After Omdurman, as seen in this article, the contents of the Caliph's armoury there were pretty astounding. I don't have the references at hand, but there were as noted, 'collected' items which were from various sources, more like curiosities. These were not intended for use by the forces of the Caliph necessarily, though obviously they are comingled with stores that were.
There were indeed artisans from various other tribal people in these areas in and around Omdurman, and numbers of weapons were crafted in the styles of their indiginous regions. It seems like it was quite a 'melting pot' of these groups. A considerable amount of supply from Khartoum included tons of scrap metal, machinery and it is unclear how many European and other workers remained after Khartoum was sacked, a good number of Greeks had been there.
The elephant tusk was simply a trophy probably, armouries like this were basically the 'collections' of powerful figures such as in this case, the Caliph.
These events and times were pretty fascinating, and I guess my obsession goes back to watching the Charleton Heston movie "Khartoum" MANY MANY yares ago!
|