An Indian Kopis from Deepeeka

I now own an Indian copy of a Greek kopis “cleaver” (pl. kopides, from the verb koptein “to split, hew”), a type of forward-curved sword or long knife used all over the northern Mediterranean from the sixth century BCE to the second century BCE. It was distinguished from straight, two-edged swords like the Scythian akinakes and the Greek xiphos (pl. xiphe: this word has neutral gender and belongs to the third declension). Whereas the straight swords were descended from the last bronze swords, the cleavers developed out of large iron knives used to butcher fish and animals and probably for other tasks in the woods and in the fields. Knives with a blade that bends forward are very common around the world, such as the Roman sica and many Chinese bronze knives. Fighting knives that bend the same way are less common, but they were popular in South Asia in recent times, and known in the Ottoman Empire in the form of the yatagan. They reappeared in Europe and settler colonies as part of ‘barbarian chic’ in the 19th and 20th century.,

While there are whole vlogs devoted to reviewing copies of knightly swords and Japanese swords, there is nothing similar for copies of ancient European swords. This is because the market is smaller and information about the originals is less accessible. So this week, I present the first review of the Deepeeka kopis by someone who has actually studied the archaeological literature and viewed originals.

Origins of the Pattern

In the winter of 2014/2015, reenactor Matthew Amt made a kopis by regrinding a “Phillip II Kopis” by Scorpion Swords until it looked like a blend between two surviving weapons (one with an intact blade from Olympia (Baitinger no. 1328, Verčík no. S-86), another with more of the hilt surviving in Kilian-Dirlmeier’s Prähistorische Bronzefunde volume).¹ Before he started grinding it weighed 3 lbs 4 oz (1470 grams) with an 18″ (45 cm) blade. After reworking the blade weighed 1 lb 3 oz (538 grams). This might be a bit heavy. Giannis Kadoglou reports that most of the xiphe and kopides he has examined in museums in northern Greece weighed from 400 to 500 grams. Amt did not weigh the completed sword with the scales riveted to the tang. He sent photos of his kopis to Deepeeka in India, and they made their own version with permission (SKU AH4237W). They offer it with either a black horn grip or a pale wood grip. By 2017, this had reached stores in the USA. It does not seem to have sold well, but is still available through Armae in France and Kult of Athena in the United States. Do not confuse this line with the “Devil’s Edge” line which was designed by Kult of Athena and made in Pakistan. Their xiphos is inspired by Matthew Amt’s, their kopis is more of a fantasy piece. Res Bellica in Italy also makes a kopis which is very similar to Matthew Amt’s, and Deepeeka copied the sheath on their model in a different version of this sword (AH2153). Small workshops have worked like this for thousands of years. The Negrolis of Milan often subcontracted to other armourers on terms like “and the steel hats must be well-made and complete like the one found in the shop of Sebastiano Prino (who will also be the arbiter and judge of the work).”² A greater degree of precision only became necessary with standard-issue cartridges and bayonets in the eighteenth century, then mechanization in the nineteenth century.

As far as I know, this is the only off-the-rack copy of an ancient Greek kopis based on specific finds in archaeological publications. Craig Stitch of Manning Imperial in Australia and Mark Morrow in New Jersey will make you kopides based on their private research and examination of finds if you ask, but companies like Deepeeka make batches of swords and sell them to middlemen. This lets them charge a much lower price, even before allowing for the difference in wages between India and countries in the North Atlantic. I will have more to say about the pros and cons of working with shops in Asia below.

Description

The classical kopis is defined by a single-edged blade that bends forward, a handguard for the knuckles, a full-width tang, and a pommel which is hooked forward and often shaped like a bird of prey. Greek military equipment is covered with imagery of birds and horses, from horsehair crests to embossed cheekguards on helmets. This went out of fashion in the Roman empire, came back in the early Middle Ages, and fell out of fashion again in the second half of the Middle Ages. Some cultures are comfortable with warriors identifying as fierce creatures, and others want to keep their soldiers separate from nature. Warriors in those cultures often dress up as fierce foreigners instead, whether Frenchmen playacting as Hungarian hussars in the 18th century, or US Army soldiers and aviators ‘playing Indian’ after the Cold War. The original weapon from Olympia was probably deposited within a few decades of 500 BCE, around the time that this type of blade appeared (Vercik type V form group Borova).

This sword is about 58.5 cm in a straight line from point to pommel, with 44.5 cm (a bit under 18″) of blade. The width of the blade varies from 36 mm near the crossguard to 65 mm near the tip. That is extremely wide, especially for such a short sword. Single-edged cutting swords which flare out at the striking end can be terrifying against soft targets like cloth and flesh.

The sword was ground from steel sheet just under 5 mm thick. Deepeeka generally uses EN45 steel, which is cheap and easy to work with. Makers in Europe like James Elmslie sometime use the same alloy. The blade is 3.5 mm thick all over, with the spine just under 5 mm thick and 3.5 mm wide on top. An area about 1 cm wide at the edge tapers in a lens shape to the 1 mm thick edge. Creating that lens shape is a lot of work and I appreciate that they took the time. Makers using grinders often prefer flat V-sections or gentle hollows because those are easier to grind and modern sword steels are quite hard and abrasion-resistant. Deepeeka chooses not to sharpen their blades because sharp swords are illegal or illegal to mail in some countries. Anyone who wants can sharpen this blade with a file and whetstone or a belt sander.

The steel core of the handle is as thick as the spine of the blade and has wooden scales riveted to either side with four steel rivets. The wood has been waxed or oiled. Steel bolsters made from the same stock as the blade have been riveted to either side of the handguard with a fifth rivet. Some originals had overlays in this area, others had thin steel plates over wood, bone, or ivory over the tang. The handguard on a sword like this is probably mostly to keep your fingers from sliding onto the blade and secondarily to keep spearshafts and shieldrims from smacking your knuckles. It is not a defense against direct attacks to the hand like the cross on a knightly sword, although it might serve that function by accident.

The bolsters are firmly welded and riveted in place but the welding has some gaps and the edges are slightly sharp. They can easily be rounded with files and sandpaper.

The hilt is assembled with clear epoxy and riveted in place. Traditional cutlers used cutler’s resin, a mix of natural materials like pitch, wax, charcoal, and sawdust. I am told that many Indian tulwars have hollow bronze or steel hilts filled with resin, so to replace the blade you just heat up the hilt until the blade can be pulled free. A few drops of epoxy are visible, but are relatively easy to scrape away with the point of a knife or a sharp spatula if you are concerned.

All the rivets in the hilt have been hammered to fit then ground flush. The quality of the workmanship on this sword is excellent. The blade is not excessively refined, but the hilt is very tidy with no gaps. This is the kind of workmanship you see on traditionally made gear of unusually high quality. Making everything symmetrical and a perfect fit just took too much time and attention, and most customers do not seem to have expected it. Many buyers today have different priorities because machines can make a thousand sewing machines or hammer heads which are identical to the naked eye.

The blade has been given an even satin polish. There are no deep scratches and you can dimly see reflections in it. The ancients could polish steel more finely: they had many bronze mirrors, and emery comes from Naxos in the Cyclades. However, ancient iron and steel are not homogeneous, so it was hard to polish them without leaving pits and lumps. Fernando Quesada Sanz has some evidence that Iberian falcatas were blackened by burning on organic material such as oil or horn. Overall the satin finish seems like a reasonable choice.

The kopis comes with a leather fantasy sheath and a baldric. This is mostly useful for keeping the blade safe in transit especially if you sharpen it. Only traces of ancient Greek scabbards and the bone or ivory reinforcements for the ends survive. I don’t know of any archaeologist who has pulled together all the evidence. Artists often show the sheaths shaped like the blade inside, even though the tip of the blade is wider than the blade next to the handguard, so they may have been partially open at the bottom like a machete sheath. Greece is not as wet as some parts of the world so keeping out water might not have been as important as in some cultures. Anyone with a Dremel, some chisels and some sandpaper can make their own sheath, but I am glad that Res Bellica and Deepeeka now offer a traditional wood-core sheath.

The Fatal Flaw

Anyone familiar with cheap Spanish and Indian swords who noticed what I said about the cross-section can guess the main thing wrong with this sword: it weights 800 grams on a digital kitchen scale, whereas Matthew Amt’s model weighed around 600 grams. Deepeeka does not publish specifications, but the dealer Kult of Athena records a baseline which they expect each model to match. According to Kult of Athena, Deepeeka’s target weight was 1 lb 5 or 6 oz (595-623 g). The extra weight turns what should be a lightning-fast chopper into a slower and clumsier weapon.

Its hard to know what these should weigh because the originals are mineralized: they are rich iron ore instead of steel. The heaviest similar swords in catalogues are one from Olympia which weighs 726 grams without its tang (Baitinger no. 1327), and an Iberian falcata in the British museum which weighs 655 grams (inventory number 1890.8-10.1 c/o Rover). The heavy sword from Olympia was very thick in the blade, whereas the one Matthew Amt copied was very slender except in the spine. Reenactor and musical-instrument-maker Giannis Kadoglou says that the originals he has handled in Greek museums weigh 400-500 grams. Ancient Greek swords and cleavers often have an I-section in the tang to save weight, or have a thick spine down the blade so the flat of the blade can be thin. The kopis from Golyamata Mogila in Thrace even has T-section in the tang, so the back near the handguard has a broad steel plate to rest your thumb on when you thrust. All of these shapes reduce weight without making the blade too easy to bend, and are easy to create with a hammer and anvil, but slower with a belt sander.

Original kopides must have been fragile weapons which bent easily since bladesmiths were not yet able to quench and temper long blades. The first tempered steel blades I know were from Celtic sites in the last few centuries BCE, and they were found next to blades of soft iron. Many ancient Greek swords and cleavers have been folded and broken apart as part of the funeral ritual. Greek iron technology was not very sophisticated, it was barbarians from further north who loved that metal. Greek warriors wanted kit that was terrifyingly light and made them feel like Homeric heroes dashing about the battlefield in gleaming bronze, not kit that would survive the roughest possible impacts unharmed. Using a good modern steel and making it heavy protects the weapon from have-a-bash reenactors and stage fighters, but it teaches a false lesson about what the originals could and could not do. It also makes this sword less fun to handle. An 800 gram shortsword is not difficult to maneuver and can make some interesting lever motions, but it is slow and an unnecessary burden on the march.

I have decided to get out my files and power tools and make a copy of another kopis to show what this should be like (tools and materials will cost at least $250, so donations on Patreon, paypal, or elsewhere are always appreciated). Other people might want to grind down this blade. Anyone with a Dremel, belt sander, or some Gesswein stones can make a lightweight kopis, but a big shop with a hundred blades to finish could do it better and quicker. Just starting a new craft project takes a lot of mental energy, but once you have the process down you can work faster than you think.

Final Thoughts

Overall this is a reasonably good sword except for the heavy weight. The size, shape, thickness of the spine, and hilt construction are all appropriate. Nothing is exaggerated in size to look good in photos or on the wall. The materials are sensible modern substitutes for original materials. But if you remember anything from this review, I would like it to be two things.

The first is the pitifully small amount of evidence on which most reproductions are based. Most people interested in copying ancient objects rely on someone else’s copy rather than ancient art and artifacts. Most who study further have limited access to academic publications, either because they are not affordable, or because they do not know how to find them. In turn, archaeologists do not always know what details about an artifact are functionally relevant. Right now, you can easily make first class replicas of ancient objects just by slowing down and studying the originals. Do not be intimidated by the fact that others have been making replicas for longer, because everyone has some blind spots.

Second is the dilemma of ordering swords made in India, Pakistan, the Philippines, or China. Shops in these countries operate like traditional bladesmiths and cutlers: they get orders for a few dozen or a few hundred weapons, perform one step at a time, then pass the weapons on to the next shop or the next workstation. They employ workers on a clock who are just trying to feed their families and save up for a motorbike. They can even afford to forge blades, whereas almost all swords made in rich countries are ground to shape. Traditional weapons tend to have shapes which are easy to forge, like modern blades tens to have shapes which are easy to grind on a belt sander or machine with a CNC lathe. However, shops in Asia are working to a budget, and because people who understand historical weapons are a small market, they tend to take shortcuts which make those people unhappy but save money and please people who want a sword-like object. Ancient Greek arms and armour are so light and thin that almost everyone who makes them wants to overbuild them and reduce the chance that they have to throw one out half-finished. Resellers have to watch each individual batch of products from most shops in these countries.

The process of working with makers in South and East Asia is much like working with a cutler in sixteenth-century Toledo or fifth-century Athens, but the products are often different. Working with someone who is both a craft worker and a student of ancient artifacts will give a product which is more like the originals, but the process is very different. Both have pros and cons. There is just not enough of a market for accurate replicas of quick, fragile swords that easily break or bend to keep a shop in business. I hope that the growth of hoplite reenactment, and projects like Christian Cameron’s experiments with hoplomachia, lead to a growing demand for better replicas, and a market which understands what the original weapons were like. Maybe someone can even create an activity with mass appeal which rewards kit similar to ancient kit!

Although I have learned trades from software development to editing, none of them pays much this decade. If you can, please support this site on Patreon or elsewhere.

(scheduled 21 June 2026, revised as late as 4 July 2026)

1. Information is available in two (login-only) threads on the Forum for Ancient Reenacting: Kopis Rebuild and Deepeeka Kopis and Xiphos now at Kult of Athena. ↩︎
2. Stuart W. Pyhrr and José-A. Godoy, with appendix by Silvio Leydi, Heroic Armour of the Italian Renaissance: Filippo Negroli and his Contemporaries (The Metropolitan Museum of Art: New York, 1998) https://www.metmuseum.org/art/metpublications/ p. 70 doc. 102 (27 February 1550) ↩︎