17th August 2021, 01:12 AM | #10 | |
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Ann Arbor, MI
Posts: 5,503
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Quote:
Thus, no real research was done there even on the vast flow of “bringbacks” of various quality and of unknown provenance bought in Kabul by NATO soldiers with no academic training and aspirations. As a result we are forced to dig out snippets of ( often unverified and contradictory) information from Egerton’s book, some Moser’s descriptions, a bit of memoirs by British officers and “ politicals” and occasional mentions of Afghanistan news in general newspapers. That’s why I am saying that there was no progress in our knowledge of Afghan weapons since Egerton and Moser. Afghanistan never had her “ Elgood” on Indian and Balkan weapons, “Astvatsaturyan” and “Rivkin” on the Caucasian ones, “ van Zonneveld” on Indonesian, “ La Rocca” on the Tibetan and a host of professional arms historians on African, Persian and Turkish weapons. Perhaps, Rivkin/ Isaac book on the history of the Eastern sword is the best attempt to conduct evolutionary analysis of that weapon. They all had in common the ability to conduct field trips, access to provenanced examples and documents, the ability to read inscriptions and most importantly academic backgrounds. It’s gone for Afghanistan. |
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