Nice silver yemeni jambiya sheath

PeterP · 22nd January 2024, 04:04 PM

A nice flea market find. A beautiful silver Yemeni filigree thuma jambiya sheath. Alas without the pointy bits, but nice enough to show it. It's marked on the back, and as an added bonus provided with a silver inner plaque to give depth and background to the filigree work. It used to be gilded, some of which is still visibl but mostly worn off.
As I understood this was exclusively work of jewish silver smiths, and because of the mark to be dated before about 1920 when it was forbidden to mark silver work.
I have a question about the mark. In the Walters Art Museum collection they have several silver sheaths which are marked. The jewish makers marked their names in Hebrew and the dates are marked in Arabic script. As this mark is Arabic, is this a then date mark? Or did the jewish makers also used Arabic script to mark their work?
Any comments, thoughts and insights are welcome

22nd January 2024, 04:04 PM	#1
PeterP Member Join Date: Aug 2013 Posts: 15	Nice silver yemeni jambiya sheath A nice flea market find. A beautiful silver Yemeni filigree thuma jambiya sheath. Alas without the pointy bits, but nice enough to show it. It's marked on the back, and as an added bonus provided with a silver inner plaque to give depth and background to the filigree work. It used to be gilded, some of which is still visibl but mostly worn off. As I understood this was exclusively work of jewish silver smiths, and because of the mark to be dated before about 1920 when it was forbidden to mark silver work. I have a question about the mark. In the Walters Art Museum collection they have several silver sheaths which are marked. The jewish makers marked their names in Hebrew and the dates are marked in Arabic script. As this mark is Arabic, is this a then date mark? Or did the jewish makers also used Arabic script to mark their work? Any comments, thoughts and insights are welcome Attached Images