Classifying shashka--a serious discussion of typology

[ariel]

And a million $$ question: was there an old local weapon serving as a "prototype" or an "ancestor" for both Afghani and Uzbek shashka-like sabers?

Quite some time ago Mercenary posted on a Russian Forum a series of pictures from a book TARIKH-E JAHANGOSHAY-E NADERI written by a Nader Shah's secretary Mirza Mohammed Mehdi Esterbadi and published in 1757. It refers to the war between Persian and Afghani armies, comprising several battles.

Here are several examples: mostly Afghanis, but also some Persians hold guardless swords. It might be an artist's lack of accuracy, but there are clear depictions of shamshirs WITH guards. Moreover, there is a fragment showing 2 Persian horsemen, with empty scabbars on their sides: one traditional saber "edge down", another a typical shashka " edge up".

These pics open a Pandora box of questions:

-were there Persian but mainly Central Asian guardless sabers that we were not privileged to see in nature?
- if so, were they purely local or brought by other ethnoses? For example, Caucasian ( Circassian, Georgian, Armenian) mercenaries fought alonside Nader Shah troops. Even more, the same mercenaries constituted the bulk of Shah Abbas cavalry during his invasion of Aghanistan.

It is so tempting to suggest that shashka-like weapon came to Afghanistan and Central Asia straight from Caucasus. However, we should temper our enthusiasm until we figure it out better. There is, apparently, only one Caucasian shashka in the Kremlin Armoury allegedly documented to be of XVIII century. Nothing earlier. Thus, even if we believe the documentation, it is dated well after the reign of Nader Shah and a century and a half after Shah Abbas.


In any case, please see for yourself.