This is a 40cm fragment of a Han era sword blade. This is from a single edged dao that had the distinctive ring pommel which was a feature of the period. The intact sword was likely to be around 60-70cm long but the hilt is lost.
The Osprey text shows examples of the bronze dao being carried by West Han warriors, however the use of bronze went into a quite steady decline and by East Han there is little evidence for real blades being made in bronze.
Improvements to both the scale and quality of the steel (low carbon steel) production meant that bronze could no longer compete either economically or functionally. By the time of Wudi bronze weapons are much more scare as a number of changes in the military date from this time.
Bronze was then only commonly used for casting crossbow bolt points or arrow heads, due to the fine detail required and the ease at which bronze was cast by then skilled Chinese bronzesmiths.
R. Wagner in "Iron and Steel in Ancient China" is much more clear about the emerging steel industry than the earlier confusions that arose from quoted sections of his internet articles. No iron/steel swords were cast. Initially the qulaity of the low carbon steel baldes was not better than a good bronze. Iron sword were however made longer than bronze and this in turn leads to longer bronze swords. By the Han when quenching of blade edges and the art of folding and work annealing had been perfected bronze could no longer compete and was steadily abandoned.
Yang Hong is in agreement with these comments and notes steady improvement from the East Zhou to Han and the elaborate folding and reforging (by hand) that Han steel artisans had developed. He also names Han steel at this time as a low carbon steel which is work hardened.
In this way bronze weapons of Han are the last stages in the long Chinese bronze age, and are fascinating to me. They occur in unique forms (ji halberds and dao) which supplanted the archic weapons of the Zhou.
Iron blades are around for study but are often in a very corroded condition. Such iron blades can come from weapons closer to 1m long but as bronze survives much better than iron I find bronze pieces useful for detailed study.



One very unusual feature of this blade that I have pondered for some time now was a shallow channel or narrowing of the blade along the central 'spine'. This forms a subtle groove which was first only clear when viewed on the cross sections at the breaks. (see below)
My first impression is of a blood groove, such a bayonets have, which prevents the blade sticking in the wound from a thrust entry. Earlier Chinese weapons do have some features thought to be for 'drawing the blood'.

After discussing this which others it appears to me it is more likely a feature to conserve expensive bronze in what would be a burial weapon or a tomb object instead of a combat sword.
My friend in Taiwan has handled a number of larger bronze dao up to 80cm long and he hasn't noted such grooves. He makes the reasonable point that the dao by defintion is a slashing weapon and needs no groove. As the cross sections on dao battle blade blades are wedge shaped for strength (a broad back narrows to the blade as per Yang Hong etc.)
I now believe this is an item not intended for fighting. That other bronze dao were made for combat is quite clear, but this blade fragment like other such tomb objects is made to accompany the spirit only.
Another clue was the lack of a clear sharpened edge. A bronze preserves subtle features well the polish and sharpening marks from human hands 2,000 or more years ago are sometimes visible. While some cutting edges show signs of sharpening this blade shows polish but in fact suggests a deliberate dulling of the blade by having a flat blade edge when viewed under magnification. The polising would have been to reveal the lustre of the golden bronze, but not to make the edge ready for cutting.
R. Wagner questions whether long bronze swords were functional or only symbolic and the answer is clearly both. That the Qin long swords were the battlefield examples (commonly accepted) and the earlier Han blades/ge/mao were too seems clearly logical when the iron/steel industry was still expanding and had not yet replaced bronze. Wagner also notes that a good bronze can match a low carbon steel from later East Zhou for toughness.
In this way bronze for a time could face iron in an intermediate period.

This section of the blade (above) has traces of wood that show the sword was buried in a scabbard. Under magnification of 70x the fibres can be seen at the top right corner. To the naked eye it is more like a fine banding but still visible.
It is apparently a wood of the same type as attached to another earlier sword blade of mine. Such Chinese scabbards were made from light wood like cedar and under good magnification the traces left in the cemented soil on this blade shows the same grain and pithy structures in the wood.

The second blade edge is from an earlier Jian, a hollowed hilt East ZHou blade. The blade is double edged and sharpened equally all the way to the cross gaurd. Shown here is a small portion of unpatinated bronze showing the sharpening angle. Just above it is a damaged portion of the blade which may be from use, as the parrying with a blade tends to be closer to the grip this area looks more like a strike flaking than a loss from corrosion or tin oxide. The remainer of the blade is in very good condition. Also visible are traces of scabbard wood preserved in small patches.
(CLICK TO ENLARGE ANY OF THE PICTURES)

The point of the dao in these few examples seems to have a distinctive beak effect. Since all of these blades are quite intact (see those below) the feature seems to be cast onto the dao.
I will look for this when I see the dao collection in Taiwan.


Also shown here is the earlier bronze blade, from a 4th century BC double edged jian. This shows the stabbing point and sharpness of the blade. It is still noticably sharp in the hand.
These shorter stabbing swords still existed into Han, and bronze examples have been unearthed around JingDi's and Wudi's tomb. The East Zhou style swords do not abruptly disapear entirely with the Qin and West Han dynasties and for self defense they may have been carried even after longer jian and dao appeared.


Dao examples (note the 'beak' point).
Tony Allen' Authentication of Ancient Chinese Bronze"

Osprey "Ancient Chinese Armies"

Very nice pictures.

You said you had a Steel Han Dao too?
More pictures are very welcome, keep up the good posts!

I don't have any ancient iron weapons since they would require preservation and efforts to stabilise the corrosion. I did see iron jian for sale in both the PRC and in Western sources. Most were broken. I do recall seeing sword fittings on blades in Xian but I didnt check them if they were jade. They do however put modern fake jades onto iron blades to raise the price and so I only glanced at them. There was a hilt and most of the blade of an iron dao on offer only about 1 month back via a credible e-bay source.
Although I know a couple of people with quite intact iron swords, and they can be over 1m, others consider them more difficult than other antiques and so dont seek them. Even some bronze can react to damp and require sealing or other complex procedures, and iron simply continues to rust unless sealed or chemically treated.
The late John Piscopo had the most remarkable private collection of ancient iron Chinese swords I know of, and he posted some images of them when I queried about iron swords. These ring pommeled swords here were some of his examples, and the longest are over 1m in length.
Iron swords of East Zhou to Han vary from 60cm to even 120cm long. This is about 30cm longer than the upper and lower ranges of bronze swords of the same period.

This is a Han era ring pomelled 'dao' sent to me by a Taiwanese friend. He didnt think it a good idea to post the longer bronze dao and so sent this for me to keep or return when I revisit Taiwan.
Whether it is accurate to call a blade like this a dao or not is debatable but I found another similar sized Han 'knife' also described as a dao of which I include as the last 2 attached images below (thumbnails at bottom of post). The 28cm sharp pointed knife below and the ring pommeled 18cm knife beside it are both from the 'anythinganywhere' website which has images of various Chinese bronzes.
Both of those bronzes look suitable as weapons but my own lacks a sharp point which would make it useful as a stabbing weapon. The 18cm knife has a surpringly small hilt due to its total length.
Even the double edged knives I show later have been described as 'unclear' as weapons and others consider items like these dao 'utility knives'.
I believe some can be seen as weapons, others as multi-purpose and others only as mundane knives.
The 'dao' here I consider a mundane knife although it is possible the point may have even lost and it was much like the 28cm example(I have seen a sword of bronze whose blade had been broken and then resharpened short)
The 'dao' is more accurately simply a ring pommeled knife and of no use as a slashing or stabbing weapon and so I regard it a utility knife.

The middle iron bladed 'dao' shows a similar form enlarged as a shortsword. This is recognisible as a weapon and a reasonable size for a Chinese shortsword.
Coarse cord binding can be seen on the handle. The 2 hilts beside it are the 'Sichuan' style swords and are dated to Han also. Their iron blades have corroded away but bronze hilts like this have turned up in some numbers.



This knife with ring pommel has an incast design and the blade it so narrow to be of little use other than as a dagger. In this instance short knives of such size can be shown as a true weapon.

Unusual ring pommeled sword. Closest to a real sabre of any bronze dao. This is clearly a slashing weapon and not developed for thrust. A rather different version of the ring pommeled bronze blades.

The knife attached below in the typical ring pommel fashion is in the size range of my own ring hilted knife yet the point suggests a dagger rather than a utility knife.

Thks, Kenneth, for your insightful comments...

Btw, fyi, I have a webpage on the emergence of the ridged cross-section on bronze and steel daos...

http://chineseswords2.freewebspace.com/photo6.html

Regards

That's an interesting article. Your cross section diagram gives another alternative explanation for what would seem to be atypical cross sections. My dao fragment may then just be a cursory attempt at such a lateral strength feature...but not rendered as elaborately.
Your pictured bronze dao is an elaborate piece. I will be better placed to judge what is 'normal' after I see the number that are in a private Taiwanese collection. If he is kind enough to send photos I will post them sooner.
The more complex cross sections of Qin longswords would seem to be for the same lateral strength reason.
With this in mind I cannot be sure the blade fragment I have is not from a functional weapon that may have been keen edged sometime during its life.
The double edged dagger I have above (just below the Xiongu knives) seems quite likely to be a symbolic piece however as it is too thin to be of use. That some weapons are intended for the tomb only is clearer with the impractically thin or minaturised weapons.
For some blades though a grey area exists and all that be done is geuss work.
That really is a remarkable cross sectioned blade on your site though. A finely made weapon.
Thanks for sharing. My items involve me in a lot of lateral and circular thinking, and so other considerations are always helpful.

Xiongnu knives;
Some of the earliest ring pommeled knives are the Steppes stlye knives, attributed to the Ordos culture or the Xiongnu. Even in SHang times Chinese had inwards curving elaborate knives (close to 30cm long but with half this being ornate handles) with animal motifs which are believed to have been influenced by the items used by the steppes peoples. Shang era dao like short heavy cleavers do exist at a very early stage but seem to be a seperate development and the Chinese swords (jian) of East Zhou come from West ZHou shorter striaght stabbing swords). NOTE; I am not personally convinced the Qin 'wu hook' is a curved sword at all. When I viewed them they had a quite different appearance to all the other weapons and didnt show a sharp edge of which all the other Qin weapons were remarkably fine. Again a lack of specific information on the association of items positioned in the pits means what it was used for isnt clear.
Such Warring States era 'steppes' knives are often attributed to the Xiongnu but clearly by this time they are used by Chinese. The adoption of the Warring States era 'sword cash' or 'knife money' shows the value placed on these items and the value of bronze and so the acceptability of a currency that adopted its from (other coins adopted spade/hoe shapes). A number of states cast such coins buch before Qin there was a large variety of coinage in unusual forms. Such knives must be well known and carried by Chinese. Around the Qin pit were found short knives with elaborate gold fittings.
The enlarging such knives into a suitable slashing weapon did not occur untill Han. These tended to curve inwards at the East ZHou period while most dao are straight. The curving sabre of a more traditoinal form occurs more after persian/turkic influence.


This double edged knife is in a form more related to a weapon, much like a small double edged jian. I was told this was a tomb object in this items case...being far to light and flisy for combat. I tend to agree that the blade is impratically thin for any rigorous use. The hilt is also a modern addition. The large grip is more suited to modern hands whereas ancient swords seem to often be only around 8cm in grip area. This is uncomfortbale in my hands. The grip has been attached to an authentic old blade, and covered with a expoxy/resin to fake a green patina. Both acetone and paint stripper reacted to the fake patina which a real bronze wouldnt do.
The blade being real has an odd feature of a band along the edge to allow sharpening while the blade inside is very thin. There aren't clear signs that it was even sharpened into a real blade. In this instance the weapon seem more symbolic of a self defense weapon to place in the grave. It could be anywhere from East Zhou to Han.


T. Allens "Authentication of ancient Chinese bronze"
The author comments on how he is unsure this is a weapon as it is lightly constructed. Again the form is much like the short jian. It looks very much like another I had seen that was very roughly and strangley made with an off set hilt. This example here also has a slightly off set hilt, but not so extreme.
This well may be a weapon regardless and would be useful in self defense. Originally swords were carried for self defense in West Zhou, and were only around 30cm long. A knife like this may just be a variation on a dagger for self protection.


Chinese bronze dagger/shortsword. This seems much more clearly a weapon, it was described as a sword.
. This does look like sturdy and useful weapon and again blurs the line between a knife and a sword. Not much use as a swinging weapon it appears Chinese weapons simply had large and small versions in the same forms.
A blade like this is a type which appears in late Spring & Autumn and continued as late as West Han. (bronze short jian were found in attendant tombs around JingDi's royal tomb).
This double edged form seems likely to be a true weapon form of knife as opposed to the utility knives that have a single edge.

Hi Kenneth,

Thanks for your sharp and detailed insights on all these weaponry.... I like it..

Besides Donald B. Wagner's book, I would like to recommend the book below for your reference...

The Development of Iron and Steel Technology in China, by Joseph Needham, published by The Newcomen Society, 1956 and 1964 editions...

This book is a must have for all students of Chinese steel weaponry...


Anyway... Check out this excavated 2-handed steel dao .. Owned by my friend Alex of Chinese Swordforum... We think it should be Han Dynasty..

Overall length: 112 cm or 44 inches
Handle length: 28 cm or 11 inches...
Back thickness: 1 cm...

Thanks Thomas,
The dao is depicted in scenes from the period of disunity also so I don't know how to tell the difference btwn a Han and a post-Han dao, but the steel improved in the later period. With bronze it is easier to 'date' of course.
Yang Hong comments that up untill the time of the Southern and Nothern dynasties there was no change to the longsword {dao}. Pictures from this time show cords attached to the ring pommels of marching troops suggesting as had been geussed that it allowed for a wrist loop too, to prevent the sword being lost. I would expect some bronze and even iron swords may show traces of these cords in corrosion if enough were examined.

I came to a new idea for the ring hilted knives also. I had heard of terracota 'administrators (not warriors) who had been found in more recent years in the Qin tomb area. The text said they had bamboo strip ledgers, and little bamboo 'note pads' as well as small knives to scrape the bamboo to remove errors. This is the 2nd century BC 'invisible ink'. Last night I saw a picture of the knives and they were tied to the belt via a ring pommel by a short cord. The were sharp pointed and shortbladed ring pommel single edged knives. This seems to be the fashion in which the shortest & dagger style 'Han' knives I have shown above could be used. My own dao/knife makes more sense as a scraper of this sort as it has no point. It doesn't need to be so large to scrape bamboo so doesnt have to be so but it does show the general type of knife is a mundane type. It also shows that the straight bladed knives of this kind exist before Han and of course in East Zhou bureaucracies.

re; Needham. He does get mixed reviews on some aspects of his broad works but I will add that to the list of books I really must get.
If there are any points that can be raised from it, or if you can correct me on my flights of fancy (or point out new considerations like the lateral strengthening of cross-sections) then that is both helpful and appreciated.

Your comments on the bamboo knives triggered off my past memories of handling a fine quality Han bronze bamboo knife in a HongKong antique shop, with a similar cross-section as your piece below... only the HK piece was thicker in cross-section...



Judging from the pic of the British Museum Han Dynasty bronze dao, I think it also appears to have a similar cross-section....
___________________________

Check out this museum exhibit in Southern China a few months ago, showing a rare and fine dagger (top one) probably (in my opinion) dating early Spring and Autumn period... showing the basic profiles of the guard and blade shape and taper, the predecessor of the classic profile of Warring States swords...

Kenneth

Check out also, this Han or later short dao, remarkably well-preserved and showing the forged and folded layers of steel, revealed in the surface grain... I have seldom seen steel daos of this period so well preserved....

Mainland Chinese language website:
http://hfsword.com/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=14453

I did take another look at the British Museum bronze dao and it seems there is a suggestion of such a cross section.

The steel dao there is an odd piece. I am very suspicious of anything I dont know quite where it comes from or if the steel doesnt have traces of wood or such caught in it I just dont know how to authenticate it....This unfortunately means often I may exclude real pieces that dont simply make their age obvious.
Some lucky blades of course can escape the ravages of time if the burial conditions are right.
In this case I kind of like the look/feel of the sword.
There are a few real ancient Chinese swords of iron/steel that are not so long as the more famous 1m examples.
This doa with the slight inwards curved blade, the slight point and the proportions seems to look like an iron/steel version of the early-mid west Han bronze versions. It might be rather earlier in the sequence of Han dao.
Thanks for sharing.

With the earlier double edged swords of early East Zhou the distinction between a dagger and a sword is for me blurred. The earliest swords are only around 30cm and more like a dagger to me & unless it can swing with some sort of useful edge I consider it a dagger exclusively. Kind of arbitrary but it seems there isnt really a definition between a dagger and sword that has helped me out yet.
Any thoughts on this? Anything around 30cm long is kind of a blurry area. Not going to be lopping of somebodies hand with a swing of that.

Also, HELP!
Are you able to find an availible copy of Cheng Dong and Zhong Shao-yi, 1990, ""ANCIENT CHINESE WEAPONS - A COLLECTION OF PICTURES"", (The Chinese People's Liberation Army Publishing House).....anywhere?

Paragon who were the distributors no longer have it....and even a search in Chinese doesnt give any way to order it via the internet.
It was recommended on more than one occasion, and my only other option is to hope for a second hand copyon Amazon.

Yeah, it is not so easy to specify what is the difference between a long dagger and a short sword...

I have a copy of the above book, but it is long out-of-print, having been published in September 1990....

ps: I have sent you an email on some other stuff...

Athena Chang has posted on the sword forum some images of 2 'Han' dao & a jian she recently purchased.


The Han jian is quite beautiful. Over 1m long.

Note the original wood on the hilt still remaining. Traces of wood on the blade are not as clear but they are there too.

I recently purchased an iron Jian. This one is said to be 28cm although it seems hard to believe by the photos, it may either be a dagger then or else rather earlier as the 3rd century BC jian could be half the length of the elegant Han blades.
I purchased it largely to see the wooden remains of the scabbard since it will help me with the traces I have seen on bronze blades. I am enquiring about chemical/sealant methods of preservation on the sword forum....and from Antheas lessons to keep it away from pets. The oppurtunities to get swords of such 1m plus lengths outside China are rare although I saw a number for sale when in China with bronze fittings and sometimes in fragments unfortunately.
http://forums.swordforum.com/showthread.ph...t=&pagenumber=2

For browsers who come accross this thread, I have added a close inspection of the surface of the iron/steel sword above. Most likely West Han.
http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?showtopic=9583

Dao {sabre};
Dao fragment alongside a complete Han dao, 70.5cm long

Such Han bronze weapons would typically date in the period before the middle of the 1st century BC, since very quickly bronze weapons were superseded by Han steel. Examples of bronze weapons from Han sites show much contrast in the proportion of bronze to iron weapons even before & after the time of Emperor Wendi (2nd century BC).
Rare Eastern Han examples of bronze dao finds do exist as shown in "Ancient Chinese weapons; A collection of Pictures". A quite comparable example to mine based on the pommel & silhouette was noted as 74.5cm long, yet only very rarely are any bronze weapons ever found in Eastern Han contexts according to Yang Hong.
Bronze swords are specifically mentioned as absent in the cited excavations of mid-West Han tombs compared to early West Han tombs where bronze weapons, and swords were still found in some numbers.{Weapons in Ancient China}. It seems then that there is a very sharp decline, and replacement of bronze in the mid-West Han period contemporary with the massive expansion and improvement of the production of steel in Imperial foundries.
The bronze weapons found in Eastern Han tombs, such as even out of place weapons like obsolescent form bronze ge/halberds, are either West Han antiques being buried with the occupant or else only made for the purpose of displaying rank, either in life or the afterlife.
Long bronze swords are a feature of the late Warring States period and early Han, and the deduction is that the appearance of long bronze swords is due to a competition with, or mimicking of, the longer iron & steel swords in this period (as per Donald Wagner "Iron & Steel in Ancient China). Due to the difficulties in casting such longer weapons, and the chance of structural flaws in the bronze, bronze swords over 50cm in length are not typical in the Eastern Zhou before this.
Iron on the other hand, & the forging a blade, presents no greater difficulty in making a short blade or making a long blade. Before the Han period iron/steel may not simply be superior in properties but is certainly more practical for long blades.

Note, typical bronze short sword of late Eastern Zhou 5th-3rd century BC, typical iron sword as appeared after the 3rd century BC (missing most of the hilt), and Han dao of bronze 2nd century BC (possibly later)

One feature of both the blade fragment and the intact dao (identical to the British museum example posted earlier) is the very thin casting of the blade. The total weight of the complete sword is >300 grams while even the 44cm jian above is heavier than this.
Both dao examples have the unusual cross section discussed before, for lateral strength in a slash (see earlier post of broken cross-section).
The weapon is still so very light it is hard even with such innovation to consider it as durable or effective as an iron dao made with more robust proportions. Even assuming some weight was lost (as ancient bronze loses mass over time as metal atoms migrate outwards) this is a very light sword.
The blade is slender enough that there is a degree of 'flex' across the blade. (A pen is under the blade to show the slight flex, with both tip and pommel touching the surface).

Was such a light sword meant for combat, or just self personal defence, or perhaps neither?
Both the fragment and the intact dao have the same ‘beaked’ tip, as does the British museum example.

The other possibility I have considered is that such bronze dao may not rival the robust battlefield versions in steel but reflect a type of 'scholars sword' due to the fairly light but specialized cross section. Until the context of the graves such swords come from is explained, i.e social status or proximity to a certain corpse, this is just speculation but it is supported by the fact that there are depictions of court officials wielding ring pommeled dao even in Southern Dynasty times in the 5th century AD (see Yang Hong, p211).

The finding of a bronze sword in an attendant nobles tomb at Yangling tomb near Xian (Emperor Jingdi) reveals that while the entire Han buried army there was armed with iron weapons, swords, spears, halberds etc. the upper echelons might still be interned with weapons of lustrous bronze. This example was a practical looking, tanged & robust 42cm bronze shortsword with an inlaid design along the blade.

Bronze still had an appeal due to its lustre that would have justified its later use in tomb furnishings, if not weapons for personal defence or badges of rank & wealth also.

The Dao here has traces of fine weave silk fabric on the pommel, showing the sabre was covered & in contact with silk when buried. The pommel would be the only exposed part of the bronze to make contact since the handle was bound in cord and the sword was buried in a wooden sheath.
While the traces of binding on the handle require a 30x or greater magnification to see, and the traces of the scabbard quite discrete in the cemented soil along the blade, the silk contact on the pommel is quite clear.

Strands in the thread of the fabric can be seen here preserved on the surface.


Another aspect in common between the dao fragment and this intact sword is that while the entire surface was polished, and has marks from the abrasion of the polishing, the blade itself does not appear to have been sharpened in the manner of the bronze jian/swords or knives I compared it with.
I get the impression this sword, whether the design was practical or not, was never prepared to kill a foe. If this sword was worn on the hip in life then it would have been worn like a modern officers dress sword.
The 2 options for this sword then are that it was either made only for the tomb to be laid to rest as a mark of the rank of the occupant, or else it was worn but never fully sharpened just as a naval officer, or police/military parade dress sword need not have a razors edge.
The below picture is from Sandringham, the officer awarding this engraved sword is holding it around the blade, while another saber is on the hip of the officer cadet. A sword being handled like this shoud have a dull edge. Many common parade swords from various militaries are available for collectors.

As a historical rather than modern version of such weapons even in 16th century Europe there were heavy parade swords versions of more practical combat weapons “and there is no evidence they were ever intended for use in any type of combat.” www.thearma.org/essays/weights.htm “Dr. Hans-Peter Hils in his 1985 dissertation....noted that since the 19th century many arms museum collections typically feature immense parade or bearing greatswords as if they were actual combat weapons ignoring the fact they are not only blunt edged, but of impractical size and weight as well as poorly balanced for effective use.”

In the ancient period at least there is one good indication that a sword, a dao, could be used in life to display the rank of an individual. This seems to be something that occured within the tribal Yue peoples to the south of Han China.
Early Weapons Systems and Ethnic Identity
in the Sino-Vietnamese Frontier

{on a cave painting is a roughly rendered figure looming above a group and a ring pommeled sword can be seen on the hip, while another sword is brandished in the hand.}

This is not to say such swords as the bronze dao were not meant for fighting in general, or that such a design could not work well, but that the blunt edges on my examples to me suggest a limit on application of those blades at least. Therefore they are ‘parade’ swords for rank, or else tomb objects {mingqi}.
One feature I only noticed recently is that even a very specialised dao was influenced by the ring pommeled utility knives of earlier tradition. This is suggested by the appearance where the handle meets the blade, a distinctive half step, obviously added with purpose & showing a certain continuity between a knife & upscaled sabre. The knife is the same one I showed earlier on this thread.

Of the 3 bronze dao here (below) that I viewed in Taiwan the shorter version was much more solid, and heavy, for the length. It seemed to be robust enough for battle use but lacked the long reach of the others. The other 2 were both slender and comparable in feel and the slightly larger one is the piece I studied above.

The use of a cross-guard on the shorter dao to me suggests an earlier version since the dao in the Han period, and all those in this style after the Han, are noted by Yang Hong as having little structural separation between the handle and the blade. The use of a crossgaurd is a feature of thrusting jian, to stop the hand slipping up the blade. A fully specialised dao, such as the hourglass cross-sectioned type would have no need of this. My feeling then is the shorter version shows a form which would have briefly occurred when the dao appeared & was influenced by the jian that was used in the Eastern Zhou period. Crossgaurds are not seen on the iron/steel dao. It could then be older than other bronze dao and an intermediate form.

Stephen Selby (of ATARN, author of 'Chinese Archery') sent me this via e-mail. It makes a good point as bronze vessels in the Zhou period were owned in numbers according to rank, so also the Han mortuary industry seems to have some restrictions on the volume of bronzes to be placed in tombs.



my reply;
"The limitations according to rank is a good explanation. The dao is finely made, so not a substitute like a crude item.
I know that Emperor Wendi at one time actually banned the burying of bronze since so much was being buried as part of the mortutary industry. {the amounts of bronze & jade going into tombs were draining the economy at the time}
Putting a limit on the excesses of the well-to-do would be sensible in later times too!

I have also seen Han bronze ji & tsah that I believe to be similar tomb objects.
If I eventually get the tsah in hand I would be able to judge better, but it didn't look rubust.
The ji was a 'standard' size for a bronze ji but those few I have figures for are much smaller than the iron ji.
A bronze one would be under 30cm while iron version could be as much as 50cm in length.

These smaller bronze sizes were noted by Richard Nable too, but actual state control of tomb objects makes a lot more sense than just the comparitive expense of bronze. "

I rarely have much to say on the ancient weapons due to lack of knowledge, but I do have a Han dao (I think). It is in its scabbard and may be missing its ring pommel so it is difficult to tell if it is a dao or jian. If you find good information on how to stabilize it, please let me know. Of particular concern is how to stabilize the wood and iron together. Right now the sword is wrapped up in plastic wrap and in a box in the attic. At some point I want to take it out for photographs as the scabbard chape shows a crushed but intact openwork square filigree. I try to avoid handling though.

The guards on the Han jian are usually bronze such as the example Athena showed, but I know very little about them. I think Jade is much more rare, and can be a sign of a fake.
Josh

An iron sword I got from Jimmy shows the shape of the jian; http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?showtopic=9583 It is the same piece I posted above with the dao. The link thread has some 'before' pictures as was its appearance when I first bought it.

Could you post some pics of your sword? If any great extent of it has survived a jian/dao ID should be possible.
Looking at a tip or the crossgaurd, or the cross-section, should be enough. A diamond shaped cross section after all is only a jian.

When you say it is 'in' a scabbard to you mean parts of the scabbard fused to the blade?
A chape attached is not something I have personally seen. It seems a lot of the swords have lost most parts apart from the crossgaurds.
I would like to a photo if possible since I bought my iron sword to study the scabbard remains more than the sword itself.
There were clearly wrappings of (probable) silk thread on the outer surface in that case, and the type of wood is a light pithy sort similar to remains I have seen on bronze swords.

About stabilising a piece, I am reluctant to get iron objects for this very reason. About 2 months ago I had to try a new technique to stop the rusting of the iron. I checked th jian after its second winter here, being a damp region, and I saw signs the rust was continuing despite liberal oiling with gun-oil (a very thin oil).
The treatment for the wood remains I had suggested was using linseed oil, and applying this, and it worked fine.
No change in 2 years to the wood.
I suggest a lighter linseed oil, as I put on a darker one, and there are different sorts which I wasn't aware of originally.
Any hardware store should have this. It sets hard and soaks in, and you can apply several thin coats if you treat it over a couple of weeks.

The iron I finally seem to have protected by using a conservation resin. There are materials around like 'ren-wax' I have heard of but the material I had was a liquid 10% solution of polyvinyl in isopropal alcohol.
I thinned it with some solvent so it soaked in as I applied it by a modelling brush over a period of a week or so. After 2-3 coats on each side the item feels slick and plastic on the outside, and this has soaked through and sealed the metal.
There should be some sort of clear comparible resin about if you try a few shops, just test it on a portion of the sword first and wait.
It is dramatic to coat a sword, but life saving and quite nessecary if it is exposed to air humidity.
Richard Nable, who I added links to his museum display with an iron sword on the Ancient Weapons thread, used a sealed plexiglass case with a controlled enviroment which he said worked well. That's pretty flash.
Still, as far as I am concerned the use of some sort of coating & soaking application is more practical even if it means a permanent fixture.
Better than being left with rusted chunks years later.

Thanks, I am afraid that pictures sometimes take me months to organize due to my three children (3 year old twins and a 7 year old). I have to hide my camera and am always forgetting where it is, and the kids don't interact well with 2000-year-old artifacts.

Anyway, I think the sword is probably a dao as it has no guard at all, and the profile of what is visible is more or less flat. The scabbard is almost completely intact, but is so bonded to the blade that it is difficult to see what is going on. In a few places where the wood is missing I can see black iron, but overall it is rusty colored wood. I don't know what the chape is made of, maybe bronze, but it is mostly a big squashed lump with traces of square openwork. It was the chape that made me buy the piece. It was just after the jian you bought which I had been eyeing, so I jumped at the "buy it now" when I saw it.

Right at the scabbard mouth there is thinner black iron where a guard might have been pried off.

When I have a moment I will take a few pictures, it seems worth talking about. I will be very interested in your responses.
Josh

Han knife



This ring pommeled knife dates from the Han dynasty, and is a very fine version of what was originally a mundane utility knife rather than a weapon.

Utility knives carried by the steppes peoples (nomads) seems to be the origin of this knife style in ancient China. The Han-era blade here slightly curves in along the length, similar to nomadic 'Ordos' culture knives although normally the curvature is very much more pronounced.

Unrelated to the knifes original appearance a slight distortion occurred along the flat of the knife that shows a bending caused by pressure above, not visible here. This also caused the blade to fragment. I have reattached one small detached blade segment onto this knife after this photo was taken (this segment can be seen in position but not yet affixed). About 5mm of the narrowest final part of the tip is missing but it reveals that the edge curved upwards towards the rear spine of the blade where it terminated.

Internal corrosion along the area of each break was quite severe showing all the breaks are ancient (likely from burial) and not by modern peoples actions.



The detail, and the refinements of this item show it to be Chinese. The most remarkable feature is a 'cloud pattern' cast on the handle of this knife. The art is very fine, and amongst the swirling curvilinear style can be seen at 4 points what appears to be the long neck and head of a heron, with even the eyes and the split of the beak added, although this is not clear to the naked eye.



The ring pommel has signs of gold gilding atop the bronze still surviving as very small areas quite different to the underlying copper-bronze. It appears to have been more extensively gilt once, while gold certainly covered the ring pommel the possibility of inlay in the recesses of the cloud pattern cannot be ruled out as such designs exist in this style.

The slight evidence only allows for the conclusion the pommel was gold plated at present.

There is a double layer of fine fabric imprinted (mineralised) onto the pommel though contact with a textile, which can be seen here.




British Museum decorated Han knife (below)


Some of the curved & ring pommeled knives of the earlier Eastern Zhou period can hardly be seen as useful weapons, and most likely the function was originally a form of pocket knife for skinning game or cutting cord or meat etc. Some examples from the Han period however do include slender & straighter versions that seem to be a form of weapon, even only if a last option weapon. Compared to the fairly plain and robust earlier forms such as might be called 'Xiongnu' knives some slender Han versions (...as seen earlier on this thread and as can be seen on a British Museum example above) could be used as a personal defence weapon.

Decorated knives suggest something more than a knife for field work, but instead an item to be worn by a wealthy person as a display of status.

The halberdier below is armed with a ji pole arm, possibly a sword at the waist and then clearly a sheath shown with a similar ring pommeled knife hanging from his belt.



Such a weapon could be used an a close situation despite its non-threatening appearance. While the single edge means that a cut to a major blood vessel or incapacitating wound to a muscle or tendon might be delivered in a desperate grapple the most natural way to grasp this seems to be for a thrust. In a thrusting manner the hands could be injured by the weapon sliding along the grip, cutting the wielder, since it lacks a crossgaurd above the grip. More typical East Zhou 'daggers' of bronze all have a cross guard to prevent the hand slipping up the blade. Since this ring pommeled knife is comparatively straight and lends itself to a thrust I found that when held by the lower hilt around the pommel it fits into the palm of the hand in a way that would allow a lethal stab braced inside the palm. (Imagine stabbing with a pair of metal scissors, and gripping those scissors by the 2 rings at the base for a similar feel).

While I most certainly see that most of the original knives in this tradition are not meant for fighting, it appears based on the contemporary picture of a Han warrior above and the feel of the item (compared to several small curved bronze knives I have handled) that some portion of these Han knives could at a moments notice be used to defend their owners lives while still acting as a form of worn ornamentation for an owner when made as such a work of art.

In this way the East Zhou-Han period belt hooks of bronze need not be simply functional either, but when inlaid with precious metals, jade or glass ornamentation such items could be considered a culturally acceptable form of decoration for a wealthy gentleman to wear.

Below are examples of turquoise inlaid & gold gilt ornamental garment hooks in the British Museum.

Excellent analysis as usual! I especially liked how you pieced together how you thought it might be used in fighting.

So were these utility knives usually military issue, or work knives that many civilians could also be expected to own? How common are they as finds? And does having one imply some sort of rank or status?

In the broadest sense the knives are mundane, or even household items. They were not military issue but just a tool like any other.
The earliest forms of Chinese money include thin 'sword/knife money which was a curved and ring pommeled knife (see below http://www.calgarycoin.com/reference/china/china1.htm **). This shows a movement from barter to cash so the coin represents a unit of trade, as even items like 'spade' money occur at the same time.
Interesting the most common knife-cash coin is apparently from the state of Yan/(Yen) which was a northern state on the frontier with nomads. The long walls archaeology of Yan even show many of the people living inside the expanded area of this East Zhou state were 'non-Chinese' and so this is a way in which ways of life (Chinese & Steppe) could be exchanged and influence each other (Like Zhao was influenced by nomad warfare).
Knife money suggests they changed hands in such a fashion and the examples of such Ordos ('Xiongnu/Hu') knives like I have seen were just apparently cast simply in a 2 piece mold in the community like any bronze peoples would do if they needed and axe or chisel. Knives of this type, both Chinese or not, seem common in the late East Zhou.
Some are seen in Qin ceramics of scholars on the belt of an official for use on painted bamboo slips. In this way they had many functions, even as a scraper of bamboo. A sharpening stone and a bronze knife were the tools of a scholar from the East Zhou to the Three Kingdoms period.
Of the more fine Han examples though, went there is art involved these were made for wealthy people and such objects are a lot less common.

**
Warring States coin; knife money

Hi everyone! I now and then get articles forwarded by Kenneth from here, so I thought I'd join in. I'm involved in reproducing mostly European bronze age material, but I've got a growing interest in non-European bronzes, in particular the bronze age swords of China. I've been considering to reproduce one or more Chinese swords, and just recently my eye fell on these han daos. In particularly the double fullered example shown here caught my eye:
http://chineseswords2.freewebspace.com/photo6.html

Now my question is, does anyone have more information/pictures regarding swords of this particular type, such as dimensions (length, blade thickness, distal taper, exact cross-sectional profile etc.), weight? By the looks of it, the one pictured has a seperate pommel that's attached by a rivet (is the tang inserted into a slot in the pommel or vice versa?), and a seperate guard and "habaki" (? looks like the habakis on japanese katanas). Any information is very welcome.

Hi Jeroen,
Gald to have you here. I have posted examples of your bronze casting work on CHF before since they show the lustre of the items 'in life' and also give insight into the casting and metallurgical properties of tin-bronzes.

I see what you mean about a possible rivet on the pommel of that sword, yet it may not be so....or at least such swords were routinely cast in one go & that pommel is entirely ordinary in general appearance. The crossgaurd and blade cross section is the unusual aspect of the weapon.

For such detailed measurements, I doubt it. There is not much in English on ancient weapons of China and perhaps some Chinese archaeological periodical would go into such comparative details but finding it would be beyond my means.
If there is a particular item that interests you such as I have shown on a thread (or if you want me to e-mail some pictures of a bronze sword or two) then I could then get all these figures, to the best of my ability. I might be able to track down some caliper type tools even.
I do not have a dao-sword quite like the one on the link (a very splendid & a-typical example BTW or reasons I outlined on this thread) but even the pictures supplied by Thomas might be enough to sculpt out a fair copy I expect.
I would at least have a length for it in one of my books, as I have it in a line drawing form in a Chinese text.
It is a lot more robust that most bronze dao I have seen, and I am quite sure this 'early' (IMO) example was meant for the business of hacking and surviving a hit to bone or other material. Iron was in the process of completely replacing bronze when this sabre design first appears in China.

The 'typical' infantry bronze sword of the late East Zhou, if chosing the ordinary combat version/thrusting jian would be roughly around 45cm (normally >50cm) long, a blade width of 4.5mm on average (4-5mm) at the crossgaurd and of weights I have seen noted around >400gm (but anywhere from 350-700gm however based on blade type).

On this thread here I have length & width measurements of a few I examined http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?showtopic=16791 as well as comment on my few examples from slender/light to robust/heavy.

& here are some figures from swords on the web provided by Richard Nable also:
Hollow hilt sword; 50cm long & 461gm
Hollow hilt sword; 43.7 cm in length, & 470 grams
Hollow hilt sword; 50cm long and 392gm
Decorated lozenge ring sword; 47.5 cm in length & 497 grams
Taotie masked decorated sword 62 cm & 688 grams (!)

You could always contact Rich on the antiquities science group as this is only a fraction of what he has given figures for in the past, and he likely has an archive with many more swords.

I know what you mean. But the cross-guard, and in particular the "habaki" look like they are separare pieces. Also it looks like there is a rivet in the top photo, and also in the line drawing below.


I could always hope I can do a bit of educated guess work, and try to get as much out of the photos as possible. But any confirmed data will naturally drastically reduce the potential errors.


If you could provide those, that would be a great help!


Yup, that's one of the reasons for me to pick that one. It's quite probalby one of the last real combat swords to be made in bronze anywhere in the world too, making it even more interesting. And I've been interested in making a large single edged bronze knife/sword for some time, but didn't know about the existance of actual examples until I saw your article.


I'll send him an email. Thanks!

The double-edged swords I can get complete measurements and figures from are the few I have at home (4).

The line drawing of the dao, I didn’t spot that.
Does seem to be a rivet. Don't know why.
Bronze pommels were added to an iron swords tang, but maybe this is another feature that makes this dao "odd" (and early IMO)
The crossgaurds are separate for sure. Not typical on dao but the ancient iron swords all have a separate bronze guard.
These might be affixed above the hilt binding as a secondary fixture, or cast on (as the guard on a tash-spear was cast over the main body).
I have an iron sword at home I could send pictures of, that has a bronze guard. It has a wooden grip added above the iron but dao hilts seem to have been bound with cord instead. Traces of this can be seen on both iron & bronze examples.

Yeah, these some very late uses for bronze weapons on the battlefield. The early West Han weapons would be the last point were bronze might be seen alongside steel in practical use. The decline is pretty sharp between early West Han & mid-West Han in archeaological tomb context.

If we turn back to Han time, can you describe the sharpness of these Dao(s) and the force of striking as compared earlier Jin sword I saw in you Shang dynasty pictures.

I might have read somewhere that steel or even stainless steel was discovered in China long
ago. Also on the art of annealing in metalurgy to make metal harder. Does someone know
the history of these two subjects and enlighten me on the topic.

There is some fact there mixed with myth. Neither steel nor stainless steel was discovered in China although Chinese, after a time, were very excellent producers of steel and appreciated the different varieties made by different processes.
Hence, it depends what type of steel was meant by 'ancient'.
Iron (low carbon steel or wrought iron as are the earliest artefacts) occurs in China quite late compared to the rest of the world. Donald Wagner would be a good source of reading material as he wrote several essays on the earliest iron & steel in China, and demonstrated it appears to be an imported technology based on carbon dating and the localities earlier artefacts appear in.
Once iron was in China and worked there it was developed in unique, and sometimes superior ways.
"Steel" i.e iron working was not discovered in China however as there are cultures who used it much much earlier.
The steel in China even as late as the East Zhou period is a little hyped as 'steel' since metallurgical analysis by Eastern & Western scholars has shown the iron/steel in swords or armour was not superior in properties to a good bronze and the technology was only "in its infancy" {in China}. See either Yang Hong or D. Wagner for more info. In this way bronze was used in warfare very late compared to other cultures, and iron may have just been a marginal choice since Qin defeated the other states with bronze weapons.
In the Han period, but bear in mind this is quite 'late' comparitively to the history of iron working, the Chinese did develop methods that were arguably superior in terms of output and quality to 'steel' making elsewhere by using heat decarburisation in a furnace. At this time Chinese also learnt to make true mid-carbon steels of the type useful for the best type of sword blades much like the technology Japanese sword smiths would later use. There was a clear understanding of the importance of carbon % or mixing different steel, annealing and quenching etc. Later still, near the end of Han, there was a technique to create true mid-carbon steel directly from the furnace developed by mixing pig iron and wrought iron in proportions.
All these skills took time however.
Metal working east & west is not really superior but with points that go either way.
Stainless steel most certainly did not exist in ancient times, since ancient iron swords are typically in poor condition useless preserved by the enviroment.
Such steel needs chromium, which the Chinese (or any ancient peoples) did not extract as a pure element.
I expect this stainless steel idea may come from the myth (for it certainly is) of the Qin bronze swords being 'chromed' or treated with chromium as a surface layer.
Truth is the technology was nothing like the electronic deposition of chromium in modern times despite the misinformation often repeated.
Testing in China shows the bronze surface was boiled or dipped in a different material called potassium chromate but while this was clever it was not entirely effective in stoping corrosion, as the stainless myth has more to do with showing only the best preserved swords in books and ignoring the others which show signs of corrosion.
It did not make a sword harder or sharper either as is sometimes claimed.
I wrote something on the myth of Qin bronzes and 'chroming' here;
http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?showtopic=17605

Annealing is actually softening, which is achieved by heating until cherry red, and then cooling slowly. Quench hardening is achieved when heating steel with a minimum carbon content of 0.4% to cherry red, and then rapid cooling in water or oil. This leaves a very hard, but also very brittle steel (martensite), which will easily break under shock or bending. In order to get a good hard steel, which also is tough (not brittle), it also has to be tempered. This happens at a temperature of 200-250ºC. This is controled by looking at the color chance of the surface of blank steel, which forms a thin film of oxides, where the color depends on the temperature. If you look at this Sui dynasty sword, you see a quench hardened edge, with the rest of the blade unhardened (differential hardening). This means the edge is very hard (will cut into non hardened edges), and if untempered susceptible to chipping (bits breaking off the edge, rather then dents, still not that much of an improvement). But as the rest of the blade is not hardened, it's not fragile. However, as the blade is unhardened, it's still very susceptible to bending. It's when the art of tempering gets fully mastered, that really hard and tough blades can be made. I don't know when that happened in China. It's quite possible that the edges on the differentially hardened blades were tempered, but if they could temper in a controlled manner, it's much more useful to harden and temper the entire blade rather then just the edge. I know that in Japanese swords, the edge also gets a thin layer of clay to slow down the cooling somewhat during the quench, which may result in a less brittle edge, so that tempering is not needed. It may be possible that this was done as early as the Sui swords, but that's just speculation on my part. As an interesting side note, in Europe rather then differential hardening (by cooling the edge quickly and the rest of the blade slowly), they combined steel with a high enough carbon contents to harden on the edge, and iron with a lower carbon contents for the rest of the blade. This gives a similar effect to differential hardening, but by different methods. I believe this may have been done in Han period swords, but I don't have a direct example at hand that shows this.