Quote:
Originally Posted by gp
bak 2 the bichaqs...
.
Also the decoration differs from the K.u.K. Habsburg period 1878-1918 ones and looks more like the Ottoman times art work from pre 1878
as can be seen in the bichaqs with Arab lettering.
So a kind of match / crossover? between two periods one might say perhaps ?
First time I encountered a Balkan and Bosnian bichaq with such a blade .
But strange it is . Will post , if interest is there, more pics upon its arrival.
Your thoughts and comments please...?
thnx a lot!
Gunar
|
it arrived and I found the answer(s) myself;
First the scabbard does clearly not belong and some one sold it to the previous owner as being one.Which it isn't.
Secondly, looking at the decoration this tells it all:
1. the Bosnian Turc language written in Arabic signs is correct, but the latin one is "upside down". Root cause: the man doing this was "Latin" illiterate...
Why ? the date tells it all :
2. 1878 is the year of the Treaty of San Stephano and also Berlin, which changed the map of Europe and was the prelude to both the Balkan Wars 1910-13 and the Great War or WWI.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty..._other_regions
and coming back to the bichaq: the occupation of Bosnia by Habsburg and its insurrection in both 1878
so the maker had no clue how Latin writing looked like and hence the upside down "error" which is not seen in later knives, kamas, cakijas, bichaqs and yataghans
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austro...govina_in_1878
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Had%C5%BEi_Loja
which makes this bichaq unique and a "quicky":
being made just first half 1878 it had the Arab decoration, just to be added with the Latin in 1878 in the occupation year when Sarajevo was "apeaced" and the prohibition of bichaq and yataghan production not yet active (1878-1882) to sell to one of the sr. K.u.K. militairy staff in charge of Bosnia. The maker wanted quickly to make some money and adjusted it for sale to the new rulers . Who can blame him in those troubled days...? Think also of Indonesia and Holland and the Tjikeroehs production
It also explains the "yataghan"like snakish blade which is typical Ottoman and can only been seen in the early Habsburgian / K.u.K. years as later the blades were straight.