Development and characteristic of Ottoman Turk swords

Rivkin · 9th January 2006, 03:50 PM

1. As far as I remember Astvatsaturjan is very specific in saying that yataghans appeared in huge n umbers in the second half of XVIII and nearly disappeared in the end of the first half of XIX centuries. I would be a little cautious, since all she writes about is based on russian imperial collections.

2. Concerning the development of Ottoman armoury I would again refer to Astvatsaturjan. It is a very good book, and I doubt such a general question can be answered more or less respectively on this forum.

3. One can make an argument that western swords evolved precisely due to the eastern/ottoman influence, from straight swords into curved sabres, so the ottoman weaponry had to evolve far less than european weapons.

Concerning the evolvement itself. Here I am not a specialist, but imho first of all such weapons as maces, axes, later palashes disappear. Palas become more rare. In the second half of XIX century all traditional turkish weapons are replaced by "pattern" swords, with traditional hilts, but european-like blades, in XIX century due to germanization of the army sabres become basically nearly identical to contemporary german patterns.

Also, as far as I remember, kilij in XVIII century - more curved than pala, less than shamshir, as thin and wide as pala. Kilij prior to XVIII century - narrow, far less curved blade (aka karabela). Has a back edge, as later kilij also do. "turkish" shamshir of XVIII cenutry is less curved than older, iranian models.

But yet again - Astvatsaturjan spends dozens of pages on this.

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9th January 2006, 03:50 PM	#2
Rivkin Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 655	1. As far as I remember Astvatsaturjan is very specific in saying that yataghans appeared in huge n umbers in the second half of XVIII and nearly disappeared in the end of the first half of XIX centuries. I would be a little cautious, since all she writes about is based on russian imperial collections. 2. Concerning the development of Ottoman armoury I would again refer to Astvatsaturjan. It is a very good book, and I doubt such a general question can be answered more or less respectively on this forum. 3. One can make an argument that western swords evolved precisely due to the eastern/ottoman influence, from straight swords into curved sabres, so the ottoman weaponry had to evolve far less than european weapons. Concerning the evolvement itself. Here I am not a specialist, but imho first of all such weapons as maces, axes, later palashes disappear. Palas become more rare. In the second half of XIX century all traditional turkish weapons are replaced by "pattern" swords, with traditional hilts, but european-like blades, in XIX century due to germanization of the army sabres become basically nearly identical to contemporary german patterns. Also, as far as I remember, kilij in XVIII century - more curved than pala, less than shamshir, as thin and wide as pala. Kilij prior to XVIII century - narrow, far less curved blade (aka karabela). Has a back edge, as later kilij also do. "turkish" shamshir of XVIII cenutry is less curved than older, iranian models. But yet again - Astvatsaturjan spends dozens of pages on this.