Mystery Weapons from Bulgaria

[Rivkin]

Originally Posted by erlikhan

Rivkin, the one you show is pure Turkish. Classical hilt form. Several cities in Turkey had kindjal production and special models. Azeris had kindjals too. Coral was mostly preferred by eastern Turkey and Azerbaijan. I meant the samples from local Circassian villages as being simple and Turked ,not all kindjals. http://www.pbase.com/erlik1453/inbox . You can see other pictures except tughras in this link. Can you guess which tribe it is?

Interesting shashka. Now I probably should not say anything, because I _don't_ collect shashkas (and there are people here who do), but this one looks to me as a circassian. The niello is a little bit like dagestani, but not a classical dagestani, and the density of all those leaves and branches is much smaller than it should be for a dagestani ornament. I would vote for circassia, and this one is quite a rare item - unusual fullers etc.