And if we are just at it, here are 2 Crimean sabers and a Quipchak knife of 12-14 centuries from archeological excavations by Ukrainian scientists. All predate Ottoman yataghans by at least 3 centuries.
Reminds you of something? :-)
And the last one is a yataghan of the last Crimean Khan , Shahin Giray bin Adil Giray, ( 18th century) faithfully following older Crimean examples shown here.
I do not have pics of the old Crimean bichaqs from 16-18 centuries, but their closeness to the neighbouring Bulgarian Karakulaks is remarkable.
The above archeological drawings are taken from a paper by Sergey Samgin and myself we recently published in the " Waffen - und Kostumkunde" 2016, Heft 1, pp.49-60, " A new hypothesis on the genesis of the Ottoman Yataghan: the Crimean connection" .
This article is copyrighted to the Journal and regretfully I cannot post it here.
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