Yathagan - for comment and translation

[TVV]

Originally Posted by Martin Lubojacky

Pls, could you direct me to a book, where one could find basic typology of yathagan handles ?

There is none. In Astvatsaturian's book on Turkish weapons (in Russian), there is a table showing various yataghan hilt variants, but there is no attribution of hilts to geographic areas. Astvatsaturian does divide yataghans into basic groups (A, B, C, etc.), and makes some assumptions on origin, but admits these are just her own assumptions. She is wrong on some of them, like plaing Greek yataghans in Eastern Anatolia, for example. From what I recall, there is nothing like your yataghan in the book, except the hilt variant shown in the afore mentioned table.

Elgood's latest book only deals with main Balkan yataghan types, and Croatian and Turkish catalogues are just books with a lot of pictures and basic descriptions, but no attribuions. Well, the Turkish catalogue (in Turkish) acually classifies all yataghans as Otoman, which is not very helpful.

This one is obviously an unusual type with its straight blade, and I have not commented simply because I have no idea where it could be from. There are a lot of straight blade yataghans in the Croatian Museum catalogue, suggesting that straight blades were popular in the Western Balkans, but this one is more slender compared to the catalogue examples. The leather wrapping at the scabbard mouth is reminiscent of Asia Minor examples. The ears and the bolster are of a rare form.

Nice yataghan in any case.

Regards,
Teodor