Boabdil swords and Jineta

[Philip]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

It is remarkable that these swords, which I think of as Hispano-Moresque, do not remain in larger number and even those which remain have been challenged as far as authenticity and provenance.

Jim, do you have the magnificent and very weighty exhibit catalog The Arts of the Muslim Knight: the Furisiyya Art Foundation Collection ed by Basher Mohamed (Milan, 2007)? There is a discussion with double-page and centerfold photos (pp 44-47) of a remarkable and perplexing sword whose blade is identified as Nasrid, 14th cent. from its inscriptions, but for all intents and purposes this blade (single edged, spear-tipped, one narrow dorsal fuller each side and a supplementary fuller at the ricasso) is the most un-Islamic thing imaginable in terms of form. If you looked at it, the opinion would undoubtedly be a backsword blade of "firangi" type commonly seen on Indian swords of four or more centuries later. Furthermore, the hilt resembles those Hispano-Portuguese "crab claw" swords from the beginning of the 16th cent. that were widely imitated in crude form in Kongo. But the hilt, according to Mr Mohamed, is said to be of 19th cent. manufacture.

This is an intriguing sword, the blade defies conventional perceptions and I don't know what to make of a hilt that is said to be 19th cent. on it (a revival of a long-obsolete form). I regret not posting a scan of the image(s) simply because the large-format pages, on which the sword appears on two facing pages and again on a three-sheet foldout, are too large for my scanner.

At any rate, the catalog commentary has something interesting to say about the Hispano-Moresque so-called jinetasthat are the real subject of this thread. According to Mr Mohamed, there are only six known examples, and their blades are nondescript, uninscribed, and do not resemble any comparable double-edged blades from other Islamic culture-spheres. This group was reportedly exhibited at the Alhambra in 1992 to mark the cinquecentennial of the conquest. You might want to look for the exhibition catalog, Al-Andalus: the Art of Islamic Spain (Metro. Mus. of Art, 1997) which has images of these swords. I don't have a copy but it's on the "get" list as of now!

That being said, it might be appropriate to examine some of Mr Mohamed's assertions regarding this small genre. As to their dissimilarity to other Islamic double-edged blades, if we could compare images of all six surviving examples with the counterparts to this type in the Topkapi Sarayi Museum collection, featured in Ünsal Yücel's Islamic Swords and Swordsmiths, we might have a better idea of the degree of dissimilarity and whether it is significant.

Based on the images available to me at present, the Topkapi's published blades are of flattened lenticular cross section except for one with full length wide shallow fullers. The jinete sword published in Held (referenced in prior post) has a half-length deep and narrow fuller, looking for all the world like Oakeshott's Subtype XIIIb. It would be great to see what the other survivors look like.

All of the above referenced blades have similar ogival tip profiles, regardless of fullering or or other details.

As to inscriptions or the lack thereof, the example published in Held does show a circular cartouche, bridging the fuller, that contains some squiggles including something looking like an S, which in the book illustration is of insufficient resolution to decipher. Whether that qualifies as an "inscription" awaits better imagery. Let's hope that the Al-Andalus catalog provides us more to go on.