Mystery Inscription on Controversial Sword

[CharlesS]

This sword has been attributed to Africa from Morocco to Ethiopia. Personally, I think photographic evidence strongly suggests Morocco, and I believe this form has already been the subject of a previous thread.

But, check out the inscription on this one. This example has the thickest, heaviest blade I have seen on one(though I have seen only 4), and I have never seen an inscription of this nature on anything.

One forumite has already suggested to me privately that it may have been a crude attempt to mimic a European inscription in a practically illiterate manner. I can understand that theory when you consider the prestige of European blades in much of that part of the world.

Any ideas??

[TVV]

Very nice sword! Here is a link to the Berber alphabet, just as an option to consider. To me, there is no resemblence, so most likely it is an imitation of text in Latin:

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/tifinagh.htm

[Jim McDougall]

Amazing Charles! Once again the mysterious 'Zanzibar sword' arises. This has been the topic of not only previous threads, but debates and the equally mysterious paper, written by me in 2003 and presented in a talk at the Baltimore dinner. Mark, please help me out here OK, I do not have access to my notes or transcript of the paper.

Anyway, this particular sword came up in a double header fray during the Baltimore event with Tony Tirri who insisted these came from Ethiopia (the other was the notorious BSY which he claimed was from North Africa, and we have remained at odds it seems, ever since).

These have come up many times over the years, and typically I recount my findings which basically note that these 'Zanzibar' swords were captioned as such when Sir Richard Burton used the illustration and description from the earlier work published by Auguste Demmin. I confirmed this by finding a copy of the 1877 book and viewing the entry which called it a Zanzibar sword. Charles Buttin noted the error in his notes which were published in the catalog of his collections in 1933 (posthumously by his son). In that publication he illustrates these and termed it a s'boula, which I discussed with Dominique Buttin several times over several years. Since Charles lived in Morocco for decades, he was well aware of the weaponry there.

These curious H or I shaped hilts seem to have evolved indirectly from the European side arm known as the baselard, though direct evolution or development cannot be effectively supported by examples as far as is known. It does seem plausible that this form of weapon accompanied the many others that entered the North African littoral through trade over many years.

The Ethiopian attribution does have some basis in that there have been from one to several known examples from there (one appeared in a grouping of weapons in a monograph on African weapons many years ago). I addressed this in the paper also by suggesting that these probably came to Ethiopia across trans Saharan trade routes, where they probably entered the armouries of the Amharic rulers. The weapons for these rulers were provided by the Falashas, Jewish tribe in Ethiopia who were also known as blacksmiths there. I believe that there was contact between Jewish artisans in Morocco, who also furbished daggers and weapons and the Falasha, though this idea would need more research to be supported.

From this point, trade likely carried some of these s'boula to the key trade center of Zanzibar, where it seems likely the attribution may have derived.

In reviewing some of the previous threads over the past several years via search, there have been some most interesting examples and discussion brought in.

I agree with Teodor on his observation on the Berber alphabet, and just wanted to add the history lesson to support what you said on Morocco!

All best regards,
Jim

[CharlesS]

Thanks TVV and Jim.....I had not seen the Berber alphabet before, and I remember your paper and presentation Jim...actually have a copy of it, but no idea where at the moment. Could you email a copy??

The photo that has intrigues me can be found on Mr. Gasior's site Collectable Firearms and Edged Weapons under Oriental Rifles. It is a photo of a Moroccan man(definitely with a Moroccan rifle) and an identical sword tucked in his belt.

I am currently asking permission for use of the photo in this thread.

[kahnjar1]

Check Tirri's book Islamic Weapons, Page 80, where he attributes this sword (and calls it a JIBOULA SHORT SWORD) originally to the Falashas or Falas Mora of Ethiopia. The accompanying pic however shows 2 of these swords "mounted in Morocco 19th Century". He quotes Pankhurst, A Social History of Ethiopia,Addis Ababa 1990

[Jim McDougall]

Thank you so much for remembering the presentation Charles, that was quite an event that evening. I dont have a copy right now to send you, but I hope to gain access to my material soon, and I will be delighted to get you a copy. I am very interested in seeing the photo you note from the Gasior site, which sounds as if it further supports the Moroccan attribution. There seems to have been a certain degree of variation in these s'boula as further discussed in Buttin's "Les Poignards et les Sabres Morocains" ("Hesperis, Tome XXVI, 1939), if I recall correctly, however the hilt as seen here is shown in the 1933 reference, and again as Moroccan.

Kahnjar1, I appreciate your citing the Tirri reference, and I must say that Mr. Tirri did convincingly support the example he held that evening was of course from Ethiopia. His notes accompanying the illustrations (and Moroccan provenance) would of course support the suggestion I made in 2003 that there may have been a connection via Saharan trade between the Jewish artisans in Morocco and the Falashas in Ethiopia, accounting for the presence of a number of these in Ethiopia.
Interestingly, the same premise occurred somewhat that same evening with the suggestion that the Black Sea Yataghan was actually North African, based on an example with some decidedly North African characteristics. This contention was outweighed by the preponderance of these swords that had presence throughout Transcaucasian and Turkish regions.

These are definitely fascinating ethnographic weapons, and even more so is that they carry such interesting history reflecting the dynamics of diffusion via the vast trade, cultural and intertribal networks.

All very best regards,
Jim

[fernando]

Amazing thing
If you invert (mirror) one of the images, you will find that some "characters" look alike .

[CharlesS]

Yes, I thought that interesting too.

[Gavin Nugent]

You are quite the whiz with the computer images Fernando. Great work.

[roanoa]

Great sword. From Morocco. I have seen a couple of nice pictures of Berber warriors wearing them. Though this type of sword has been reported as being from Ethiopia, I would say that it is not. The wrong identification is probably due to the fact that the hilt "looks" Ethiopian. But it ends there. It is quite possible that a few of these swords showed up in Ethiopian market places. A lot of weapons from all over the world did. Tony Tirri just published his secon GREAT book "ISLAMIC AND NATIVE WEAPONS OF COLONIAL AFRICA" and he agrees about it being from Morocco. When information on African weapons was VERY scanty, this sword was shown in A WEAPONS HISTORY OF AFRICA by A.W. Lindert. He said it was Ethiopian. Guess there was nobody to question his statement. But.... he said many things that were not accurate. I'll stick to the Berber version. As far as the "writing" is concern, I will suggest that it is simply a decorative pattern.
Have fun in Baltimore, Charles.

[ariel]

Originally Posted by roanoa

Great sword. From Morocco. I have seen a couple of nice pictures of Berber warriors wearing them. Though this type of sword has been reported as being from Ethiopia, I would say that it is not. The wrong identification is probably due to the fact that the hilt "looks" Ethiopian. But it ends there. It is quite possible that a few of these swords showed up in Ethiopian market places. A lot of weapons from all over the world did. Tony Tirri just published his secon GREAT book "ISLAMIC AND NATIVE WEAPONS OF COLONIAL AFRICA" and he agrees about it being from Morocco. When information on African weapons was VERY scanty, this sword was shown in A WEAPONS HISTORY OF AFRICA by A.W. Lindert. He said it was Ethiopian. Guess there was nobody to question his statement. But.... he said many things that were not accurate. I'll stick to the Berber version. As far as the "writing" is concern, I will suggest that it is simply a decorative pattern.
Have fun in Baltimore, Charles.

Another book?
Where can one see it?

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by roanoa

Great sword. From Morocco. I have seen a couple of nice pictures of Berber warriors wearing them. Though this type of sword has been reported as being from Ethiopia, I would say that it is not. The wrong identification is probably due to the fact that the hilt "looks" Ethiopian. But it ends there. It is quite possible that a few of these swords showed up in Ethiopian market places. A lot of weapons from all over the world did. Tony Tirri just published his secon GREAT book "ISLAMIC AND NATIVE WEAPONS OF COLONIAL AFRICA" and he agrees about it being from Morocco. When information on African weapons was VERY scanty, this sword was shown in A WEAPONS HISTORY OF AFRICA by A.W. Lindert. He said it was Ethiopian. Guess there was nobody to question his statement. But.... he said many things that were not accurate. I'll stick to the Berber version. As far as the "writing" is concern, I will suggest that it is simply a decorative pattern.
Have fun in Baltimore, Charles.

Thank you Roanoa for citing that reference by Lindert. I couldn't recall the title. I agree with what you're saying about these swords turning up in Ethiopia, in fact I've mentioned it several times in previous posts. Its very nice to have support from someone with your established knowledge of Ethiopian weapons. I'd like to see the pictures of Berbers wearing these! That would have been perfect to add to the presentation in 2003 stating these were actually from Morocco! I'm also glad that Mr.Tirri has acknowledged the Moroccan attribution on these, and very much look forward to seeing his new book! While his previous book, like most, has a couple of items pertaining to certain weapons that there were disagreement on, it remains a great book for collectors. I'm sure the new one on Africa will be also!

Best regards,
Jim

[Tim Simmons]

I have just noticed "roanoa" response to this thread. When and how can we get this next book by Tirri. I would need one.

[roanoa]

Tony will probably wish to announce the release of his book at the Baltimore's Show. Im am sure Artzi, Denner and others will carry it. It's HUGE... A good TEN pounds and worth every penny.... (Could not resist the pun....).

[CharlesS]

Here is the photo I had mentioned earlier. The rifle and, indeed, the architecture(door style) argue strongly that this is a Moroccan.

[Jim McDougall]

Thank you very much for posting that Charles. Excellent photo, and I wish I would have had it when I wrote on the "Zanzibar Sword" in 2003!

All best regards,
Jim

[josh stout]

I know nothing on this subject, but a quick look at "Ancient Berber (vertical)" (http://www.omniglot.com/writing/berber.htm) looks much more likely than an example of Ethiopian script (http://www.ancientscripts.com/ethiopic.html). I also tried Coptic just for fun, but that just looks like Greek.
Josh

[CharlesS]

Is there any agreement on an actual name for this sword???

[Jim McDougall]

As far as I have understood, as indicated in post #6 with the references attributed to Charles Buttin, I would regard this to be a Moroccan sboula. As discussed over the years, the Burton reference has classified this as a 'Zanzibar' sword along with the familiar Omani kattara with cylindrical hilt. However the Buttin reference is most reliable and he cites Burton's error in perpetuating the Demmin (1877) reference .
The reason these ended up with Ethiopian association is that an apparent number of these were among weapons shown in the pamphlet "Weapons of Africa" as well as there are examples with Amharic 'geez' script. These are most likely to have arrived there via trade networks.

As always, there is probably no 'agreement' on proper term or attribution but this is my perception over the past 10 or 12 years.

[CharlesS]

Jim,

Thanks for the input. I was just trying to get some sense of whether to go with "jiboula" or "sboula" in a catalog I am working on. If Buttin is calling it "sboula" I will go with that.

I had that reference work, but it never crossed my mind to look there!

Thanks again.

[blue lander]

What about the Shula dagger/sword? Is this another spelling for sboula/jiboula or something else entirely? They look completely different but I believe they're from Morocco as well.

[werecow]

This may be a stretch, but I was browsing through the alphabet site a bit and it looks like the inscription has some features of Loma (Liberia):

https://www.omniglot.com/writing/lomasyllabary.htm

[Interested Party]

Originally Posted by werecow

This may be a stretch, but I was browsing through the alphabet site a bit and it looks like the inscription has some features of Loma (Liberia):

https://www.omniglot.com/writing/lomasyllabary.htm

Wow!!! So close! How did you stumble across this writing system? I tried to transliterate this inscription both as posted and inverted. Neither quite worked but it was close. That is a complicated syllabary.

It could just be pretty lines for spiritual power? A nonsense Latinesque inscription to add value? An older/newer version of Loma, or related language? The mystery continues...

[werecow]

Originally Posted by Interested Party

Wow!!! So close! How did you stumble across this writing system? I tried to transliterate this inscription both as posted and inverted. Neither quite worked but it was close. That is a complicated syllabary.

I'd like to claim some research superpowers but I literally just browsed through about a dozen or so of the African alphabets on the site.

[TVV]

Loma script on blades mounted in Morocco sounds fascinating, but unfortunately also totally improbable. The sboula that started the thread is probably from the end of the 19th century or early 20th century, predating the Loma script. Even if you somehow can get past that, why would anyone in Morocco inscribe a blade in some obscure Trans Saharan language and not Arabic?

I still feel that an illiterate smith/engraver putting something that visually imitates older European marks is the most plausible explanation. The vast majority of Sboulas (and Genouis) are from cut down European blades, and any local production apparently needed to at least look like the imports in order to be marketable.

[werecow]

Originally Posted by TVV

Loma script on blades mounted in Morocco sounds fascinating, but unfortunately also totally improbable. The sboula that started the thread is probably from the end of the 19th century or early 20th century, predating the Loma script. Even if you somehow can get past that, why would anyone in Morocco inscribe a blade in some obscure Trans Saharan language and not Arabic?

I still feel that an illiterate smith/engraver putting something that visually imitates older European marks is the most plausible explanation. The vast majority of Sboulas (and Genouis) are from cut down European blades, and any local production apparently needed to at least look like the imports in order to be marketable.

You're probably right that it isn't Loma, but I think we should be a little cautious before we assume that this is simply a meaningless imitation of European scripts. It's certainly a possibility.... but is it possible that Loma was derived from or inspired by an earlier form of writing from the general area that is a better match in symbols, time and space? It seems unlikely that it was just invented out of thin air. Unfortunately searching omniglot is not entirely trivial. Do we have any historical grammatologist around who specialized in 19th century North-West African scripts?

[TVV]

Is there any evidence of a form of non-Arabic writing that was widespread in Western Africa from the Mediterranean all the way down to the Gulf of Guinea?

When it comes to cut down blades and imitations, let me illustrate with a few sboulas I have. The first one is clearly a shortened blade, as you can see by the way the fullers terminate abruptly. It has a script very similar to the sboula Charles posted at the start of this thread, but to me it looks more like a random combination of Ds and Ns than anything else:




Then we have another one which looks like a cut down backsword blade, but may be a native imitation given how the fullers are not perfectly straight. Instead of writing, it has simple dots:




Finally, here is one that sports a flimsy, locally made blade. On that one we have simple decorative swirls:




In all three examples we have something added to the blade locally, ranging from imitation script to swirls to dots. It does not look like pure decoration, and it does not look apotropaic in nature, like the zig zag decoration on the hilts which was meant to turn away the evil eye. It looks very much like a conscious attempt to create a visual resemblance to markings.

I can imagine locals trying to imitate scripts like "Andrea Ferrara" or "Me Fecit Solingen". The artisan who is copying directly from an original may do a decent approximation, but then the next artist is copying from the copy, and so on and so forth. By the time we get to the second half of the 19th century, the 17th or 18th century originals are long gone, and the marking is devolved to what we see on the blades in this thread.

Just my humble opinion on this subject, and I am certainly keeping an open mind, as I have no way of knowing with absolute certainty what these inscriptions are meant to represent.

[AHite]

I am inclined to believe that the script on this blade is an imitation of Latin writing mainly because of the use of Sarif (winged) lettering, or an attempt at it. The blade smith stamped in wings that hit and miss on the letters. An interesting marketing ploy to give a product an unqualified provenance of quality, which continues to this day.