Short Sword

The slender and elegant hilt of this short sword is a fine example of the advanced level of bronze-casting techniques present in Southeast Asia during the height of Dong Son culture. The repeating pattern of linked spiral motifs that decorate the hilt is found on other Dong Son bronzes and ceramics, but a sword hilt of this form and with these motifs is, up to this point, unprecedented. It is said to come from Thanh Hoa province in northern Vietnam, the region of the finds made in the 1920s and 1930s in the village of Dong Son, which first brought material of this type to the attention of Western archaeologists.

This type of sword appears to be indigenous only to that particular region of Southeast Asia. Swords with a very similar form of hilt, though not of bronze, and blades of this particular shape were still in use in Vietnam and were especially characteristic of Thailand as late as the nineteenth century. Therefore this short sword, in addition to being important as an example of early Southeast Asian bronze casting, demonstrates a previously unsuspected continuity of more than two thousand years for swords of this style.