[Iain]

Originally Posted by Ian

Iain and DhaDha,

Thank you for sharing pictures of your beautiful daab. Both excellent swords. Iain has mentioned the Lanna and Lan Xang periods in northern Thai and Lao history. Attached is a map showing the two kingdoms in the late 17th C.

The Lan Na kingdom existed from the 13th C into the 18th C and its borders ebbed and flowed in northern Thailand and into neighboring areas of Burma and Laos. Its principal city was Chiang Mai.

Lan Xang Hom Kao (Million Elephants and White Parasols) was a unified kingdom from the mid-13th C until the beginning of the 18th C. Its capital was initially Luang Praban and later Vientiane. In 1707 the kingdom was partitioned into several principalities.

Both kingdoms were strong during approximately the same time frame.

Thanks for joining in on this one Ian, I think it's worth nothing as well that the two kingdoms were linked at times politically via marriage and in the 16th century some degree of unity between the two. It is a fascinating area when you add in the power of Burma and Ayutthaya at the time.

I think Iain's sword has features more in keeping with the heavily sinocized kingdom of Lan Na, most notably the lobulated disc guard, while the guard and hilt treatment of DhaDha's sword looks more typically Lao and from the late Lan Xang period. Both swords likely come from the late 17th or early 18th C. These are rare finds and congratulations to both of you!

I have a couple of similar swords that were posted on this site previously that resemble certain elements on these two fine examples. One is a very large Thai sword with a large brass disc guard (as seen on Iain's daab), and the other is a samrit-hilted daab from Lan Xang.

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Again I can only agree Ian, the dating you mention is very much in line with my own thoughts, these are not easy to find, this one was mislabelled as a katana and with some very poor pictures to go along with it! Your examples paint an excellent picture of the variety within both areas. In particular the samrit hilt example is intriguing as the handle patterning is clearly designed to imitate the wire grip wrap often find on these old Lao examples.

After seeing the stunning patterning on DhaDha's blade I was inspired to have a deeper look at my own. Sadly mine was in fairly poor state when it arrived, but it was carefully restored to the current state and in the right light I was pleasantly pleased to see the same lamination clearly visible (enhanced here with a little photo tweaking and converting to black and white).