Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post - quadara

ariel · 14th June 2006, 12:06 AM

Here is another one.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...MEWA%3AIT&rd=1

This one was apparently made in the Ukrainian town Zhitomir, and Kharkov was another center. Many were made in Russia proper.
It is a souvenir piece, with the nielloed inscription KABKA3 (Caucasus) on the scabbard. Shows that this curved pattern was viewed as fairly representative of the Caucasian tradition and not necessarily related to Iran. These curved Kindjals were called Bebut (ethimology?) and a similar pattern was used for the military (the so-called "artillery") daggers.
Miller in his book Kaukasiske Wappen shows curved Kindjals from the Hermitage collection and dated to the 19th century. Askhabov shows pictures of Chechen burial stones engraved with the silhouettes of curved kindjals (17-19th centuries) and Gorelik shows similar knives from 1st milennium BCE to 1st milennium CE.
The bottom line: I agree with Rivkin that both straight and curved kindjals hail from the Caucasus; they spread to the surrounding countries (Iran, Ottoman empire) and the far flung ones ( Egypt, Sudan, Arabia proper) by the war tradition of the Caucasian nations. By the same token, curved Omani Kattaras replaced the straight ones in the 19th century as a result of popularity of Caucasian shashka blades that were exported there.

14th June 2006, 12:06 AM	#13
ariel Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Ann Arbor, MI Posts: 5,503	Here is another one. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...MEWA%3AIT&rd=1 This one was apparently made in the Ukrainian town Zhitomir, and Kharkov was another center. Many were made in Russia proper. It is a souvenir piece, with the nielloed inscription KABKA3 (Caucasus) on the scabbard. Shows that this curved pattern was viewed as fairly representative of the Caucasian tradition and not necessarily related to Iran. These curved Kindjals were called Bebut (ethimology?) and a similar pattern was used for the military (the so-called "artillery") daggers. Miller in his book Kaukasiske Wappen shows curved Kindjals from the Hermitage collection and dated to the 19th century. Askhabov shows pictures of Chechen burial stones engraved with the silhouettes of curved kindjals (17-19th centuries) and Gorelik shows similar knives from 1st milennium BCE to 1st milennium CE. The bottom line: I agree with Rivkin that both straight and curved kindjals hail from the Caucasus; they spread to the surrounding countries (Iran, Ottoman empire) and the far flung ones ( Egypt, Sudan, Arabia proper) by the war tradition of the Caucasian nations. By the same token, curved Omani Kattaras replaced the straight ones in the 19th century as a result of popularity of Caucasian shashka blades that were exported there.