Frontier Arithmetic: The Afghan Jezail

rickystl · 14th August 2019, 03:33 PM

Hello All.

The interest in these guns (and Oriental guns in general) for antique gun collectors is very much a minority within a minority if you will. LOL There is more interest in the blades and armor among Ethno collectors. I can remember back when dealers would only take these guns in on a consignment basis. The lack of collector interest is the likely reason these guns have historically never brought the prices of their European counterparts. There are always exceptions of course (such as Greek origin guns). However, I have noticed in just the last 3/4 years that the auction pricing for many of these guns has trended upward.

I've only inspected one Jazail of obvious Afghan origin that was matchlock. The others were all of Sindh origin. Although we know they existed. In fact, one of the interesting features of my Jazail shooter above is that the barrel started life as a matchlock and was later restocked as a flintlock. I kept photos of the evidence.

As mentioned, there are more remaining Jazail specimens in flintlock than percussion. This was likely due to the cost and availability of percussion caps. As a curious side note, virtually every gun of Sindh origin I've seen is either matchlock or percussion. There are a couple of flintlock variations in books/museums, but they would be considered quite rare. Almost as if the Sindh skipped the flintlock period and went from matchlock to percussion (similar to the Japanese).

Here is another Jazail from my collection. From a collectors view, this would be a favorite. The entire gun is in original, unmolested condition. The entire circumference of the butt stock is heavily decorated with pearl inlays. There is even an old museum tag this is mis-identified. LOL The barrel is smooth bore. The lock is a genuine EIC lock dated 1811. Since these first photos, I've cleaned the lock but still have to replace 3 missing pearl inlays. The barrel one this one is front heavy as most. Even most of the original black tar protection is present. This one was lucky find.

Rick

rickystl · 14th August 2019, 03:34 PM

AND PICS OF THE LOCK......

Jim McDougall · 14th August 2019, 04:25 PM

It seems I have read that matchlock ignition was used in Afghan regions on jezails for quite some time, so in retracing through Egerton (1880),on pp.140,141 I found:

On Waziris, Afridis and Mahsuds, "...their matchlocks were, until the introduction of the rifled weapons, much superior to our old 'Brown Bess' and carried up to 800 yards with accuracy".

On the Durrani's, cited by Egerton , "Moorcrofts Travels" (1824) notes that they carried matchlocks, with the 'limak' or crooked stock or flintlocks".

It would seem that the 'crooked stock' perhaps may refer to the uniquely shaped 'jezail' (though these references do not use that term) and mentions flintlock, perhaps early entries of the EIC locks.

Ibrahiim al Balooshi · 14th August 2019, 05:33 PM

This is indeed a great thread!

Pease see the write up to the artwork below at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jezail...fghanistan.jpg also included in a previous post at #25. Note in this painting the almost invisible two bipods shown on the right hand side of the artwork. These bipods were needed to offset and support the front heavy, long barrels of the jezail but not on all. Often these weapons were made with captured brown bess locks or converted to flintlock from matchlock later.

Victrix · 14th August 2019, 06:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ibrahiim al Balooshi

This is indeed a great thread!

Pease see the write up to the artwork below at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jezail...fghanistan.jpg also included in a previous post at #25. Note in this painting the almost invisible two bipods shown on the right hand side of the artwork. These bipods were needed to offset and support the front heavy, long barrels of the jezail but not on all. Often these weapons were made with captured brown bess locks or converted to flintlock from matchlock later.

What about the barrels? Where did they come from? I understand they were mainly Ottoman (Turkey?) produced? Arguably the barrels are the most important because they have to be very strong and absolutely straight, with twist rifling inside in some cases. Can’t be easy to produce something like that?

Jim McDougall · 14th August 2019, 09:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Victrix

What about the barrels? Where did they come from? I understand they were mainly Ottoman (Turkey?) produced? Arguably the barrels are the most important because they have to be very strong and absolutely straight, with twist rifling inside in some cases. Can’t be easy to produce something like that?

A VERY good question, and I returned to Egerton (p.136),
"...Postons describes the Sindian arms as being of very superior quality, particularly the matchlock barrels, which are twisted in the Damascus style. The nobles and chiefs procure many from Persia and Constantinople, but nearly as good can be made in the country".

Op.cit. p.136,
"...the Amirs have agents in Persia, Turkey and Palestine for the purchase of swords and gun barrels".

In the listings in Egerton there are many torador matchlocks listed from Sind, all of which have the remarkably long barrels noted on the jezails, and a good number are Damascus. Many of these are from Sind, but noted with 'Afghan' type stocks.
In other listings are a good number of matchlocks, again with long barrels listed from Lahore and Delhi. Here we can see the long use of matchlocks by the Sikhs well into 19th c. These also had notably long barrels.

While the import of the quality barrels from Ottoman and Persian sources seems occasional, the making and diffusion of these long matchlock barrels would seem to have of course gone well into Khyber and environs, It seems the crafting of these barrels may well have been among the skills that developed in these areas as well.

Jim McDougall · 14th August 2019, 10:09 PM

In looking into the sources for barrels, after going through more on the seemingly invariable use of EIC locks on these guns, I wondered more where the term 'jezail' came from.

Online it simply notes it as a Pashto word for these guns. So looking further I found reference to the armies of Nader Shah, who seized control of the Safavid Empire of Persia in 1730s. Among his forces were musketeers in corps termed 'jazayerchis' for the heavy caliber musket called the 'jazayer'....and these forces had existed from the time of Shah Abbas II (c 1654) using these same guns.

Nader Shah however had these men mounted on horses or mules for strategic mobility, but as dragoons they fought on foot. According to the reference these guns were flintlock, some with miguelet locks and some matchlocks. The barrel bands (rings) were half silver, rest gold (?)

This material I found online in "The Army of Nader Shah", Michael Axworthy
Iranian Studies, Vol. 40, #5, Dec, 2007.
The notes on the jazayer musket are cited from,
"Tadhkirat al Muluk", V. Minorsky ed. , Cambridge , 1943, pp.32-34

Then in reference found the Persian term jaza'il for musket.

These details are of course subject to scrutiny, but I simply added here for further look into the etymology of the word jezail. As always looking forward to insights from the linguists.

It seems well noted that Persian influence was powerfully present in all these Central Asian regions, so it does not seem surprising that the Persian word would become cognate in the Pashto language. There were many Afghans in the forces of Nader Shah.

Victrix · 14th August 2019, 11:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

A VERY good question, and I returned to Egerton (p.136),
"...Postons describes the Sindian arms as being of very superior quality, particularly the matchlock barrels, which are twisted in the Damascus style. The nobles and chiefs procure many from Persia and Constantinople, but nearly as good can be made in the country".

Op.cit. p.136,
"...the Amirs have agents in Persia, Turkey and Palestine for the purchase of swords and gun barrels".

In the listings in Egerton there are many torador matchlocks listed from Sind, all of which have the remarkably long barrels noted on the jezails, and a good number are Damascus. Many of these are from Sind, but noted with 'Afghan' type stocks.
In other listings are a good number of matchlocks, again with long barrels listed from Lahore and Delhi. Here we can see the long use of matchlocks by the Sikhs well into 19th c. These also had notably long barrels.

While the import of the quality barrels from Ottoman and Persian sources seems occasional, the making and diffusion of these long matchlock barrels would seem to have of course gone well into Khyber and environs, It seems the crafting of these barrels may well have been among the skills that developed in these areas as well.

Thank you, Jim. Fascinating how there has always been trade, transfer of knowledge for local manufacturing, and loan words, etc. Nothing new under the sun...

kahnjar1 · 14th August 2019, 09:33 PM

Well Jim, you really got me going on this thread! Makes me a little sad that I once owned a couple of other Jezails which in a hasty moment I sold.
Anyway I was surfing the 'net and came across this site describing guns from Nepal. Well worth a look, and there are EIC guns there also!
http://www.archivingindustry.com/Gun...s/gunmarks.pdf
Stu

Jim McDougall · 14th August 2019, 10:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kahnjar1

Well Jim, you really got me going on this thread! Makes me a little sad that I once owned a couple of other Jezails which in a hasty moment I sold.
Anyway I was surfing the 'net and came across this site describing guns from Nepal. Well worth a look, and there are EIC guns there also!
http://www.archivingindustry.com/Gun...s/gunmarks.pdf
Stu

Me too Stu!!
I always wanted one, but as things often go, never got one (OK I wanted to climb on the pyramids too, and get a '32 Ford, but gotta be real!).
All of a sudden Im in the middle of the Southwest in the bookmobile, and bang! I got one!

So in my usual insane quest (=research?) I have been at it day and night.
I did come across some of this on many EIC weapons ending up in Nepal, so there's another quest.

What I hoped to do here is get all you guys together who have collected these and experience with them, so I can learn about 'em and so can anyone else out there curious on them can have a good reference source.

Thank you again for all your help on this.

Jim McDougall · 14th August 2019, 05:44 PM

In looking into the gun locks used on these I notice that while the earlier ones with the quartered heart prevail (until use of the rampant lion in 1808) there are a good number of examples using a heart with heraldic 'flaunched' design. Both use the same configuration of the initials VEIC.

I thought I had seen this unusual design (semi circles on either side) on an EIC coin at some point and thought perhaps that might yield a clue as to why these are different. It seems that Brooker ("British Military Pistols") thought these were storekeepers marks.
In looking for the coin, I finally found the example, which was a pice (=cent) from Penang, Malay peninsula which became British colony in 1786. It was governed by the Bengal Presidency where these copper coins were minted in Calcutta.

I noticed further that makers Leigh and Barnett were prevalent makers of gun locks for EIC with 1806 issues seen with these 'flaunched' hearts. Mortimer examples (producing in 1790s) also have these hearts.

I am wondering if these locks using this type heart may have been produced for the Bengal Presidency of the EIC? It has not seemed that such specifics would have been likely, unless these makers were attending to certain requirements to a specific regional need of an EIC department.

The fact that the Bengal presidency seemed to favor this design of the EIC chop mark as indicated by these coins from Penang, while it seems in all other areas the standard quartered heart prevailed begs the question, why?

While this may seem an irrelevant query, it seems perhaps it might be pertinent to regional use of certain locks.

14th August 2019, 03:33 PM	#1
rickystl Member Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: St. Louis, MO area. Posts: 1,630	Hello All. The interest in these guns (and Oriental guns in general) for antique gun collectors is very much a minority within a minority if you will. LOL There is more interest in the blades and armor among Ethno collectors. I can remember back when dealers would only take these guns in on a consignment basis. The lack of collector interest is the likely reason these guns have historically never brought the prices of their European counterparts. There are always exceptions of course (such as Greek origin guns). However, I have noticed in just the last 3/4 years that the auction pricing for many of these guns has trended upward. I've only inspected one Jazail of obvious Afghan origin that was matchlock. The others were all of Sindh origin. Although we know they existed. In fact, one of the interesting features of my Jazail shooter above is that the barrel started life as a matchlock and was later restocked as a flintlock. I kept photos of the evidence. As mentioned, there are more remaining Jazail specimens in flintlock than percussion. This was likely due to the cost and availability of percussion caps. As a curious side note, virtually every gun of Sindh origin I've seen is either matchlock or percussion. There are a couple of flintlock variations in books/museums, but they would be considered quite rare. Almost as if the Sindh skipped the flintlock period and went from matchlock to percussion (similar to the Japanese). Here is another Jazail from my collection. From a collectors view, this would be a favorite. The entire gun is in original, unmolested condition. The entire circumference of the butt stock is heavily decorated with pearl inlays. There is even an old museum tag this is mis-identified. LOL The barrel is smooth bore. The lock is a genuine EIC lock dated 1811. Since these first photos, I've cleaned the lock but still have to replace 3 missing pearl inlays. The barrel one this one is front heavy as most. Even most of the original black tar protection is present. This one was lucky find. Rick Attached Images

14th August 2019, 04:25 PM	#3
Jim McDougall Arms Historian Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Route 66 Posts: 10,193	The matchlock in Khyber Regions on Jezails It seems I have read that matchlock ignition was used in Afghan regions on jezails for quite some time, so in retracing through Egerton (1880),on pp.140,141 I found: On Waziris, Afridis and Mahsuds, "...their matchlocks were, until the introduction of the rifled weapons, much superior to our old 'Brown Bess' and carried up to 800 yards with accuracy". On the Durrani's, cited by Egerton , "Moorcrofts Travels" (1824) notes that they carried matchlocks, with the 'limak' or crooked stock or flintlocks". It would seem that the 'crooked stock' perhaps may refer to the uniquely shaped 'jezail' (though these references do not use that term) and mentions flintlock, perhaps early entries of the EIC locks. Last edited by Jim McDougall; 14th August 2019 at 04:58 PM.

14th August 2019, 05:33 PM	#4
Ibrahiim al Balooshi Member Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Buraimi Oman, on the border with the UAE Posts: 4,408	This is indeed a great thread! Pease see the write up to the artwork below at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jezail...fghanistan.jpg also included in a previous post at #25. Note in this painting the almost invisible two bipods shown on the right hand side of the artwork. These bipods were needed to offset and support the front heavy, long barrels of the jezail but not on all. Often these weapons were made with captured brown bess locks or converted to flintlock from matchlock later. Attached Images Last edited by Ibrahiim al Balooshi; 14th August 2019 at 05:46 PM.

14th August 2019, 10:09 PM	#7
Jim McDougall Arms Historian Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Route 66 Posts: 10,193	The term jezail for these Afghan guns In looking into the sources for barrels, after going through more on the seemingly invariable use of EIC locks on these guns, I wondered more where the term 'jezail' came from. Online it simply notes it as a Pashto word for these guns. So looking further I found reference to the armies of Nader Shah, who seized control of the Safavid Empire of Persia in 1730s. Among his forces were musketeers in corps termed 'jazayerchis' for the heavy caliber musket called the 'jazayer'....and these forces had existed from the time of Shah Abbas II (c 1654) using these same guns. Nader Shah however had these men mounted on horses or mules for strategic mobility, but as dragoons they fought on foot. According to the reference these guns were flintlock, some with miguelet locks and some matchlocks. The barrel bands (rings) were half silver, rest gold (?) This material I found online in "The Army of Nader Shah", Michael Axworthy Iranian Studies, Vol. 40, #5, Dec, 2007. The notes on the jazayer musket are cited from, "Tadhkirat al Muluk", V. Minorsky ed. , Cambridge , 1943, pp.32-34 Then in reference found the Persian term jaza'il for musket. These details are of course subject to scrutiny, but I simply added here for further look into the etymology of the word jezail. As always looking forward to insights from the linguists. It seems well noted that Persian influence was powerfully present in all these Central Asian regions, so it does not seem surprising that the Persian word would become cognate in the Pashto language. There were many Afghans in the forces of Nader Shah. Last edited by Jim McDougall; 14th August 2019 at 10:21 PM.

14th August 2019, 05:44 PM	#11
Jim McDougall Arms Historian Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Route 66 Posts: 10,193	East India Company 'chop' marks, the 'flaunched heart' In looking into the gun locks used on these I notice that while the earlier ones with the quartered heart prevail (until use of the rampant lion in 1808) there are a good number of examples using a heart with heraldic 'flaunched' design. Both use the same configuration of the initials VEIC. I thought I had seen this unusual design (semi circles on either side) on an EIC coin at some point and thought perhaps that might yield a clue as to why these are different. It seems that Brooker ("British Military Pistols") thought these were storekeepers marks. In looking for the coin, I finally found the example, which was a pice (=cent) from Penang, Malay peninsula which became British colony in 1786. It was governed by the Bengal Presidency where these copper coins were minted in Calcutta. I noticed further that makers Leigh and Barnett were prevalent makers of gun locks for EIC with 1806 issues seen with these 'flaunched' hearts. Mortimer examples (producing in 1790s) also have these hearts. I am wondering if these locks using this type heart may have been produced for the Bengal Presidency of the EIC? It has not seemed that such specifics would have been likely, unless these makers were attending to certain requirements to a specific regional need of an EIC department. The fact that the Bengal presidency seemed to favor this design of the EIC chop mark as indicated by these coins from Penang, while it seems in all other areas the standard quartered heart prevailed begs the question, why? While this may seem an irrelevant query, it seems perhaps it might be pertinent to regional use of certain locks. Attached Images

14th August 2019, 03:34 PM	#2
rickystl Member Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: St. Louis, MO area. Posts: 1,630	AND PICS OF THE LOCK...... Attached Images

14th August 2019, 09:33 PM	#9
kahnjar1 Member Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: CHRISTCHURCH NEW ZEALAND Posts: 2,786	Well Jim, you really got me going on this thread! Makes me a little sad that I once owned a couple of other Jezails which in a hasty moment I sold. Anyway I was surfing the 'net and came across this site describing guns from Nepal. Well worth a look, and there are EIC guns there also! http://www.archivingindustry.com/Gun...s/gunmarks.pdf Stu