It was a VERY Merry Xmas!
 

Thought I'd share my excitement! :D

Santa must have thought you were a VERY good boy :D Congrats


Regards David

So, it was YOU who outsniped me on BS Yataghan?
Well, buddy, enjoy! Hope you get even more fun before the New Year!

My mom, apparently. :) I absolutely LOVE it!

Course Eight, looks like you was really good this year! Congrats! Very nice grouping.
Any thoughts, observations, identifications on these from anyone?

Your mom got me as well, although I should not really blame anyone for falling well short of the winning bid. You sure need to come up with something VERY special next Mother's Day.
Excellent acquisitions, hope to see more detailed pictures, particularly of the Laz bichagi.

Congrats! You've got a VERY nice mom. :) Need a brother? :D

Steve

Thanks! I'll give it a whirl, as the forum once again has proven an invaluable resource for information.

The Black Sea Yataghan/Laz Bichaq on top (apparently bid upon by several forum members) has pretty much been covered elsewhere, particularly this thread. Interestingly, mine seems to be quite a bit like the picture posted from Tirri's book in the aforementioned thread, albeit in worse condition. It is also mentioned in this thread that Tirri's contraversial attribution was based on only his particular weapon, which may have been tied to N. Africa even if the origins of the weapon form itself do not. Have I interpretted the discussion correctly? Is this sort of form/decoration "rarer" amonst Black Sea Yataghans than other types? More pictures are forthcoming on this one; lots of holiday to clean up, to make space for my light box...

Next up is the bichwa, which has a lot of similarities to this one on Oriental-Arms:

http://www.oriental-arms.co.il/item.php?id=1425

The title says 18th c., the discription 19th c., so, late 18th early 19th I suppose? Some differences are that the handle of mine is more of the "knuckle-duster" form and less of the "ring" shape. The scabbard on mine is red velvet over wood with blue velvet at the tips, rather than leather over wood. And of course instead of two elephants, mine has a dog and a bird. I've been reading through my Elgood, but cannot find anything about the Hindu symbolism of dogs. I'd love to hear more about this from the experts! Will post more pictures of this one too.

The Ankus is, apparently, this one:

http://www.oriental-arms.co.il/item.php?id=2483

So that's pretty much all there is to say there. The bells certainly do sound nice.

And the throwing nice looks to be Matakam/North East Nigeria/North Cameroon, as discussed in this thread:

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...light=Throwing

You know, I'm forbidden to look for ethnographic stuff on ebay over $100 after Mid-November, so truth is I have no idea what she was up to. But don't worry, I got her something nice for Xmas too!

--Radleigh

That's what I call LOVE!

Black Sea Yataghan Pics
 

More pics of the Black Sea Yataghan:

Pics of the Bichwa
 

More pics of the bichwa:

So, in part inspired by the interesting discussion about the use of dog symbology in the "AssadUllah Cartouche/Stamp" thread I've been looking around for various uses of the dog in Hinduism and on various Indo-Persian weapons, in an effort to better understand its usage on my bichwa. Unfortuantely I haven't been able to come up with much. Sarama is the only named dog I can find in Hindu mythology, and was apparently Indra's watchdog. Also mentioned are that dogs are associated with Yama, god of death, whcih is interesting because Elgood mentions that the loop shape of the bichwa handle is representative of a noose, one of the weapons of Vishnu but also the manner in which Yama snares souls. The wikipedia entry on Sarama says that "in later Hinduism, the dog became one of the most degraded animal," although I haven't found anything specific on that point. None of this directly explains the presence of the bird.

As an entirely alternative explanation of the decoration, it should be noted that the bird is attached through the handle via a pin, which has loosened and allows the bird to rotate. So if I turn the bird around, it could be that the dog is chasing the bird and what we have could be some sort of hunting scene. Its not often, though, that there are dogs involved in those scenes. The only ones I've found were on 19th C Qajar pieces:

http://www.oriental-arms.co.il/photos.php?id=2484
http://www.oriental-arms.co.il/photos.php?id=557

I think the bird is supposed to face away from the dog, since the oxidation under the bird (from where it would have been hard to polish) is darker on the dog side, and it would be harder to polish under the tail. Myself, I'm voting for the "hunting" interpretation, no doubt with some British influence; here is the cover of a British book with very similar styling of a bird and a dog.