I hope it's ok to post images here. I restore antique furniture and artwork for my job. I recently was commissioned to repair this antique ivory samurai figure. I have made all the repairs to the body itself, but the warrior's sword and (presumably) bow are missing.
My question is, what kind of sword and bow should he have? I'll need to carve them out of ivory substitute and I need to make sure they are accurate.
Any help would be much appreciated.
e: TLDR - yumi bow and either tachi or uchigatana as sword. More pictures might help.
Heya OP, late I know but echoing what /u/DispenserScoot said (other than some minor factual inaccuracies) - as you mention that your client specifically wants a sword you could simply google katana and find one that suits the dimensions of the figure, and we can ignore for the most part historical accuracy (I mean, seriously, does it matter that much when we're talking what kind of sword he's supposed to be holding, when the differences would really not be that noticeable? If it does though, sorry).
In terms of what sword though - any maker marks/numbers on it might be helpful, otherwise there's not a lot of identification. Close up photos would be nice, specifically the shoulder plates (both the ones that look like wings and the ones hanging down in front of the chest) which to me look the most interesting. However, the armour looks similar to either the do-maru, o-yoroi. Better pictures of their use: a, b, and c.
Both armours fall comfortably within the Kamakura period c. 11th - 12th centuries, and if that's the case the swords used (if used at all) were more similar to earlier tachi (or uchigatana) rather than a katana, which didn't appear until a bit later in the Muromachi. The main difference between the first two and the katana is mainly in length and curvature, with the rankings of curvature (largest to smallest) being tachi > u.g. > katana, and rankings of length (longest to shortest) also being t > u.g. > k. You can find pictures of the tachi and/or uchigatana on google as well, but be careful they aren't actual katanas.
As for the bow, being this hypothetical Kamakura era samurai, the yumi is largely in its prime form - about 2 metres in length if not longer (so much taller than the user), held around the bottom half of the bow, and asymmetric (because it's being held in the bottom half, the top is more bent and pronounced - image for better reference).
Medieval Samurai, depending on the era, often went in to battle with a Katana sword- which is a sort of lightly-curved Japanese longsword. The Katana, while in reality something of a sidearm for the Samurai, was the symbol of their class as they were the only ones allowed to wear the Katana and Wakizashi (Japanese shortsword) together. It should be easy to find image references for the katana on the web.
The Japanese also had a unique sort of longbow, known as the Yumi. The Yumi was the other weapon traditionally-used by the samurai warrior, and was unique in the way that it was asymmetrical- the grip was much closer to the bottom of the bow. This meant that the Yumi had the benefit of being a longbow while also remaining usable on horseback like a shortbow. Again image references should be easily-found for a Yumi bow.
Many other weapons, including the Yari (spear) and Naginata (glaive) were used by the Samurai, but I don't think they're directly relevant to your question.
Hope this helps!
