Hello!

I wanted to talk about this sword. The link is to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY.
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/32256

The pics of both sides (click 'additional images') are good because you can roll your mouse in and really see whats going on.

So Im having a great smith make a reproduction. But I have to say, I think the smith that made it was of the highest caliber, with a firm grasp of designing elegant, functional, athletic and effective arms.

I have a question about the dimensions, especially the handle.

3 and 15/16th inches? Is there... room for fingers in there? Was it mis-measured? Were their hands smaller back then? Designed for a woman or teen? Or am I missing something.

Also, 1 pound... did this ancient metal weigh less? Is there a lot of material loss? Id expect a repro to be be a swell under 2, right?

Now I think the handle scales are postmodern, with brass pins. The pins have some sort of filing, grinding or machining on the heads. But Im sure the scales follow the tang. Wish I could see the tang...

Anyway, wow, those fullers.... challenging, and sexy. The deep line around the middle one looks like mascara around a woman's eye, somehow...

Thanks to anyone who would know this.

Almost 4 inches of hilt length (I guess at most 3 to 3 and a half grippable) seems okay for a knife/very short sword. A (slender) size 9 hand can surely fit, but it's definitely not spacious or made for large hands. Also extremely tight hilts weren't all that uncommon in the eastern world. Matt Easton has posted several videos on hilt and grip lengths of Tulwars and other Indian and Persian weapons, including one that is too tight for him, but fine for his wife. So yeah, it probably was made for a smaller person or at least smaller hands. No shame in having that detail slightly altered in a modern adaptation.

The weight seems okay, it is a short blade, the grip is quite light and you can be pretty sure that it's not a thick blade. Probably has a lot of distal taper (comparable to things like the Cluny falchion I'd assume).

I'm sure that Fernando Quesada's articles will have more data on falcatas sizes and weight ;)

I can feel the edge on my thumb. Intoxicating. ;) .....McM

well, firstly I'd second a close look at the work of Fernando Quesada for the subject matter.

My observations, however:
one of the most common reproduction errors is creating oversized grips - be it on these, on single-handed swords, etc. Unless you are actually endowed with Mike Tyson's hand size, a 10cm grip is more than adequate for normal people. Their hands were no smaller than ours. These hilts are designed to tightly "lock" into the hand, fore and aft, so there is minimal risk of displacement in use.

Weight, likewise, probably the most common errors is overbuilding the things. Cross-sectional profiles on those falcata I've looked at, are, like falchions, exceptional distal profiles from the forward guard, rapidly tapering to thin cross-sections in the 1.5-2mm range, with deep cut fullers forming a delicate web section to them. They are not, in any shape or form thick heavy choppers. Falcata, even more so, in that they are generally small. at about 50cm overall, its smaller than a conventional modern machete. I would expect that it is not fullered in the tang, but instead had proximal taper, going from maximum width at the forward guard down to about 1.5mm thick at the very back of the blade.

in other words, if it were drawn from the edge, it wouldnt be a:
=> shape, but
<> like that - tapering towards each end.

that's a fairly common error too.

I agree with everything that JG Elmslie has said and will add that I was able to briefly have a look at the sword in question here and was shocked.. shocked.. and how thin the blade is. At the time, I really didn't understand what these types of swords were, how they were used, or why they were made the way they were. They're really quite a bit different than the swords that are my main area of interest. It was an eye opener, for sure.

Thanks everyone for the replies.

Timo, I read that entire thread, thanks. As well, I read some other things by Mr. Quesada and will perhaps order his latest book.

Nathan, may I ask, was there any discussion at the time about the 'too good to be true' condition of the handle? Did they perhaps mean to date it 2 C. to 4 C. BCE and there was a typo?

I like the little aura of mystery surrounding this wonderful sword.

I'd like that too. How would one go about starting a movement to make that happen?

Interestingly, the Met has put this on display and changed the online writeup. They acknowleged the modern handle scales, said that the old patina was stripped off, but basically said, Yeah, we still think its real.

In museum speak the term "patina" is sometimes used to describe anything coating the outside of an artifact. I wonder what they think was removed as it was removed before they received the piece.

Hi all,

It's weird to pop on here and see people discussing an object I've worked on.

This falcata was looked at with a healthy dose of suspicion for a long time, but there has been some very good research done on swords of this type in the past few years, and Pierre Terjanian felt our falcata might be the real deal (well, not that horrible grip). Stylistically speaking, the shape of the blade, and the distinctive fullers are spot on. We x-rayed the hilt, and examined the metal to determine methods of construction. The material and method used to forge the blade, as well as the method of cutting a small notch in the tang to aid in forming the 'horse head', all checked out.

It's important to point out that these key features have only been discovered and published in the past decade or so, long after the object entered the Morosini collection (the donors) sometime prior to 1908.

Long story short, we are all confident we have a genuine falcata.

We have since removed the grip scales so that our visitors can appreciate the silhouette of the horse head. The removed scales and pins have been retained in storage.

Unfortunately, we were not able to get a new photograph for the website before the sword needed to be installed, but we plan to have new ones taken in the near future, along with the other objects that didn't make it to photography. I hope this image suffices for the moment.

If you guys are interested in learning more, I suggest reading Janet Lang's article Iberian Falcata in the British Museum (2010)

Note: the over-cleaning and grip predate acquisition

I hope this helps.

Best

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Falcata on display [ Download ]

Thanks Sean so much for this good news and information! It looks even more impressive with the tang revealed, I think. I wonder what the original handle looked like?

I would love this sword whether it was made 2000 years ago or 100, but now it has more gravitas. Thrilling!

May I make a request? When you post new pics of it on the Met website, could you retain the two old pics (right and left)? They are good high res pics worth saving.

Thank you so much Sean! It was extremely kind of you to post your reply and include the details we here thirst for.

I have developed a healthy skepticism over the years regarding ancient arms and armor that lack a clear provenance. There's a booming trade in modern very high quality ancient artifact reproduction made to look like actual antiquities that were acquired in the late 19th century and "restored." Even the "restoration" is faked! The documentation is on actual 19th century paper for that added bit of "authenticity."

On the other side of the coin are folks like me who purchase high quality arms and armor reproductions as reproductions for educational purposes, and later discover much to our chagrin that what we have are actual antiquities! How does this happen? Refugees and asylum seekers carry what they think are valuable objects from Syria and Afghanistan to safer Europe only to discover reputable dealers in London, Paris and Rome won't touch them for legal reasons. These have ended up on Ebay and even flea markets as "reproductions" as the owners grow desperate for funds, and then folks like me buy them. I can't use anything that is a real antiquity in any of my work, nor can I sell it as it has no legal provenance, nor can I find the seller to return it and get my money back.

Has anybody else run into this issue?