The way it looks to me is that the blade is older then the hilt. The hilt was made almost a century later and made for the blade. The blade looks authentic, but in bad shape, like it had been in an acid bath or buried for a long time in acidic soil. I sold my Syrian-Lebanese jambiya with a very similar style blade (in great condition). The holes in the blade may have had inlay of either colored bone or low quality gems like onyx.
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