"Scimitar: How One Sword Dominated Warfare for Centuries " Topic

"On the coat of arms of Finland, a crowned lion tramples upon a curved sword with his hind paws while brandishing a straight sword in his right forepaw. The straight sword represents Finland, and the curved sword represents Russia. Together, they symbolize the struggle between the West and the East. The curved sword depicted in the coat of arms is not the traditional Russian saber, but its forerunner, the scimitar, a sword found in cultures from North Africa to China.

The Persian word shamshir, meaning "lion's claw," is generally acknowledged as the origin of the word scimitar. It had likely entered English usage by the way of French cimiterre or Italian cimitarra, the two Western countries having the most frequent dealings with the Arabs of North Africa and Muslims of the Levant. The curved sword is known by many names. In Arabic, it is known as a saif, in Turkey as a kilij, in Morocco as a nimcha, in Mughal India a tulwar, and in Afghanistan as a pulwar…"
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Amicalement
Armand

Fun article but I wish it some pictures of the different variants.

Glad you enjoyed it my friend!. (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

Pictures would have been nice.

Dominate is pretty strong language – Polish hussars for eaxample carried both a lighter curved and a heavier straight blade sword (as well as one or more maces).

Napoleonic (and earlier post Renaissance) European light cavalry used sabers, but heavies used straight bladed back swords. So rather hard to say that the scimitar dominated in my view…