Covers primary edged sidearms and two-handed swords across Eurasia, Africa, and the Americas, tracing cutting geometry, distal taper, and tactical roles from antiquity through the early modern era.
Explores double-edged cutting and thrusting blades, including European spathas, knightly arming swords, and Chinese jian.
Examines curved blades optimized for mounted and dismounted slashing, such as the steppe saber, shamshir, kilij, and talwar.
Focuses on two-handed battlefield and dueling swords, including German and Italian longswords, montantes, and claymores.
Surveys European civilian and dueling thrusting blades of the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries.
Covers the development of the dao, tachi, uchigatana, and hwandudaedo across China, Japan, and Korea.
Examines regional cutting blades including the kampilan, dha, panabas, and klewang, emphasizing local blade geometries.
Details straight and curved African broadswords, including the flyssa, kaskara, takouba, and shotel.
Analyzes obsidian-edged striking weapons such as the macuahuitl, separating documented construction from exaggerated combat claims.
Across the royal tumuli of Baekje, Silla, and Gaya, straight single-edged swords crowned with sculpted ring pommels reveal how fifth- and sixth-century Korean metalsmiths transformed continental ironworking into masterworks of laminated steel, mercury gilding, and fine gold foil inlay.
You’re all caught up. The old stories aren’t going anywhere.
We study materials, makers and surviving evidence. Legends open the question; history guides the answer.
Our approach
