Hi Dave,
Thanks for posting!
The article is not finished yet, but I will link to it once it is done. I do have an article up featuring some of these sabers:
http://www.mandarinmansion.com/chinese-long-sabers
As for the graphs you posted, the first one is from Thomas Chen's site and is accurate as far as I can tell, although my area is not the archaic period.
The second graph is terribly inaccurate, I'm afraid. Lists like these inspired me to make some better overviews, entirely based on period sources and not martial arts training hall hearsay.
In fact he got the majority of names wrong, and included many that do not reflect historical names. Some weapon names are switched, and lastly, the transliteration on many pieces is wrong.
Example: What is called a
niumeidao is actually a piandao. From the characters I can see the compiler meant the
niuWeidao, or oxtail saber.
Unfortunately with all its errors it misleads more than it informs. Something better needs to be made.
Peter