Thank you so much for the kind words Ed, and I added these excerpts from my notes in hopes you could use them in your work, so I am honored they will be useful.
That is exciting to know the smith's name, and that this is a cows head. I sort of thought it might be that and recall even looking into the brands used by cattle herders in Kordofan (MacMillan I think was author c.1911).
Could the mark have been from earlier and taken up by Sammani, this sword seems a lot older than the mid 20th...…...as I mentioned it was supposed to be from time of Ali Dinar (but as he was killed in 1914 the 1918 end of making seems understandable).
I recall your notes on Kassala and that the figures from the time of Mahdi, Khalif and Omdurman were still prominent in 1980s and as you well say, the past never ceases. For me these weapons tell us it is still here and their stories remind us.
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