Unusual dagger ?Philippines ?N. Africa

[Ian]

This dagger sold at auction yesterday. I won't have it for a couple of weeks as it is coming from California. The attached pictues come from the auction site.

The knife was sold as a Philippines punal from the last decade of the 19th C. I'm not convinced this is a Philippines knife, or even a Spanish colonial knife. It's an odd one, mainly for the etched "inscription" on both side of the triangular blade.

The hilt has two pieces of bone flanking a central piece of horn. The pieces are separated by steel spacers. The guard and pommel cap are steel. The pictures do not reveal if the hilt has a full length tang.The blade has repeating triplets of etched letters/symbols along its length, best seen on the flat reverse side. The sheath is black leather with metal mounts at the throat and toe.

The etched marks on the blade are especially confusing for a Phlippine knife and much more closely resemble marks on certain North African swords. I have an old kaskara from Chad with similar marks, and I seem to remember these marks have also been found on Ethiopian and Abyssian blades. I'm sure Jim McD will recall.

Perhaps this is a blade from N. Africa.
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