There are a number of swords that originated in India and have seen their usage throughout the history of warfare.
There are a number of swords that originated in India and have seen their usage throughout the history of warfare.
In the Indian subcontinent, one of the earliest available Bronze age swords of copper was discovered by the period of Indus Valley civilization. Swords have been recovered in archaeological findings throughout the Ganges-Jamuna Doab region of Indian subcontinent, consisting of bronze but more commonly copper. [1] Swords have been also discovered in Fatehgarh, where there are several varieties of hilt. [1] These swords have been variously dated to times between 1700 and 1400 BC. Other swords from this period in India have been discovered from Kallur, Raichur. [2]
In general, Indians have significantly used one-handed swords in order to carry the shield along with them. Nevertheless, there has been use of two-handed swords in India, such as by Naga people of Assam. [3]
The Indian swords have been also used by Arabians [4] and Europeans since medieval times. [5]
Swords have culturally influenced the iconography and culture of India. [6] Sikhs consider sword to be holy and the Sikh emblem (Khanda (Sikh symbol)) depicts a doubled-edged sword surrounded by a circle and two curved swords. [7]
The Cemetery H culture was a Bronze Age culture in the Punjab region in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, from about 1900 BCE until about 1300 BCE. It is regarded as a regional form of the late phase of the Harappan civilisation, but also as a phase of the Indo-Aryan migrations.
The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory and progressing to protohistory. In this usage, it is preceded by the Stone Age and Bronze Age. These concepts originated for describing Iron Age Europe and the Ancient Near East. The indigenous cultures of the New World did not develop an iron economy before 1500.
Mehrgarh is a Neolithic archaeological site situated on the Kacchi Plain of Balochistan in modern-day Pakistan. It is located near the Bolan Pass, to the west of the Indus River and between the modern-day Pakistani cities of Quetta, Kalat and Sibi. The site was discovered in 1974 by the French Archaeological Mission led by the French archaeologists Jean-François Jarrige and Catherine Jarrige. Mehrgarh was excavated continuously between 1974 and 1986, and again from 1997 to 2000. Archaeological material has been found in six mounds, and about 32,000 artifacts have been collected from the site. The earliest settlement at Mehrgarh, located in the northeast corner of the 495-acre (2.00 km2) site, was a small farming village dated between 7000 BCE and 5500 BCE.
A sword is an edged, bladed weapon intended for manual cutting or thrusting. Its blade, longer than a knife or dagger, is attached to a hilt and can be straight or curved. A thrusting sword tends to have a straighter blade with a pointed tip. A slashing sword is more likely to be curved and to have a sharpened cutting edge on one or both sides of the blade. Many swords are designed for both thrusting and slashing. The precise definition of a sword varies by historical epoch and geographic region.
A mace is a blunt weapon, a type of club or virge that uses a heavy head on the end of a handle to deliver powerful strikes. A mace typically consists of a strong, heavy, wooden or metal shaft, often reinforced with metal, featuring a head made of stone, bone, copper, bronze, iron, or steel.
The Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC), also known as the Indus Civilisation, was a Bronze Age civilisation in the northwestern regions of South Asia, lasting from 3300 BCE to 1300 BCE, and in its mature form from 2600 BCE to 1900 BCE. Together with ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, it was one of three early civilisations of North Africa, Southwest Asia and South Asia, and of the three, the most widespread, its sites spanning an area including much of modern-day Pakistan, northwestern India and northeast Afghanistan. The civilisation flourished both in the alluvial plain of the Indus River, which flows through the length of Pakistan, and along a system of perennial monsoon-fed rivers that once coursed in the vicinity of the Ghaggar-Hakra, a seasonal river in northwest India and eastern Pakistan.
The history of science and technology on the Indian subcontinent begins with the prehistoric human activity of the Indus Valley Civilisation to the early Indian states and empires.
The history of metallurgy in the Indian subcontinent began prior to the 3rd millennium BCE. Metals and related concepts were mentioned in various early Vedic age texts. The Rigveda already uses the Sanskrit term ayas. The Indian cultural and commercial contacts with the Near East and the Greco-Roman world enabled an exchange of metallurgic sciences. The advent of the Mughals further improved the established tradition of metallurgy and metal working in India. During the period of British rule in India, the metalworking industry in India stagnated due to various colonial policies, though efforts by industrialists led to the industry's revival during the 19th century.
Bronze Age swords appeared from around the 17th century BC, in the Black Sea and Aegean regions, as a further development of the dagger. They were replaced by iron swords during the early part of the 1st millennium BC.
Black and red ware (BRW) is a South Asian earthenware, associated with the neolithic phase, Harappa, Bronze Age India, Iron Age India, the megalithic and the early historical period. Although it is sometimes called an archaeological culture, the spread in space and time and the differences in style and make are such that the ware must have been made by several cultures.
The Ochre Coloured Pottery culture (OCP) is a Bronze Age culture of the Indo-Gangetic Plain "generally dated 2000–1500 BCE," extending from eastern Punjab to northeastern Rajasthan and western Uttar Pradesh.
Indian martial arts refers to the fighting systems of the Indian subcontinent. A variety of terms are used for the English phrases "Indian martial arts", deriving from ancient sources. While they may seem to imply specific disciplines, by Classical times they were used generically for all fighting systems.
Frank Raymond Allchin, FBA was a British archaeologist and Indologist. He and his wife, Bridget Allchin, formed one of the most influential British partnerships in the post-Independence study of South Asian archaeology. Producing a large body of scholarship ranging from archaeological excavations, ethnoarchaeology as well as epigraphy and linguistics, the Allchins made their work and that of others accessible through a series of sole, joint and edited publications. Seminal works include The Birth of Indian Civilisation (1968), which was later superseded by their books The Rise of Indian Civilisation in India and Pakistan (1982) and The Archaeology of Early Historic South Asia (1995).
Indian copper plate inscriptions are legal records engraved on copper plates. The practice was widespread and long-running in the Indian subcontinent; it may date back to as early as the 3rd millennium BCE, however the vast majority of recovered plates were produced in the 1st millennium CE. The plates were legal documents which registered and recorded an act of endowment, i.e. a grant or donation, typically of land or concessions. The plate contained bureaucratic information on land tenure and taxation essential to the operation of the state.
The khanda is a double-edge straight sword originating from the Indian subcontinent. The Rajput warrior clans venerated the khanda as a weapon of great prestige. It is often featured in religious iconography, theatre and art depicting the ancient history of India. It is a common weapon in Indian martial arts. Khanda often appears in the Sikh, Jain, Buddhist and Hindu scriptures and art.
Copper Hoard culture describes find-complexes which mainly occur in the western Ganges–Yamuna doab in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent. They occur in hoards large and small, and are dated to the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE, although very few derive from controlled and dateable excavation contexts. The copper hoards are associated with the Ochre Coloured Pottery (OCP), which is closely associated with the Late Harappan phase of the IVC. Associations with the Indo-Aryan of the second millennium BCE have also been proposed, though association with the Vedic Aryans is problematic, since the hoards are found east of the territory of the Vedic Aryans.
Kallur is an archaeological site and village located in the Manvi taluk of Raichur district in the state of Karnataka, India. It belongs to Gulbarga division. The site came into prominence with the discovery of antennae swords in the 1930s, which was the first instance of the Copper Hoard culture being discovered in South India. The earliest finding here has been dated to the Neolithic period.
Major innovations in the history of weapons have included the adoption of different materials – from stone and wood to different metals, and modern synthetic materials such as plastics – and the developments of different weapon styles either to fit the terrain or to support or counteract different battlefield tactics and defensive equipment.
The Pothohar Plateau, also known as Pothwar, is a plateau in the northern region of Punjab, Pakistan, located between the Indus and Jhelum rivers.
Sinauli is an archaeological site in western Uttar Pradesh, India, at the Ganga-Yamuna Doab. The site gained attention for its Bronze Age solid-disk wheel carts, found in 2018, which were interpreted by some as horse-pulled "chariots".
