Vasily Vereshchagin "Indian poem"

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by ariel

Jim,
I am sure you noticed two salient points re. Bukharan shashka: first, their pommels are cardinally different from the eared ones of Afghani " pseudo shashkas", and second, they were worn tucked under the sash, not suspended from the belt:-)

Right, thanks for the reminder Ariel, the Afghan 'pseudo shashka' (as Iaroslav terms them) are indeed in a scabbard, I did entirely miss that.
Interesting note on the Bukharen sabres, I have been told a number of times these had nothing to do with the shashka, but that is hardly a talking point, and not worthy of additional debate.
There are so few examples of these Bukharen sabres, as you know, and the only literature on them (as far as I know) is the article by Torben Flindt.

Since Bukhara is essentially in the same region as 'Uzbekistan' and 'Afghanistan' and the Afghan 'shashka' has the cleft and three rivets, it is possible that these cross influenced........as Torben Flindt told me in a letter....."as you have realized Jim, weapons have no geographic borders".
In this we were trying to determine whether a 'shashka' was Uzbek or Afghan, a vaguely defined comparison.

I have to say it is good to be reacquainted with these topics as it has many years since these researches, and good memories. You have far more current experience with these, so thank you for pointing out these salient details.

Again, very little point in debating an artistically depicted hilt, or whether these are termed shashka or not. But it is fun isn't it? Clearly it would seem so.