Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post - Review of "Arms and Armour from Iran" by M. Khorasani

Rivkin · 16th November 2006, 08:59 AM

Why not. Astvatzaturjan, "Oruzhie Narodov Kavkaza", p.202 ..."Besides signatures on the blades they used to put (long description of various items)... with a singature Haderat Shah Abbas, meaning "His Highness Shah Abbas"". Or for example on page 333 about georgian shamshirs: "Real iranian bular blades of XVIIIth century are rare. Much more often we see steel blades of caucasian work, imitating iranian shape with signatures imitating those on iranian blades". Sometimes this imitation was sort of painless, like "no hero but Ali, no sword but Zulfakar" on Geurk's blades, but sometimes it was quite menacing.

Now most of Amuzga "fakes" are quite easy to identify, even those that are copies: in XIXth century some russian noblemen would send a persian blade to Kubachi asking to make a copy.
In the end of Kubachi/Amuzga story I would say that I personally have seen a lot of absolutely fantastic blades from there attributed to various Iranian leaders, mostly to Nader-Shah (don't know why, but Kubachians probably were proud to withstand his siege).
There are even legends coming around about all of this, for example Rasul Gamzatov cites a funny legend "Napoleon was given by Persians a blade of Timur, the East is great, those of knowledge when looked at the blade immideately identified it as coming from Amuzga".

Look out for turks as well. Astvatzaturjan, "Turezkoe Oruzhie", p.111: "Comparing to sabres kilij, sabres shamshir have few signatures, From 21 sabres in the State Historical Museum, 7 are signed and only 2 of them are dated. Both blades and signatures were made in Turkey (using turkish methods of signing), but were supposed to be the work of iranian masters, specifically .... Assadullah from Isfahan. That is why the fake signature "Work of Assadullah from Isfahan" appears often on the blades from Hermitage and State historical museum".

Finally there is a blade that was recently shown by Dr. Feuerbach. I could not read "Shah Abbas" there, but I think I trust al-Anitzi. Is it also an early XVIIth century ?

In short, faking Timurs, Abbases, Assadullah was a profitable and respectable thing to do. I am not an expert and hope to be corrected by you, frequent (Ruel, Doug, Manoucher ?), or others, who are more of an expert. I hope numerous russian-speaking people here can check the translation.

Concerning friendly place - well we can occasionally ask questions here, don't we ?

16th November 2006, 08:59 AM	#29
Rivkin Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 655	Why not. Astvatzaturjan, "Oruzhie Narodov Kavkaza", p.202 ..."Besides signatures on the blades they used to put (long description of various items)... with a singature Haderat Shah Abbas, meaning "His Highness Shah Abbas"". Or for example on page 333 about georgian shamshirs: "Real iranian bular blades of XVIIIth century are rare. Much more often we see steel blades of caucasian work, imitating iranian shape with signatures imitating those on iranian blades". Sometimes this imitation was sort of painless, like "no hero but Ali, no sword but Zulfakar" on Geurk's blades, but sometimes it was quite menacing. Now most of Amuzga "fakes" are quite easy to identify, even those that are copies: in XIXth century some russian noblemen would send a persian blade to Kubachi asking to make a copy. In the end of Kubachi/Amuzga story I would say that I personally have seen a lot of absolutely fantastic blades from there attributed to various Iranian leaders, mostly to Nader-Shah (don't know why, but Kubachians probably were proud to withstand his siege). There are even legends coming around about all of this, for example Rasul Gamzatov cites a funny legend "Napoleon was given by Persians a blade of Timur, the East is great, those of knowledge when looked at the blade immideately identified it as coming from Amuzga". Look out for turks as well. Astvatzaturjan, "Turezkoe Oruzhie", p.111: "Comparing to sabres kilij, sabres shamshir have few signatures, From 21 sabres in the State Historical Museum, 7 are signed and only 2 of them are dated. Both blades and signatures were made in Turkey (using turkish methods of signing), but were supposed to be the work of iranian masters, specifically .... Assadullah from Isfahan. That is why the fake signature "Work of Assadullah from Isfahan" appears often on the blades from Hermitage and State historical museum". Finally there is a blade that was recently shown by Dr. Feuerbach. I could not read "Shah Abbas" there, but I think I trust al-Anitzi. Is it also an early XVIIth century ? In short, faking Timurs, Abbases, Assadullah was a profitable and respectable thing to do. I am not an expert and hope to be corrected by you, frequent (Ruel, Doug, Manoucher ?), or others, who are more of an expert. I hope numerous russian-speaking people here can check the translation. Concerning friendly place - well we can occasionally ask questions here, don't we ?