Jim:
As always, you are far too kind
. And regarding the GLADIUS issues, the articles with the title in English are written in this language. Oh, and the issues from 1999 onwards are fully online, except for the current year's issue that has only the abstracts
HERE
Enjoy
Ariel:
I'm glad we agree in the fundamental points
Just wanted to reiterate that the "
Zenete connection" bit is exactly what I have issues with: we don't know how the
Zenete swords really looked like, but in this case that’s of only relative importance. I’m afraid I might have explained myself confusingly… I don't think we're here in front of a case of diffusion of the Arab typologies through geographically adjacent areas of influence East to West across North Africa. The 7th c. Umayyad culture was directly carried out to Southern Spain on the wings of the rulers of the conquering waves, who also became the rulers of these new territories. The swords of the elites were directly taken from Mecca to Córdoba, and THEN they started to evolve divergently in each place due to their local influences. Regarding the issue about the Sassanid influences on the pre-Islamic and early Islamic Arab swords, it’s a field I which I really consider myself a bit out of my depth for any fine detail discussion (although it’s only of relative transcendence for our argumentation: there’s some iconographic evidence of the typology of these early Islamic Arab swords), but I would like anyway to point out that whan I mention this subject in my post the references I give don’t include Mr. Khorasani's book…
And, yes, I do have it.