Yemen Dagger

[Lew]

Steve

Thanks for the quick reply. I thought these might be from Hadhramaut but my Yemen friend Salah who was my go to person passed away and his son is not as knowlegable when it comes to jambiya. I am actually teaching him . I was very interested to know if the silverwork could have been done by Jewish smiths I have heard from my friend mentioned above that they did the finest work in Yemen and after 1950 there was a marked decline in the workmanship of the silverwork due to the exodus of the Yemeni Jews to Israel.

Btw I found this part of an article on the web.

After most of the Jews left Yemen in 1948-1950, the ruler of Yemen, Imam Ahmed, saw that jewelrymaking was in decline and tried to save the industry by ordering some of the Jewish silversmiths to teach their craft to Muslims before they left the country (Muchawsky-Schnapper 2000). But all the secret knowledge that been passed through the generations of the old silversmiths could not be taught in a few years.