The Omani Sayf. ( The Omani Straight Dancing Sword)

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Originally Posted by kahnjar1

Salaams kahnjar1 . Yes all the Omani Sayfs ... The straight Omani Dancing swords bend massively... at least through 90 degrees and return immediately to straight.

None of the dancing swords I have ever seen are stiff.

Now the question we are all chasing down is... What about these stiff blades like the one you have? They are made differently being wing shaped in cross section but are they fighting swords or dancing ?... Technically they must be weapons but were fitted to Omani hilts when, why...and where? They could be part of the ensemble of swords fitted up in Muscat in the last 40 years... after all they have cross hilted thousands of swords.

That is one of the questions I have for the museum people.

In the meantime we may simply have a very odd situation we can't solve yet but somewhere down the line this one should unravel ~ meanwhile it's ringfenced.

Regards,
Ibrahiim al Balooshi.

Salaams Ibrahiim,

My question is still not answered......The Omani Sayfs in your workshop....are they ALL "90 degree"flexible blades (dancing swords)?

You state that those with 2" or so flexible blades, or stiff blades are not of Omani origin, so I assume that the above is true as you describe all your straight Sayfs as Omani. Please confirm.[/QUOTE]


Salaams, I refer you to the first line above in which I say... Yes all the Omani Sayfs ... The straight Omani Dancing swords bend massively... at least through 90 degrees and return immediately to straight. That applies to all of the Omani dancing swords in my collection... my workshop is not a sword "making" facility.

All the sword making workshops that I know of continue to turn out only flexible dancing swords in the format I describe.

It has always been my suspicion that the straight stiff variant "blade" is a Red Sea style previously a fighting blade perhaps Ottoman, Ethiopian Yemeni or even Algerian. For a comparison on an Omani hilt on a blade with a "similar" blade mark almost identical to an Algerian gun mark see Kattara for comments # 149 and #176.

My thoughts on Muscat rehilting are already placed.

Regards,
Ibrahiim al Balooshi.