Twisted mind

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by Bob A

Did anyone notice the laz bichaq on ebay? I made a desultory bid on it, but failed to win. It is noteworthy for the lack of the typical curve in the blade.

I'm unable to capture a picture from the site. I don't know if posting a link to the completed auction is permitted. I can PM the link to interested parties, I suppose, or fwd it to moderators if they can grab the image.

Interesting note Bob. These variations of this curious genre of what we have come to consider Anatolian/Central Asian swords have varying forms of hilts, and the curvature of their blades. For example the Laz Bichagi is not always with the 'horned' hilt. ….I wish I could find the pics of some of these variations. That Hungarian article was fascinating, but that research was back in the 90s and I need some serious excavation to find that detail!

[ariel]

I am sure it has nothing to do with Armenians and Kurds.
Attached you will find a picture from a Russian book-album , a catalogue of the collection of Eastern weapons from the Russian Ethnographic Museum in St. Petersburg.

My train of thought uses 3 elements: the remarkable similarity to the North Anatolian Laz Bichaq; origin from Tashkent ( Uzbekistan) and the date of acquisition ( 1948).

I suggest this is a Meskheti Turks weapon.
Meskheti Turks lived in South Georgia, right on the border with Turkey and close to ( or even mixed with) Laz Turks. Both ethnicities were Turkish ( or islamized Georgians), both spoke Turkish language and had overlapping cultures and likely weapons.
In 1944 Soviet government forcibly exiled 115,000 of them to Central Asia ( Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kirghizstan), accusing the entire people of spying on behalf of Turkey. They were loaded into train cars and sent to their new destinations without food and warm clothes. In the 2-months long transit 20-30% died of cold and hunger ( mainly children, women and old people). This is identical to the fate of Chechens, Kabardians, Balkars, Kurds, Crimean Tatars et cetera.

The place of acquisition of this sword is Tashkent, a capital of Uzbekistan, where most Meskheti Turks were exiled without any right to change their place of living. The date of entry is listed as 1948, just 4 years after the exile. Russian " ethnographers" just likely bought it from one of the starving exiles , likely for pennies. Or got it as a confiscated item from the local security goons for a bottle of vodka.

I would gravely doubt the alleged name "Shoi", the attribution to Kazakhs and the alleged acquisition by the closed Museum of the Nations of USSR : the museum records and the authors of the book committed so many attributional errors that one cannot rely on any statement.

[Jim McDougall]

Excellent entry Ariel!! and thank you for sharing that source.
I think you are right, and the Armenian-Kurd notation was intended primarily with reference to the earlier classification of the Laz bichagi from 1941 in the Triikman-Jacobsen article and as Seifert called it in 1962.
Other entries called it a Transcaucasian yataghan.

I cannot think of the reference I was trying to cite that had images of various recurved 'Central Asian' swords, many with cleft pommels. It was by a Hungarian in 1897, I think it may have been Vichy(?) It was not the 'Karkok' book by Lugosi & Temesvary, but you know these Hungarian references. Can you think of it?

[Kubur]

Originally Posted by ariel

My train of thought uses 3 elements: the remarkable similarity to the North Anatolian Laz Bichaq; origin from Tashkent ( Uzbekistan) and the date of acquisition ( 1948).
I suggest this is a Meskheti Turks weapon.

Ok i take it as a Laz Bichaq variation, Meskheti Turk sword.

Difficult to find on the web, but i found another photo of a very similar model...

[AvtoGaz]

Originally Posted by ariel

I am sure it has nothing to do with Armenians and Kurds.
Attached you will find a picture from a Russian book-album , a catalogue of the collection of Eastern weapons from the Russian Ethnographic Museum in St. Petersburg.

My train of thought uses 3 elements: the remarkable similarity to the North Anatolian Laz Bichaq; origin from Tashkent ( Uzbekistan) and the date of acquisition ( 1948).

I suggest this is a Meskheti Turks weapon.
Meskheti Turks lived in South Georgia, right on the border with Turkey and close to ( or even mixed with) Laz Turks. Both ethnicities were Turkish ( or islamized Georgians), both spoke Turkish language and had overlapping cultures and likely weapons.
In 1944 Soviet government forcibly exiled 115,000 of them to Central Asia ( Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kirghizstan), accusing the entire people of spying on behalf of Turkey. They were loaded into train cars and sent to their new destinations without food and warm clothes. In the 2-months long transit 20-30% died of cold and hunger ( mainly children, women and old people). This is identical to the fate of Chechens, Kabardians, Balkars, Kurds, Crimean Tatars et cetera.

The place of acquisition of this sword is Tashkent, a capital of Uzbekistan, where most Meskheti Turks were exiled without any right to change their place of living. The date of entry is listed as 1948, just 4 years after the exile. Russian " ethnographers" just likely bought it from one of the starving exiles , likely for pennies. Or got it as a confiscated item from the local security goons for a bottle of vodka.

I would gravely doubt the alleged name "Shoi", the attribution to Kazakhs and the alleged acquisition by the closed Museum of the Nations of USSR : the museum records and the authors of the book committed so many attributional errors that one cannot rely on any statement.

May I perhaps suggest a Hemshin Armenian origin. The Hemshins live mostly in Turkey but a group of them also used to live in Adjara in the Georgian SSR, but were deported to Central Asia at the same time as the Meskhetian Turks. While the Meskhetian Turks lived further inland in Samtskhe, the Hemshin Armenians lived right next to the Laz and Adjar people in the mountainous highlands of the black sea region and had a much more similar culture to them. Indeed, most photos of Meskhetian Turks show them with rather typical Caucasian style weapons and clothing, not Pontic.

I feel this explanation accounts for everything you mentioned plus its previous attribution as being "Armenian".

[Turkoman.khan]

Jenö Zichy in his book "Kaukázusi és Középázsiai utazásai", published at the end of the 19th century, wrote that such swords are found in Transcaucasia among Armenians and Kurds.

[AvtoGaz]

Originally Posted by Turkoman.khan

Jenö Zichy in his book "Kaukázusi és Középázsiai utazásai", published at the end of the 19th century, wrote that such swords are found in Transcaucasia among Armenians and Kurds.

A very interesting find, I was not aware of this illustration or the book. The curvature of the blades of these weapons certainly lines up with those of these Kurdish-Armenian yatagans, and even the decoration on the blades is quite similar as well.