Thank you again Philip for further detailing these circumstances with numbers and letters in these key blade marking combinations. While complex it is in my view fascinating as this imbuements on blades were so integrally important.
Ed and Philip, one of the greatest conundrums for me in understanding, from metallurgical perspective, can blades be stamped with these kinds of marks after they are finished?
I have always taken crude or poorly formed stamped marks as the work of native craftsmen or importers, and added as they reached entrepots for dispersing into trade networks.
In some cases it has been presumed that certain blades, for example kaskara types, may have been produced explicitly for export to North Africa. These were stamped at the forte with the 'fly' mark of Kull, but it seems other marks were added after that.
I have seen remarks, I think in Briggs. where it is noted that small fracture lines occur around the area of a stamp so applied. Also, there are the dukari moons applied on a blade over the already applied thuluth acide etched calligraphy.
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