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Originally Posted by Radu Transylvanicus
On the Caucasian scimitar (I am completely in a new land to me here so have mercy !) is there a chance it is an Azeri sword, the niello was a much exported trade Georgia to Azerbaijan and viceversa so wouldnt make perfect sense to consider Azeri too since the Muslim artwork can be observed !?(Armenia (including Khevsur) and Georgia Orthodox , Daghestan Muslim ...IMHO...)) Wouldnt you say ?
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Thank you very much for your vote of confidence, although I think that Ariel or Jim would be way more knowledgable on this issue.
Concerning Azerbajan, the weapons' production in this country is greatly underappreciated for two reasons:
a. It lacked big production centers, therefore statistically it's much more likely to have something produced in Dagestan or Georgia rather than Azerbajan.
b. Most of the production was not performed by azeris, moreover there are two distinct possibilities: northern production - lezgins (and therefore the weapons produced are classified as produced in Dagestan), southern production - armenians (and therefore the weapons are classified as Transcaucasian/armenian).
Concerning the motiff - before 1850 most of smiths in Tiflis were muslims. The motiff is similar to typical Dagestani motiff, but in my opinion contains certain important changes that make it more likely to be produced somewhere to the south, and georgia makes a logical choise.
Concerning christianity - it's very hard to classify Khevsurs, Tsova-Tushin and other mountainous tribes as christian. Pagano-christian, or formally christian would be a better representation. Armenia, just like most of georgian tribes, is more like our understanding of what "christian" means.