tiarnol

Those of you that helped my identify the swords in my collection (you know who you are) THANK YOU soooo much! I was able to create my museum display case for my senior project and I passed with flying colors. Sorry for posting so late about the progress, but after our senior presentations, I started applying to master's programs....now i'm in grad school for museum studies I just wanted to post a few pics of the case and say thank you to those that commented and messaged me, it really helped a lot to give me some strong groundwork. Again, thank you! ~Tiffany A.

For those of you that have read and replied to my previous posts, hello again and thank you! I'll do a quick intro for those who have no idea what i'm doing...I'm an anthropology student who is doing a Japanese sword museum display case for her senior project. I'm wanting to post a bit of my hypothesis here to see if anyone has any suggestions on where i could find some material for my research. I already have a ton of books i'm going through, but i still feel that i am unable to answer my questions. My hypothesis is a two-parter. I'm trying to understand what happened in history to make the Japanese blade change styles. I know a lot of this has to do with history related events and the world wars/Westernization. The problem that i am really having is answering my second question. I am trying to understand how the Japanese sword has been portrayed throughout history (from traditional to contemporary culture). I am using the Samurai as one of the representatives for the use of the Japanese sword and I will be using a lot of depictions of Samurai in my display case. I will also focus on other Japanese warriors thoroughout history (especially of WWII, since most of my swords are from that era). I'm looking at how the Samurai have been depicted back in traditional Japanese culture and how they were viewed and i'm contrasting that with contemporary culture view using films, books, and anime/manga. I'm hoping to overlay the portayal of the Samurai with the Japanese sword. Feel free to let me know how you view them, since that is what i'm trying to get at. Finding articles on popular/material culture that talk about the Samurai is proving to be difficult to find for me and i've been looking everywhere i can think of. Any thoughts people have are very welcome and constructive criticism is too. Any suggestions of sources to look at is also most welcome! I'm hoping that my question makes a bit of sense. I know what i'm trying to do, but explaining it is a bit hard... Thank again for all your help! Everyone here is wonderful and very informative! ~Tiffany

Thank you to everyone that has replied to my questions! This is greatly helping me, as I take your replies and I try to find hard copy sources that backup that information. I have been doing more research and I have read your replies and it has left me with more questions. :? When we are talking about the Soten tsuba (the samurai depicting one) what is being said is that it is of "soten" school style and that this style originated in the Momoyam to mid Edo period? The other tsuba with the shishi and peony are suggested to be from the Nara school and have the "Ko-Nara" style of the late Edo period? Or could these just be representations/replicas of the "soten" and "nara" style and be produced in a time period other than the ones mentioned above? (I'm getting a bit confused about all the different school and styles and time periods they all corresponded with...there are so many!) I will definietly bring up the topic of preserving the tsuba to my museum director, as I do not want to see these beautiful pieces deteriorate any further either. I'm not sure what I can do, if anything (i'm not quite sure if he'd even let me clean them) or what anyone else could do (even a professional) b/c I am a student at SIUE and we don't have very many funds at the moment. But I will do what I can and if all else fails, I will just leave them alone. I would like to wear gloves when I handle them though (so as to not damage them any further), any suggetions as to what material the gloves should be made of (or does it even matter? One last question....I was getting a bit confused on what these were likely made of. Iron seems to be the consensus, but then i keep getting patina and shakudo (black coloring) mixed up, are they the same thing? Again, thank you all so much for your replies and suggestions! I will keep posting with new questions as they come and I will post some photos of my display when it is complete (which won't be until March b/c our projects have to be a year long...) ~Tiffany

Hello again! I am an anthropology student who is doing a museum display case full of Japanese swords and i am needing some assistance in identifying some ivory swords. All of these swords are from our university museum. I have been doing some research and i gathered that these ivory swords may be called "kitchen" knives? (which means they're pretty much useless?) I'm not even sure if these are indeed carved out of ivory (that's what i've been told, but is there any way to tell for sure?) How do i go about figuring out what time period i'm dealing with or if these are even real? They're ornately carved and the blades are very worn. There are a set of three of them all in varying sizes. I would appreciate any help i can get! Thank you so much! Also, any suggestions you might have are very welcome! ~Tiffany

I am an anthropology student who is doing a museum display case full of Japanese swords and i am needing some assistance in identifying a katana that is part of my display. All of these swords are from our university museum. I have been doing some research on them, but i am a bit overwhelmed and don't know where to start, plus i cannot look at the tang of the sword for any help. How do i go about figuring out what time period i'm dealing with? How do i even tell if it is a real katana (traditionally made or modern machine made)? I would appreciate any help or suggestions i can get! Thank you so much! ~Tiffany

I am an anthropology student who is doing a museum display case full of Japanese swords and i am needing some assistance in identifying and learning about some of their tsuba. All of these swords and tsuba are from our university museum. I have two tsuba and i have no idea where to start on figuring out what their designs represent or would have meant to the wielder of the sword it used to be attached to. One of them is depicting samurai on horseback and the other has a flower (not sure which kind) and a Fu dog(?not sure if i'm right). I'm also not sure how to find out about the time period they came from or what material they're made of. I would appreciate any help or suggestions i can get! Thank you so much! ~Tiffany

I am an anthropology student who is doing a museum display case full of Japanese swords and i am needing some assistance in translating some writing on a tsuba. All of these swords and tsuba are from our university museum. How do i go about figuring out what time period i'm dealing with? I am researching these, so if anyone can tell me where to look for information I would appreciate any help i can get! Thank you so much! Also, any suggestions you might have are very welcome! ~Tiffany

I am an anthropology student who is doing a museum display case full of Japanese swords and i am needing some assistance in identifying some of them. All of these swords are from our university museum. I have been doing some research and i think i have two army kyu-gunto sabers or army parade sabers? This is what i have narrowed them down to, but i am not sure if i'm even close. How do i go about figuring out what time period i'm dealing with if these sabers turn out to be parade swords? There is a silver flower emblem on the handles of both the kyu-gunto swords and i'm not sure what it represents. I would appreciate any help i can get! Thank you so much! Also, any suggestions you might have are very welcome! ~Tiffany

I am an anthropology student who is doing a museum display case full of Japanese swords and i am needing some assistance in identifying some of them. All of these swords are from our university museum. I have been doing some research and i think i have an NCO shin-gunto (1st model maybe). I would appreciate any help i can get! Thank you so much! Also, any suggestions you might have are very welcome! ~Tiffany Part 1 of 2