1,000 years of Japanese swords

The Japanese sword as the soul of the samurai

Samurai rules for peace and war

The Great Wave by Hokusai

I-Kiribati warrior armour

Hoplites! Greeks at war

The Sutton Hoo helmet

In search of forgotten colours

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A millennium of Japanese history, as told through the samurai sword

The classic image of a katana, or Japanese samurai sword, is that of a sharp, single-edged blade with a faint wavy pattern and a slight curve extending from a circular handguard attached to a diamond-patterned grip. But as the British Museum curator Joe Nickols explains, the........

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