Karabela origin?

[Andrew]

Originally Posted by Sancar

If the distinct "rumi-palmet" form of the "pommel"or head of the handle is what diffirentiates and characterize karabela as a distinct blade(and I agree with you in this matter), then doesn't this makes identification problem for this type of blade very very problematic? I mean this type of pommel form is used in Turco-Mongoland İndo-Persian weaponry for centuries. Almost 1/2 of Turkish knives have this sort of pommels. Even yatagan "eared" form was evolved from this and if you ignore the pronounced ears, this is the basic form of every yatagan pommel. Adding to this, this shape of pommels is very often found in Ottoman kilijs as late as 19th century, right alongside with late period pistol gripped, "armudi"(pear-shaped) form pommeled "pala"s. I mean there is a whole section in İstanbul Military Muıseum for this type of kilijs. Now, how will we identfy these kilijs? Will we call them "Ottoman karabelas" just because they have pommels in a very common form of Turkish blades?Or will we call them just "kilijs?

I find it problematic to identify origin for a blade (especially when it comes to the hot-button issue of what culture or nation does it belong to) reduced only to a one minor aspect of a blade. "For example: It is only a Turkish style kilij if it has a distinct false edge and a pear shaped pommel, otherwise it is a shamshir while Turks used metal pommels for centuries; or no guard equals to shashka ,etc.)

It might be an easy shortcut for classification for us contemporary researchers; but it creates many problems when it is used to cultural identification especially for Western Asian arms and armour because of the complex and interactive multi-cultural structure of the region.

And I don't see a similar approach(there is distinct classification, but not separation) when it comes to western bladeswhich makes me think that this issue has its roots in "orientalism" as in most socio-cultural areas of research in modern social sciences.

My thesis might have sound nationalistic but this is not my intention. I gave examples from my own angle of view but I presume same problem appears for every western Asian or Eastern European researcher whether they are Persian, Arab, Afghan, or Slavic.

I don't have an easy solution for this, but maybe more than pointers when it comes to identification and a more inclusive and non-separative or fluent approach when it comes to classification might help.

Thank you, Sancar. Great post.

I suspect the reason Western European weapons are so well-categorized is because someone(s) spent the time and resources to conduct scholarly research and publish on it (e.g. Oakeshott, et.al.).

I can tell you that the very situation you describe for Western Asian weapons is present in my personal area of interest--Mainland SEA weapons. Those of us in the West who study and collect these weapons have struggled for years to neatly "sort" weapon origins, etc. However, the shifting of ethnic, national and cultural borders in the region defy most casual efforts.

[Sancar]

You're most welcome Andrew. I also agree that Asian art of weaponry is a relatively less researched subject and multi layered inter-cultural interactions through ages makes it even harder. One of the biggest problems is this "black-and-white" approach I witness in most attempts of classification and cultural identification.

I am an art historian and archeologist so I tend to lookat the weapons as an another area of fine art just like architecture or paintings. As an art historian, we identify cultural origins and evolution of styles thoroughout ages as a whole but also notice the fluent nature of this evolution from culture to culture and from geography to geography. Take Renaissance for example. Can you say it is italian and only italian without denying the existence of nothern masters like Bosch? Or can you say the Flaman style of renaissnce art is a national style of painting that originates only in Flandra and belong only to that culture without denying the birth of that style in Italy? Same goes for Gothic cathedrals, Baroque etc. Art historians follow and identify the evolution of themes, styles, ornamantation figures, dress fashions, architectural components or even objects like spoons or chairs. It is naturally the healthiest approach to be applied in the study of bladed weapons as well.

And I see it is used in such fashion in European blades. I did not witness any fights between British, Italian,German and French researchers about which culture does the longsword belong to. People recognize historical origins and evolution from Roman gladius to spatha to Celtic and Gothic migration period swords. etc. all the way to late Middle ages, with contrubitions of every culture and geography on its way.

Yet when it comes to Western Asian swords either a mono-block approach "İslamic weapons", "Oriental weapons"as if all the different cultures from Andulusia to Malaysia is one and the same(the orentalistic view), or the reactionary view which is to ignore all evolution and inter-culturel trade of styles and identify one specific variation of one specific weapon as the national weapon of such culture that only originated from and only belong to that culture and geography. And this over-separative approach bring identification by the smallest of differences such as shape of a pommel.

Long story short, let's look at swords like architecture and stop fighting over who owns what. It is well-known that Gothic style is brought to Britian by French architects but this does not make Westminister Abbey any less British, does it?

[ariel]

Sancar:

" I don't see a similar approach(there is distinct classification, but not separation) when it comes to western bladeswhich makes me think that this issue has its roots in "orientalism" as in most socio-cultural areas of research in modern social sciences."




Perhaps, the reason why European arms are so similar stems from a long tradition of cultural unity: Roman Empire spread from Italy to Spain, to Britain, to Germany ( I am talking only about Europe here, mind you). Since then, Latin became a lingua franca of Europe, and generations of educated Europeans were raised on Homer and Virgil. After that, the Holy Roman Empire somewhat continued the tradition. Royal Houses intermarried to the point of French royalty becoming kings of Hungary and Poland,and at the beginning of the 20th century kings of England, Germany, Russia, Greece , Denmark etc. looked remarkably alike :-) And let's not forget religion: both New and Old Testaments were the cornerstone of literacy, art forms, and beliefs of all Europeans. The Pope was an official ( although not always welcome) religious authority from Spain to Poland and from Britain to Sicily.

Europe was in effect a single culture with some local flavours. In that climate, it was no wonder that the arms development was also more or less standard and evolved in parallel. Orthodox Russia decided to "join the club" only in the 18th century. Till then, Russian weapons were distinctly " oriental".

The "Orient" as we define it, consists of a multitude of different cultures: Persian, Ottoman, Arab, Indian ( with her separate flavors) etc. The unifying influence of Islam came relatively late, and the native cultures/religions/traditions persisted side by side despite it. This is why, IMHO, we still see distinct styles of weapons. Moreover, with the exception of the Ottomans, no country in Western Asia built a humongous empire, stretching from South Aravia to the Balkans. Importantly, within the Ottoman areal, weapons also became rather homogeneous. Matter of size, I guess, and of central authority.

The big problems with the Oriental weapons ( excluding Japan, perhaps) is not "orientalism" a la Edward Said, but rather pillaging of arsenals ( India comes to mind), complete lack of real museums with detailed attribution and provenance as well as the absence of academic research. Topkapi collection was catalogued for the first time by Hans Stocklein in the 1930s, Iranian collections , - by the Russian Romanovsky in the 1950-1960s, the first academic books about Indian weapons were written by the Brits: Lord Egerton and Rawson. Luckily, there is a new wave of younger researchers , especially in Turkey, who are trying to fill the void.

As to the commonality of yataghan and karabela handles, I beg to differ. The only example of it were the North African yataghans with karabela-like pommels. I am also confused by your statement that kilijes with yataghan handles were popular in the Ottoman Empire ( or did I misunderstand you?). Pala is a later development of Kilij, so the retention of the drop-like ( pear-like: -) ) pommel is not surprising. Moreover, we have no idea how did Seljuk swords look like. Did the Turks take this form from the Mamluks? Or, vice versa, did they just replace the original handles of the Mamluk swords with their own creations ( witness Sacred Swords in Topkapi)?

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by Sancar

You're most welcome Andrew. I also agree that Asian art of weaponry is a relatively less researched subject and multi layered inter-cultural interactions through ages makes it even harder. One of the biggest problems is this "black-and-white" approach I witness in most attempts of classification and cultural identification.

I am an art historian and archeologist so I tend to lookat the weapons as an another area of fine art just like architecture or paintings. As an art historian, we identify cultural origins and evolution of styles thoroughout ages as a whole but also notice the fluent nature of this evolution from culture to culture and from geography to geography. Take Renaissance for example. Can you say it is italian and only italian without denying the existence of nothern masters like Bosch? Or can you say the Flaman style of renaissnce art is a national style of painting that originates only in Flandra and belong only to that culture without denying the birth of that style in Italy? Same goes for Gothic cathedrals, Baroque etc. Art historians follow and identify the evolution of themes, styles, ornamantation figures, dress fashions, architectural components or even objects like spoons or chairs. It is naturally the healthiest approach to be applied in the study of bladed weapons as well.

And I see it is used in such fashion in European blades. I did not witness any fights between British, Italian,German and French researchers about which culture does the longsword belong to. People recognize historical origins and evolution from Roman gladius to spatha to Celtic and Gothic migration period swords. etc. all the way to late Middle ages, with contrubitions of every culture and geography on its way.

Yet when it comes to Western Asian swords either a mono-block approach "İslamic weapons", "Oriental weapons"as if all the different cultures from Andulusia to Malaysia is one and the same(the orentalistic view), or the reactionary view which is to ignore all evolution and inter-culturel trade of styles and identify one specific variation of one specific weapon as the national weapon of such culture that only originated from and only belong to that culture and geography. And this over-separative approach bring identification by the smallest of differences such as shape of a pommel.

Long story short, let's look at swords like architecture and stop fighting over who owns what. It is well-known that Gothic style is brought to Britian by French architects but this does not make Westminister Abbey any less British, does it?

Absolutely beautifully said Sancar!

"...they convincingly explained that rather than being mere accessories, weapons are in fact artistic creations that reflect larger stylistic tendancies of a period".
Bruno Thomas and Ortwin Gamber
"Harnischstudien" in the 'Jahrbuch des
Kunsthistorischen Museums in Wien" 1937-55
cited p.73 "Imperial Austria:Treasures of Art, Arms and Armor from the
State of Styria" (1992)

I do agree with Ariel in his view that there are distinct separations in western edged weapons despite the fact that in the early times noted there were no specific countries such as Italy, Germany, France, Italy etc.
There is a broader scope of description which requires a greater deal of qualification in classification. For example in later periods many regions in 'Italy' were actually Spanish provinces, and one may often be hard pressed to distinguish certain arms and armor as Spanish vs Italian. This is often the case for example with the familiar combed morion of the conquistadors. Many if, if not most of these were Italian not Spanish.
In many other instances these were German...further, these post dated the early conquistadors and were not seen until later expeditions

There is a certain proclivity to classify arms as either European or Oriental as noted, and this vague system is as we have often seen, less than adequate . As we have been discussing here with the 'karabela' type sword, these are considered of 'oriental' influence in that we cannot accurately assess whether to consider it an Ottoman form, or look further to the probable Persian influence which in turn had influenced the Turks. The term is nearly irrelevant in that sense as it seems to have been applied far after the development of the sword form itself in Polish parlance (after 1683).

The reason for the quote I placed at the heading here is that there are many inherent artistic, religious, traditional and cultural elements found in the various sword forms, both in hilt and blade, and overall often in decorative motif. In many sword hilts, particularly in India, Arabia, and others important architecture is often represented in the many of the features in design, that pertain to temples, mosques and other iconographic sources. For example, we know that tulwars with Indo-Persian hilts have the stupa represented in the pommel over the disc. Many western sword hilts, especially early forms, have hilts which iconographically represent early architectural elements vestigially ( early Anglo-Saxon hilts) . In many early Chinese bronze weapons, certain structural features such as lashing ,were retained in the cast product vestigially.

I suppose this analysis could go on, but that is essentially the perspective .

I think by far the most effective approach is to classify any weapon, or item for that matter descriptively and with proper qualification. For example, as with Bashford Dean (1929) describing smallswords, a perfect example of difficulty in identification as they seem to virtually look the same in effect.
He chose often, for example, to identify a sword as French 'in the Strasbourg manner' in one instance if I recall correctly. There are many smallswords which are French, Dutch and English but in 'shakudo' or 'chinoserie' style, which are of course European even if in Oriental styles.

Actually, many of us have looked at swords and weapons from this artistic perspective for a long time, and that is largely what we do here, try to determine influences, development and variations . In doing so it is important to learn as much history, culture, religion as possible, as it is essential to understand not just the weapons, but those who used them .

Ariel, well noted on the venerable writers on Indian arms who wrote the seminal references we often use, but do not forget the writers that are currently producing outstanding references such as Robert Elgood and others . As far as researchers working to the fill the void, I am not that familiar about the work being done in Turkey, but I can speak on many others working right here, on these pages on the forum. In the 17+ years I have written here, there have been many remarkable achievements in advancing the comprehensive knowledge on many weapons forms right here, in fact you have contributed considerably to many of them.

Well done guys, that's what these discussions are about!

[Sancar]

Thank you ariel for your detailed response.

I'd like to avoid a looong message because I just wrote one above, and wouldn't want to crowd the thread. So let me just calrify one point: I think I failed(english as as sceond language) but what I meant to say was rumi-palmet shaped "karabela"style pommel was also very common in Turkish kilijs, knives, khanjars, daggers, qamas etc. And if you cut the ear extentions, that is the basic shape of most yataghan pommels.

And I also would like to say I respectfully don't share your opinion of Europe as a whole has a cultural unity. I believe this so-called "Occident" is much as a mirage as the "Orient" is. But that is a whole another subject of discussion.

Edit: Andrew thank you as well for your response and your kind words. Very interesting points you made. Unfortunately my posts seem to have some sort of delay so I can't keep up with the conversation in sync.

[archer burak]

[QUOTE=TVV]

Originally Posted by archer burak

You call yourself historian? I am sorry, but I find your Pan-Turkic and Nationalistic drivel obnoxious, pointless and completely unproductive. You are at the wrong place.

It is obvious you will not stop to spew nonsense, so I kindly ask the moderators to put an end to this NOW, with whatever means necessary.

Thank you,

Teodor

Last word ,
Sorry to all forum members , but you're doing wrong Andrew : when ı talk to Karabela s origin ı give some historic datas and ethimological datas , and than go with a historical well known joke about Poland and Ottoman history ... but you cant understand !...Than you came and walk like an elephant in the glassware shop and have a mess... ı dont understand what you want ...you admit you have no idea about Ottoman history but you doing rewievs ... ı am not agree with you that ı am act like nationalistic and force or disturb any one in this forum ...ı am working on central asian and ottoman also japan history thats my profession is it crime ? ... you cant label me and blame me ... ıf you want to learn my history carrier forget my scientific articles historian of my past and type Yaşar Burak Uslu on your web browser and see my latest History program on Tv , name ''Avcının Tarihi '' ( Hunters History ) latest part from Topkapı Palace Museum Weapons imperial showroom watch than think again... ! Sorry to all forum members to this speach but ı had to express myself against this offenses , best regards.

[Andrew]

Originally Posted by archer burak

Last word ,
Sorry to all forum members , but you're doing wrong Andrew : when ı talk to Karabela s origin ı give some historic datas and ethimological datas , and than go with a historical well known joke about Poland and Ottoman history ... but you cant understand !...Than you came and walk like an elephant in the glassware shop and have a mess... ı dont understand what you want ...you admit you have no idea about Ottoman history but you doing rewievs ... ı am not agree with you that ı am act like nationalistic and force or disturb any one in this forum ...ı am working on central asian and ottoman also japan history thats my profession is it crime ? ... you cant label me and blame me ... ıf you want to learn my history carrier forget my scientific articles historian of my past and type Yaşar Burak Uslu on your web browser and see my latest History program on Tv , name ''Avcının Tarihi '' ( Hunters History ) latest part from Topkapı Palace Museum Weapons imperial showroom watch than think again... ! Sorry to all forum members to this speach but ı had to express myself against this offenses , best regards.

Archer,

I believe there is some confusion here--the comment you quoted was not by me and I did not approve of it. In fact, I advised TVV as much on this very thread.

Perhaps there is some confusion due to language differences. The "well known joke" you reference, for instance, is unfamiliar to me. In any event, I am not trying to denigrate your opinions and credentials. My actions have been to redirect this thread back to the topic at hand and to head off any potential conflicts while going out of my way to treat everyone fairly.

Despite my best efforts, you somehow feel persecuted. So be it.

I do earnestly hope this is, truly, your final word on this topic. I can assure you it is mine.

Andrew

[Sancar]

I really don't want to add to this whole unpleasent situation but I must say that I know Mr.Yaşar Burak Uslu by reputation and he is a well-respected Turkish historian and writer. I'm sure all is just a misunderstanding.

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by Sancar

Thank you ariel for your detailed response.

I'd like to avoid a looong message because I just wrote one above, and wouldn't want to crowd the thread. So let me just calrify one point: I think I failed(english as as sceond language) but what I meant to say was rumi-palmet shaped "karabela"style pommel was also very common in Turkish kilijs, knives, khanjars, daggers, qamas etc. And if you cut the ear extentions, that is the basic shape of most yataghan pommels.

And I also would like to say I respectfully don't share your opinion of Europe as a whole has a cultural unity. I believe this so-called "Occident" is much as a mirage as the "Orient" is. But that is a whole another subject of discussion.

Edit: Andrew thank you as well for your response and your kind words. Very interesting points you made. Unfortunately my posts seem to have some sort of delay so I can't keep up with the conversation in sync.

Thank you sanjer for the response to my post. I agree, there is a great deal of misunderstanding here.

[Sancar]

Sorry for miswriting your name, Jim.

[Martin Lubojacky]

Hi Valjhun,
Since you placed photo of a nice karabela with floral motive here, I am enclosing flower motives on Iranian shamsir just for pleasure. (The pictures are from the book "Sultanlarin silahlari by Hilmi Aydin, the piece is from Topkapi collection)
Regards,
Martin