Origins of Kilij

[ariel]

Originally Posted by Jeff D

Hi Ariel,

Thank you for bringing up this subject as it is a topic I have been meaning to look at for some time, but have never gotten around to it. I have believed like Alina, that the Ottoman kilij was a descendant of a Mongol predecessor, through Persia. You have previously mentioned (somewhere?) that in Manoucher's work that there is a missing link between the straight sword and the classic shamshir. I believe (and have yet to prove this) that it is the qalachuri. Unfortunately Manoucher is unclear on this style and tends to refer to it as a Persian name for the Ottoman Kilij.
In Discussions with Philip He has pointed out to me that the art work shows the qalachuri predates the kilij as can be seen in Fig 28 of Orez Perski Persian Arms and Armour .
I would love to hear more on this topic, as your discussions so far have given me a few good tips where to start reading more on this topic.

Thanks again
Jeff

Qalachuri is a Unicorn of swords: everybody heard about it but nobody saw it Thus, we have no idea what it looked like in reality. I checked Orez Perski, and the only Yelman-ed Persian sword there in Fig 140A, but it is dated 1884. Another ( Fig. 153), with a very rudimentary Yelman, may or may not have Persian blade, and is also attributed to 17th century.
The question that nagged me for a long time is why did Qaachuri disappear without a trace? This would be the only such example (AFAIK), with the exception of the Excalibur. Perhaps, we do see a lot of them, but just do not recognize them as such because they do not conform to our idea what Qalachuri should look like. For all we know, the Moghuls might have called Qalachuri a sword with a shorter or a wider blade, or a one with two wide fullers and one narrow , or something like that.
The bottom line, until we figure out what precisely is the construction of Qalachuri , any assignation of the " missing link" to it would be premature. Moreover, any definition of a yelman-ed sword as being Qalachuri absolutely requires its dating to very early time, because from the ~ 16th century, Ottoman influence was rather strong in the area. I have 3 Yelman-ed swords of non-Ottoman origin: an Afghani pseudoshashka, an Afghani short Pala-like sword and an Indo-Persian Gaddara (very similar to the example in Pant's book), but all are ~18-19th century. No help here.
I have never seen or heard of an early truly Persian sword with Yelman earlier than 17th century or thereabouts. We just have to assume that Persians got a curved saber from the Steppes but not a Yelman-ed one. It is exactly the absense of Yelman-ed swords of Persian provenance that makes me believe that they were not the right conduit ( kind of the dog that did not bark ). If so, Yelmans must have come to Egypt first, also from the Steppes but by a western route. Of course, should any contemporaneous (13th century or earlier) Yelman-ed swords of Ottoman origin are found, we will have to assume that both Ottomans and Mamelukes got them independently and from a common source. But it is unlikely to be from Persia.
That way of thinking is also helpful in discussing the origin of Qame and Qaddare. If one assumes their orgination in Iran, they would be expected to migrate both to the east and to the west of their epicenter. However, we see them almost exclusively westward of Iran, not in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan or India. This suggest that they originated west of Persia, ie in the Caucasus and that Iran was the eastern-most limit of their migration. Caucasians brought them to the Ottoman Empire and its environs ( Bulgaria, Balkans for example and, partly, Arabia proper) and Mameluke-dominated areas (Egypt, Sudan, Syria). Indeed, even the very name of Qame is Circassian. But their spread petered out east of Iran.
A new theory of weapons: the sword that was not there