Origins of Kilij

[Alina]

I disagree with this assessment of the history of the kilic. For starters, the kilic you scanned from Yucel's book isn't dated to the 13th or early 14th century. Those dates are the dates of the rule of Qalawun, the Mamluk Sultan, not of the sword. Of the sword, Yucel actually says the following:

Both the curved form of the blade, and the style of decoration and calligraphy, suggest that the sword does not date from the period of Muhammad ibn Qalawun. Furthermore, the hilt, the cross-guard, and the scabbard are clearly later additions probably replaced during repairs carried out as late as the 18th century CE. The decoration is late Ottoman in style, probably 16th century CE. The inscriptions also appear to date from the same period.

In addition, there is another curved sword attributed to Qalawun on the preceding page that Yucel also considers to be a 15th or 16th century piece falsely attributed to Qalawun.

The only 13th century curved sword Yucel considers to be authentic is one on the next page attributed to Husam al-Din Lajin. He says it is the earliest authentic example of an Islamic curved, single-edged sword. However, I am skeptical of this claim, as all other known curved swords of similar type date from no earlier than the 15th century. However, we have loads of examples of straight, double-edged swords dating from earlier periods. So I take this last attribution with a grain of salt.

I'd also like to say that conventional wisdom doesn't state that the kilic was developed in the 16th-17th centuries, as there are very many examples of both Ottoman and Mamluk kilics from the 15th century, including the first half of that century.

Cheers,

Alina

[ariel]

I am intrigued: where did you see Ottoman kilijes dated first half of the 15th century? Even Yucel says that there are no surviving examples of Ottoman swords before Mehmet's reign.
Mameluke Kilijes? But of course! That was my point. The first sword was clearly defined as "attributed to". The second one, however, is dated.
Astvatsaturyan ("Turkish Weapons", pp. 85-89) discusses Kilij belonging to Prince Mstislavsky ( died in 1540) and signed by Abdul Ali Kassem the Egyptian.
Please provide proof of your assertion that there were Ottoman (NOT Mameluke!) Kilijes with Yelman before that time. Your quote of Yucel's description of an even earlier Mameluke Kilij seems to support my point, isn't it?

[Andrew]

Hi Alina, good to see you here. Welcome.

[Alina]

Originally Posted by ariel

I am intrigued: where did you see Ottoman kilijes dated first half of the 15th century? Even Yucel says that there are no surviving examples of Ottoman swords before Mehmet's reign.
Mameluke Kilijes? But of course! That was my point. The first sword was clearly defined as "attributed to". The second one, however, is dated.
Astvatsaturyan ("Turkish Weapons", pp. 85-89) discusses Kilij belonging to Prince Mstislavsky ( died in 1540) and signed by Abdul Ali Kassem the Egyptian.
Please provide proof of your assertion that there were Ottoman (NOT Mameluke!) Kilijes with Yelman before that time. Your quote of Yucel's description of an even earlier Mameluke Kilij seems to support my point, isn't it?

It's really quite simple. The reign of Fatih Sultan Mehmet was 1444-1446, a takeover by his father, and then 1451-1481. 1444-1446 is the first half of the fifteenth century, is it not? There are two kilics with large yelmans attributed to Mehmet II, neither is explicitly dated. So, we can't know when in his reign they were made. It could have been as early as 1444 or as late as 1481. However, there are several nearly straight swords with large yelmans dated simply as 15th century in Yucel's book, as well as one kilic with a moderate sized yelman said to be characteristic of the early reign of Mehmet.

As to the issue of the sword I mentioned supposedly dating from the 13th century, it would certainly support your case, were it 13th century, but I don't think it is at all. I think that sword is most probably 15th century. Besides which, it has practically no yelman at all, merely a sharpened false edge. To say that the pala of the 18th century stemmed from the 13th century Mamluks is completely wrong.

Finally, your initial supposition was that the kilic with a yelman came to the Turks in the 17th century. That statement is fallacious. I don't think there's a kilic in Yucel's book from the 15th or 16th centuries that doesn't have a very pronounced Yelman. To back up my position, here are some kilics that date to the 15th and 16th centuries according to Yucel:

My personal favorite, the kilic of Bayezid-i-sani and so is late 15th or early 16th century:



Kilic of Fatih Sultan Mehmet, and therefore 15th century:



Kilic with no attribution, considered to be late 15th century:



Kilic from the 15th century, no indication as to early or late:



Kilic from the 15th century, no indication as to early or late:




So, given that evidence, it would seem clear to me that the kilic with the yelman began springing up in the Mamluk Sultanate at the same time as the Ottoman Empire. With the exception of the lone curved sword Yucel dates to the 13th century, there is absolutely no evidence that the Mamluks developed the kilic, or that they were the first to come up with a yelman. Furthermore, such a theory wouldn't make much sense, as the Mamluks themselves came from many of the same Turkic regions where the Ottomans had lived before moving to Anatolia. Therefore, they would have access to the same weapons technology from that region.

[S.Al-Anizi]

Hello Alina! Very nice to see you here, how is it going with your kilij?

[Alina]

Originally Posted by S.Al-Anizi

Hello Alina! Very nice to see you here, how is it going with your kilij?

I still don't have it! I'm a very patient person when it comes to things like this, but I'm starting to get impatient. It was supposed to be done last June. Oh well. On the bright side, I chose to have Bayezid-i-sani's kilic copied and it's still my favorite even 18 months later. So, I guess I just have to keep waiting.

[Alina]

To propose my own theory for the development of the kilic, I think it came from the Mongols, through the Persians, and then on to the Ottomans and Mamluks. Here are a couple of miniatures which support this view.

14th century Mongol painting. The man's sword is a bit tough to see, but note the yelman:



14th century Persian battle scene. Note the very bottom of the image, there is a curved sword with a yelman:



Persian battle scene from 1314. Note the curved sword, but without a yelman this time:

[ariel]

Well, these are are pictures of either Monghols or the Persians fighting the Monghol-related warriors, and the Yelman-bearing swords do not belong to Persians, do they?
In his monumental treatise"Arms and Armor from Iran", Mr. Khorasani presented all kinds of swords he considered Persian (throwing in some Uzbeki and Indian stuff for good measure), but even he did not claim the Persian origin for any of the early Yelman swords. There is such thing as Indian Gaddara ( with Yelman), but all I have seen are ~18- 19th century.
The swords you showed earlier are mostly Mameluke ( which was my point).
We have no idea whether there were any Ottoman Yelman-bearing Kilijes ( Yusel must have known what he was talking about ), but as you have noticed there were examples of similar Mameluke swords even in the 13th century.
Likely, the Yelman-ed swords originated in China or Central Asia, but they surely did not have any influence on Persian weapons and unlikely to pass down the "Persian route".
In the absense of the Ottoman evidence, one wonders whether Yelman-ed swords found their way to the Mamelukes from Central Asia along the westward route, ie with the Kipchaks who formed the bulk of the Mameluke army.