Ali Dinar(?) Kaskara

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by werdna

I liked the look of this kaskara except for the goldish/brass dots which I thought looked crude and unappealing to the point that I wondered if they were a later edition to ''flash'' up the blade or to differentiate it from the many similar.
regarding the posts about only needing 2 bidders(I also collect ancient coins) a Naxos tetradrachm recently achieved approximately $740,000NZD at auction(I only kept a note after converting to NZ dollars),the coin is rare but the sale price is insane
regards
Andrew Freeston

Gold or gold metal filled dots have certain significance on Islamic blades as described in Yucel ("Islamic Swords and Swordsmiths", 2001). These appeared in varied groupings and numbers, however seem to have usually been situated toward to blade tip. I have seen certain cases where some kaskara, otherwise quite plain, have had such 'dots' near the blade tip, but were most likely brass filled.
In Islamic symbolism and allegory it seems numbers are key, so it is hard to say what specifically these dots might mean, but they are likely placed there to augment the inscriptions and invocations on the blade.