William P wrote: | ||||
personally id be very surprised if most of the forum hadnt heard of this one by now. its easily one of the most eminent discoveries in terms of ancient chinese military eqipment aside from the terracotta warriors themselves. but it is indeed a amazing sword,. though i should add a caveat.. i think that no amount of money in the world could persuade the chinese government to allow me to buy a sword like this |
William,
I have a contact email address for Tom Wong from Hong Kong, who sells very accurate replicas of Goujian's sword, Fuchai's sword and spearhead (Fuchai was the eternal enemy of Goujian) and other Chinese Bronze Jian of this period. He gives them about 90% accuracy against the originals (including alloys), and I'd say about the same. His maker lives not far from the Hubei museum as well, which is handy.
PM me if you would like me to give you the email address. I won't put it up on this thread, because it's his personal email.
I must admit, when I stood in front of the sword in the museum (I've been to Hubei Province History Museum a couple times), I had fun devising how to take it. The place is crowded, and the security is lax... I suppose I could pass it off as one of Tom's replicas to get it on the plane... Hahaha! It's not that big... Only 50-odd centimetres... Hahaha!
All kidding aside, the Sword of Goujian sat in a water-filled underground chamber for more than 2000 years, and came out virtually untarnished and still holding a good edge. It's really an amazing weapon.
Jean,
The Iron content in the alloy could be due to the superstitious practice of melting pieces of fallen meteorites and even human body parts (which also adds phosphorous) into the swords. This was common during this period in China.