Tobar said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

and now the Jedi are depicted as wielding archaic lightsabers as long ago as 7000 BBY, with the first Sith Lords even depicted as wielding modern lightsabers.

Their outfits are prequel inspired, but they definitely still have the power pak and cable:

There are other pictures which depict some of them with modern lightsabers, like this one of Adjunta Pall:

darklordoftech said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

Well, in the later TOTJ comics, it was established that around 5000 BBY, the Jedi wielded archaic lightsabers with external power packs while the Sith didn't wield any lightsabers at all. That all got retconned later, though (I'm not sure where), and now the Jedi are depicted as wielding archaic lightsabers as long ago as 7000 BBY, with the first Sith Lords even depicted as wielding modern lightsabers.

I don't see how archaic sabers in 5000 BBY = no sabers at all in 7000 BBY

Hmm ... yes, I suppose you could be right, but the fact that none of the Sith during the Great Hyperspace War were shown wielding lightsabers does imply that they had no knowledge of the technology.

Still, it's not outside the realm of possibility that lightsaber technology was only a relatively recent invention during the time of the Hundred-Year Darkness and only a few Jedi used them. In that case, I suppose archaic lightsabers existing in that time period could make sense even if the Sith didn't have the technology for themselves.