Ayutthaya’s Weapons

[PUFF]

The first pic shows the highlight of the meeting. They are example of swords found in Ayuthaya city core, especially in Wat KaiTia (a temple in Ayuthaya) and surrounding area. Tons of these blade recovered from river bed and sold as salvage steel during past 30+ years. We hypothesized that the blade 's a style of mid-Ayuthaya period. Some of them might be dated to earlier period since they come together with gold decorative which are associated with early Ayuthaya. We concluded that this is one of a major style (from many) blade, used in that period (C15?-C18). They share some common characteristics which are...

1. Clip point+False edge (60-90 degree edge angle), from the tip upto 1-3 inches. Looks very similar to Bowie knife.

2. Tips are not very pointy (wide tip angle), in the most case, tip's curvature are only cover the first few inches.

3. Blade chest/waist (aka, ratio of blade width at 1/4 and 3/4 from the tip) 's close to 1. In some case, the ratio is <1. Unlike the later Rattanakosin blades which has >1 ratio.

4. An important point, they almost always carry a little inner ferrule (1/8"-2/8" thick), called PaGan. This is an important device which are keeping their tang securely in place and also reducing hand shock (we concluded from reconstructed blades, with and without this ring).

5. Style of the spine 's what I call single taper, almost no taper. The spine 's almost in parallel upto the beginning of false edge. And in most case, the spine carry 2-3 little "V" upsetting, looks very similar to lotus petal decorative.

Some of them come up with a little guard and longer blade but still carrying the typical features.