Very nice blade! The wootz has good activity, color and contrast and in my opinion is of Persian manufacture. The block ricasso you see at the forte are "cheeks" used to reinforce the tang root and the blade. If you look through the Figiel catalogue, you will notice a lot of blades done in this fashion but typically it seems to happen a lot with nice wootz blades that were probably imported and the tang had to be adjusted to fit the tulwar hilting so these cheeks were added to give stability. The U-turn feature is found primarily on Persian and Indian blades and also some Chinese blades. It is not uncommon for this feature to be on one side only. That is actual the more typical configuration. You have a quality Persian blade with very nice wootz probably late 18th to early 19th century with tulwar hilt. A nice find!
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