This heavy-bladed short sword was a traditional weapon of the Afghani Pushtun tribes.
This is how Kipling describes it: "If you want to know what they fight with, reach under my seat an' pull out the long knife that's there." They dragged out and beheld for the first time the grim, bone- handled, triangular Afghan knife. It was almost as long as Lew. "That's the thing to jint ye," said the trooper feebly. "It can take off a man's arm at the shoulder as easy as slicing butter. I halved the beggar that used that un, but there's more of his likes up above. They don't understand thrustin', but they're devils to slice."
And the battle itself: "Then they felt body to body the amazing physical strength of their foes; a shriek of pain ended the rush, and the knives fell amid scenes not to be told”.
It is important to remember that, while preserving their traditional form, there is a wide variety in the level and the extent of decorations. The simple ones, as described above, are the most frequent. However, there are multiple examples of richly-decorated ones, with steel or copper handles, gold or silver koftgari, the metal parts of the handle made of wootz and with deep or superficial incised decorations.
In this paper we will not go into detailed analysis of different examples of a traditional Khyber, but rather follow the evolution of this weapon that eventually led to the emergence of its regulation pattern resembling the European short sword (Fig.3). Its blade is wide, slightly curved and has one-and-a- half edge form and a well-developed ricasso. Almost all examples carry a stamp of the so-called Mazar-i-Sharif arsenal and are dated between 1893 to 1903.
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