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Old 21st July 2005, 11:38 AM   #27
Aqtai
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Join Date: May 2005
Location: Merseyside, UK
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Thanks for all the great pictures RSWORD and B.I.

With regard to the sword of Beybars, he was such a famous figure, I'm not surprised that there are swords attributed to him. The Topqapi museum has two swords attributed to famous Mamluk Sultans: Qalawun and Muhammad ibn Qalawun, in both cases Unsal Yucel believed they were actually 16th century swords

Yucel belived that this sword however (apart from the scabbard, hilt and crossguard) is genuinely early Mamluk:




The Military Museum in Cairo has a quite a few mail shirts, shields, helmets and weapons, mostly of Ottoman origin, unfortunately the labels are unreliable at best. A lot of them have been placed on mannequins meant to represent figures from Egypt's history. For example there is a mannequin meant to represent an "Ummayyad cavalryman" wearing a kulah khud helmet!

The "reconstructions", of which there are many, are even dodgier. They owe more to the artists' imagination and preconceptions than to any historical evidence. That sword above is probably a figment of the artists imagination, although there is a slightly similar 15th century Mamluk sword in the Topqapi. I'll try and scan it for you.
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