Single-edged blades with a ridge

[bookandswordblog]

As part of a project on kopis and machaira swords in the ancient Aegean, I am thinking about cross-sections and swords designed for low-carbon unhardenable steel. Its not generally appreciated that these swords had ridges not fullers if they were more than a simple wedge-section. The fullers are more typical of war knives from Iberia. I have archaeological drawings but little data on distal taper and most ancient swords are too rusted to precisely measure anyways.

So I am trying to collect types of single-edge blades from the last few hundred years that often have a thickened spine or a ridge along the blade close to the back edge. The three that come to mind are:

- many Ottoman yataghans and kilij
- many peshkabz daggers from the Persianate world
- some nineteenth-century sabres from western Europe like Prosser's pipe-backed blades for the British Army

Am I missing any single-edged weapons that tend to have a T-section or -+--- section?

[Ian]

Welcome to the Ethnographic Forum! Interesting question and I hope one of our knowledgeable members will be along shortly to help you.

[werecow]

Much like their smaller pesh-kabz cousins, Afghan Khyber knives usually have a T-section spine.

[bookandswordblog]

It seems like T-sections were popular from the Ottoman Empire to India in the 18th and 19th century? I wonder how they made them because that shape can be a pain to grind and polish.

Blades with a ridge a bit forward of the spine remind me of a classic five-sided katana blade. I don't understand blade engineering well enough to understand why katanas have that section. Guillaume Stanislaus Marey-Monge thought it made for good cutters.

[GePi]

Originally Posted by bookandswordblog

It seems like T-sections were popular from the Ottoman Empire to India in the 18th and 19th century? I wonder how they made them because that shape can be a pain to grind and polish.

Blades with a ridge a bit forward of the spine remind me of a classic five-sided katana blade. I don't understand blade engineering well enough to understand why katanas have that section. Guillaume Stanislaus Marey-Monge thought it made for good cutters.

The katana's five side blade geometry goes back to the earliest sabres and proto sabers from the Eurasian steppe peoples, possibly travelled from there to Japan via China.
My pet theory is, that it is the natural shape you arrive at when turning the concept of a diamond shaped double edged blade into a single edged blade, keeping it quite robust while reducing its weight.

Another weapon type I can think of with t-spine section are pichak knifes from Central Asian Turkestan.

[Bob A]

To belabor the obvious, T-spines provide greater rigidity while using less metal. A brilliant engineering solution, seemingly developed by the Turkic-Mongol crew.

Offhand, I can't think of it occurring elsewhere, but it's early, and my coffee has not hit my brain yet.

[gp]

Originally Posted by bookandswordblog

As part of a project on kopis and machaira swords in the ancient Aegean, I am thinking about cross-sections and swords designed for low-carbon unhardenable steel. Its not generally appreciated that these swords had ridges not fullers if they were more than a simple wedge-section. The fullers are more typical of war knives from Iberia. I have archaeological drawings but little data on distal taper and most ancient swords are too rusted to precisely measure anyways.

So I am trying to collect types of single-edge blades from the last few hundred years that often have a thickened spine or a ridge along the blade close to the back edge. The three that come to mind are:

- many Ottoman yataghans and kilij
- many peshkabz daggers from the Persianate world
- some nineteenth-century sabres from western Europe like Prosser's pipe-backed blades for the British Army

Am I missing any single-edged weapons that tend to have a T-section or -+--- section?

Welcome! Can you show us a few example pictures you are thinking of referring to? Thank you very much!

[bookandswordblog]

Originally Posted by gp

Welcome! Can you show us a few example pictures you are thinking of referring to? Thank you very much!

I can copy from my markdown file based on a quick glance through Egerton and some catalogue searches.

Yataghan, Metropolitan Museum of Art, object number 32.75.261a, b <https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/23379>

Peshkabz eg. Victoria and Albert Museum, object 3436&A/(IS) <https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O...heath-unknown/> British Museum object As1982,11.3.a <https://www.britishmuseum.org/collec..._As1982-11-3-a> British Museum object As1982,11.2.a-b <https://www.britishmuseum.org/collec...s1982-11-2-a-b>

Some Khyber knives like Victoria and Albert Museum, object IM.218&A-1920 <https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O...heath-unknown/> (there may be others in the V&A)

Possibly this tulwar-hilted, saw-toothed broadsword, V&A Museum object 3142(IS) <https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O...sword-unknown/>

I have not looked into the 19th-century South Asian swords which get very broad towards the tip.

[GePi]

Originally Posted by Bob A

To belabor the obvious, T-spines provide greater rigidity while using less metal. A brilliant engineering solution, seemingly developed by the Turkic-Mongol crew.

Offhand, I can't think of it occurring elsewhere, but it's early, and my coffee has not hit my brain yet.

While Most of the examples with t-spines mentioned in this thread I agree are likely derived from Turkic blades (I think they appear on Ottoman Palas in the 17th century) I remembered an interesting much earlier example that I had to dig through my old pictures to find. I found this knife in a museum here in Germany, unfortunately I cannot recall anymore which museum exactly. With a bit of taper at the forte this could pass for a crude Afghan Peshkabz, but it was excavated in a local celtic burial mound dated to 600 to 500 BCE! Doesn't seem that the design really took hold back then, I haven't seen any other examples.

[Bob A]

Originally Posted by GePi

While Most of the examples with t-spines mentioned in this thread I agree are likely derived from Turkic blades (I think they appear on Ottoman Palas in the 17th century) I remembered an interesting much earlier example that I had to dig through my old pictures to find. I found this knife in a museum here in Germany, unfortunately I cannot recall anymore which museum exactly. With a bit of taper at the forte this could pass for a crude Afghan Peshkabz, but it was excavated in a local celtic burial mound dated to 600 to 500 BCE! Doesn't seem that the design really took hold back then, I haven't seen any other examples.

That's breath-takingly surprising!

Thank you for the information, and for your memories!

[bookandswordblog]

The Greek and Anatolian barbarian blades with a T-section seem concentrated in the 6th century BCE too although I have seen them as late as the 4th century. I am trying to avoid general claims until I have actually looked at the hundred or so known examples, because typologies don't always follow all their own rules when you start to look at them. Ewart Oakeshott was not the first or last to define a type then put objects in it which don't meet the definition.

[bookandswordblog]

Now I wonder if there is a book or article on the interrelations between all the Southeast Asian sabres, daggers, and brushcutting/fighting knives. Its hard to write the same study for pre-Roman Europe because the finds are all in different countries published in different languages and you have to measure them and sketch them yourself.

If you ever get a chance to study Early Iron Age weapons, there were a lot of creative cross-sections and blade shapes that show up again much later when they had steelmaking and heat treatment under control. They just are not as well preserved as ethnographic arms and armour. You can buy ancient Roman knives but they are not beautiful and shiny.