kindjal with hardstone hilt
 

Hello dear members,

I received this silver mounted kindjal,
for share and comment please !
For me a nice piece !

I first thought the hilt was made of horn ( the pictures of the seller )
but I was surprised to see it has been made of stone,
a dark green stone ( without daylight , seems almost black...)

A caucasian or russian model ?
there is a signature I guess ( arabic script ) that make me think it's caucasian...
an old engraving on the blade, maybe an imperial eagle in a circle ?

The blade seems pretty old but maybe was not well preserved...

Interesting stamps on the scabbard, i'll post some pictures

What do you think?

Here the stamps,

an arabic caracter more than cyrillic I guess,

and maybe the rest of 84 ? ( zolotniks ) ?

Glad if someone can fix it :)

Kind regards

Very Nice, What is the length ?

Hello,

I was ''answering'' your post :)

a medium sized -large dagger : 54cm /21,2 inches just the kindjal,
58cm/ 22,8 inches with scabbard

Cool,, I hope you get some good info on yours, I don't know much.

The rectangular stamp is Russian silver proof mark.

The shape of the blade and decoration of the scabbard look Dagestani, which was part of of Russia pretty much of 19th century.

https://www.925-1000.com/Frussia.html

Thanks a lot Marius for the link with the hallmarks and cities ,
really thank you !! :)

just two pictures:

one of the hilt, it shows how the stone parts are inserted

another of a russian kindjal found on the net, It seems that this mark on the scabbard is the same on the basis of my blade ( russian eagle)
difficult, everything is almost erased...

Checking for understanding.
 

The mark in post #2 has elements that seem to be a Tblilisi mark between 1883-1899, but a little different than I've have seen referenced. The 84 and the the cross are one element rather than two separate stamps. The left arm is indistinct under the "84". Does anyone know; how much variation was there among city stamps of the period?

Francantolin, I know its unlikely, but could it be a single headed eagle on your blade?

The green handle: Any word on the type of stone? Wasn't green a color favored by the Azerbaijani? I noticed on post #1 fourth picture down there are scratches (almost seem to be file marks) on the scale beside of the rivets. I've seen this several times. Are these made during manufacture and not polished out or from later repairs? I know the Caucasian culture as a whole places great emphasis on the outward facing aspects of a blade and fittings with less care given to the inward facing aspect.

Thanks for showing this interesting piece!

IP, I think it is two heads in the picture posted--each head appears to have a crown above it.

I don't know about the stamps but the blade you have seems to be chechen to me, the way the blade is etched is very commonly seen in chechnya and it looks like it has the name of the maker and it may have the date somewhere, but is looks like someone over polished it a bit.

Here are some examples of similarly etched chechen blades

Hello,
Thank you and welcome to the forum !!
Yes it can be indeed a chechen origin, etched-engraved decorations on the blade and arabian script can match,

I found this kinjal on internet, with a blade made in the village of Starie Atagi in Chechnya really similar

Kind regards

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