OTTOMAN....What do we mean?

[kahnjar1]

Thanks Gentlemen.
ARIEL....I agree with what you say, but the term Ottoman does not indicate to an UNinformed collector, where any particular weapon might come from. What I was trying to get at with my thread was the general use of the term. As an example, if I had a Yataghan and wanted to know where it came from (without tying it down to the last mile), I would find "Turkey/Balkans" far more informative than just "Ottoman".

DAVEA......Todays geographical boundries do not necessarily give the ACTUAL origin of a piece either as they have changed dramatically over time. A good example of this would be Saudi Arabia which did not even exist as a country until the 1930s, but we see items described as Saudi.
You mention Shan in terms of Myanmar etc. This is a bit different as we are talking TRIBAL here rather than an actual country. Other examples of this would be Tuareg and Berber.
Stu