Turkish shamshir ?

[ham]

These blades begin to appear in shashkas in the NW Caucasus in the mid-late 18th century, appear more commonly in all manner of Caucasian, Ottoman and Arab weapons by the mid 19th, and finally, appear in profusion in bedouin sabres by the early 20th-- therefore for purposes of this discussion they are probably best bounded between 1800-1900.

Eduard Wagner shows a number of such blades in Eastern European and Austro-Hungarian Empire mounts as early as the late 17th-early 18th century, though the earliest examples bear a far more pronounced (i.e. raised) backedge. The binding characteristic among them all is their distinctive fullering and what Wagner calls cabalistic markings. Stamped maker's marks or signatures begin to appear wth frequency at the forte and occasionally upon the tangs of these blades after 1850. Clauberg was a big producer, as was Knecht, whose mark was a close helmet. Both were German, so far as the term defines them, not Hungarian, though originally it is from Hungary that the form derives, and to Poland where so many were locally mounted.

Fullscale export from Europe to the MidEast, Caucasus, etc. via the Porte (i.e. Istanbul) probably began to occur about the 1850s, though the form was definitely popular in the Ottoman sphere from at least a century before. Caucasian "copy" export production probably began a decade or two later-- a classic reaction to the popularity of an imported luxury product which was available through a single source, in short supply and therefore pricey. The village of Amuzgh in Daghestan was especially well-known for a broad range of blade types. These were intended to pass as Euopean, hence were not locally maker-marked, in fact it is probable that the increase in marked blades out of Europe in the late 19th century was in reaction to these Caucasian copies.


Ham