Origins of karabela

[ariel]

We may never know the full history of the Selim's sword: the Imperial Ottomans were notoriously generous with decorating ( and re-decorating) their famous weapons and even more notoriously bad about documentation and standards of care. The book by Yucel mentions inscriptions on the Holy Swords that were present in the 1920-30s ( Stocklein's examination), but were lost subsequently due to rough cleaning.

This is the real reason why the Western collections are so important: their pedantic, unromantic documentation is academically precise and unarguable, whereas Iranian collections are still based on legends and wishful thinking aimed at bolstering sagging national ego. Turks are somewhere in the middle: their treasures were at least concentrated in Topkapi (and, later, Askeri Muze), and there is is an honest recent attempt on their part to start cataloguing and publishing ( Yucel, Aydin and Yasar's books).