The 10th to 15th century Visayan kris, & earlier artifacts

[migueldiaz]

Still on the 'waisted' blade shape as found in Phil. archeological artifacts dating back from the 10th to 15th century, once again through the kindness of Dr. Bong Dizon we just got even more info to chew on.

The additional info comes from his book, Faces from Maitum. Maitum is located in Mindanao, and it's a very important archeological spot in Southeast Asia. For a brief background, please refer to this and to this.

Going straight to the point, once again we find a blade profile (per attached, and it's that of a spear, but which Dr. Dizon also said can be that of a dagger), that's waisted. And this time around, the blade is from A.D. 70 to 370 (or alternatively, from 5 B.C to A.D. 225).

Attached are the radiocarbon dating data (they are Greek to me, but perhaps some of us here in the forum can appreciate these stuff).

Would anybody have any idea why this ('waisted') blade shape persisted for at least about 1,500 years? What would be the advantages of such blade profile? It must have worked so well, such that it remained in vogue for such a very long time.