dha article in thai
 

I found a page that has an article on this sword, can anyone translate it please. It does not have to be word for word a summary would be greatly appreciated

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v9...l/sword103.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v9...l/sword302.jpg

The page with the article is here,
http://www.thailandoutdoor.com/ArtOf...thaisword.html


thanks
John

The article was written by Khun Bancha, a member of this forum. Its 's written in story telling style with some general description.

The blade was found an identified as "Dahb YoDhia (Siamese)" in Mandalay by Khun Parinya, an expertise in this field. Months later, he managed to bring the Dahb back to Thailand.

It 's hypothesized that the blade was brought to Burma in the 2nd sack of Ayuthaya. Luckily, during previous meeting, I have a chance to handle this one. The blade includes many Ayuthaya style components. Blade tip 's HuaPlaLhod, (Eel-head tip). Its spine 's slightly taper as found in many Ayuthaya 's blades. Blade material 's folded carburized iron. It 's hypothesized that the blade was selectively harden with Siamese traditional style (thin clay coated on the edge). Although the blade wasn't polished, I can see that its faint harden line 's not straight.

There 's valley at blade/tang interface. This is a characteristic of Siamese style tang forging. The valley was made during tang forging (upsetting). We predicted that the tang 's fat and swollen at its middle part. However, we did not take its hilt off for it 's in very good condition.

The hilt 's brass. Its craftsmanship 's possibly chinese guild's in northern cities of Ayuthaya (similar speciments were found around Phitsanulok city). The bottom end was cut off and replace by deer's embedded stag (abnormally growth). There 's believe that embedded stag carries some spiritual essence and it will protect its wielder.

The scabbard 's Rak (Thai urushi) coated wooden one. The small loop rope binding indicated that the sword was carried on a horse (hang on saddle).

Thank you great information and a nice sword with some provenance to put to it thats always a big help. In this you said

Quote:

The bottom end was cut off and replace by deer's embedded stag (abnormally growth). There 's believe that embedded stag carries some spiritual essence and it will protect its wielder.

Was this common ? I have a dha that has an amethyst crystal at the pommel that I have always wondered it there was not similar significance to.

Many blades are decorated with spiritual artifact(s). Most of them are organic origin (plant: fruit leaf, annimal: skin stag horn, claw, human: hair nail, cloth). There 's some "inorganic" spiritual artifact such as iron ore, pyrite, tin, copper. And most of them are "filled" in the hilt. ;) This embedded stag hilt 's an exceptional case.

As far as I know, gemstones are not considered very powerful. They were used as decorative and class representative materials (e.g. King 's sword 's highly decorated with gemstones).

Well that still leaves this one a mystery to me as to why then. I suppose it could have been purely decorative

http://img32.photobucket.com/albums/...s/1dha_002.jpg

Thanks RhysMichael, the picture remind me something. There 's believes that some crystal have protective spiritual power. I know that rutile quartz 's believed to be a protective one. And according to LanNa 's believe, there are more stones (upto 24) were listed. But I do not know about their spiritual properties. Moreover, beside the above picture, I 've never saw stone on Siamese weapon. Most of them are on ornaments.

Are you sure that the crystal 's not a big ruby crystal?

Speaking of imbedded stones, here is an example in the hilt of a high end Thai darb that I think is from the Ayutthaya or early Rattanikosin period. The stone appears to be onyx. The silver work on the hilt and scabbard is first class.

Ian.

Its a clear purple so I assumed it was amethyst but I could be wrong

Ian that one of yours is a great example of a stone in the pommel.