Ethiopean Sword

[Bill M]

Originally Posted by Conogre

A comment and a question, even if perhaps a little dumb.
As to the horn hilt, rhino is a possibility, based upon the close-up photo in which the thermometer is seen, as the edge shows a "roughened" area, but in all the hilt appears too translucent to my eye, a tough call with just photographs.

Mike, There is a piece of the hilt broken off near the blade. The hilt does have a translucency to it. I did work to get the backlight to shine through it.

Most of the rhino horn I have seen looks more like wood, but here are some blond-looking rhino horn hilts.

http://www.oriental-arms.com/item.php?id=567
http://www.oriental-arms.com/item.php?id=1710

Originally Posted by Conogre

Keep in mind that rhino and giraffe horn are compacted hair that's completely opaque and not naturally shiny unless carefully buffed and polished.

I recently met with a collector who has an incredible Jambiya with Giraffe hilt. It was slightly translucent and a strange, but beautiful greenish color. He said that someone told him that the Giraffe horn is too fibrous to make good hilts and that the hilt was made from a Giraffe hoof. I had never seen one before.

Most of the rhino horn I have seen looked very much like wood, but there are five different kinds of rhino alive today. Maybe one has this kind of horn???

http://www.priweb.org/ed/ICTHOL/ICTH...papers/42.html

"The most interesting fact about the rhino horns is that it is made of hair. Most people associate hair with soft furry substance found on ones head. But the rhino horns were extremely hard and sharp. The horns of cows are hollow with a bone core, but rhino horns are made of fused, fibrous constructions that are solid all the way through. The fibers are hairs that are attached to the nose by skin supported by a raised, roughened area on the skull."

Originally Posted by Conogre

As to the question, is this still called a gurade, based upon the hilt, even though it has a perfectly straight blade?

At any rate, it's a completely beautiful sword, and while I'm not usually impressed by "blood stains" and the like, my own preferences are to a sharpened blade, particularly in military pieces, unless it was done with a Dremmel or on a garage grinder with a heavy hand.
Mike

The sharpening is OK with me.