teh-tula vs koftgari on kindjals and other weaponary of the caucasus

Interested Party · 5th December 2019, 07:49 PM

Does anyone have knowledge of the use of teh-tula vs koftgari as a means of identifying place and period of manufacture of Caucasian style weapons particularly kindjals?

ariel · 6th December 2019, 09:01 PM

What on earth is teh -tula? Never heard of it.
Any chance it is Tula Weapon manufacture?

ALEX · 7th December 2019, 02:17 PM

I think Tula refers to Niello technique here. Niello is called Tula in many European countries as most Niello work in Europe was produced in Russia (in Moscow and Tula) from 18 to 19 Centuries. Therefore, the question posted is about identifying origin of Caucasian arms based on Niello and Coftgari decorations.

kronckew · 7th December 2019, 06:31 PM

Pictures please...

Do you mean like this Caucasian shashqa? :

ariel · 7th December 2019, 08:21 PM

I cannot see niello there. What I do see, is a cheap false filigree on a souvenir shashka made in contemporary Georgia.

kronckew · 7th December 2019, 08:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ariel

I cannot see niello there. What I do see, is a cheap false filigree on a souvenir shashka made in contemporary Georgia.

Yup, exactly....Why we need pictures...

Interested Party · 8th December 2019, 08:24 PM

Sorry for the previous lack of pictures. I was pressed for time. Now for some background to my question. Since I was a kid and saw pictures of kindjals in my grandfather's book collection I have been fascinated by offset fullers. This past spring I decided to learn more about kindjal construction and combed the internet for an appropriate piece that I could practice restoration on without guilt. I found a piece that had had previous restoration badly done. The seller claimed it to be from the 19th century Caucasus. It appears to me to be possibly a frankin-kindjal of unknown age and origin. On the back horn slab there is damage where the old rivets were ground off (far right picture). The blade had corroded and been cleaned on some kind of wheel then buffed. This process had left the blade scarred from uneven grinding with a very coarse abrasive. I decided to polish it out and change the aggressive channel grind to a flat grind that ideally tapered to the edge using all hand tools. I studied hundreds if not thousands of photo on the internet and Rivkin's book to create a mental picture of the outcome. As I began polishing it I noticed some periodic discoloration that I couldn't explain. Under 10x magnification what I discovered was traces of gold left in pits I believed to be where the cross hatching from koftgari had began or ended, thus being slightly higher than the rest of the cut which I reasoned had been ground off. Once I removed more damage and corrosion I saw that instead of cross hatching these were stimples. The left photo shows this under 10X magnification, the scale is in mm. I have not found any reference to teh-tula (the process of attaching gold or silver alloys to iron or steel via stimples) being used on qamas or kindjals. My question once again is what does this mean for period and place of manufacture? Does this make it Indo-Persian? The steel is very soft on this piece, changing my original idea of a flat grind all the way to the edge for better cutting properties on soft materials to adding a steeper bevel at the edges for more strength. Rivkin said in his book that the RC was often around 35 for wootz blades. Is a 35 Rockwell hardness common for the temper on plain steel kindjal blades as well?

ariel · 9th December 2019, 10:42 PM

Well, I still do not know where the term “ teh-Tula” came from, but obviously it is not meant to signify niello. Likely, the author means some kind of inlay.

Overall, it looks like a very simple standard Caucasian kindjal, mass produced , end of 19 up to mid 20 ( or later) century. Chechen? Daghestani?

The issue of hardness ( “soft iron”) puzzles me. The first photograph shows an area with deep crosshatching. Is looks suspiciously as if the blade was made out of an old file, and those are hard.
Also, Caucasian often used a technique of differential tempering, deliberately hardening edges and leaving the body soft. Kind of like nihonto. This can be seen after a good polish, and definitely after acid etching.

Sorry for not being more helpful: far too many contradictions.

Interested Party · 10th December 2019, 01:06 AM

Ariel thanks for the feedback. I joined this group to hear what other people had to say.
I thought I was buying a plain Dagestani blade. I hoped to find a differential temper as well. Maybe it will show up in the final polish.
Tel-tula to my understanding is attaching a soft metal to a ferric one similar to koftgari but instead of cross hatch using dots (stimples) to roughen the surface. If you blow up the picture and look below the fuller you will see a pattern of dots. I found traces of them period surrounding the fuller. there is still some gold attached to the tang.
Teh-tula seems to be an Indian technique from what I've read. I guess part of my question was to find out if anyone had heard of it in Transcaucasia or Caucasia? This also could be a fairly modern reproduction. Looking around the internet has been making me wonder if people aren't corroding new objects to make them seem old. I'm just learning about blades from this part of the world so I hope the group forgives me if I a little on the remedial side of things.

Ren Ren · 10th December 2019, 08:52 PM

If the dots have the correct triangular shape, then this is an old Persian jewelry technique, which was also owned by some craftsmen in Dagestan.
In my opinion, the mild steel of the blade suggests that the solid blades were destroyed with a grinder.

ariel · 11th December 2019, 02:41 AM

Can you give a reference to this technique/name?
All this is totally new to me.

kwiatek · 11th December 2019, 09:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Interested Party

Does anyone have knowledge of the use of teh-tula vs koftgari as a means of identifying place and period of manufacture of Caucasian style weapons particularly kindjals?

As far as I know tah-tala is a synonym for the deep inlay technique more commonly known as tah-nishan. It’s two Persian words, tah meaning “base” and tala (spelt tula or even tila sometimes in India) meaning “gold”. See at the link below under “Tehnishan”:

http://210.212.169.38/xmlui/bitstrea...=1&isAllowed=y

AJ1356 · 14th December 2019, 10:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kwiatek

As far as I know tah-tala is a synonym for the deep inlay technique more commonly known as tah-nishan. It’s two Persian words, tah meaning “base” and tala (spelt tula or even tila sometimes in India) meaning “gold”. See at the link below under “Tehnishan”:

http://210.212.169.38/xmlui/bitstrea...=1&isAllowed=y

In Persian tah ته means bottom or base, gold طلا pronounced either Ttila or Ttala, (double tt is used to emphasize the difference sounds between ت and ط) has nothing to do with bottom. The links seems to have interesting info, saved for when time is available to read.

kwiatek · 15th December 2019, 11:10 AM

Again, apologies for a boring and pedantic post of limited interest to most users.

The most common way to transliterate ط as in طلا is with a ṭ (a t with a dot below). If you used a double t you would not be able to distinguish it from تّ as in اتحاد

See attached the link to the IJMES system, the most commonly used in publications. Of course you can use any system you like as long as it is consistent. For general purposes, especially on forums like this, I don't see the point of being overly pedantic. As long as it is basically correct and we know what we are talking about, then that's enough as far as I'm concerned. Even museum publications now are stopping to distinguish between t and ṭ etc unless they are giving a full transcription of a longer text.

https://www.tandf.co.uk//journals/au...ationChart.pdf

5th December 2019, 07:49 PM	#1
Interested Party Member Join Date: Dec 2019 Location: Eastern Sierra Posts: 471	teh-tula vs koftgari on kindjals and other weaponary of the caucasus Does anyone have knowledge of the use of teh-tula vs koftgari as a means of identifying place and period of manufacture of Caucasian style weapons particularly kindjals?

7th December 2019, 06:31 PM	#4
kronckew Member Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Room 101, Glos. UK Posts: 4,184	Pictures please... Do you mean like this Caucasian shashqa? : Attached Images

8th December 2019, 08:24 PM	#7
Interested Party Member Join Date: Dec 2019 Location: Eastern Sierra Posts: 471	clarification and full disclousure pictures included this time Sorry for the previous lack of pictures. I was pressed for time. Now for some background to my question. Since I was a kid and saw pictures of kindjals in my grandfather's book collection I have been fascinated by offset fullers. This past spring I decided to learn more about kindjal construction and combed the internet for an appropriate piece that I could practice restoration on without guilt. I found a piece that had had previous restoration badly done. The seller claimed it to be from the 19th century Caucasus. It appears to me to be possibly a frankin-kindjal of unknown age and origin. On the back horn slab there is damage where the old rivets were ground off (far right picture). The blade had corroded and been cleaned on some kind of wheel then buffed. This process had left the blade scarred from uneven grinding with a very coarse abrasive. I decided to polish it out and change the aggressive channel grind to a flat grind that ideally tapered to the edge using all hand tools. I studied hundreds if not thousands of photo on the internet and Rivkin's book to create a mental picture of the outcome. As I began polishing it I noticed some periodic discoloration that I couldn't explain. Under 10x magnification what I discovered was traces of gold left in pits I believed to be where the cross hatching from koftgari had began or ended, thus being slightly higher than the rest of the cut which I reasoned had been ground off. Once I removed more damage and corrosion I saw that instead of cross hatching these were stimples. The left photo shows this under 10X magnification, the scale is in mm. I have not found any reference to teh-tula (the process of attaching gold or silver alloys to iron or steel via stimples) being used on qamas or kindjals. My question once again is what does this mean for period and place of manufacture? Does this make it Indo-Persian? The steel is very soft on this piece, changing my original idea of a flat grind all the way to the edge for better cutting properties on soft materials to adding a steeper bevel at the edges for more strength. Rivkin said in his book that the RC was often around 35 for wootz blades. Is a 35 Rockwell hardness common for the temper on plain steel kindjal blades as well? Attached Images

6th December 2019, 09:01 PM	#2
ariel Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Ann Arbor, MI Posts: 5,503	What on earth is teh -tula? Never heard of it. Any chance it is Tula Weapon manufacture?

7th December 2019, 02:17 PM	#3
ALEX Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 936	I think Tula refers to Niello technique here. Niello is called Tula in many European countries as most Niello work in Europe was produced in Russia (in Moscow and Tula) from 18 to 19 Centuries. Therefore, the question posted is about identifying origin of Caucasian arms based on Niello and Coftgari decorations.

7th December 2019, 08:21 PM	#5
ariel Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Ann Arbor, MI Posts: 5,503	I cannot see niello there. What I do see, is a cheap false filigree on a souvenir shashka made in contemporary Georgia.

9th December 2019, 10:42 PM	#8
ariel Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Ann Arbor, MI Posts: 5,503	Well, I still do not know where the term “ teh-Tula” came from, but obviously it is not meant to signify niello. Likely, the author means some kind of inlay. Overall, it looks like a very simple standard Caucasian kindjal, mass produced , end of 19 up to mid 20 ( or later) century. Chechen? Daghestani? The issue of hardness ( “soft iron”) puzzles me. The first photograph shows an area with deep crosshatching. Is looks suspiciously as if the blade was made out of an old file, and those are hard. Also, Caucasian often used a technique of differential tempering, deliberately hardening edges and leaving the body soft. Kind of like nihonto. This can be seen after a good polish, and definitely after acid etching. Sorry for not being more helpful: far too many contradictions.

10th December 2019, 01:06 AM	#9
Interested Party Member Join Date: Dec 2019 Location: Eastern Sierra Posts: 471	Ariel thanks for the feedback. I joined this group to hear what other people had to say. I thought I was buying a plain Dagestani blade. I hoped to find a differential temper as well. Maybe it will show up in the final polish. Tel-tula to my understanding is attaching a soft metal to a ferric one similar to koftgari but instead of cross hatch using dots (stimples) to roughen the surface. If you blow up the picture and look below the fuller you will see a pattern of dots. I found traces of them period surrounding the fuller. there is still some gold attached to the tang. Teh-tula seems to be an Indian technique from what I've read. I guess part of my question was to find out if anyone had heard of it in Transcaucasia or Caucasia? This also could be a fairly modern reproduction. Looking around the internet has been making me wonder if people aren't corroding new objects to make them seem old. I'm just learning about blades from this part of the world so I hope the group forgives me if I a little on the remedial side of things.

10th December 2019, 08:52 PM	#10
Ren Ren Member Join Date: Jun 2011 Location: Russia, Moscow Posts: 374	If the dots have the correct triangular shape, then this is an old Persian jewelry technique, which was also owned by some craftsmen in Dagestan. In my opinion, the mild steel of the blade suggests that the solid blades were destroyed with a grinder.

11th December 2019, 02:41 AM	#11
ariel Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Ann Arbor, MI Posts: 5,503	Can you give a reference to this technique/name? All this is totally new to me.

15th December 2019, 11:10 AM	#14
kwiatek Member Join Date: May 2019 Posts: 153	Again, apologies for a boring and pedantic post of limited interest to most users. The most common way to transliterate ط as in طلا is with a ṭ (a t with a dot below). If you used a double t you would not be able to distinguish it from تّ as in اتحاد See attached the link to the IJMES system, the most commonly used in publications. Of course you can use any system you like as long as it is consistent. For general purposes, especially on forums like this, I don't see the point of being overly pedantic. As long as it is basically correct and we know what we are talking about, then that's enough as far as I'm concerned. Even museum publications now are stopping to distinguish between t and ṭ etc unless they are giving a full transcription of a longer text. https://www.tandf.co.uk//journals/au...ationChart.pdf