View Single Post
Old 22nd February 2024, 04:20 PM   #45
fernando
Lead Moderator European Armoury
 
fernando's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Portugal
Posts: 9,645
Default Some touch ups.

The sword shown in post #39 by Peter is superb. An interesting feature is that the blade is marked (SIC) "four times on both sides"; way too many for what we usually see out there. Also in the main description we can read that the inscription on the blade is a "Spanish inscription in characters similar to cipher", but in the additional information it reads "Klinge Inschrift (spanisch): reyna de las espadas" = Blade inscription (Spanish): reyna de las espadas (read Queen of swords). Therefore the cipher was already cracked by or for the Museum.
Back to the main description, the Museum appears to suggest a Jewish connection with this sword details based on numerous Spanish Jews having left Spain after the reconquest, moving to North Africa in the dominion of the Ottomans.
According to Enciclopedia Judaica, from the 165 000 Jews that abandoned Spain in 1492, only 32 000 are 'estimated' to have gone to the North African coast, 20 000 to Morocco and 10 000 to Algeria. It happens that Morocco, the larger slice, despite numerous attempts, was never under Ottoman domain. On the other hand and, in a strict'er (?) translation, the Museum decription says that, after the conquest of Granada, numerous Spanish Jews left the country and moved, some of them via North Africa, to the Ottoman territory.
To say that the Jewish community in Granada were intimate with the Muslims, which worsened their situation by the time of their expulsion. Some of them were even craftsmen selling their services to the occupiers, sword smiths included. Who doesn't know the famous Julian del Rey, the Jewish sword smith master allegedly converted and baptized by the Spanish Catholic Kings, who was said to have worked for Boabdil, the last Nasrid King of Granada
I suppose that their mode to decorate swords would be rather different than the mode favoured by the Ottomans.



.
Attached Images
 
fernando is offline   Reply With Quote