Afghan Shashkas

[Rivkin]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

Hi Kirill,
I guess I could have worded that better What I meant was not that Georgians did not use shashkas, but the only Georgian form I've seen is the strange sharply canted and hooked pommel type referred to as 'Mingrelian'. These are extremely rare and I've seen them in illustrations, but I hadn't seen a standard form shashka attributed to Georgia. Obviously if everyone else in all the surrounding regions adopted the shashka they must have had them as well.Thank you for posting the link to that thread.

While I think that in the presence of such experts as you and ariel I probably should not voice my opinion, if I think about the same megrelians "shashka" you think about, then:

There are two types - one is megrelian palash and another one is a "skirted" palash-sabre ?

AFAIK megrelian palash is extremely rare because it was a weapon of distinction, and very often was not even designed for combat. For example, Dadiani-Murat's sword has a hilt going at nearly 90 degrees to the blade (it's obviously impossible to use this sword).

Concerning the skirted version, it looks so cute on pictures, but I've never seen one in reality.