Whenever I travel abroad, I love visiting museums. And being a lifelong martial artist, my favorite museums are those with Arms & Armor collections. The study of cold arms (as opposed to firearms) is dubbed "Hopology" after the Greek word hoplos, which was a mythical animal with plate-like armor. Accordingly, this also refers to a type of ancient Greek shield used by their Hoplite warriors. The term is attributed to Sir Richard F. Burton (1821–1890), a prolific explorer, army veteran, fencer and Orientalist who allegedly spoke 29 languages. He authored dozens of books, the most notable for our purposes was his seminal yet unfinished work The Book of the Sword (1884), an essential volume in every martial scholar’s library. Burton’s aspirations for the book was for it to be a comprehensive overview of bladed arms from all cultures, an overwhelming task by any measure, and although he falls short, the book is a remarkable survey for the time. Sir Richard opens the book by saying, “The history of the sword is the history of humanity,” and even a touristy exploration of an Arms & Armor collection will validate this.
Despite the colossal arsenal of the Chinese martial arts, our precious legacy is shamefully underserved. Research is scant and myths about many of our arms overshadow the truth. What’s more, contemporary Chinese martial artists have emasculated our weapons. Not only are they no longer sharp, many modern-made swords cannot even support their own weight when stood on their point. The sport of modern Wushu is the conspicuous culprit. Their standardized competition weapons are ineffectual for combat. They can’t even cut. However, when it comes to forms competition, Wushu isn’t the only one to blame. Sport Karate has strayed even further with graphite "bo" staffs and glitter nunchuks.
If we are to be completely honest, even traditional Kung Fu must share some of the blame. The commonly used dao tends to be wider at the foible than actual historic examples, a dramatic flair that might have more to do with how this sword is depicted in opera and movies than how it was actually used in combat. Furthermore, some weapons like the Monk Spade have scant hopological evidence to support their existence as actual weapons of warfare. This in no way invalidates the practice of any of these weapons as a modern discipline. It only brings into question their authenticity as actual killing tools.
For this reason, I have endeavored to showcase real historical weapons in every issue of KUNG FU TAI CHI within our special Featured Weapons column. That began in our August 2000 issue as complete feature articles focused on a specific weapon, and morphed into a full-page spread showcasing an actual historical piece in our March+April 2005 issue. Through our featured weapons column, I've had the pleasure of working with many weapons enthusiasts and been privy to some of their private personal collections.
Nothing beats a formal museum presentation of Arms and Armor. In late summer of 2018, I took a family vacation in Europe and I couldn't resist the opportunity to visit every armory along the way. In the very heart of the City of Lights, I was delighted to visit their extraordinary Arms and Armor museum, the Musée de l'Armée.
The Musée de l'Armée, Paris, France
The Musée de l'Armée (Army Museum) is a short walk from the Seine, down the Esplanade des Invalides, not far from the Eiffel Tower. This Museum claims to be one of the three largest arms museums in the world. It houses several outstanding exhibitions of military artifacts, weapons, uniforms, art, even a huge collection of toy soldiers. Most tourists are drawn to the Dôme des Invalides, which contains the tomb of Napoleon I, one of the most spectacular gravesites in the world. There are military swords scattered throughout the museum collections within the Modern Department (Louis XIV to Napoleon III, 1643–1870) and the Contemporary Department (the Two World Wars 1871–1945); however, the most interesting gallery for hopologists is the Old Department, which houses Arms and Armor from the 13th to the 17th centuries. It is an overwhelming collection, arranged chronologically and presented in a manner to fascinate even the most naïve to hopology.
The Royal Room is at the forefront of the Old Department, and houses the Crown Collections. On display here are mainly the arms and armor of kings and princes. Royal arms and armor are ornate and bejeweled, more about pageantry than practicality, and yet exquisite examples of the craftsmanship of master armorers of the time. There’s a few suits of Japanese armor towards the far end of the room, but like most of the collection, the focus is upon European pieces. From there, the gallery progresses through medieval items, swords, polearms, and armor, into the Royal Army, including personal arms of some major figures in French history. There’s a large reconstructed arsenal that houses row upon row of thick wooden shelves stacked full of suits of armor and walls covered with swords and pole arms, grouped by design. That arsenal alone holds some 2500 pieces. Then there are sections focused on rifles, crossbows, jousting armor, an extraordinary assemblage of combination weapons (pieces that combine early one-shot firearms and bladed weapons into one personal arm) and my personal favorite when it comes to European weapons, dueling swords.
The most interesting displays for our readership come towards the end – the Oriental Cabinets. These consist of a few side rooms that present Arms and Armor from China, Indonesia, Japan, Mongolia, the Ottoman Empire, and Persia. As usual with museums, the Japanese collection is the most prominent among the Asian nations. Unfortunately, these displays are darkly lit. It adds to the drama of the presentation but detracts from the ability to see some of the finer details of the objects shown. The Chinese collection has some unusual Dao and Jian. Even though our modern examples of these types of swords tend not to be accurate to the actual weapons of history, the pieces in this collection have really unique hilts, uncommon for historical examples. There's a nice suit of Chinese armor and a few other odd pieces, but the items that really caught my attention were some extraordinary Axes and an exquisite Ji (戟).
The Axes were notable because unlike some of the other Chinese weapons on display, they looked exactly like axes used today in the Chinese martial arts. While that might not seem so strange, I've seen historical Chinese axes before, and like many actual Chinese weapons, they usually don't look like their modern counterparts. Typically historical Chinese axes tend to fall into two categories. There's the ancient axes, often made of bronze or sometimes even jade, displayed in museums. These are usually just the axe heads because the wood shafts have decayed long ago. These do resemble our modern-made axes, except for the fact that they are made of solid bronze or jade, not hollow steel. Then there's the more utilitarian weapons, notoriously used over the last century by triad "hatchet men." And they look like hatchets with smaller heads that seem more practical for chopping something, or someone, up into bits.
The axe heads in the Musée de l'Armée are more exaggerated, like something one might see in Traditional Chinese Opera, in period Kung Fu movies, or in the hands of Li Kwei from the classic Outlaws of the Marsh. These pieces appeared to be solidly built, not hollow like the sort used in Modern Wushu today, so they must have been heavy. They were very ornate. I couldn't but wonder if these were actually Temple weapons, which are a category of Chinese weapons made to surround temple altars. Temple weapons can be garishly opulent and exaggeratedly large, meant to intimidate and impress so they could properly guard the altar treasures. They can also be symbolic, not necessarily made for actual use because they can be too decorative and cumbersome, somewhat akin to the sort of pageantry seen in Royal Arms. Unfortunately, with the lighting in this particular display, it was hard to determine the details and the captions weren’t revealing.
I was awestruck by the Ji in the Musée de l'Armée. It was so beautiful. I've been interested in the Ji since we covered them in the premiere episode of Man at Arms: Art of War, the TV show on EL REY Network upon which I serve as a Weapons Expert. For Season One, a series of exclusive extra vids were released including one dedicated to the Ji – History's Deadliest Weapons – The Ji | Man At Arms: Art of War. There are several aspects of Ji that continue to intrigue me. First, it is one of the earliest Chinese polearms, emerging in the Shang dynasty (1600–1046 BCE). European halberds are fundamentally similar in design, but they don’t rise to prominence until the 14th century. For any culture, this sort of polearm is an immensely effective weapon on the pre-firearm battlefield. It has reach and can pull down an enemy’s shield to create an opening for a killing thrust. And yet, even though it is one of the most venerated Chinese weapons, it is fairly rarely practiced by martial artists today. There are still a few traditional Kung Fu lineages that have Ji in their curriculum, but only a few. It’s typically considered an advanced weapon, so even then, only select members of the student body from a school that maintains it would learn it.
The Ji on display at the Musée de l'Armée is truly magnificent. Adorned with golden dragon fittings, the blade has a unique flared shape towards the tip, and is etched and filled with a fiery pearl motif. Given its elegant design, this too may have been a Temple weapon, but again, it’s hard to say. It is the finest example of a Ji that I have ever seen, and I’ve actually seen a fair number of these as they are common Temple weapons, and even though they are seldom practiced anymore, they can be found in many old school Kung Fu academies.
If you're ever in Paris, it is a city of extraordinary museums. Tourists can't miss the Musée du Louvre and the Musée d'Orsay and so many more (Note that the Louvre actually has a salle d'armes - it’s just a small section in that enormous museum, but there are some outstanding pieces, because after all, it’s the Louvre). But as a martial enthusiast, you must visit the Musée de l'Armée as well. It's not nearly as crowded as the previous two and it holds a wonderful collection of weapons that's not to be missed.
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Gene Ching :
The Musée de l'Armée is located on 129 Rue de Grenelle, 75007 Paris, France – musee-armee.fr/en/english-version.html
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