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Arabic STAMP on tulwar blade
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...it is actually a stamp - identical on both sides of the blade. Is it at all possible that the stamp was made by someone unfamiliar with written forms of Arabic? Copied imperfectly from another source (sometimes the case with coinage and carpets...)?
The blade is, I think, European and as you can see, was once set in a different hilt with blade supports. |
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on the first reading from right to left, as it's must be done :p two words; Allah - Mohamed second line; nothing to read, just waves :shrug: that's set folks :p à + Dom |
... the wavy lines couldn't be a date could they? 1333 AH (1915 Gregorian approx.) ?
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arabic text is written right to left. made it difficult to come up with an arabic word processer :) of course if the stamper was illiterate in arabic... a chart: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...als-en.svg.png note the devanagari. edited: they write no's from left to right... |
My feeling is that this blade is European, probably made in Solingen in the 1700s.
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I could be wrong but here is an idea... With supposed decline of Indian steel quality in the 19th century, many bladesmiths tried to add value to their product by adding Arabic inscriptions to their merchandise to replicate Persian and Ottoman blades, which were thought to be superior at that time. Unfortunately vast majority of these people were illiterate, and resorted to crudely copying inscriptions from existing blades. In my opinion, inscription of "Allah - Mohammed" may simply represent the only 2 words besides his own name that the blade maker actually knew how to spell and recognized them from an inscription seen on another blade. This would also explain the squiggly lines - they may be just a filler that to an untrained eye would also look like text. So, I agree with the original poster's assessment.
By the way, the blade seems to be of good quality, and the sword overall is quite nice. Too bad it's missing a pommel but this sure gives it a certain character. |
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why not :D à + Dom |
:o
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Now let's get real and solve this. No where on this blad it says Allah(الله), the only part that is inteligible is Mohammad (محمد ). Top line we have لم لا that with Mohammad after it does not really make much sense, but could be له لا. Right up untill the Brits took over India, India was ruled by mostly Muslim rulers, the Mughuls, the Persian Afshars and the Afghans, and Farsi/Dari was the language of the courts. So there is good chance of finding Arabic script on Indian blades. The chances of the blacksmith being illeterate or not knowing enough about proper writing is very high. If i'm to take a guess, the text closely resembles someone trying to write,
لا اله الا الله محمد رسول الله . |
...what does that last line mean?
It is a very light and flexible blade, and, I agree, probably European - most interesting for me is the fact that the mark is made with a stamp - that is, a die made to quickly produce an identical mark on a number of blades. It is placed for visibility (in contrast, Solingen-produced kaskara blades are often marked just above or on the tang). One characteristic of stamps is their tendency towards illegibility, and this might be the case here. Also of note is the koftgari hilt (it was previously mounted with another hilt with a blade support which we are used to seeing in firanghis). The inlay has worn away in such a way as to show that the index finger was hooked over the guard. Thank you all for your comments. |
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لا إله إلا الله محمد رسول الله (lā ʾilāha ʾillallāh, Muḥammad rasūlu-llāh) (in Arabic) There is no god but God, and Muhammad is the messenger of God. (in English) declaration of Islamic faith :D à + Dom |
... thanks Dom :)
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Do these marks look akin to the blade above?
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:eek:
Tell me more! Let's see the whole blade... |
Pictures are too big to upload here, so here're the links -
http://antiquearmsforum.com/forum/do...=203&mode=view http://antiquearmsforum.com/forum/do...=204&mode=view http://antiquearmsforum.com/forum/do...=205&mode=view |
...thank you very much.
Where is it from? Eastern Europe perhaps? Is the writing Georgian? |
I don't know what the writing means. Until I saw your sword, I thought it was a type of talismanic script.
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Here you go. |
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Dmitry and others, please notice that inscriptions on blades are read from the back of the blade and not from the sharp side of the blade.
Jens |
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Here's the right side.
The stars in constellation with the moon are attributed by Bezdek to the Schimmelbusch family of bladesmiths. I'm sure there were others with similar marks. Ever since buying this sword I assumed the characters on the other side of the blade were just talismanic characters, but if it's a real language, I'd love to be proven wrong. :shrug: |
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:p matter ... to burn out our brains :p
à + Dom |
Dom, thank you very much! I wonder what these inscriptions signify on these blades. I still believe that both blades are of European manufacture, probably from Solingen. Both made for export/import? One ended up in India, the other one was mounted on a hussar-style hilt..
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These are Solingen blades, but markings apparantly added in the markets where they were received. The crescent moon and stars groupings are typically in the blade center location (very much like some blades out of Solingen about mid to third quarter 19th c.) but occur on blades in Zanzibar and Yemen in different configurations. In looking at the Schimmelbusch& Kirschbaum marking in Bezdek (p.152) the image is of a shooting star in a group of stars, not crescent moon, however as usual there were likely variations.
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Salaams all~ See Kattara for comments TVV THREAD #28 AND #81. Moons and Stars. :)
Please also note my new Omani Sword Terminology at # 155 on the same thread. :D The straight is a Sayf and the Curved is a Kattara. Regards Ibrahiim. |
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