Mysterious sword from Elgood's book

Rivkin · 23rd October 2006, 06:55 AM

I have looked through Babur-Name and the sword appears to be circassian made, i.e. chirkas - "circassian blade".
Interestingly enough Babur wears "kalmyk mail" - Chelebi, who traveled in Caucasus 100 year later mentions that kalmyk in Dagestan make very good mail; before him mail-makers in Dagestan are mentioned by almost every arab geographer of the area, however they mention that these are specifically people living in a "mail makers city" (Minorsky believed it is Kubachi, since Kubachi translates as "mailers").

It seems that these are indeed results of trade, however Kartli king had send Timur a few mails and according to some, albeit much later documents Timur replied back saying that he liked the mail very much.
Shah Abbad also had quite a peculiar taste - according to russian ambassador Andrey Zvenigorodsky when the latter was shown Shah's armour Shah told him that "Helmets from bulat and armour we make in our country, good and beutiful bulat we get from India, and the good armour we get from Circassia".
Citation is given from Veselovsky "Pamyatniki diplomaticheskiv i torgovyh otnoshenii Moskovskoi Rusi i Persii". So it seems that Abbas' armour was made you know where

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23rd October 2006, 06:55 AM	#8
Rivkin Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 655	I have looked through Babur-Name and the sword appears to be circassian made, i.e. chirkas - "circassian blade". Interestingly enough Babur wears "kalmyk mail" - Chelebi, who traveled in Caucasus 100 year later mentions that kalmyk in Dagestan make very good mail; before him mail-makers in Dagestan are mentioned by almost every arab geographer of the area, however they mention that these are specifically people living in a "mail makers city" (Minorsky believed it is Kubachi, since Kubachi translates as "mailers"). It seems that these are indeed results of trade, however Kartli king had send Timur a few mails and according to some, albeit much later documents Timur replied back saying that he liked the mail very much. Shah Abbad also had quite a peculiar taste - according to russian ambassador Andrey Zvenigorodsky when the latter was shown Shah's armour Shah told him that "Helmets from bulat and armour we make in our country, good and beutiful bulat we get from India, and the good armour we get from Circassia". Citation is given from Veselovsky "Pamyatniki diplomaticheskiv i torgovyh otnoshenii Moskovskoi Rusi i Persii". So it seems that Abbas' armour was made you know where . Last edited by Rivkin; 23rd October 2006 at 07:17 AM.