[Jim McDougall]

No matter how weird it seems, these are among some of the most intriguing sword forms around, and who can forget our quest for the origins of the Black Sea yataghan (Laz bichagi, the term found thanks to Ariel).
It seems these are 'Armenian' but with the note that these ethnic classifications are often if not typically tenuous.

The diffusion of forms and diasporas of ethnic groups throughout these regions creates a difficult climate for reliably accurate classifications. In the 1941 article by Jacobsen & Triikman "Origins of the Shashka", the BSY was mentioned and illustrated in the context, and the source cited was an 1897 paper on the 'kardok' (=swords) by a Hungarian writer. This was focused on a number of these almost wildly recurved blade swords.
Many of these had cleft pommels and no guards, perhaps the reason why they were included in an article ostensibly on the shashka.
I wish I could recall the title of the Hungarian article but still have not located.

Whatever the case, these often dramatically recurved blades on these swords attributed from Anatolia, Transcausus and into the Caucusus seem to be a peculiarly similar genre. Even the so called Black Sea yataghan is known in Georgia sometimes with inscriptions in that script.

Some years ago in researching these (after I had found the 1941 article) I contacted Gerhard Seifert, who had shown one in his 1962 book "Schwert Degen Sabel"), and was listed as a Kurdish-Armenian yataghan. He told me he no longer had it, but that it was inscribed in a 'strange' script. I take it this was probably Georgian

I recall in those years thinking that perhaps these strangely recurved blade swords might have been atavistic nods to commemorate ancient forms, such as seen in Burton (1885, p.206, fig. 221), see attached. However this similarly recurved blade (but not as dramatic of course) sword apparently termed 'sapara' was not displayed until 1876. It was acquired by a British officer from a Bedouin at Nardin sometime prior.

These recurved 'Anatolian/Armenian' swords, like a number of ethnographic forms of such ancient or historic character seem to have been late interlopers into weapon groups in the end of 18th well into 19th c.
Even the shashka itself does not seem to be reliably represented earlier than end of the 18th c.
Possibly these might have been produced from iconographic sources for traditional and hereditary commemorative purposes much in the manner of Qajar revival arms and armor and others.