shashka=big yatagan???

[ausjulius]

i was thinking about this recently,,
what made me thing this was one or two things,, like the shape of the eairly yatagans, compared to the shashka handles ,
if you ask anyone around here what the split in the handle is for on the shashka theyll say for resting yout musket on ofcorse..
but the shashka dosnt realy make a good shooting rest atall,
also many of the splits are far to small, maybe they applied for this use on occasions,

i would like some other opinions on this,, were the yatagans used in the area of the north west caucasus 300 or so years ago,,,? ive seen no great evidence of this.. but when you look at the older yatagans they look almost as a small slightly incurved shashka,,

so woud this make the shashka a big knife,, pretending to be a sword?? sort of like a knife that grew alittle to big....
ive never seen any realy earily shashkas,, they seem to have appeared and then became very popular quickly,,,,,,,
other problem is that the sheathe and handles were always being repaired and changed,, and ther eis many sorts, os it is hard ot find a collection that is very old to compare specific features,,