Afghan tribal sabre. Tulwar or Shamshir?

[rand]

Hey Tim,

Very interesting Tulwar you have added to you collection of metal stories. Looking past the wear you see what was once a sumptuos sword. Its Indo-Muslim Panjabi-Rajput hilt (Rawson) overlaid with silver in a large floral design, its Indian shallow curved double edged tip (wootz?) watered blade in contrast to a well formed cartouche sparkling inlaid (?) with a high carot gold standing out against its silver clad hosting hilt.

For a description its a great example of wear via sharpening, its dramatic just how much this blade has been resharpened, also indicates possibly a solid wootz blade with no iron core. The floral decoration on the hilt a type of inlay where large lines are cut into the iron followed by silver hammered in in thick overlay with designs then chased into the silver (all worn off). In general the larger designs used to decorate the hilt indicate earlier work.

The cartouche looks familiar and will probably not be to hard to identify, maybe post a better photo of it. The fuller would have originally been well defined and symetrical, not the varied shape groove we see now caused by too little care taken while polishing or cleaning.

This sword has served its master for a long time......

rand