Looking through Bashford Dean's book of swords, there is quite a bit of oriental flavor to some of the sword ornament. A more stylized example of this hilt is shown on a couple of examples from the latter quarter of the 18th century.
http://swordlinks.com/courtswords/intro.html
There is probably an online dictionary for the alchemic figures and symbols but I have never found an all encompassing page that might dechiper a lot of it.
Neat sword.
Cheers
GC