Odd Sword

[fernando]

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

The Majescule Letter A...Again !

[fernando]

Where did you get this one, Ibrahiim ?

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Originally Posted by fernando

Where did you get this one, Ibrahiim ?

At what some people refer to as the Forum Resource but which I call Forum Library ...at one of the references in the post above which also gives a further interesting thread to consider at http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...burg+majuscule where at #22 it; the majuscule A, is examined most precisely.

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

To refocus for a moment on the project sword at #1 here is the script we are considering ...

[fernando]

I was conculting my books in order to establish some points referring to a large XIII century originated convent that exits in the town next to mine and, when i saw the illumination of the first page of the charter given to the convent by King Dom Manuel in 1516, i noticed this A with a funny top ... but with a sraight crossbar. It seems as we had part of this fashion over here .


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[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Originally Posted by fernando

I was conculting my books in order to establish some points referring to a large XIII century originated convent that exits in the town next to mine and, when i saw the illumination of the first page of the charter given to the convent by King Dom Manuel in 1516, i noticed this A with a funny top ... but with a sraight crossbar. It seems as we had part of this fashion over here .


.

Certainly interesting since I believe we are looking at a Portuguese sword....despite the straight and not Vee shaped crossbar. The Majescule A form seems widespread.
At http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...0&page=2&pp=30 there is a dated and similar Majiscule A though again with a straight top...and straight bar at #31...with the 1519 date clearly shown and noted....and a slightly different date on the same A at #34.

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Please see..

http://www.gustavianum.uu.se/digital...ord-blades.pdf

....where the paper shows the variety of potential combinations; for example a mixed Latin, Roman, Greek puzzle with some letters reversed or upturned. The combination is not only illogical but randomly done and could even be at the discretion of the owner or maker and be loaded therefor with the possibility of a mistake; deliberate or otherwise. It is perhaps for this reason that museums have put out a general distress call through the media in an attempt to crack the codes...which aren't codes at all...since they are not logical.

The codebreaker thus has a number of codebooks to run with including all of the usual alphabets ....runes ...religious books... and sayings of the day...somewhere around the 13th Century. In addition code may also mean Talismanic numerical progression so the ability to reckon on that peculiar mathematical expertise is vital.

It is important that ethnographic enthusiasts and researchers view how these shorthand devices stepped from the medieval period into the modern era on European blades. (but don't write in ...I know there are some on Eastern blades as well)...I should say mainly on European blades!

What I find amazing still is the habit or tradition many centuries ago of casting ones favourite sword into the deepest pool..a favoured way, perhaps, of returning ones sword to the underworld as was the famous mythical sword in the legendary Excalibur.

Regards,
Ibrahiim al Balooshi.

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

On revisiting this problem. It seems this puzzle may be around for a very long time, hence, a brief look at https://linguisticator.com/a-medieva...d-inscription/ could be useful. Not only could the letters be a mixture of several languages but it could be read from the right or left...No one knows.

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

[Victrix]

The symbols on the blade don't look like West European letters of the alphabet to me at all. Neither does it look like Hebrew. Could it be Ge'ez? Most likely they are talismanic symbols meant to bring luck to the user and may not necessarily mean anything but are based in superstitious beliefs. The cross as part of the decorations suggests the blade is originally from a Christian country. I have seen hussar sabres with these talismanic symbols and haven't felt tempted to try to interpret them. Some of these sabres may have been made by gypsies and could even be marked with Roma symbols.

[Helleri]

I've found this site to be very useful in looking up and comparing systems of writing.

[Jim McDougall]

It is good to see this thread back, and the focus on possible identification of the sword blade. As with so many ethnographic situations blades such as this one, typically European, whether trade or otherwise acquired, are often remounted many times in their working lives. Apparently there were many caches of blades in Bedouin holdings which were eventually filtered into locations in Arabia where they were remounted into swords for various situations.

This blade, with its most curious lettered inscription, appears to be a 17th century European arming sword blade as we have discussed. The 'cross' is a device often termed the 'anchor' which is found at the end of the fuller or often inscribed panel at its termination. While this one seems quite rudimentary, these are often more complex with numerous cross bars.

As we have seen, it seems fruitless to try to determine the origin of these characters, which appear to be assembled from various sources and perhaps alphabets. In these times and earlier, it was quite common to have various mottos, phrases and invocations placed in acrostic form on blades. In Italy there are variations of these kinds of inscriptions which seem like entirely unintelligible gibberish. The same kinds of inscriptions occur in even earlier times on blades found in England with what are termed 'magical' inscriptions.

In many cases, often on Spanish blades, there are magical symbols interpolated with otherwise regular lettering, and we can surmise that such practice may have applied to these kinds of acrostics. Often they were disguised religious invocations or talismanic devices. In many cases these characters are of numerical rather than alphabetic value, and numbers in magic are assigned particular meanings and values. For example the numbers on many blades such as 1441; 1414 and others are often perceived as dates, but are actually magic combinations.

On the blades of East European swords as mentioned, there were such talismanic wordings often with curious symbols and devices, many of these known as the 'Transylvania knot', though not literally a tied cord or knot.
I have had swords with 'Hungarian' blades with such 'wording' which when I tried to have translated, were simply unintelligible groupings of letters.

With the hussar sabres noted, actually the 'Gypsies' were responsible for certain decoration of swords and they did metalwork particularly on scabbards and hilts, but they did not produce swords. In most research concerning symbols on these East European swords, and contact with Gypsy sources, none I found were having to do with their unique language nor symbolism. It was a good thought though as I felt at the time.

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Originally Posted by Helleri

I've found this site to be very useful in looking up and comparing systems of writing.

Salaams Helleri, It gets complicated as we know that even alphabets were mixed up ...The entire blade script may be a code known only to the owner..and the meanings of scripts some of which may be local religious unknown entities may never be unraveled. The sword by the way carries an Oman hilt possibly refitted relatively recently and well after swords were used in battle. My suspicion is that the blade may be Portuguese although I am not certain.

[Helleri]

Originally Posted by Ibrahiim al Balooshi

Salaams Helleri, It gets complicated as we know that even alphabets were mixed up ...The entire blade script may be a code known only to the owner..and the meanings of scripts some of which may be local religious unknown entities may never be unraveled. The sword by the way carries an Oman hilt possibly refitted relatively recently and well after swords were used in battle. My suspicion is that the blade may be Portuguese although I am not certain.

It's still useful. I've used it several dozen times to identify characters I don't recognize. No one is going to be translating anything that is at all nuanced with it. But it's good place to start to get some ideas of what one is looking at when one has no ideas. Another good one is symbols.com (which has actually expanded to a lot more than just symbols now).