Ian,
Thank you very much for showing the hero stones(?) from your friends family. They are very interesting, and even more so should someone, with half an hour of free time :-) decide to start translating the texts.
The third one from the top, the one with the katar could be 16th century (but I am guessing). Compare the katar base to the on from Hamza shown in post 10. You will see that the 'V' on the base is very clear.
A century later the 'V' on the base flattened and sometimes almost dissapeared.
If you look through The Hamza book you will notice that of all the daggers/knives shown more than half are 'normal' daggers, and under half are katars. If you then have a look at King of the World, made about a century later, you will see that the picture has changed, and there are more katars than daggers.
Other katar bases developed in the later centuries, likely due to a new fashion, but the ones shown in Hamza and in King of the World continued to be used for centuries.
Jim and Fernando,
Thank you for your mails. I am not too happy, when you say that the origin of the katar was Rajput. I would be far happier if you said Hindu, as I untill further, believe that the katars origin is south af India.
The warrior Jaiwant Paul shows in his book would likely be a prince or a nobleman, but it is hard to say from which time, maybe late 17th to 18th century. The drawing is new, but it may have been copied from an old miniature.
Ibrahim,
The piece from Wikepedia is interesting reading, but I would not put my name under it.
It is true that the katars with the time got more and more fantastic, like the ones with two pistols attached, but I doubt how practical it was in combat.
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