Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post

motan · 2nd July 2020, 12:23 PM

Hi Yvain,
Thank you for showing this dagger. Always good to know that I am not the only one interested in these daggers.
Many collectors look down on ethnographic weapons from the Levant, maybe because they are relatively recent and primitive, and come from an area in the center of Islamic civilization that produced some of the best quality and most beautiful non-Western weapons (Persia, Caucasus, Turkey etc).
But the area in question was very impoverished and decentralized at the end of Ottoman rule, and landscape is barren and discontinuous. This has lead to small, local production centers with their own style and traditions, while Ottoman officials and soldiers used weapons from their land of Origin, or locally made versions of those.
I also got some daggers from France. The northern border of Palestine borders the French mandate lands of Syria and Lebanon. Many daggers from these border area (for example, Majdali daggers from Jabal al Sheikh/Hermon) were bought by both British and French soldiers.

2nd July 2020, 12:23 PM	#8
motan Member Join Date: Apr 2016 Location: Jerusalem Posts: 274	Hi Yvain, Thank you for showing this dagger. Always good to know that I am not the only one interested in these daggers. Many collectors look down on ethnographic weapons from the Levant, maybe because they are relatively recent and primitive, and come from an area in the center of Islamic civilization that produced some of the best quality and most beautiful non-Western weapons (Persia, Caucasus, Turkey etc). But the area in question was very impoverished and decentralized at the end of Ottoman rule, and landscape is barren and discontinuous. This has lead to small, local production centers with their own style and traditions, while Ottoman officials and soldiers used weapons from their land of Origin, or locally made versions of those. I also got some daggers from France. The northern border of Palestine borders the French mandate lands of Syria and Lebanon. Many daggers from these border area (for example, Majdali daggers from Jabal al Sheikh/Hermon) were bought by both British and French soldiers.