Antique 18th C. Indian Rajput Pata Sword with burnished brass hilt and a long Indian flexible blade with original scabbard

A very fine, rare pata from the 18th century, this antique weapon retains its original wooden leather covered scabbard. Though the scabbard is slightly split in a few places, it is exceptionally rare to find one with this type of piece. The gauntlet consists of finely patinated brass, while the blade is very sturdy yet flexible. Likely wootz in origin, the blade requires some polishing to accentuate the pattern. In the scabbard, the sword extends 48 inches in length, while the blade spans 34 inches.

The Durbar Hall, Shiva Nivas Palace, at Udaipur, Rajasthan houses one of premier pata collec-tions in the world, exhibiting it along with other weapons featuring blades. The royal family of Mewar owns the collection. In addition, the wootz steel process, founded in India, integrates a pattern of sheets of micro carbides within a tempered martensite. The technology was consid-ered the most effective in the world for maximizing armor piercing capacity.

Indian in origin, the pata, sometimes written patta, is a sword with a gauntlet integrated as a hand guard. Referred often in the vernacular Marathi as a dandpatta, the sword is frequently called a gauntlet-sword in English. Maratha warriors traditionally engaged in combat with dual pata by bearing one in each hand. A single pata may well have been employed to complement a belt, javelin, or axe in the other hand. Cavalry soldiers also favored the weapon for its piercing ability and was perceived as more potent when two soldiers engaged in combat in pairs.