We seem to be dealing with the real thing. Will somebody come and pull it out one day?
Located at the Montesiepi Chapel in Siena, Italy, is a peculiar object that will be familiar to enthusiasts of Arthurian mythology and those who have seen Disney’s The Sword in the Stone: a sword embedded in a rock. It is linked to the legend of Galgano Guidotti from Tuscany, who was born in 1148 and went on to become a saint in the Catholic Church. After undergoing chemical analysis, it has been determined that the artifact is likely not a recent forgery, and instead dates back to the correct time period.
According to legend, Galgano was a rebellious youth who became involved in violent conflicts led by local lords in Gherardesca, Pannocchieschi, and other areas, resulting in him killing many of his neighbors. One day, after falling off his horse, he had a religious epiphany, converted to Christianity, abandoned his fiance, and began living as a hermit.
Over time, he received visions urging him to build his own hermitage, and he famously thrust his sword into the rock to symbolize his renunciation of his former violent life. According to the tale, the rock “yielded like butter,” leaving the hilt sticking out from the top of the rock, with the tip protruding from the other end. The sword has remained embedded in the stone ever since and is now housed in the Rotonda at Montesiepi, near the ruins of the Abbey of San Galgano, a large Cistercian monastery built below Galgano’s hermitage.
In 2001, chemist Luigi Garlaschelli analyzed the artifact and discovered several remarkable features, effectively debunking the notion that the sword was a recent forgery.
“The style of the sword is consistent with that of other similar weapons from the same time,” Garlaschelli wrote at the time, “we can even label it as an Xa-type sword, typical of the late twelfth century”.
By drilling a hole into the rock, Garlaschelli obtained samples of the sword from inside it, which he then submitted for analysis.
“Although iron artifacts cannot be unequivocally dated,” he wrote, “the composition of the metal did not reveal that modern alloys had been used, and so it is fully compatible with a medieval origin”.
Subsequent analysis provided further evidence to support the notion that the sword is a genuine artifact from Galgano’s era.
“We compared the ‘fingerprints’ of trace elements within the sword’s metal with that of pieces of iron slag that can still be found around the great abbey of St. Galgano. This slag is the waste from the small foundries used by the monks to manufacture their small iron objects, using local iron ore,” Garlaschelli explained.
Even more peculiarly, a set of mummified arms kept in close proximity to the sword, believed to belong to robbers who attempted to remove the stone and were punished by divine intervention, were carbon-dated and found to date back to the 12th century. Additionally, it was established that the hilt jutting out of the rock and the sword blade beneath it are a single unit.
So, frustrating as it is, it remains a mystery how the sword actually came to be embedded in the rock, apart, of course, from vague myths suggesting that the stone miraculously softened like butter…
Sources: 1, 2, 3