Qajar or Afsharid ?
 

Greetings friends,
I was wondering if anyone may be able to help me determine if this Persian straight sword with unique rounded Zulfiqar tip was made during the Qajar Dynasty or the Afsharid Dynasty. These swords, to my understanding are associated with the Qajar era, but were these ever fashioned during the slightly earlier Afsharid era?

The koftgari on the blade is an inscription of Quranic verse. I wish I could read it.

Any thoughts on this piece would be most highly appreciated.

Thanks.

Moderator's comment
 

Hi David,

Interesting sword. Would you please post a picture of the entire sword. This is a requirement for submitting a request for translation of an inscription (as stated in the "sticky" relating to translations, towards the top of the Ethnographic contents page). You will also get much better answers to your various questions with a picture of the entire sword.

Thanks.

Ian

Hi Ian, my apologies. I’ve been having a hard time posting. Some time delay from entry to appearance on the forum. Also I need to shrink the images I have, rather large.

Will add more pics of course.

More pictures
 

Here are the added photos.

From what I see it's 99% Qajar 19th c.

It will be 100% if the whole sword is shown for confirmation.

Maybe with round tip, it'll be Indian or Indo-Persian...

;)

Please show a picture of the whole piece so that you may gain more feedback.

Full picture
 

Here is a full picture of my Persian sword. It had been described as a Qajar Dynasty piece. But some of the floral koftgari on it seems to me to be similar to a Shamshir attributed to the Afsharid era. So if anyone has specific insight on the possibility, I would be most appreciative.

Thanks.

More pics
 

Hi, it’s taking 8-24 hours to upload my posts for some reason. Here is another picture of the entire Persian sword.

Thanks

A full length picture. Thanks

It is Qajar, made in the reign of Nasr al-Din Shah (r. 1848-1896.)
He was responsible for the neoclassicism in arms and armor and generally, for Iran's cultural revival.

I wonder what the significance is of the tokhes-shaped or gluteoform tip.

Clearly it is not a sex toy...
So probably a baby zulfiqar... It will make more sense in Persian context.
:shrug:

Well, Iran has quite a tradition of eroticism in the arts. I thought that the poetic expression was Sufistic spiritualism expressed in a physical metaphor, but some years ago a collector showed me a 18th or 19th cent. khanjar, with a nice black wootz blade and an exquisitely carved ivory grip of classic form, inscriptions top and bottom, with a scene that left nothing to the imagination. Neither of us could read the lingo, I still wonder what the script said.

Perfumed Garden
 

Hi Philip,
I will look over my copy of The Perfumed Garden, and see if this type of “weapon” was employed in their pillow arts. A quintessential pillow sword of a nobleman. Though I would hope it was designed for more warmongering courtly pleasures.

I too have seen a Katar that would make Pamela Anderson blush. Scenes painted on it, that probably were subliminal messages to the nobleman date that night as they drank wine and ate figs.