Another Black Sea Yataghan out of Africa

ariel · 1st July 2022, 01:14 PM

Jim,
Thanks for your detailed ( as usual) exposition tracing the development of our knowledge about those peculiar Trabzon swords.
As we see, even well before Tirri Danish authors mulled over their peculiar similarities with Flissa. Nothing definitive, but just a placement into the same illustration….

Tirri was the first to openly advance his hypothesis and present salient points of their similarities. He exercised an imaginative “what if” approach to suggest a transition from the straight blade of Flissa to a peculiar yataghan-like blade of Laz Bichagi. I remember seeing the latter with non-forked pommel, but the Laz lived between the Turks and the Georgians with the idea of a split pommel being organic to them, and they created an exaggerated form of it, something akin to the Zelbek creation of T-pommeled yataghan. The resultant Pontic weapon was fascinating and peculiarly beautiful, but practically it was a dud. Whether its short life span was due to the latter or just to simple fact that it appeared on the scene when swords were on their way out is also not certain.
One can only admire Tirri’s idiosyncratic and imaginative approach. Yes, he was wrong in claiming this weapon’s active life to North Africa but his hypothesis of its origin had not been disproved till now. I am afraid we shall never learn the final truth, but that is not a peculiar occasion in the study of weapons coming late in history in small isolates such as Sardinian Leppa or the so-called Bedouin pseudo-shashka.
Let’s give Tirri his final due.

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version Email this Page	Search this Thread: Advanced Search
Display Modes
Switch to Linear Mode Switch to Hybrid Mode Threaded Mode

1st July 2022, 01:14 PM	#6
ariel Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Ann Arbor, MI Posts: 5,503	Jim, Thanks for your detailed ( as usual) exposition tracing the development of our knowledge about those peculiar Trabzon swords. As we see, even well before Tirri Danish authors mulled over their peculiar similarities with Flissa. Nothing definitive, but just a placement into the same illustration…. Tirri was the first to openly advance his hypothesis and present salient points of their similarities. He exercised an imaginative “what if” approach to suggest a transition from the straight blade of Flissa to a peculiar yataghan-like blade of Laz Bichagi. I remember seeing the latter with non-forked pommel, but the Laz lived between the Turks and the Georgians with the idea of a split pommel being organic to them, and they created an exaggerated form of it, something akin to the Zelbek creation of T-pommeled yataghan. The resultant Pontic weapon was fascinating and peculiarly beautiful, but practically it was a dud. Whether its short life span was due to the latter or just to simple fact that it appeared on the scene when swords were on their way out is also not certain. One can only admire Tirri’s idiosyncratic and imaginative approach. Yes, he was wrong in claiming this weapon’s active life to North Africa but his hypothesis of its origin had not been disproved till now. I am afraid we shall never learn the final truth, but that is not a peculiar occasion in the study of weapons coming late in history in small isolates such as Sardinian Leppa or the so-called Bedouin pseudo-shashka. Let’s give Tirri his final due.