Origin of this Yataghan? (With pictures!)

[gp]

additional information on yataghans, dated October 2012:


"The yataghan falls into the category of large knives, usually presenting a curved blade, made of high quality steel.
This kind of weapon consists of a single-edged blade, necessarily disposed inward.
An important characteristic of the yataghan is represented by the hilt that stands out due to the specific pommels, that spreads at the top into small wings curved inwards, usually known as 'ears'.
The pommels are perfectly shaped to allow the weapon's easy handling, the ears having the role to prevent the hilt slipping out of the hand when used in battle. If necessary, the yataghan's 'ears' might prove themselves useful as bolsters for shooting the longrifle. In time, specialized literature has presented some confusions regarding the name and the shape of the yataghan.

Studying this type of weapon, many authors did not make a clear distinction between yataghans and handjars, often the term 'yataghan' being used erroneously to designate all oriental swords. Regarding the roots of this type of weapon, the yataghan is a sabre of Oriental origin, according to some sources originating from India wherefrom it was expanded through the whole East.
The shape of the yataghans have not changed much in time, the specific characteristics of this kind of weapon contributing mainly in this respect:
the remarkable force to strike and chop.
Due to the weapon's particular shape, the force of impact is concentrated at the tip of the blade.
The yataghan was the perfect choice for a close fight but also during a skirmish. Even when firearms gained supremacy in the battlefield, the yataghan was also kept in the janissary standard harness especially due to its remarkable technical qualities.
As it concerns the color and the material used to craft the pommels, the Serbo-Croatian-Bosnian specialized literature (excepting Constantinople, most of the Balkan yataghans were crafted in the former Yugoslav territory during the XVIII and XIX centuries, the most famous manufactory being at Foča - today in Bosnia and Herzegovina) classifies yataghans as it followes: belosapce (having the pommels made of ivory or of other bones of light color),
crnosapce (having ears made of buffalo black horn or of wood)
and those with metallic hilts, often overlaid with silver.
There are also brass-hilted yataghans.
Regarding the shape of the blades, yataghans can be classified into straight blades and curved blades.

There were many manufactories in the Balkan Peninsula: Travnik, Foča, Sarajevo, Herceg Novi, Kotor, Risan, Užice, Prizren and Skopje.
The yataghans produces in these manufactories were exclusively handicraft products.
The collection of weapons held by The Banat Museum owns 30 yataghans, recorded in the History Department's files. An important particularity of the museum's collection is given by the great number (17 of 30 weapons) of crnosapci yataghans, horn-hilted or dark bone-hilted weapons.
Unlike The Banat Museum collection, the belosapci with ears made of ivory or other types of white bone, prevail in the yataghans collection from Zagreb (The Croatian History Museum).
The Belgrade researchers' explanations regarding the small number of crnosapci yataghans from the Military Museum's collection together with the informations recorded in the 1st file of the Banat Museum's files clarify the existence of a great number of dark/brown and black pommeled yataghans in the Banat Museum's collection.
Given the fact that the crnosapci yataghans were used in fights, they are much more rare, theory that comes to complement the informations supplied by the archives held by the Banat Museum, informations that highlight the fact that the weapons achived during the pre-war period represented spoil of war resulted from the Austro-Hungarian military campaign held during the summer of 1978 to pacify the Bosnian territory. We can also add to the 17 crnosapci yataghans another 9 belosapci yataghans, two metal hilted weapons, one presenting some changes at the hilt (instead of the characteristic pommels the yataghan has a wooden hilt with a rectangular section).
To all these weapons we can also add a yataghan blade whose pommels are missing. Among The Banat Museum's yataghan collection, 20 weapons exhibit ornaments and encrusted inscriptions, two weapons being encrusted with golden thread, the other ones decorated with silver thread. There other weapons show engraved ornaments while the other seven have no decorations on the blades (some of them presenting the armourer's stamp, at most).

The specialized literature highlights the fact that the yataghans with straight blade (pravci) are very rare, this fact being confirmed at Timisoara where we can find only 5 weapons presenting this kind of blade.
Among the ornate yataghans, the researches managed to discover the year of manufacture only in the case of 8 weapons, the oldest yataghan held by The Banat Museum was dated in the year 1204 (according to the Islamic calendar), corresponding the Christian period of 1789-1790, while the most recent weapon dates from the Muslim year of 1280, representing the years of 1863-1864 according to the Gregorian calendar.
Regarding the history of yataghans collection held by the Banat Museum, we also have to consider that the vast majority of weapons comes from the old collection of the museum, especially from the pre-war period.
The 1st file of inventory held by the museum (the inventory of the Museum Society of History and Archeology) includes a series of weapons brought from Bosnia after the military campaign held in the summer of 1878 (spoil of war from Tuzla, Travnik etc).
These weapons were either donated to the museum or purchased. The two metal-hilted yataghans had also been registered in the pre-war period. During the interwar, especially between 1930-1935, while Ioachim Miloia has served as director of the museum, have been purchased another series of yataghans.
A last important batch of weapons entered the Museum's collection after World War II, in 1959, following a transfer from the Home Office represented by the Timisoara 232 Unit.
The "piece de resistance" of The Banat Museum's collection is certainly represented by the weapon that was held, for a short time, by the leader of the first Serbian anti-Ottoman movement Dorde Petrović Karadorde.
The founder of the South Hungarian Society of History and Archeology and also the donor of this yataghan, dr. Ormós Zsigmond, remarks that the weapon's value is increased by the fact that it belonged to Karadorde (Cerni György).
The letter of donation also asserts that the yataghan was taken by the Serbian leader "from the hands of a Turk" during a fight, without offering further information regarding the year and the place of the specific battle. We can also find out from this specific letter information regarding the purchase of the weapon and its previous owner. Ormós purchased the yataghan on June 23rd, 1876 at Orşova, from the widow Schevits who held the weapon as an heirloom.
These informations have been published in the specialized magazine of the Museum Society of History and Archeology in the year 1889, while in the 1st file of inventory held by the Banat Museum the yataghan is recorded as a "Turkish yataghan".
We have to underline the fact that Karadorde's yataghan represents the only Oriental weapon of the collection whose inscriptions had been translated and recorded in the old files of the Banat Museum."


source : The yataghans collection of the Banat Museum, by Zoran Marcov, Head of Department National Museum of Banat, Timisoara, Romania


remark: do not search the internet for crnosapci or belosapci / bjelosapci as
- crno is black and belo / bjelo is white in Serbian, Croation, Bosnian
- and sapci plural for sapac being hilt / handle

[gp]

The Dalmatian yatagan M 1869 is a unique model of the world's cold weapon, since these are no longer unique but semi-industrially or semi-manufactory made pieces which involve serial production of identical pieces in terms of their dimensions, appearance and weight, and serial number and unit designations. Also, the handle is made of man-made bakelite derivatives, so it is unique and avant-garde in this respect as well. All known pieces of yataghan M 1869 have an army inventory stamp consisting of the name of the battalion and the number of weapons in the unit, and some of these figures are high and it can be inferred that all the domobrans were armed with such weapons. The image of the Austro-Hungarian military painter Julius von Blaas depicting the attack of the 79th Battalion (led by a local resident) on Livno during the occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1878 testifies to this. (Manuel Martinović)

source : svijet-filatelije 2019 on a stamp by Croatian Post Mostar

[Battara]

What great info! My absolute favorite Ottoman sword is the yataghan. I had 2, but one got stolen years ago, but I have the other one. Both were Balkan, and the stolen one was from Focha (I LOVE their work!).

I'll add this to my yataghan book from Sarajevo, and Elgood's work on weaponry from the Balkan region during the Ottoman era.

[gp]

Originally Posted by Battara

What great info!

most happy to oblige . Hence another piece of info from Croatia :

Inscriptions on the “Zagreb yataghan”

Tatjana Paić-Vukić ; The Archive of CASA, Zagreb 2013.

"Blades of the Ottoman long knives, yataghans, are frequently decorated with geometrical and floral motives, and different inscriptions.
In Zagreb, as the property of S. V., there is a richly decorated yataghan produced in AH 1224. / AD 1809-1810 in Bosnia.
It was made for some of the descendants of the Bosnian Vizier Mehmed Pasha Miralem, probably for his grandson Mehmed Miralem.
On both sides of the blade, there is a great number of cartouches and round ornaments made with the technique of inlaying with gold wire.
They contain calligraphic inscriptions in the Arabic, Ottoman Turkish and Persian languages, comprising prayers, proverbs, invocations and verses encouraging fighting against enemies, expressing confidence in God and asking the Prophet Muhammad to intercede for the owner of the yataghan in the next world. By comparison with the items described in catalogues and other literature, it appears that the “Zagreb yataghan” is exceptional both for containing extraordinarily great number of inscriptions and for having two lengthy inscriptions in Persian.
As for comparison, none of the yataghans from the Zemaljski muzej [National Museum] of Sarajevo contains inscriptions in Persian, while the collections of Hrvatski povijesni muzej [Croatian Historical Museum] and Istorijski muzej Srbije [Historical Museum of Serbia] have only one such item each. In this paper, all the inscriptions are presented in Arabic script and transliteration, and translated into Croatian.
They could help researchers dealing with Ottoman cold weapons to recognise and reconstruct identical sayings and verses found on other yataghans in cases when they are partially damaged and hardly legible, in the way in which I benefited from the work of Muhamed Ždralović on the yataghans of the Croatian Historical Museum.
Finally, the fact that another product of the artisan named el-Hacc Mehmed-zade, who decorated the “Zagreb yataghan”, is kept at the Military Museum in Istanbul could contribute to the systematisation of data on yataghans from individual workshops in the Ottoman Empire."

although I understand many here do not understand Serbo-Croatian or as it is called now Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, I can advise nevertheless to download the Croation version with regards to the inscription, its phonetical translation and some most interesting pictures.

https://hrcak.srce.hr/search/?stype=...%20Mehmed-zade

[gp]

Originally Posted by gp

The image of the Austro-Hungarian military painter Julius von Blaas depicting the attack of the 79th Battalionon Livno during the occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1878

Combat of Dalmatian Imperial infantry at Livno August 8th 1878

Location: Vienna, Austria

Holding Museum:Austrian Military Museum / Institute of Military History

Date:1907 (Signed and dated "Julius v. Blaas 1907")

Type of object:Painting

Material(s) / Technique(s):Oil on canvas

Dimensions:120 x 200 cm

scene of the occupation campaign of 1878 where the Dalmatian Imperial Infantry is attacking in line formation at Livno.

[ariel]

This painting is quite interesting. On this Forum we had many discussions about potential uses of Yataghans. Often, there were opinions that Yataghans were not fighting military weapons, but rather just post battle head-cutters or such.
Here we see organized military unit attacking enemy positions with Yataghans; this seems to contradict the above notion.

Nepalese Gurkhas performed military feats with their Kukri, a somewhat yataghan-like short bladed chopper.

[gp]

Originally Posted by ariel

This painting is quite interesting. On this Forum we had many discussions about potential uses of Yataghans. Often, there were opinions that Yataghans were not fighting military weapons, but rather just post battle head-cutters or such.
Here we see organized military unit attacking enemy positions with Yataghans; this seems to contradict the above notion.
.

Comes perhaps with the territory ?

The 2 drawings of the Bosnian resistance against the Habsburg take over in 1878 I posted , also shows they went for the Austrians with rifle AND yataghan...as not each fighter had the means to buy a gun, so some only went with their yataghans and bichaqs into battle. All conform their tradition which differs from a western one.

Also bear in mind this unit, although an Habsburg K.u.K. unit, is made up out of locals (Dalmatians). And take also into consideration that Franz Josef II and his war ministers thought it to be a walk over....mistakenly.....as they learned soon.
Hence unprepared (read not armed as they ought to be for a war ) their units were not really up for a fight and the insurrection they were about to meet in 1878....So ammo could be scarce and locals fighting locals in a traditional way perhaps as well...

a scan of a border patrol and a duel

[gp]

additional reading & legal PDF download:

INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF ISLAMIC ARMS AND ARMOUR
by Dr. A. Rahman Zaky 1961.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...8jJi7nY6bj90Bt

[gp]

Originally Posted by ariel

This painting is quite interesting. On this Forum we had many discussions about potential uses of Yataghans. Often, there were opinions that Yataghans were not fighting military weapons, but rather just post battle head-cutters or such.
Here we see organized military unit attacking enemy positions with Yataghans; this seems to contradict the above notion.

Nepalese Gurkhas performed military feats with their Kukri, a somewhat yataghan-like short bladed chopper.

just came to my mind:

this Austrian / Habsburgian regiment was a border regiment from Dalmatia: actually recruted mostly from the poorer regions around Split, Dubrovnik and the Bay of Kotor ( the latter only belonging after WW I to Montenegro and prior that being almost one with... Herzegovina...which was though Ottoman till this battle and annexation in 1878) and hence the interaction not only religious, cultural, linguistic but also tradewise between these border regions.

Consequentually the "yatag(h)an "like sword might have well been made or purchased from the same weapon black smith and looks very close to a kilij (or as in Turkish; kılıç ) which both on the painting used by the "footsoldiers " lacking the crossguard or quillon and as well mine below, purchased in the Balkans...