The katar or katara is a type of push dagger from the Indian subcontinent. The weapon is characterized by its H-shaped horizontal hand grip which results in the blade sitting above the user's knuckles. Unique to the Indian subcontinent, it is the most famous and characteristic of Indian daggers. Ceremonial katars were also used in worship.
The flag of Switzerland displays a white cross in the centre of a square red field. The white cross is known as the Swiss cross. Its arms are equilateral, and their ratio of length to width is 7:6. The size of the cross in relation to the field was set in 2017 as 5:8.
William Tell is a folk hero of Switzerland. According to the legend, Tell was an expert marksman with the crossbow who assassinated Albrecht Gessler, a tyrannical reeve of the Austrian dukes of the House of Habsburg positioned in Altdorf, in the canton of Uri. Tell's defiance and tyrannicide encouraged the population to open rebellion and a pact against the foreign rulers with neighbouring Schwyz and Unterwalden, marking the foundation of the Swiss Confederacy.
The pugio was a dagger used by Roman soldiers as a sidearm. It seems likely that the pugio was intended as an auxiliary weapon, but its exact purpose for the soldier remains unknown. Officials of the empire took to wearing ornate daggers in the performance of their offices, and some would wear concealed daggers for defense in contingencies. The dagger was a common weapon of assassination and suicide; for example, the conspirators who stabbed Julius Caesar used pugiones. The pugio developed from the daggers used by the Cantabrians of the Iberian peninsula.
The baselard, Schwiizerdolch in Swiss-German is a historical type of dagger or short sword of the Late Middle Ages.
The Swiss sabre is a type of two-handed sabre design that was popular in Early Modern Switzerland.
The coat of arms of the Swiss Confederation shows the same white-on-red cross as the flag of Switzerland, but on a heraldic shield instead of the square field.
Bronze Age swords appeared from around the 17th century BC, in the Black Sea region and the Aegean, as a further development of the dagger. They were replaced by iron swords during the early part of the 1st millennium BC.
Swiss Standard German, or Swiss High German, referred to by the Swiss as Schriftdeutsch, or Hochdeutsch, is the written form of one of four official languages in Switzerland, besides French, Italian and Romansh. It is a variety of Standard German, used in the German-speaking part of Switzerland and Liechtenstein. It is mainly written, and rather less often spoken.
The Pharmacy Museum of the University of Basel shows in its permanent collection the history of medicinal remedies and their preparation. Designed as a collection of specimens for study purposes, the museum was founded in 1924 by Josef Anton Häfliger (1873–1954) and has been preserved to this day in its original form as a 'scientific cabinet'.
The Bundeslied or Tellenlied is a patriotic song of the Old Swiss Confederacy. Its original composition dates to the Burgundian Wars period (1470s). The oldest extant manuscript text was written in 1501, the first publication in print dates to 1545. It consists of stanzas of six lines each, with a rhyming scheme of A-A-B-C-C-B. It is one of the oldest existing records of the legend of Swiss national hero William Tell.
The Basel museums encompass a series of museums in the city of Basel, Switzerland, and the neighboring region. They represent a broad spectrum of collections with a marked concentration in the fine arts and house numerous holdings of international significance. With at least three dozen institutions, not including the local history collections in the surrounding communities, the region offers an extraordinarily high density of museums compared to other metropolitan areas of similar size. They draw some one and a half million visitors annually.
A Standesscheibe is stained glass that presents the coat of arms of a canton of the Old Swiss Confederacy. It is sometimes arranged in a complete armorial of all cantonal coats of arms of Switzerland. A standesscheibe is an example of a wappenscheibe, a coat of arms depicted in a stained glass window.
The Swiss degen was a short sword, an elongated version of the Swiss dagger, with the same double-crescent shape of the guard. It was used as a type of side arm in the Old Swiss Confederacy and especially by Swiss mercenaries, from the first half of the 15th century until the mid 16th century. The native term used in the 15th century for this weapon was baselard. The term Schweizerdegen is first attested in 1499.
Schweizerisches Idiotikon is an ongoing, major project of lexicography of the Swiss German dialects. Publication began in 1881 and is projected to be complete by 2022. Its scope includes the language since the end of the classical Middle High German period and as such also represents the historical dictionary of the dialects of German-speaking Switzerland, and is one of the most detailed treatments of the Early Modern High German language in general.
In legend and in the early historiography of Switzerland there is an account of a migration of a population of Swedes and Frisians settling in the Swiss Alps, specifically in Schwyz and in Hasli (Schwedensage).
This image has been scanned illegally from a book. Notice whoever did this does not credit the publisher. The mechanical screen is seen very visibly.
Ferdinand Samuel Laur was a Swiss composer, conductor, choirmaster, and music teacher. He founded the Basel Choral Society in 1824. A hymnal he composed that was published in 1820 is now used in the national anthem of Lesotho, "Lesotho Fatse La Bontata Rona".
The Schweizer Musikzeitung (SMZ) is a monthly music magazine from Brunnen. It is published in German, French and sporadically in Italian and reaches a circulation of 19,484 copies and a reach of 24,000 readers. Editor-in-chief is Katrin Spelinova-Bösch.
The Stauffacherin is a Swiss legendary figure. According to Swiss folklore, she was the wife of Werner Stauffacher, the Landammann of the Canton of Schwyz and a founding father of the Old Swiss Confederacy. She was depicted in Friedrich Schiller's 1804 play William Tell as an advisor to her husband, advocating for Swiss independence from Habsburg rule. The image of the Stauffacherin, often viewed as the feminine counterpart to Wilhelm Tell, has become a symbol for Swiss national pride, democracy, and women's suffrage.
Swiss dagger of the "Holbein" type in the style of c. 1570.
A basler from 14th-century Switzerland, showing the characteristic curved guard-pieces of the later Swiss dagger, but the curvature of the two pieces is parallel, while the classical Swiss dagger has opposite curvature as it were "enveloping" the hand.
The 1914 ordnance dagger of the officers of the Swiss army
The SS-Ehrendolch, ordnance dagger of the SS, with Meine Ehre heißt Treue inscription acid etched on the blade.
