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Originally Posted by mahratt
Rivkin and Astvatsaturyan wrote a book about the Caucasus weapons. Stone did not know the Afghan shashkas. Yes, and "Bukhara"shashkas Stone is not written. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Try to think big. Beyond the clichés.
Reread again signs of checkers from my post.
Jim, that's what I call - overdo to the point of absurdity.
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Indeed it is
but good to have some levity, these intense 'discussions' can sometimes be trying. The point is well taken though, sometimes the fact of a sabre without a guard as a key factor does not qualify it immediately as being a 'shashka'.
So then, do we turn to the notable cleft in the pommel?
As seen with the Turkish sabre with yataghan hilt, the blade is clearly a sabre, not recurved or deep bellied as with the true yataghan blade form.
The hilt does not have the same cleft character, it is more eared. But we see the point made.
It is interesting to see the number of other guardless sabres in the world, and of course obviously NOT in the shashka realm.
It seems clearly that we are off to a good start, and everyone thinking quite largely!!! as would be expected here.
I think personally that one of the biggest obstacles in weapons classification is the incessant need to categorize into arbitrary groupings, without some sort of accurate qualification. As we have seen, the term 'psuedo' fails as a prefix, where in the case of Afghan or Uzbek sabres, the term(s) of Caucasian shashka form might serve better.
Since these were in proximity or somewhat in the geographical context of areas of Caucasian influence, then that description seems reasonable.
It is well established that the Russian and via them, Caucasian influences might have filtered into these regions with their presence there.
In the cases of other guardless sabres such as katanas et al, obviously in far reaching areas without notable contact with indigenous areas or ethnicities of the shashka, that term or dominator clearly fails.
In many cases though, other prefixes noting similarities or key features similar to other swords in their proximities, such as the dhas of SE Asia, Chinese dao and others might work as required.