[Gonzalo G]

Jim, tank you for your response(s) and sorry for my delayed answer, but as you know, it takes me some time to recollect web pages to read in home, and latter post my answers. I apologize for bothering with my pointing-attitude toward the need of re-examining all what I see as assumptions, though I can see how interesting, creative and imaginative some points of view are. In particular, I find very useful this exercise of comparisons among a specific feature from the edged weapons from all over the world. Trade routes and cultural influences among Europe and Asia are very wide since ancient times.

I am also very sorry for that unnecessary show of arguments and references about the markings. You know, I never said those markings were not European. I also never said that India was the origin of those markings, and latter were adopted by Europeans. And I have read all the alluded threads. All what I said was is that it was needed to question an European exclusive origin for that marks, since India could had been developed similar markings with other meaning and purpose. And questioning, implies only the need of verification, not that a mistake has been committed. An alternative hypothesis of this sort would perfectly explain the too late use of this marks on Indian swords and the Nepalese connection, since it does not seem too plausible that those marks were copied by the nepalese just for ‘affectation’, as late as the second half of the 19th Century, when even the koftgari, one of the most used decorative techniques in India for centuries, seems to be mostly discarded in Nepal.

Also, I see the necessity of revising assumptions as: ‘if similar marks appear in Indian blades, then this is explained by European influence’, and ‘here can be seen the key ancestry of many ethnographic weapons’, or ’when the blades gained reputation as quality products much sought after’ and ‘and ‘would suggest that this is most likely an affectation added well into the British Raj period’. Because this are not ‘facts’, but hypothesis in the best of the circumstances, and they must be confirmed by actual evidence. And you are perfectly entitled to make hypothesis, as I am entitled to disagree, since it is expressed in a respectful manner. As I have disagreed before with what I believe are good arguments based on facts discovered through my own research. Since as I do love spending hours researching, compiling and writing. But in this time, when the actual historians, archaeologists and ethnographers are questioning, with good evidences and reasons, even the old ideas about the ethnic homogeneity of the peoples and nations (including the Europeans), the reach of the the German migrations from Scandinavia and adjacent areas and the direction and nature of the cultural influences even in the interior of Europe (please see an example in Michael Kulikowski, Rome’s Gothic War, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2007), I think it is a healthy measure to question the old linear explanations about the origins of certain utensils, or their specific characteristics.

It should be obvious that there are almost no examples available to us from Indian and Nepalese swords before the 18th Century, and the lack of material evidence does not imply that something was not done, or was done. India has a culture much older than any of Europe, and swords should be made from thousands years ago, but there are no antique examples. Then, it is not strange that we cannot find their markings, as this is impossible in the actual circumstances.

I agree in the fact that the work from the scholars is very valuable. But scholars from all times had created the most perdurable myths, even many ethnocentric myths, no matter their continental, national or cultural origin (including those scholars from my own country). I could enumerate many of them, if this was not off-topic. With all due consideration for the work done by the persons who made in the past studies about everything, I think the knowledge about all subjects is dynamic and always improving, and there is no untouchable dogma, but scientific truth based on material evidence. A little far ahead than the Aristotelian taxonomic interests that traditionally had characterized the study of the edged weapons, very valuable (though biased toward the genealogy of the foreign weapons, based on the ideology, pre-conceptions and speculations of the romantic school of European historiography from the 19th Century, now obsolete) but not complete, as there is the need from archeological and historical evidence to support the facts and establish their correlations and sequence. And the discoveries about those civilizations are just beginning.

There is also the problem of establishing the provenance of weapons and what you describe as ‘well documented evidence’, even with modern European weapons, that you consider a fact. It is a pity that the work made by Spanish scholars is unknown for many collectors, as it can be found, for example, a documented refutation from German Dueñas Beraiz to the provenances of rapiers established by Norman.

I expect that being polemic about the need of a more scientific and actual approach to the study of the edged weapons, would not be interpreted as something personal or disrespectful, as we are discussing points of view, and I believe nobody here has been personally disrespectful. There is nothing ‘contentious’ in having a different approach to the matter, and I expect having an intercourse of ideas and points of view, since the purpose of this forum seems to be the examination of our conceptual tools and the classifications previously established, especially before the fact that too many specimens found by its members are exceptions, and not confirmations, of previous ideas. I can add that your posts have been very useful to my learning, and that I consider very positive your contribution to the forum, even when, sometimes, I disagree with your approaches, since I believe disagreement.is part of the normal process of finding knowledge and a stimulus to make further reasearches. At last, for us, the limited and perfectible human beings. And, after all, different approaches and new data is what it makes contributions, and not the consensus.

Unfortunately, I don’t have materials to make a research over the subject of the eyelash markings, since it looks very interesting….I think I am going to get a job as floor cleanser in the Cambridge’s Central Library to solve permanently this problem.

Regards

Gonzalo