9th March 2021, 08:29 AM | #11 |
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Ann Arbor, MI
Posts: 5,503
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I would like to stress again that Saracen, IMXO, hit the nail on the head: the tip of Gonzoadler’s scabbard is purely Turkish. The so-called “ Meskhetian Turks” call themselves simply Turks. They acquired an addition. ” Meskheonly after they were deported ( second time!) from Uzbekistan to asouthern Russia in 1989; they were never allowed to return to their homes in Samtskhe-Javakheti that was shared between Georgia ( in fact Russia) and Turkey. Let’s not forget that the area in question was a major center for cold weapon production and decoratinos: Akhaltsikhe and Akhalkalaki. BTW, legendary ( at least in Russia)mineral water Borjomi is from the same area, as was a creator of Georgian national epic poem “The knight in the tiger skin” Shota Rustaveli ( from Rustavi, ancient center of forging iron objects).
It would be difficult to imagine that there were no locals bladesmiths and jewelers among the 100,000+ Turks exiled to Central Asia in 944.Some sources mention that the greatest Georgian swordmaker Geurk Elizarov came to Tiflis from Akhatsikhe. Nobody argues that there were Georgian itinerant masters in Central Asia at nthe end of 19th century, and had Mahratt been a bit more attentive to what was actually written by me, he would have understood that I was only raising a possibility of dating the scabbard in question to the second half of the 20th century, no more. The origin of the assertion that the Central Asian use of silver stopped in the 1920s is akin to the one that the use of brass was started by the Afghanis in 1900.Georgian masters were and still are using silver for their souvenir shashkas and kindjals non stop till now. I was intrigued by the pics of Central Asian daggers on the wall carpet, especially by the rightmost one having the same throat. Any verifiable dating of them? |
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