Sudanese Arm Dagger For Comment

[Alam Shah]

Yes, the translation is 'Allah'. The scabbard is more elaborate than the blade.

[Tim Simmons]

Hi Louis,This one has silver wire on the handle.I have just recieved this weekend, a copy of De fer et de fierte' from the Barbier-Mueller museum,as recommended by Freddy.This is a must for people in to Africa, it does not have everything but what book does? [IMG]http://[/IMG] Tim

[Yannis]

This is my contribution to the topic.

A dagger that lives last decade in my home. It has plain wood hilt with silver pommel.

I suppose that lot of forumites have one

[Lew]

Nice daggers gentleman! Here are two others for show. I wonder how many variations of this type of dagger are out there?


Lew

[Lew]

This one arrived today and it is very similar to the ones I saw in an earlier thread. The blade is 10" long and has some written in Arabic but I have no Idea what it says. This is the thread that I mentioned.
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=111



Lew

[Rather]

LOUIBLADES, difficult to read the text (the pictures are upside down), but the year on the dagger is 1318 A.H., which is the year 1900/1901 according to the Christian calendar.

[Rich]

Here's my contribution to the thread.
Had it for many years. What is the
flat triangular pommel for? Skull crusher?
Don't know anything about the knife. One
of my few, besides Berbers, African pieces.

Rich S

[Kamil]

Originally Posted by Rather

LOUIBLADES, difficult to read the text (the pictures are upside down), but the year on the dagger is 1318 A.H., which is the year 1900/1901 according to the Christian calendar.

LOUIBLADES,
Rarher's deciphering is OK. the whole inscription reads "Omdurman - year 1318".
BTW does anyone know how these knives are/were worn? I have heard and read that on the left arm, but where and how exactly? Maybe there exist a picture showing such knife "in use"...?

[Lew]

Hi Guys

Here hopefully is my last Sudanese dagger It also has an inscription on the blade but it was very hard to photogragh so here is my poor excuse at copying the script. I also came across this Tebu dagger the interesting thing is that the scabbard has a belt loop rather than the traditional arm band loops?


Lew

[Kamil]

Hi Lew,
another great piece! I, personally, hope that it is not your LAST Sudanese dagger I like to see them from time to time, and this forum seems to be more and more dominated by kerises (with all due respect to keris-lovers and kerises themselves). Concerning the inscription, the lower line resembles in shape the word "Omdurman" (again!), but written carelessly and without diacritics. The upper one is more complicated; its form can suggest that it contains a date (the elongated word "year" and the date itself above it, as in your previous piece). On the other hand, the middle part of it can be the beginning of the 20th Sura (Ta Ha); this, however, seems to me less probable, as I have never seen this kind of knives decorated with Qur'anic inscriptions and, besides, this particular fragment is not very apppropriate for decoration of arms. It is also possible that the inscription has been copied from another dagger by an illiterate artisan who tried to render the shape of what he saw without understanding it. It would be interesting to check this; could you try to photograph the inscription? Or maybe, if lines are incised (as I suppose), you can rub it through tracing paper

[Dom]

Originally Posted by Lew

Here hopefully is my last Sudanese dagger It also has an inscription on the blade but it was very hard to photogragh so here is my poor excuse at copying the script.

Hi Lew
with a lot of delays ... but I just get back my translator
about the text
if really it has a meaning, it's not in Sudanese language
language, very similar to Egyptian
those two ligns, hasn't apparently a sense in Arabic dixit my translator

regards

à +

Dom