Turkish Ribbon yataghan
Hello folks,
I had the good fortune to pick up this yataghan a short while ago. The seller's pics suggested the blade might have a Turkish ribbon construction and it turned out to be the case. Blade is about 29", with 4-5 twisted bars.
It is dated 1271 - 1855. Can someone translate the small cartouche?
The handle scales are missing but it won't be too hard to replace them. The yataghan of this type I have seen had simple horn slabs, nothing fancy. At first look I thought the simple ferrule was a solder replacement. A very similar example on Oriental-Arms indicated that this is a pewter-silver alloy. It looks like it's meant to imitate the full silver/copper ferrules in appearance only. The blade has an integral bolster.
Also interesting is the blade's profile and thickness. It has a T-section and is about 1cm thick at the spine, over twice as thick as the Balkan yataghan I have (see pics below).
Comments, thoughts would be most welcome.
Emanuel
|