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Old 24th October 2011, 08:12 PM   #86
TVV
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Sorry Ibrahim, the evidence is overwhelmingly in support of the use of trade blades on the longer, 18-19th century kattaras. If you go all the way back to the very first post in this thread you will see a kattara blade with a variety of markings - a termometer, eyelashes and crosses. All of those are quite common and can be traced back to well known earlier European examples.

Per Elgood, many of these blades were exported to Alexandria and Cairo, from where they were distributed throughout Arabia. If the Omanis were able to adopt the curved blade (most likely from Caucasian shashkas), then I do not see why they would not adopt the longer broadsword blade a century or so earlier, especially in light of the fact that German and Hungarian blades were very popular throughout the rest of the Arab Peninsula.

Personally, I think you put way too much stock in the cultural and religious barriers to the adoption of weapon forms, both in the case of the Omanis and the Portuguese. The hard evidence in the blades supports the theory that weapon forms diffused through trade, whereas your observations are so far entirely based on conjecture.

Regards,
Teodor
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