In Italy there is a town, named Scarperia, where most of the high quality knives have been made for centuries. There is a museum dedicated to locally made blades. The museum hosts blades related exhibitions. In 2016, from July 30 to October 30, the exhibition was devoted to "Blades from the Horn of Africa". Most of the blades were on loan from the Ethnographic Museum of Florence. The blades includes everyday utensils and some weapons. These items had been collected from around 1880 to 1900 by scientific expeditions in the Horn of Africa, mostly Eritrea that, at the time, was becoming an Italian colony. The knife on page 21 of the small catalogued printed at the time of the Exhibition caught my attention. It was collected, according to museum records, in Eritrea, by a Carlo Gastaldi, between 1888 and 1898. The scabbard is in brass. The blade has Kuranic writing. So, my guess would be that it came to Eritrea from across the Sudanese border. The Eritrean Beni-Amer and Beja nomads know no boundaries. Especially 100 years + ago. So the question really is: is this knife it Eritrean or Sudanese? I believe that it is the PLACE where it was found and not the place where it was made that will establish that. Otherwise, half of my Ethiopian swords would have to be called European..... Cheers, RON
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