Pesh Kabz - Afghanistan or Bukhara

[ariel]

Teodor,
The problem is really how do we view the examples coming from that part of the world: ethnicity or geography? The entire Northern Afghanistan was chock full by the native Central Asian tribes. Mazar-I- Sharif was and still is a predominantly Tajik. Cross the Pyanjj river, and you are in a different country. Both sides did it with abandon. Kind of like Rio Grande.

Flindt’s approach postulated that “ Bukharan” handles had 5 large rivets (2x1x2). BTW the rivets in question were not large: they were pretty standard thin ones, only they were surrounded by superficial rivets or just masked by disks.

We cannot attribute such handles specifically to Bukhara either: there were several other large khanates, - Khiva, Samarkand, Kokand,- that must have had their own decorative traditions.

On top of that , Central Asia was mainly populated by two large and often antagonistic ethnoses, Uzbeks and Tajiks, the former of Turkish , the latter of Persian cultural realm. One thing: because of that Uzbeks carried Pchaks ( compare with Turkish Bichaq) and the Iranian- related Tajks carried Pesh Kabz or a variant of Pchak they called Kord ( local pronunciation of Kard). Artzi Yarom noted that C.Asian rhino handles were cut radially. Was it made by a native master within one of the Central Asian khanates or by an ethnic Tajik within the geographical borders of Afghanistan cannot be stated with absolute certainty.

Perhaps, I might be on the strongest available grounds to call it just Tajik ( most likely) Pesh Kabz.