of the sword Tizona," Praktische Metallographie (2000).
Williams, "Science and fakery: the limitations of science in the analysis of arms and armour," Journal of the Arms and Armour Society (2006).

[Roland_M]

Originally Posted by Reventlov

Hi Roland,
May I ask what sources are you referring to?

Oh I afraid, my source is nothing compared to yours. Here is a direct translation from ... German Wikipedia :

"Tizona, according to legend, was captured in battle by a Moorish captain named Malik Bukar. The medieval heroic epic on the Cid reports that he later presented the sword to his daughter's husband as a wedding present. After this had mistreated the young woman and was killed by his father-in-law in the court fight, the Cid took Tizona back and later gave his nephew Pedro Bermúdez.

The sword is 103 cm long and 1.1 kg heavy, the blade alone measures 78.5 cm in length and is 4.5 cm wide. Traditionally, Tizona is believed to have been forged in Córdoba. The blade also contains a considerable amount of Damascus steel.
According to the opinion of the University Complutense Madrid, the sword comes from the time of the Cid and is of high quality."


Best wishes,
Roland

I dont know, what the wikipedia-definition of damascus steel is. If I read the German Wikipedia-article about damascus steel, they show pictures of a modern pattern welded folder.

[Reventlov]

Sadly, on this topic Wikipedia is not reliable... in any language!

[Roland_M]

Originally Posted by Reventlov

Sadly, on this topic Wikipedia is not reliable... in any language!

Sure, I'm with you.

here I found a more reliable and pretty interesting source of the background of different sword-names in English (including Tizona):
https://www.tf.uni-kiel.de/matwis/am...tr/i2_1_1.html

Tizona means "Burning stick" or "Firebrand".