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Originally Posted by ariel
Jim,
I see your point about trunk swords and deep inside I am on your side. Moreover, their physical absence in museum collections is disturbing.
However, we have several separate accounts of their existence and I just cannot bring myself to ignoring them.
Yet, by the same token, several medieval travelers described their actual encounters with men with dog heads .
In short, it’s a conundrum that will be solved only if we find a physical example.
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Ariel, thank you so much for the very kind recognition, and agree that the physical absence of these in museums makes their actual existence somewhat suspect. However, you are right in that cross references which occur in various unrelated literature do greatly increase the probability that these may well have existed.
Perhaps it is that it was simply an ersatz application in which a weapon was attached to the trunk with conventional means, as described in some of the accounts, (i.e.)'they attached swords to the trunks'.
If this were the case, they were not a specifically designed weapon as the tusk 'caps' were, and simple lashings or other holding methods. If this were the case, then the sword/blades etc. would have simply been gone after use. Therefore, no actually 'designed' weapon would remain.
It is noted that many times the elephants were with heavy chains attached to the trunks, well described in numerous accounts, however, we do not have examples of these among museum holdings either.
So at this point, I would concede that there must of have been instances of either swords or some sort of blade conventionally attached to the trunks of elephants in the same manner as the chains, but these items were not designed in particular for such use. The term 'trunk sword' therefore would be 'situational' and in that sense, they probably did exist.
The 'tusk swords' appear to be a very different case, in which caps placed over the stumped tusk of elephants which carried a blade extending from them. These do not seem to have widely used either, but appear to have become used with elaborate elephant armor which became used in parade, court and impressive displays after the decline of elephant use in warfare post 16th c. The advent of guns is described as the primary reason for such decline in their use after that time.
Much as the widespread 'recycling' of edged weapons in these later times, it seems apparent that these tusk swords likely fell to the massed destruction of many weapons as they were damaged or simply no longer used. Of these, select items were saved for preservation in princely armories.
Regarding previous posts on animals being used in unfortunate manner as weapons, I regret my analogy on bats in my earlier post, and very much agree, this digression is best left out of this discussion further.
Our discussion is on weapons used BY animals, not animals used AS weapons.