Go on...show us your Choora!!

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by ariel

Ian,
I fully agree.


As I said, Tatiana's Choora will have to wait till my fellow is back from vacation, unless somebody wishes to take charge.

Egerton' Choora is a fact and I brought it into discussion. Whoever wishes to join the discussion is more than welcome.

An aside question: some chooras have wootz blades, a real good ones, with a pattern routinely attributed to Persia. Were they reuses? Imports from Persia? Local production? Any examples of Afghani wootz of 20th century? Any hard evidence of Choora manufacture outside the Khyber Pass area?

But... " Just the facts, ma'am"

Important to remember that the 'Khyber Pass' itself is but one notably pronounced area within the rather vast area in these regions which comprised the Khyber Agency of British administration. The tribes of the Khyber also situated far into adjacent areas, in most cases defying definitive geographic location.
It might be a consideration that the itinerant craftsmen known to be associated with the small hafted axe termed 'lohar' (these groups are actually termed Lohar as an ethnicity) may have been key in producing these smaller versions of 'Karud' form. Perhaps the always notable Persian influence of the pesh kabz lent to their evolution?
The term chuura itself as previously noted seems a Hindi colloquial for smaller knife, in this case probably a derivative of the karud form.

[Jim McDougall]

Please pardon my return to the Egerton images and text (I just noticed Davids post)....and while I realize this particular resource has obvious inadequacies , my purpose was to note again that the terminology for these knives does seem pertinent.
If the discussion is toward a terminus ante quem for the form we have come to know as 'choora' , then illustrations with accompanying text do have certain capacity in the material discussed...even if not definitive identification in corroborating the form.

Unless we define exactly what we are striving for in our discussion, it leads to misunderstanding and frustrating digressions unnecessarily. This topic is fascinating and not nearly well enough understood in the arms community.
Lets make this discussion notably constructive in remedying that