You should have asked to see the manager; both the Artifact and Shard are legal to fly with, so long as the Artifact's blade is removed. Granted, in the UK that would probably be a no-go, but in the US and Canada, they should've both been fine. TSA is known for their employees randomly making up rules and enforcing rules incorrectly; I would say more about them, but I don't want to flame them /too/ badly and give either myself or the forum a bad name. :/