Brass dots on a blade??

[Jim McDougall]

Nice example of a good working janbiyya Steve, still an important element of a tribesmans accoutrements.
I think these dots in this configuration have turned up before on janbiyya but cannot recall specifics.
The placing of brass or gold metal dots has evolved from relatively ancient practice of doing so with either bronze or gold inlay or latten, a gold alloy from early Frankish blades. In these cases the finished blade had either symbols inlaid, or even sometimes simply a gold nail. The practice has become well known in North Africa, Arabia, India, even in a number of other settings, perhaps an influence diffused through trade.

In India, it is believed that the practice, often with single strategically placed dots might have apotropaic properties toward the iron in the blade. In many other cases where there are multiple dots, often in threes, these represent the trimurti, or trinity of three, often key in many Faiths. Perhaps these paired triple dots are placed as dual representation of that configuration.
I would suppose that as good a place to start as any.

Whether the numeric configurations have certain tribal significance would be hard to say, and hopefully our guys well versed in Arabian weapons and daggers might have details...Lew, Michael?

All the best,
Jim