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Originally Posted by Jim McDougall
Interesting. Why go to all this trouble to fake a kaskara? Its not like they're that rare!
Never did discover why the 'comet' marking that was supposed to be linked to the Mahdi's appearance was found on Taureg swords.
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East-west trade, across Darfur? It's the exact transverse of the salt/slave caravan route from Timbuktu->Khartoum, the sort of Sahelian Silk Road.
I vaguely recollect Mahdiism penetrating French Africa- I think in
The Cross and The Sword...? I think even the utterly unreliable PC Wren creates a pseudo-Mahdiist scenario in
Beau Sabreur, though he was writing for an Edwardian English audience.
Above sword was probably mutilated for a swords-n-snakes fantasy nerd, as if its actual history weren't interesting enough...