Vezető a Déri Múzeum kiállításaihoz II. A Déri gyűjtemények. 2. javított kiadás (Debrecen, 2001)

THE ORIENTAL COLLECTION OF 226 THE DÉRI MUSEUM WEAPONS IN THE DÉRI COLLECTION Indian swords, sabers, poniards, and daggers from the 17th—19th centuries. The ornamented Persian armor is of excellent quality. The bone-inlaid wooden saddle is of Central-Asian origin. Beside the beautifully forged helmet and the bows, guns, and pieces of armor, we also exhibit long katona swords and short wakizashi swords. The Japanese swords are the most perfectly forged ones of the world. The swords are decorated with masterly wrought gold and silver inlaid accessories, among which the most important ones are the hilt-protecting tsuba and kozuka knife-handles. In the exhibition of weapons of the Déri Collection, the swords, these typical cutting weapons, are ranked first. Among them, a Romanesque-age sword, used in the 11th—13th centuries, is the oldest one. Its pommel has the shape of a capsized boat, its hilt is short, and its guard is quadrangular. A broad channel groove runs along its blade. The Gothic swords are visibly different from the Romanesque-age ones. As a result of a gradual process, their guards and their hilts became longer, just like the blades, which also got narrower. The form of the pommel changed too. The cone-shaped type and the disk-shaped type were the most widespread. This double-edged, straight sword went through another transformation as of the beginning of the 16th century. Defense-rings were soldered on the two sides of the straight guard, and thus began the development of the hand-shielding function of the hilt. In addition, the transformation of the blade also continued. The heavy broadsword, which was suitable for both cutting and stabbing, and the foil, which was suitable only for stabbing, developed out of the cutting weapons. Beside the straight, double-edged