tuareg
 

In trend with the fascinating thread about arms daggers in modern use in Sudan, for those with an interest in North African/Sub Saharan weapons here is a nice Tuareg telek example made more interesting by the fact it has an associated date..

and perhaps even more interesting.. a French Chassepot 1866 bayonet used at around the same period, presumably removed from a French Foreign Legion soldier and personalised Tuareg style.

Could you show images of the blade on the telek? Would be interesting to see a blade with a solid date. :)

sure will do. It's a standard rather crude native takouba style blade with fullers..

Hey Ashoka,

These are pretty interesting. British and Ottoman ( and Egyptian) bayonets can be found in KSA with scabbards in Arabian style! I guess this practice was worldwide :-)

hi, it's stefan not ashoka, on this one they have kept the original steel scabbard, it has just been given a fabric and leather covering. and various straps. I imagine although they probably had Chassepot rifles as well by this point, they probably just used the bayonets as swords.

Hey Stefan,

Yep, same with the examples from the peninsula. I'll see if I can find photos. They are called ghadara here.

Certainly beautiful to see such mix of styles though.

Here is the blade Iain, cut down from a locally made sword blade with typical three fullers. As it's shaped from the top of the blade it's actually very thick and robust, but it's still soft iron as with all of this kind... so a takouba with one of these generic blades could actually be pre-1873.

Thanks Stefan,

Very useful to see for the reasons you stated! I'm attaching one of the better ones I've had pass through my hands - probably from around the same period but I think with a European blade.

Iain