Ottoman/Albanian Khanjar scabbard markings

[mariusgmioc]

Originally Posted by TVV

It is amazing how the Eastern Roman Empire, the First and Second Bulgarian Empires and the Serbian Empire accomplished what they did over a period of close to a millennium fighting with sticks and stones and a few imported weapons or trophies, since they obviously had no arms and armor craftsmen. Good thing the Ottoman brought blacksmithing to the Constantinople and the Balkans...

Albeit you are trying to be sarcastic, you are mostly right.

The Eastern Roman Empire had its own weapons producing centers that were producing Roman weapons.

The smaller "empires" you mentioned used mostly imported weapons.

None of these "empires" developed any significant weapons producing centers. This is both a cause and an effect of them remaining more like early centralized states than true empires. They are called "empires" because they conquered and brought under a centralized rule more small early medieval proto-states.

If any of the pre-ottoman Balkan states would have had a significant role in the production of weapons, there would have been
1. written or at least iconographic records about it (as there are the early Utrecht and Stuttgart psalters, or later writings about Toledo, Solingen, Passau, etc.);
2. a plethora of archeological finds of pre-ottoman weapons characteristic to these states (like there are for example the "viking swords" attesting the existence of major production centers in the Holy Roman Empire).
There are none!

And we should not confuse a swordsmith workshop that is mostly repairing and furbishing blades produced elsewhere with a production center!
And one blade here, another blade there, won't make for a weapons production tradition either!