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Originally Posted by ariel
Can we simplify it?
Wouldn't it be reasonable to suggest, that the Old Kattara is just a variant of the pre-islamic straight-bladed Arab sword?
Arab invasion of Persia put them in contact with equally straight-bladed Iranian swords, so nothing changed at the beginning.
From conquered Persia they attempted to invade Europe from the East, but encountered Khazars, who were armed with true sabers. And that's when the Arabs switched to the curved blade. Persians might have taken it from them, or from the Turkic or Mongolian invaders.
The straight blade coexisted for a while, finding its way to Mamluks, Berbers and finally to Spain ( jineta). Subsequently, the most primitive tribes, Sudanese and Tuaregs, adopted it and preserved the form up to the contemporary tourist traps.
No need to invoke the imported blades for the early straight Arab blades. They had them from the beginning. The Portugese might have been surprised to find that their rapiers were identical to the Omani kattaras. Later on, everybody imported blades from everywhere, just like today upper-class americans import italian shoes, german cars and french perfume, while they import Mac Donalds and blue jeans.
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Salaams Ariel, Needless to say that by typing blue jeans, french perfume or Mac Donalds into the forum search your letter will be forever more traceable !
I suppose what you are getting at is a "so what question"..? I think ours is a very viable research thread because "The Forum" is thus engaged in finding the truth about a system so long shrouded in mystery.
We may at last be able to pinpoint sword data on, an as yet, never identified manufacturing centre. It could be that the myth of European Trade Blades (concerning specifically the New Omani Kattara circa 17thC) can be identified. We may even have spotted the makers of the original Omani Battle Sword of the 8th Century which you may be getting at in your first paragraph since clearly it is influenced by the Abbassid weapon.
Of course there is always the other possibility that we are wrong but we have to give it a full airing no?
Notice that I use the term "The Forum" since it is a combined effort to discover the facts. Any positive input is gladly received since it may lead to a result. You will recall we traced the Old Omani Battle Sword to 751 AD (a date accepted in this Forum) using archive data from Traditional Omani music, poetry, and dance !
Now lets get after the proper information on the weapon(the new Omani Kattara) which superceded that sword "apparently" in about the 17th C.
Regards,
Ibrahiim.