Help pls. on 15th-17th C. cutlass & scimitar

[migueldiaz]

Originally Posted by Gonzalo G

Looks italian, and I wouldn´t call it a "cutlass".

Thanks for the comment!

Originally Posted by Gonzalo G

Well, Augustus (Cesar Octavius) sent an embassy to the chinese court through Southeast Asia. The relations are not ignored. The mutual influences are still to be established based on scientific grounds.

Don't know about that one in particular, but thanks for the info.

Other explorers who for sure were "agents" of the phenomenon of the West influencing the East (and vice versa) would be Marco Polo (1254-1324) and Ibn Battuta (1305-1377). The latter is supposed to have even reached the Philippines.

And then there's the Italian Niccolò de' Conti (1395–1469) and Ludovico di Varthema who both reached what is now present day Malaysia and Indonesia.

Thus I think it would be safe to assume that Asia had been influencing Europe (and vice versa) even way back then. The only thing that would be hard to pinpoint would be the magnitude of each one's influence over the other.