Show us your pesh-kabz

[mariusgmioc]

I have one Persian and two North Indian.

Here they are:

[Bryce]

Beautiful examples! Unfortunately I don't have any to contribute, but I may have to put one on my Christmas wish list.
Cheers,
Bryce

[mariusgmioc]

So nobody wants to share their Pesh with us?!

[Battara]

When I grow up I might get one. These are beautiful!

[Interested Party]

Originally Posted by mariusgmioc

So nobody wants to share their Pesh with us?!

How could you follow these?

[Saracen]

Can I share a just karud?
I heard that in English "karud" and "pesh-kabz" are the same thing .
The first one is just "kard", and the second one is the same kard, that is worn "hilt (pesh) forward (kabz)" (but this is already a little bit in Persian )

[ariel]

These are classical Indo-Persian Pesh Kabz: recurved blades. What is popularly ( if incorrectly) called "karud" is just Pesh Kabz with straight blade. Those were widespread in Central Asia: Afghanistan and Khanates. In fact, ch'hura is from the same family, just a local variant of the handle from the Khyber Pass Mahsuds. The second one might have been called " khanjar" due to its double edge construction ( can't see well from the picture)
And you are correct: " karud" is just a local phonetic epenthesis ( insertion of a vowel between the two consonants). As usual, multiple bladed weapons were locally known by very generic names: " sword' ( saif, tulwar, kilij, shamshir in Arabic, Hindi , Turkish and Farsi), " knife" ( ch'hura, bichaq, P'chak in Hindi, Turkish and Uzbek. Kard is just a "knife" in Farsi, and "kord" in Tadjik. The purely phonetic origin of " karud" as mispronounced " kard" was directly stated in the mid-19th century by Florian Gille, the Russian director of the Tsarskoe Selo collection of weapons, by the 1955 edition of the Moser collection, indirectly in the Buttin's and Holstejn's catalogues and finally directly by Elgood in his new glossary. The first hint comes from the Gilchrist's glossary, where the word is written in Farsi as " kard" but transliterated as " karud". It went into common circulation by G.C. Stone, who was relying on early Moser's notes.
We have broken a lot of spears over this topic in the past. There is no way to extinguish the use of " karud" from the vocabularies of e-bay sellers and amateur and naive collectors, and perhaps this erroneous name serves its purpose: right away it gives us an image of a dagger with a straight blade. However, most respectable weapon historians, dealers and collectors do not use it. Just like no professional self-respecting Oriental weapons guy will ever use "scimitar":-)

[mariusgmioc]

Whether the term "KARUD", for the so called "straight pesh-kabz" is historically based or not is open to debate.

I have seen what I consider to be valid arguments for both opinions.

However, while there are many similarities between the classic recurved and the straight-bladed knives, there are also major, easily recognizable differences.

Therefore, for practical utility and in order to avoid possible confusion, I believe the use of the term "karud" is perfectly justified for the straight-bladed pesh-kabz.
Whether historically correct or not, the use of the specific term "karud" will allow immediate and precise distinction from its close recurved-bladed cousin, the pesh-kabz.

And this wouldn't be by any means without precedent as we use the term "kilij" for a specific type of Turkish Ottoman saber, while the term is simply a phonetical mis-spelling of the Turkish word "kiliç" that simply means sword in its most generic form.

Or the term "tulwar" that has become clearly associated with a specific Indian type of saber is nothing but a wrong, Europeanized spelling of the Hindi word "talawar" that again means sword in its most generic form.

And the same can be said about other terms like bichaq, kard, khanjar, and many more.

PS: As you may notice from the first photo of the Persian pesh-kabz, there is no indication of it being made of wootz. That is because that is the original photo from the seller. Meanwhile, I cleaned and re-etched the blade and revealed the beautiful wootz pattern.

[ariel]

Extremely nice wootz pattern! Excellent job.
Wish I could do half as well:- (((((

As to the name ( kard, karud, pesh kabz), it depends exclusively on the form of the blade, not on the materiel of it.

But I do not wish to argue about the use of the term « karud” in casual conversations. It would be just like pedantically opposing “ booze” instead of “ alcoholic beverage”. I am only suggesting that this term is wrong from the professional point of view: it never was the real name of the dagger, it is just a local pronounciation of “ kard” , akin to to the Southern “ taar” instead of “tire”, “ eiah” instead of “ air” or “ lemme” instead of “ let me”. One can hear at the gas staton somewhere in Alabama “ lemme put eiah in your taar” and still know that nothing bad is going to happen: the attendant just wants to inflate you leaking tire. But by the same token, one would never put that sentence phonetically into his/her MS thesis on managing practices in the Alabamian “ Discount Tire” shops:-) That’s all..

[Saracen]

Ariel and Marius, thank you for your explanations.
Here is the karud (pesh-kabz) that I wanted to show...

Removed at the requirement of Mariusgmioc (inconsistency with the topic)

[mahratt]

Marius, thank you very much for the interesting topic.
Persian pesh-kabz from my collection:

[Bryce]

G'day Guys,
It took a while, but I finally got my hands on one of these. Persian, but with a later scabbard.
Cheers,
Bryce

[Turkoman.khan]

Originally Posted by Bryce

G'day Guys,
It took a while, but I finally got my hands on one of these. Persian, but with a later scabbard.
Cheers,
Bryce

Excellent pesh-kabz. Congratulations.
I think the old handle was replaced with a new one in the 20th century

[Bryce]

G'day,
Yeah I agree. The grip scales have probably been replaced at some point.
Cheers,
Bryce

[kronckew]

Do these simple ones count?

[Montino Bourbon]

those two look like they come from Rajasthan to me. Very nice, and fully functional.

[Turkoman.khan]

Originally Posted by kronckew

Do these simple ones count?

Hello, kronckew

This is definitely not pesh-kabz.

[Bryce]

G'day Guys,
I was lucky enough to score another at the same time. This example has a 34cm blade.
Cheers,
Bryce

[Jens Nordlunde]

Marius,
You know you piece is fantastic, and I too have only one, which I have sen you in a PM - did you ever get it???


Jens