Hi everyone,
I hope you are doing well.
This one took me down a rabbit hole I wasn't expecting. I set out to look at Japan's oldest surviving swords, and the first thing that struck me was that none of them curve. They're straight iron — forged centuries before Japanese smiths worked out the bend that everyone pictures when they hear the word samurai. Technically, not one of them is a katana.
The second thing: none of them came from a treasured family collection. Every single one came out of a burial mound.
What makes these four special is that they tell you their own age. Each carries an inscription inlaid into the steel — gold or silver characters naming a year, a king, or both — while the thousands of nameless blades buried alongside them stay silent forever.
My favorite story in the video is the one that nearly got missed entirely. It sat in a storage room for over ten years, dismissed as a rusted bar of little value, until a conservator noticed a glint of gold thread under the corrosion and sent it for X-ray. 115 gold characters appeared that nobody had suspected were there. That blade turned out to name the same king as another sword found 900 kilometers away — two warriors at opposite ends of the country, both carrying one man's name into the grave.
And the oldest of the four is 1,840 years old. It was already an antique when it was buried.
Watch the full countdown here 👉 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55RRoNtXihE&list=PLOHgag_kQhdMAnDRIVUVW19aunqRoe1Gy&index=25
Every one of these blades outlived the man who carried it by well over a thousand years. I think that's what a great sword was always meant to do — not to serve one owner, but to outlast him.
Until next time, keep your edge.
🎥 Watch the full interview here 👉 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAakiMwAABY&list=PLOHgag_kQhdMAnDRIVUVW19aunqRoe1Gy&index=24
As always, thank you for being here 🗡️
Kind Regards,
Kei, Matt & Team from the History of Katana
P.S. Say thanks and support our videos! Every coffee funds editing, research, and new episodes! ☕️⚔️ ⬇⬇ https://buymeacoffee.com/historyofkatana