Safavid or qajar blade?

[Drabant1701]

So I bought this really beat up shamshir blade. The handle is a 20th century replacement and it has no crossguard. It caught my eye since it has a Shah Abbas mark. I know that the Shah Abbas mark is on many blades long after his death, even in the 19th century. The blade has split at the sharp end and if you look at the ridge of the blade you can follow a line from the split all the way to the grip, almost as if they forged two sides together. There is some very interesting wootz patterns in the blade, its hard to get a fell for the overall pattern since its dirty and pitted and hard to photograph. I have cleaned a bit of it, I will do the rest but it will take time. Could this be a Safavid blade or is it wishfull thinking on my behalf.
Thank you for reading

[David R]

Reminds me of one of my dismounted blades. One suggestion from the informed is that this sort of split is an homage or reference to "Zulfiqar (Arabic: ذُو ٱلْفَقَار, romanized: Ḏū-l-Faqār, IPA: [ðuː‿l.faˈqaːr]), also spelled Zu al-Faqar, Zulfikar, Dhu al-Faqar, Dhulfaqar or Dhulfiqar,the sword of Ali ibn Abi Talib"
. nb this is a copy paste from WikiP, so follow up at your own risk!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zulfiqar

[Drabant1701]

Originally Posted by David R

Reminds me of one of my dismounted blades. One suggestion from the informed is that this sort of split is an homage or reference to "Zulfiqar (Arabic: ذُو ٱلْفَقَار, romanized: Ḏū-l-Faqār, IPA: [ðuː‿l.faˈqaːr]), also spelled Zu al-Faqar, Zulfikar, Dhu al-Faqar, Dhulfaqar or Dhulfiqar,the sword of Ali ibn Abi Talib"
. nb this is a copy paste from WikiP, so follow up at your own risk!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zulfiqar

Thank you for your answer David. In this case I dont think it was split when new, it has simply separated the two halves from each other due to heavy wear and/corrosion. On many of my wootz blade there are lines on the spine, but on this one it one countiouos line all along the spine from point to grip.

[David R]

Originally Posted by Drabant1701

Thank you for your answer David. In this case I dont think it was split when new, it has simply separated the two halves from each other due to heavy wear and/corrosion. On many of my wootz blade there are lines on the spine, but on this one it one countiouos line all along the spine from point to grip.

Which is just how mine is. Alternatively one writer (Stone?) suggests that a method of recycling a worn blade was to forge it out to twice its length, fold it over a lesser quality core and weld and forge it into a "new" blade!
I do wonder is sometimes they just forged two tired blades together to make one usable blade.
Will we ever know for sure?

[ariel]

This blade was forged from a high-class KaraTaban, the ultimate variety of Persian bulats.
It came into existence during Safavid dynasry ( perhaps even as early as Shah Abbas I reign and by and large disappeared during the late Qajar dynasty (1789-1925).
Name of Abbas doesn’t help: it was inscribed on multiple swords from various countries and as late as the end of 19 century together with names of Assadulla and Kalb-e Ali, both of whom lived in the 17 century.

Thus, there is no way we can assign this blade to either dynasty with any degree of certainty.
Longitudinally split blades must have been by and large ceremonial: the split segments, especially wootz, were by their very nature very fragile and any strong battlefield contact would fracture them. Perhaps, that was the cause of that blade’s failure. Subsequent rusting did not help.

[Drabant1701]

Originally Posted by ariel

This blade was forged from a high-class KaraTaban, the ultimate variety of Persian bulats.
It came into existence during Safavid dynasry ( perhaps even as early as Shah Abbas I reign and by and large disappeared during the late Qajar dynasty (1789-1925).
Name of Abbas doesn’t help: it was inscribed on multiple swords from various countries and as late as the end of 19 century together with names of Assadulla and Kalb-e Ali, both of whom lived in the 17 century.

Thus, there is no way we can assign this blade to either dynasty with any degree of certainty.
Longitudinally split blades must have been by and large ceremonial: the split segments, especially wootz, were by their very nature very fragile and any strong battlefield contact would fracture them. Perhaps, that was the cause of that blade’s failure. Subsequent rusting did not help.

Thanks Ariel! You are a great source of knowledge as allways. You are right it is very hard to asign age ro these blades. Such a large number of blades have the Shah Abbas and Assadulla mark. Is there any blades where there are consensus that it is an actual assadulla blade from the correct period?

[ariel]

[QUOTE=Drabant1701;27125 On many of my wootz blade there are lines on the spine, but on this one it one countiouos line all along the spine from point to grip.[/QUOTE]

Please find my topic “ How the wootz blades were forged?”
You are absolurtly correct: many wootz blades have a “seam” or a “crack” of various lenght on their spine. This is where the slag comes out during forging. In your case, with a very long and uninterrupted “seam” , it strongly suggests that the blade was forged together from two thin wootz blades, leaving free distal components .
I am still waiting for Ric Furrer report on the composition of wootz and pics of polished and etched fractured area.