Mystery Weapons from Bulgaria

[Rivkin]

Originally Posted by TVV

The scales on the handle are made of horn, and to some extent resemble those on kindjals from the Caucasus, however the blade has a central rib rather than a fuller and overall this does not look like anything from the Caucasus I have personally seen.

Central rib is characteristic to kidnjals from Georgia, usually relatively late ones - 1850 and later.

Originally Posted by TVV

You can perhaps see the obvious differences.
So here is the question: does anybody know anything about these weapons? They most deffinitely came from Bulgaria. As of their age, nothing is certain. One needs to keep in mind that Caucasus kindjals arrived in Bulgarian lands with Muslim Circassians that the Ottomans relocated from the Caucasus (I believe nowadays Chechnya and Dagestan).

No. Circassians are from Circassia, Kabarda, Adighe (the lands named after their individual tribes) and so on.

My ignorant opinion would be - one of the kamas (last photo) shown are actually much closer to turkish kindjals than to circassian ones (many red dots - coralls? on the hilt). The top kindjal is also more southern then circassian, and may be even more of a georgian/armenian type. In light of this I would think that probably kindjals came to Bolgaria with turks and turkish trade rather than with circassians alone. That explains the range of sizes and styles we see - some are more like turkish, some are like georgian, some can be circassian.

Concerning the balkan kama with many fullers - I'm lost here - have no idea where it comes from.