Nice to see old threads being resuscitated.
Somebody ( Alzheimer playing tricks again) on the Forum advanced another line: The Karabela handle was widespread all across the Ottoman sphere of influence, but pitifully sparse in Persia proper ( in fact, only a couple of pictures with Shahs sporting them) and never East of Persia or in Persia-influenced ( on-and -off) Daghestan. To attribute Karabela to Persia simply because Poland had good relations with Persia and Poles carried Karabelas is an argument of a dubious nature. Poland never shared a border with Iran, and their trade was limited to occasional batches of expensive souvenirs brought to Poland by Armenian traders. In contrast, Poles were in constant contact with the Hungarians, Tatars and Turks ( their borders spread down almost to the Black Sea).To amplify it even further, the ultimate Persian sword, Shamshir, was never popular in Poland. If we to believe the "Poland as the proving ground" theory, we need to ask ourselves: why did Poles choose an unpopular "Persian" sword karabela and ignored shamshir? My answer: because karabela did not come to them from Persia.
Interstingly, Cossacks, Poles close neighbors, carried a lot of shamshirs, but they raided Persia since 17th century ( Sten'ka Razin, for example).
That should be enough for anybody to conclude the origin. No?
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