Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post - "The Arms of Greece" by Dr. Robert Elgood

ariel · 14th January 2010, 02:43 AM

This book is a treasure trove of information and careful insights. I was a bit puzzled by the incongruency between the title and the content: the former refers to the "Arms of Greece and her Balkan neighbors", whereas the latter almost entirely refers to the Balkan weapons. The "Greek weapons" component contributes only 20 pages out of ~300, and is even smaller than an interesting but only questionably relevant chapter dealing with the history of the Greek War of Independence (46 pages).
Another thread here
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=11196
already mentions displeasure of some Greek collectors: in their opinion, Greek weapons were misidentified as Balkan.
Are the Greek collectors right in their criticism?
My guess it is going to be a hotly debated, widely discussed and hugely useful book. My only regret is that Dr. Elgood did not go into greater detail differentiating separate styles of yataghans based on their place of manufacture in the Ottoman Empire. He goes around it by saying that the blades were mass produced and acquired specific furnitures locally. That may be so, but I would like him to go outside the Balkans and look at other places ( different parts of Anatolia, Bulgaria, Kurdistan etc) in search of characteristic features for each area ( or refuting the existence of such!). Also, the issue of knives ( yataghan bichaq, Cretan, Bosnian etc) was not covered. Perhaps, the time-frame he set ( Ottoman Rule) was limiting, but some weapons or events well after that were in fact discussed. So, why not Cretan knives, for example? Or Balkan kindjals?
No book is perfect ( except the Good Book :-)), but this one is obviously a work of an exquisitely professional historian of weapons.

14th January 2010, 02:43 AM	#2
ariel Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Ann Arbor, MI Posts: 5,503	This book is a treasure trove of information and careful insights. I was a bit puzzled by the incongruency between the title and the content: the former refers to the "Arms of Greece and her Balkan neighbors", whereas the latter almost entirely refers to the Balkan weapons. The "Greek weapons" component contributes only 20 pages out of ~300, and is even smaller than an interesting but only questionably relevant chapter dealing with the history of the Greek War of Independence (46 pages). Another thread here http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=11196 already mentions displeasure of some Greek collectors: in their opinion, Greek weapons were misidentified as Balkan. Are the Greek collectors right in their criticism? My guess it is going to be a hotly debated, widely discussed and hugely useful book. My only regret is that Dr. Elgood did not go into greater detail differentiating separate styles of yataghans based on their place of manufacture in the Ottoman Empire. He goes around it by saying that the blades were mass produced and acquired specific furnitures locally. That may be so, but I would like him to go outside the Balkans and look at other places ( different parts of Anatolia, Bulgaria, Kurdistan etc) in search of characteristic features for each area ( or refuting the existence of such!). Also, the issue of knives ( yataghan bichaq, Cretan, Bosnian etc) was not covered. Perhaps, the time-frame he set ( Ottoman Rule) was limiting, but some weapons or events well after that were in fact discussed. So, why not Cretan knives, for example? Or Balkan kindjals? No book is perfect ( except the Good Book :-)), but this one is obviously a work of an exquisitely professional historian of weapons.