quadara - Caucasus, Trabzon, Iran ?

[Rivkin]

Another shots - quadara and qama.
Interestingly, all qaudaras have much narrower and smaller fullers than one usually sees on so called "Azerbajani" ones.

P.S. I selected the photographs that are _least_ bloody and most concentrated on weapons, not on the festival itself. I think if we want to keep this thread moving, it must be about weapons, not about Ashura.

[Andrew]

Originally Posted by Rivkin

P.S. I selected the photographs that are _least_ bloody and most concentrated on weapons, not on the festival itself. I think if we want to keep this thread moving, it must be about weapons, not about Ashura.

Good advice, Kirill.

Folks, this thread must NOT become about Religion or Politics. Let's scrupulously avoid going down that path and focus on the weapons.

[ariel]

My undestanding is that Kindjal is a typically Caucasian weapon. All along, Caucasians of various ethnicities and religions were very active in foreign militaries (Mameluke in Egypt and, especially, in Persia. In the latter, they might have constituted the bulk of the military). Also, frequent invasions from Persia and Turkey displaced many of them into the victors' hinterlands.
This is a classical scenario for the spread of a particular weapon type.
I have a typical Kindjal, but it has a rhino handle and alligator (lizard?) skin stips on the scabbard: a very likely "Sudanese" type.
As to single-edge or double-edge... If Shashka is a "big knife", there is no reason why single-edge Kindjals could not have been also used in, say, Circassia. Are we saying that a single-edge Kindjal is a Persian development?

[Rivkin]

Originally Posted by ariel

My undestanding is that Kindjal is a typically Caucasian weapon. All along, Caucasians of various ethnicities and religions were very active in foreign militaries (Mameluke in Egypt and, especially, in Persia. In the latter, they might have constituted the bulk of the military). Also, frequent invasions from Persia and Turkey displaced many of them into the victors' hinterlands.
This is a classical scenario for the spread of a particular weapon type.
I have a typical Kindjal, but it has a rhino handle and alligator (lizard?) skin stips on the scabbard: a very likely "Sudanese" type.
As to single-edge or double-edge... If Shashka is a "big knife", there is no reason why single-edge Kindjals could not have been also used in, say, Circassia. Are we saying that a single-edge Kindjal is a Persian development?

This is similar to my thinking, especially since kindjals in Egypt were specifically recovered by napoleonic army from mamluks, and I have never seen them before or after on any pictures.
While I can not deny a chanse of such weapons created in parallel elseswhere, since kindjals are somewhat similar to ancient daggers - as in attachment (2500bc).


Now, other images coming with this post - two short transcaucasian "qaudaras" - almost completely straight blades, single edge and armenian family from Nagorny Karabagh (?), boy has a small knife-like quadara.
One of quadaras is photographed at the angle, so it is a little bit distorted.

[mross]

Originally Posted by Rivkin

Another shots - quadara and qama.

snip

P.S. I selected the photographs that are _least_ bloody and most concentrated on weapons, not on the festival itself. I think if we want to keep this thread moving, it must be about weapons, not about Ashura.

This may seem an odd question and the answer my lie in the above quote but here it goes. Are these quadaras special for ceremonial use? I'm just basing this on the amount of blood I am seeing. Like I said the answer may be in the quote that we are seeing a very sanitized view. I have several knives/swords that if I did anything more then touch my head I would be in much worse shape. From what little I know of the festival caution is not a big part of it. But then, cutting yourself so bad that you bleed out and can't last to the end is not either. I guess the questions is then are these designed for the ceremony with edges that are not what they should be? From the design of the blade it looks to me like it would work equally well in a slash and thurst role. So I would expect the edge to be sharp.

[ariel]

The self-inflicted wounds at the Ashura are not that deep; no danger to life at all.
Scalp wounds bleed like crazy because there is almost no vessel constriction in that area: the vessels are attached to the fascia. The wounds do not have to be big at all for the horrific "special effect" of bleeding.
By the same token, because of great blood supply, scalp wounds heal miraculously fast and well. No infections, nothing.
Pay attention: no self-inflicted wounds on the arms, torso, neck.

[mross]

Originally Posted by ariel

The self-inflicted wounds at the Ashura are not that deep; no danger to life at all.
....

That is my point. How do you prevent deep wounds from a very sharp blade? For instance I have a waved Endura that I always carry, it caught on my sleeve and opened and cut me good with just the weight of the knife(which is very light). I just find it hard to believe that in the middle of religious fervor that they are carefull enough with a large sharp blade not to do themselves serious harm. It is noted that no other part of the body is cut.