Blades With a Story: Swords and Knives from the Tsurugi to the Sai

The tsurugi is a straight, double-edged Japanese sword of antiquity. Bronze examples appear around 200 BCE in the Yayoi period and were used mainly in ceremony, while iron ones were forged from the Kofun period through the Heian period before the tsurugi faded into a ritual offering at shrines and temples.

The tanto is a traditionally made Japanese knife worn by the samurai class, dating to the Heian period when it served mainly as a weapon. Its design grew more ornate over time, and it was also used in the seppuku ritual. The modern Western tactical knife style that borrows its name has a piercing point that no traditional tanto carries.

The odachi is an oversized Japanese sword made from the Kamakura period onward, with blades from roughly 91 to 227 centimeters. It peaked in the fourteenth century, was too long to wear at the waist so was carried on the back or by servants, and later gave way to spear and firearm tactics before becoming a shrine offering in the Edo period.

The dha is a single-edged sword or knife used across Myanmar, Thailand, Yunnan, Laos, Cambodia and northeast India, with relief carvings at Angkor placing it in the twelfth or thirteenth century. Variants such as the Burmese dha and the Thai daab differ in curvature but share a round-section grip, a gently curved edge and no guard.

The flamberge, also called floberge or froberge, is a sword known from medieval chansons de geste and romances, where heroes such as Renaud de Montauban and Maugris wield it. The name comes from the French flamber, to flame, and came to mean a large sword in general, so this stop shows how a weapon can live in story as much as in the armory.

The Wallace Sword is an antique two-handed sword traditionally said to have belonged to William Wallace and tied to Stirling Bridge in 1297 and Falkirk in 1298. Scholars dispute that claim because the blade may combine parts from different eras, some perhaps from the late 1600s or early 1700s. It is held at the National Wallace Monument in Stirling.

The shamshir is a Persian sword with a pronounced curve, its name joining the Persian words for fang and lion. Curved sabre designs reached Persia through the Seljuk Khanate in the twelfth century and the Mongol invasions of the thirteenth, and the shamshir had its recognizable form by the sixteenth century, slim and slashing, often forged from patterned wootz steel.

The scythe sword, or Sensenschwert, is a single-edged German Renaissance sword made by fitting a hilt to an agricultural scythe blade, with its cutting edge on the inside of the curve. The only confirmed surviving example from a real scythe blade belonged to the preacher Thomas Muntzer, who died in 1525, and is held in the Historical Museum in Dresden.

The khanjar is the traditional dagger of the Sultanate of Oman, with a short blade curved like the letter J. A Dutch explorer recorded a similar dagger at Muscat in 1672. Fine examples have gold or silver mounts and handles of rhinoceros horn or ivory, and today it is worn mainly as a ceremonial symbol of manhood, power and authority.

The ngulu is an execution sword of Bantu peoples of the Congo Basin, including the Ngombe, Doko and Ngala, resembling the Egyptian khopesh but with a far heavier iron blade. Belgian colonial authorities banned ngulu beheadings in the Congo Free State period, 1885 to 1908, after which it took on a ceremonial role in the Likbeti ritual dance.

The parang is a heavy, single-edged chopping knife used across the Malay Archipelago, similar to a machete but with more weight forward. It began as a jungle tool for clearing brush and making housing, furniture and tools, and it also became a weapon in the hands of North Borneo guerrillas resisting Japanese occupation in the Second World War.

The sai is a three-pronged melee weapon from Okinawa, used in kobudo and southern Chinese martial arts for striking, parrying and disarming. A main prong rises from the handle with two shorter side prongs and a blunt pommel. It reached international attention when Okinawan kobudo and karate became popular in the mid-twentieth century.