Great sword. From Morocco. I have seen a couple of nice pictures of Berber warriors wearing them. Though this type of sword has been reported as being from Ethiopia, I would say that it is not. The wrong identification is probably due to the fact that the hilt "looks" Ethiopian. But it ends there. It is quite possible that a few of these swords showed up in Ethiopian market places. A lot of weapons from all over the world did. Tony Tirri just published his secon GREAT book "ISLAMIC AND NATIVE WEAPONS OF COLONIAL AFRICA" and he agrees about it being from Morocco. When information on African weapons was VERY scanty, this sword was shown in A WEAPONS HISTORY OF AFRICA by A.W. Lindert. He said it was Ethiopian. Guess there was nobody to question his statement. But.... he said many things that were not accurate. I'll stick to the Berber version. As far as the "writing" is concern, I will suggest that it is simply a decorative pattern.
Have fun in Baltimore, Charles.
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