Karabela? Persian? Balkan?

[S.Al-Anizi]

Interesting find rivkin, this says that the blade could be Persian then.

[ham]

Gentlemen,

The hilt of the sword is late Qajar, the blade is a Caucasian, probably Amuzgi made, copy of a Persian saber blade. This type is covered in Elgood Arabian Arms.
The name 'karabela' may or may not derive from Turkish. Both Elgood and Pinchot argue for the city of Karbala, see Elgood Arabian Arms, Pinchot Shamshirs.

Ham

[Yannis]

I see so many similarities from Manoucher’s book that I am certain for Zand period too. The Qajar supporters must give us some examples to backup their opinion.
Of course I have to admit that I didn’t knew anything about Zand period before this. Eftihis, did I earned my salary?

[Rivkin]

If my memory does not betray me, Zand is a family that ruled in the second half of XVIIIth century. The only dynasty of farsi (lori) background, spent zt least the half of their rule fighting turkish lords-Qajars and other semi-independent leaders. Lost to Qajars in the end of XVIIIth century.

Now I am no specialist on the matter, but first of all I always found it to be problematic to definitely distinguish between some of Qajar and Zand pieces, they are often done in the same style. The similarities are substantial, with an exception of touristy or very low quality revival pieces. Why I think this work is Qajar? The image is kind of soft and gives me the feeling of XIXth century processes - etching or something else. Indeed the style is reminiscent of Zand-Qajar, but I do think it is Qajar and btw not early Qajar.

Now with the blade I am even less of an expert - my take was somewhere in Azerbajan, north-south. Ham is probably right (?) with his Dagestani attribution.

[Rivkin]

Rered Minorsky - Zand dynastry was kurdish and not farsi. Shame on me.

[Rivkin]

Ladies and Gentlemen (or minding that so far we have only Dr. Feuerbach, should I say Lady and Gentlemen ?)

After rereading Astvatzaturjan and some other literature, I think I can rephrase their ideas on how to distinguish Dagestani from Persian per se shamshirs (never mind the georgian shamshirs for now, their fullers are different):

1. If the blade is wootz, the blade is most likely Persian
2. If the blade is plain steel or mechanical damascus, it something like half by half or so.
3. If the blade has fullers, it is most likely Dagestani.

Do you agree with such classification ?
It seems that in this case the blade is most certainly Dagestani ?
This blade actually satisfies what Astv. thinks to be distinctive Amuzga qualities: fullers start 1/4 of the blade away from the hilt, one is small next to the blunt side, other(s) are bigger, they slowly converge towards one to another, and around the blade only the big one(s) remains.

[Jim McDougall]

I've be rereading this thread and would like to continue it a bit further, I think the discussion had some excellent input and would like to learn a bit more on the topic (s).
In doing a little research, I wanted to add some observations on the term 'karabela'. I don't think it is a general term for sword used in the sense of 'qaddara' or 'puluoar', but is applied distinctly to the hilt form on primarily Polish sabres with this hilt. As has been observed, the form has carried into other Eastern European countries as well.
The hilt typically is of stylized eagle head form, and seems to have been taken from Ottoman sabres with such hilts captured by the Polish at the Siege of Vienna in 1683 ("Polish Sabres: Their Origins and Evolution" by J.Ostrowski & W.Bochnak, in "Art,Arms and Armour" Ed.R.Held, Chiasso, 1979).

In this paper, it is noted that the 'karabela' term etymology remains unexplained, noting further the suggestions of the Italian possibility of 'cara' and 'bella' (the dear beauty) and the name of the city in Iraq, Kerbala.
The authors propose that more likely would be the city of Karabel in western Turkey, due only to the phonetic similarity, and noting the Turkish sabres which were captured in Vienna which had the same hilts.

While the highly stylized eagle profile does seem Ottoman, especially as evidenced by the captured examples from Vienna (see Wagner, "Cut and Thrust Weapons", London, 1967, p.214, pl.8), it does seem the stronger case for the 'karabela' term would be the Karbala origin. That is unless the Turks somehow conveyed the term to thier Polish captors, but it does not seem the term was used by the Turks in what I have seen so far. It should be noted here that the crossguards on the Turkish examples were with straight quillons.

It seems that for some reason, the Polish versions of the karabela typically had the key stylized eagle head hilt and had the downturned quillons on the crossguard form termed 'shariban' (per Radu 7/22/06). Examples of these hilts are seen in Wagner (op.cit. p.214, pl.9) and in "Ciecia Prawdziwa Szabla" (Warsaw, 1989, p.108) where the author notes the drooping quillons form was made by Armenian smiths (Lvov) while straight guard versions elsewhere.
It would seem the Armenian smiths may have carried considerable influence from the Caucusus, which in turn carried heavy Persian influence.

The almost trapezoidal profile of the hilt of the sword in discussion clearly represents Persian style as seen in the Zand example from Manouchers book, and the 'shariban' form crossguard reflects the early Islamic styles shown in "Islamic Swords and Swordsmiths" by Yucel (Istanbul, 2001, pp.15,74).
I agree that the hilt appears latter Qajar and as commonly seen reflecting 'revival' styles , as well as the blade being most likely Caucasian. It seems that the star occurs quite a lot on qaddaras which are made in Azerbijian, as shown in prior posts. Interestingly Azerbijian was the ancestral home of the Qajars, so the star may have some such association, and since regions there were so active in trade, possibly the sword is a 'revival' form item made likely last quarter 19th c.

Although I present nothing new with the conclusion on the sword here, except possibly the suggestion of Azerbijian being its origin, I just wanted to furnish some hopefully supportive detail, besides I enjoy wandering through the books ! Still unresolved on the karabela term, but I think its pretty much structly a European term. I dont think I would call this a karabela, but would note the hilt shape as resembling one.

All best regards,
Jim