This thread is focused on just ONE type of sword in the south of ancient China, beyond the central plains area. These distinctive bronze hilted iron swords have surfaced from a number of sources over the last few years.
I had purchased three from Tony Allen a couple of years ago and just recieved another which I have on loan as a study piece. I also saw one of this type for sale in Hollywood road, Hong Kong in 2005 and another example (with a piece of glass or jade apparently set in the hilt) belongs to a collector friend of mine in Taiwan. John Piscopo had a number of these and Tony Allen had a great number in the past. A pair were offered to another collector I know last year from another source and I have yet to see any two exactly the same.
The great variety and unique look of these swords makes it worth posting what I have learnt about them in the last year.

The dating, which was typically given by most people as Han, is given in Chinese texts as a later Warring States to early East Han period style. The region which was said by collectors and dealers to be 'Sichuan' or 'Yunnan/Sichaun' is certainly confirmed as existing amongst the Dian culture of China's Yunnan province at least.
I had assumed a probable link to the Dian in the past due to a basic similarity with the bronze trident gaurd swords of the Dian culture in the late Spring and Autumn & Warring States period. The connection becomes even clearer when some line drawings from 'Ancient Chinese Weapons' are added to this which show other preceding bronze swords with the distinct raised dots on the grip alongside a trident gaurd sword.


To illustrate where these iron swords with bronze hilts exist in the chronology of typical Chinese swords here is a grouping of three types with the oldest at the top and the final form at the bottom. While for a period these basic weapons might have existed contemporary to each other which came first and which remained last can basically be understood in this way;
The early & typical battlefield bronze swords in China were short weapons for close combat (i.e 4-5th century BC as per J. Rawson).
In the late Warring States period, as such short bronze swords were competing with longer iron swords (and the Dian bronze equavalient also), there is a trend towards longer weapons.
In the early iron age such bronze hilted iron swords appear in Yunnan and continue for perhaps 3 centuries (as per Cheng Dong).
In Yunnan, as in the central plains, the longsword of iron eventually replaced these earlier forms with the passage of time (as per Y. Hong).


For this intermediate period then from late East Zhou to early West Han weapons with blades of iron existed in southern China that still utilised the beauty and fine casting qualities of bronze while harnessing the evidently superior qualities of iron swords for its length, and eventual superiority in hardness and toughness. As China was united from the Warring States this means that some regional diversity in weapons still existed which could be contrasted with the uniformity that Empire bought.
In this way some of the art and appeal of bronze casting in ancient weapons continued for a time in the south while bronze was abandoned for steel weapons in China proper.

The great number of these sword hilts that have turned up is made more understandable when figures of weapons in individual Dian tombs are considered. Of weapons (swords, spears, hammers and axes) in tombs dating to around the 5th century BC Yang Hong in ‘Weapons in Ancient China’ writes;
It is worth noting the armour types and forms of weapons of the Dian are very different to central plains Chinese.
In this picture alone another short and broad type of Dian sword which is different again is shown in large numbers with other smaller items. The damaged and broken condition of ancient bronze weapons in the tomb is not uncommon in pictures of excavations.


Tony Allen speculates on one bulk lot appearing but I would now consider that it is likely a series of tombs were found in an area and the hoard obtained in this fashion. Here he does mention that large numbers turn up, and I suspect he got another lot after this.
(**Note; Fig. 211 is shown below in post #9)
To this I would add I have noticed the hilts are small, maybe some in the 50 were smaller still, but most bronze age swords in China and in Europe, seem to have rather smaller grips than we might expect. The four I have examined are about typical for ancient swords. It is also very likely however that both me and Tony are larger than ancient people in ancient Yunnan however. My examination and discussion on ancient bracelets allegedly from Yunnan also seems to suggest this.

Tony Allen in the past had a hoard of bronze shortswords of the earlier trident style which were said to be from one tomb also. I had posted some pictures of this group on a swordforum thread previously http://forums.swordforum.com/showthread.ph...;threadid=44472. My posts in 2004 need to be revised based on this thread and my comments on iron in ancient China could be corrected also.
The parts of relevance are the images of Dian swords in the middle of the first page since the images are better than in any text book. A Warring States dating is certainly credible although it should be an early one..
In this case the number, about 12 in a hoard, could have come from a single tomb!
Here is another example in a text I haven’t noted the name of;

To complicate matters a little "Shang and Zhou Chinese Bronze Weaponry, C.H. Wang Collection" gives a LATE Warring States date to such a sword and it is possible they occur in later tombs although c14 dating in Y. Hong shows they occur earlier
See figure of 26cm long ‘swords’ unearthed at the above dated site;


Of the iron bladed swords with bronze hilts that came from these earlier weapons various comments include;
The late John Piscopo who wrote;

(I had estimated in the past from this picture the longer sword may have been 60-70cm in length)

Yang Hong; “Weapons in Ancient China”.Yang Hong says of Dian swords that

More recently when I checked Cheng Dong & Zhong Shao-Yi; “Ancient Chinese Weapons; a collection of pictures” I found some good information. The basic meaning of the Chinese passage; These weapons appeared at the end of the Warring States period and are very popular in early and mid West Han. They continue until early East Han when they are replaced by iron weapons.
Note the sword lengths with longer examples being 60-70cm in length.

Some features of the four pictured hilts I have been examining ;
Blue Azurite patina seems more common on these weapons than any other bronze swords or Chinese bronzes I have seen. Blue/azurite dominant bronze are rare with green/malachite and the red/cuprite (in that order) being the typically dominant colours.
The azurite blues make for especially beautiful patina, as is also shown in this example in ‘Allens Authentication of Ancient Chinese Bronzes’.


The trident gaurds that exist on some of these swords show links to the bronze short swords of an earlier period. The raised dots on the hilt are a common feature to these later bronze hilts. Amongst the 2 more decorated examples here the crescent design on the pommel is also a feature linking the decoration of these items. (below)


Casting flaws are common on bronzes and in some ways are a good sign. Tiny misalignments of the mould can be seen on these hilts and in this example a large air pocket from the time of bronze casting has left a hole on the ‘green’ pommel which is now plugged with cemented silty soil (below). On the ‘blue’ hilt behind this is a portion of mineralized fabric. This same hilt also has a few little circular cavities which I suspect could have held an inlay of some sort such.


Close up of fabric fibre on the hilt (below) which are converted into a non-organic mineral and preserved. These are imprinted by close contact with a second object during burial. The fabric has been pressed by another object onto the surface here and is one dimensional. This sort of pattern I have also seen on Han era coins which have similar imprints. Fabric traces and even surviving fabric patches themselves are fairly common on bronzes if inspected closely. When the fabric cannot be accounted for as binding such as on a sword grip it seems, as revealed by some preserved Han tombs and even traditional Chinese burials, that wrapping or draping the coffin, body, and even objects in the tomb with fabric is a practice in East Zhou and Han times.
Such mineralized & imprinted fabric features are noted in Tony Allen’s book as a sign of authenticity.


One final note that I often notice when I receive a parcel with bronzes in it, such as I did with this latest hilt, is that there is a strong smell to ancient bronze or at least a well patinated bronze. There is an odour which is quite detectable in the initial handling. It is very distinctive. The smell can be held by a sealed jar full of ancient chinese coins too. Just to test my theory just now I went and opened up various plastic bags and jars I have with bronzes in them. If the plastic has an odour itself then it is enough to mask it (or maybe even not present) but with some of my items like several dozen Song coins stored together there really is a distinct ‘ancient bronze’ odour. It is not something I will rush to inhale too often though. If there is a vapour then it may include an element of lead also.

Nice pics, Kenneth. I notice that the hilt seems to be more outlandish, especially the first hilt on the left. I wonder do the spikes really serve a purpose in combat or was it forged to scare the opponent?

Very good stuff Kenneth, thanks.

I went back and checked - you first mentioned this type of sword briefly in this thread: http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php...t&p=4768247

I suspect they are simply decorative since they occur alongside un-spiked examples and also examples where the spikes or knobs are less sharp.
i.e

Still, if I was weilding a sword like this in the Western Han era I would want one with spikes!
There is a bold and more threatening look to them.

Originally these would have the lustre of golden bronze and been a very impressive sight in all their varieties. This is why the hilts remain in bronze since the appearance of bronze is very appealing.
Check out the lustre of modern cast socketed axes on this thread. These were made by Jeroen Zuiderwijk who casts all sorts of bronzes from start to finish in recreating artefacts from his country.
http://forums.swordforum.com/showthread.ph...;threadid=63323
These sort of axes BTW are very similar to socketed axes used in Yunnan in the bronze age too.

Hi Yun,
Since I recieved that copy of 'Ancient Chinese weapons' the translation of the short passage in Chinese as well as the brief mention by Yang Hong means I can be more certain about some facts about these types of item.
After I recieved this latest item as a study piece I thought it is worth writing up what I can on them since there seem to be quite a few around. Up untill this time the only things I knew about them were hearsay (and a couple of geusses).

Thanks for confirming my suspicions as although the spikes does make the wielder of the sword look menacing. But logically, after a few slashes across some hard armour. The spikes will be reduced to small stubs due to wear and tear.

I just realised I missed out a picture I was meaning to add in about the 50 handles that Tony Allen recieved.
He pictured 12 of these in his book (**fig 211.).
There are some nice examples of the spiked version there and it also shows how no two are exactly the same.
I also think the design of hilt, especially the spiked ones, would be better for the weilder. They would also protect the hands from another sword sliding along during a block. Swords of the central plains Chinese type at this time seem to have crossgaurds just to stop the hand sliding over the hilt and onto the blade during a stabbing motion (hence most early slashing dao dont even have them). The central plains style swords would not stop another sword from sliding onto the weilders hands. This can be seen on this post on East Zhou swords http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php...p;gopid=4837422
I dont think the Yunnan swords can be assumed to be ''functional'' rather than ''decorative'' though since many totally lack this feature. If an advantage was percieved then I would expect all swords would have flared crossgaurds and spikes over time but clearly many dont have either and in the end the style is replaced by Chinese swords anyway.
(BTW the hilt at the top right is one that I have.)

Thanks for the pictures and info. I did not know that there were so many different styles of sword handles, always thought they mass produce one style.

A discussion on Antiquities_Science@yahoogroups.com has turned to these hilts and it is worth adding the points here;

Me; "
....I find them interesting since no 2 are ever the same out of dozens I
have seen. They seem to exist in some numbers since several sources
have offered them. Tony Allen in his book had 50 or so he refered to.

....Unlike the central armouries of the Zhou states who produced swords
en-masse in a uniform way the more tribal people in the south
typically had ornamentation and a sense of personal identitity in
their weapons. The casting of bronze around iron hilts means the
lustre of bronze could linger in the iron age.
Note that studs on handles draw from the tradition of trident gaurd
weapons of bronze from the earlier Spring & Autumn period in Yunnan
and these later Dian hilts are the final form before the local
weapons culture is replaced by the homogenous 'Han' Chinese culture
that expanded south.....


....I have seen silk cord binding wrapped around
the 'studs' {on the hilt}. Tony shows traces of another bound handle in his book.
Some of the handles are so decorated though on the grip it seems
unlikely to have been bound (a waste of time after all) and the
studs are really only barely raised at all.
The tiny studs in the well formed 'thimble' shaped cases seem to hold the
binding, much as the lozenge rings hold cord on late East Zhou
bronze swords.
Quite remarkable weapons.
I love the ornamental spikes out the side too."
=========================================================

Antonio F Melo;
"...This is my collection, some of them purchased from Tony, as well.



The diversity of patinas is incredible and, as you point out, there are no
two equal!

I did not thought before why such diversity - but your explanation seems
very plausible: they were somewhat a violent culture and individual
affirmation was likely present. Therefore the "individual" weapons, made for
each warrior as a projection of his ego, or soul?

The point for me is why were many of such hilts so short? It is very
difficult for an average adult to handle such a weapon! Were they functional
or only for funerary use?

This is a question I have been asking myself for a few years now without
answer.

This might be, as well, the answer to your question on the "wrapped around"
silk cord - was it only for functional swords or for the funerary pieces as
well?"
============================================


Me;
"Nice selection of hilts...one or two might even have been shown in the group in Tony's book.
The size of the hilts is not so small to suggest they are not functional IMO. While people viewing my swords tend to without exception comment how small are the grips the measurements I did and the consistency implies this is just a feature of ancient populations, i.e Jeroen has said the sizes are not different to the grip areas of many ancient bronze age swords in Europe. The stature of modern populations are typically larger than ancient populations let alone the contentious ethnic factors where potentially SouthEast Asian folk are relatively small. As an indication of the patterns influenced by 'nurture' even in the last 20 years the average height of youths in China has gone up by 6cm IIRC (state media Xinhua had several 'good news' stories like this). The larger size of Europeans today even compared with folk of quite recent centuries has also been mentioned in my readings more than once as based on better nutrition in post-industrial times.

Since the completely utilitarian & plain design of East Zhou swords of the double edged thrusting type (jian) could not be considered tomb objects I don't for an instant consider these Dian swords, often with comparable 8cm grip areas, as an less functional. Yes, they do feel small in my hands too but not impractically so. If the person wielding it was 5.5' or smaller then it might feel just right.
Perhaps next time I happen to meet a small modern individual I should get him to handle a few of my swords......hmmmm.

BTW women could be represented as Shamans in Yue art, and Shamans shown to wield swords, and even pairs of swords. The smallest of swords may have even been made for women's hands since there is a range of sizes. Quite a possibility, however anything around 8cm in grip is not unusually small.


Re; tomb objects.
In earlier periods metaphorical objects contrasted to the functional ones buried in later times in this general region, i.e;

QUOTE

....."The tombs yielded 37 coffin burials, sixteen sets of skeletal remains, bamboo and wooden artifacts, fabric, pottery, and proto-porcelain; 220 artifacts in all. C14 dating of wood artifacts provides dates of 2595 +/- 75 and 2650 +/- 125 B.P. or c. 600 B.C.E., that is, late Spring and Autumn or at the latest, early Warring States (476-221 B.C.E.)[7] Its location and characteristic artifacts define it as a Yue site.[8] While weapons are present in the Guiqi sites, they are largely symbolic wood representations rather than bronze or iron originals. Whether this indicates that metals were too valuable or simply that weapons as such had a lower place in life (and in the after-life) is unimportant; either conclusion suggests that the society was much less warlike than the later Yinshan society, discussed below.".......

{Early Weapons Systems and Ethnic Identity
in the Sino-Vietnamese Frontier
ASPAC ‘96, Edmonton, British Columbia}

The premise of this study is that the tombs in later periods (contemporary with these hilts) contain the weapons used in life or reflect changes at this time, as the militarisation of society increased and warfare becomes a more important activity. Shamans were theorised to decline in power as war leaders increased in power, all subjective stuff based on cliff painting analysis though.
Swords are quite notable in % of weapons and the author suggests this may be social status of the deceased, meaning officers buried in well equipped tombs. I would tend to view however the sword as an important weapon in the south as several authors have mentioned its greater employment in southern warfare vis a vis polearms due to the broken and uneven terrain. These iron swords with bronze hilts are an intermediate form that dates from the period of militarisation and increased influence from the north 'central plains'. The motifs of the swords hilts however connect back to the preceding unique local styles.
When it comes to deciding what is a purely tomb object there are grey areas with objects, and clear cases (ie flimsy or truly miniaturised versions) but as John Piscopo declared these weapons 'robust short swords' (anywhere from 50-70cm) I would tend to view them as fully functional man stickers.
PS; I have seen some with corroded blades still attached and they are more comparable in shape to northern blades so the author might be right about patterns of influence."

People who have held these hilts or other bronze swords always comment on how small the peoples hands must have been, as Tony Allen (quoted earlier) had wondered if some hilts were made for women and children.
While the grips do feel small in modern hands (although the possiblity in the Dian of womens swords exists) the sizes of ancient Chinese or other peripheral peoples weapons are not unsually small.
Testing a sample I got an average grip area of about 8cm or a little more. My own hands might require a 10cm grip, even though these small grips are adequete to hold also.
I had mentioned on CHF long ago & also that Jeroen had told me the bronze age swords in Europe had similar sizes to the hilts grip area. I had accepted this as fact as Jeroen is quite credible.
Some recent measurements by Antonio since we discussed this recently have confirmed this since he measured a sample of very different swords and finds these ancient Chinese examples are within a consistent size for bronze weapons.

From antiquities_science@yahoo {Antonio}

Based on a thread from the Antiquities Science Yahoo List discussing a trident gaurd sword with hollow hilt I have posted a few pictures.
These weapons seem related to the styles of hilt on this thread, being earlier while the hilts of this type were used into the Western Han period.
One example can be seen in the line drawing supplied above, just one of a range of types used by the Dian.

Some extracts from past discussions:
{me}....."The hilts of one type of Dian dagger are cast hollow, and the hilts of trident gaurd sword of the NW Yunnan style is also cast hollow (on some examples).
I have an example of the trident gaurd bronze sword of the former type.
There is a hole at the base of the pommel, yet the space INSIDE the hilt which is hollow is larger than the hole so a central ceramic spacer could not be removed.
It is not like a socket, it is almost enclosed except for a hole that allows the inside to be viewed.
The handle still has the mold lines which show a 2 piece single casting.
How could they do this?
Jeroen?
....The swords hilt is using something other than spacers since the issue is not the use or positioning of a core, but just how such a large hollow space would be made using a removable core when it tapers off to a hole about 5mm across. I have seen spacer marks on bronze vessels in museums and in private collections but in this the crucial point is that there is a larger hollow inside the handle than any central insert (core) that could be removed through the small hole on the pommel.
A lead spacer is absorbed, and a ceramic pin would remain but the core is the mystery. Just how they did this I can’t really tell. Breaking up a clay core to remove it through the small hole seems unlikely as they probably had a simpler and more sensible way..."

{Stephen Selby}:..."..."

{Richard Nable}:..."

{Me}.."I examined the interior of the hollow hilt on my own piece and while there are at least 2 patches of wood from a scabbard visible on the blade the inside of the hilt space is clear. This implies a smooth ceramic mold in that instance. Also I would expect a wood insert to survive quite well if it had been present on this piece, as wood does inside axes, sockets and finials. If your Dian/Dong Son piece has wood, then it may well be a variation on the same technique and sounds quite practical.Whether casting around wood without it burning (or actually bursting into flame) is possible is more Jeroens thing, but liquid bronze can be stirred with a wooden stick in ancient casting.
The gasses released by a wooden insert, since some burning would occur, might threaten a successful cast however. There does seem to be a pretty high rate of casting flaws on the hilts of these swords however but this many simply be due to the thin walls. Casting flaws exist on hilts of more typical East Zhou swords too, simply since the cast was done from the tip end, with the hilt being the area of the pour.
Re: wood, Jeroen fashioned sword scabbards by heating the finished bronze and then applying the wooden sheath which scorched the wood and allowed judging the fitting of the piece. (IIRC Jeroen) This would mean liquid bronze from the furnace/crucible would not be a friend to wood!
If you see wood inside a piece that would be pretty conclusive for that style of dagger however. Do you mean fused to the inside wall or rattling around in the space?

{Richard Nable}:...".."

{Jeroen Zuiderwijk} ...."{re: the hollow hilt casting}...
{Jeroen Zuiderwijk} ...."{re: casting bronze with wood inside}...."..

===============================================================================

Explanation of the various pictures:
A) The sword is 46cm long, but quite light compared to even slender Eastern Zhou bronze swords. The hollow portion is the entire hilt, a quite thin-walled casting.


B ) I have shone light into a casting flaw on the hilt, of which there are several, and taken a picture of the pommel. This shows where a low-fired ceramic insert was most likely broken up and removed after the casting of the hollow section.




C) I compare the bronze sword with trident guard to another style of sword, an iron blade with a bronze hilt in trident style. I am quite certain there are influences from the bronze trident guard sword style onto the early Iron Age weapons of this sort.


I have typically called the sword hilts like this 'Dian' although I believe they must exist over a larger geographical range just as trident guard swords do. The situation in ancient Yunnan province is far from clear. The 'Dian' hilts with the trident guards are likely influenced by these earlier bronze swords, while the distinctive 'spiked' hilt style of Dian sword is almost certainly more 'Dian' proper. Such spiked details on Dian bronzes are inspired by a style of Dian weapon called a 'wolfs tooth club' which then lead to these bump & spike silhouettes being added to both Dian spears and sword hilts. The progression could be seen when such weapon samples were displayed in museum collections.
The same picture also shows the many casting flaws on this side of the trident guard sword, such flaws can be seen on other examples of this sword style.

D) Surface features of the bronze:
Wood from a decayed scabbard is preserved at 2 points, one patch nearer the tip & on the blades central 'spine' (riser).


The other is near the guard, and is less obvious as it is fully mineralised as an imprint only. Under a 30x loupe they are clearly organic materials converted into mineral.


One spot of minor damage where a >3mm section of the surface has been knocked off shows the internal corrosion below the outer patina, being the typical ruddy-copper oxide appearance. The curious fact is that the outer surface nearby here shows a hint of the original copper-golden lustre (see pic) but the outer surface cannot indicate in such cases how intact the sub-surface metal has survived.


The last picture is a small area where a probable azurite blue mineralisation occurs with the more usual malachite patina.

Some background discussion.

These weapons are normally dated to the Warring States period, 5th-3rd century BC while the C14 dating of sites in Yunnan as given by Yang Hong put the dating for related examples at Dabona & Wanjiaba as skewed towards the early Warring States period.
The sizes of these weapons vary from slightly longer than this example through to dagger-forms closer to 30cm in length.
One posted example belonging to Antonio Frutuoso de Melo has the "twisted cord" appearance in the cast bronze hilt.


The dagger is 31.5cm & 274grams in weight & it also has a hollow cast hilt.


The geographical range over which these weapons occur is not really made clear in Yang Hong's text "Weapons in Ancient China" and he dwells mainly on what appears to be a sub-class of the sword found west of the Kunming/Dian culture area. The swords found at Dabona and Wanjiaba are associated with a little understood culture. It has tentatively been called "Yi" {Yi barbarians} based on ancient Chinese histories of the southwest but this is a very broad term indeed. The sites at Dabona & Wanjiaba had unique examples of burial in bronze/copper coffins. They also yielded large bronze drums, of the broad south-east Asian style and these then prompted arguments between Vietnamese & Chinese archaeologists along nationalistic lines: Where did the use of these bronze drums first arise?
A secondary debate occurs between Chinese archaeologists from Yunnan and those from Guangxi province who each claim the title as 'earliest'. This IMO is rather unwholesome and has become the main point of discussions that can be found on the Wanjiaba/Dabona people, and distracts from the much more unique features of the Wanjiaba & Dabona sites, their bronze coffins and their distinctive bronze swords with twisted cord grips and trident guards.
Sadly the debate seems an offshoot of a pattern of claiming that 'culture' in ancient China spreads via a North to South movement. Even from ancient times any "barbarian" group of note which appeared in the histories required an origin explanation as being 'created' by a renegade noble from the central plains culture {China}. The YuYue, the Xiongnu, Wu state & the Dian barbarian cultures were all said to be founded by rulers from the central sphere {Xia or Zhou} who came and later became the ruling elite of the tribes. This is apocryphal tinkering, but today it seems even 'barbarian' peoples that occurred within the area of modern China leads to a debate which has its battlelines drawn around modern geography.
Putting this sad affair aside the Wanjiaba & Dabona cultures are carbon dated to an early horizon in the history of fully-formed swords in ancient China, i.e a well balanced blade with an integral hilt appears only late in China, as Max Loehr noted half a century ago. In China a fully formed sword does not appear a great deal earlier than this dating, being the late Spring & Autumn period for the first Eastern Zhou swords of note.
It may be these early-dated Wanjiaba & Dabona sites show the separate origin of a trident guard sword which later in the Warring States period spread over a very large area which includes a good part of Yunnan and also modern Sichuan province.
At the Sanxingdui museum, an album of which was posted by Prof. Gary Todd http://picasaweb.google.com/leefoxx1949/Sanxingdui a signpost discussed sword types of the south-west "ancient ethnic groups". There are some simplifications there to be aware of such as the 'Guangxi' style of sword {Sino-Viet with broad tapering triangle) which actually was one type of many & has a larger distribution into Vietnam & Yunnan. The common 'Dian' sword has styles far more diverse than implied there also, including all listed types except the Ba-Shu "willow leaf" and twin-disc pommel {Akinakes-steppes style?}.
Of significance here it mentions the "trident guard swords" as a style which occurs in the West & Northwest of Yunnan, as well as the south-western & north-western areas of Sichuan.

This would mean areas outside the primary & better known 'Ba-Shu' cultural sphere of Sichuan but still a huge range of territory. This large expanse is not mentioned by Yang Hong, who also omits 'Qiang' {proto-Tibetan} weapon styles in his book.
In the Yunnan provincial museum there is one slender trident guard sword which is provenanced to 'Deqin county'. This is the north-western extremity of Yunnan, on the Sichuan border, and the higher altitude county of Yunnan.
The style of the slender Deqin blade is closer to the example of mine and Antonio's than Dabona/Wanjiaba swords blade style & closer to Antonio's out of the 2 posted here.


The Dabona/Wanjiaba swords are of a rare type in that the blades outer edge narrows or is 'waisted'. It was visible to a greater or lesser extent at both sites and yet numerous examples of these trident swords I have seen all have completely straight outer edges to the blade. My feeling, and again the Sanxingdui museum link shows some excellent examples, is that the cord & trident aesthetic hilt style was adopted by many diverse tribes north & east but the blade style was influenced by other swords outside the Dabona/Wanjiaba region.
That is to say the traditions of the Ba-Shu & the Dian were in the use of straight edged swords rather than wavering edges. The influence of the Sino-Viet sword on the more broadly distributed tapering trident guard sword then appears to have lead to the broad, straight edged and tapering sword such as we see. Given the dating of the West-Yunnan sites to the early Warring States period it can be surmised that the weapons then evolved in later centuries within the sphere of the proto-Tibetan peoples of the northern extent and the Sino-Viet peoples of the Eastern extent.
Later iron blades were added onto bronze hilts inspired by the original design, hence iron blades on trident guarded bronze hilts.
In this regard the "Deqin" examples twisted cord hilt was closest to Antonio's, and my example is closer to the Dian examples that I have provenance for (Cheng Dong & Zheng Shao-Yi's text). Deqin was long and slender, while mine is more tapering. This may be the effect of either the Sino-Viet or Ba-Shu influences on the East & north extents respectively.
Of the trident guards at Dian sites the few examples of this exact type of sword may either represent a fashion later adopted by the Dian, or simply war booty (as war, captives, and severed heads of non-Dian people are clearly shown in their art). It cannot be known for certain but these are a later incident than the Dabona examples. It also appears that in a single unprovenanced cache (such as Tony Allen once had) a range of sizes and styles can exist, such as the textured hilt on mine & the twisted cord hilt such as Antonio's.
The area of Yunnan in the present day is the most ethnically diverse region of modern China, and this would no less be the case in the late Bronzes Age & early Iron Age. Making sense of these mix of styles and the huge region they occur across is made difficult due to the comparative neglect for an un-named people compared to the well explored historical Dian culture. Weapons are a rather neglected area of study, and the ancient Yunnan peoples with the exception of the Dian are little known.
While I hope to learn more when I get around to questioning the museums of the region for published accounts or facts the above would tend to be all that I can presently say on the distribution and styles of this weapon. The relationships between these swords I will be researching for some time to come, and hopefully years later there may be something more substantive to say about evolution and the spread of the blades amongst the 'Yi' barbarians of the southwest.

Kenneth, this is amazing stuff, and great individual research. We are all grateful for your efforts!

As usual Kenneth, this is a very informative article on your part. Thank you for sharing the information. I especially like the blue patina on the hilts, it makes it quite beautiful to look at. And I agree, I think these weapons would've been quite imposing to look at with their bronze lustre.