Iain, the example you show in post #10 is an interesting example of a type of hilt which resembles the European 'karabela' hilts and is noted as having been found often in Yemen and various Arabian regions. I have one of these exact hilts with a short hanger type blade, and I will try to find photos. They seem to have the exact same features with the horn karabela hilt, roundels and the wire wrapped hilt neck, short crossguard.
It seems many of the short versions of these likely did find use in the maritime trade networks, as I understood when I first obtained this back in the 90s sometime.
The blade on this does resemble German trade blades of the mid to latter 19th century as we have discussed, and could very well have been among the 'blanks' exported for North Africa. It is actually unusual as far as I have known to see this type blade on this style hilt.
Lofty, the cosmological grouping seems to be a variation of the marks used by the Solingen Schimmelbusch and Kirschbaum families, who produced blade through the 19th century. Thier mark was basically a shooting star surrounded by stars, usually groupings of six, however there were numbers of variations including the tail of the shooting star perceived as a crescent, which led to multiples of crescents and stars. As with many of these marks, it is believed importers would add thier interpretations to these blades, which were seen as talismanic by native traders and buyers.
Ibrahiim, these blades probably were among those which entered the Red Sea trade typically through the Egyptian entrepot, and while most went into the Sudanese markets for kaskara, many seem to have entered Arabia via Yemen. Here it seems some of the blades were mounted in San'a, and of course some blades went via caravan to the east. These straight blades would seem more likely to have been destined for the Omani sayfs, but of course here is one which apparantly stopped short of that destination.
As we have seen, the other heavily channeled blade with three fullers and known to be Ethiopian (also Solingen import) was another blade form which seems to have been hilted in these Yemeni regions.
The suggestion on the possible influence of 'schiavona' blades in the Red Sea trade actually does have merit in that Italy was indeed a source for North African blades from end of the 16thc into the 17th (Briggs. p.90). The primary points of entry seem to have been Tunis, Tripoli and Benghazi. Here they entered caravan routes and of course diffused in various directions.
Though it seems that they were superceded by German imports, it remains unclear how extensively Italian blades continued. The volume of German blades certainly overtook that of the Italian.
Just to clarify though, again with terminology, the term 'schiavona' refers primarily to the trellis hilt swords used typically in Venice, and these particular swords though usually backswords, did on occasion have broadsword blades. The presence of broadswords among Italian swords of various forms is of course well established, most of these considered and called by the term 'arming swords', which included rapier type hilts with heavier blades for military rather than civilian use.
I am curious which Greek swords you are noting in the previous post on the Mamluk sword.
All the best,
Jim
|