A Strange Discussion on Indian Weapons

[Aqtai]

Originally Posted by B.I

...incidentally, mail production was still being done in the Sudan in the late 19thC. it is recorded that one armourer and 6 assistants took 12 days to make one shirt. the pitt rivers have examples taken from the sudanese wars and they were crude examples of armour...

Whoa! That sounds pretty fast. Are we talking rivetted or butted mail here? I have seen sudanese mail, and don't know what the quality was like metalurgically, but a lot of it doesn't look particularly crude.

This is an old photo of a 19th century Sudanese mail shirt, taken when the Royal Armouries were still in the Tower of London.

[Jens Nordlunde]

Hi Aqtai,

For Indian two hand swords, see Elgood’s ‘Hindu Arms and Ritual’ pages 94 and 95, read also the text on page 211. On page 97 you can see two tappash, or sword hilted spears. In the Glossary on page 264 Elgood writes, “Tappash. The author of the ‘Nujum al-Ulum’ (1570) describes it as having a covered grip and a spear (barchi) and says that in common language it is a pata and that it is a weapon ‘suited to the man whose hand is defective or injured’. There are examples of this rare weapon in Bikaner.”

What he means by writing ‘suited to the man whose hand is defective or injured’, I don’t know, by maybe he means someone who can’t swing a sword, but who can still stab.