Kindjal

Rivkin · 13th August 2006, 10:23 PM

No arguments concerning shashka. Kindjals is a different issue alltogether. "Common knowledge" concerning kindjals is very different in different areas, north vs. south. Larger kindjals are more charateristic towards the south, yet I have seen some monstrous examples on photographs of ossetians. Don't think that they descent from something very different than "normal" kindjals. I would guess that the source is the same; however, I would guess even russian royal collections can not shed any light on really old kindjals, since they are mostly composed of very late examples, donated to russian high notables.

The same goes for niello - it has been long noticed that "circassian" niello is extremely similar to some very high quality examples of extremely old islamic niello works, yet again, besides areas surrounding Caucasus one can not find something quite similar. Did it come from south and died out everywhere but in Caucasus ? Or was it originally developed in Caucasus and sold everywhere else ? I don't know.

The Double D · 14th August 2006, 04:47 AM

The last thing for me Gentlemen is an anlysis of the pictures I took of two kindjals I saw in a local antique shop. I don't own these knives and as of last week they were no longer in the shop.

The first is a black handle with sheath.

To me this knife looks very new. The hilt or handle looks moulded as does the side panel, the pierceings look out of place. This looks like a fairly modern made piece to me, How do you gentlemen see it?

ausjulius · 14th August 2006, 04:57 AM

[QUOTE=
The same goes for niello - it has been long noticed that "circassian" niello is extremely similar to some very high quality examples of extremely old islamic niello works, yet again, besides areas surrounding Caucasus one can not find something quite similar. Did it come from south and died out everywhere but in Caucasus ? Or was it originally developed in Caucasus and sold everywhere else ? I don't know.[/QUOTE]

hi rivkin, you are correct, in that although many things can be presumed there is little one could say for shure...

the problem is with the nature of the caucascian people them selves, there has been little or no local documentation of the local history,,
and many nationalities possessed no written text even 150 years ago,,
also the religious and political and social systems were vry unstable ,, and fluctuated frequently,, sometime back form ecsample the chechens were christians for the most part,,,,,,,,, then they dropped the religion and wholely took up there local religion again ,, then finaly the converted to moslems,, this has been a common theem amongst many nationalities,, they change greatly fomr centuary to centuary..

Rivkin · 15th August 2006, 04:11 AM

I don't think the problem is so much with the lack of native alphabets, also it is a big issue. The problems I think are:

a. Poverty and the lack of resourses invested into studying.
b. Absence of "scientific nationalism", i.e. people interested in researching the local history rather than in arguing who has more rights on Prigorodny region.
c. Extreme historical agressiveness of neighbors. We have Iran investing 320 mln $ every year in improving its image, big chunk of it goes into publishing "right" historical books. No Albanian alphabet or language there; only arranis.

The Double D · 15th August 2006, 06:01 AM

Gent's, I don't mean to be rude, but could we get back to kindjals.

Although I guess the drift of the current discussion shows why there is such a diversity in kindjals.

The black kindjal I posted back up thread has two fuller. One reference I saw said kindjals have one fuller. Is this true?

ausjulius · 15th August 2006, 12:10 PM

hi , they have many ,, on or 50 , or 3 on one side and one on the other , depends on how the smith felt at the time

,
looks to be a dagger of sorts , not a knidjal , more like iran?? althoug ive seen ones like that fomr turky, but without the preforations.

rivkin , sorry didnt finish my email,,,,,
thing is here ther eis somany national groups , and many of these national groups didnt exsist as they are 400 years ago,, and then 1000 years ago there was other groups ,, and others and such , there has never beed a stabil period,, greater albania was about the height of it,,
the thing is people here have always lived in clans or tribes,, and basicly the social system was not so structured as to allow large settelments to last long , hence poor documentation and little or not local records, also the constant change or religion , anguage,, and population dosnt allow for muh record keeping ,
also because of the clan nature of the society the population can quickly change,, i one clan defeats another , the others was many times eradicated compleatly ,, the dwellings destroyed or captured,, and because of the small size od the clans history of this is poorly recorded, also 75 years of communisim and the 100 or so years of russian control .. combined with an influx of moslem influince have affected local tradition and language greatly ,
also because of the lack of much localy written records and the lack of much interest from outsiders history is pretty patchy,

and dure to the fact that these societies never had much of a hiracial system there as few people recording the history..

dont know how much iran spends on such things, but they have many sources from which to glean information , and there is maybe 40milion iranians
living in iran,, so thats alot more than say 130000 lak.. or 35000 nogai
and even then these groups are seperated by clans and dialect differences, so there is maybe 10 dialects out of 130000 people , ,
......

Andrew · 15th August 2006, 04:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Double D

Gent's, I don't mean to be rude, but could we get back to kindjals?

I agree completely, DD. Thank you.

Gentlemen, I know certain topics easily lead to socio-political discussions, but let's remain sensitive to how easily such discussions can cause a thread to veer sharply off-topic into unpleasant territory. Thanks.

Kubur · 13th January 2015, 03:29 PM

Hi I was surprised to see that

Kindjal means Khanjar in Russian!

Kin-jal
Kan-jar

In fact they are all Daggers!!

It's like Kilij (Turkish) = Pala (Greeck) = Shamshir (Persian) = Saif (Arabic)
= sword

sorry my comment is probably very stupid...

VANDOO · 13th January 2015, 07:09 PM

COMMENTS HERE ARE SELDOM STUPID, HUMOROUS AND SILLY AT TIMES BUT NOT STUPID. TO SOME A COMMENT MAY BE OBVIOUS AND A WELL KNOWN FACT OR FALLACY BUT TO OTHERS IT MAY BE NEW INFORMATION. WHILE WE OFTEN COVER THE SAME GROUND HERE ITS STILL WORTH IT AS WE MAY COME ACROSS NEW INFORMATION AT SOME POINT.

13th January 2015, 03:29 PM	#8
Kubur Member Join Date: Jun 2013 Posts: 2,145	kin jal khan jar Hi I was surprised to see that Kindjal means Khanjar in Russian! Kin-jal Kan-jar In fact they are all Daggers!! It's like Kilij (Turkish) = Pala (Greeck) = Shamshir (Persian) = Saif (Arabic) = sword sorry my comment is probably very stupid...

13th August 2006, 10:23 PM	#1
Rivkin Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 655	No arguments concerning shashka. Kindjals is a different issue alltogether. "Common knowledge" concerning kindjals is very different in different areas, north vs. south. Larger kindjals are more charateristic towards the south, yet I have seen some monstrous examples on photographs of ossetians. Don't think that they descent from something very different than "normal" kindjals. I would guess that the source is the same; however, I would guess even russian royal collections can not shed any light on really old kindjals, since they are mostly composed of very late examples, donated to russian high notables. The same goes for niello - it has been long noticed that "circassian" niello is extremely similar to some very high quality examples of extremely old islamic niello works, yet again, besides areas surrounding Caucasus one can not find something quite similar. Did it come from south and died out everywhere but in Caucasus ? Or was it originally developed in Caucasus and sold everywhere else ? I don't know.

14th August 2006, 04:47 AM	#2
The Double D Member Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: On the banks of Cut Bank Creek, Montana Posts: 189	The last thing for me Gentlemen is an anlysis of the pictures I took of two kindjals I saw in a local antique shop. I don't own these knives and as of last week they were no longer in the shop. The first is a black handle with sheath. To me this knife looks very new. The hilt or handle looks moulded as does the side panel, the pierceings look out of place. This looks like a fairly modern made piece to me, How do you gentlemen see it?

14th August 2006, 04:57 AM	#3
ausjulius Member Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: musorian territory Posts: 438	[QUOTE= The same goes for niello - it has been long noticed that "circassian" niello is extremely similar to some very high quality examples of extremely old islamic niello works, yet again, besides areas surrounding Caucasus one can not find something quite similar. Did it come from south and died out everywhere but in Caucasus ? Or was it originally developed in Caucasus and sold everywhere else ? I don't know.[/QUOTE] hi rivkin, you are correct, in that although many things can be presumed there is little one could say for shure... the problem is with the nature of the caucascian people them selves, there has been little or no local documentation of the local history,, and many nationalities possessed no written text even 150 years ago,, also the religious and political and social systems were vry unstable ,, and fluctuated frequently,, sometime back form ecsample the chechens were christians for the most part,,,,,,,,, then they dropped the religion and wholely took up there local religion again ,, then finaly the converted to moslems,, this has been a common theem amongst many nationalities,, they change greatly fomr centuary to centuary..

15th August 2006, 04:11 AM	#4
Rivkin Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 655	I don't think the problem is so much with the lack of native alphabets, also it is a big issue. The problems I think are: a. Poverty and the lack of resourses invested into studying. b. Absence of "scientific nationalism", i.e. people interested in researching the local history rather than in arguing who has more rights on Prigorodny region. c. Extreme historical agressiveness of neighbors. We have Iran investing 320 mln $ every year in improving its image, big chunk of it goes into publishing "right" historical books. No Albanian alphabet or language there; only arranis.

15th August 2006, 06:01 AM	#5
The Double D Member Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: On the banks of Cut Bank Creek, Montana Posts: 189	Gent's, I don't mean to be rude, but could we get back to kindjals. Although I guess the drift of the current discussion shows why there is such a diversity in kindjals. The black kindjal I posted back up thread has two fuller. One reference I saw said kindjals have one fuller. Is this true?

15th August 2006, 12:10 PM	#6
ausjulius Member Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: musorian territory Posts: 438	hi , they have many ,, on or 50 , or 3 on one side and one on the other , depends on how the smith felt at the time , looks to be a dagger of sorts , not a knidjal , more like iran?? althoug ive seen ones like that fomr turky, but without the preforations. rivkin , sorry didnt finish my email,,,,, thing is here ther eis somany national groups , and many of these national groups didnt exsist as they are 400 years ago,, and then 1000 years ago there was other groups ,, and others and such , there has never beed a stabil period,, greater albania was about the height of it,, the thing is people here have always lived in clans or tribes,, and basicly the social system was not so structured as to allow large settelments to last long , hence poor documentation and little or not local records, also the constant change or religion , anguage,, and population dosnt allow for muh record keeping , also because of the clan nature of the society the population can quickly change,, i one clan defeats another , the others was many times eradicated compleatly ,, the dwellings destroyed or captured,, and because of the small size od the clans history of this is poorly recorded, also 75 years of communisim and the 100 or so years of russian control .. combined with an influx of moslem influince have affected local tradition and language greatly , also because of the lack of much localy written records and the lack of much interest from outsiders history is pretty patchy, and dure to the fact that these societies never had much of a hiracial system there as few people recording the history.. dont know how much iran spends on such things, but they have many sources from which to glean information , and there is maybe 40milion iranians living in iran,, so thats alot more than say 130000 lak.. or 35000 nogai and even then these groups are seperated by clans and dialect differences, so there is maybe 10 dialects out of 130000 people , , ......

13th January 2015, 07:09 PM	#9
VANDOO (deceased) Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: OKLAHOMA, USA Posts: 3,138	COMMENTS HERE ARE SELDOM STUPID, HUMOROUS AND SILLY AT TIMES BUT NOT STUPID. TO SOME A COMMENT MAY BE OBVIOUS AND A WELL KNOWN FACT OR FALLACY BUT TO OTHERS IT MAY BE NEW INFORMATION. WHILE WE OFTEN COVER THE SAME GROUND HERE ITS STILL WORTH IT AS WE MAY COME ACROSS NEW INFORMATION AT SOME POINT.