1620's Blade
Hi Ward,
Is Oliver referring to the shamshir with a double rung ladder pattern, armor piercing tip and stag horn grip scales?
Regarding blade shapes, we know there was a huge change in the culture surrounding the develoopement of the Ottoman Empire. The Sultans heavily supported the artisan community and the Arts flourished which includes the arms and armor arts as well.
If you regard the shamshir as developing in the early 17th century you leave a fairly good size void for known 16th century swords. We have examples of the single edges curved blade beginning in Eastern Europe 6-8th century as shown in a post by Artzi.
Seems to me that finding examples of shamshir with known time period of use will be about the only way to solve this mystery for sure and that has not surfaced yet.
It sort of gets back to the question on the kilij from the time of Mehmet II's sword, what is the progression of the kilij in the Ottoman Empire? There are some large voids there too.
By the way, I like Oliver and respect his opinion, just am thinking outside the box on this and lean toward a different opinion.
Wonder what the response to a shamshir blade with first half 16th century ornamentaion would be?
Am still looking at the photo's of your square barrel... thats just an amazing gun.
Will look for Zaki's shamshir progression and post his line drawing sword progression.
rand
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