Makers mark on 19th century 'star and comet' Kaskara blade

[jaxonrice]

Thank you so much Ed. Would you be able to hazard a guess as to the age and origin of the blade?

[Edster]

During the early-mid 19th C. thousands of mostly German blades were imported into Egypt and rest of N. Africa. Traders brought them into Sudan. I documented some of the traffic into Sudan in one of my kaskara papers available on the Forum's Geographical Index.

Ed

[Marc M.]

Indeed a very nice kaskara.
Regards
Marc

[jaxonrice]

Thank you Ed. I have, of course, read all of your excellent Kaskara papers here

[G. Mansfield]

Hello Jaxon,

I do not have any new information on the enigmatic mark but I wanted to congratulate you on this exceptional kaskara sword. Attached are two other war trophies picked up by Francis Marwood Hext from the same battle. Estimates of between 2,000 and 4,000 Mahdists were killed or wounded, most of which were Hadendowa tribesmen.

https://www.the-mansfield-collection...-beja-hext-413
https://www.the-mansfield-collection...agger-hext-412


-Geoffrey

[Jim McDougall]

I think the discussion from 2022 that Ed has linked in his post #2 has the most comprehensive answer to this question. What is interesting is this 'enigma' marking has remained a conundrum despite the number of compelling theories.

Briggs has noted these stylized marks on the swords of two Taureg chiefs in Air which were taken during the Kaocen Rebellion 1917. While these tribes (I think Tiouinfera was one) seem to have been of the Maliki School of Sunni Islam, which was why I had earlier thought perhaps the stylized devices might be related to symbols in that context.

Im not familiar with the 18th c kaskara of the Funj sultan and this type of hilt so am curious to see images of it and the star and comet. Could you direct to a source for images? It would be great to see 18th century examples of this type of kaskara hilt.

The 'enigma' mark on the blade seems to have been seen as early as 1878 with Adembar sword from Air (I believe this was from J.Gabus, 1958, as per Briggs, 1965). How it became known on kaskara in Darfur and Sudan from what may be Tuareg origins in that light is a question, or was it vice versa, from Sudan to Air?

[Edster]

Jim,

The image of the so-called 1762 Funj sword (fig.6) and my comment from p.7 of my Kaskara Cross-guards paper.

Quote:
Another example of the exaggerated flared lozenge is the Nasir Mohammad Funj-era sword, now in the
Sudanese National Museum in Khartoum. It has been dated to 1762. It has a forged iron sammaniya quillon,
like the Ali Dinar examples, but has a star and comet silver grip cover similar to examples brought back to
England from the 1899 war. The Nasir blade could well be 18th century, but the grip end appears to be much
later (see fig. 6 of the unrestored grip end.) End quote

Here is another image of the sword with bad color>
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/F...NCAM_KH394.jpg

Plates 2, 3 & 4 of Julie Anderson's article on Forum's Geo. Index show marking details of Nair's sword consistent with 18th C. imported blades

http://www.vikingsword.com/ethsword/...rson_et_al.pdf

Best,
Ed