Dave,
this kaskara is most interesting and I recognized those markings as from discussions long ago, in fact I finally found information from June, 2005 .
In that discussion, everyone was pretty bewildered by these unusual markings, but 'Roanoa' who has long been our 'go to' guy on Ethiopian weapons had the answer.
He claims kaskaras with this motif were from Eritrea.
In other research over the years it seems that it has been suggested that the head on these may represent King Johannes IV of Ethiopia, who fought against incursions from the Italians, as well as the Mahdists. He was killed by them at the Battle of Gallabat March 10, 1889, and later his body was captured by Mahdist forces. The corpse was beheaded and the head taken to Omdurman as a trophy.
The curious 'numerals' or characters may represent Amharic in stylized form (they look nothing like it really), but neither of these ideas are overly compelling.
The lion represents interpretation of the Ethiopian Lion of Judah.
It does seem that several of these are known, one was a blade alone.
In any case the possibility remains Eritrean and probably end 19th early 20th c.
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