Ethiopian alternative straight swords

[Iain]

Originally Posted by Ibrahiim al Balooshi

Salaams Iain ~ I am interested in the influence if any of Schiavona blades on African and Red Sea regional weapons. The double edge style are quite similar.

Regards,
Ibrahiim al Balooshi

Ibrahiim, double edged straight swords, like the one Teodor linked, have been in use by the Mamluks well before schiavonas.


Teodor, I think you might have something with that link, the guard style is remarkably similar and with these swords I've seen a variety of flattish pommels used. There is a long history of contact between Mamluk Egypt and Ethiopia. Most of it not at all friendly! This makes for interesting reading.


Jim, this particular blade has the wrong profile for a German trade blade, at least any that I've seen. The fuller is too long and narrow. Whereas the typical export patterns had broader fullers and much shorter. The edge geometry is also wrong for a trade blade I think, this is much flatter. For those reasons I am really starting to think Teodor hit the nail on the head and this is quite possibly a Mamluk sword.

Cheers,

Iain

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Originally Posted by Iain

Ibrahiim, double edged straight swords, like the one Teodor linked, have been in use by the Mamluks well before schiavonas.


Teodor, I think you might have something with that link, the guard style is remarkably similar and with these swords I've seen a variety of flattish pommels used. There is a long history of contact between Mamluk Egypt and Ethiopia. Most of it not at all friendly! This makes for interesting reading.


Jim, this particular blade has the wrong profile for a German trade blade, at least any that I've seen. The fuller is too long and narrow. Whereas the typical export patterns had broader fullers and much shorter. The edge geometry is also wrong for a trade blade I think, this is much flatter. For those reasons I am really starting to think Teodor hit the nail on the head and this is quite possibly a Mamluk sword.

Cheers,

Iain

Salaams Iain ~ I quite agree and according to the museum in Istanbul it belongs to Ottoman then Mamluke and before that back to Abbasiid and before that to their respected Greek influence ( they were fanatical about most things Greek)... It is related to the Abbasiid weapon to which I link the Old Omani Battle Sword by timeline and design. I am simply probing the Schiavona link in addition.. I hope thats reasonable.
Salaams,
Ibrahiim al Balooshi.

[Jim McDougall]

Excellent call Iain! I think I must be getting too cautious in my old age as I hesitated to be that optimistic, but looking at it, your astute eye has pretty well caught the key points. I think that with that being the case this could very well be an old Mamluk blade.
While many of these swords were taken by the Ottomans to Istanbul, there were certainly many which diffused into surrounding regions over time.

All the best,
Jim

[Iain]

This blade seems very similar in profile.

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Originally Posted by Iain

This blade seems very similar in profile.

Salaams Iain ~ I agree . It looked like it had been rounded at the tip which was originally pointed. I suspect stiff blades like these which are fighting blades originally floated down the red sea and onto swords in Ethiopia, Yemen and Saudia.... Probably onto Bedawi weapons and rehilted onto various others like this Karabela. I see these as being cousins(?) when hilted on long Omani hilts though I question the ability to use as dancers in the Omani style.
Regards,
Ibrahiim al Balooshi.

[Iain]

The mounts on the Ethiopian example are still a bit of a puzzle. I wish there were more photos... However from what I can see I think the Mamluk option is the most likely.

The hilt seems to correspond well to this example.

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Originally Posted by Iain

The mounts on the Ethiopian example are still a bit of a puzzle. I wish there were more photos... However from what I can see I think the Mamluk option is the most likely.

The hilt seems to correspond well to this example.

Salaams Iain~ Do you attribute these to Ottoman or Mamluke or Abbasid ? I have them down as Ottoman>Mamluki> Abasiid ~ they are most certainly from the earlier style and could go back as far as the Greek... I wondered where on the ladder you were linking these... or perhaps to the entire lineage? Regards Ibrahiim al Balooshi

[A.alnakkas]

The symbol on the blade is 3 crescents and 3 stars, I thought at first that it could be a reference to Mohammed Ali dynasty (Khediwi's) but it could be something else.

[Jim McDougall]

Iain, the example you show in post #10 is an interesting example of a type of hilt which resembles the European 'karabela' hilts and is noted as having been found often in Yemen and various Arabian regions. I have one of these exact hilts with a short hanger type blade, and I will try to find photos. They seem to have the exact same features with the horn karabela hilt, roundels and the wire wrapped hilt neck, short crossguard.
It seems many of the short versions of these likely did find use in the maritime trade networks, as I understood when I first obtained this back in the 90s sometime.

The blade on this does resemble German trade blades of the mid to latter 19th century as we have discussed, and could very well have been among the 'blanks' exported for North Africa. It is actually unusual as far as I have known to see this type blade on this style hilt.

Lofty, the cosmological grouping seems to be a variation of the marks used by the Solingen Schimmelbusch and Kirschbaum families, who produced blade through the 19th century. Thier mark was basically a shooting star surrounded by stars, usually groupings of six, however there were numbers of variations including the tail of the shooting star perceived as a crescent, which led to multiples of crescents and stars. As with many of these marks, it is believed importers would add thier interpretations to these blades, which were seen as talismanic by native traders and buyers.

Ibrahiim, these blades probably were among those which entered the Red Sea trade typically through the Egyptian entrepot, and while most went into the Sudanese markets for kaskara, many seem to have entered Arabia via Yemen. Here it seems some of the blades were mounted in San'a, and of course some blades went via caravan to the east. These straight blades would seem more likely to have been destined for the Omani sayfs, but of course here is one which apparantly stopped short of that destination.

As we have seen, the other heavily channeled blade with three fullers and known to be Ethiopian (also Solingen import) was another blade form which seems to have been hilted in these Yemeni regions.

The suggestion on the possible influence of 'schiavona' blades in the Red Sea trade actually does have merit in that Italy was indeed a source for North African blades from end of the 16thc into the 17th (Briggs. p.90). The primary points of entry seem to have been Tunis, Tripoli and Benghazi. Here they entered caravan routes and of course diffused in various directions.
Though it seems that they were superceded by German imports, it remains unclear how extensively Italian blades continued. The volume of German blades certainly overtook that of the Italian.

Just to clarify though, again with terminology, the term 'schiavona' refers primarily to the trellis hilt swords used typically in Venice, and these particular swords though usually backswords, did on occasion have broadsword blades. The presence of broadswords among Italian swords of various forms is of course well established, most of these considered and called by the term 'arming swords', which included rapier type hilts with heavier blades for military rather than civilian use.

I am curious which Greek swords you are noting in the previous post on the Mamluk sword.

All the best,
Jim