Huge sword - Persia or Caucasus

[Rivkin]

Originally Posted by wolviex

Rivkin - thank you very much for your efforts, I really appreciate it!

Does Armenian letters excludes Persia as a place of workmanship?

Thanks!

My pleasure. Even today, there is a very strong armenian minority in Iran. However, in the past, Armenia per se and surrounding armenian populated areas (like Karabagh/Arzagh) were a battlefield for ottomans and iranians. Control over Armenia was going back and forth, with ancestors of modern armenians in general being more supportive of iranians and iranian culture (this topic is a subject of many heated and politisized debates). A very large number of armenians was moved by iranians to more steadily controlled iranian provinces, like Azerbajan and Mazandaran.

Now, when talking about Qajars - the early years of Qajars were marked by qajar army establishing control over entire azerbajan and eastern armenia, wrestling large armenian centers under their control. This ended with iranian defeat in ruso-iranian wars, with the borders being finalized in 1828, leaving iran with much smaller armenian diaspora.

It well may be that the sword is early qajar and was made by an iranian sympatizer, even through early Qajars were far less popular among armenians due to their turkoman origins and their support of northern iranian turks (azeris etc.).

It is also possible that the sword is of later period (if its indeed an armenian mega-kama), and in this case was most likely made in one of the armenian diaspora centers in Fars.