Turkish? -- myArmoury.com

Ben Santoro · Posted: Sat 22 Aug, 2009 9:10 am Post subject: Turkish?

Help to identify this curved sword.

Jonathan Hopkins · Posted: Sat 22 Aug, 2009 11:19 am Post subject:

Ben,
Additional photos, including a full length shot of the sword, will help tremendously.

Jonathan

Stuart Quayle · Posted: Sat 22 Aug, 2009 12:05 pm Post subject: Mameluke sword.

Hi Ben

The double langets on the hilt side, cross-guard ending in swollen finials and pistol grip suggest a Turkish 'Mameluke' style sword to me, and the bottom of the scabbard at a complete guess - say of a style around 1800c(?)

Some Persian Shamshir swords also feature this Mameluke style of hilt.

Regards
Stuart

Ben Santoro · Posted: Sat 22 Aug, 2009 3:34 pm Post subject: Turkish?

Thank for your input so far. I've attached a photo of the whole sword.

Adam Rose · Posted: Sat 22 Aug, 2009 4:40 pm Post subject:

It looks more like a European sword in the Turkish style than an actual Turkish sword to me - the flat sided grip as well as the broad fuller and etching on the blade tend to point that way.

The Ottomans did adopt more European style equipment in the mid-late 19th century, and there are some Turkish-European hybrids from that period, but I'm not sure this is one of them. The writing on this one looks more South Asian (Hindi maybe?) than Turkish (which was written with Arabic script during the Ottoman period). Also, those Ottoman swords usually have a prominent star and crescent in the decoration and I don't see that here.

Ben Santoro · Posted: Sat 22 Aug, 2009 7:20 pm Post subject: New photo

This is a piece of engraving on the blade.

Romulus Stoica · Posted: Sun 23 Aug, 2009 10:33 am Post subject:

The inscription in the second pictures looks Georgian to me, look at the picture of the inscription over the David Gareja Monastery door in ancient georgian alphabet ( look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_alphabet ). Georgia it's a former soviet republic in Caucasus, on the Black Sea coast and has a border with Turkey, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_(country) .