Indian Tegha Sword Stamp Inquiry

[Jim McDougall]

I also welcome you here! and as Jens has noted, an image of the entire sword is helpful as the designation of 'tegha' is often misunderstood and even misapplied on many Indian swords. While we understand your key interest in the marking, it is sometimes the case that markings may be better explained if full context is known.

For example, this particular mark is a copy of what was a known stamp used in Northern Italy, and often accompanied the 'eyelash' or 'sickle' markings which were profoundly familiar and often used by other arms centers.
These sometimes occurred in pairings or groupings as well.
They are from late 16th century, but used in Germany and Styria well through the 17thc.

India is known to have copied the 'sickle' marks often, but at times used this marking (sometimes referred to as 'mill rind' or 'twig' in European parlance) and often placed these in the blade location you show. In this location (near the distinctive blunted edge known as the 'Indian ricasso' on Indian blades, it seems this was some sort of traditional place to place these marks. Others used were the 'man in the moon' (from German copies of Spanish marks in 17th c); as well as the 'cog wheel' another Italian, then German mark same period.

The use of these marks on Indian blades spuriously placed carried well into and through the 19th c. representing venerable quality of earlier European blades.

The two first photos are similarly marked Indian tulwars with these type blades and the next a 16th c. European sword with similar mark...note blade location.