Bosnian Bichaq Comments/Help?
 

As promised/threatened, here's that Bosnian bichaq, again with execrable cameraphone pictures. I'll edit the thread once I find my camera's USB cable...

There's a maker's mark, or date, which I'd be extremely grateful for help with. I couldn't achieve a decent focus on it, so a drawing will follow in the next post.

The bichaq looks identical to that on p.45 of this book: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=T...age&q=&f=false

As you can see, a career in Arabic calligraphy does not await me... :rolleyes:

The blobs on the handle are silver-inlaid designs like six-spoked cartwheels.

Looks like it is made of brass and brown horn. It is from Sarayevo and Serbian.

Sarajevo is in Bosnia

Arent there a considerable number of Serbs in Sarajevo as well as in other Bosnian regions?

Oh yes that is why I did not say "Serbia" but Serbian.

Sarajevo is the capital of Bosnia and there is no Serbs at all in the citye, but lots of them in the surrounding lands, known as the republika srbska whom capital is Banja Luka... well, quite hard to understand but that is the blakan boiler... :o) Sarajevo is ihabitet by musims, so thoose daggers are typical muslim pieces. Also the name Sarajevo is turkish in origin, with the word saray, meaning "palace" in turkish language.

BTW, thatone is an interesting piece! I've never seen one of them with fullers. Looks like a trabzon blade fitted in the bosnian manner...

No Serbs in Sarajevo.....hmmm........I guess that means that this is indeed Muslim.

Sarajevo is indeed mostly Muslim now. Before the war of Yugoslavian disintegration it was a multi-national city with Bosniaks, Serbs and Croatians living there. Some have remained but the cruel legacy of the was has forced those people to separate themselves from each other. There is a great Serbian Orthodox Church in down town Sarajevo.

Jose,

Why the Sarajevo attribution?

Thank you,
Teodor

I have seen several of these with silver koftgari on the blades that spell Sarayevo and a 19th century date.

I have seen a lot with the Sarajevo name on the blade as well (I still have one), and some with Foca, but they have all been different from this one in the following manner:
1. Bone handles, instead of horn.
2. No fullering
3. Different blade profile - the subject of this thread has a blade that tapers to a much more accute point than the usual.
4. No bolster that continues at the base of the blade.

Apart from the scabbard, which may be a replacement/mismatch, this really does not look like a typical Bosnian bichaq. This is why I was intrigued by the Sarajevo attribution and was hoping that there were other, provenanced examples.

Myself, I have no idea where it could be from, apart from the very borad Balkans or Turkey attribution, and I am not sure it is Bosnian, though it may be.

Regards,
Teodor

Hi,

Firstly, the sheath and inlay on the handle are silver- or "silver"- rather than brass. Blame the poor photography for the yellowish tinge...

The closest parallel I could find is on p.45 of this book: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=T...bichaj&f=false

The bichaq (spelled bichaj :confused: ) shown there is practically identical, save for being slightly longer, and dates from the turn of the 18th/19th centuries.
.
I wonder if this is an earlier variant to the more commonly seen Bosnian bichaqs with a wider blade and scimitar stamp. In fact- and I admit this is a flight of fancy- I do wonder if the scimitar stamp on later bichaqs, which resembles an Orientalist fantasy of an Eastern sword more than it does a pala or kilij, say, made them more attractive as souvenirs for Austrian officers etc, or were a hallmark of Sarajevo work for the same market.

The only stamp on the blade of my bichaq is the Arabic/Osmanli lettering reproduced above, which would lead me to assume it was the work of a Muslim bladesmith.

I'm fairly sure that in the Ottoman Balkans, with a few exceptions (Jannina and so on) the cities were predominantly Muslim, and the craft guilds even more so.

Elgood's latest is quite good on Ottoman Balkan guilds, and shows a couple of similarly-shaped Bosnian bichaqs from the early 19th c, though without fullered blades, and with silver, rather than horn, hilts.

Here's an enlargement of the image referenced above to more easily facilitate a comparison of the two:

http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/5060/bosbich.jpg

under a lot of reserves :o
it should be might be; Abdo
but no clear evidence :shrug:

"Abdo" is a Muslim name :D

à +

Dom

Agreed,

This is an almost identical knife, and given the provenance of the example in the Osprey book, then I guess we can also date yours, Rumpel, to the same time period, which would make it a century earlier than the later, better known Bosnian bichaqs. Nice find!

Regards,
Teodor

laEspadaAncha, thanks for uploading the Osprey pic :)

And Dom, thanks ever so much for the transliteration. This sounds sentimental, but it's good to know the maker's name- a sort of posthumous recognition of his craftsmanship.

Updated with slightly better pics, now I've found the USB cable for my camera...

W :eek: W! What an impressive blade!

I also see what you mean about silver instead of brass.

Another possibility is Abdi and actually the name Abdi was quite common in the Ottoman lands as far as I know.