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Old 19th October 2015, 04:50 PM   #4
Jim McDougall
Arms Historian
 
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Route 66
Posts: 9,767
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Radu!!!??
Welcome back!!!!! Glad you are here again.

You are right in that this is a kaskara, the standard sword of the Mahdists in those campaigns, but used traditionally into modern times.
However, this is actually more modern interpretation (I believe termed 'Kasallawi' for the region in Sudan these became produced after WWII)
The highly stylized discs on the blade represent the crescent moons used by Hausa smiths in the 19th century, and are now degraded into stylized examples as seen here.
Indeed there is a brilliant article written by Ed here on sword and knife making in the Sudan (in articles archived) and Iain is our resident authority on these swords in the broader sense.
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