A Unique European Hunting Sword With an Indo-Persian Wootz Blade

[David]

Originally Posted by Roland_M

Hi David,

nowadays Arabic dates are written from left to right.
See this example, 1980 = 1359.


Roland

OK, but was that also true 3-400 years ago when this blade was supposedly forged?

[kamals]

Originally Posted by David

OK, but was that also true 3-400 years ago when this blade was supposedly forged?

I think that it depended on the region. There's a book floating around title The Origin of the Arabic Numerals. I can't remember the author but it had some nice plates of examples of early Arabic numeral use in the Muslim East, the Muslim West, and the Christian West. I have it but can't find it on my shelves this morning :-(

In any case, there were definitely early left right uses that he recorded in his book. I'll give a good look when I get home from work. It's around here somewhere...

[ariel]

I have several dated islamic blades from 17-18th centuries, and all dates are read left-to-right.

[Jens Nordlunde]

From the one who translated the text on my weapons, I was told that the text should be read from right to left, but the numbers from left to right.

[Philip]

Originally Posted by Jens Nordlunde

From the one who translated the text on my weapons, I was told that the text should be read from right to left, but the numbers from left to right.

Agreed.