Kindjal

[ariel]

Just ended
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...MEWA%3AIT&rd=1

This one is obviously from Tirri's book, in which it was provenanced as Azerbaijani.
Anybody knows what are the distinguishing features of Azerbaijani weaponry/decorations?

[Rivkin]

Azeri weapons have always been a weak point of mine. There are many reasons why I think they are not very well known:

a. Until 1915 the name Azerbajan was is use only in a very small circle, more commonly the people were refered to as "tatars", so a lot of things that are written in old caucasian books about tatars are actually about azeris.
b. Azerbajan "fell off" the scope of Astvatsaturjan's work.
c. It's hard to define what Azerbajan is. Is Derbent (Dagestan), which until recently was populated mostly by "tatar" - Azerbajan ? What about northern Azerbajan, populated by Lezgins ? What about cities that traditionally had high percentage of armenians ? Afaik Azerbajan used to be northern Iran - does it mean that when we see an iranian weapon we should say "possibly azerbajan" ?

As a results from most of the things I've seen, my opinion is that Azerbajan's work is either Dagestani (Northern Azerbajan) or armenian.

This kindjal sort of looks like typical transcaucasian - 3 rivets hilt, extremely long, typical transcaucasian koftgari, somewhat conical point, typical transcaucasian "large" blade - one off-centered fuller. There are couple of things that are more specific for this kindjal, (central rivet is oval, interesting scabbard), but if I would have to express my opinion on this piece I would not go farther than "Transcaucasian, with a good chanse of being made outside of Georgia".

I hope that more knowladgeble people will enlighten us on Azeri kindjals.

P.S. long time ago I was once told that there is such thing as "typical Azeri" kindjals, with very specific form of the hilt (hard to describe in words), but since I almost never saw such thing in real life, I wonder if its true.

P.P.S. There was a really good catalogue - "Vostochnoe Oruzhie" ("Eastern weapons"), that was based entirely on Azerbajan's museums. Some of the weapons presented there were completely unique (like a version of Laz Bichaq, in a _knife_ size) but most of them were not even azerbajani (they had kukri and lots of Qajar stuff).

[Rivkin]

Examples from the catalogue:

a. One of the first kindjals from Caucasus - dated to 14th century BC (!!!), bronze with engravins.
b. Two pictures of XIX century kindjal.

[ariel]

Originally Posted by Rivkin

Azeri weapons have always been a weak point of mine. There are many reasons why I think they are not very well known:

a. Until 1915 the name Azerbajan was is use only in a very small circle, more commonly the people were refered to as "tatars", so a lot of things that are written in old caucasian books about tatars are actually about azeris.
b. Azerbajan "fell off" the scope of Astvatsaturjan's work.
c. It's hard to define what Azerbajan is. Is Derbent (Dagestan), which until recently was populated mostly by "tatar" - Azerbajan ? What about northern Azerbajan, populated by Lezgins ? What about cities that traditionally had high percentage of armenians ? Afaik Azerbajan used to be northern Iran - does it mean that when we see an iranian weapon we should say "possibly azerbajan" ?

As a results from most of the things I've seen, my opinion is that Azerbajan's work is either Dagestani (Northern Azerbajan) or armenian.

This kindjal sort of looks like typical transcaucasian - 3 rivets hilt, extremely long, typical transcaucasian koftgari, somewhat conical point, typical transcaucasian "large" blade - one off-centered fuller. There are couple of things that are more specific for this kindjal, (central rivet is oval, interesting scabbard), but if I would have to express my opinion on this piece I would not go farther than "Transcaucasian, with a good chanse of being made outside of Georgia".

I hope that more knowladgeble people will enlighten us on Azeri kindjals.

P.S. long time ago I was once told that there is such thing as "typical Azeri" kindjals, with very specific form of the hilt (hard to describe in words), but since I almost never saw such thing in real life, I wonder if its true.

P.P.S. There was a really good catalogue - "Vostochnoe Oruzhie" ("Eastern weapons"), that was based entirely on Azerbajan's museums. Some of the weapons presented there were completely unique (like a version of Laz Bichaq, in a _knife_ size) but most of them were not even azerbajani (they had kukri and lots of Qajar stuff).

How can we locate this catalogue?

[Rivkin]

Originally Posted by ariel

How can we locate this catalogue?

Well, that's a good question.
There are few catalogues that I'm trying to get right now - "Eastern Weapons", "Collection of weapons in Tsarskoe Selo" - reprint from 1850 and "Catalogue of State Historical Museum's collection of weapons", all three names obviously being a loose translation from russian.

"Tsarskoe selo" is being sold for 25$, but is hard to get, "Eastern weapons" was printed once with very few copies available from the beginning, and the last one I've never even held in my hands.