Odd Sword

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Dear all; If I may return the focus of the thread initially to #1
where A 5 I IJ IJ A is shown on one swordface.

The A is with a short accent on top and the crosspiece is either vee or tee shaped. It occurs at both ends of the script.

The 5 is without its top like the Hebrew letter Zayin. It could stand for the Sword of Jesus...

The I may infact not be a straight I as it appears to have a tiny line in its centre. It could be an F or an I.

The IJ IJ may be Hebrew letters. ....It could be IS

The final letter is another A.

It is not known which way to read this line... The whole thing could be a reference to a holy script or it may only be known as a secret code to the owner. Inn addition it could be wrongly struck and some letters could be upside down... It makes for an interesting code break...Any takers??

Regards,
Ibrahiim al Balooshi

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Salaams all...The fact is ..that in any study of European Arms and Armour ...at some point in proceedings the serious research student must open the page on this particular strata of fascinating if a little brain bruising work...All European swords come from this stable... The student of Ethnographics runs into related work in Talisman blade marks, Viking, Runes, Latin, Roman, Anglo Saxon and other peculiar alphabets ....

In this thread I continue to look for the peculiar A with the funny top and vee shaped crossbar...and below here is the answer in part; Bavarian or Old German Script.

Regards,
Ibrahiim al Balooshi.

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Salaams all... and ~

Interesting similarity in the peculiar A letter show up in Forum at #152 of http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...3&page=6&pp=30 indicating the Toledo situation...

and at picture 60 on http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...3&page=7&pp=30

and at #204 on the Bergundian Halibard also at http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...3&page=7&pp=30

Following that, if I may reproduce the exact post as the late Michael who stated among his brilliant details on European Weapons the following...

Quote" The Gothic majuscule A mark no. 60 in Waldman's book stands, as I have pointed out several times, for the Bavarian weapons center of the city of Augsburg. In this case it is struck and brass-inlaid on an early 16th c. halberd formerly in Waldman's collection and sold by Christie's a few years ago.

For another Augsburg Gothic A mark on a 14th c. blade, please see

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...rg+Gothic+mark ''.Unquote.

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Are we looking at a sword from Augsberg? or is this only an example of the Majuscule A letter? I have to say it is interesting since the other capitals seem to be bracketted by an A at each end; perhaps indicating an Augsberg foundry...Could this be a birthmark?

In respect of this situation I reproduce this post by Jim McDougall on this subject and from the above thread as follows;

Quote" Michael, thank you so much for the kind words, and for the illustrations of the haquebut c.1600 with one of these majuscule 'A''s.

In going through "Waffenkunde" (W.Boeheim, 1890, p.678) an marking which is very much like the shape of this A with the crossbar atop and no center bar is shown as unidentified, but attributed to Augsburg 15th century. Thus, it seems that the character may have been known without the central rib as well and in Augsburg.

In Boeheim, other examples of these type A letters are seen with other initials and types of crossbar and serif, some attributed to 16th century makers or armourers such as Durer, Aldegrever and Glockendon all from various cities.

It seems that even among the Toledo and Madrid smiths a number of them of the 16th century used the letter A enclosed in cartouche of varying shapes, but often square, with one using the identical style A with V shape crossbar (listed in "Arms and Armour", A. Demmin, 1877, p.567). This one is shown to Alonzo de Caba, armourer. Another with extended bar top cap and drooping serifs at ends, straight center bar to Alonzo de Buena, of same period. There are a number of other A types with varying flourish, serif or structure.

While these obviously indicate the initial of the armourer, it was interesting to see the similarity in majascule style A to these German examples, suggesting the well known traffic in arms and armour commerce between these countries.

Returning to the more arcane, with the mysterious Westphalia tribunals previously mentioned, they had several little known coded alphabets, in which the diagonal lines with top bar and dropped serifs at the ends in the basic shape of the A sans crossbar......in one alphabet the letter 'L' is signified and in another the letter 'Y'. (Demmin, p.582).

So it would seem perhaps that while the letter A could signify Augsburg in the case of the stamp on the haquebut and other items, these stylized majascule letters with varying embellishments also may have been more widely used with different meanings in other parlances. There are many markings which reflect makers marks, with others being monograms of rulers of minor principalities, then of course the guild marks of various centers of arms production.

These are the mysteries that make the study of these blade markings so fascinating"! Unquote.


Regards,
Ibrahiim al Balooshi.

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

The Majiscule letter A .

[fernando]

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

The Majescule Letter A...Again !

[fernando]

Where did you get this one, Ibrahiim ?

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

To refocus for a moment on the project sword at #1 here is the script we are considering ...

[fernando]

I was conculting my books in order to establish some points referring to a large XIII century originated convent that exits in the town next to mine and, when i saw the illumination of the first page of the charter given to the convent by King Dom Manuel in 1516, i noticed this A with a funny top ... but with a sraight crossbar. It seems as we had part of this fashion over here .


.

[Helleri]

I've found this site to be very useful in looking up and comparing systems of writing.

[Jim McDougall]

It is good to see this thread back, and the focus on possible identification of the sword blade. As with so many ethnographic situations blades such as this one, typically European, whether trade or otherwise acquired, are often remounted many times in their working lives. Apparently there were many caches of blades in Bedouin holdings which were eventually filtered into locations in Arabia where they were remounted into swords for various situations.

This blade, with its most curious lettered inscription, appears to be a 17th century European arming sword blade as we have discussed. The 'cross' is a device often termed the 'anchor' which is found at the end of the fuller or often inscribed panel at its termination. While this one seems quite rudimentary, these are often more complex with numerous cross bars.

As we have seen, it seems fruitless to try to determine the origin of these characters, which appear to be assembled from various sources and perhaps alphabets. In these times and earlier, it was quite common to have various mottos, phrases and invocations placed in acrostic form on blades. In Italy there are variations of these kinds of inscriptions which seem like entirely unintelligible gibberish. The same kinds of inscriptions occur in even earlier times on blades found in England with what are termed 'magical' inscriptions.

In many cases, often on Spanish blades, there are magical symbols interpolated with otherwise regular lettering, and we can surmise that such practice may have applied to these kinds of acrostics. Often they were disguised religious invocations or talismanic devices. In many cases these characters are of numerical rather than alphabetic value, and numbers in magic are assigned particular meanings and values. For example the numbers on many blades such as 1441; 1414 and others are often perceived as dates, but are actually magic combinations.

On the blades of East European swords as mentioned, there were such talismanic wordings often with curious symbols and devices, many of these known as the 'Transylvania knot', though not literally a tied cord or knot.
I have had swords with 'Hungarian' blades with such 'wording' which when I tried to have translated, were simply unintelligible groupings of letters.

With the hussar sabres noted, actually the 'Gypsies' were responsible for certain decoration of swords and they did metalwork particularly on scabbards and hilts, but they did not produce swords. In most research concerning symbols on these East European swords, and contact with Gypsy sources, none I found were having to do with their unique language nor symbolism. It was a good thought though as I felt at the time.

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Originally Posted by Helleri

I've found this site to be very useful in looking up and comparing systems of writing.

Salaams Helleri, It gets complicated as we know that even alphabets were mixed up ...The entire blade script may be a code known only to the owner..and the meanings of scripts some of which may be local religious unknown entities may never be unraveled. The sword by the way carries an Oman hilt possibly refitted relatively recently and well after swords were used in battle. My suspicion is that the blade may be Portuguese although I am not certain.