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Originally Posted by Mefidk
Sorry, I've been unable to post for a while (thank you Jim for helping to sort it out).
I just wanted to concur that these blades turn up regularly in saif mounts and are identical in terms of floral pattern, lion and numbers (although numbers differ). So I think it is a fair bet that this is something similar to the late 19C shipment mentioned by Jim above.
Wrt to the lion - this is so similar that I would be surprised if these are made by multiple producers, but that the position was perhaps not considered critical, as long as it was there.
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No problem Chris, Fernando and Lee are great at sorting out these gremlins that creep into the tech stuff here.
Im glad we can get back to these discussions on kaskara, and the conundrums of these blades. In our conversations it has brought some review and reconsideration, for me at least, in the character of many of the blade variations.
I am beginning to believe that any native sword blade making of any consequence was probably not extant in either Saharan nor Sudanese regions until post Omdurman, as you have suggested. While there were notable blacksmithing artisans who could indeed make knife blades, spear heads and tools, the other work with swords would seem to be hilt making and mounting the volumes of trade blades arriving in networks and circulating already.
In rereading sources and notes from travelers such as Barth, and Denham & Clapperton in the1840s, it seems there was quite a brisk trade in blades included in the networks in which there were a number of entry points.
While some of the numbers of imports seem exaggerated, I am thinking perhaps not as much as thought.
That many blades eventually went to Ethiopia seems well established, and by the colonial period in the 19th c. there were blades going in there from Germany, Italy, Great Britain even Russian blades and cases of Japanese blades (these were not kaskara types).
With the couchant lion, the C. Lutters & Co. used a circled lion as such as their mark 1840-99 (Bezdek p.147), perhaps this was added in imitation? with the 'Lion of Judah' in mind. The kings head seems to be mostly associated with Ethiopia as well.