Hand-Forged Egyptian Khopesh, Deep Recurve

The standard build carries a 27 inch blade on a 6.5 inch grip, 33.5 inches overall. That is where we set it because the long sweep of this blade shows best at that scale, but it is a default rather than a fixed specification — every blade we make is forged after the order, so the length is yours.

Buyers ask for three broad things on this shape. Around 20 inches puts the blade inside the historical range. Around 16 gives you something closer to a machete you can work with one hand all day. Longer than 27 is possible but starts to want two hands and a very clear wall. None of it changes what the sword is, and the full khopesh collection shows how the shape reads at other sizes.

No, and it is worth being exact rather than glossing it. Surviving khopesh swords run roughly 50 to 60 centimetres overall. The build shown here is 85. As standard it is an extended modern interpretation of a genuine ancient shape, not a reproduction of a museum piece, and we would rather you had that from us than worked it out later.

The fix is free and it is on this same page: order the blade at around 20 inches and you are inside the historical range. What you cannot order is a bronze one, and the reason the originals stopped where they did is worth knowing.

Bronze. The khopesh developed in the Bronze Age and the originals were cast rather than forged, and cast bronze sets a hard ceiling on how long a curved blade can usefully be. It is soft enough to take a set under load and brittle enough to fail at a stress riser, and a long curved blade is one continuous stress riser. Push the length and you get a weapon that bends in use and breaks under a hard parry.

That ceiling is why the shape stayed compact for fifteen centuries, and why blades grew as iron arrived. 5160 high-carbon spring steel lifts it much further again. A 27 inch khopesh is a length the Egyptian smiths would very likely have built if their metallurgy had allowed it. That is a more honest thing to say than pretending the size is period, and it is the real reason this piece can exist at all.

The standard build follows the historical arrangement: sharpened along the outer curve, with the inner curve left blunt. That is what separates a khopesh from a farm sickle. The outer face does the cutting, and the unsharpened inner curve gives you the hook the weapon is famous for — able to catch a shield rim or a weapon arm and drag it aside.

Because everything here is forged to order, the arrangement is yours to set. If you want both faces sharpened, or the inner curve given an edge for a particular purpose, say so in the order note. Our guide to the khopesh goes into how the two edges were used in Bronze Age combat.

It is stout. The sword is 1,150 grams over a 27 inch blade, which works out at about 42.6 grams per inch. Forward-curving swords of this family generally sit nearer 33 grams per inch, so we are running about a quarter heavier for every inch of length.

On a khopesh that is less of a departure than it would be on a sabre, because the khopesh was always the heavy end of the sword world — it grew out of the battle axe rather than the dagger, and the weight-forward chop is the point of it. Expect authority rather than quickness. If you want it livelier, ask for increased distal taper and we will tell you honestly what that costs in robustness.

By descent, yes, and it is the reason this sword sits oddly well in a Nepali forge. The usual account runs khopesh to kopis to the blades that travelled east with Hellenistic armies, and from there toward the Nepali khukuri. What survives the whole length of that line is a single idea: a single-edged blade that pitches forward from the hand with its mass in the belly, so the weight arrives where the edge does.

Our article on the origin of the khukuri traces that descent properly, and our comparison of curved blades sets the khopesh beside the kopis, the khukuri, the talwar and the scimitar. For the specific difference against the Ethiopian shotel, we have written that up separately.

Rosewood, pinned through the tang, swelling to a rounded butt, with a flared steel ferrule where the grip meets the blade. Rosewood is our default across the range: dense, hard, dimensionally stable and about as handsome as timber gets.

There is no crossguard, which is correct for the type. On the originals the straight lower section of the blade served that function and the hilt ran into the blade without a separate guard. If you want hand protection we forge a D-guard or a full knuckle bow at no extra cost — two pieces already in the range carry one. Horn, bone and leather-wrapped grips are available too.

Yes, sharpened and ready to use unless you tell us otherwise, with the edge finished most carefully through the belly where the cut actually lands.

Unsharpened builds are free, for display or for an awkward import. So is a stage combat build — rebated edge, rounded tip — balanced for the work. Add that exact wording to your order note.

5160 high-carbon spring steel, which we use across the whole range. The blade is forged to shape, quenched, and then tempered back by hand as a separate operation afterwards. Those two steps are distinct and the second is what matters: quenching alone leaves a blade hard and brittle, and tempering trades a little hardness for the toughness a long curved blade needs to take a hard stop without cracking.

5160 is not stainless and is not meant to be. It rusts if left damp, and in exchange it takes and keeps an edge far better than any stainless we could sensibly forge. We do not make pattern-welded or laminated blades at all, by choice.

Forward, and deliberately so. Mass biased toward the belly is not an accident of this shape, it is the design logic of the khopesh: it descends from the axe and it is meant to arrive like one.

We do not publish a single point-of-balance figure, because hand-forged blades vary and a number two inches out is worse than none. Ask before dispatch and we will measure the actual sword we are sending you, from the ferrule, and send you the number.

Yes, and engraving is free across the range, text or photo. On a khopesh the two that come up most are the Udjat, the Eye of Horus, and the ankh, both of which appear on royal blades and both of which suit a blade this size. Your own name, initials, a dedication or a date are equally welcome.

What we will not do is stamp reproduction arsenal, armoury or maker's marks that imply an origin the sword does not have. A marked blade outlives the person who commissioned it, and at that point a stamp ordered as decoration is indistinguishable from one meant to deceive.

Nothing is held in stock. Every blade is forged after the order arrives, which is why the length, the edge arrangement, the grip and the guard are all free to change — there is no standard version already made. Standard builds dispatch in 2 to 3 business days; genuinely custom work runs 4 to 6 weeks depending on the queue.

The sword ships sheathed and braced in a rigid carton with the harness packed separately so nothing bears on the blade, by DHL or FedEx with tracking, typically 7 to 14 business days from Kathmandu. Import duty and local taxes are the buyer's responsibility and vary by country.