According to the Six Codes of the Tang Dynasty, there were six kinds of knives in the Tang Dynasty, including horizontal knives, unfamiliar knives, barrier knives and instrument knives, plus ring-headed knives inherited from the Han Dynasty and machetes handed down from the Western Regions. The "tangdao" that we can see everywhere today was invented by those guys in Longquan in the 1990s based on the "Tang broadsword" and "imitation Tang broadsword" collected in the Japanese palace (in fact, I'm not sure whether those Japanese ones were handed down from China, even from the Sui Dynasty). Today, no similar Dao has been found in the unearthed murals and sculptures of the Tang Dynasty.

Finally, to answer your question, there were swords in the Tang Dynasty. In fact, China's traditional swordsmanship originated in the Tang Dynasty. Before the Sui and Tang Dynasties, China's swords were all wide-bladed swords with two hands, which is what we know as Han Jian.