Mystery Inscription on Controversial Sword

Jim McDougall · 9th June 2014, 04:31 AM

As far as I have understood, as indicated in post #6 with the references attributed to Charles Buttin, I would regard this to be a Moroccan sboula. As discussed over the years, the Burton reference has classified this as a 'Zanzibar' sword along with the familiar Omani kattara with cylindrical hilt. However the Buttin reference is most reliable and he cites Burton's error in perpetuating the Demmin (1877) reference .
The reason these ended up with Ethiopian association is that an apparent number of these were among weapons shown in the pamphlet "Weapons of Africa" as well as there are examples with Amharic 'geez' script. These are most likely to have arrived there via trade networks.

As always, there is probably no 'agreement' on proper term or attribution but this is my perception over the past 10 or 12 years.

9th June 2014, 04:31 AM	#11
Jim McDougall Arms Historian Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Route 66 Posts: 10,281	As far as I have understood, as indicated in post #6 with the references attributed to Charles Buttin, I would regard this to be a Moroccan sboula. As discussed over the years, the Burton reference has classified this as a 'Zanzibar' sword along with the familiar Omani kattara with cylindrical hilt. However the Buttin reference is most reliable and he cites Burton's error in perpetuating the Demmin (1877) reference . The reason these ended up with Ethiopian association is that an apparent number of these were among weapons shown in the pamphlet "Weapons of Africa" as well as there are examples with Amharic 'geez' script. These are most likely to have arrived there via trade networks. As always, there is probably no 'agreement' on proper term or attribution but this is my perception over the past 10 or 12 years.