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Scott here with another episode of the History and Plug podcast.

For nearly 2,000 years, swords reigned as humanity's weapon of choice.

It started around 1,000 BC when metallurgy was advanced enough in the Iron Age to make them strong enough as a good weapon, but flexible enough that they wouldn't break.

And they remained as the pinnacle killing weapon until gunpowder was invented.

They were the first tools designed exclusively to kill other humans rather than hunt animals.

When archaeologist Paul Geppey rediscovered a rusty blade forgotten in a suitcase for 30 years,

he unknowingly held one of history's most sophisticated weapons,

a 7th century Northumbrian sword so complex and finally crafted that only a king

could have commanded its creation. The bomber's sword tells the story of Anglisaxe in England,

from 450 to 1066, when feuding warlords wielded these pattern-welded blades. With razor-sharp

steel edges and bendy iron cores, weapons so precious they were covered

with jeweled handles and ornate scabbards.

Today's guest is Eduardo Albert, author of The Perfect Sword, Forging the Dark Ages.

We discuss how Bronze Age Smith and Minoan Crete, around 1700 BC, created the first definitive

swords, how the introduction of iron around 1,300 BC democratized warfare

...