> "..The display is about the object, not its use or historical
> context... without the people who used those weapons in your
> exhibit, that larger scenario is almost a moot point.
> Allow the objects to speak for themselves."

As someone who likes to be educated when visiting museums, I feel it
worthwhile to present the opposite view.

At the same time as allowing the objects to speak for themselves, there
would surely be much merit in helping the audience to hear what they
have to say.

It helps to show how they relate spatially to those who wield them.
There was, a year or two past, a travelling exhibition of arms, armour
and related documentation (e.g. wall friezes, maps, et c.) from Styria,
Austria.  Some of the arms were mounted in the hands of mannequins - I'd
never before imagined that an army of advancing pikemen looked anything
like that.  And indeed, some of the uses of the arms are not obvious if
the weapon is just lying in a case.  Another example is the hoplites'
use of massed spears to deflect oncoming arrows - the usual perception
of a spear is merely for stabbing, and of a javelin, merely throwing.

I can't remember which Styrian museum sent the artefacts, but it was
originally an armory.  Maybe you could find them by a web search for
Styria and armour.  If you could get the exhibition catalogue, it would
provide a many examples.  Another museum perhaps worth consulting in
this regard is the Armeria Reale in Torino, Italy, located just beside
the Royal Palace in the centre of the city.

Weapons and arms are part of a rather complicated system of aesthetics
that can be portrayed in many ways.  An obvious possibility is to use
mannequins, and consult with practitioners (the aesthetes, not the
brutes!) on postures to be used.  Some weapons exist only for ceremonial
use, not for fighting.  (E.g. Swords of State, fasces, items for ritual
suicide, for execution.)

In the Japanese case (which is what I think was the original context),
there is 'sword furniture' as well, and the various cloths and papers
used for presenting and maintaining the instruments.

Japanese arms and armour are in themselves works of very fine
craftsmanship, in a sense quite different to western arms and armour.
The manufacture of a sword is bound up in days of religious ceremony.
This too is important if you want to indicate the original context of
these implements - though presenting the dual purposes in a single
display seems to me quite a challenge!

Displaying the object devoid of its use or historical context seems to
me mere ornamentation, unless your audience is particularly well
equipped to establish their own interpretations and background
information.

Whether you can present the 'feel of battle' (and indeed whether you
want to) is another matter again.  That army of Styrian pikemen
mannequins was memorably intimidating - maybe something like this would
be enough for your purposes.

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