knightsteel
Sword Smith
- Joined
- Sep 16, 2002
- Messages
- 143
The following is a presentation of a theory of sword history. It is not to be taken as engraved in stone.
On the sabersmith thread, Mr. Ferrous Wheel posted his Himalayan kopis as a falcata. I believe this to be a commonly perpetuated error, even to be found in several books, such as "Swords and Hilt Weapons".
Somewhere along the history of identifying swords, someone labeled this style wrongly and it stuck. Perhaps much originates with the confusion between the kopis and the machiera. Both were used by the early Greeks.
The true falcata is in the same family of swords as the falchion, fauchion, storta, malchus, and badelaire. All are descendants of the Grecian machiera, which curved back away from the edge and may have some relationship with the seax.
The kopis by contrast recurves towards the edge and is related to the Egyptian kopesh. It's descendants are the khukri and yataghan.
Daniel Watson
On the sabersmith thread, Mr. Ferrous Wheel posted his Himalayan kopis as a falcata. I believe this to be a commonly perpetuated error, even to be found in several books, such as "Swords and Hilt Weapons".
Somewhere along the history of identifying swords, someone labeled this style wrongly and it stuck. Perhaps much originates with the confusion between the kopis and the machiera. Both were used by the early Greeks.
The true falcata is in the same family of swords as the falchion, fauchion, storta, malchus, and badelaire. All are descendants of the Grecian machiera, which curved back away from the edge and may have some relationship with the seax.
The kopis by contrast recurves towards the edge and is related to the Egyptian kopesh. It's descendants are the khukri and yataghan.
Daniel Watson