Appearance of the Kukri in Classical South Indian Culture

[Gonzalo G]

Originally Posted by Emanuel

Just to throw in another wrench in the question, here is a shot of a 5th century BC Greek cup showing a Greek soldier fighting a Persian. Notice the Persian, not the Greek is wielding a kopis-like sword. The cup, help in the Antikenmuseum Basel und Sammlung Ludwig museu (# BS 480) is dated to 480 BC, over a century earlier than Alexander. At the time the Persian Empire extended to the Indus River, so we may consider this form of sword having being known in India much earlier than Alexander's incursion.

Food for thought...
Emanuel

I agree with you consideration, Emanuel, but fo the sake of precision, the warior is not persian, but Saka, a people from Central Asia which was used by the persians as mercenaries. Neverthless, there are many representations of persian warriors, made before the time of Alexander, using a kopis-like weapon. I know this and other Greek ceramics vases from this time, with similar representations. I know, also, from which book this pics were taken. There are, also, archaelogical findings from Khotan, which show very antique knives with downcurved blades similar to the khukris. I am following the trial of this weapons, and it does not point to Greece. And the classical sources seem to mention this fact, as mentioned on Burton´s The Books of the Sword.

The flacata appears on the 5th Century BC, before Alexander, but I personally do not think those weapons, the falcata and the kopis, were derivated from the kopesh, which, by the way, some archaeologists consider it originally Cannanite, and not egiptian. The Lycians also used a downcurved sword, more like the kopesh, and they were not a semitic or african people, as neither were the Cannanites.

The problem in studying this weapons, is the fact that there is but few archaeological research on India and Central Asia, and few historians-archaeologists studying the weapons from this area, in comparison to what has been made in Europe. It was not Burton, or Lord Egerton, who said that the khukri was derivated from the Greek kopis, supposedly carried into which now is actual Pakistan by Alexnder´s troops, but an specialist in occidental swords, without giving any argument. Burton only stated the mutual resemblence of this weapons.

Regards

Gonzalo