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Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Ann Arbor, MI
Posts: 5,503
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Perhaps, we need to modify the name: Yataghan Karadeniz ( Black Sea yataghan) might be more inclusive and accurate.
In the last issue of the Russian journal " Historical weapons study" there is a big paper on the weapons of the Adjaro-Gurian region. It is located in the South-West Georgia and North-East Turkey adjacent to the Black Sea. It is populated by several ethnicities : Shavsheti Machakheli, Adjara, Lower and Upper Guria, eastern Lazistan (currently part of Georgia) and a part of modern Turkey. Due to historical re-arrangements part of it , i.e. the southernmost part of it is included in the Trabzon area in Turkey. The population is sufficiently linguistically and religiously diverse to define it as multinational. We traditionally (well, actually only for the past ~30 years at the max) attribute Yataghan Karadeniz exclusively to Trabzon Laz and even call it Laz Bicagi. But the article of Dvalishvili and Talantov for the first time address the previously the " undiscovered country" of the entire Adjaro-Gurian region, and here are old pictures of specifically- defined Gurians carrying this peculiar weapon. See pis of 3 Adjarians and pay attention to the leftmost one. The second picture with 2 Gurians does not need a commentary. And, BTW, what we traditionally call " Surmene knives" ( after the Turkish town of Surmene) were also widespread in the Georgian part of the Adjaro-Gurian area and locally known as " Baba Kamas". Interestingly, even Russian weapon gurus with their unrestricted access to Caucasian weapons never ventured into the entire South-West Georgia and missed the whole story of the apparently, highly developed weapon culture and manufacture. It took the astonishing " private researcher" Levan Dvalishvili to address that issue. My hat is off to him! So, here is my modest suggestion to use a term Yatagan Karadeniz instead of specific " Laz " attribution of it as Laz Bicagi. |
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