Jian Styles: What's the Difference?

Here is a crash course on history on Chinese weapon by Thomas Chen:

thomaschen.freewebspace.com/index.html


One thing to note is that there is quite a number of different types jian and dao of different shape and sizes even within the same dynasty. Sometimes pictures help a lot in deciding a custom jian/dao to get one from Garrett.

Okay so I am going to "steal" most of Thomas Chen pictures here

Here is the sword of Goujian at the warring state period:

Note that even up to the Han dynasty the fittings where quite similar, only that the swords are longer and are now made of steel and using the lamination technique mostly discussed in Japanese section:


My Han repro from Garrett (lol)


The later Han and Sui dynasty has a nice ring pommel at the end:


Here is a generic tang court fittings:


Some Ming jian fittings


and Qing (and quite a lot in Zheng-wu's website