Interesting Kaskara from the Askeri Museum

[Edster]

Jim,

I went back down the Rabbit Hole. Here's an article on the fate of the Mamluks in Sudan. Pretty well got whittled away over the years. Fought local tribes. Apparently didn't develop a polity. Some returned to Egypt for pardons, some were killed and others pardoned.

A. E. Robinson, 'The Mamelukes In The Sudan', Sudan Notes and Records, Vol. 5 No. 2 1922, pp.88-94

Link:
https://www.sudanmemory.org/image/SN.../#topDocAnchor

Best,
Ed

[Jim McDougall]

It is a heck of a rabbit hole Ed!!! and it seems the deeper we go, the more intriguing and exciting, and more and more perplexing.....curiouser and curiouser !!!

However intrepid researchers like you specializing find the path.......this article is with brilliant insights into the Mamluk mystery. I seem to have had long held notions that due to the clear influences in aspects of Sudanese arms and material culture from Mamluk culture, that they had perhaps artisans in these areas in Dongola etc producing items.

I had felt that the acid etched thuluth conventions found in Mamluk metalwork led to the profuse covering of weapon surfaces with this was with Mamluk influence. The numbers of foreign blades and weapons coming into the Shendi markets probably through Suakin seemed to me likely blades and other items which would receive this treatment.

While my thoughts toward the kaskara (and other weapons) covered in thuluth at Omdurman were later, after the death of the Mahdi, I thought that perhaps the Caliph had seized on the notion as a means of effectively reinforcing his power and magic in these kinds of regalia. As has been noted, these were not intended necessarily as combative weapons, but votive elements carried by the religious figures who inspired and directed warriors while there to tend to the required attentions to the fallen. Also, these items reflected ecclesiastical authority.
This was of course a jihad, and these warriors were the 'Ansar'.

So it appears the processing and production of these weapons in the shops at Omdurman were from workers already established there, many were foreign, including numbers of Greeks who had been situated in Khartoum before its fall. So the production of these thuluth covered arms was not by Mamluks, though likely with influence from Mamluk metalworking traditions.

The volume of materials held in the shops at Khartoum was enormous, as Gordon had profound designs in building and the upkeep of infrastructure in Sudan. It seems the arsenal and affiliated shops were spared in the destruction of the city, with most materials and machines moved across to Omdurman.

There must have been some degree of sheet steel on hand, as many of the weapons known to other tribes who had conscripts and slaves in the Ansar forces seem to have been duplicated and decorated in thuluth are known, many of such commercial material.

This article that you attached is remarkable, and prompted a distant memory of a poem I saw many decades ago, and made an impression. I think it was called 'leap of the Mamluk' and I can still see the illustration of a Mamluk horseman in that action. In this article, it describes this supposed event, and the kind of hyperbole that becomes lore from an article in 'The Spectator' (16 Nov 1907) titled 'The Mamelukes Leap'.

It is complex history through this rabbit hole! but fascinating, and for those of us ever intrigued by the iconic and mysterious KASKARA!

All the best
Jim

[Edster]

Jim,

I just now reading "Travels in Nubia" 1819 by Burckhardt. having wadded through the intro. I think Nubia part starts on p.113 after a long intro in Roman numerals. His accounts are the main reference in Robinson's article and maybe there are a few gems therein that he neglected to mention.

https://ia800602.us.archive.org/6/it...ubia00burc.pdf

Ed

[Jim McDougall]

Fantastic Ed!!! off we go!!! Thank you so much!
Jim

[Edster]

Information on the arm of Nubians from Burckhardt "Travels in Nubia" 1819. P.254 total or p.142 of narrative.
His trip was made about 1814. Quote" The Nubians seldom go unarmed ; as soon as a boy grows up,
his first endeavour is to purchase a short, crooked knife, which
the men wear tied over the left elbow, imder their shirt, and
which they draw upon each other on the shghtest quarrel. When
a Nubian goes from one village to another, he either carries a
long heavy stick (c^jj) covered with iron at one of its extremities,
or his lance and target. The lance is about five feet in length,
including the iron point ; the targets are of various sizes ; some
are round, with a boss in the centre; others resemble the ancient
Macedonian shield, being of an oblong form, four feet in length,
with and curved edges, covering almost the whole body. These
targets, which are sold by the Sheygya Arabs, are made of the
skin of the hippopotamus, and are proof against the thrust of a
lance, or the blow of a sabre. Those who can afford it, possess also
a sword, resembling in shape the swords worn by the knights of the
middle ages, a long straight blade, about two inches in breadth,
with a handle in the form of a cross; the scabbard, for fashion
sake, is broader near the point, than at the top. These swords are
of German manufacture, and are sold to the Nubians by the merchants of Egypt, at from four to eight dollars apiece. Fire-arms
are not common ; the richer classes possess match-locks. End Quote.

This suggests that the swords were ready-made and not just imported blades with locally affixed handles.

Ed

[Jim McDougall]

Outstanding Ed! super slueth.........Ive been distracted and not yet well into the rabbit hole. So it appears that the swords, clearly imported , were coming into the North African trade centers as early as 1814 (suggesting of course that the situation was extant likely for some time.
I had read it seems somewhere that old swords in considerable numbers had been circulated through various channels into Malta, where many ended up with trade networks and into North African entrepots, most notably Egypt.

From here it seems that the simple cross guard broadsword was established in these regions long before the 'kaskara' form as we know it had become a recognized indiginous form in the Sudan. Very important is the note of the broadened scabbard tip which appears to be of course a fashion or symbolic element.

This begs the question, what does this significant 'flare' mean? did it indeed come from some iconographuc source with origins in Meroe, as has been suggested? must find my old notes.

While the Mamluks in Egypt certainly maintained the use of these kinds of simple guard broadswords in their conservative manner, how would this correspond more generally with fully mounted broadswords of mostly German make? There are of course the swords of much earlier, and the Crusades which were in Alexandria, and removed to Istanbul, I think in 16th c.

Now well into the rabbit hole............I think I see your light ahead....its dark in here!

[Edster]

More info from Burkhardt's Travels in Nubia. as referenced by post #16 above.This time it's p.407 of book & p. 303 of narritive. He is discribing items sold at the market in Shendy, one of the largest towns and markets on the Nile. He says, Quote"Sword-blades, of the kind, which I have already
described, and which are in common use all over the Black countries to the east of the Fezzan trade. They come from Sohlingen in
Germany ; about three thousand of them are annually sold at Cairo to the southern traders." end of quote.

This suggests that just the blades are imported and sold in Shendy unlike the complete swords suggested as trafficed also from Cairo in Dongola as referenced in Post #16 above. "Curiouser and curiouser!"

Best,
Ed