Hello Jim,
Thanks for clearing up these questions for me, same goes for the kaskara. I was aware of the influences Mameluk sabres had on Napoleon's forces, even he kept a number of famous ones as I recall. On blades with slighter curvature such as the one on this manding, I guess the point can well be used to stab, but on the extremely curved cavalry examples it would be of little use, if not aesthetic.
Lew, thank you for the link, it's a very usefull site. I see that deep ground was indeed quite even in 18th c. blades. Is it a relatively new development? As I recall medieval swords did not sport such wide, deep fullers, so -to me at least- it seems like a feature adapted from renaissance/baroque rapiers. Furthermore, did they become so popular on account of cavalry sabres?
So far I've accorded little interest to European blades, but they certainly have their beauty and merits.
Manolo
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