My eastern kindjal ;)
 

Hello,

I just received this kindjal with silver sheath and niello,
small-medium piece: 51cm long overall.
Interesting with his small ''chain''

Do you think it's a russian kindjal ? an armenian- caucasian qama-kindjal ??,

I only found one stamp-signature-date ?

What do you think about his age-origin ?

Kind regards

Here a date ( 91 ?? ) - signature ?
On the basis of the blade
and the chiseled scabbard

Or read in this side :

Two arabic letters ?
'' Ta '' + '' Ha ''?

Initials of the owner ? the bladesmith ?


( + a picture of the nice horn hilt for share :) )


Kind regards

A plank connecting handle bosses is seen often on Turkish kindjals. Decorative element on the scabbard do not look Caucasian to me.

Hello Ariel,

Thank you for your comment !

So the ''flowers'' decoration scabbard can be ottoman/turkish ?

I can explain what I found a little weird:

when I looked for all silver/metal scabbard kindjal,
I only found pieces combined with all silver/metal hilts.

I saw this kind of hilt only associated with ''two chapes scabbards '' ( and leather or velvet in the middle )...

So I thought about a kindjal not associated with his original scabbard...

But the blade fits perfectly in and the reverse hilt decoration seems good too with the scabbard...

First very nice piece
It's not Turkish and it's not rhino. IMHO

It is not Daghestani...

But that's about all I can say about it. :shrug:

Hi Fracatolin,
I am not an expert on Kindjals, but I have seen a few. This is a nice and authentic Kindjal, but it looks very Georgian to me, so not Ottoman or Persian. Especially the style of the decoration and mounting of the hilt, as well as blade all look like Tbilisi, late 19th c., but the latter is just a guess:)

Hello and thank you everybody for your comments,

It's not easy to age and fix a kindjal origin especially without clear stamps-marks...,
( except the two arabic letters ?? has anybody an idea ? :) ... )

Always interesting to see the mix of cultural influences,
The reverse of the scabbard make me too think it's a caucasian
( georgian ? ) model.


I don't think it's rhino horn,
nice light brown horn with reflects and fibrous structure but no translucence at all...

I put other pictures of the hilt, who knows ;) !...

The scabbard is really similar to those made in Tbilisi, but the “markharay” ornament on the back says loudly that this is the work of a master from Dagestan (I am not in this field :) but I have the book “History of the Dagestan Ornament” by Paruk Debirov)
The subject is very unusual. I think that the Kindjal is older than its scabbard, which were made by special order at the very end of the 19th or at the beginning of the 20th century. The chain was added somewhere in another country, not in the Caucasus.

Hello Ren,

Thank's a lot about your precious informations and about markharay flowers ornament !!
( I have to buy this book, only written in russian I believe ?)
about Dagestan origin, I found this one coming from an auction and said to come from Dagestan and pretty looks like...

Kind regards- Happy Eastern

and this scabbard with the markharay floral ornament
( helpfull keyword !)

Hello francantolin!
It's my pleasure!

The book “History of the ornament of Dagestan” by Paruk M. Debirov was published in Russian by the Moscow publishing house “Nauka” in 2001 (Парук Муртазалиевич Дебиров "История орнамента Дагестана", Москва, издательство "Наука", 2001). This is a very interesting book for ethnographers and art historians, but it does not have much information for connoisseurs of edged weapons.
In decorating Dagestan’s weapons, two main motifs of floral ornaments were used - “markharay” (meaning “climbing thicket”) and “tutta” (meaning “floral stem”).
Markharay is based on intersecting spirals. Tutta is a symmetrical ornament with a stem in the central line, from which branches with leaves and flowers extend.

Thank you for your congratulations, but this year the Orthodox celebrate Easter on April 19 :) With the Great Holiday of all Western Christians!

Francantolin,
There are several books in Russian dealing with Caucasian decorations.
I understand your linguistic difficulty, everybody on this Forum wishes to be able to read Arabic and Farsi:-)

I can only suggest buying a book by Kirill Rivkin on Caucasian weapons. It is in English and is full of detailed description of different styles. It is on Amazon.