Marc, thank you very much for the link! It is a great article, which clears a lot. I would like to add a couple of comments on the dragon ornament. The dragons examples from the Alexander’s articles have probably a Chinese origin. I do not mean their manufacture place of course, but their form and meaning (imperial power). Astvatzaturyan (‘Turkish Arms’ book) notes that the Ottoman decorations in 15-16th centuries have a strong Chinese influence. One may often find for example lotus flowers (‘hatayi’) and ‘chinese clouds’ (‘tchi’) on Ottoman textiles, ceramics and arms from this period. There are two very nice early (16th century) yataghan examples (Astvatzaturyan ‘Turkish Arms’, page 134 and Bashir Mohamed ‘The Arts of the Muslim Knight’, page 56) which show clearly these Chinese ornaments, including the dragon. Another ‘hatayi’ and ‘tchi’ examples you may find in the above mentioned Alexander’s article, for example, on page 254.
I have found also very interesting the following Alexander’s comment: ‘The dragon emblem has been wildly misunderstood and transformed into a wavy bifurcated squiggle, yet it retains the impression of a dragon, mouth agape, winding its way towards the blade.’ It clears a bit the snake symbolism on the Islamic blades (maybe!). Even ‘my’ yataghan has snake-like ornaments on the grip bolsters!
Zifir, I think that in Astvatzaturyan (‘Turkish Arms’) you may find the picture of this army yataghan:
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