Anybody able to read Persian alphabet?
 

hi. is there anybody able to read Persian alphabet? if so, i will post pictures of a really great shield and helmet. It belongs to Turkish dynasties of Iran.Safevi or Kajar. I want to determine which as is important to determine its age and value. There are many inscriptions.Alphabet is Persian for sure, language can be both Turkish or Persian like similar type shields i have seen before. First i need to convert the writing into Latin alphabet. Anybody could help me please?
regards

Don't know if you feel up to tackling it yourself, but this site might help you :) http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Academy/9594/farsi.html

congratulations on your new armor. I'm not really the person to offer an advise, but:

1. Afaik a lot of turkish weaponry is signed in arabic rather than turkish.
2. The easiest thing is to look for the date first. It's should be in hijra, and should be written with arabic numerals - unlike the rest of a text they are usually characters well separated from each other. Good example is here
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/arabic.htm

just look for an aleph | which corresponds to 1000 (if it's past 1000 year of hijra).

Second thing to look for is amal (work by) - it's the same in persian and arabic.
Here is an example:
http://www.oriental-arms.com/photos.php?id=1170

The lower part of the signature is "amal".

Sorry if you alredy knew this.

Erlikhan, post the pictures, I will do my best to help you. I do not understand well Persian language, but I can at least read it and try to identify the language

Thank you Rivkin and Kamil. The armor is unfortunately not mine. at least not yet. a lot money for me (though it could perhaps deserve more than it). a dealer friend of me owns it. It doesnt have a date as far as I see. Arabic sometimes used in especially prayer parts from Kuran, but i hope to see something more special like name of rulers of the period or some poetry. that would give clue about the age. However my friend didnt want me to expose it on net but i can post at least the inscription parts. i will do it when i prepare the pictures.
regards

Hm. I wonder if this mysterious shield will also happen to be georgian...

http://www.pbase.com/erlik18/inbox
you can see the incriptions there. thank you very much in advance for any assistance.

Persian
 

Inscription is Farsi written in Arabic letters in the Khat Ta'liq style of calligraphy. Since I can't understand Farsi and since the style means the letters are a bit jumbled in the cartouche, I can't really make out what it says. It's hard to transcribe from the individial letters since each language that adopted the Arabic writing system have their own distinct pronunciation. Good luck.

Nope, that is arabian letters in Farsi calligraphy, not Ta'liq.

Thanks a lot. Then I think I must look for somebody from Iran perhaps on net. It could help.
regards

Calligraphy
 

Sorry, it's actually khat nastaliq, a combination of Khat Nashki and Taliq used by the Persians in place of the Avestai alphabet.

The text is Farsi
 

I was searching for Persian Armor and fate brought me to your forum. I don't know if you found the answers you wanted but, I took a look at the writings. They seem to be written in Farsi and as it was mentioned by others in Nastaliq style, though I didn't quiet get what It says. It seems to me that it's a poem which is not unusual for Iranians. I'll take a deeper look :) when I get a chance.
since I have no business in this forum email me if you have any questions.

Email: aryarasouli@yahoo.com

hi erlikhan,
cant help with the language, but from the images there is enough information to tell me it isnt safavid, but 19thC qajar.