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Lovely items nicely displayed...a delight to see! Thanks for sharing, mahratt !

If you have images of the painting/drawings that would be great.

Thanks, I would have guessed they were medical tools.

I think it would be correct to create a separate topic on the trip to India Prince Saltykov.

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=21033

Now back in the exhibition:

Thanks!
 

Thanks for posting this. I love these virtual museum tours. Beautiful work.

I'm glad you like it.

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"Chinese" part of the exhibition

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WOW
 

WOW! I love the rare variations seen in this collection, thank you for sharing....that knuckle duster and 4 section pole arm was a real treat!


Gavin

Gavin,
As I told from the very beginning, it IS a good and useful book.

Yes, Gavin, I agree with Ariel. This is a good book. There's a lot of interesting items. But be careful to dating. Often, they are wrong. And do not trust analogies with objects from museums of the world.

If you look at dagger no 5 I find a few things quite strange.
The author(s) have forgotten that there is also gold on the blade, and they give three references to museums. One would assume that the references were to daggers alike, but they are not, they refer to daggers with pistol hilts, but of different material and different decoration, and that is of little interest in this connection.
What is of interest is the blade. Straight double edged blade decorated in silver and gold in floral motif. In all the years I have collected I have only seen four of these blades. One in this book, there is one in the MET, there is one in the Gugong Museum in Beijing and one in a privat collection.
When I, in all the years I have been collecting, have only seen four of these blades, I would say that they are rare, but I have seen a lot of pistol shaped jade hilt in the same time.

A pity that the inscriptions on nos 51, 60 and 69 have not been translated, and it would have been interesting to know if nos 51 and 69 have an inscription on both sides of the blade.
No 69 could be from Bundi so the question mark is well placed, but nos 70 and 71 are from Bundi, so there would be no need for a question mark.

Katars nos 53, 54 and 57 are garsoe katars from Sind.

I have not read it all yet, but so far I enjoy the pictures.

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Hi Ariel - to a large extent, you are also making the same mistake. For example, there are Sindhi Rajputs (Soomros, Sammas, Sodhas and tons of others), Punjabi Rajputs, Gujarati Rajputs (Solangis, etc) and so on.

Rajput is a type of caste, not an ethnicity like Sindhis or Gujaratis. Saying "Rajputs and Sindhis" is exactly akin to the example you gave.

You are correct in your example, but please notice that I was talking about Rajputs and the rest also in terms of their national/ ethnic/ political entities. Just wanted to pass across the idea that Rajputs were not included in the tradition Hindu division of castes.
Perhaps, I needed to phrase it better, no?

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I am sorry I was banned that time. It is "chobdhar" - man with "chob". You can find a lot of them on Indian miniatures. Definition of "chob" you can find in the Glossary of the excellent book by Robert Elgood "Arms & Armour at the Jaipur Court":
http://www.amazon.com/Arms-Armour-Ja...e+Jaipur+Court

India is an ancient civilization.
Its weapons are so exquisite and incredible.
I am a Chinese
I noticed that the Chinese weapons in this museum are more common.
Some frustration :(

Benny, have a look at page 139 in the catalogue. I know of only four daggers with a blade like this, and decorated in the same way.
The decotartion on the blades are a bit different, but they must be from the same place - likely even the same work shop.
One is in this catalogue. one is in the MET (go to their homepage and make a search for no 30.120.162), one is in a museum in Bejing (see attached) and one is in my collection.

Dagger and scabbard
Date:late 17th–early 18th century
Geography:India
Culture:Islamic
Medium:Hilt: Jade; carved Blade: steel; damascened
Dimensions:L. 18-1/8 in.
Classification:Arms and Armor
Credit Line:The Sylmaris Collection, Gift of George Coe Graves, 1930
Accession Number:30.120.162

Yes, I have seen similar things in the the Imperial Palace Museum.
According to the introduction, he was given in the Qing Dynasty by other countries as a gift to the Emperor

This is the Qian Long emperor made dozens of DAO in a
Called the "proton" production process is the integration of many India, Persian style
In 2012, the auction price in China was $7500000

I guess the difference between the "known" Indian and Chinese weapons may be explainable by historical circumstances.

In 19-20 centuries China had several civil wars with wholesome destruction of cultural heritage, from Taiping rebellion to Cultural Revolution and everything in between, whereas India was relatively peaceful and maintained Royal dynasties with their properties and armouries. Also, religious and cultural pluralism in India was much more conducive to the flourishing variety of "ethnic" weapons , with Hindu and Muslim major branches and "boutique" subsets, such as Coorg, Nepalese, Mysore, NW Frontier etc .
And, lastly, weapons in India had sacred overtones and were treated as such, with infinite variety in form, religious symbolism in decoration and lavish adornments. In China weapons were viewed as utilitarian instruments and ( with the rare exceptions of Royal examples) were limited to several simple patterns of purely practical features.
This does not make Chinese weapons less historically important or interesting, but simply more austere. Da Dao or the so called River Pirates examples are esthetically plain ugly, but did their military job admirably well.

Hi Ariel,

like all cultures, there are class levels and within China there were certainly, and are, many many fine examples or weapons types that go beyond this classification you make.
Weapons are certainly NOT only viewed as utilitarian instruments, they move well beyond this culturally.

Gavin

Thank you guys for sharing these photos!

Really appreciated! :)

Indian soldiers were known to have been in China accompanying the British there, I have seen Indian weapons that were found in China, who knows if this may have influenced Chinese weapons at all.

Yes, but the earliest British invasion of China was during the Taiping war, in the 19th century.
Chinese ornaments and jade handles are also known to be found on Indian weapons.
It was a two way street, but the main currents were very different.

Eric/estcrh,
The Indians were trading with the Chinese long before the English knew how to reach India.

Your right of course but I do not remember seeing any Chinese weapons that looked to be influenced by Indian weapons, there may be some though, this Chinese sword is different, the pistol grip hilt looks very Indian to me, since it was supposedly Qianlong period which was 18th century I was thinking of more recent encounters between the Chinese and India which may have let to this influence.

Perhaps, as an example of "six degrees of separation", the dragon motive moved through Timurids(?) to Persia and India?