Armour?

[Aqtai]

Originally Posted by Ahriman

Hm, 25% off any item you might buy from our shop?

Side pieces are done, by now the only missing piece is the spaulder, buyer comes for test fit tomorrow, so it'll be ready in less than a week with blackening... then, I'll have to make that musculata from King Arthur, and after that, I'll have time to (at least) start my own eastren harness.

Right, where do i start?

Well first of all there are many types of Arabic scripts (or fonts if you prefer), but the most common types you see on armour and weapons are
kufi, thuluth, and nastaliq.

Thuluth tended to used on most Mamluk and Ottoman armour in the 15th and 16th century, Nastaliq was used on Persian and Indian armour from the 16th to the 19th century. Kufic script was used on really old Fatimid and Ayyubid artifacts (and presumably arms and armour, although virtually non survives) as well as 15th century Iranian weapons and armour.

The other thing is that not all inscriptions on Islamic armour are Koranic verses or names and titles. Sometimes they are apparently meaningless jumbles of letters which actually have talismanic or "magical" meanings.

Here's an example of Thuluth script on a Mamluk sword:
(click on the thumbnail)




Here's Thuluth script on a 15th century Iranian "Turban helmet"
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y11...opolitan_1.jpg

Kufic script on a 15th century Iranian Greave:
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y11..._Iranian_1.jpg

I can't find any examples of Nastaliq script at the moment, I'll need to have a look around.