Earliest Use of Paired Crescent Moons on Solingen Blades

[Jim McDougall]

In a concurrent thread on basket hilt swords, the subject of markings of paired crescent moons placed at the terminus of shorter right and left fullers in a central three fuller configuration came up on an Anglo-English basket hilt c.1740s.

The character of these paired 'man in the moon' faced markings are not commonly known on European blades, however they are extremely common in North African blades used in takouba and kaskara. According to Lloyd Cabot Briggs in his article on these blades (JAAS, 1965) his exhaustive research on European, typically Solingen, blades imported into these North African spheres, these 'paired moons' were inherently native applied. While considerable numbers of these blades were indeed European, it appears that native armourers used them on the blades they made as well as possibly applying them to imported or acquired foreign blades .

It has been well known, as described by Oakeshott ('Records of the Medieval Sword') and other instances, that broadsword blades, often of Solingen or Sudanese make, have been mounted in some cases in authentic medieval European hilts and in other cases in other hilts of varying form and age.

The objective of this thread is not to discredit examples of swords with these types of markings but to establish and authenticate the earliest use of the paired moons in Europe on blades so as to determine the origins of their use in North Africa.

In the images I borrowed from the other thread, on the left is a basket hilt with triple fullers and paired moons c.1600 posted by Cathey. In my opinion this is one of the strongest cases for European use of these moons. It will be noted that at the blade root flanking the central triple fullers are two flutes. The moons are more in the character of European astral images used in motif, and blade is entirely of early Solingen types destined for Scotland.

On the right is a basket hilt c.1745, also shown by Cathey, an outstanding Anglo-Irish hilt. The blade however has paired moons more of the character seen on North African kaskara blade examples. While there is of course the possibility this is a German blade, the markings are atypical for Solingen forms known, and both degenerated, almost stylized geometric in form.

The blade example below posted by Iain illustrates the nature of the variations of these moons and fullers on kaskara blades. Many of these are produced in North African locations and blades with the moons are termed 'masri' (Rodd, 1928) with the moons termed 'dukari' and placed for magical and talismanic purpose.


I am hoping that possibly we might look into the use of crescent moons on European blades, and especially instances of their occurrence in pairs facing away from each other as seen here.
We know that the man in the moon type devices occur, usually with other cosmological themes , but looking for the paired examples.