Qalatchoori sword

[ariel]

I keep bumping into this name time and time again. Usually, it comes up in connection to the Ottoman Kilij, because Qalatchoori allegedly had a yelman. It had also been noted that the Qalatchoori mentioned by Ferdowsi is (or might have been ) different from the later one.
It is like a unicorn: everybody knows how it looks , but nobody had ever seen it....
Does anybody here on the Forum know some actual facts about this sword and perhaps ( just perhaps!! ) owns one?

[S.Al-Anizi]

Im sure I read that word in "Islamic Arms and Armour", the fancy catalogue.

[ariel]

Im sure I read that word in "Islamic Arms and Armour", the fancy catalogue.
That's the problem: the name pops up all the time, but nobody explains what it is!

[ariel]

Since it is mentioned by Ferdowsi, I guess it must be a very old, Turkic, Uzbeki-type sword.
I have a pseudoshashka (Central Asian, Afghani/Uzbeki) with a strange blade. It was already posted here years ago, but I'd like to bring it back: perhaps, somebody can add useful guesses.
Instead of the classic Shashka blade, this one has "Indian Ricasso"-like feature, Yelman and a remarkable narrowing of the blade toward the point. The last feature looks just like Tatar swords (from Poland/Lithuania) or like archeological examples of ancient Migration era swords. Kind of "dinosauric" feature. Please, look at the pics, show them around to your friends who are into this area of research. Perhaps, we stumbled upon something really important.

[Jim McDougall]

I wanted to bump this thread up as it seemed incredibly to have just ended without any real input. With renewed interest in Central Asian weapons here, this conundrum seemed worth looking into further.

While it seems Ariel has disappeared some years ago, these questions remain unanswered and hopefully some of those here who are interested in these topics might enter.

[gp]

Islamic arms and armor in the Metropolitan Museum of Art
by David G. Alexander :

https://resources.metmuseum.org/resources/metpublications/pdf/Islamic_Arms_and_Armor_in_The_Metropolitan_Museum_ of_Art.pdf

a most interesting 2nd book



The Book

The book is in two volume in one holder that con tains around (1200) pages, The first volume consists of two parts, the first deals with the historical stages of the development of various Islamic weapons during the carly, middle, and late Islamic periods .The sccond part includes weapon types that existed during the carly and middle periods which are part of this private collection, representing weapons from the Rashidi, Umavyad and Abbasid periods then covering the Ayyubid, Mamluk and Timurid eras, ending with the many representative types of the Ottoman period.

The second volume contains the third and fourth part of the book, which shows images of different examples of the other remaining part of the private Islamic weapons collection, which is from the mid and late Islamic periods, such as those of India. Persia, and the Arab world. The last section includes examples of swords produced by weapon makers during the late Islamic period.

The collection

The private collection which the book represents de scribes a (one thousand one) items of mostly unpubished Islamic Arms and Armour, that covered most of Islamic era's, some of the swords that the collection contain, belong to eight Sultan's and more than thirty Prince's, such as: The Sword of Sultan Naimuldin Ayyub, The Sword of Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, The Sword of Ottoman Sultan Mohammed Murad, The Sword of Mamluk Sultan Qaitabai, and more similar.

The collection has more than 135 names of Islamic swords and weapons makers. The quantity and the quality and sheer variety of this pri vate collection could possibly be the best known collee tion of Islamic swords and weapons


ISBN 9789948193654
Published Date 2022
Language English
Hardcover Number Of Pages 1200 Weight (kg) 7.0

[gp]

Weapons of The Islamic World. Swords and Armour.
Islamic Arms/ Exhibition Catalogue.
Published by King Faisal Center For Research and Islamic Studies, Riyadh, 1991
Language: English

111 pp., + 116 colour illustrations, biblio, index, cloth in dust wrapper, copy in mint condition. An exhibition catalogue held at the Islamic Gallery in King Faisal Foundation Center. #30202.