I must ask the same question for kindjals. Do they produce good copies with hand forged blades? I have seen some with real silver scabbards and forged blades , made in 80-90s in Caucassia, but dont know if they still do it. How are the average antique kindjal prices in Georgia today? Cheaper or close to anywhere else?
regards

"The khevsur swords were uknown few years ago.... Since 1991 poverty, wars etc. Just recently Georgian dealers found that these swords have value in Western market."

Gentlemen,

Yannis' observations are entirely accurate, and explain perfectly why numerous copies of Khevsur weapons are appearing on the market in Tbilisi. The examples I saw there had old blades, some straight, some curved-- no scarcity of them, apparently. When asked, the local collectors I met generally reponded that they were made in the 1950s during the Stalin era for dance troupes and other ceremonies intended to promote Georgian culture. Dealers, on the other hand, said there were a few characters in town who build hilts and scabbards around old blades and sell them along a particular prospect near the river and at the flea market-- I visited both these spots and did see several in addition to some old but extremely worn kindjals and a few Soviet bayonets. On the other hand, I saw no Khevsur weapons in private collections there, which in itself is telling. Incidentally bravo Yannis for the images of the arms displays at the History Museum. I didn't dare bring a camera in there for fear of having it confiscated.

Sincerely,

Ham

I had a quite different experience in Tbilisi. I looked everywere I could and went to bazar near the river at least 3 times. No khevsur swords! Only bad kindjals and russian army stuff.

I went to more Georgian cities and villages. I talked with a lot of people. No khevsur swords!

I also saw the weapons that dancing groups use. I hadled some of them. They look like khevsur but they are not! They are simpler in construncion, different materials. Look photos. Sorry for the quality. It was difficult and I am not used of theater photos.

If you can find (live or video) Georgian dance with swords, see it. It is amazing. These guys really fight with fierce as they dance. As the blades strike there is light like fireworks! :eek:

The blades that are used in this dance are real steel but they are full of nicks. :D

During the Soviet regime, ownership of weapons was so strongly regulated that it was for all intents and purposes forbidden. Even buying a hunting knife in a specialized store required police check and permission (presumably, one could not slit somebody else's throat with a kitchen knife bought freely). Being caught by the police with a "finka" (a small knife in a style of Finnish puukko) landed one in jail for a couple of years.
Thus, the Caucasians were understandably very leery of preserving their weapons at home and many were destroyed.Anything of artistic and historian value was confiscated to the museums and likely ended up hanging on the walls of local Party poo-bahs.
As to Tatar history, one shoul go to Lithuania, to the Trakai castle: only 20 mi from Vilnius, and an astonishing place of Lithuanian, Tatar and Caraite culture and, yes, weapons. I still remember dozens of old curved swords.....

Interesting mode of wear for that kinzhal.

There are some quality kindjals being made in Dagestan today, but the price is about 100$-200$ for the blade alone, so it makes no sence for them to sell it as fakes.

I have to attest to this. My grandfather killed a lot of people, but he had to damp all his weapons (including some completely unique ones) into the river :(.

Additionally many sword types (court swords, anything with coat of arms etc.) were considered to be signs of nobility and the last thing anyone needed is to be a known nobleman :).

But when Soviet regime collapsed, kindjals and shashkas came to Turkish market like rain. Full silver scabbarded ones were sold for 250-300 dollars. And among them, there were plenty of top quality ones for a bit higher prices,which are nowadays extremely rare , like gold worked ivory scabbards with blades full of gold koftgari. I even saw Sheikh Shamil's own kindjal( not in hand. just picture long after it was sold).Then the prices increased dramatically, but in time. So, when I combine this fact with what you tell, perhaps, most of the weapons were not destroyed or left to rust, but simply were taken and "secured" by local party authorities which were a significant percentage in population, or army officers, police etc. , and when borders opened, they turned these stocks into cash.I am afraid we can count even museums among the market suppliers.
regards

It is fasten with the belt just for the dance. BTW this kindjal is rather new, but some of the dancers I have seen they had old good ones.

Antiquities were extremely cheap in USSR. Gvarnerius' violin costed a few hundred dollars, with Shteiner and everyone else being even way cheaper. Firstprint of Napoleon's memoirs costed 10$ (5 rubles) using official exchange rate, and 1.80$ using the one of the black market.

I would say that nowadays in Russia the prices are probably way above ebay, when it comes to swords.

If you think that Soviets were crazy, consider this: there is currently a movement in Great Britain (parliamentary discussions secondary to police requests) to ban the sale and the ownership of long and pointed kitchen knives. Apparently, too high percentage of crimes involved these implements (of course, since the gun ownership is banned, what else would criminals use!).
Thus, from now on, British chefs will have to use either short pointy knives or long and round-tip ones. The criminals, poor souls, will have either to slit their victim throats or, God forbid, break the law and resharpen their long knives.

Ha-ha-ha. Well, here are the statues of the city of Evanston, Illinois, USA:

"No person shall possess, in the City of Evanston, the following:
.....
(C) Any dangerous weapon as defined in Section 9-8-1(A).
....
DANGEROUS WEAPONS: (A) Bludgeon, blackjack, slingshot, sand club, sap, metal knuckles or any knife the blade of which may be opened by hand pressure applied to a button, spring or other device in the handle of the knife, incendiary devices or any other weapon or instrument of like character.

(B) Dagger, dirk, billy, dangerous knife, razor, stiletto, broken bottle or other piece of glass, stun gun, or taser, weighted gloves, bow, arrows or any other weapon or instrument of like character. "

As you can see posession of broken glass (!!!!) is a crime down here :).

Not so funny what a broken beer bottle held by the neck can do . :eek:
In MA they're considered a deadly weapon under the law .
I have seen the results first hand . :(
But we digress ....

The peasants are revolting :eek: Garden tools have allways made good weapons. You could take somebodies head off with a good clean spade as quick as any sword. Seriously I would line up all sharp, pointed and nasty things, and tell them not to do it again :mad:

Since we are talking about dances with swords, here is the clip:
http://www.irakli.ru/music/legend.wmv

Just a small portion of it is a traditional fighting dance, and unfortunately we already see chinese influence (people flying on strings), but it's not bad.

Rivkin, you brightened my day!
Gorgeous country of beautiful people!
They fell on hard times recently, and there seems to be no way out: no hatural resources except for wine and mzvadi (what we, in our ignorance, call Shishlik).
May God help them to regain their joy of life, glory and happiness!

And here is another Tatar Ordynka:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...MEWA%3AIT&rd=1

This one was on e-bay, but the auction is over and it is no longer active.
It has a Tamga, maybe Perkun can attribute it to a particular clan.

Tamga looks like that of Kanly tribe, but there are so many families in this tribe, or Zhapas clan of Bauly tribe (second picture). I think it is the second one, quite a distinctive tamga. Rotation of the symbol relative to the blade's surface is irrelevant.

On the other hand, Kanly is a much more prominent tribe when it comes to europeans tatars, Osman family belonged to kanly (?). On the other hand Bauly where related to parts of Nogai horde, so they were periodicly appearing around Balkans.

Ariel,

The sword you mentioned on eBay is a pastiche. The hilt is modern, the blade old. The tamga shown on it was copied out of a book.
Hard enough to learn about these things from originals without being confounded by copies, I say. The seller offered it in all good faith, was emailed when it was recognized as a copy and to his credit has not offered it at auction again.

Ham

You can always get a meter blade chainsaw to do some damage on the street muwahahahaa :D

Stupid laws by ignorant people :mad:

Rivkin, That's the nicest thing I saw in a while. I like that music very much! Where i can buy a CD?

[QUOTE=ariel]During the Soviet regime, ownership of weapons was so strongly regulated that it was for all intents and purposes forbidden. Even buying a hunting knife in a specialized store required police check and permission (presumably, one could not slit somebody else's throat with a kitchen knife bought freely). Being caught by the police with a "finka" (a small knife in a style of Finnish puukko) landed one in jail for a couple of years.
QUOTE]

the laws havent changed , just the enforcemant has relaxed,
actualy there is different classes of knive ,, basicly a knife like a pukko can , and could be purchased by anyone,, as with a cooking knife,
but anything , like a locking pocket knife, of a military knife or a large hunting knife needed a paper form the mvd, or it needed one to own a gun,
swords and other such items were illeagle ,, unless a special permit was granted , ,, and this didnt happen often,, ,,
a "fiver" was a prison knife, , knives not being allowed to imates in the siberian gulags,
found possessing one gave the owner an extra 5 years on his sentence...

For personal reasons I went to this topic and just have to add something.
The Crimean Tatar swords are rare because all weapons in Crimea were confiscated and armorer workshops closed when the Russians annexed Crimea in 1783. That was one of the earliest actions of Prince Grigoryj Potemkin, who reigned over the newly acquired territory.
Polish-Lithuanian Tatars constituted just a minority of the Crimean population that moved up north and settled within the borders of the Great Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Over there they gradually were exposed to the European weapons and their old ones largely were lost to posterity.
I managed to get an old (1925) article about Crimean Tamgas by a great Crimean Tatar writer, translator, polyglot, calligrapher, historian and ethnographer Osman Akchokrakly. He managed to collect ~400 tamgas and freely admitted that at least 400 more must have existed. When a son got married, he left his father’s home and established his own , he then usually took his father’s tamga and modified it a bit, and so on. Thus, there are clan tamgas and many sub-clan tamgas.
Akchokrakly was fired from the university where he taught languages and history in 1934, went into hiding with his sister in Baku, but the NKVD ( earlier name for KGB) found him there, accused him of being a spy and executed him. He was only 47.
Crimean Tatars were rounded up in 1944 and their entire population was exiled by Stalin to Central Asia. Only few managed to survive and go back to Crimea in 1967. In the 1990s about 260,000 came back. But they neither got their lands/homes back, nor compensated for the losses. Another tragic page of Soviet history. Now there are only few Russian historians trying to research Crimean history. God bless them!

This is most informative and intriguing, thank you for reviving this old thread and topic!
Actually the subject of tamgas is pretty esoteric, and I recall many conversations with Iaroslav Lebedynsky back in the 90s when he was writing on tamgas. I have a manuscript of his work, which I am not sure if was published.

It seems tamgas are regarded as a notable source in Polish heraldry, and I'm sure as noted, became a basis for many such symbols and devices as used in many ethnic cases in Caucasian regions as well as in Russia and others.
As these are devised independently it would be hard to determine specifics but that tamgas were a compelling source is certainly likely.

As Gotowski noted in his book on Tatar arms, only one example of a Tatar sword exists he is aware of with a tamga, to which Kirill Rivkin agreed. It was noted in my discussions with Lebedynsky that tamgas were not known on Caucasian swords.

However, I have an example of a shashka which while appearing to be Daghestani, Rivkin noted it is likely by a Daghestani craftsman in Vladikavkaz.
On the scabbard chape is a niello device which is compellingly like a tamga, so much so that Lebedynsky published it as such in an article he published.

Jim,
Thank you for the great input.
The issue of tamgas is very incomplete because of its complexity and lack of our knowledge which separate groups owned them.
Mahmud Kashgari in 1073 wrote that Chingiz Khan gave a separate sign ( tamga) to each of the 17 tribes of his empire and that only the Oguz tribe gave birth to 22 clans, in their turn giving birth to sub-clans. Regretfully, there is no information on the structure of the Tatar clan. This is the reason why Akchokrakly who was working only in Crimea found 400 different tamgas and suggested that at least the same number may be found in the future. 800 tamgas among a limited, homogeneous, well-defined population living in a relatively compact geographical space tell us that the number of tamgas went up astronomically since Batu Khan of the Ulus Juchi till the beginning of 20th century!

As to the image on the scabbard chape of the Daghestani shashka, I do not think it is a tamga, because:

First, this looks more like an image of a leafy branch that is found quite often on the shashka scabbard fittings.

Second, Circassia became free of the Crimean vassalage and influence since the end of the 18th century ( Crimea was occupied by Russia in 1783). This shashka can be dated to the Daghestani mass production in a multitude of Caucasian and even Russian workshops i.e. end of the 19th - early 20th century.

Thirdly, Daghestan was never influenced by the Crimean artistic motives.

I am looking for any dissent by the Forumites. Our collective pro/con argumentation might be very helpful.

But I am more intrigued by the niello image on the pommel (?) presumably put on the bare back of it (?). This one does look like a tamga. I checked several sources of tamga images, including of course the Akchokrakly's article , and could not find an analog.
Curiousier and curiousier....:-)

I am unclear on reference to pommel, the image of the tamga is from the rounded scabbard chape (perhaps I am using wrong term in shashka nomenclature).

I am trying to find my notes from Iaroslav back in the 90s when he was writing his various work on tamgas. His primary interest was the Sarmatians and their influences in Ukraine and surrounding regions if I recall.
As I noted, he agreed with the suggestion that this niello symbol on my scabbard chape was indeed a tamga, and published it in one of his articles as such.

I did find my copy of "Tamgas and Runes, Magic Numbers and Magic Symbols"
("Metropolitan Museum Journal 8, 1973, pp.165-173), where it is noted that "..as early as the 1st century AD tamgas appear among the Sarmatian tribes north of the Black Sea ".

Mr. Nickel describes these citing data from Hans Janischen:
"Die Bildzeichen der Koniglichen Hoheit bei den Iranischen Volkkern" (Bonn, 1956). Here some of the examples seem to have a arrowhead element and some a crescent moon and 8 point star, among others, but some of similar gestalt,.

What is compelling in other sources is the comparison of this 'tamga' on my shashka to the so called arsenal mark of St.Irenes in Istanbul, which is described as a 'mondhugelzeichen' (=moon upon a hill) symbol in Janischen (op. cit). This tamga, an arc (crescent moon) looks more like horns, and is above either square or rounded geometric shapes representing a hill.
This is noted as a Sarmatian tamga and having resemblance in degree to some Glagolitic numerals.

The tamga described as St. Irenes (found on arms stored there until 19th c.)
is a 'moon' at the end of a staff (?) with lines on either side (Nickel ,op. cit. fig.13).
According to the Leiden Manuscript Or. 419W (Nickel), this mark is first of 24 tamgas and belongs to Kayi tribe of Turkic tribes of Aral Steppes 9th c.
This became of course known in Istanbul and used accordingly as these became the Turkish nation.
from; "Arsenalzeichen oder Beshau" (Eduard Lenz, "Zeitschrift fur Historische Waffen und Kostumkunde" 6: 1912-14.. p.299-303.

The attached page with image of the St.Irenes mark is not from this source, but uncited source.

I am not suggesting that the tamga on my sword scabbard has anything to do with St.Irenes, but noting that it is similar in configuration to the moon over hill in Janische, as well as the St. Irenes mark, both descrjbed as tamgas.
Which returns to the question, just how unusual is it for a tamga to appear on a sword in these contexts?

Now I understand!
I looked at the entire image, couldn’t find anything, and thought that the image on the throat of the scabbard was the point of discussion. My fault, mea culpa!
The first image, what I thought was the pommel, is the chape with the shashka upside down.
Yes, I fully agree, this looks convincingly like a tamga. It does have some resemblance to the Kayi mark, but differs from it. Perhaps the owner was a distant member of some sub-sub clan?

Crimean Khans were highly respected by the Ottomans to the point that apparently there was an unwritten ( or even written?) rule that in case of the extinction of Sultan’s line the Crimean Khan , as a direct descendant of Chingiz Khan, would assume the Ottoman throne.
Well, the last Khan, Shahin Giray, was exiled by the Russians to the Turkish Rhodes in 1783 and strangled there in 1787 with a silk cord because he allegedly planned to replace the existing Sultan.
Still, he was strangled and not beheaded or stabbed, because royal blood should not have been spilled. Some measure of respect, but the “rule” worked against him. That was how Sultan’s relatives were killed upon his ascent on the throne to prevent any possibility of a coup, and that was how the Mongols killed Russian princes captured at the Battle of Kalka: covered them with a heavy wooden platform and assembled on top of it for a celebratory dinner , smashing the prisoners to pancakes. Again, no royal blood was spilled:-)

No problem, I could have been more clear in my wording.

Staying with the discussion of tamgas, as you have brought forward, and the Tatars as also the focus in discussion of these, I would add this resource (previously mentioned):
"Bron i Uzbrojenie Tatarow" (Tatar Arms and Armor)
Jacek Gotowski, Warsaw, 1997
Item #76
"...only one example of a blade with Tatar ownership is known, this saber with a Tatar tamga sign impressed in its scabbard, and in the Polish Army Museum".

That quote is interesting with regard to my shashka as it suggests the convention was to place the tamga on the scabbard (chape in my case).
However, in revisiting this thread in its 2005 segment, Rsword shows a Tatar sword with apparently the same tamga described in Gutowski but inlaid in the blade.

According to Kirill Rivkin in the discussion, the tamga forms are well known in Tatar contexts including Circassian, and the ancient traditions of the Scythians and Sarmatians. This of course is generally meant and without specifying use on weapons in particular.

As noted, the tamga used by Ottoman military (regarded as to the St. Irene arsenal) is from the Kayi band of the Oguz tribe, and one of the number of examples. Naturally these would vary as required for distinction to the tribe represented.

In rereading through the 2005 discussion it seems there were Turkish tribes present in North Caucusus, and certainly Tatar presence is suggested as well. It would seem there would be abundant possibility to explain the presence of this tamga on the scabbard of a shashka from Vladikavkaz and Daghestani style, despite the rarity of instances of such application.

I brought forward a plate of tamgas from previous discussion for the benefit of current readers as well as picture of the Tatar sword with tamga on blade as referenced in 2005 (comparable to Gutowski example noted).

Addendum on Tatar sword tamgas and shashka w/tamga
 

Found the illustration of the Tatar ordynka with tamga -on SCABBARD mentioned in previous post and on blade of similar sword and same tamga from 2005 discussion.

Also, found detail from correspondence from Lebedynsky (1998) regarding the tamga on my shashka chape. He suggests these kinds of tamga are generally Northwest Caucusus, possibly Abaza (Circassian) but notes the shashka seems of Daghestan origin.
In the original assessment of the sword, 1997 from another source, it is noted the reverse of the locket on the scabbard is inscribed in Arabic 'Sahabi....Afand'. apparently owners name. The Kubachi workmanship is noted and star and crescent in high relief hilt motif, and the unique tamga on chape.
The blade is believed Styrian/Hungarian and earlier 19th c.

Years later in discussion with Kirill Rivkin (2018), he suggested this was likely made in northwest between Vladikavkaz and Nalchik, perhaps either Lak or Dargi Kubachiki craftsman......clearly concurring with the earlier assessment.
He noted tamga were nearly unknown on shashkas, but did seem to occur occasionally on kindjhals, and typically suggested Circassian provenance.

Jim,

Your symbols/tribal sword marks are remindful of Sudanese tribal camel brands collected in Darfur to document its history 1200-1700. Most derive from Berber alphabet letters and also indicate other symbolic ownership elements. Sorry they won't copy, but see p.223 and discussion in this 1951 Sudan Notes & Records article
https://sci-hub.se/10.2307/41719553

On Camel Brands, I.G. Hill, SNRV.53, 1972
https://sci-hub.se/10.2307/42678007

Also a 1882 US cattle brand book.
https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/...age/3/mode/1up

Best,
Ed

Ed, this is an amazing seque which is well observed, and speaks directly to my long fascination with markings, symbols and as you note, including brands. Many years back as I was researching markings found on North African swords, in particular the kaskaras, I had the idea that perhaps some of these might have some connection to ancient Egyptian heiroglyphs.
In looking into that, I read MacMichael (1913) , "The Brands Used by Chief Camel Owning Tribes of Kordofan", as noted in these great links you provided!
Actually, while not a major influence, it seems there were cases where there was indeed some connection to hieroglyphics and some brands.

Tribal symbolism has no boundaries, and is one of the most fascinating aspects of these studies, thank you so much! These articles are outstanding.