Hi Kirk :)

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Ah.... Another "Big Picture" guy!

I would say the only possible way to view a specific sword is to zoom out. Then everything makes much more sense. :)

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In my mind the first column would be a time division into dates with common period designations. The next column would be the sword types dominant during those periods. And the third column would be the country or region designation. One of the problems we will need to resolve is the fact that a sword type might have a place of origin (hard to define), but it also has a distribution or dominance. In the cases where we have this information (or a consensis of speculation) maybe we could enter the origin first and then the dominant region to which it spread. (i.e. Roman Gladius would be something like "Spain to S. Europe."

If I may say so, I fully agree. :) Remember I am just a humble learner here, nothing more.

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It seems to me that it is only when we begin to see clearly defined nation state identities that we can speak of a sword being indicative of a particular nationality (i.e. Scottish Claymore ) even this is rare... I can not think of another example in the west. This is a very worthwhile project...

Again, totally agreed. One question though: when you speak of the Scottish Claymore you mean its length or mainly any specifics such as the guard?
I think this project could be something more important than we can think of, specially if we could have more forumites to collaborate. It would be an act of virtual citizenship towards a very specific goal :)

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I have begun a chart as a first draft. I will post it soon. It might give us something to work from.

Good, good, great :D

Thanks for joining in this idea :)

Dear Friends,

Sorting swords can be done in two ways, culture of origin or style. On my AncientWeapons Yahoo Group I have organized my albums by culture, I have copied the tree so that you can see my own preference. On the Yahoo Group one logs in, goes to Photos, clicks on All albums and then can go to the proper Album to see if there are any Photos posted.
The problem with Yahoo is that the amount of bandwidth is very limited and can fill up very quickly. I have not posted any photos of my Chinese weapons because to do so would fill my capacity. I have filled 21.5 Megs of my allowed 30 Megs. These are just pictures from my own collection, asking everyone to post pictures would more than fill the capacity. You can go to the site at:
http://photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/ancientw...%26.view=t

This is only for Eurasian Ancient Weapons. With enough postings, each of the titles below could be further broken down by seperate folders for Swords, axes, spears, maces and other weapons. The sword category could be further broken down by sword style if there are enough of them. Unfortunately, there is no way to attach significant text to the photo file as an attachment so once they are posted they will be there as long as Yahoo supports the group but the email that might describe the posting gets lost forever in the mound of traffic.

I am attaching a photo of 8 Western Asia> Iranian> Azerbaijan Double Disc Pommel swords which I just posted. Look closely and you will note that there are two styles of these swords. If enough of them could be photographed and posted there could be justification for two albums and the invention of new nomenclature as the existing literature on ancient Iranian swords does not provide the language for the description of such differences. The second picture is of two Scythian daggers.

Best regards, Jonn Piscopo

Photo Albums
Chinese - Shared with Friends
Ba-Shu
Dian
Han Dynasty
Jin (Chin) Dynasty
Koreans
Mongolians
Neolithic
Qiang
Reproductions
Shang Dynasty
Unidentified
Warring States
Ge
Lead Weapons
Swords
Zhou (Chou) Dynasty
Egyptian - Shared with Friends
European - Shared with Friends
Balkan
Bronze Age
Celtic
Celtic Swords
Hallstatt
LaTene
Copper Age
Germanic
Greek
Byzantine
Cypriot
Helladic
Hellenic Classical
Hellenistic
Macedonian
Minoan
Mycenaean Bronze Age
Roman Provincial
Iberian
Iron Age
Neolithic
Danish
Axes
Daggers
Sickles
Tools
Swedish
Roman
Thracian
Viking
Help - Shared with Friends
Indian - Shared with Friends
Ancient India
Gangetic
Harappan
Kushan
SE Asia - Shared with Friends
Cambodian
Thailand
Ban Chiang
Copper Axes
dvaravati
Vietnamese
Champa
Dong Son
Axes
Daggers
Pole Arms
Reproductions
Spearheads
Swords
Unknown Cultures
Unidentified Shield - Shared with Friends
Western Asian - Shared with Friends
Anatolian
Bactrian
Canaanite Weapons
Iranian
Achaemenid
Alanic
Amlash
Armenians
Azerbaijan
Caucasian
Dailamani
Elamite Bronze Age
Georgian
Hellenistic
Kassite Bronze Age
Kurdish
Luristan Weapons
Sadigh Fake Iron Sword
Margianan
Marlik Weapons
Medes
Parthians
Sakas
Sarmatian
Sassanian
Scythian
Sogdian
Tepe Yahya Bronze Age
Urartian
Mesopotamian
Assyrian
Babylonian
Elamite
Sumerian
Northern Iran
Syrian
Sadigh Fake Iron Sword
Margianan
Marlik Weapons
Medes
Parthians
Sakas
Sarmatian
Sassanian
Scythian
Sogdian
Tepe Yahya Bronze Age

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Dear Friends,

I should have pointed out that some cultures can be in two categories, for example, Scythians and Sarmatians were living in Eastern Europe, Romania and the Ukraine, while being a part of the greater Iranian culture of horse culture nomads and many of their weapons are of Iranian Akenakes designs. In cases like this, I duplicate photo postings.

Best regards, John Piscopo

Friends,

Here is a preliminary chart... It is bascally from my memory.

I am sure there are many mistakes and misrememberings. However it could give us a place to start. We could add rows as needed. In the case of the relationship between the sword and its country/region of dominance, the chart will need much more input.

thanks

ks

Sorry,
That is hard to read... Let me try another with less detail. I will only take the columns under discussion.

ks

Dear Friends,

Looking at what Kirk and I have done above, I come to a quick conclusion that what is needed is a computer data base that is large enough to accept several hundred thousand photos and that could be searched by culture, style and date or combination thereof.

This would have to be a managed system with a system lord to whom submissions could be made and who would in turn change the system to accept new data or provide new categories. Here would be a typical search routine to find German Hunting swords

European Style> Rapier
Smallsword
Saber
Hunting > German Hirschfanger > Knuckle Guarded
17th C. Unguarded > Straight blade
18th C. curved blade > Grip Staghorn
19th C. long blade Bone
20th C. short blade Ivory
Wood
Wire wrap
Horn
Someone experience and knowledgeable would have to work with the System Lord to work out the system and then invitations could be made for posting pictures. Could this posting be done allowing .art and .bmp format photos to be posted?

Hi Kirk,

This looks great. In the downladable chart, what do you mean by TL? It does not seem to be Time Line.
Apoligies, my English guesswork is not that great :)

Hi again John,

I only now noticed that you have added the computer data base. We are still trying to get this software. But perhaps there can be a way for everyone to participate.

Let's see what Nathan, the magician, can come up with :)

In order to view this data the way we want to cross it, we would have to build different charts. What is the size of your collection, if I may ask?

Dear Antonio,

I have 700-800 European swords that would date from WWI back to the 16th C., I have 50 swords from the USA and about a hundred ancient ones.

Do you have funding to hire a Systems Lord to create the program for a usable data base? A virtual museum photo gallery that could be added to by collectors, auction houses and museums could be an invaluable archive for the study of weapons. I do not underestimate how much dedication and effort by a commited staff would be needed to acomplish this task. Getting everyone to use a standard photography format would be an accomplishment in itself.

One thought occured to me, you could provide collectors, museums and auction houses with a board painted and printed with dimensions in both inches and centimeters with peg holes for mounting pieces. The board could be 1' by 4', large enough to mount virtually every sword ever made. These panels could be constructed from 1/4" pegboard for ease of use and painted in a non glare beige.

I will send you some pictures off group to show you how I mount my collection.