kindjal - what kind of technique is it ?

[Rivkin]

Dear All,

Very unusual kindjal. I alway wondered what is it - damascus, sophisticated etching or something else.

Thank you very much in advance.

[ham]

Hello Rivkin,

This is acid etching to simulate a damask, it was probably done in Tiflis.

Sincerely,

Ham

[ariel]

Very nice job. It has certain chaos in it, as opposed to the "fuller job" that is so often seen, and it imitates damascus so well that even Kirill was uncertain
Could we see the rest of this Kindjal?

[Rivkin]

Hello,

Ham - excellent, right on target. Kindjal is indeed from Georgia, but I was truly puzzled by the technique. Thank you very much.

Ariel - well, not all of us are senseis , plus I really suck in understanding the metalwork.

Attached are kindjal's pictures.

[Rivkin]

To continue our kindjal's discussion - the first is an interesting georgian (?), even more precisely imeretian (??) speciman. The most interesting are the fullers - inside them one can see a set of extemely small dots, creating a highly unusual pattern. I have no idea what it is, it is far smaller and spatially irregular, i.e. the dots are very small, than any etching I have seen.

[Rivkin]

And finally - sorry, these are the only pictures I have on this one. Sort of way too expensive for me. My take would be that it is something from eastern, probably south-eastern caucases, seen many of them with similar motiffs.

[Rivkin]

I almost cried. Kindjal, I would say Tbilisi, armenian work, 1800-1830.

[ariel]

Why did you cry? Missed it? Couldn't afford it? Not for sale? Offended you in any way?
Share your pain with us, we are here for you...

[Rivkin]

Well, I just like those damascus patterns... I somehow more of a mechanical damascus person.

[ariel]

It is also etching.
Can you read the inscription?
I wonder why all the pieces with Armenian inscriptions come from Georgia. Sure, I know that there were many Armenians living there. But, why nobody, to my knowledge, refers to any centers of swordmaking in Armenia proper?

[RSWORD]

In my opinion, the last Kindjal posted with the walrus ivory grips, the pattern in the fullers is the result of twist core pattern welding and not an acid resisted etch. You can clearly see the line of demarcation down the center(albeit, it is not perfectly straight, nor should it be) in both fullers. The pattern is a classic "Turkish Ribbon" style of pattern. You see this particular starry night pattern as Ariel put it on some Yataghans, some Chinese blades, some Moro stuff and if you go far enough back, you see it in some Viking blades as well.

[Rivkin]

Originally Posted by ariel

It is also etching.
Can you read the inscription?
I wonder why all the pieces with Armenian inscriptions come from Georgia. Sure, I know that there were many Armenians living there. But, why nobody, to my knowledge, refers to any centers of swordmaking in Armenia proper?

I think it is a real damascus. Concerning the enormous amounts of armenian signed items from Georgia and absence of those from Armenia/centers of sword productions:

Disclaimer to moderators - feel free to delete this post, since we just had a flaming discussion on this issue.

1. In 1580 Abbas the Ist of Persia implemented the following policy:

a. All towns in Armenia were destroyed and their citizens killed or deported to inner parts of Iran.
b. In Caucasus Shah loyalists among the turkoman, Shah-Sevan were given land, power and fortresses to form a barrier separating Ottoman and Iranian empires.

As a result, armenian population survived only in remote mountanous areas and had no urban communities of their own. For this reason, weapon production could not really exist there.
In early XIX century Russian government called upon armenians to come to russian-controlled territory. They would be given tax-free status for the first 6 years, and land in certain areas if they want. As a result of this and the renewal of armen. vs. kurdo-turk hostilities in Ottoman vialyets (so called "six vialets) with armenian population, armenian population rapidly eArmenian community in Tbilisi is extremely old. While armenian community always existed in Tbilisi and other cities, there were no large urban armenian centers in Armenia proper, additionally most of armenians in six vialets were peasants.

2. Until Shah Abbas and even afterwards the most powerful state in Azerbajan area was called Shirvan. There are quite a few examples of shirvanese arms and armor in the museums and literature. Whether they are armenian made or not can be a subject to speculations. The same can be said about many examples of old iranian weapons - how do we know it is not an armenian production.

3. Now to signatures in armenian. First of all, even in Lviv which was under christian control armenians despite their powerful presence in arms making community did not put armenian signatures on the weapons. In my opinion it is because in order to have armenian slogans you have to make weapons for other armenians or at least have significant open armenian nationalism. Both true for Tbilisi - large armenian population, allowed to bear arms, russian specific benevolence towards armenians as only truly loyal locals together with growing armenian nationalism (Dashnaktzatyun was founded in Tbilisi).

Concerning Iran I would add the following speculation - first of all dhimmis are typically prohibited from owning and bearing arms, therefore armenian for armenian market should have been almost non-existant. Secondly, in Islam as well as in Judaism there is a notion of "unclean" (najes). In Islam, however, unclean traditionally does not only mean things like excrement, there is an open discussion whether non-muslims, specifically christians and jews are unclean. Liberals like Al-Sistani for example state that there is no way to really know since there are good arguments towards both, so one should err on the side of perceiving christians as unclean. The results of this that according to the islamic tradition one follows in Iran there are can be many things one does not do with christians - one does not eat from the plate they touched, one does not bathe together, one does not drink from the same source of water, one does not it the food they touched and so on.

Now, in light of these, would armenians be really high on idea selling muslims blades with "made by unclean people" written all over it ? I would stick to putting Assad Allah kartouches.

Again, disclaimer to moderators - feel free to sack the post. All the above is my personal opinion.