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Originally Posted by JoeCanada42
has anyone ever seen one of the nimchas made en mass for the siege of Malta?
how does one date this sword? forgive me i am typing this response and didn't take note of who, but someone said 19C . sounds fair enough but how was this determined I am curious?
Thanks for any input
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The nimcha as a form does not seem to have existed prior to the 16th century, and we are talking late 16th century at best. The nimchas with good provenance that exist in museum collections were captured from Barbary pirates in the mid 17th century, and some as late as the 18th century. There is one nimcha of very high quality in the Hofburg armory in Vienna that Eric Claude has dated to the 16th century, though no reasoning for that dating is provided other than the blade is an old European broadsword blade. Another nimcha in the same museum is a better studied form from the 17th/18th centuries, and I suspect both may date from that period. If someone knows of an earlier example, I would love to see it. The reason I am typing all this is to show that there may not have been many, or any nimchas during the siege of Malta in 1565.
When it comes to dating swords, in the absence of a strong provenance or a date on the blade or the fittings, the only option is to do it by comparing the features of the sword to other examples. This is where the forum search function can be extremely helpful.