[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Originally Posted by TVV

This may sound sacrilegious, but even Artzi, despite having forgotten more about swords than I will ever know, can be wrong sometimes. For example, there is a sboula that he attributed to Zanzibar, despite it being a Maghrebi weapon.

I am attaching a picture of a (rather ugly) hilt, which I believe is Yemeni in origin. The blade is Ethiopian, and we know that a lot of Ethiopian swords were imported in Yemen, because of their rhino hilts. The hilts were reworked to be used on jambiyas, while the blades were rehilted, sometimes in a very crude manner.

I acquired the sword from an Egyptian gentleman residing in Saudi Arabia, but the hilt style is unlikely to be Saudi, and I have to assume that it must have been imported there from a neighboring country. Again, Yemen makes a lot more sense than Zanzibar.

I do therefore believe that the hilts of this style with a straight grip, an a vestigial quillon are Yemeni and later, probably dating back to the middle of the 20th century.

Your sword Stu, on the other hand, has a slightly bent grip and its hilt looks to be of earlier and much nicer manufacture. Obviously, the above observations do not apply to it.

Salaams, Great example of a Nimcha hilt which has been almost totally butchered and fitted to the Ethiopian (German) blade. These hilts though attributed to Zanzibar could in my opinion have been knocked up in Yemen easily. I think it is generally given the nod that Saudia Nimcha hilts have a straight crossguard often with a silvered hilt... Regards Ibrahiim.