Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post

Rivkin · 25th May 2005, 11:39 PM

I probably lack the experience needed to post here, but since it never stopped me from posting in the past:

Sword collecting community is surprisingly small. Way smaller than a china and porceline community or a ninja-to community, and this most likely correspond to some extent to the general lack of interest among the public.

But I would certainly disagree that the big museums are not doing a good job in displaying arms because of such lack of interests. Almost every museum I've been to is simply horrible when it comes to displaying arms.

First of all - there are virtually no explanations, no history assigned to the weapons. I mean if you go to the museum of science and technology they are going to have one piece of technology and many supplementary materials, that will explain to you how this stuff works, what it's supposed to do, who invented it and so on.

When you go to a standard arms and armor gallery you are lucky to see plagues "caucasian dagger circa 1800-1900" (real example from _the_ museum). How it's going to inspire any interest in masses, I don't know. And this is true for everything - there will be a bunch of european spears signed "bunch of european spears" and a japanese sword with a name japanese sword. Big museums are going to have 10 such swords, small museums are going to have one wakizashi.

But would it be more interesting if they would show an evolution of a japanese sword ? The use of a japanese sword - couple of videos of tameshigiri for example ? The structure of a japanese sword ? Photographs of late samurais ? May be occasionally invite martial artists to chop things in public ?

The same thing goes for all the weapons you are lucky if a plague is going to say that it's wootz and it's a "traditional weapon of hindu people". You are not going to get any feeling of a solid and relatively complete information delivered to you.

Moreover a lot of these expositions are made of gifts. Unfortunately it leads to that instead of trying to have "one of everything", or at least some comprehensive representation of different cultures, they just going yo display 20 high quality shamshirs they've got, not worried in the least that it's completely disproportional to other sections, where you they have almost nothing. Please, sell the things you don't need, but do try to have a comprehensive collection !

I'm not talking about serious inability to accurately describe the weapons (good example is a caucasian dagger - for god's sake, the kindjal can be much more definitely attributed than this).

In short most of exhibit halls to me look like a garbage dump under a glass - throw some stuff here, throw some stuff there, who likes it will be impressed, for the rest we don't give a damn.

25th May 2005, 11:39 PM	#2
Rivkin Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 655	I probably lack the experience needed to post here, but since it never stopped me from posting in the past: Sword collecting community is surprisingly small. Way smaller than a china and porceline community or a ninja-to community, and this most likely correspond to some extent to the general lack of interest among the public. But I would certainly disagree that the big museums are not doing a good job in displaying arms because of such lack of interests. Almost every museum I've been to is simply horrible when it comes to displaying arms. First of all - there are virtually no explanations, no history assigned to the weapons. I mean if you go to the museum of science and technology they are going to have one piece of technology and many supplementary materials, that will explain to you how this stuff works, what it's supposed to do, who invented it and so on. When you go to a standard arms and armor gallery you are lucky to see plagues "caucasian dagger circa 1800-1900" (real example from _the_ museum). How it's going to inspire any interest in masses, I don't know. And this is true for everything - there will be a bunch of european spears signed "bunch of european spears" and a japanese sword with a name japanese sword. Big museums are going to have 10 such swords, small museums are going to have one wakizashi. But would it be more interesting if they would show an evolution of a japanese sword ? The use of a japanese sword - couple of videos of tameshigiri for example ? The structure of a japanese sword ? Photographs of late samurais ? May be occasionally invite martial artists to chop things in public ? The same thing goes for all the weapons you are lucky if a plague is going to say that it's wootz and it's a "traditional weapon of hindu people". You are not going to get any feeling of a solid and relatively complete information delivered to you. Moreover a lot of these expositions are made of gifts. Unfortunately it leads to that instead of trying to have "one of everything", or at least some comprehensive representation of different cultures, they just going yo display 20 high quality shamshirs they've got, not worried in the least that it's completely disproportional to other sections, where you they have almost nothing. Please, sell the things you don't need, but do try to have a comprehensive collection ! I'm not talking about serious inability to accurately describe the weapons (good example is a caucasian dagger - for god's sake, the kindjal can be much more definitely attributed than this). In short most of exhibit halls to me look like a garbage dump under a glass - throw some stuff here, throw some stuff there, who likes it will be impressed, for the rest we don't give a damn.