Ancient, armed Indian from Kabul

[Andrew]

Originally Posted by ariel

It is single edged.
As to the attribution, I guess the curators of this Armoury (an offshot of the London Tower) know a thing or two about the origins of their exponates and have a record to prove it.
I see no reason why the Rajastani origin is such an implausibility: after all, French copied the Nimcha , the Russians made splendid Yataghans, the Vietnamese swords were influenced by the Japanese etc, etc. People saw blades they liked and made copies with the local flavor.

I truly intended no disrespect for the Armoury. However, I think we can agree it is not uncommon for innacurate provenance to perpetuate innacurate descriptions and attributions, even by otherwise excellent institutions.

Yes, I concede this could be a Rajastani knife in a Burmese/Thai style. However, Occam's Razor suggests to me it is more likely just mis-identified.

Here are some similar knives from Oriental Arms' gallery:

http://www.oriental-arms.co.il/photo...00116/ph-0.jpg
http://www.oriental-arms.co.il/photo...00115/ph-0.jpg

I think it much more likely that this form of knife, with its slightly recurved, khandjar-like blade is the result of influence flowing from India into SEA, rather than the reverse.