My first Jambiya...but is it a good one?
 

An old..I believe... Jambiya.
Blade 20cms and 4mm thick, overall length 37cms

Nice and heavy, slight damage in places. Could anyone tell me the country of origin? Is this a good example? Is there any way of dating this knife?
All info gratefully received....thankyou :)

Moroccan Koummya. Not new, not a bazaar piece; in short, the real stuff.

Thanks Ariel,
Its never easy deciding whether a knife on eBay is good or bad when viewing the pictures on a listing. But when I received it in was in no doubt that it was functional. Thankyou for your input......how's your leg?

Seems like this has seen quite some serious usage: the leading edge shows what appears to be wear from repeated sharpening...

BTW, is 4mm the maximum thickness?

Regards,
Kai

Thanks for asking: I am getting better. Walking without crutches and almost without pain.
Going to Peru for 4 days in mid-August. Expect to find a lot of ancient Inca weapons in the local antique stores: real plastic and genuine stainless steel :D
Will bring Pisco. If anybody is around Ann Arbor, drop by and we shall have a party.

Congrats Katana, I hope you get more of them ;)

Its a staunch job to collect every style from morocco to Persia, if you're really into jambiya's, try doing that :D

Actually, the Jambiya family extends well into the Southeast Asian archipelago, with lots of local variations!

Regards,
Kai

Never knew that, thanks ;)

What we call "jambiya" is just a short curved dagger traditionally attributed to the "Arab" tradition.
Question: Did it originate in the Arabian Peninsula and spread through the Maghreb, Persia, Middle East etc. with the Arab conquest in the 8th century and beyond or was it originally a local weapon of one of the conquered cultures and adopted by the Arabs? There are many examples of similar daggers in ancient, pre-Islamic, Asian and Scythian cultures (see Gorelik)
No doubt, Arab traders subsequently brought it to Indonesia and beyond. Each culture had its own style, but they often intermixed: one can see, for example, a "typical" Omani one made in India (early globalization! :D ). Some survived in isolated pockets: Palestinian one (shibriya) or Moroccan Koummya come to mind. Also, there is not much difference between "jambiya" and "'khanjar". Elgood says that it is just a matter of geography: West of the Arabian Peninsula it is Jambiya, East of it it is called Khanjar.
Weapons migrated with the speed of conquering armies and trade caravans.

In the arab sense, the only place in the world that these daggers are named Jambiya is in Oman. This term was/is not used in Yemen, Nejd, Hijaz, Syria or Iraq. Im also sure that the Persia's and Turks do not use this term. The rest of the arabs use the term "Khanjar", similar to the Indo-Persian one.

I believe this has alot to do with the arab conquest in the 8th century as Ariel says. This probably originated as a very simple style dagger, yet very effective. Thus adopted throughout the Islamic world.