I recently bought a bundle of completely encrusted, munition quality talwars from India. I disassembled them for cleaning and inspection and found that one had a tang which is riveted to the blade. It is a piece of metal folded into a 'V' sandwiching the base of the blade, and riveted through. It is free to pivot to some degree in both directions.
Have you encountered anything like this before?
My first assumption was that it must be a repair (hard to say definitively) and certainly inferior to a monolithic tang but, probably only coincidentally, it proved to be the most difficult blade to extract from the hilt.
I have seen ancient swords (Glatius and others from the Iron Age as well as some Indian) that were also pinned.
| Lihan Hauk wrote: |
| I have seen ancient swords (Glatius and others from the Iron Age as well as some Indian) that were also pinned. |
I have never seen an ancient sword from a known archaeological context (as opposed to "from the FakeName collection, pre 1970") with a separate tang pinned on. I am pretty sure this particular talwar was made after 1945 from homogeneous steel.
Sean, what leads you to think it is post 1945? I am interested to know how to spot it, because the overall condition the lot arrived in had me thinking earlier. I would have guessed mid to late 19th century. It was so encrusted, one could barely make out any of the decorative marks. It does certainly seem mono construction, though one of the other swords in the lot turned out to be at least folded/pattern welded.
The smith I bought them from also manufactures new swords which you would pay 2-3 times as much for, so artificial aging wouldn't make sense. This was the condition before cleaning, maybe in a very humid climate this is what 60 years of 'patina' looks like.
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The smith I bought them from also manufactures new swords which you would pay 2-3 times as much for, so artificial aging wouldn't make sense. This was the condition before cleaning, maybe in a very humid climate this is what 60 years of 'patina' looks like.
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| Ian Hutchison wrote: |
| Sean, what leads you to think it is post 1945? I am interested to know how to spot it, because the overall condition the lot arrived in had me thinking earlier. |
A chapter of my PhD thesis was on Iron Age arms and armour, and I have never seen a sword with a tang like that which was made before the 20th century. Riveting on a tang makes sense if you have sheets of rolled cast steel which do not forge weld well. It does not make sense if you have bloomery steel which forge-welds easily so you can forge-weld a nice soft iron tang onto the blade. My feeling (and its just a feeling, ask Indian or Pakistani friends) is that factory steel probably drove indigenous steel out of use in rural India in the early 20th century. So its unlikely to be older than the 20th century.
| Sean Manning wrote: | ||
A chapter of my PhD thesis was on Iron Age arms and armour, and I have never seen a sword with a tang like that which was made before the 20th century. Riveting on a tang makes sense if you have sheets of rolled cast steel which do not forge weld well. It does not make sense if you have bloomery steel which forge-welds easily so you can forge-weld a nice soft iron tang onto the blade. My feeling (and its just a feeling, ask Indian or Pakistani friends) is that factory steel probably drove indigenous steel out of use in rural India in the early 20th century. So its unlikely to be older than the 20th century. |
Interesting, though I believe a combination of economy of scale, consequent to the widespread use of blast furnaces from the18th century, and various acts & taxes which promoted the Anglo-Indian export/import relationship (as seen with cotton goods), had already led to the widespread availability of British cast steel, and greatly reduced domestic production in India by the mid 19th century. This has also been suggested as one of the reasons for the 'loss', or rather abandonment, of the wootz process.
Your suggestion to ask a friend did give me an idea though, I contacted the smith I bought them from to ask if he's ever seen anything like it, since he must have taken apart hundreds (doh!).
EDIT:
So, I asked the smith, he immediately told me it's a repair. The blade he thinks is late 19th century, the repair could have been done any time, but he hazards 20th century. He said it's not unusual to see either welded or riveted repairs based on the ability or resources of the person doing the repair. Here is a photo of a similarly repaired blade in his inventory:
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Working at Sotheby's I discovered a lot of things. Just because something is antique or old doesn't make it valuable or good quality
Even back in the day they had good makers and bad makers.
This is a huge stress point in a sword.... The catastrophic level of failure that must frequently have happened with these blades....
Even back in the day they had good makers and bad makers.
This is a huge stress point in a sword.... The catastrophic level of failure that must frequently have happened with these blades....
If Ian's supplier thinks the riveted tang is a repair on an older blade, I am willing to believe the supplier.
ok, the sword from Illerup Adal with an inlay of the god Mars is one Iron Age sword with a separate tang riveted on! The tang looks much more like Pre-Bessemer steel to me than the tang of the talwar above. I wonder if they tried forge-welding it on, decided it was not as secure as they wanted, and added the rivets to be sure?
Bad work in traditional crafts, and bad work today looks different because the economics are different and the customer expectations are different. A good way of spotting Victorian forgeries is that they could not let themselves be as sloppy as some things as makers a few hundred years earlier.
| Lihan Hauk wrote: |
| scroll down
https://www.tf.uni-kiel.de/matwis/amat/iss/kap_b/illustr/ib_3_1.html |
ok, the sword from Illerup Adal with an inlay of the god Mars is one Iron Age sword with a separate tang riveted on! The tang looks much more like Pre-Bessemer steel to me than the tang of the talwar above. I wonder if they tried forge-welding it on, decided it was not as secure as they wanted, and added the rivets to be sure?
Bad work in traditional crafts, and bad work today looks different because the economics are different and the customer expectations are different. A good way of spotting Victorian forgeries is that they could not let themselves be as sloppy as some things as makers a few hundred years earlier.
| Stacey M wrote: |
| Working at Sotheby's I discovered a lot of things. Just because something is antique or old doesn't make it valuable or good quality
Even back in the day they had good makers and bad makers. This is a huge stress point in a sword.... The catastrophic level of failure that must frequently have happened with these blades.... |
Yes, he identified the remounting process as one where tangs were sometimes broken. When old, the lac mixture can become very hard and resistant to heat, so one may have to rely on more mechanical force than otherwise to remove.
Blades and hilts were removed/swapped for recycling or refurbishment, which is what he buys these for today. This relates to what you say about old things not necessarily being valuable. It is likely that millions of these munitions quality tulwars were made. To give an idea of the quantity, and perhaps the quality, one can buy these at 1/3 - 1/2 the price of a newly made sword.
He says he has occasionally found a few gems though: one or two princely swords hiding under a bunch of grime, and even pieces of gold hidden in the lac within a handle! (it does seem like a good place for a soldier to hide some loot)
Last edited by Ian Hutchison on Tue 11 May, 2021 12:13 am; edited 1 time in total
Ian, I think people would be interested in a post on how these tulwars are assembled. I am used to tangs which are riveted or peened into their hilts (or occasionally burned into a hole carved in the handle), but it sounds like the tang is inserted into a hollow hilt filled with lac resin?
Matt Easton talks about how some Indian swords are heat treated to be fairly hard and stiff rather than springy. He thinks it could have to do with the way many talwar-users used a drawing cut rather than a chopping hatchet-cut. This kind of cut is not so mechanically stressful on the sword.
Matt Easton talks about how some Indian swords are heat treated to be fairly hard and stiff rather than springy. He thinks it could have to do with the way many talwar-users used a drawing cut rather than a chopping hatchet-cut. This kind of cut is not so mechanically stressful on the sword.
| Sean Manning wrote: |
| it sounds like the tang is inserted into a hollow hilt filled with lac resin?
|
Yes, that's correct. Sometimes in literature and online the mixture is referred to as 'pitch'; that may be true in some cases, or in other areas, but I've always encountered a lac mixture in tulwars. This seems to be raw, unrefined seed lac which is melted and mixed with sand or even sawdust, and poured/packed into the hollow of a handle. The blade is inserted and held in place firmly once the mixture cools. I am not sure what role the sand/sawdust plays, as I have experimented with using only lac, and not yet found any detriment. Maybe it was used to stretch out the supply of lac, or perhaps it has a strength benefit I'm not aware of.
Some swords were additionally pinned through the handle and the blade just below the ricasso. In our last discussion, the smith showed me a blade, the tang of which was drilled for two pins, the second near the middle of the tang, apparently something uncommon. Later tulwars also sometimes feature a nut on the tang, tightened against the disc. I'm not sure when this practice began and whether it was used during the period in which swords were actually fighting weapons, but I suppose it may be stronger.
The blade can be removed from the hilt by heating the handle and softening the lac. I have heard that both boiling and direct heat were used. I usually use a heat gun for efficiency. That said, I have encountered two which I assume were so well 'cured', that heating had no apparent effect. I still haven't been able to remove the blade from one of them, even after boiling for hours, placing in a soft jawed vice, and trying to work the blade loose by force.
| Sean Manning wrote: |
| Matt Easton talks about how some Indian swords are heat treated to be fairly hard and stiff rather than springy. He thinks it could have to do with the way many talwar-users used a drawing cut rather than a chopping hatchet-cut. This kind of cut is not so mechanically stressful on the sword. |
That's right, draw cuts were prevalent. In fact, the disc pommel often makes it difficult to cut from the wrist. I have heard that theory about the draw cut being less stressful as well, and it seems reasonable. I'm not sure how much of a role it played in the construction method though. My own experience has been limited to cutting plastic 2l bottles with my pulwar (which uses the same retention method), but in dozens of cuts made from the wrist against those, I have not noticed any loosening of the blade. Additionally, there is the tulwar I mentioned above, which is already at least 150+ years old, has edge damage, and yet after boiling and forcefully working in a vice, I have been unable to even slightly loosen. Maybe it is just a particularly resistant outlier.
It would be interesting to take 2-3 of these munition tulwars, and maybe 2-3 that have been re-hilted, and see what kind of, and how much, use they can undergo before showing signs of loosening.
As for Indian swords being stiff; in the case of the munitions quality swords I've seen, although they tend to be fairly thin down the length spine, they do seem stiff nonetheless; perhaps because they are relatively short and wide. An exception to this is a blade I have with a pronounced, thick 'T' shaped spine. The rest of the blade below the spine is quite thin and slightly hollow ground. It weighs almost nothing, it is very stiff, and while most of these munitions swords actually handle decently, this one is superb.
Regarding the lack of spring, I have a suspicion that many of these munitions swords are pretty soft. I get the impression that they may tend to bend rather than spring back if over flexed, I have seen a few with bent tips. This would be in keeping with several first hand accounts of melee combat in India describing swords being bent and straightened (which was preferable to the sword breaking).
| Ian Hutchison wrote: | ||
Yes, that's correct. Sometimes in literature and online the mixture is referred to as 'pitch'; that may be true in some cases, or in other areas, but I've always encountered a lac mixture in tulwars. This seems to be raw, unrefined seed lac which is melted and mixed with sand or even sawdust, and poured/packed into the hollow of a handle. The blade is inserted and held in place firmly once the mixture cools. I am not sure what role the sand/sawdust plays, as I have experimented with using only lac, and not yet found any detriment. Maybe it was used to stretch out the supply of lac, or perhaps it has a strength benefit I'm not aware of. |
I think cutler's pitch is a technical term. If you have ever read Theophilius Presbyter from 12th century Europe, he liked to use frankincense powder or sulphur powder. I think most cutlers have a favorite recipe.
Lord Egerton of Tatton's book has some handy descriptions of different qualities of steel in 18th / 19th century India. Some of the early Islamic treatises on swords are useful too, because they talk about how one type of steel is nice and hard but can shatter, while another type is kind of soft and ductile but does not break as often.
I didn't know that these often had whittle tangs which don't run all the way through the handle and pommel! I think that is a good example of how the people who relied on talwars and kukris (or many European knives) to live had different ideas of what is essential and what just a frill than many hobbyists today.
| Sean Manning wrote: |
|
I think cutler's pitch is a technical term. If you have ever read Theophilius Presbyter from 12th century Europe, he liked to use frankincense powder or sulphur powder. I think most cutlers have a favorite recipe. Lord Egerton of Tatton's book has some handy descriptions of different qualities of steel in 18th / 19th century India. Some of the early Islamic treatises on swords are useful too, because they talk about how one type of steel is nice and hard but can shatter, while another type is kind of soft and ductile but does not break as often. |
Yes, they fulfill a very similar role to cutler's pitch but use different formulas, and tend to dry to a harder consistency in my experience. I think 'pitch' is used sometimes just as a catch all term. As I mentioned, the Indian/Nepalese variety is lac + sand/brick dust/sawdust/dung. In Persia and Turkey, apparently the lac could be substituted for a resin, maybe mastic or gum Arabic, and bees wax also added. In Indonesia, gum damar was used, if I remember correctly.
Here is an interesting thread on various adhesives used in weapons:
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=13510
| Sean Manning wrote: |
|
Lord Egerton of Tatton's book has some handy descriptions of different qualities of steel in 18th / 19th century India. Some of the early Islamic treatises on swords are useful too, because they talk about how one type of steel is nice and hard but can shatter, while another type is kind of soft and ductile but does not break as often. |
Yes, I have often heard it said that some wootz would shatter if dropped. That doesn't seem like a good characteristic in a blade, so I have to assume it was a flaw rather than common characteristic.
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