Old Omani Saif

[Jim McDougall]

As Ariel has pointed out, obviously this blade is newly mounted, and the hilt clearly has age. As he also well notes, weapons were often remounted through generations, not just to replenish non durable components such as hilts and coverings etc.

To me it seems a blade of such esteem as made with wootz, at least in most I have seen, are mounted in more elaborate context than in a relatively austere hilt like this.

The wootz blades as mentioned, were indeed highly prized in their various forms in India, Central Asia, and many places but I would point out that the favor of Solingen blades was more about the fact that they became more readily available. Also, wootz had circumstantial downsides in that it could be brittle and non battle worthy in many cases as noted in Pant.

The Solingen industrial machine was more on volume than cost, and actually its permeation of many blade producing centers went on for centuries before the inception of the longer blade and guardless hilt of the Omani saif known as kattara. This adaption seems to have taken place sometime in the second half of the 18th century, and as has been discussed, the use of lighter blades was keenly favored for the purpose of certain ceremonial events.

The presence of German blades was hardly a phenomenon in Arabia any more than India, Africa, Red Sea regions or many other trade entrepots in many locations. Their presence in Yemen was of course through such trade, and they diffused accordingly and certainly into Omani regions. The term Yemen, as I understand, was used rather collectively and broadly in earlier times, so the 'Yemeni' appellation refers to place where blades were from.
This seems to have been an Islamic convention used from the earliest times, describing a blade by place of origin, often thus calling the sword accordingly.