Jineta/nimcha/kattara

Gonzalo G · 27th July 2008, 08:31 AM

Thank you very much Jim, but still, I think it remains open the question from Ariel, for which I have no answer. Did the jineta sword, and all their close relatives, were an islamic, or a pre-islamic model? Where does it comes from? I think more search must be made. Berbers are an antique people from Africa, related by some authors to the numidians, whose cavaly fought the romans and latter were their auxiliaries. It seems they had a very old culture. On the other hand, the influences comming from arabs or other islamic peoples cannot be discarded. We have to read the descriptions of the swords used by arabs, sarracens and berbers over the period from the 10th to the 13th Century, at least. The problem is that many sources were written in arab and no traslations are made to european languajes. There is a new book in english, a traslation from Al-Kindi with some information on this subject, and there are other sources we have to check. Even biznantine sources could be useful in this task, not to mention the accounts from the crusades. This is a literate job.

But maybe someone on the forum has just found something about this subject.
My best regards

Gonzalo

27th July 2008, 08:31 AM	#8
Gonzalo G Member Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Nothern Mexico Posts: 458	Thank you very much Jim, but still, I think it remains open the question from Ariel, for which I have no answer. Did the jineta sword, and all their close relatives, were an islamic, or a pre-islamic model? Where does it comes from? I think more search must be made. Berbers are an antique people from Africa, related by some authors to the numidians, whose cavaly fought the romans and latter were their auxiliaries. It seems they had a very old culture. On the other hand, the influences comming from arabs or other islamic peoples cannot be discarded. We have to read the descriptions of the swords used by arabs, sarracens and berbers over the period from the 10th to the 13th Century, at least. The problem is that many sources were written in arab and no traslations are made to european languajes. There is a new book in english, a traslation from Al-Kindi with some information on this subject, and there are other sources we have to check. Even biznantine sources could be useful in this task, not to mention the accounts from the crusades. This is a literate job. But maybe someone on the forum has just found something about this subject. My best regards Gonzalo