[Gonzalo G]

Thank YOU, Norman, for sharing your pieces and for your interesting points of view.

Berk, very good material! I am always in a need of documental sources. Yes, I know there are some kora scabbards, but my point is if the kora was carried into battle with its scabbard or on the hands of the gorkha. I recall to have read somewere that koras were carried on hand into battle, but I have to check this source, and anyway I have not any certainty about the scientific grounds on which this statement was made. Anyway, these scabbards were in fact scabbards to carry the kora into battle, or only a kind of storage cases? Did this scabbards belong to sacrificial or to fighting koras? Or to both? There are precedents of swords carried into battle on hand, and I ignore if there are sources clearing this point.

Dennee, nobody attributed the koras to the Tibet, but to what it seems the tibetan group which invaded Nepal from a migration originated maybe in Central or East Asia, and I mean the gorkhas. I know this is an uncharted teritory. The gap in the occidental documental sources you mentioned before is a proof that there is much to discover about this migrations and about the koras. For this reason, we can only hypothetize based in the information available. The fact is that the kora is intimately associated to the gorkha and, who they were? Where did this group originated? Did they carried the kora at their arrival to Nepal? I am afraid that we do not have definitive answers based on ultimate scientific evidence. Intercourses among India, Nepal and the Tibet are a fact. But I wonder if the fact that the kora are used in chamanic rites, and this photos you provided are a proof of it, no matter there are no books in the occident dedicated to this subject, is a cricunstantial proof that the kora was in fact an old tibetan (in the ethnic, not the geographical sense) weapon. You know, those people taked very seriously their rites, and there are many precedents of very old and otherwise obsolete weapons from some ethnic gropus, only kept by the chamans or priests to be used on their rites. I think I recall bronze weapons used by roman and egiptian priests (and I believe judean also), in their ritual sacrifices, when iron or steel weapons already have been substituted the bronze ones. Even used flint knives instead, in other ethnic groups.

We need first hand good sources from many countries, since the languaje is a barrier and there are not many nations represented here. And also, we need some well based knowledge on the archaeology and history on many areas not well known for the occidental scientific. For example, I have given sources to proof that not only europeans did in fact forged wootz, but also that in Spain wootz was imported and forged well into mid 19th Century, and my source was unknown only because it came from books written by spanish specialist in castilian languaje and published in 1850. So, there is a problem, and a big one, of lack of information, or from lack of information from available sources in an available languaje for the reader. This absence is not proof of any argument, but of the fact that we don´t have information. The important thing is to have a scientific attitude, recognizing what is a fact based on proof, and what is a probability based on reason, circunstantial facts, logic and so on, and finally, what is only speculation originated in cultural, phsycological, ideological or personal bias or interests. And when only testimonies are given as proof, keeping a healthy skepticism, since even actual archaeologic discoveries have given proof that the classic graeco-roman historians lied many times, were wrong or imprecise, based on the same bias or interests.
Regards

Gonzalo