Origin of this Yataghan? (With pictures!)

[TVV]

To me, based on the blade and bolster, this looks like a Greek yataghan that was rehilted at some point, with the hilt being inspired by bayonet brass hilts such as those on the Chassepot bayonet.

Regards,
Teodor

[Khelben]

Thanks. That's very helpful.

Is there a database I could look through to identify the maker's mark, that you know of, or are there not good records for that sort of thing?

[Kubur]

Originally Posted by TVV

To me, based on the blade and bolster, this looks like a Greek yataghan that was rehilted at some point, with the hilt being inspired by bayonet brass hilts such as those on the Chassepot bayonet.

Regards,
Teodor

I disagree with Teodor, I don't think that each time we have a yataghan with silver niello work it has to be Greek. I could have been done in any place from Turkey to Bosnia.

what is very intriguing are the 4 dots, are they rivets? Can you do more photos and close-ups?
It looks like a replacement hilt, but the tang was reworked too.

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Please see http://atkinson-swords.com/collectio...an-turkey.html where another circular mark can be viewed on a Yatagan. The example at web is Ottoman.

[TVV]

Anything is possible, and there was a lot of movement of blades and even craftsmen within the Ottoman Empire. However, decorative techniques and motives were based on regional preference, and the shape and decoration of the bolster is associated with Greece. The style of the blade, with the upturned tip is also a Cretan and Greek characteristic. So based on this, it seems most likely that this yataghan was made in Greece. Where it was used and subsequently rehilted is hard to tell, at least for me, but at least we can make an educated guess on where it was originally produced.

Teodor

[OsobistGB]

I agree with Theodor on 100%.The style of work is Greek

[mariusgmioc]

In my novice opinion this is neither Greek, nor Turkish but most likely Balkan yatghan.
The blade might be Turkish but then re-hilted in the Balkans.

[Kubur]

Originally Posted by TVV

The style of the blade, with the upturned tip is also a Cretan and Greek characteristic. So based on this, it seems most likely that this yataghan was made in Greece. Where it was used and subsequently rehilted is hard to tell, at least for me, but at least we can make an educated guess on where it was originally produced.
Teodor

MMMMm i would like to believe you but i don't know where you got your information's. Please look at a reference book like Arms of Greece and you will see that it's not true. Books are always the answer. If someone can translate Russian we will see, maybe Teodor is right...

Second point for Kelhben here is a list of stamps similars to yours.

Kubur

[Kubur]

Maybe this one

[ariel]

I also agree with Teodor: rehilted Cretan yataghan.
As to attributing it to the Ottoman Empire, let’s not forget that in the early 19 century Balkans, Crete, Greece were all parts of it.

[TVV]

Originally Posted by Kubur

MMMMm i would like to believe you but i don't know where you got your information's. Please look at a reference book like Arms of Greece and you will see that it's not true. Books are always the answer. If someone can translate Russian we will see, maybe Teodor is right...

Second point for Kelhben here is a list of stamps similars to yours.

Kubur

Astvatsaturian attributes these to Eastern Anatolia, based on the niello and similarities to niello decoration on arms from Georgia. It is a book full of great pictures, but the conclusions are based on the author's guesses, which she admits herself in the book. Not being able to read Russian does not really detract much, to be honest.

In Elgood's book I do not recall yataghans with this shape to the bolster as attributed to areas outside of Greece, and there are plenty of examples in the chapter dedicated to arms associated with the Greek War of Independence. But it would be a good idea for me to go through the book again.

Teo

[TVV]

Looking through Elgood's book, in the chapter on yataghans on p. 146, figure 167 shows a yataghan with a similar bolster described by Elgood as originating from Crete or Southern Greece. He does not show that many yataghans of this type, unfortunately - the other one in the same chapter just has a date, no attribution. Lord Byron had a smaller dagger of the same type.

Teodor

[ariel]

Astvatsaturian’s book is based exclusively on the materials from the State Historical Museum ( Kremlin) and, in a smaller part, from St. Petersburg collection ( Hermitage? I am too lazy to check her book). She tried to develop systematic classification of yataghan origins based on decorative elements. But the final product reminded the tongue-in cheek passage from the Borges’ scheme allegedly taken from an ancient Chinese manuscript about classification of animals: “ those belonging to the Emperor, suckling pigs, frenzied, sirens, fabulous , etc...”
Really good specialists lived in Istanbul’s Topkapi and Askeri Muze, and in Yugoslavia. But she could not go there: Turkey was a NATO country and Yugoslavian Tito professed independent view of socialism, being a traitor of Lenin-Stalin’s dogma. Thus, for example, anything with niello was viewed by her as coming from Eastern Anatolia due to her belief that Soviet Caucasus was the cradle of niello-ed silver ( like the current example). Maria Shercer and Dora
Boscovich could have educated her , but... alas, trip to Tito’s lair of anti-Soviet ideology was out of the question.


On top of that, Astvatsaturian did not know foreign languages and her transliteration of foreign names of weapons was pathetic in its ignorance. There were independent sabers klych and klykh, mech and megg etc. She was a talented , productive and dedicated historian of weapons but she had a misfortune of living and working in a wrong country. Her book about more familiar subject, i. e. Caucasian weapons, is a masterpiece however.

In her defense, even contemporary Turkish books, such as Yasar’s “ Yataghans” are just as bad: every example there is labeled as just “Ottoman” :-)

[gp]

Some additional reading :

http://www.muzej-senj.hr/web/media/K...VO-GMS-web.pdf

http://www.muzej.mod.gov.rs/en/museu...n#.XsAnQMDgo2x

Some more visualisations (13 pictures actually from last year's exhibition) by the Bosnian institute in Sarajevo BiH :
https://www.klix.ba/magazin/kultura/...ozbi/180418111
Click on the foto to get access to all 13 pics

and a few from Livo: http://www.fmgg-livno.com/postavi/zb...-vojne-opreme/

By the way... Sarajevo or Sarajewo or also sometimes written in older books as Serajewo: the name originates form 2 Turkish words: Saray Bosna, meaning castle or fortress at (the river) Bosna.

Saray (Arabic: السراي‎; Turkish: sarayı, seray), with the variant saraya or seraya (السرايا), is a castle, palace or government building which was considered to have particular administrative importance in various parts of the former Ottoman Empire. Seray may also be spelt serail in English, via French influence, in which case the L is (in principle) silent. But has nothing to do with Seraglio.

Think also of Galatasaray, a most famous sportclub in Istambul,which name also derives from its ancient origin as a Celtic Castle!
Now one thinks basketketball and football ( or soccer for our American friends) but its meaning was simply Fortress of the Galats , where the Galats are Celts ! And later the neighbourhoodtook over this name...

FYI: As the Celtic tribes first went South from Poland in the past ( must have been around a couple of centuries BC) , they split up in West Europe ( NL- Belgium) into 3 directions:
West to England and later Wales and Eire.
South to Spain and North Africa (Morocco)
East along the Danube ( coins struck 200 B.C near Belgrade Serbia) to Turkey.
But that is altogether another story.

3 pictures / drawings are by Th. Valerio in "souvenirs d'un voyage chez les Slaves du Sud “ from 1868 by Georges Perrot.
the bearded gent is by unknown in an article "a travers la Bosnie-Herzegovine" dated 1896 by Guillaume Capus and the 5th “ Turkish warrior and Montenegrin” from 1904 Deutsche Alpenzeitung "Wanderungen durch Bosnien, die Hercegowina, Montenegro und Dalmatien."

[Kubur]

Originally Posted by gp

Saray (Arabic: السراي‎; Turkish: sarayı, seray), with the variant saraya or seraya (السرايا), is a castle, palace or government building which was considered to have particular administrative importance

Like topkapi saray