Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post

Rivkin · 30th July 2005, 02:35 AM

What Aqtai probably meant that until 1517 Mamluk could not have an arabic name - only turkish (independent of his origins). After 1517 in order to "ottomonize" them their were required to take arabic names, so we have Ali-Bey etc.

Concerning titles, indeed they carried titles in arabic, for example an honorary title yaqtaq (sorry, don't speak arabic and cite by memory, but it's supposed to be the butcher ? The title of Murad, Ibrahim and Mehmed and all others who killed 72).

Now on mail - afaik the subject of armour is even less understood than that of weapons. During the last few days I had the opportunity to speak with a few historians of mamluk period and I've got a very certain impression that they know the words of furisiyya, but have no ideas how these "swords", "bows" etc. look like - well many historians out there certainly do, but it's not a very common knowladge. For example one can look at Ayn-Jalat by Smith and "Mongol-Ilkhanid war" by Amitai-Preiss. The latter one quite honestly admits that there is no depiction of Ilkhanid armor, weaponry or tactics of the time. The description they use is due to Marco Polo (!), who obviously did not have anything to do with Mongol-Mamluk wars. The rest (and it's like 100 pages in these manuscripts) is an open speculation. For example Smith claims that Mongols used georgian/armenian cavalry because of it's shock power, but Amitai-Preiss counteracts with the statement that there is not a single (!) depictions of georgian or armenian cavalry of the time.

One of the most puzzling things to me was that no one in the middle ages seemed to be interested in for example testing a typical "mamluk" armor against a bow in order for example to determine the effective range of their weapons, or may be no one was interested in recording this for posterity, which is not unusual, taking in mind that 90% of books on mamluks will reference same works - Maqrizi, Ibn-Iyas, Ibn-Khaldan, Bar Hebraus, Rash-Al-Din, Furisiyya and may be 5 to 10 lesser known volumes.

In light of this there is a lot of speculation when it comes to "what was the difference in armor between royal and amir mamluks ?" "Did halqa use mails ?" and so on.

30th July 2005, 02:35 AM	#20
Rivkin Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 655	What Aqtai probably meant that until 1517 Mamluk could not have an arabic name - only turkish (independent of his origins). After 1517 in order to "ottomonize" them their were required to take arabic names, so we have Ali-Bey etc. Concerning titles, indeed they carried titles in arabic, for example an honorary title yaqtaq (sorry, don't speak arabic and cite by memory, but it's supposed to be the butcher ? The title of Murad, Ibrahim and Mehmed and all others who killed 72). Now on mail - afaik the subject of armour is even less understood than that of weapons. During the last few days I had the opportunity to speak with a few historians of mamluk period and I've got a very certain impression that they know the words of furisiyya, but have no ideas how these "swords", "bows" etc. look like - well many historians out there certainly do, but it's not a very common knowladge. For example one can look at Ayn-Jalat by Smith and "Mongol-Ilkhanid war" by Amitai-Preiss. The latter one quite honestly admits that there is no depiction of Ilkhanid armor, weaponry or tactics of the time. The description they use is due to Marco Polo (!), who obviously did not have anything to do with Mongol-Mamluk wars. The rest (and it's like 100 pages in these manuscripts) is an open speculation. For example Smith claims that Mongols used georgian/armenian cavalry because of it's shock power, but Amitai-Preiss counteracts with the statement that there is not a single (!) depictions of georgian or armenian cavalry of the time. One of the most puzzling things to me was that no one in the middle ages seemed to be interested in for example testing a typical "mamluk" armor against a bow in order for example to determine the effective range of their weapons, or may be no one was interested in recording this for posterity, which is not unusual, taking in mind that 90% of books on mamluks will reference same works - Maqrizi, Ibn-Iyas, Ibn-Khaldan, Bar Hebraus, Rash-Al-Din, Furisiyya and may be 5 to 10 lesser known volumes. In light of this there is a lot of speculation when it comes to "what was the difference in armor between royal and amir mamluks ?" "Did halqa use mails ?" and so on.