Description

The curved blade is sharpened on the concave side, with a staggered tip. Both sides of the blade are flat, with a chisel grind bevel on the right side. The tip has a staggered profile. The blade fits into the hilt by means of a single pin, like the menuki on Japanese swords. It has a brown-stained deer antler collarpiece.

It comes in a hilt and scabbard made of various segments of deer antler. Pommel, guard, scabbard troath piece and pommel were stained a copper oxide green. All parts are decorated with a combination of inlayd reddish dots of unknown material, and patterns of metal wire inlay. The wires consist or twisted brass wire, brass copper combination twist, and brass silver twisted wire. The work is very unusual in both aesthetics and execution, and I have not been able to find any comparables among antiques.

Markings

The tang of the blade, washer between blade and hilt, and the hilt itself are all marked "X III". I suspect these were most likely were markings done in the workshop to keep track of which blade belonged to which hilt.

Attribution

Looking at the style and workmanship, and much use of deer antler in its construction, the first culture that comes to mind is Ainu. I am not aware of any other Ainu pieces that look quite like this, but the construction is also definitely not typical for mainland Asia. Perhaps it was a style used by a more remote Ainu tribe of which fewer knives survive.