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Originally Posted by Jens Nordlunde
Mike(?), Aqtai,
This is most interesting, but also a bit confusing. Depending on which books you read the blades from the different places were valued differently (only Indian blades were great valued all the time) - or could it be that the valuation was made within several hundred years?
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I suppose because different places were famous at different times. As Mike pointed out, Egypt was never famous as a centre of swordmaking, but Egyptian swordmakers obviously could make functional and practical swords. According to the above mentioned book, After the Ottoman conquest of Egypt in 1517 a lot of Egyptian swordmakers moved (or were forcibly taken) to Istanbul and continued to produce swords for Ottoman Sultans among others. In the Middle-East Damascus was famously the great centre of sword-making, however I believe that Damascus virtually ceased to be a centre of sword production after it was sacked by Timur-Lenk in the early 15th century.