Appearance of the Kukri in Classical South Indian Culture

Emanuel · 3rd March 2010, 06:42 PM

Just to throw in another wrench in the question, here is a shot of a 5th century BC Greek cup showing a Greek soldier fighting a Persian. Notice the Persian, not the Greek is wielding a kopis-like sword. The cup, help in the Antikenmuseum Basel und Sammlung Ludwig museu (# BS 480) is dated to 480 BC, over a century earlier than Alexander. At the time the Persian Empire extended to the Indus River, so we may consider this form of sword having being known in India much earlier than Alexander's incursion.

Food for thought...
Emanuel

Gonzalo G · 27th March 2010, 11:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Emanuel

Just to throw in another wrench in the question, here is a shot of a 5th century BC Greek cup showing a Greek soldier fighting a Persian. Notice the Persian, not the Greek is wielding a kopis-like sword. The cup, help in the Antikenmuseum Basel und Sammlung Ludwig museu (# BS 480) is dated to 480 BC, over a century earlier than Alexander. At the time the Persian Empire extended to the Indus River, so we may consider this form of sword having being known in India much earlier than Alexander's incursion.

Food for thought...
Emanuel

I agree with you consideration, Emanuel, but fo the sake of precision, the warior is not persian, but Saka, a people from Central Asia which was used by the persians as mercenaries. Neverthless, there are many representations of persian warriors, made before the time of Alexander, using a kopis-like weapon. I know this and other Greek ceramics vases from this time, with similar representations. I know, also, from which book this pics were taken. There are, also, archaelogical findings from Khotan, which show very antique knives with downcurved blades similar to the khukris. I am following the trial of this weapons, and it does not point to Greece. And the classical sources seem to mention this fact, as mentioned on Burton´s The Books of the Sword.

The flacata appears on the 5th Century BC, before Alexander, but I personally do not think those weapons, the falcata and the kopis, were derivated from the kopesh, which, by the way, some archaeologists consider it originally Cannanite, and not egiptian. The Lycians also used a downcurved sword, more like the kopesh, and they were not a semitic or african people, as neither were the Cannanites.

The problem in studying this weapons, is the fact that there is but few archaeological research on India and Central Asia, and few historians-archaeologists studying the weapons from this area, in comparison to what has been made in Europe. It was not Burton, or Lord Egerton, who said that the khukri was derivated from the Greek kopis, supposedly carried into which now is actual Pakistan by Alexnder´s troops, but an specialist in occidental swords, without giving any argument. Burton only stated the mutual resemblence of this weapons.

Regards

Gonzalo

Gonzalo G · 3rd April 2010, 03:45 AM

My aim in making the precision about the ethnicity of those warriors on the above representations, has no other purpose than to point to a possible relation among the downcurved swords and the cultural complexes of Central Asia and India. Otherwise, the precision would be irrelevant, unnecessary or maybe even pedantic. It is interesting the fact that, although the Greeks are always represented brandishing a kopis without guards, the Saka sometimes are represented with a downcurved sword with a crossguard with straigh quillons. The Kopis and the falcata have a kind of substitute of a guard, formed with the widening of the blade and the hilt on the side of the edge, in the point of their convergence, but they don´t have independent crossguards added to the sword, at least, as far as I have seen.

Obviously, the morphologies of the Near East-North Africa "sickle" swords, is very different from the downcurved swords from the Iberic Peninsula and from those found on the Greek representations.

Interestingly enough, Fernando Quesada Sanz, the world´s highest authority on the falcata (and he is not only a well intended knowledged amateur, but an archaeologist and a historian using scientific methods), states the following points:

1.- The machaira-kopis was an exotic weapon in Greece (meaning, foreign to Greeks). This, based on several arguments grounded on antique texts and a wide study of the iconography of this weapon (which includes 54 antique representaions of the machaira-kopis), and also on the military uses of the sword among the Greeks.
2.- The procedence of the falcata seems to point to a italic weapon, specifically etruscan, since the etruscans also had their own version of the machaira-kopis, different from the Greek. Though, unfortunately, it seems nobody has noticed it, except for the archaeologists. I can add that the etruscans, as other peoples from Europe, including from the Iberic Peninsula, are NOT what is commonly known as European Indo-Aryans, though they were-are pefectly "white" caucasians. Other influences from the etruscans can be seen on the disc-shaped cuirasses and some kind of puñales (poignard, as the english does not have an equivalent name, and dagger would not be the proper word).
3.- Based on the work of M. Gustin on the antique European one edged swords, Quesada Sanz points the origin of the falcata in a type of sword from La Téne, latter evolved on Central Europe.

By the way, the illustration showed above represents not only the evolution of the falcata and the machaira-kopis, but the possible evolution of all one edge sabres in Europe, and is related to the conclussions of M. Gustin (Fernando Quesada Sanz, Arma y Símbolo: La Falcata Ibérica, Instituto de Cultura Juan Gil-Albert, Colección Divulgación, No. 12, Alicante, España, pág.194).

4.- Quesada Sanz denies the Persian and Cimmerian-Scythic (or from the Noth-Pontic Steppe) origin of the machaira-kopis, based in the lack of archaeological evidence, and also because the 60% of the representations of this weapon appear on the hands of "exotic" personnel, as Persians, Troyans, giants and amazons, and in 17 cases where Greek warriors appear brandishing this weapon, in 14 of them they are fighting against the same exotic foes, so the representations are more or less symbolic or mythical.

Although with all due respect I don´t agree with this last statement, it is interesting to see where all those references points to. After all, some advancements has been made to identify those amazons and the people who, migrating to the west, is associated with the detonation of La Téne Period. And the lack of archaeological evidence is not a proof that something has occured, or not occured, only that there is not scientific proof of it, for the moment. And the same apply to the statement that the downcurved swords from Asia have a Greek origin. The intersting point in all this, is the fact that nobody has said the opposite: that the use of the swords in general, and the downcurved swords in particular, could be originated in Asia, Central Eurasia and the Near East. And why not? After all, they had the older civilizations, an older and more advanced metallurgy, and Central Asia, using the words of Doctor David Nicolle, influenced with its most advanced military technology all Europe at least since the roman times (if not before). Just see the juggernout (an Indian word), represented by the "barbarian" Asian conquerors when they appear on the occident or the near East, crushing all the European armies, like the Huns, Mongols, Turks (all kind of türkic peoples) and Tatars did. Interestingly enough to study them with a more sober, un-biased and scientific approach. You also have to take on account that the Asians, Neareasterners and Egyptians made science before the Greeks (the Greek "invention" of science is a ridiculous myth, though maybe they invented the systematic philosophy), and the Greek culture in more related to, oriented to, and interested in, Egypt, the Middle East and Persia, than to the rest of Europe, where a cultural void existed in this sense.

We have to make more research, beginning with the antique documental and iconographic sources, understanding their bias, motivations and limitations.

3rd March 2010, 06:42 PM	#1
Emanuel Member Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 1,242	Just to throw in another wrench in the question, here is a shot of a 5th century BC Greek cup showing a Greek soldier fighting a Persian. Notice the Persian, not the Greek is wielding a kopis-like sword. The cup, help in the Antikenmuseum Basel und Sammlung Ludwig museu (# BS 480) is dated to 480 BC, over a century earlier than Alexander. At the time the Persian Empire extended to the Indus River, so we may consider this form of sword having being known in India much earlier than Alexander's incursion. Food for thought... Emanuel Attached Images

3rd April 2010, 03:45 AM	#3
Gonzalo G Member Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Nothern Mexico Posts: 458	My aim in making the precision about the ethnicity of those warriors on the above representations, has no other purpose than to point to a possible relation among the downcurved swords and the cultural complexes of Central Asia and India. Otherwise, the precision would be irrelevant, unnecessary or maybe even pedantic. It is interesting the fact that, although the Greeks are always represented brandishing a kopis without guards, the Saka sometimes are represented with a downcurved sword with a crossguard with straigh quillons. The Kopis and the falcata have a kind of substitute of a guard, formed with the widening of the blade and the hilt on the side of the edge, in the point of their convergence, but they don´t have independent crossguards added to the sword, at least, as far as I have seen. Obviously, the morphologies of the Near East-North Africa "sickle" swords, is very different from the downcurved swords from the Iberic Peninsula and from those found on the Greek representations. Interestingly enough, Fernando Quesada Sanz, the world´s highest authority on the falcata (and he is not only a well intended knowledged amateur, but an archaeologist and a historian using scientific methods), states the following points: 1.- The machaira-kopis was an exotic weapon in Greece (meaning, foreign to Greeks). This, based on several arguments grounded on antique texts and a wide study of the iconography of this weapon (which includes 54 antique representaions of the machaira-kopis), and also on the military uses of the sword among the Greeks. 2.- The procedence of the falcata seems to point to a italic weapon, specifically etruscan, since the etruscans also had their own version of the machaira-kopis, different from the Greek. Though, unfortunately, it seems nobody has noticed it, except for the archaeologists. I can add that the etruscans, as other peoples from Europe, including from the Iberic Peninsula, are NOT what is commonly known as European Indo-Aryans, though they were-are pefectly "white" caucasians. Other influences from the etruscans can be seen on the disc-shaped cuirasses and some kind of puñales (poignard, as the english does not have an equivalent name, and dagger would not be the proper word). 3.- Based on the work of M. Gustin on the antique European one edged swords, Quesada Sanz points the origin of the falcata in a type of sword from La Téne, latter evolved on Central Europe. By the way, the illustration showed above represents not only the evolution of the falcata and the machaira-kopis, but the possible evolution of all one edge sabres in Europe, and is related to the conclussions of M. Gustin (Fernando Quesada Sanz, Arma y Símbolo: La Falcata Ibérica, Instituto de Cultura Juan Gil-Albert, Colección Divulgación, No. 12, Alicante, España, pág.194). 4.- Quesada Sanz denies the Persian and Cimmerian-Scythic (or from the Noth-Pontic Steppe) origin of the machaira-kopis, based in the lack of archaeological evidence, and also because the 60% of the representations of this weapon appear on the hands of "exotic" personnel, as Persians, Troyans, giants and amazons, and in 17 cases where Greek warriors appear brandishing this weapon, in 14 of them they are fighting against the same exotic foes, so the representations are more or less symbolic or mythical. Although with all due respect I don´t agree with this last statement, it is interesting to see where all those references points to. After all, some advancements has been made to identify those amazons and the people who, migrating to the west, is associated with the detonation of La Téne Period. And the lack of archaeological evidence is not a proof that something has occured, or not occured, only that there is not scientific proof of it, for the moment. And the same apply to the statement that the downcurved swords from Asia have a Greek origin. The intersting point in all this, is the fact that nobody has said the opposite: that the use of the swords in general, and the downcurved swords in particular, could be originated in Asia, Central Eurasia and the Near East. And why not? After all, they had the older civilizations, an older and more advanced metallurgy, and Central Asia, using the words of Doctor David Nicolle, influenced with its most advanced military technology all Europe at least since the roman times (if not before). Just see the juggernout (an Indian word), represented by the "barbarian" Asian conquerors when they appear on the occident or the near East, crushing all the European armies, like the Huns, Mongols, Turks (all kind of türkic peoples) and Tatars did. Interestingly enough to study them with a more sober, un-biased and scientific approach. You also have to take on account that the Asians, Neareasterners and Egyptians made science before the Greeks (the Greek "invention" of science is a ridiculous myth, though maybe they invented the systematic philosophy), and the Greek culture in more related to, oriented to, and interested in, Egypt, the Middle East and Persia, than to the rest of Europe, where a cultural void existed in this sense. We have to make more research, beginning with the antique documental and iconographic sources, understanding their bias, motivations and limitations.