Zanzibar Nimchas, a More In-Depth Discussion

[TVV]

Nimchas are among my most favorite swords. When I use nimcha in this thread, I am referring to a certain hilt type, and not the small, half-sized blades that the word originated from. Among nimchas, those from Oman, Zanzibar and the coast of East Africa fascinate me the most. To differentiate from Maghrebi nimchas, I will refer to these as Zanzibar nimchas, even if many of them were made and used in Oman and other areas under direct Omani control or Omani influence. I am also specifically excluding Yemeni nimchas - not because they are not related to the Omani ones, but for the purpose of setting some limits on the subject of the thread.

When studying these swords, I have always thought that some basic typology would be useful. As collectors, we love to put things in nice, neat categories, but beyond that, observing some differences and similarities between various types might also help enhance the collective knowledge. The typology below is based not only on the half a dozen Zanzibar nimchas in my collection, but also on a picture archive of approximately 60 swords I have gathered over time. Many examples come from this forum and other collections, others come from online museum catalogues, and some of course come from auction and dealer sites. Do not worry, I do not intend to inundate the thread with pictures taken from the internet but am just pointing out the sample size I used to come to some conclusions.

One can go about a typology in various ways, but the two that make the most sense would be based on blade type or based on the shape of the guard. I chose the latter, because I think it gives a better system compared to blades, which come in a huge variety of shapes, sizes, curvatures (for the curved ones), width, number of fullers, etc. This is not meant to be any kind of a final, authoritative typology - as new examples come up, I will probably revise my own thinking multiple times. This post has become much lengthier than I originally planned, so let's launch into the topic.

Type I - Guards with a D-Ring. These are all the Zanzibar nimchas with a D-shaped ring to the side. As a general rule, these all have hilts of dark horn (I know of at least one example with an ivory hilt, but it is a really rare exception). There are two sub-types within this type.

Type IA - Guards with a D-Ring where the D-Ring is filled. Those guards are the hardest to forge and all the ones I have seen are on nimchas of high quality, with nice blades, hilts and scabbards with fittings almost always made of silver.