Strange ottoman handles
I am back from Milan.
At your suggestions I went to Museo Poldi Pezzoli.
They have very small collection of Oriental weapons, some of which were very nice.
However, I got confused: several Ottoman kilijes had very strange handles: very translucent, with pink tint.
I asked their staff, one told me that they were made from mother of pearl, which is very suspicious: I have never seen this material on turkish weapons. It would be grossly impractical. Moreover they were very thick, grossly exceeding the usual thickness of the mother of pearl, and the tint was very unusual. The other staff member pulled out a book, in which they were listed as horn. Also strange: horn never gets THAT translucent ( I could easily see the tang). One was clearly made of horn and labeled as such. You can easily pinpoint it on the pics.
I made several pics of them: very repetitious, but I wanted to give you the best chance. Pics were made through glass window.
I asked them whether they were new, made of some kind of plastic. The answer was " no way!", but their restorer happened to pass away last year and no direct info was available.. Please pay attention that the two most suspicious examples had no brass ring around the knot hole.
What do you think?
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