A very interesting and confusing topic about the import of blades from Europe to Africa.
The funniest thing is that I am currently studying and trying to figure out the import of blades to Central Africa, I will not “clutter” this topic, if I achieve any results I will create a new publication.
The question arises, can old sources be trusted unconditionally?
Burckhardt reports:
- blades are brought from Solingen in Germany; about three thousand of them are sold annually in Cairo to southern traders.
Jim reasonably asks the question - where do these statistics come from?
Further in the text - these swords are of German manufacture and are sold to the Nubians by Egyptian merchants at a price of four to eight dollars apiece.
Probably, he meant some “Spanish dollars”, in any case, be it Spanish, English, French or other European currency, this is a very serious amount even for Europe at that time, not to mention Africa.
For example, when H. Barth received 2 Spanish dollars in a letter in 1851 while in Gummel, it was a very significant sum for him.
That is why Burckhardt writes that those who can afford it own a sword.
The question arises - how many remained in Sudan?
Most travelers of that time in Africa write about blades from Solingen. In my opinion, this is a generalized concept of blades from Europe.
Directly for Solingen, we managed to find out:
1846 - Population census, 6,127 people live in Solingen.
1853 - The "first" industrial steam engine in Solingen was installed at the Henckels plant.
I was unable to find out how many blades Solingen manufactories could produce in the first half of the 19th century.
But not all products were sold to Africa, there were large orders from Europe.
In general, questions, questions, questions.
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