Deccan tulwar

[Ren Ren]

Originally Posted by ariel

First 4 voyages of Zheng He ( a born Muslim from Yunnan prominent family) in the beginning of XV century involved visits of his enormous trade and gifts fleet to India.

The advances in maritime archeology over the past 20 years have made speculation about Zheng He's fleet irrelevant. No weapons for trade or gifts were found on Chinese ships. It was found on Japanese ships, but they did not reach the coast of India.
Cross-cultural influence took place in other ways. This was especially true in the 14-16 centuries.

[ariel]

Originally Posted by Ren Ren

The advances in maritime archeology over the past 20 years have made speculation about Zheng He's fleet irrelevant. No weapons for trade or gifts were found on Chinese ships. It was found on Japanese ships, but they did not reach the coast of India.
Cross-cultural influence took place in other ways. This was especially true in the 14-16 centuries.

I had to go to a big review by Sally Church doi:10.2307/40727457.
She discusses the plausibility of the claim that Zheng He’s flotilla contained 450 feet long trade ships.
Everything is based on old documents and technical speculations.
Obviously, maritime archeology would have been decisive, but there is no mention of ever finding actual ZH’s vessels.
Where did you get your information from? Is it possible that maritime archeologists found much later ships? How many of them were found, if any?
ZH’s flotilla was composed of 317 ships. What is the minimal number of ships to be examined to be certain that the entire armada did not carry weapons as gifts?

[ariel]

Double

[ariel]

Originally Posted by Ren Ren

Firstly, when talking about the swords mentioned in the treatise of the 13th century, it is completely incorrect to use the concepts of "Normans" or "Varangians". By this time, the Normans and Varangians had already gone down in history for 200 years. Therefore, when discussing the treatise, the only correct solution would be to use the term that the author used (of course, if there is no goal to mislead the interlocutors).

Secondly, neither the Normans or the Varangians, nor any of the inhabitants of the North of Europe invented any special sword design. The design of their weapons belongs to the Carolingian sword. In addition, as modern research shows, most of the swords used in Northern Europe were made in the Lower Rhine region (on the territory of modern Germany), where metallurgical and weapons production flourished since the time of the Romans

Viking age ended in 11 century. The earlier origin of “Varangian” sword are irrelevant to our discussion. What counts is an incontrovertible fact that it was Vikings ( Normans, Norsemen, Varangians , Rus or whatever other name you wish to employ) and not Gauls, Romans or any other part of Western Europe, but invading or invited Scandinavians who brought their swords to what now is called Russia. They gave rise to early sovereigns of Russian principalities, and much later Russian aristocracies boasted about their descent from Rurik. Prince Igor was actually Ingvar, Oleg was Helgi, Olga was Helga, all crucial personalities of early history.
When al Kindi in the 9 century spoke of “Rus” swords, he actually referred to “Varangians” (see above).

Armies of Russian princedoms were armed with “Viking” type straight double-edged swords for quite some time after the 11 century. Mostly they were unsigned, and the only Viking-type sword signed in Slavic letters “ koval Ljudota” (smith Ljudota)was found near Poltava ( Ukraine).In the 13 century, having been conquered by the Mongols, they have adopted the weapon of their conquerors, i.e. curved single-edged saber. Subsequent contacts with Islamic armies only strengthened this practice. It was Peter I who did his best to “cut a window to Europe” and remake his military according to European fashions.

Have I misled you? Sorry if you think so.

[mahratt]

Originally Posted by Ren Ren

The advances in maritime archeology over the past 20 years have made speculation about Zheng He's fleet irrelevant. No weapons for trade or gifts were found on Chinese ships. It was found on Japanese ships, but they did not reach the coast of India.

Do I understand correctly that reliable evidence of the import of weapons from China to India will appear only when maritime archaeologists find Chinese ships with these weapons in their holds? Otherwise, all this can be attributed to myths and legends?