History of Technology in India, Vol. I: From Antiquity to c. 1200 A.D. v1.c11.s3.17

v1.c11.s3.17

The antennae sword type is confined to the doab zone. Its total length varies from 42 to 75 cm and the antennae projections on the hilt end are more than 10cm in length. I feel that such long antennae would be definite handicaps in using these artifacts as swords and have proposed that they could have been better used to kill wild game by fixing the swords upright in pits, with the antennae sitting in slits across green logs. If game were stampeded into the pits, the swords would pierce them without buckling, since the green logs (with branches) would serve as shock absorbers. Admittedly, this hypothesis would be difficult to test, except perhaps by examining use marks on a large number of such artifacts.