An Algerian musket ... and a translation needed?
 

Although i have been more into European stuff, i have acquired this Kabyle type musket mainly because of its lock; a large patilla (miquelete) specimen with a dog catch (calço atrás). I thought the brass decoration was only superficial but i now notice it is plated. The frizen is huge, to ensure enough sparking from low quality flints ... i would say.
The butt plate and stock decorations would be camel bone, as i was told ... and so beleive; it would hardly be ivory.
The punction marks on the barrel are certainly meaningless, with the 'commercial' intent to make it look Spanish.
However the marks under the lock seem to be Arabic caligraphy; possibly a name and a date, in my imagination. Could i have some help to figure out whether these are indeed Arabic letters/numbers?
That would be so much appreciated.

.

It reads 'Amal e Omar (work of Omar) the number underneath read 126, if it was 4 digits then it could be the year it was was made. I'm guessing a serial number. Nice musket by the way :)

Hi Fernando!! Nice Algerian gun!! Own two myself. Sorry I can't help with any translations. If you do get a response, I'll submit mine for any translation available.
Your's looks to be in good condition. The lock still retains most of it's brass over-lay. These guns have their large locks inleted into the stocks only about one-third. Every one I've seen is this way. The locks all look identical. An interesting aspect of your gun is the octagon-to-round barrel and metal ram rod. Most all I have seen have tapered all octagon barrels and wood ram rods. Interesting. How long is the barrel on your gun? Rick.

Nice piece Fernando. I see the DOG lock has plenty of FELINE appreciation :D
Your two are much like ours...they like to get in the picture when ever possible!

Hi Fernando,
Nice gun :cool: I think, I may be wrong, that occasionally A.H. dates have the last digit missing if it ends in a 0. If that was the case ? then it would be 1260 A.H. 1844 A.D., would be nice if it was :)
My Regards,
Norman.

Unfortunetly, it does not happen that someone would just leave the zero out. We have to remember that it was the Arabs who invented the zero. However it might be hiding under that yellow line :)

Thank you all Gentlemen for your help and considerations :)


Thank you so much for the precious translation, AJ1356. A valuable contribution indeed.

The barrel measures 1,13 mts. (approx. 44 1/2"). The musket total length is 1,53 mts.; with a caliber of approx. 17 mm and a weight of 4 Kgs, incl. the ramrod. I wouldn't know whether the ramrod is the original one, but it fits fine and has a rather crude aspect, consistent with the period.

Oh Stu, they are worse than the silk worm. I tell them to move back, first gently and after followed by an utter yelling, but they don't give a sh...


Bingo Norman. I have been digesting that hypothesis for a while; it makes a lot of sense. Looking at the Kabyle examples at Tirri's book, which later occurred to me to consult, the kind of date/s you suggest are similar to those in the book examples (Islamic Weapons, page 38).

Not necessarily a question of failing or forgetting the zero, but maybe an option, like a habit practised by this or another smith, as Norman appears to know of.
I find it more plausible that the fourth digit is missing in a date, for whatever reason, than the three digits representing a serial number, specially in this type of weapons. The date 1260 A.H./1844 A.D. seems quite logical for this gun's age.
Anyway there is no fourth digit hiding under the yellow circle.

Thanks Fernando. And glad you were able to get a translation. I need to do this with mine. Rick.

Hi guys,

Fernando and Norman are right for the datation: 1260 A.H. 1844 A.D.
The qualification of Algerian rifle is also right but too wide.

In fact, we find 2 types of guns in Algeria:
the first is the berber gun whose stock is less wide than the type of the berber from Tetouan and Riff (Morocco).
the other is the Kabyle gun whose stock is the more narrow of all.
Same barrel and flintlock.

Now, the berber gun knew an embargo sooner than the berber one. After the fall of the regency of Algiers (1830), french troops regained most of the arms of the conquered territories and it was no longer possible to manufacture because the barrels were no longer imported.
The model kabyle survived longer until the fall of Kabylie in 1857.

See on my site BLADE,
the Berber Tetouan model...http://blade.japet.com/14-maroc.htm
The berber algerian model...http://blade.japet.com/B-mok-twin.htm
The Algerian Kabyle model...http://blade.japet.com/B-mok-coraux.htm
as often for this type of weapon, the decoration is later than the manufacture of the gun. Here barrel is XVIII° as flintlock and decoration is AH 1290/AD 1873

Hope that help.

Louis-Pierre

Merci beaucoup pour vos renseignements, Louis-Pierre :)
So you remind us that, the decoration of these guns was often added at a later stage; and certainly only by those who could afford it, i would guess.
The examples in your collection are excelent and highly valuable, both due to their age and silver+coral embellishments.
I am impressed by the imported barrels with the symbolic Lazzarino Cominazzi marks.
But tell me; although my gun is of a later production, should i beleive its shorter version barrel was also imported? Probably from Spain, although its marks are only a decorative detail, i guess; even barrels on guns to be sold in Spain often had meaningless punctions, so i have read.
Your further coments will be so much welcome.

Louis: Thanks so much for the additional knowledge. Great looking guns in your photos!! Rick.

Complicating things is the last of my wishes but ... wasn't the first representation of the zero made in India by the year 500 AD and from there brought to the west by Arab traders? :o

You are right, seems like i was misinformed :)

Hello friends, thanks for your comments.

No barrel being made in Algeria, they were imported.
They could be obtained by the offshore grips, but so much blades were reused or transformed , so much barrels were abandoned. Maybe for a question of length or for calibre? The barrels used by the Algerian were long and the calibre was normally 16 mm.

They imported 2 models of barrels:

Barbarin model (coming from the word Barbaresque)):
octogonal on all its length
mouth of the barrel in form of tulipe
North of Italy import via Genoa
generally signed near the thunder (Cominazzo, ...)

Janissairy model
Octagonal (thunder), then rounded off up to the mouth
Ottoman or Balkan import

I add that usually the Janissairy model is shorter than the Barbarin.

It seems that your barrel is a Janissairy type and the very good marks and writings seems to confirm it.

As for the ZERO (0):
The zero really appeared towards 870 in Indian papers.

In 3rd century, three centuries before the Indians, the Mayan had developed a system of numeration very pushed, based on the art of the calendar and the astronomy and with a numeration of position on base 20 and containing the zero.

Al-Khwarizmi (from Bagdad) published a book in 820, presenting the new Indian figures. This book will be translated by Robert de Chester into Spain at the beginning of XIIth century.

To resume, beyond the Mayan, the creation is Indian and the popularization is arabic.

See U.

Louis

Thank you so much for your encyclopedic knowledge on these guns, Louis-Pierre :cool:
Let me go and digest all such info !