Egyptian Curved Sword with scabbord

[katana]

Fantastic find, well done. I too wish I had seen it. Strange that the seller thought 'Egyptian', but placed it in the sub-catergory 'Japanese/Samurai'... An Egyptian Katana, perhaps

[IainN]

Very nice find!

I'm feeling a little grumpy because a computer malfunction prevented me from bidding on the dha I wanted last night.

[Mark]

Originally Posted by HartCone

i agree with you, didn't look overly egyptian, its look more dha...

Yes, that is a Burman dha. It is funny that the seller didn't show the "Arabic" letters on the ferrule more clearly. They are hard to see, but they do look like Burmese letters.

[kronckew]

well , the dha arrived today, it's better than i expected. brown stains on blade were grease which cleaned off.

scabbard is very well made, better and lighter/thinner than my other dha's, the brass bands are all decorated with pointillé designs.

the wooden grip, is covered at either end in what appears to be silver. the centre section is a brass covered section with further pointillé designs, chief of which is a bird surmounted by what appears to be a burmese inscription. the silver section nearest the blade is also engraved with a burmese inscription.

the blade is 25" long, 1" at the hilt, 1.25" at it's widest near the point, 3/8" thick at the hilt, distally tapering to the point. the 1st third of the spine is rounded, the latter 2/3 of the spine is square, there are two narrow fullers that run to within a couple inches of the point, and a fine groove cut above it for about the 1st 1/3 from the hilt. the blade is not inlaid with silver scrolls & brass spine inlays as is my other dha, but appears to be more buisness-like.

a magnet was used to discover tha tang extends thru the first silver section and the brass section as well, but not into the pommel section. it is drilled near the blade end for a dowel or rivet, which hole is currently filled with a steel nail. the nail appears to be fairly old and is worn by use. the visible wooden part of the grip where the tang is inserted appears to have a wooden wedge either side of the blade hammered in to keep the assembly tight.

pictures: if anyone has any idea what the inscriptions are, i'd be grateful for a translation.

[Andrew]

That is a fine piece! Congratulations.

[Mark]

Very nice, indeed. I think someone here knows how to read Burmese, but I can't remember who. The peacock on the grip is that national symbol of Burma, by the way.

The first inscription is up-side-down, though. I turned it around below.

And just to impress everyone with my idiot-savant abilities ( ) ... . I can usually at least sound out the words in Burmese, but this one contains some consonent sounds and diacriticals that I can't figure out. I was hoping for a date (those are easy), but there isn't any. The most I can get from the ferrule inscription is:

__ tu' __ pa'

__ thu' (or maybe thui', in either case with a "high" tone)

sa' ti' nra (and some diacritical I can't figure out)

It is the first letter/cluster in the first and second lines (appears twice in the first line, actually - what looks like a left-facing cresent overlapped by a circle) that I can't find, and the downward swooping line at the end of the second (well, just before the double-dot diacritical) and the third lines. I think the swoop is a diacritical of some sort (additions to consonants that determine vowel sounds, vowel position, and tone).

The engraving on the handle is easier to parse out, but there is again one letter/cluster I can't get:

ba' ma' tui __e'n~ min

In all of these I had to put the accents and tildes after the letter. These are the "classic" pronunciations - modern pronunciation is apparently a little different.

So now anyone who actually reads and speaks Burmese can mock me. I read somewhere that it takes about 2 years to become proficient in Burmese, so I have a long way to go.

[Mark]

About the nail - the blade likely came loose as the wood of the handle aged and shrank, so someone, very likely not someone Burmese or Thai, drilled through the handle and tang and put in the nail. What you found about the tang length is exactly right for a dha. They are very short, and the blade is just held in with a pressure fit, and in most cases an adhesive such as pitch. Taking out the nail and repairing the holes would restore it to the traditional form.

One other thought about the inscription - it might not be Burmese at all, but rather Mon (people in southern Myamar, whom the Burmese call Talaing). I believe the same basic alphabet is used by both, but there are differences in how they are written because they are very different languages. That might explain the odd letters/diacriticals.