Kaskara opinion

[Kipinga50]

Hello Everybody,
What do you think of this Mahdist Kaskara (42 ") , its rigid blade is engraved with Tuluth characteres, I wonder about the inscription of the guard. On one side is engraved:
Louis / X - T.unis (all united)
and on the other side:
Avallon - MLLCVV

"Tous Unit" is a templar formula known in France, Avallon is a name given to catholic heaven, and Louis X was a great king of France.
Can you give me your opinion. Thank you in advance

[Dom]

Hi
I've as a feeling that you will not like at all, what is following

- the Templar slogan was;
"Non nobis Domine, non nobis, sed Nomini Tuo da gloriam"
Translation :
"Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but for the glory of your name"

nothing with T.unis

- Louis / X, should be in fact Louis IX (9th), why him ?

- Avalon, or Avallon ... heaven for Catholic ???
from where did you get this information
are you not confusing with Arthurian legend ??

- the kufic writting on the blade, doesn't give a single word in Arabic

- the sign "MLLCVV" in Roman date, is a non sense, means nothing coherent,
here the equivalence "1000+50+50+100+5+5"
if they want write 1255, should be MCCLV

Louis IX death was in Tunis in 1270
Louis X (1289/1316) be King only 2 years 1314/1316, and did nothing of special
but it's his father "Philippe le Bel" (1268/1314), King from 1285 to 1314 who destroyed the Template Order

In conclusion, a fantastic rigmarole
it seems a good tinkering to make sensational and lure the gullible

sorry for you, if I'm correct,
anyway not a single historical reference is matched

all the best

à +

Dom

[Edster]

Kipinga50/Dom,

Dom's analysis appears to discredit an ancient date, but I have a feeling that there is more to this sword than a cobbled modern fake. If we discount the Louie, Avalon, etc, the piece looks rather old. It could be an assemblage of earlier pieces. The cross guard appears to be cast bronze and of a shape earlier than the forged steel ones common of most kaskara. The rigid blade could be cast as was common in Mahdist or even Funj times. The blade also is tapered more than the forged kaskara blades we usually see. Neither has it been sharpened. Its strange that the Crescent Moon, often a maker's mark, was added after the etched text. Also, its has eyes, uncommon to me for the moon. The text seems too elaborate to be just made up.

The piece remains an enigma, but an interesting one.

Best regards,
Ed
Ed

[spiral]

Love the blade etching...

But perhaps later someone wanted it to be Excaliber?

Avalon is a legendary island featured in the Arthurian legend. It first appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth's 1136 pseudohistorical account" Historia Regum Britanniae" ("The History of the Kings of Britain") as the place where King Arthur's sword Excalibur (Caliburnus) was forged and later where Arthur was taken to recover from his wounds after the Battle of Camlann. Avalon was associated from an early date with mystical practices and people such as Morgan le Fay.

Spiral

[Iain]

These unsharpened kaskara have always seemed a bit of a mystery to me.

I'm unfamiliar with the idea of cast blades for kaskara. Could you elaborate a bit more on that?

I used to own a croc kaskara (image attached) that was also pretty dull without a proper edge.

However not all the thuluth covered blades are like this - here's a link to one a forum member was kind enough to allow me to display on my takouba website - http://takouba.org/takouba41/ - it features a Solingen blade.

[Edster]

Iain,

My only knowledge of cast kaskara blades is a comment from an informant at the sword makers market in Kassala in 1985. He said that during the Mahdiya most native made blades were cast and very brittle, often breaking in battle. Many warriors carried wooden swords and picked up weapons of the fallen. Such cast blades may have been regalia and not suited for battle. A lot of swords were picked up from defeated Anglo-Egyptian armies. Also, hand forged iron blades were made from locally refined iron ore. I'm unaware of the extent and time frames that steel metallurgy was practiced by local Sahel blade smiths. Surely not all battle blades were imported from the 16th-18th centuries or recirculated as battlefield pick-ups. How did the Funj army of Sennar source its swords? So many questions.

I notice on your linked Takouba that the half-moon was added after the etching. Perhaps the subject kaskara is a re-hilted takouba as suggested by the blade profile.

Take care,
Ed

[Iain]

Hi Jim,

My pleasure - thanks to digital copies of many old resources and narratives being available, searching through hundreds of pages for key words is a much easier task than it used to be!

I also hope this exchange is at least proving interesting for the 'lurkers'. Just to keep things going as this thread is a nice little repository for a lot of good info now - I will leave here a nice quote from Raphael's "Through Unknown Nigeria" regarding the sword makers in the Kano market. It is a nice window into the centuries old process of producing iron bladed swords.

"Although not made in the market, there you may
see knives and swords of diverse quality, always
encased in a leather sheath. The knives, which are
of the dagger type, are mostly worn for show. A
common way of carrying is at the elbow, the lower
part of wearer's arm passing through a broad ring
of leather. Swords nowadays are not regarded as
to be drawn for offensive or defensive purposes.
But every gentleman of quality wears one. And in
Hausaland a gentleman of quality may be a man of
poverty with his robe in rags. For ordinary walks
abroad the sword will be held by a length of lamp
wick or several strips of discoloured linen passing
over the shoulder. On State occasions — for pro-
cessions of the Emir — the sling will be wool, plaited
to thick tubular form, the ends finished by large
tassels. Green, yellow, red are the colours of
slings, some combining the three.

These swords are remarkable evidence of the
ability of the metal workers. The blades are occa-
sionally made from high quality steel previously
used in a similar capacity, but most have been iron
which bound packing-cases, and to this iron is
added odd bits of other iron — nails or whatever of
the kind comes to hand — the whole welded by hand
hammering.

It is astonishing to take some of these swords and,
placing the point in the ground, bend them to a
half-circle, so finely tempered has the metal been
brought by the simple process. The handles are
dulled and set with pieces of brass cut from used
cartridge-cases and fitted artistically. The leather
scabbards are also daintily picked out with small
corners of the same metal alternating with polished
tin."

This account is from 1914 I believe. So while scrap iron and brass cartridge cases may have formed the base materials (replacing locally smelted iron ore) the process remained the same. Hand hammered and forged blades with apparently quite good flex resulting. The use of tin and brass is well described - quite possibly referring to the pommel stacks.

All the best,

Iain

[Lew]

Dicussion is over on this piece.

Thanks