Early Yataghan for Comments and Discussion

[gp]

Some more info

https://x-legio.com/en/wiki/sica

and visualisation

[gp]

hereby the overview of all the different and yet so similar weapons.
To make it more interesting or confusing; the last 2 pics are from Iberian arms which do look like the Balkan ones....

[Ian]

gp, those links are not clickable. Did you mean to upload the actual pictures? Something not quite right here.

[gp]

Originally Posted by Ian

gp, those links are not clickable. Did you mean to upload the actual pictures? Something not quite right here.

The list of post 21 is the actual description of the pics in post 20.
My apologies for the misunderstanding.
The first 3 are Celts,followed by some Dacians, Greek, items found in Romania and Bulgaria and last 2 from Iberia.

I agree with Teodor there must be a link between these swords , long daggers of 2500 years ago in that area with the ones from the 16 to19 century….
The visual “likeness” is a strong indicatian, also since the Turkish source confirms it to a certain level.
Although “ the transfer” mentioned in. #2 of the above link from the Turkish publication might be open for discussion (or perhaps a little bias ?).

Nevertheless the resemblance in such a small region and the interaction between the peoples in those days might be a strong indication for these old weapons to be “forebearers” of the yataghan. This is something that needs to be investigated by scolars further. A matter which requires an international approach which was not that much possible due to the geopolitical situation in the last century.

[TVV]

Thank you for posting some examples of ancient weapons from the Balkans, GP - they really help illustrate the forms that existed in these lands in antiquity. The ones from Varna with the Rayed Sun/Spoked Wheel symbol are fascinating in the similarity of those markings to the most commonly found markings on shepherds' knives from the 19th century. Solar symbols can be fairly universal and it may just be a coincidence, yet the resemblance is striking.






Finally, I was able to find a picture of some knives excavated at Tsarevets fortress in Veliko Tarnovo. Those are some of the few medieval knives we have that we can at least date approximately, in this case to the 12th - 14th centuries, and definitely pre-Ottoman invasion. One of them has a blade that looks very much like a sika blade. I have been told there are other ones, dated similarly or even earlier in various regional museums in Bulgaria, but I have no pictures, so it may or may not be true.

[gp]

what a beautiful and most interesting place Tarnovgrad!

https://www.tsarevets.eu/en/index.html
https://lakshmisharath.com/veliko-tarnovo-bulgaria/

certainly worth a visit !

[TVV]

Going back to the start, I was able to find a very similar yataghan to mine that Rick Stroud had on his site (it is no longer for sale).