Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post

ariel · 29th July 2016, 05:05 PM

Eric,
Egg-zactly my feeling!

I do not think pics are good enough to be certain it is not wootz, but Roland is likely be correct: some kind of mechanical damascus.

It is dated 1197 (1782-1783). At that time Persian shamshirs were routinely made of wootz. I am not saying that we can reliably exclude Persian origin because of that point, but the likelihood of it goes down.

The blade is also not exactly Persian: configuration of grooves and the Tamerlan's "three dot" tamga push me eastward of Isphagan:-)

I think this one is Afghani.

Marius,

You have a suspicious mind, my friend:-))) I have encountered the only other similar degree of mistrust on several Russian sites, but I cannot blame them: they have an industrial level of forgery, re-assembly, new inscriptions, the whole nine yards. Understandably, their paranoia is in the fifth gear. I do not have any doubts in the authenticity of Roland's shamshir. Of course, the bladesmith could have shaved off some years in the dating cartouche, but... well... who did not:-) However, my worst case scenario would be 19 century.
And, as to the same workshop... Blades were mass-produced in hundreds and thousands of workshops existing across the humongous area over 100 + years. One needs to have similarities of orders of magnitude higher than that to claim same masters.

Roland, good find! Congratulations and enjoy the new puppy!

29th July 2016, 05:05 PM	#5
ariel Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Ann Arbor, MI Posts: 5,503	Eric, Egg-zactly my feeling! I do not think pics are good enough to be certain it is not wootz, but Roland is likely be correct: some kind of mechanical damascus. It is dated 1197 (1782-1783). At that time Persian shamshirs were routinely made of wootz. I am not saying that we can reliably exclude Persian origin because of that point, but the likelihood of it goes down. The blade is also not exactly Persian: configuration of grooves and the Tamerlan's "three dot" tamga push me eastward of Isphagan:-) I think this one is Afghani. Marius, You have a suspicious mind, my friend:-))) I have encountered the only other similar degree of mistrust on several Russian sites, but I cannot blame them: they have an industrial level of forgery, re-assembly, new inscriptions, the whole nine yards. Understandably, their paranoia is in the fifth gear. I do not have any doubts in the authenticity of Roland's shamshir. Of course, the bladesmith could have shaved off some years in the dating cartouche, but... well... who did not:-) However, my worst case scenario would be 19 century. And, as to the same workshop... Blades were mass-produced in hundreds and thousands of workshops existing across the humongous area over 100 + years. One needs to have similarities of orders of magnitude higher than that to claim same masters. Roland, good find! Congratulations and enjoy the new puppy!