Armenian? Georgian? silver dagger

arsendaday · 5th December 2016, 11:54 PM

Here it is eftihis.

There is only one letter/word that I couldn't see clearly, but the meaning won't suffer from it.

So literally it says: "To the enjoyment of Ayvazyan M/I Yakob and Mkhi." It is clearly a gift inscription that was presented to most likely father and son Ayvazyans. The word M/I is what I couldn't figure out; could be a nickname or a title. IMHO I think they were father and son, because while Yakob is a full name, Mkhi is a short version of a name only used for friends or little kids and since it was included in the inscription, I think that he was somebody important too.

In my opinion the dagger was made somewhere in the Ottoman Empire (maybe late 19th, early 20th century) and it was custom ordered from an Armenian silversmith/weapon-smith for an Armenian person. The reason I think the smith was Armenian is because the inscription is done in repousse, meaning it was done before the dagger was assembled together and I doubt that any Armenian national in the Ottoman Empire would ever order an Armenian inscription from weapon masters who are not Armenian.

It is a great piece and must have cost a fortune in its day.

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5th December 2016, 11:54 PM	#11
arsendaday Member Join Date: Sep 2015 Posts: 44	Here it is eftihis. There is only one letter/word that I couldn't see clearly, but the meaning won't suffer from it. So literally it says: "To the enjoyment of Ayvazyan M/I Yakob and Mkhi." It is clearly a gift inscription that was presented to most likely father and son Ayvazyans. The word M/I is what I couldn't figure out; could be a nickname or a title. IMHO I think they were father and son, because while Yakob is a full name, Mkhi is a short version of a name only used for friends or little kids and since it was included in the inscription, I think that he was somebody important too. In my opinion the dagger was made somewhere in the Ottoman Empire (maybe late 19th, early 20th century) and it was custom ordered from an Armenian silversmith/weapon-smith for an Armenian person. The reason I think the smith was Armenian is because the inscription is done in repousse, meaning it was done before the dagger was assembled together and I doubt that any Armenian national in the Ottoman Empire would ever order an Armenian inscription from weapon masters who are not Armenian. It is a great piece and must have cost a fortune in its day.