Thanks for the offers to help.
A more accurate description of the blade is
835mm long
39mm at widest point before tapering slightly near shoulders
fullers each 6mm wide and extend 560mm beginning 60mm down from the guard ricasso both sides of the blade extending 140-145mm.
I've included two more photos, one shows the 857 stamped near the shoulders but not obscured by the crossguard this time.
The other I hope is a better shot of the script. I had a professor of mine who studied Near East ancient history at Harvard take a look at it long ago and he too thought the script as such was glyphs and/or abbreviations which he did not recognised based on the limited number of characters throughout and the short patterns of repeating these characters interspersed frequently with vertical lines (ie the 'I' and 'II'), the latter I do not know if they are indeed characters, punctuation or decoration.
I was not hoping for anyone to try to decipher the script I was more hoping that someone would recognise its kind, but whatever can be gleaned is appreciated.
|