Old Khyber

[mahratt]

Originally Posted by motan

- The same can be said about the Sunni vs Shia argument: in general, Sunni items contain less imagery than Shiite items, but that is all.
As far as I know, in Islam, like in Judaism, imagery of human and animals is not explicitly forbidden in the source writing (Quran, Old Testament). What is forbidden is any RELIGIOUS imagery because of the fear of idolatry. The way this is interpreted varies greatly with place/culture, time and type of object. Miniatures painting with humans and animals are common in Ottoman, Persian and Mughal cultures. Rugs, weapons and ceramics from Sunni cultures have sometimes images of humans and animals in realistic, stylized or abstracted form. Further, thinking about Sunni Islam in terms of the Wahabite movement or Isis, which are true iconoclasts, is wrong and not representative.

A more productive way to approach this knife would be to try to read the texts and see in what language they are written and what they say.

Dear colleagues, I am surprised at your approach to the discussion...
What we have? We have one dagger, the scabbard of which is decorated with anthropomorphic figures, using the technique typical of this region. And we also have a powder flask (of unknown origin) with similar images that are made in the same technique as the images on the scabbard.
Fine! But, this is one of the only known weapons on which there are anthropomorphic images. And, by the way, the Kalash and residents of Chitral (that is, kafirs) were until recently pagans. That is, they had no restrictions on the images of humans and animals.
But even among kafirs, we cannot find several objects weapons (5-10-15) with anthropomorphic images that would allow us to talk about a tendency to decorate blades or at least details of the scabbard with anthropomorphic figures ...
Nevertheless, let's consider that I am too picky and let's assume that the dagger with anthropomorphic images on the scabbard, which Jim so kindly placed in the topic of discussion, is an important fact.

But there are still "small" problems...
1) Kafirs never used the technique of decorating blades that we see on blade Ariel’s Khyber knife. Not used, because they did not know how to decorate blades in such a technique. And they could not learn, since all the Hindu Kush nationalities lived in very isolation (by the way, therefore, they have kept paganism for so long).
2) Kafirs had no contact with Persia (this is if we decide to fantasize that the blade of the Khyber knife was decorated in Persia).

Therefore, the version with Kafiristan and its proud residents - you can forget.

Now back to the issue of "banning images of people by the Sunnis." Third time, I am very very I ask those who say that the Turks decorated the weapons with anthropomorphic images to place in this threadOttoman objects of the 19th century made by Turkish masters and decorated with Turkish masters, on the blades of which you can see images of a person or even animals.

Originally Posted by motan

The argument that this is not typical of Khyber knifes only means that and no more. A-typical weapons are found in all categories (like in Jimws example)..

Reputable motan, unfortunately, you view the past through the “prism of modernity” (that is, from the perspective of modern views). In an archaic society, which the Afghans represented in the 19th century (and even more so the Kafirs Hindu Kush ), there can be no a-typical weapons decorated in an a-typical technique for this culture. There may be trophies, but not objects typical of society, with some a-typical features.
It is incorrect to appeal to the dagger posted by Jim, since we do not know provenance of this dagger.
And most importantly, daggers, like the one Jim showed us, appeared in Afghanistan at the very end of the 19th century - early in the 20th century (This, by the way, does not make them less interesting ).

[Richard G]

I think, if the date 1229 was using the Jalali calendar it corresponds to 1850 Gregorian.
Regards
Richard

[Jim McDougall]

Very good point Mahratt makes on the dagger. We do not have provenance but the type of hilt (unofficially often termed choora) did not appear until about mid 19th c. The blade if I recall was the recurved pesh kabz type around much longer.

The date Richard suggests seems to correspond more to the item.

As a clarification, the Kafirs were the tribal people of the part of Afghan regions known as Kafiristan. In the 1890s these were overtaken by Abdur Rahman Khan and the regions given the name Nuristan.
The diaspora of Kafirs into Chitral regions, as I understand was considerable and these became known as the Kalash people.

The Kafirs were animists, and powerfully resisted Islam, but those who remained in these regions did apparently convert in degree.

The animist or pagan religion of these people and their very character always make me think of the Khevsurs of the Caucusus, and while I cannot make definitive comparisons nor suggest any direct link, the similarities are notable in a number of ways.

The motif on the dagger I posted was similar to the amulet I posted, which was identified as Kalash, so the comparison was drawn.

The etched figure on Ariel's Khyber is crudely applied, but the three peaked crown mindful of the figures in the example I have shown.

As discussed, I have personally never seen such etching or for that matter any type of surface decoration on the blade of a Khyber knife. Certainly as Motan has well noted...….atypical weapons are not at all unusual in themselves. This simply means a weapon has become out of its typical context in some feature(s) of its original or most commonly known character.
Since there are no specific guidelines for such deviations, all that can be done is the examine the features to determine 'their' origin, and or, period.

Old weapons are often repurposed or redecorated in traditional manner of earlier times for many reasons, whether for use as weapons as designed in some ersatz manner, or more typically as traditional or commemorative as in parade or ceremonial events (as with Qajar 'revival' items).

Amidst all of these possibilities is the ever present pallor of creative and industrious artisans supplying the souks and bazaars with old weapons which are veiled by those very possibilities. That is truly the challenge of collectors and historians of arms...finding the most plausible answers to each item based on the merits and detractions held by them.