Interesting
A nice and interesting piece, congrats.
Firstly Turkish comes to mind when looking at the scabbard and blade, some decorations to the side of the tang and the ivory slabs remind me of some French weapons and decorations found on these weapons and the slabs do remind me on the knives from Crete to some degree as noted above.
If I was going to try to place it in a "box" I too would call it an Ottoman dagger and I would also note it as naval, only in so far as I would "assume" that the lanyard hole in the hilt would not normally be seen on knives used on land and a lanyard would be used to secure the piece in hand and thus keeping it from dropping in to the sea forever.
A question about the construction, the image looking between the slab ends, what is the circle? Are the edges of the tang a continuation of the blade or are the strips of another steel? Where the blade and the slabs meet, is that silver inlay on the blade? I also note that what appears to be silver inlay at this point has a distinct Jambiya feel to it, this might also explain the elephant ivory where walrus was usually prominent? Perhaps Oman/Ottoman is the cross cultural mix present on this wonderful looking piece.
Gav
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