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11th October 2020, 08:10 AM | #1 |
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Very beautiful knife! Congratulations for this exceptional acquisition!
As you said, the blade is typical Persian 18th to early 19th century. Both the hilt and and the scabbard may be later replacements and don't look very Persian to my eyes. The scabbard looks more from the Caucasus area (which was a part of Persian empire throughout the history). I have seen exactly the same style of silver engraved decorations with niello panels and wire wrapped tips on kindjal scabbards. The hilt is very similar to some I have seen on North Indian knives. Let's hope for a translation! Last edited by mariusgmioc; 11th October 2020 at 08:21 AM. |
11th October 2020, 08:58 AM | #2 | |
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I agree that caucasian scabbards have similarly decorated fittings, and I am sure that is where the attribution by the auctioneer comes from, but I have never seen a peshkabz from that area before. The decoration also strongly reminds me of kard scabbards like this one though, and these are usually attributed to central asia. As for the silver hilt scales, there was also this peshkabz on sale in the same auction featuring a definitely central asian scabbards with typical turcoise cloisonne. |
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11th October 2020, 12:57 PM | #3 |
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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
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11th October 2020, 01:29 PM | #4 |
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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" |
11th October 2020, 05:04 PM | #5 | ||
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3rd March 2021, 05:28 AM | #6 | |
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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. |
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7th March 2021, 03:37 AM | #7 |
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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. |
7th March 2021, 05:17 AM | #8 |
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I like it, If you get tired of it, send it my way
Rich |
7th March 2021, 11:58 AM | #9 | |
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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?) |
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2nd March 2021, 08:30 PM | #10 | |
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2nd March 2021, 09:06 PM | #11 |
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I think Mahratt is right, these daggers are Central Asian, with silver craftmen from Caucasus and Persian blades.
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=26621 |
2nd March 2021, 09:17 PM | #12 | |
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