Yataghans:bibliography and identification
 

Hello and thank you for adding me to your forum :)

First i'd like to say sorry for my english.. hope you'll understand me :)

I am working on my masters thesis in Department of Restoration of Works of Art (Poland) and have 2 yataghans to work with. Unfortunatelly i found very few informations about techniques, workshops and other informations stricte about yataghans (online and in bibliotecs). If there's something, it's about Suleiman's yataghans or very general information about this kind of weapon.
I have few books and articles about weaponry, but about turkish weapon (especially yataghans: history, techniques, etc.) only 2 positions with some informations about yataghans.
I found "Turetskoe oruzhie" E.G. Astvatsaturian with online access, but i can't understand (even read) russian. This part about yataghans (26 pages) is in translation progress now, but still need some information from the rest of the book. There's english version of this book somewhere (someone from this forum wrote that and i believe it's true :), but none of polish bibliotecs have it (i;m searching and searching without any effect). I found also no online access to this position :(

.....and that's why i'm here. For some time I read your forum and everything I can find here about yataghans. And I found conflicting informations- In the book 'Turetskoe oruzhie', author writes that the oldest known yataghan is the one of Suleiman the Magnificent dated 1526-27. Here i read about Bayezid II's yataghan from Qatar Museum of Islamic Arts dated 1460-61. Cannot find any confirmation. Could you help me please? :)
Do you know from where can i get this english version of the "Turkish Weapons from the Collection of the State Historical Museum"? Maybe someone of you know other good publications/books online in english (or spanish, polish)?

There are some pics of my "patients". :)


Thank you in advance!

Unfortunately, I cannot help you with the information you are seeking, but I must say the Yataghans are magnificent.

I hope they will be restored to their former glory by a good professional and knowledgeable person!

Do I see the date 1292 AH (meaning 1875 AD) in the cartridge? :shrug:

mariusgmioc, thank you for reply. I compared some examples from Astvatsaturian's book and think the same about the date. But I may be wrong.

If i'm right, another one may be from 1824/25, but it was very hard to read between the rust.

I will do my best and give them back their lost beauty. Conservation is about knowledge and practice, and before I will touch them, first I must know everything about this type of weapon :) and about these two.

Hello Mankova,

Welcome - always good to see new input on the forum.

You could try and find 'Zbirka Jatagana' by Dora Boskovic. I think I'm right in saying she's a curator at the Zagreb History Museum and this is a catalogue of the museum's yataghans, with a lot of useful information.

Good luck with both the restoration and the thesis.

Hello Jerseyman and thank you for your idea with this book :) It was one of the first i was searching for :) Unfortunatelly polish bibliotecs don;t have this position :( i was searching also online access (google books and others), with no effect. Finally i may buy it from croatian bookstore website :)

Thank you, I'll do my best :)

You could try to contact Ann Feurbach, you can find her on Google.
I know that she last(?) year was at a seminar about yatagans.

Your Yataghans smell something like Sarajevo... at least for the hilt...

The ref. of my friend Jersey man :)

Try "Yatagani" by Gozde Yasar. Collection of Askeri Muze in Istanbul.

Mankova, thank you for visiting us here, and for the interesting query on yataghans. You have chosen a fascinating and challenging topic for your thesis, and as the very knowledgeable members here furnish titles and suggestions, I hope you might say more on the nature or scope of your intended study.

The history and development of the yataghan is somewhat complex due to its diversity and diffusion into various regions and throughout the Ottoman Empire. I must admit that classifying and identifying these is, at least for me, a daunting task.

The titles recommended so far here are great suggestions and I look forward to seeing an even more comprehensive bibliography develop. I hope we might also develop some discussion regarding the classifications and characteristics of many of the established regional types.

Big thanks for You all :)
I will try to find a compromise between theory and practice. I mean I want to do a proper restoration with good theoretical base about the object. I'm not an art and weaponry historian, but for my objects I must know their origin and general history. Being here and reading fascinating informations and a lot of posts full of passion, cause thirst of knowledge in me :D

As Mr Jim McDougall noticed, it's not an easy field to research, because of its diversity. And with not enough bibliography in my country (for ordinary person like me to read in 5 languages may be hard, as far as i will find those publications i want :p). Nevertheless it's worth to try :)

I was searching some resemblence in Turetskoe Oruzhie and on the blade of one yataghan. What do you think, may I be right? :)

Monika

Of course on the picture supposed to be Muhammad, not Muhhamad.

Mr Jens Nordlunde, I saw Mrs Feurbach here on forum, and also found her facebook page about Yataghans :) I think about writing to her, but at this moment my brain is gonna explode because of so many information in extraordinary languages :P

I may say that i did some lab tests, and I found out that:

1st yataghan (bigger, with complete hilt): the "golden" letters, and rivets are made in brass, and the floral ornament at the hilt is silver.

2nd yataghan (incomplete hilt): letters are silver (oxidised to black), hilt has coral of course, brass rivets, and copper "ribbon" with rosettes. The braid is also copper, the same is filigran ornament, but the colour is rather more "brassy" with substantial addition of arsen.

:)
Greetings!

I have been going through 'search', online, and notes, and as I mentioned, the 'yataghan' has a great deal of information scattered throughout these sources. While often construed simply as 'Turkish', these eared pommel, forward curved swords were prevalent throughout the Balkans, Greece, Albania and many regions of the Ottoman Empire.

One source I would highly recommend is Robert Elgood's
"The Arms of Greece and Her Balkan Neighbors".
In his usual comprehensive manner, Elgood shows many examples and footnotes, cites, and bibliography should provide great channels to pursue in this research.

I found some notes pertaining to the term 'karakulak' (=dark, or black ears) used for these swords in the Balkans and Greece.
Meanwhile the term hun'gar or hun'cer (Ar. khanjhar) the root of the term hanger, is also applicable in degree, so more on the use of these terms might need clarification.

Mr Jim McDougall,
Your thoughts are priceless :)
I'm very grateful

Mr Kubur, indeed :) museum notes for those objects say it's Balkan

thank you, I will search for it :)

Ms. Mankova,

I will second Jim's suggestion about trying to obtain a copy of Elgood's "The Arms of Greece and (some) of its Balkan Neighbors". Not only the chapter on yataghans will help answer your questions about the origin of the form, but the first few chapters in the book provide a great background into the history of arms and armor and their manufacture and trade within the Ottoman Empire. This background is essential in trying to understand the yataghan, especially when you consider that a blade hilted in Foca may have been mounted in a silver scabbard in Istanbul and sold to a client from Asia Minor.

The Askeri Museum catalog, along with the Zagreb History Museum catalog are just this: catalogs. They have some general history chapters, but the goal of those books is to list a whole bunch of examples, without any real study into areas of origin. You can see the materials, the translated inscriptions and a date for most of the examples, but that is about it. The Dora Boskovic book could be useful as it has multiple similar yataghans to the ones you are tasked with restoring, as the focus of that collection is yataghans from the Western Balkans.

I would be very careful using Astvatsaturian's book, as the yataghan typology there is purely the author's guess, as she admits in the text. She tries to examine the decorative techniques used to come up with geographical attribution and for example ends up attributing a group of Greek yataghans to Eastern Anatolia because of the use of niello, which she believes has to be tied to the Caucasus.

To sum it up, my recommendation is for you to obtain Elgood's book. If all you need from the museum catalogs are the pictures and descriptions of similar yataghans to the two you are restoring, then I can probably help with that.

Sincerely,
Teodor

[QUOTE=Meanwhile the term hun'gar or hun'cer (Ar. khanjhar) the root of the term hanger, is also applicable in degree, so more on the use of these terms might need clarification.[/QUOTE]

Jim - that's very interesting - are you sure of that etymological link? I've often wondered where the term hanger came from as applied to swords. Do you have any further information on that?

Hello,

I would also be quite cautious using the Elgood's book as a reference for the Yataghan's origin as, in my oppinion, his attributions are mostly anecdotal and not based on their features' analysis.

In my absolutely novice's oppinion, these Yataghans appear to be from the Balkans (most likely Bosnia). :shrug:

Good luck!

Mankova, thank you very much for your kind words, and especially for entering your query here with us. It is always exciting to have these kinds of topics which bring active discussion and often more answers as we work to learn together.
I am glad to have Teodor here with us, as over the years his knowledge and understanding on yataghans has given many here keen insight in learning more about them.

Jerseyman, I believe that reference came from "Cut and Thrust Weapons" (Eduard Wagner, Prague, 1967) but it seems it comes from a number of other sources as well. I was recalling it from research some time ago, so I will see if I can retrace. Some of it was pertaining to the term and etymology as used in referring to various European hangers, and will try to relocate more.

Marius, Dr. Elgood himself would profoundly agree with using caution toward accepting material conclusively as a reference. As far as I have known however, his work has been meticulously researched, and anecdotal material typically well qualified. I know that personally I very much enjoy browsing through his volumes of footnotes and well referenced sources and cites in all of his works, which are virtual treasure troves of data.

In referring to yataghans' origin, do you mean as specifically to classification of the examples in the book as to regional attribution?
I think that one of the larger problems in attribution of yataghan variations and forms is that there are no real hard and fast rules which can isolate them into specific regional categories, at least as far as I have known.
There may be some better established consistencies known to those who have focused on these weapons over time, but as with many ethnographic forms, anecdotal record is often the only evidential criteria at hand as research moves forward.

What I find especially interesting with the yataghan as far as origins, is just how far into antiquity its form goes. The flared disc or eared pommel goes back to Bronze Age forms from Luristan, and of course variations into the evolution of yataghans in more recent times as well as the cleft pommel hilts of shashka and various other such hilts. In most cases trying to firmly connect these features is somewhat tenuous, but always worthy of continued study.

Don't really know yet... I'm already searching for similar examples (form and the year) to see where are they mostly from and it really looks balkan. Especially those rivets on the light hilt with pretty large ears and leaf-shaped decoration of the blade.

Do you know this page? It;s a catalogue of THE ARMS AND ARMOURY COLLECTION from Croatian History Museum in Zagreb :)
http://jatagani.hismus.hr/webe/hld/katknj.htm

Actually I had not seen this, and it is most impressive as well as it appears quite comprehensive.
I am sure you are familiar with the late Professor Zdzislaw Zygulski, who was one of your greatest scholars of arms and armour. Of his many great works, he wrote "Islamic Weapons in Polish Collections and Their Provenance" (in "Islamic Arms & Armour", ed. Robert Elgood, 1979).
He was of course curator of the famed Czartoryski Museum until his passing in 2015.

I am glad to see these two yataghans being conserved, and to see this sincere approach to their history as well as more on the history of this weapon form overall.
The best thing about restoration of weapons in these conservatory conditions is that it is done carefully and with appropriate restraint as possible. That is to preserve patination and focus on stabilizing any corrosion or active deterioration and replacing components only as necessary.

Yes, even after his death, he's still a great authority. I have few of his books :) He was teaching at my university, but i was too young to know him.

I will add some photos in progress and after conservation :) They belong to the museum, and they age, patina must be preserved. It's also very important to stabilize corrosion process like You said. Not only the final effect, but whole process is the very best part of this work :)


Independently from the conservation process, i will make some trials with old techniques in non-antique materials. I think it's a good way to know yataghans better :)
I really enjoy casting metals, sculpting in various materials, so this might be another very developing experience.


I'm very excited :rolleyes:

I also believe they are from Bosnia. The hilt decorations and silver overlay are indicative of that and similar to more common decorations on typical Bosnian knives like THIS ONE

I said "Sarajevo"
Why I have this feeling that nobody is listening to me?
Even my wife and my dog are not listening to me...
:(

Thank you so much for the kind response Mankova.
Professor Zygulski indeed remains a magnificent authority, and I will never forget his thoughtfulness in answering queries personally in research I was working on many years ago. His work remains legion in his fields of study.

I very much look forward to your progress on these restorations, and any updates on your research on yataghans.

I did offer some help from a nearby. Please read the messages i've sent or write a mail to grendolino@wp.pl.