These are all excellent and compelling questions Ibrahiim! I am hoping some out there with experience with weapons of these regions might have ideas concerning these features from examples they own or have owned, or perhaps material culture items with clues.
Such as the great entry some time ago you posted an example of an ivory embellished comb with similar features seen on the Zanzibari sabre posted here.
With the presumed zoomorphic character of the profiles of these hilts, it seems this dilemma prevails with quite a few ethnographic hilts, including the flyssa, karabela, the so called Berber sabres etc. There seems a strong possibility these are stylizations which have devolved into simply aesthetic forms with connections to any prototype long lost, whether on actual examples or from iconographic sources.
I would surely like to know others thoughts on this, as there must be other views.
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