[ariel]

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....:-)