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Old 19th December 2012, 12:23 PM   #16
ariel
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Ann Arbor, MI
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Sorry for the confusion:-((

Now, the real stuff.
The Shibriya from Artzi Yarom's collection bears the engraved picture of a bird-like creature. This is eerily reminescent of the Transylvanian Knot motif.
The TK motif was very popular on Caucasian, more precisely old Circassian blades. They were mostly imitation and re-interpretations of the decorations seen on the imported Hungarian blades. Examples of real and Circassian-interpreted renditions are seen in the book of Astvatsaturyan on Caucasian weapons.

Circassians were forcibly exiled by the Russians in the 1860s. They went to the Ottoman Empire and were resettled in the Turkey proper, but mainly at the remote areas of the Ottoman Empire: Balkans, Syria, as well as what is now Israel and Jordan. The future capital of Jordan, Amman, was in fact a Shapsugh town, and there are Circassian villages in Israel - Rehaniya and Kfar Kama.
They still carry their old weapons and manufacture new ones with their ancient Circassian motives. The shibriya in Spiral's pic, - the one with niello, - has classic Circassian decorative motives, too: sparse geometric figures of bull horns.
I am wondering whether the shibriya shown here is one of those examples, and the "bird" is a remnant of the old Transylvanian Knot: Hungary to the Caucasus, to Israel, - a long and tortuous trek...
Here is a pic of Circassian men in Kfar Kama.
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