[ariel]

These iconographic evidences prove beyond doubt that a guardless saber worn edge-up was widely known in Georgia in XVII century. Such sabers were first attributed to Circassians and called shashka , bastadization of the local Sash-ho, big knife.
Obviously, Georgians did not called their sabers shashkas. The authors mention several variants: Lekuri, Tcholauri and Uvado Khmali ( " saber without a guard").

One can reassess images of guardless sabers shown in the 1757 miniatures of a Persian manuscript about battles of Nader Shah with the Afghanis. It was found by Alexej Kurochkin, appearing on this Forum as Mercenary. See attached pictures.

It is uncertain to me whether fighters carrying " shashkas" belong to Persian or to the Afghani army, or both.

The fighting part of Nader Shah's army consisted mainly of Caucasians; Georgians, Armenians, Circassians. They might have carried their national weapons.

The same was true of the Abbas I army: it consisted significantly of Georgians and the commander of the entire Persian Army was Allahverdi Khan ( Undiladze), a former ghulam. This army conducted a major war with Afghanis and Uzbeks at the end of 16th century, and Georgian weapons might have served as an inspiration of the Afghani ones during Nader Shah campaign.

The bottom line, we still know very little about the guardless sabers, but the article of Talantov and Dvalishvili gives us a real food for thought by re-dating the origin and the time of appearance of shashkas in Georgia.