No arguments concerning shashka. Kindjals is a different issue alltogether. "Common knowledge" concerning kindjals is very different in different areas, north vs. south. Larger kindjals are more charateristic towards the south, yet I have seen some monstrous examples on photographs of ossetians. Don't think that they descent from something very different than "normal" kindjals. I would guess that the source is the same; however, I would guess even russian royal collections can not shed any light on really old kindjals, since they are mostly composed of very late examples, donated to russian high notables.
The same goes for niello - it has been long noticed that "circassian" niello is extremely similar to some very high quality examples of extremely old islamic niello works, yet again, besides areas surrounding Caucasus one can not find something quite similar. Did it come from south and died out everywhere but in Caucasus ? Or was it originally developed in Caucasus and sold everywhere else ? I don't know.
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