Thank you for these images dat_man. The big photo on the bottom is especially intriguing. It depicts a man of high status with a nice shamshir seated on a fancy chair/throne. The people on his sides have nimcha hilted swords, and the two closest ones appear to have the ivory and gold hilt variety. It is similar to a photo in Hales showing a Comoros vizier with a shamshir and his bodyguards with nimchas. Pradines has a theory that the shamshir in East Africa was a status symbol, reserved only for very high ranking people.
The second row of standing men gets more eclectic when it comes to sidearms with a long saif, a crude shamshir hilted sword and a Western style sabre.
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