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Originally Posted by levani
Blade definitly isn't modern, it's just cleand and coverd with some lubricate for conservation.
And they did forge damascus/wootz type blades in the Caucusus.
What period of early European blades it looks like? what kind/tipe of european blade was imitated by smith?
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My apologies Levani for such a late reply, and you are right, this does seem to have evidence of some age. It would be interesting to see the entire sword as well.
It seems that references to European 'Damascus' steel typically are referring to pattern welding, not watered steel like wootz. There was a Russian steel alloy known as bulat that was of similar nature but the secrets to this were lost and not reaccomplished until later in the 19th c. From what I can understand this blade seems to be a well folded and ground pattern welded blade.
Askhabov (2001) does note however that some Damascus steel from the east and high quality Russian steel was imported later into Chechnya, and there was a type of blade of watered steel called 'tsok bolat tur'. However, again this particular blade seems of pattern welded steel.
With regard to what type European blade is represented here, in the 19th century most European sabre blades had quite different fullering than this unusual type with elliptical central fuller. I have however seen such a fuller, if memory serves, on a Solingen blade by PDL (Luneschloss) c.1860s.
The zoomorphic figure corresponds to variations of the 'running wolf' used on Chechen blades that I mentioned as 'ters maymal', with many of such blades coming out of Ataghi.
The cross is a real puzzle, as this is the cross and orb marking which was seen on many early blades from Europe, most often German, and this seldom appears on Caucasian blades as far as I know. Laudayev (1872) describes shashkas with a cross on them being considered old and good, and termed 'kaldam', but these were usually accompanied by the gurda mark, and the crosses used in the Caucusus were equal length Greek type crosses, not the elongated cross and orb.
I would say this is later 19th century perhaps, early 20th, and as noted, apparantly pattern welded, but very nice work. Again, sure would like to see the whole sword.
All the best,
Jim
According to Isa Askhabov (2001)