Go on...show us your Choora!!

[mahratt]

Dear participants of the forum.
Before talking about the possibility of chooras in the 19th century:
1) Can somebody of you give the image an Afghan (Waziri or someone else) with choor before 1900?
2) Does anyone of you knowledge of chooras in museum collections, which became a museum exhibit before 1900?

All other considerations, including the subjective opinions of experts - it is almost child's play "believe, do not believe," in which there is no serious evidence. For example. I ask an expert on the tree at the State Historical Museum in Moscow (Russia). I ask him, he can visually (without complex analyzes) to determine the age of a tree, exposed to the environment? He said that no one can do it for sure.

Originally Posted by Ian

Third, I believe at least one of the inscriptions is a date because I think I can read "JANUARY 1 /, 1854." The first three letters of JAN seem clear and the rest of the month is indistinct. The following number (below the name of the month) could be a "1" or "3," then a slash, comma and 1854. All of this is in English and consistent with the Scottish auction provenance that ariel provided. As ariel's consultant has already determined, the handwriting is consistent with an early 19th C English style (possibly older), but we don't know the age of the person who wrote it. It seems reasonable to conclude, however, that the handwriting is consistent with having been written by an adult in the mid-19th C, and therefore consistent with the date on at least one of these choora scabbards.

If you say so, it turns out that the number "1854" and an inscription in Farsi (or Pashtu) are written in various ink (After all, from your words it turns out that they were written by different people.)? Then it turns out the expert Ariel is not so good ... She did not tell him that there are different inks..(at least he did not mention about it in Russian forum).

Originally Posted by ariel

I know of no examples of very old Choora in British museums. I found catalogues of provincial amateur exhibitions of ~ 1870 introducing Waziri or just Afghani knives, but there were no pics. Their whereabouts are unknown to me. Perhaps, they are the very ones I am showing here:-)

Egerton shows a Choora in his book ( #624, Plate XIV) and gives Bannu as its origin: current Edwardsville, Pakhtunkhwa, The Pakistani part of the Khyber Pass) . Regretfully, Mahratt refuses to see a Choora in it :-)

When there is no picture of what to say, Ariel? You and I already know the alleged "Afghan knife" of the printed catalog Jacob.

The subject, which is shown in Egerton - not Afghan choora (see image). I've said many times this Ariel Moreover, the fact that certain items Egerton called "choora" not to say that this is the Afghan choora that we are discussing. In the 19th century the word "choora" refers to a knife (a "knife" in general and not any specific knife).