Old Khyber

[Kubur]

Originally Posted by mahratt

P.S. By the way, it seems to me, or does the saber in the hands of the rider (in the image on the blade) - have an elman (the wider part of the saber is closer to the tip of the blade)?

No yelman, it's the horizontal line that creates this yelman effect or affect as you wish...


Acid etching is an old technique and Persians did a lot of acid etching on their weapons and armours, including animal and humans figures... Afghans and Persians are neighbours so i don't see any problem to have a rider on the blade... What the text is saying??

[mahratt]

Originally Posted by Kubur

Acid etching is an old technique and Persians did a lot of acid etching on their weapons and armours, including animal and humans figures... Afghans and Persians are neighbours so i don't see any problem to have a rider on the blade... What the text is saying??

Persians are Shiites, and Afghans, if I am not mistaken, are Sunnis. And the Sunnits are forbidden to make images of animals and humans...

But if I am wrong, correct me please. Unfortunately, I do not know examples of images of a person or animals on the blades of an old Afghan weapon

[Kubur]

Originally Posted by mahratt

Persians are Shiites, and Afghans, if I am not mistaken, are Sunnis. And the Sunnits are forbidden to make images of animals and humans...

But if I am wrong, correct me please. Unfortunately, I do not know examples of images of a person or animals on the blades of an old Afghan weapon

You are right.

[ariel]

As per Wikipedia, somewhere between 5-20% of Afghanis are Shia.
Those are the so-called Twelvers " Farsiwan" Hazara , living in the western provinces of Herat and Farah. Other Twelvers are Bayat and Qizilbash communities. There are also Nizari Ismailis in Badakhshan and Sayeeds of Kayan. And let's not forger Sufi Afghanis.

Sunni Islam forbids images of Allah, Muhammed and/or major Prophets, but frowns upon other living imagery without explicitly banning it. Although the so-called Sword of David ( Daud) , an early Islamic sword from the collection in Topkapi Palace carries an image of a human figure with distinct facial features.
Only Wahhabis and Salafis ban images of anything else, but those are of much more modern appearance and concentrate on the far east of the country.

Afghanistan is a multi-ethnic country, and painting Afghanis as uniform community and uniformly Sunnis is superficial.

Perhaps, this could serve as an ethnographic sign of the origin of this Knyber.

[mahratt]

It would be interesting to look at the Ottoman weapons of the 19th century, on which there are images of man and animals. After all, the Ottomans are not Wahhabis, if I understand correctly? Of course, we are not talking about the use by the Ottomans of Persian blades, on which were originally images of animals.

I understand that this will not be entirely by topic, but I just want to learn more from more experienced hobby colleagues.

And it’s even more interesting to see a really old Khyber knife in good condition, on the blade of which images will be made in such a technique as on the subject that we are discussing.

Marius wrote very accurately:

Originally Posted by mariusgmioc

Acid etching MAY be an "old" (please define what you mean by "old") technique, but Persians did NOT use it before 19th century, and even then for very specific and few items (mostly decorative, historicism - known as Qajar revival - blades decorated with religious texts).

[mariusgmioc]

Originally Posted by Kubur

Acid etching is an old technique and Persians did a lot of acid etching on their weapons and armours, including animal and humans figures... Afghans and Persians are neighbours so i don't see any problem to have a rider on the blade... What the text is saying??

Acid etching MAY be an "old" (please define what you mean by "old") technique, but Persians did NOT use it before 19th century, and even then for very specific and few items (mostly decorative, historicism - known as Qajar revival - blades decorated with religious texts).

Afghans... even less so.

In my oppinion, any acid etched Afghan blade, raises serious concerns about its autenthicity as a genuine traditional weapon and points into the direction of souvenirs market.

My two cents.

[RAMBA]

overall condition and etching is an issue for me.

[ariel]

Originally Posted by mariusgmioc

Acid etching MAY be an "old" (please define what you mean by "old") technique, but Persians did NOT use it before 19th century, and even then for very specific and few items (mostly decorative, historicism - known as Qajar revival - blades decorated with religious texts).

Afghans... even less so.

In my oppinion, any acid etched Afghan blade, raises serious concerns about its autenthicity as a genuine traditional weapon and points into the direction of souvenirs market.

My two cents.

You are correct: my antennae were twitching :-) and this is why I posted it here.
However, I have serious doubts about dating it to the late 20th century souvenir manufacture: the handle on a " souvenir" sword sold to a Western visitor to be hung on the wall was unlikely to be so severely damaged and deep patination of the tang suggests some significant age ( compare to the tangs of WWII period Japanese swords ). The manner of profuse etching is very similar to the Qajar " revival" swords of the 19th and many " Afghani" blades were imported from Persia (and India). The overall condition does not bother me very much: we have multiple swords of the 17-18th centuries in just as good or even better shape. Spurious dating is a distinct possibility, but I see no reason why this khyber could not have been made in the 19th century, although later than 1813, coincidentally with the Persian " revival" swords, say, 1830-1880. Any objective arguments against it?

[mahratt]

Originally Posted by ariel

You are correct: my antennae were twitching :-) and this is why I posted it here.
However, I have serious doubts about dating it to the late 20th century souvenir manufacture: the handle on a " souvenir" sword sold to a Western visitor to be hung on the wall was unlikely to be so severely damaged and deep patination of the tang suggests some significant age ( compare to the tangs of WWII period Japanese swords ). The manner of profuse etching is very similar to the Qajar " revival" swords of the 19th and many " Afghani" blades were imported from Persia (and India). The overall condition does not bother me very much: we have multiple swords of the 17-18th centuries in just as good or even better shape. Spurious dating is a distinct possibility, but I see no reason why this khyber could not have been made in the 19th century, although later than 1813. Any objective arguments against it?

1) We see the "classic" Afghan Khyber knife. By the way, no one says that he is not real. This is a authentic Khyber knife for the 19th century or early 20th century. The truth is not in very good condition. However, there are no elements that would tell us about its Persian or Indian origin (usually these elements are easy to recognize).
2) Sellers of antique weapons, souvenirs and "upgraded" old weapons in Afghanistan are not considered a problem if their goods are damaged. On the contrary, for them this is an occasion to say that this is an old item. Unfortunately, the times of Egerton, Moser and Prince Saltykov, when you could buy very good items in India and Central Asia, are long gone.
3) Using such a technique for decorating a blade for typical Afghan khyber knives is absolutely not typical. But, miracles do happen. However, I would like to see analogues from Afghanistan.

[ariel]

Glad to see that the Afghani " Sunni" argument is not used anymore and that 19 century ( rather than " last 20 or 30 years") is accepted as a possibility. Yes, it is not in a perfect shape ( that fortifies its older dating). The etching, as other people here noted, strongly suggests its Persian origin, on which everybody is in agreement. I have yet to encounter a seller who would not "improve" an easily made lost and aged bolster to justify the price to almost $6,000 asked for this one:-)
Had we had unquestionable dated Afghani analogues, this discussion would have been unnecessary.

All in all, are we in agreement that this khyber can be likely dated to the (mid-late) 19 century and sports a blade of a presumably Persian manufacture ( etching and Farsi)?

[mahratt]

Originally Posted by ariel

Glad to see that the Afghani " Sunni" argument is not used anymore and that 19 century ( rather than " last 20 or 30 years") is accepted as a possibility. Yes, it is not in a perfect shape ( that fortifies its older dating). The etching, as other people here noted, strongly suggests its Persian origin, on which everybody is in agreement. I have yet to encounter a seller who would not "improve" an easily made lost and aged bolster to rack up the price to almost $6,000 asked for this one:-)
Had we had unquestionable dated Afghani analogues, this discussion would have been unnecessary.

All in all, are we in agreement that this khyber can be likely dated to the (mid-late) 19 century and sports a blade of a presumably Persian manufacture?

This khyber can be likely dated to the late 19 century -early 20century. Over the past 20-30 years, the blade has probably been decorated. Sorry my bad english. I probably explained very poorly. Please see message number 2:

Originally Posted by mahratt

My regrets, but most of the Khyber knives, whose blades are decorated in this style, have been decorated in the last 20-30 years ...

" Sunni" argument - remains very important. Common words about Wahhabism and Shiism did not show us a single example of images of animals or people made by Afghans in old times on old blades... But there are a lot of modern souvenir and old "improved" in recent years, Afghan blades, which modern masters put animal images.

It is a pity that experienced forum participants did not answer my question:

Originally Posted by mahratt

It would be interesting to look at the Ottoman weapons of the 19th century, on which there are images of man and animals. After all, the Ottomans are not Wahhabis, if I understand correctly? Of course, we are not talking about the use by the Ottomans of Persian blades, on which were originally images of animals.

The blade of this Khyber knife is decorated in the same way that in Persia was decorated with very late items that were used for religious holidays and as souvenirs for Europeans.
But this does not say that the blade of this highber is made in Persia

By the way, have you seen the blades of the Khyber knives, which can be called "made in Persia"? Their shape is very different from the shape of the "classic" Khyber knife that we are discussing.
If this is interesting, I can show such a blade

[mahratt]

I think when we see such a Sudanese Kaskara decorated in the same style as the Persian weapons later used for ceremonies and as souvenirs for Europeans, no one will say that "this Kaskara’s blade was made in Persia"

Well, in any case, none of the collectors of oriental weapons...