Tatar saber for discussion

[Perkun]

Jeff,
What a surprise! Could you tell me more about it, age, region? What is the scabbard covered with?

[Jeff D]

Originally Posted by Perkun

Jeff,
What a surprise! Could you tell me more about it, age, region? What is the scabbard covered with?

Hi Perkun,

It has a similar story as yours. Most likely made in Lvov 18th century. The blade is clearly Persian with a very nice wootz pattern. The scabbard is wood with a later leather recover. the mountings are brass.

This is definately one of my favorites!
Jeff

[Jeff D]

While we are on this topic, are there any good publications on the history of the Tatars post Jochi? or for that matter the Lithuanian Tatars?

Jeff

[Battara]

Ok...now I'm getting interested in Tatar swords (not just the sauce ). One more area to collect....*sigh*

[Rivkin]

Tamga looks like that of Kanly tribe, but there are so many families in this tribe, or Zhapas clan of Bauly tribe (second picture). I think it is the second one, quite a distinctive tamga. Rotation of the symbol relative to the blade's surface is irrelevant.

On the other hand, Kanly is a much more prominent tribe when it comes to europeans tatars, Osman family belonged to kanly (?). On the other hand Bauly where related to parts of Nogai horde, so they were periodicly appearing around Balkans.

[ham]

Ariel,

The sword you mentioned on eBay is a pastiche. The hilt is modern, the blade old. The tamga shown on it was copied out of a book.
Hard enough to learn about these things from originals without being confounded by copies, I say. The seller offered it in all good faith, was emailed when it was recognized as a copy and to his credit has not offered it at auction again.

Ham

[ariel]

Originally Posted by Jeff D

While we are on this topic, are there any good publications on the history of the Tatars post Jochi? or for that matter the Lithuanian Tatars?

Jeff

"Bron i uzbrojenie Tatarow"
Jacek Gutowski, Warszawa 1997
("Arms and armor of Tatars")
In Polish and English : even/odd pages.
Wonderful book, full of history and color pics.

[Jeff D]

Originally Posted by ariel

"Bron i uzbrojenie Tatarow"
Jacek Gutowski, Warszawa 1997
("Arms and armor of Tatars")
In Polish and English : even/odd pages.
Wonderful book, full of history and color pics.

Thank you Ariel,

Gutowski's book is indeed excellent. It does give a nice outline on the Tatar history, however I wonder if there is any publications with a little more detail.

Thanks again
Jeff

[Rivkin]

1. Thank you Jim for your kind words, but my contribution was rather insignificant.

2. When it comes to tatar history, while I'm pretty sure there should be some (probably polish ?) books on lithuanian and polish tatars, the whole topic is very poorly researched. The reasons in my opinion being current poverty of tatars, endless inter-tribal warfare that in the past have led to the destruction of major centers of tatar civilization, preserverance of nomadic lifestyle (extremely complicating the efforts of archeology), relative isolation from other centers of civilization, replacement of yasa by islam (in my opinion have lead to acceptance of arab/mamluk point of view on mongol/tatar history).

A good example - why there are so many hexagrams on tatar coats of arms ? The obvious answer is an islamic one - it's a seal of Solomon. Unfortunately it creates more questions than answers:

While another extremely popular symbol is an eight point star (octagramm) ? It has no specific symbolism in Islam. Why hexagrams very often appear multiple times - 3 hexgrams in Bucharin's symbolics, 4+1 in Usupov's ? Why this symbol sometimes predates what we consider an islamic period in turkish history, if not islam itself ? Sometimes it's been explained as a jewish symbol, but it does not remove the main problem, which is that besides speculations we know very little.

[erlikhan]

Rivkin, as far as i know,tamgas are primarily to show ownership of a land, building, cattles,sheep, horses anything. was used to understand to whom or which tribe anything belonged in nomadic life's enormous distances and continuously changing settlement locations . tamga - damga means "stamp" in Turkish and first purpose was to sign animals with hot iron i am sure. tamgas should be extremely important to prevent any mistakes, even potential wars. started in middle Ajian steppes and carried to everywhere Turks settled. became an identity symbol for people as well in time, and every tribe, every band, any people had own tamgas. (especially among Tatars, who continued nomadic and semi nomadic life longer than Turkey). Below is the flag of Crimean Tatars with their tamga, used when they were independent, and later autonomyous under Russian rule till 1944,the date they were expelled to other regions). Ottomans were from "Kayi" band of "Oguz" tribe, and they used the Kayi tamga as a military sign widely struck on most arms and armors officialy ordered and manufactured for the state arsenal in Istanbul. I cant find a picture of it at the moment but i think is already well known among Ottoman arms collectioners.
I know northern coasts of Black Sea down to somewhere like south Romania was Tatar land, and in 18-19th centuries conquered by Russians, and just to northwest of Tatars,today's Ukraine and Belarus was Poland at that time. Lvov is in that region,ok. But I didnt know about a large Tatar population in Poland. Were they same with Crimean ones? Or were they to north, and Christians like Lithuanian Tatars? Were they loyal to Poland or what? In fact I am not even sure about Lithuania Tatars too, if they were Moslem or Christian. If Poland had some Tatar population and there are still samples of their sabers, today's south Ukraine, Moldova and Russia ,once densely crowdedly Tatar established regions with strong Tatar armies, should not have much more samples? Why doesnt any come from there, unlike raining Kindjals,shashkas etc.? Any ideas? Would one be able to find any if travels to Crimea and Ukraine?I would desire to have one or more from those
regards