The Heian period? Or are you talking even earlier?
Unfortunately I don't actually have a ton of Japanese swords (which is kind of weird considering the obscure African and Southeast Asian stuff I have, but I guess I just haven't ran into that many good images to download), and the few I do are more later period stuff. From what I know, the pre-katana/tachi swords were called chokuto, and would have actually been pretty similar to Chinese dao of the period, so you'd get stuff like the LK Chen Sui Dao that I posted earlier, and later on they'd be more like Tang-era dao swords, which have a more angular tip (which is likely where the katana's distinctive tip comes from).
Yeah I was talking about that, the early periods wherein the swords were shorter and straight like the Chinese straight swords. No biggie if you can't do it.
The Heian period? Or are you talking even earlier?
Unfortunately I don't actually have a ton of Japanese swords (which is kind of weird considering the obscure African and Southeast Asian stuff I have, but I guess I just haven't ran into that many good images to download), and the few I do are more later period stuff. From what I know, the pre-katana/tachi swords were called chokuto, and would have actually been pretty similar to Chinese dao of the period, so you'd get stuff like the LK Chen Sui Dao that I posted earlier, and later on they'd be more like Tang-era dao swords, which have a more angular tip (which is likely where the katana's distinctive tip comes from).
Yeah I was talking about that, the early periods wherein the swords were shorter and straight like the Chinese straight swords. No biggie if you can't do it.