Origin of this Yataghan? (With pictures!)

[Khelben]

Sorry for the late reply. Been a hectic and stressful week, with a bunch of houseguests, and a dead pet.

Here are some additional photos people requested, including closeups of the brass rivets in the hilt, and another closeup of the maker's mark. I'll take a look at the maker's mark catalogue that was linked now to see if I can place it.

[sfenoid13]

It is not of course a definite answer but when you consider all the examples coming from Greek region of the Ottoman Empire this Yatagan is indeed Greek in origin. Of course the maker and owner was probably Ottoman Turkish.
The handle on the other hand is a obviously a more recent replacement to the lost silver niello handle. There is no discussion there. And the ha Dule is rather made just for practical purposes and looks hideous in my opinion but they probably just wanted to save the nice blade and keep using it. Or someone made ten handle so they can sell the blade because without a handle it’s usually worthless.
I am also surprised how all the respected and valued veteran members here easily get mad and argue for such a petty topic these swords were sold and traveled across continents along with genre owners initially and later with trades and auctions. I bought a Laz Yatagan from Australia imagine that ))

[sfenoid13]

By the way I have a very similar Yatagan which came from Serbia but it never crossed my mind to doubt that it wasn’t Greek origin. Serbian Yatahans along with Bulgarians are almost all walrus or horn handle.

[kwiatek]

The maker's name in the mark is 'Mustafa'

[Kubur]

Originally Posted by sfenoid13

I am also surprised how all the respected and valued veteran members here easily get mad and argue for such a petty topic

If I'm in the lot, I'm definitively flattered!

I wasn't mad but let's say more disapointed because "the other member" is precisely a respected and valued veteran member...

Originally Posted by sfenoid13

this Yatagan is indeed Greek in origin. Of course the maker and owner was probably Ottoman Turkish.

Perfect demonstration that this Greek origin is a nonsense.
Where is the Greek if the maker is Ottoman Turkish and the user / owner Ottoman Tukish??

[sfenoid13]

Perfect demonstration that this Greek origin is a nonsense.
Where is the Greek if the maker is Ottoman Turkish and the user / owner Ottoman Tukish??
[/QUOTE]
The Greek is in region where this Ottoman Turkish owned and used his Yataghan. I am from Bulgaria, so is many generations of family, however I am not Bulgarian but rather Turkish. One of the many hundreds of thousand of Turks who were left behind when Ottoman Empire lost Bulgaria. Same happened with Greece. Bulgaria have tons of Yataghans , I have yet to see one Owens by a Slavic name, they are all inscribed to be owned by Turkish names, so are the makers. Same is true for “most” Greek yatagans too.

[kwiatek]

This probably comes too late, but all the marks posted here say “Mustafa”

[Kubur]

Originally Posted by kwiatek

This probably comes too late, but all the marks posted here say “Mustafa”

Very nice Greek name...

[ariel]

Ottoman Yataghans were assembled from mass-produced blades coming largely from Anatolia and Balkans ( Bosnia, mainly). Wherever they landed, their further fate was to fall into the hands of a local master who added the rest according to his local customs, tastes and traditions. This step defined the final product. That was the similar to the fate of other trade blades, such as Genoese, Styrian or generic Indian. Depending on the point of their final destination, they could be converted into Moroccan nimchas, Caucasian shashkas, Afghani pulwars, Mughals, Rajputs etc.


What is still original here is the blade ( generic “ Ottoman”) but a typical Greek/ Cretan crenellated niello silver tunkou/ Habaki- like appliqué at the root of the blade. That is all we have and all we can use in determining the ethnic origin of the final product.


How do we interpret it depends on our discretion. We can take the “path of the least resistance” that was used by Gozde Yasar, for whom everything yataghanish was “Ottoman, period”, or try and discern local decorative peculiarities. The latter would point toward Crete.

Finally, we are dealing not with certainties, but with probabilities. In a humongous and multiethnic Ottoman Empire nothing prevented a master of one ethnicity from using decorative technique of other people. That was a “ dime a dozen” approach in Imperial Russia with its multiethnic workshops geographically located in Tiflis and Vladikavkaz and spitting out thousands of “Caucasian” shashkas and kindjals of whatever ethnic pattern sold better at that moment or even creation of “Caucasian” - looking examples in St. Peterburg or Ukraine.

Perhaps the most accurate definition of that yataghan would be “ Ottoman in a Cretan style”.

[gp]

Originally Posted by Kubur

Very nice Greek name...

well quite some people in the Balkans during the Ottoman times converted to the new religion and hence took over the names accordingly.

Didn't that happen as well when Celts, Anglosaxons, Germanic, Baltic and Scandinavion regions and peoples were converted as well...?

So from a geographic point of view the name discussed might indeed be from an inhabitant of Greece.
Let's not forget after the Balkan Wars of 1911-1913 a lot of resettlement took place in quite some countries in South East Europe and with this quite some names which were present for four to six centuries.

Quite some edged weapons from Bosnia have the name Hassan on it, be it either the owner or maker's name....

And back on topic: the stamps / marks on the picture in cyrillic are the names Omar, Faruk, Rabomal Hasan, Rabomal Halu, Osman and Alu ( Alu being probably an elative case of Ali )

[gp]

a few more pics from "Die österreichisch-ungarische Monarchie in Wort und Bild" - "Dalmatien", Band 11 Wien, k. k. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei., 1892

[gp]

some more pics by Henri Avelot et J. de La Nézière - Monténégro, Bosnie, Herzégovine - Henri Laurens, Paris - no date (1894) - 248 pages

[gp]

for those whose "bible" is called Elgood, I can advise and do prefer when talking Balkan and specially for Bosnian cold weapons :

1. next to the already by me mentioned book old weapons in 56 pics "Starinsko Oruzje sa 56 slika u tekstu " by Curcic Vejsil (Vejsil Ćurčić (1868, Sarajevo – 1959, Sarajevo) published by Drzavna Stamparija
in Sarajevo 1926.
Although in Serbo-Croat, google translate does do the trick 4 U
2. "Jatagane" by Marija Šercer, original in Croation published in Zagreb but also availabe in German 1976 by Landeszeughaus in Graz Austria : Volume 5 van Veröffentlichungen des Landeszeughauses Graz
3. Balkans Arms , knives and daggers 18th-19th century by Tarik Kožo - , in 3 languages (!); Bosnian, German and English, 2010 Sarajevo; book of the old stock "balkan arms" deals with specimens of knives and knives from the last times of the Ottoman domination over the Balkans. Hereby some pics so you can recognize some of yours in yoyr collection