Interesting Kaskara from the Askeri Museum

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by Edster

TVV, Jim, Good observations.

It could be that the "kaskara" began to get its distinctive style via the relative flat ends of the Sennariya cross guard. Likely made in Sennar by local blacksmiths and distributed to the markets and fitted say at Shendy market to the imported blades. Then distributed throughout the area as complete swords as many caravans, including to Dongola, came through Shendy. It's not as complex to forge as the perhaps later developed lozenge style Sammaniya we normally recognise.

See discussion of the Sennariya guard from Page 9 of my Kaskara Crossguards paper and Figs. 8 & 9. (I can't extract the figures to illustrate.)

Best,
Ed

It seems quite likely that may be the case. There is an illustration of a Funj sultan holding kaskara with notably flared quillon terminals, which I am trying to locate. Years ago I was communicating with Timothy Kendall, a noted archaeologist specializing on Sudan, and he had a huge collection of Mahdist period items including weapons, which was on tour at the time. I still have the manuscript for the collection and in our discussions he expressed his ideas that the flared scabbard tip came from Meriotic iconography, and felt the exaggerated flare on the quillons was of Funj origin.

While I have had notions of strong Mamluk influence in Sudanese arms, it does not seem the profound presence was as prevalent as I thought. There can be no doubt that much earlier traditional Islamic swords were known in Egypt and of course Sudan, so some degree of those influences must have been at hand. It does seem that through the Funj prism, there was some measure of embellishment and exaggeration with elements as we have noted.

It has always been interesting that North African broadswords, with the takouba to the west in Sahara, west Africa had its own distinct styling ; while the kaskara, to the east, had its own.

In Burton, he shows the kaskara but refers to it as a Danakil sword, not at all associating it with the Baghirmi 'kaskara', and presumes the blade tip is flared or spatulate, probably by seeing the flared scabbard. It would appear the true kaskara was extremely little known in 1884, as Burton with renowned knowledge on swords has had these oversights.