Nomadic swords

ariel · 25th November 2018, 09:19 PM

Philip,
You are a hard man to convince:-)

In my defense I can mention David Nicolle’s books, Indonesian and Indian temple statues, Persian and Indian miniatures, Khudiakov’s books on South Siberian weapons etc, etc. All of them are based on artistic depictions of various weaponry, religious included.

I fully agree that material objects trump them evidentially. On the other hand, their relative value is limited by their scarcity, preservation state and , most importantly, their attribution and dating: most of them, at least the nomadic ones, come from Russian and Ukrainian “ black diggers”. Come to think of it, even the most famous of them, the Charlemagne’s one, is of uncertain provenance. They are like a proverbial girl with a curl on her forehead:-) But when they are good, they are very good: I could not agree with you more.
We do have plenty of “upside down” examples belonging to the descendants of nomadic warriors: Persia, Turkey, Mamluks, Moghuls, But all of them are late and have only approximations of the pattern seen on Serbian frescoes.

Let’s keep our collective eyes peeled for a good one one with the “upside down” tunkou. After that we have plenty of iconographic and actual evidence to build a stronger case.

25th November 2018, 09:19 PM	#30
ariel Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Ann Arbor, MI Posts: 5,503	Philip, You are a hard man to convince:-) In my defense I can mention David Nicolle’s books, Indonesian and Indian temple statues, Persian and Indian miniatures, Khudiakov’s books on South Siberian weapons etc, etc. All of them are based on artistic depictions of various weaponry, religious included. I fully agree that material objects trump them evidentially. On the other hand, their relative value is limited by their scarcity, preservation state and , most importantly, their attribution and dating: most of them, at least the nomadic ones, come from Russian and Ukrainian “ black diggers”. Come to think of it, even the most famous of them, the Charlemagne’s one, is of uncertain provenance. They are like a proverbial girl with a curl on her forehead:-) But when they are good, they are very good: I could not agree with you more. We do have plenty of “upside down” examples belonging to the descendants of nomadic warriors: Persia, Turkey, Mamluks, Moghuls, But all of them are late and have only approximations of the pattern seen on Serbian frescoes. Let’s keep our collective eyes peeled for a good one one with the “upside down” tunkou. After that we have plenty of iconographic and actual evidence to build a stronger case.