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Old 9th December 2023, 03:22 AM   #2
Jim McDougall
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Route 66
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I agree Ian, I hope somebody here got it as well. As you know, the 'Black Sea Yataghan' 'discussions' were pretty drawn out, and I had been researching those since I first got one back in the mid 90s.

These are part of the genre that includes the so called Black Sea yataghan, years later found to be a Laz bichagi, from these people situated in various Transcaucasian and Anatolian regions.

In the 1962 book by Gerhard Seifert , "Schwert Degen Sabel", one of the 'Black Sea Yataghans' was pictured and identified as a KURDISH ARMENIAN YATAGHAN. When I spoke with him, he told me he had been informed of that ID by his mentor (as he said) Holgar Jacobsen of Denmark, the author of "Origins of the Shashka" (1941), who had included these in his paper.
In the paper, this form was shown with others in this group, in a plate from an obscure work by Count Jeno Vichy, of Hungary, on his travels in the Caucusus and Central Asia...titled "A Magyar Faj Vander Pa'Sa'" .
In this the swords are termed 'kardok'. simply the Hungarian term for sword.

Possibly this might explain the Armenian label? These varied types seem to have gotten around, and according to someone I knew in Tblisi, they were far from unknown in those areas as well.

I dont think we ever got any kind of resolution on these types of swords with these odd cleft hilts, and this one with the radically curved blade is truly an anomaly...Ive seen them before but only one or two over many years
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