Bimetallic Swords from North-East and South-West China

The article presents a series of bimetallic swords and daggers from published materials and museum collections, including those obtained by the authors during scientific excursions with the financial support of the Russian Science Foundation (RSCF). Two representative groups of implements belonging to the ancient cultures/ethnos on the territory of North-Eastern (Fuyu State) and South-Western (Dian and Yelang states) regions of modern-day China were selected and compared with each other in the context of the phenomenon of bimetalism in the archaeology of Eurasia from Atlantic to the Pacific. It was established that they represented products that differed morphologically and technologically, which does not exclude the typological similarity of these groups both with each other and with other samples of bimetallic and related weapons in the Eurasian vastness, and the similarity may manifest itself not only in the general appearance, but also at the level of particular elements. Using the example of bimetallic swords and daggers, the composite nature of the set of weapons was established (in the South-West – in some extant more, in the North-East – slightly less) with wide chronological possibilities for comparisons, which become even more obvious when other categories of weapons and horse gear are added to the overview. The problem of chronology of the Dongbei sites with bimetallic swords is identified as a separate approach of research, since taking into account the entire complex of finds in some of the elite graves suggests significantly later dating.