A fancy peshkabz, a call for help on translation and thoughts on provenance

[GePi]

Originally Posted by kwiatek

Inscriptions are typical of the Caucasus. The poetic inscription is in one of the numerous difficult languages of the region, many of them language isolates, with Arabic loanwords. The first signature I read as you do عمل احمد خان “work of Ahmad Khan”, the second might be عمل خضر "work of Khizr”, with the last letter written disjointed and below on account of lack of space

Thank you for the insight, it seems Dagestan might be a good possibility after all. The dagger was auctioned off from quite an old German collection so perhaps the attribution comes from true provenance.

Originally Posted by Drabant1701

This is from Robert Hales Islamic and oriental arms and armour, page 85:
"Caucasian silver work was popular over a wide area of Asia and sheaths made there were used for kards from Iran to Turkestan"

Interesting, I looked it up and that kard's scabbard is of the type I was referring to in response to Marius and it looks similar in decoration to kinjal scabbards as he says. What this means is not quite clear to me, in Rivkin's arms and armour from Caucasus he states that high status knives other than Kinjals were not commen in the region, but these kard scabbards are quite prevalent on the antique market, and as I said usually attributed to 'Turkestan'. I flipped through my copy of the Moser catalogue though and did not find a single one in that style.

[mahratt]

Originally Posted by GePi

Thank you for the insight, it seems Dagestan might be a good possibility after all. The dagger was auctioned off from quite an old German collection so perhaps the attribution comes from true provenance.

Interesting, I looked it up and that kard's scabbard is of the type I was referring to in response to Marius and it looks similar in decoration to kinjal scabbards as he says. What this means is not quite clear to me, in Rivkin's arms and armour from Caucasus he states that high status knives other than Kinjals were not commen in the region, but these kard scabbards are quite prevalent on the antique market, and as I said usually attributed to 'Turkestan'. I flipped through my copy of the Moser catalogue though and did not find a single one in that style.

It is important to remember in what years Moser was in Turkestan. He visited Turkestan several times from 1868 to 1889. He collected most of the collection on his first trips. And Caucasian masters from Dagestan moved to Turkestan in the last years of the 19th century - early 20th century. It was then that the fashion for such a silver scabbard began to spread.
And, of course, there were no workshops in the Caucasus where masters would make scabbards for Central Asia. The logistics would have been too complicated for that time) Caucasian craftsmen lived in Bukhara and Khiva and carried out orders for silver for the local population on the spot.

[ariel]

I think the handle is a replacement. The metal is distinctly different from the scabbard: seems to be either much lower silver content or not silver at all.

Its throat is very peculiar.
I’d like to see the dagger inserted into the scabbard.

[Rich]

I like it, If you get tired of it, send it my way
Rich

[GePi]

Originally Posted by ariel

I think the handle is a replacement. The metal is distinctly different from the scabbard: seems to be either much lower silver content or not silver at all.

Its throat is very peculiar.
I’d like to see the dagger inserted into the scabbard.

I am certain of that as well, it probably had a walrus hilt at one time, but where and when it was changed, who knows. The koftgari motive on the bolster reminds me of this Pesh/Karud, so for me central asia is not out of the question. I will certainly test the silver content of the grip scales sometime.

All that said, while the dagger fits the scabbard perfectly, I have since learned from secure provenance that they are a late marriage, which I don't mind very much, because both are still very nice in their own right.



I have also looked through my image collection a bit further to find dated central asian scabbards and have not found very many but at least these three from Hermann Historica.

The first is dated 1334 AH - ~1915 and has the maker and owner inscribed
'Amal-e Lotf, Saheb Ali Mohammad ???Qali Adghali???'

The second is dated 1329 AH - ~1911

The third is dated quite early, 1126 AH - ~1714, with the maker's name unfortunately not completely depicted
Mohammad *unreadable* Zargar (Goldsmith) Buchara (Buchari?)

[kwiatek]

Thanks for posting these. Interesting pieces. I would read them as you have done and give a reading for one of the names:

1334 AH (1915-16)
Work of Lutf (Latif?), owner ‘Ali Muhammad Vali Oghli (Veli Oğlu)


1329 AH (1911-12)

1126 AH - (1714-15)
... (Sayyid?) Muhammad Zargar Bukhari

[GePi]

Originally Posted by kwiatek

Thanks for posting these. Interesting pieces. I would read them as you have done and give a reading for one of the names:

1334 AH (1915-16)
Work of Lutf (Latif?), owner ‘Ali Muhammad Vali Oghli (Veli Oğlu)


1329 AH (1911-12)

1126 AH - (1714-15)
... (Sayyid?) Muhammad Zargar Bukhari

Thank you very much for the correction. I was very unsure about the name because I lack the linguistic background you obviously have.

Did you also see the other kard scabbard in the same fashion that I showed a few posts above? It has the same makers' names inscribed as on my example. So seeing how similar in style they all are, I think it would be reasonable to assume that they are all from around the same time and place of origin.