Show us your stirrups

[Kubur]

Hi Guys,

I haven't seen any descent thread on stirrups.

Here it's what we have

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...light=stirrups

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...light=stirrups

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...light=stirrups

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...light=stirrups

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...light=stirrups

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...light=stirrups

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...light=stirrups

Stirrups are considered as part of military equipment and they are always present in catalogues and publications on arms and armour.
Please do you mind to post your stirrups? Any period or country
It will be very helpful to share what you have or what you know about stirrups.
Thanks

Kubur

[stelio]

Hello Kubur
Very interesting your post. I publish three bronze pairs from 19th Century stirrups from the Balkans.
I will come back with more photos from my collection.


Greetings

Stelios

[Timo Nieminen]

These just followed me home about a week ago. The seller described them as Mongolian (and Mongolian or Chinese).

[Kubur]

Originally Posted by stelio

Hello Kubur
Very interesting your post. I publish three bronze pairs from 19th Century stirrups from the Balkans.
I will come back with more photos from my collection.
Greetings
Stelios

Hi Stelios

You have always very goog stuff... I can't wait to see others... Do you have Greek stirrups? For the ones that you posted its interesting to see spurs on the side... They are not Ottoman i guess?

[Kubur]

Originally Posted by Timo Nieminen

These just followed me home about a week ago. The seller described them as Mongolian (and Mongolian or Chinese).

I'm wondering about Chinese and Indian stirrups, they are all over the place. Is it possible that some of them are recent ? or they are just easy to find? I cannot make the difference.Yours of course look genuine and authentic.

[stelio]

Kubur Thank you very much for your good words my friend.

Like Greek, I could name the two pairs that I will upload to photos. My opinion is that they were used by the Greek horsemen in the middle of the 19th century until the end of the century and the design is one of the oldest stirrups they used during the Ottoman Empire. The two pairs have a rotating head that gives riders freedom to use them to drive the spurs. The spurs in both pairs are embedded in the sides, this is what we see in the Balkans in the regions that were in the Ottoman Empire.
When they say about the Ottoman stirrups we have in mind the Arabic type that was widespread from the Balkans to Spain but in such a great empire there were other types

[Kubur]

Hi Stelios,
Here are mine, Moroccan 1900-1920 cast and engraved... for dignitaries.
Best wishes
Kubur

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

This is a great subject and can run and run... I hunted on the web and pulled this for perusal https://www.bing.com/images/search?q...RUPS&FORM=IGRE

And these below for perusal with a rider in Persian style /central Asian and another of stirrups I would think are Ottoman~

[midelburgo]

Some 15 years ago at a local flea market in Zaragoza, appeared a man selling stirrups for several months. The price he asked was some 20 euros each.

I bought 5 in different occasions and I asked him the origin of them. He said that a collapsed stable in Calatayud had been demolished for new construction and some 40 stirrups had appeared there.

Calatayud is full of mudejar architecture from XV and XVI centuries, this is Christian buildings made by Muslim workers and techniques.

The curious thing is that each time I find almost identical stirrups to mine they are described as Turkish (google images with Ottoman stirrups and there they are). See the third image, coming from the compilation link from the post above, where there are several. From what I have seen, Ottoman stirrups do not have the rosette, when they have raised sides, the sole is flat, and they often have tubular sides.

My stirrups are made of iron and covered in inclusions of silver wire (only remains but the engraving is still there). I tried to rescue one of them by electrolysis, but the silver had been displaced by the iron oxides and became loose when this was removed. Therefore I just oiled them.

Motives are geometrical (islamic) or vegetal (more baroque than islamic). Two different sorts of side reinforcements (all along the side or a triangle at the top). They have more simple or complex rosettes on the flat part. The common characteristic that differentiates them from other Muslim areas is the upper ring (excepted Morocco).

In the next two pictures, I just found, on the left, they are (said to be) XVth century from old Granada kingdom and they are at Granada city museum.

In the included pdf below from the Spanish Museum collections online information, two examples similar to mine present in the Lazaro Galdeano Museum are Spanish and dated 1551 to 1650.

From this, I would guess that Moorish ironsmiths continued their trade in the Christian kingdoms for quite long. Probably there were bidirectional relationships with Morocco and Tunis, not the least when moors were massively expelled from Spain in 1609-1613 and they continued working there, bringing their styles. Moors were not allowed to migrate to America, therefore these pieces do not exist there. There are other Spanish styles made at the same time. The typical closed brass Colombian stirrup seems to have evolved from a type from Galicia originally made in wood.

Last but three (red) picture... Shockingly, these XVIIth stirrups were still used for the original purpose until recently.

Next, after checking Spanish antique shops offerings, it seems to me that in the XVIIIth century the type degenerated to the simple construction of the last but two picture, possibly because the original workers were gone. These in Spain are called estribos vaqueros cowboy stirrups, and they are nowadays made new in nylon.

At this moment I start guessing that many stirrups from Spanish moors are not well identified.

The last two pictures are from pieces in The Metropolitan Museum (https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/29321) and the British Museum (https://www.britishmuseum.org/resear...artId=1&page=1), both said (without much conviction) to be Moroccan and from XIXth-XXth century.
To me, they are extraordinarily similar to the XVIIth century Spanish examples. One of my stirrups has engraved a similar geometric circular design to that of the Metropolitan (no silver or gold left, that will be difficult to make pictures). I can think of 4 possibilities.

- The description is wrong and these pieces are Spanish and XVI-XVIIth centuries.
- Spanish Moorish stirrups (before 1613) belong to the same stylistically group with Moroccan ones.
- Moroccan stirrups were influenced by ironsmiths from Spain after 1613. Or from the Fall of Granada Kingdom in 1492.
- Spain imported large amounts of stirrups from Morocco and this style was not made in Spain.

The first need will be to see examples of Moroccan stirrups from before 1613... To be continued.

[Kubur]

Ola
Agreed these stirrups are not Ottoman, the Ottomans stirrups are different as you said (see the ones in Tokape catalogue).
Why are they frequently mixed with Turkish/Ottoman stirrups?
What I'll write is only my opinion.
The Ottoman cavalry sipahi was re-invented in Algeria during the French colonial period, when the French created an unit called Spahi (1831). They standardised their stirrups on the North African models (Algeria/Morocco). I suspect half of your stirrups to be regular spahi stirrups (late 19th).
Indeed the North African stirrups might have been influenced by al-Andalus after 1492 or even before.
Now the tricky part is there is still a possibility that North African stirrups are in fact a local variation of the Ottoman stirrups introduced through Algeria as an Ottoman province...
To be continued...

[midelburgo]

Thank you Kubur.

This entry from a WW1 forum makes thinks a bit more clear:

http://lagrandeguerre.1fr1.net/t79229-spahis

Now, I wonder how the surplus stirrups ended up in Calatayud?


For the captions:
Etiquette: "Etriers de Moha ou Hassan el Zaiani tué le 13 Novembre 1914; pris dans sa tente par le moghazni Omar el Zaiani et donné au Cne Ract-Brancaz blessé dans la matinée.

Then, there could be an Italian connection from North Africa to Ottoman?
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/32232
The ones at the bottom are said to be Milanese XVIth century.