That has to be the finest Dha I've ever seen! You must have had to sell a kidney to get that!
It is truly stunning, if there was a smilie 'taking its hat off' I'd be inserting it here: " ".

Hi Atlantia,
sadly the bronze is not mine....unless the British Museum will 'donate' it to me ;)
So,do you 'hail' from Pompey.....makes sense with a user name like Atlantia, my father is ex Royal Navy and was often down there ....never 'complained' about the local girls though ;)

Regards David

Thats so weird, My father was RN too!
My mum's from Kent and they met at Pompey when she was a wren!

I worked in Pompey for a while as a nightclub promotions manager. The place is like the wild west. The girls fight with ash-trays, high heels and/or bar stools!!!!!!

I'm in devon now, much quieter.

Strangely, my folks remember Pompey as a really nice place in the 50s!!!!

BTW, I'll PM the BM and ask them to send the bronzes over for you ;-)
Along with their indo-persian collection for me.

Gene

You all have seen mine earlier:

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...highlight=Mick

Wow, he's a fine little fella! Looks liek you'd have to raid the BM to find a blade worthy of such a handle.

I found this carving some years ago in Yogya. Maybe it's a part of some musical instrument (gamelan) ...or a part of a ceremonial carriage... i don't know :confused: and the seller didn't help me when i asked about the carving :shrug:

It's absolutely beautiful Marco .
I am guilty of the sin of coveting my neighbor's goods . ;) :D

Thats a bizzare thing. My girlfriend thinks it looks like a bottle opener! lol.
I think its actually quite amazing. Is it sword sized?

Me too mate!

Marco, Probebly your naga (avatar) is part of javanese Gong's holder.

http://lulef.free.fr/assets/images/decapitation-3.jpg

http://lulef.free.fr/html/ngbaka.html

50cm to 60cm

;)

Luc

Great thread !!! It is often difficult to see what the various Avatars are, or if they are only a bit of the item, what the whole looks like!
Mine is an Omani Khanjar from around the 1960s. Due to a typo my calling card is not spelt correctly, but as it is also used elsewhere, I have decided to leave it as is.
Regards Stuart

Mine it is just a khevsur shield. A long story of love, fate and... fakes :rolleyes:
(not this one)

Sounds like a Greek tragedy! ;-)

I'd like to hear it :D

Explain my avatar! ?
Oh!....where do I begin?
It represents the mysteries of the sword.....the secrets of Damascus, is it a shamshir? or do we call it sa'if?
Is the blade of the steel we call 'Damascened'? or wootz? does the word mean it was forged there, or is the blade from elsewhere? Could it be the majjir blade favored by the Bedouin, and were these hilts distinctly made in Syria fashioned from earlier ones from Hungary?
If it had a Hungarian blade, why was it called kurda? was it from the Caucasian gurda?
After Tamerlane left with all the makers to Samarkand, did they still forge blades in Damascus? or did it become a huge trade center for mounting the blades from other centers?
It is all about 'why?'

Or is it? Maybe it was just a bit of available clip art! :)

A day, long time ago my attention has been drawn on an helmet persian style,
I was too young to have my own money,
the helmet was quiet well expensive,
and my parents shoot me, …. big deception

but fortunately, because that helmet was a copy Napoleon III
(Indian copies 45 years ago wasn’t arrived yet on the market ….. LOL)

since, my dream was always present, and never reached
less than 10 years ago, I bought from an auction of collection Rambert-Rat
a real Persian Khadjar « KULAH-KHUD » XVIIIe

it’s my more precious item, not in value, but in feeling

à +

Dom

It is a long story. In brief:

This shield comes from Tbilisi in 1995 (here there is love, no details ;) ). Then for 9 years I was looking desperate for a khevsur sword. It was impossible. Suddenly I found a source in Athens (fate :rolleyes: ) . Me and a friend of mine we bought 8 (!) swords. Half of them were fakes :mad:
We lost lot money and pride. But we got some valuable lessons and we still have 2 very good swords.

At least you got two swords (one each?)
Sometimes the nicest things to own are the most trouble to get.

How about a big picture of the shield?

Lovely display Dom,
Thanks for sharing. I am very envious ;-) (in a nice way)

The peacock feathers are just right! I have similar ones in a helmet of mine.
Is the chainmail butted or rivetted?

I guess we have the same good taste. ;) :D Now you know... a simple "no nonsense" keris blade.

the chainmail is riveted
and very difficult to fix the damaged parts :o

à +

Dom

You read my mind Dom.
The first row around the bottom would provide the donor links to repair the holes, but you need a very steady hand to open the links and keep the pins.
And a very fine heat source like a jewellers blowtorch.
A jeweller could do it for you? You wouldn't lose any significant length on the chainmail from donating the last row?

Its a lovely helmet, is the caligraphy chiselled/hand-cut or etched?
I suppose like many, I am an admirer of arabic caligraphy (Although I understand none of it)
Have you translated the panels on your helmet?

Regards
Gene

IMHO it is the best of what I have seen. Dry leather lining. I have show it to the forum lot of years (5-8?) ago.

best = of khevsur.
leather = goat (?) hide

Sometimes I write fast. Sorry. :)

Hi Gene
the caligraphy is chiselled/hand-cut *(what seems to me, at least ...)
framed by gold line
* correction .. at least .. I dunno :shrug:
no way for the cartouche translation :o
- the alphabet used, it's well arabic
- the language used, it's not arabic .... according with my sweet translator :p
- she thing about "farsi", what could be logic, this helmet being persian ;)

à +

Dom

Thai temple guardian here. No larger pic available... :shrug:

Tipu/British Sword Hilt
 

My avatar shows the pommel of a Sword hilt in my collection. It is a brass hilt with a taiger pommel with the typical bubris markings all over.

Unfortunately the hilt came with the blade missing. The hilt has the design characteristics of the 1796 LC British pattern. But again it has the decorative characterisics and the metal made in the style of the hilts of Tipu Sultan (of Mysore's) times.

Whether it belonged to someone in Tipu Sultan's army or to a British officer who got the hilt cast to commemorate his personal truimph over Tipu at Seringapatam on May 4, 1799 is maybe a mystery that I will take with me to the grave.

Nidhi

My avatar is a Maguindanao kris hilt made of ivory, silver woven bands, and okir swaasa. I got it on ebay with a horrible WWII blade. I now have now matched it with a 19th c blade that I will post later. So far my favorite kris hilt that I have.... :D