Sawfish sword

Jim McDougall · 21st November 2012, 04:59 PM

Ibrahiim, thank you for the images of the sawfish blade in the German reference....impressive research as always!! This establishes of course the presence of these items of ethnographic exotica from the Oceanic regions in Europen context, and now it will be interesting to discover just how far back these were brought into the European countries.

Naturally the possibility of these returning from the East Indies areas via Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch merchant ships who certainly must have been through areas which had indirect contact with some of the habitat regions with sawfish.

It is most helpful to have images posted like this one from the German book on a singular basis as you have done. It is by far best to post images of this kind separately so that observations and associated text can be directed to that specific image and example. In this way these important examples become essential to the discussion.

What is most curious, as we have noted, is this sawfish blade in mounts of medieval style, and shown as a German parade sword. The use of sawfish blades is of course well established in Oceanic regions, but seems most odd in this European context. What was the significance of this, and are there other instances of these kinds of features on other European swords.
We have this sword running concurrently on the European forum so it will be interesting to see what develops.

All best regards,
Jim

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21st November 2012, 04:59 PM	#35
Jim McDougall Arms Historian Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Route 66 Posts: 10,296	Ibrahiim, thank you for the images of the sawfish blade in the German reference....impressive research as always!! This establishes of course the presence of these items of ethnographic exotica from the Oceanic regions in Europen context, and now it will be interesting to discover just how far back these were brought into the European countries. Naturally the possibility of these returning from the East Indies areas via Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch merchant ships who certainly must have been through areas which had indirect contact with some of the habitat regions with sawfish. It is most helpful to have images posted like this one from the German book on a singular basis as you have done. It is by far best to post images of this kind separately so that observations and associated text can be directed to that specific image and example. In this way these important examples become essential to the discussion. What is most curious, as we have noted, is this sawfish blade in mounts of medieval style, and shown as a German parade sword. The use of sawfish blades is of course well established in Oceanic regions, but seems most odd in this European context. What was the significance of this, and are there other instances of these kinds of features on other European swords. We have this sword running concurrently on the European forum so it will be interesting to see what develops. All best regards, Jim