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20th May 2011, 02:35 AM
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#1 |
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Arms Historian
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Route 66
Posts: 10,281
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Hi Ibrahiim,
I'm puzzled by the reference to 1860 slave trader "Tipu Sultan' ? What post was that in? The sword appears to be a military sabre blade (carrying rings) and probably corresponding blade with the Omani type hilt. Where was this slave trader said to be operating, or where was the photo from. Also, what is meant by the 'hawkshead' hilt ? Is there an illustration? In any case the curved sabre is by no means from Caucasian ancestry in Arabia though the trade blades from there did come in through various means. The use of some of these Caucasian blades is mentioned by Elgood in "Arms and Armour of Arabia", and the preference for Persian blades is also noted. We have discussed many times the use of Persian trade blades on Arab sabres. Many of the straight blades are known to have arrived through Indian trade contacts. The martial swordplay/'dancing' is also described by Sir Richard Burton in 1884, and as noted is also known in India, particularly in the case of use of the pata in which deep slashing moves are made. The Mahrattas distinctly favored slashing moves, despising the thrust. In Khevsuria, in the Caucasus, these dance type moves leaping from crouched position and using bucklers are key to the well known duels practiced well into the 20th century. I am inclined to think that the guardless Omani hilt developed in the Arabian Peninsula, and not in Zanzibar, nor was it influenced by the swords from the African interior. While the importance of Zanzibar was considerable as a trade and center including slaving commerce, I feel that it was much more receptive as far as weaponry than it was innovative, and the weapons in use there were an amalgam of many forms used by the many traders frwquenting there. It is known that later in the 19th century many makers there did produce swords of established forms using trade blades and copying styles from numerous influences. The well known 'Zanzibar' type of 'nimcha' hilts is essentially the Moroccan sa'if type hilt with a perpandicular loop on the guard (as seen in Buttin, 1933). All the very best, Jim |
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20th May 2011, 10:07 AM
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#2 |
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Member
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Kuwait
Posts: 1,340
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By hawkshead hilt, Ibrahim means the arabic Karabella. These are often flagged as yemeni but lately am considering that they might be omani or shared by both regions.
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20th May 2011, 04:50 PM
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#3 | |
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Arms Historian
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Route 66
Posts: 10,281
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Quote:
The hilt form seems to have likely entered the Arabian domain through the Ottoman influences as well. |
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20th May 2011, 07:11 PM
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#4 | |
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Member
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Buraimi Oman, on the border with the UAE
Posts: 4,408
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Karbella
Quote:
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21st May 2011, 05:56 AM
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#5 |
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Arms Historian
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Route 66
Posts: 10,281
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Hi Ibrahiim,
More on the 'karabela': From: "Polish Sabres:Their Origins and Evolution", Jan Ostroski, in "Art , Arms & Armour" ed. Robert Held, 1979, pp.220-237. The hilt form known as karabela, was also widely known as 'the Polish Sabre'. "...the oldest available karabelas now in Poland are known to have been captured at Vienna in 1683, and hence originated in Turkey, probably under Persian influence, at the beginning of the 17th century. Within a short time it became more popular in Poland than it had ever been in Turkey or Hungary." In "The Arms and Armour of Arabia", Robert Elgood, 1994, p.15, a sword found in the suqs of Riyadh described as follows, "...the hilt is like the karabella in form with silver sheet or other netal partly covering the grip made of wood or horn. The Arab traders say these are acquired in the Yemen. ** ** as noted The so called karabela hilt became popular in Persia in the early 17th century and Shah Abbas I can be seen wearing a sword with this hilt in miniature paintings. Because of the close trade and political links between Persia and Poland, which were in alliance against the Ottomans, and the adaption of Persian culture at court, the sword became extremely popular in Poland". Elgood further notes that in 1623 Shah Abbas had occupied Baghdad and in taking control of areas including the city of Karbala, suggesting that the name for the sword hilt was in memory of that campaign.He also cites Nadolski ('Polish Side Arms') who states that there was considerable export of these type swords in later 17th early 18th c. entering the Persian Gulf trade, with many of course arriving in Arabia. Also discussed are these shorter combat swords 'nim sha' which indeed were ideal for maritime use and well known in the Arab trade world. I know that many of these have the 'karabela' type hilt form and are wire wrapped at the neck of the hilt as are Persian shamshirs. In Arabia, Persian swords and blades are held in the highest esteem. While these references illustrate the probable sources of the karabela style hilts in Arabia, there is still the question of the cylindrical or guardless Omani long kattara and its origins. The examples of leather covered guardless swords posted do seem to reflect in degree a certain recognition of the Caucasian shashka, but really it seems again, a tenous connection and likely a simple hilt solution to the use of the sabre blades which came not only from the Caucusus but other European sources as well. These kinds of swords with sabre blades are well known with Bedouin tribesmen even into the Sinai. The simple open hilt Omani 'long kattara' seems likely also a product of simplistic hilting of these longer trade blades to be used as described with the buckler. The more decorative and silver mounted versions were likely of course for prominant and status conscious Omani merchants and officials. All the best, Jim Last edited by Jim McDougall; 21st May 2011 at 06:08 AM. |
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21st May 2011, 06:21 AM
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#6 |
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Member
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: CHRISTCHURCH NEW ZEALAND
Posts: 2,789
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Thought I would add a little in the way of pics to this thread since the term Karabela has surfaced. I have such an item of Yemeni origin with that type of hilt. Have also added a couple of pics of a straight and a curved Omani Kattara, both of which have appeared in different threads of this Forum. Also a pic of a Terrs buckler which I have in my collection.
Regards Stuart |
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21st May 2011, 07:52 AM
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#7 |
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Member
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: CHRISTCHURCH NEW ZEALAND
Posts: 2,789
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Sultan Tipu's sword
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=12242
The plot thickens.................. Refer to above link where Kattara were also discussed. ARCHER posted pics of a sword with "knobs" on the top of the hilt. This was (I think) eventually identified as Manding, but take a look at the sword held by Sultan Tipu! Looks remarkably similar. So what do the Members think now..............? Is ARCHER'S sword in fact a Kattara? |
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21st May 2011, 03:59 PM
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#8 | |
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Member
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Buraimi Oman, on the border with the UAE
Posts: 4,408
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KATTARA OR MENDINGO etc
Quote:
Tippu Tip or Tib (1837 - June 14, 1905), real name Hamad bin Muḥammad bin Jumah bin Rajab bin Muḥammad bin Sa‘īd al-Murghabī, (Arabic: حمد بن محمد بن جمعة بن رجب بن محمد بن سعيد المرجبي), was a Swahili-Zanzibari trader of mixed descent. He was famously known as Tippu Tib after an eye disease which made him blind. A notorious slave trader, plantation owner and governor, who worked for a succession of sultans of Zanzibar, he led many trading expeditions into east-central Africa, involving the slave trade and ivory trade. He constructed profitable trading posts that reached deep into Central Africa. The photo may be one of the Zanzibari sultans like Barghash or whoever but anyway that is an Omani Kattara...with a hole in the pommel !! I think what may be important here is that the link with African swords to the Omani Kattara is being dismantled and it may be that the Kattara is a thoroughbred Omani system coupled with the buckler Terss shield and possibly pre-dating previous estimates and dwarfing age estimates by possibly 500 years !! since it is engrained in the historical cultural Omani tradition by way of a sword and shield war dance. My estimate is 9th century inspired from the Oman Coast, war, trade and slavery and by the fact of the traditional dance. I think what is also slowly dawning is the suposition that the Omani Short Battle Sword may be well and truly ancient predating previous estimates by several centuries as a staggering 8th Century weapon copied from the Abbasid. What clouds the issue on the Long Kattara is the abundance of european blades though presumeably the original blade was similar ?? Im not even sure that looking at the blade is all that relevant ~ it is the hilt and the shield which seem to be more an important flag on origin and the cultural aspect of a traditional war dance which takes ages before it becomes imprinted as a national iconic structure. By the way do you notice the brass escutcheons on the front of the Buckler ?... They are for securing the handle and for disarming with a twist the opponents sword. I think I should put on record the number of different swords on this long hilt is vast...both straight, double edged, single edged, zig zag blades, slight curved, and very curved and in my collection alone there are lots... so a picture should be seen displaying that conundrum~ That alone underpins how difficult it is to trace back the origin of species of the Omani Kattara and the oldest picture(photo) I have seen is about 1860. If anyone has any older photos or pictures I would appreciate that.  Regards Ibrahiim. |
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21st May 2011, 04:06 PM
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#9 | |
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Member
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Buraimi Oman, on the border with the UAE
Posts: 4,408
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KATTARA OR MENDINGO etc
Quote:
Tippu Tip or Tib (1837 - June 14, 1905), real name Hamad bin Muḥammad bin Jumah bin Rajab bin Muḥammad bin Sa‘īd al-Murghabī, (Arabic: حمد بن محمد بن جمعة بن رجب بن محمد بن سعيد المرجبي), was a Swahili-Zanzibari trader of mixed descent. He was famously known as Tippu Tib after an eye disease which made him blind. A notorious slave trader, plantation owner and governor, who worked for a succession of sultans of Zanzibar, he led many trading expeditions into east-central Africa, involving the slave trade and ivory trade. He constructed profitable trading posts that reached deep into Central Africa. The photo may be one of the Zanzibari sultans like Barghash or whoever but anyway that is an Omani Kattara...with a hole in the pommel !! I think what may be important here is that the link with African swords to the Omani Kattara is being dismantled and it may be that the Kattara is a thoroughbred Omani system coupled with the buckler Terss shield and possibly pre-dating previous estimates and dwarfing age estimates by possibly 500 years !! since it is engrained in the historical cultural Omani tradition by way of a sword and shield war dance. My estimate is 9th century inspired from the Oman Coast, war, trade and slavery and by the fact of the traditional dance. I think what is also slowly dawning is the suposition that the Omani Short Battle Sword may be well and truly ancient predating previous estimates by several centuries as a staggering 8th Century weapon copied from the Abbasid. What clouds the issue on the Long Kattara is the abundance of european blades though presumeably the original blade was similar ?? Im not even sure that looking at the blade is all that relevant ~ it is the hilt and the shield which seem to be more an important flag on origin and the cultural aspect of a traditional war dance which takes ages before it becomes imprinted as a national iconic structure. By the way do you notice the brass escutcheons on the front of the Buckler ?... They are for securing the handle and for disarming with a twist the opponents sword. I think I should put on record the number of different swords on this long hilt is vast...both straight, double edged, single edged, zig zag blades, slight curved, and very curved and in my collection alone there are lots... so a picture should be seen displaying that conundrum~ That alone underpins how difficult it is to trace back the origin of species of the Omani Kattara and the oldest picture(photo) I have seen is about 1860. If anyone has any older photos or pictures I would appreciate that. Regards Ibrahiim. |
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21st May 2011, 05:27 PM
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#10 | |
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Member
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Buraimi Oman, on the border with the UAE
Posts: 4,408
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Omani Swords. Origins.
Quote:
It appears that there were a number of sword species in Oman concurrently viz; 1. The Omani Short Battle Sword. 2a. The Omani Kattara/ Buckler. 2b. Long curved single edged rigid pointed Sayfs on Kattara hilts. 2c. Long curved double edged pointed Sayfs on Kattara hilts. 3. Curved short variants; European, Caucaz, Polish, "Karabella", "Shasqa" seagoing swords. 4a. "Nimcha" Zanzibari Omani weapons long mistaken for Moroccan swords. 4b. Hilted, as above, with imported blades various. In addition there are other variants that perhaps dont quite make it into the pool such as Shamshir or African bladed swords(european imports ) on Tulvar handles, some with fake running wolf marks etc It appears that both the Omani Short and Omani Long kattara were selected as icons or badge of office worn by Sultans and VIPs (as were Shamshirs). These were often adorned with silver and gold decoration etc...and though they were weapons they were not accompanied(in the case of the Kattara) with the Terrs Buckler Shield... but the weapon often slung on the belt in the long trail position. The Omani Short Battle Sword; I argue, is related to the Abbasid and is put at 8th Century which although it is an astonishing date is a result of the Abbasid century of attendance in Oman before they were ousted. The early date is incredible because it can also be seen on the Zanzibar Sultan Barghash in about 1895. First introduced in the 8th Century ! The Omani Long Kattara; The long shafted unguarded hilt, conical and flat ending in a counterbalanced pommel with a hole, the handle either leathered and or silver stitched in flat silver thread in a variety of geometric patterns. The fight system accompanied by a buckler shield made from Rhino ( or other thick African animal hide ) and developed with a martial dance. I suggest and argue that it was not copied nor developed from an African sword but unrelated as an Omani system designed to be fought with a Buckler. Perhaps designed in Oman around the 9th Century ! The rest they say... "is history". Regards Ibrahiim Al Balooshi. |
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20th May 2011, 05:08 PM
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#11 | |
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Member
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Buraimi Oman, on the border with the UAE
Posts: 4,408
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Tipu Tib and Sword Origins etc
Quote:
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Tippu Tip Tippu Tip or Tib (1837 - June 14, 1905), real name Hamad bin Muḥammad bin Jumah bin Rajab bin Muḥammad bin Sa‘īd al-Murghabī, (Arabic: حمد بن محمد بن جمعة بن رجب بن محمد بن سعيد المرجبي), was a Swahili-Zanzibari trader of mixed descent. He was famously known as Tippu Tib after an eye disease which made him blind. A notorious slave trader, plantation owner and governor, who worked for a succession of sultans of Zanzibar, he led many trading expeditions into east-central Africa, involving the slave trade and ivory trade. He constructed profitable trading posts that reached deep into Central Africa. He built himself a trading empire that he then translated into clove plantations on Zanzibar. Abdul Sheriff reports that when he left for his twelve years of "empire building" on the mainland, he had no plantations of his own. However, by 1895, he had acquired "seven shambas [plantations] and 10,000 slaves."[1] His mother, Bint Habib bin Bushir, was a Muscat Arab of the ruling class. His father and paternal grandfather were coastal Swahili who had taken part in the earliest trading expeditions to the interior. His paternal great-grandmother, wife of Rajab bin Mohammed bin Said el Murgebi was the daughter of Juma bin Mohammed el Nebhani, a member of a respected Muscat (Oman) family, and an African woman from the village of Mbwa Maji, a small village south of what would later become the German capital of Dar es Salaam.[2] He met and helped several famous western explorers of the African continent, including Henry Morton Stanley. Between 1884 and 1887, el Murgebi claimed the Eastern Congo for himself and for the Sultan of Zanzibar, Bargash bin Said el Busaidi. In spite of his position as protector of Zanzibar's interests in Congo, he managed to maintain good relations with the Europeans. When, in August 1886, fighting broke out between Arabs (Swahili) and the representatives of King Leopold II of Belgium at Stanley Falls, el Murgebi went to the Belgian consul at Zanzibar to assure him of his "good intentions." Although he was still a force in Central African politics, he could see by 1886 that power in the region was shifting. In early 1887, Stanley arrived in Zanzibar and proposed that Tippu Tip be made governor of the Stanley Falls District in the Congo Free State. Both Leopold and Sultan Barghash bin Said agreed and on February 24, 1887, Hamed bin Mohammed el Murgebi accepted.[3] Around 1890/91, he returned to Zanzibar where he retired. He wrote his autobiography, which is the first example of this literary genre in Swahili. El Murgebi wrote his autobiography in Swahili in Arabic script. Dr. Heinrich Brode, who knew him in Zanzibar, transcribed the manuscript into Roman script and translated it into German. It was subsequently translated into English and published in Britain in 1907. He died June 13, 1905, of malaria (according to Brode) in his home in Stone Town, the main town on the island of Zanzibar. I have put up two fotos one is Tipu in the photo in the 1860s with the Kattara long handle on what looks like a kattara or sayf and the other a sketch of Sultan Barghash later in about 1895 annoyingly sporting the Old Omani Sword with turned down Quillons !!! Hawkshead hilt ~ Possibly from the hilt known as Karabella and often simply leather covered in Arabian swords. It occurred to me that Shaska have similar hilts and that perhaps the hilt transferred at the same time as the blade in this variant. It would make sense that this short curved weapon was used aboard Omani ships however I cant prove that. (yet) I have put up photos of the curved smaller sayf with the hawk or falcons head simply leather covered. Reference your "I am inclined to think that the guardless Omani hilt developed in the Arabian Peninsula, and not in Zanzibar, nor was it influenced by the swords from the African interior". I agree but I cant quite prove it. The quote I made I think is important from the 1931 publication stating that the dance routine or "Razha" seen in Zanzibar was Omani so we look today for a similar terminology and sure enough the Omani Sword dance is called RAZHA ! That should be Game Set and Match !! but it doesnt put a suitable date on the sword entering use in Oman. If there is no Zanzibar/ African link when did the kattara long enter use in Oman? It certainly entered folklore in the form of a martial dance and that points to a very early date. I would suggest between 9th and 13 th century ~ and on the Oman coast (BECAUSE COASTAL OMAN WOULD BRING THE RHINO HIDE SHIELDS MATERIAL FROM AFRICAN SOURCES AS OPPOSED TO IT BEING BROUGHT BY THE INTERIOR OF OMAN ~ THE TWO FACTIONS "THE INTERIOR AND THE COASTAL BELT" BEING MORE OR LESS AT WAR WITH EACH OTHER CONTINUOUSLY. I have the Short Omani Battle Sword frozen in a time warp in the Omani interior, Abbasid influeced, entering use about 850 A.D. and remaining in use at least up to the 1890s when it was sketched on the waist of Sultan Bargash. (picture attached) Conclusions. The influence of Caucasus blades may have also included handle design on shorter curved sayf likely to have been used on board the very active Omani merchant and Naval vessels. I also conclude that the Omani Long Kattara could pre date estimates by 4 centuries in view of the estimated time that folklore would need for the sword and shield dance to be imprinted and that the two systems were in use variously and together until the early 1900s. as defined in the pictures attached. It remains to be uncovered as to wether the long curved sayf was used in the same fashion as the kattara since it is also seen with the same handle... The long flat connical hilt and pommel with a hole.. Shukran Jim Ibrahiim Reference your "The well known 'Zanzibar' type of 'nimcha' hilts" For years there has been a muddle over these hilts to often attributed to Moroccan.. see Antony North Islamic Arms p 29 ~ I have seen some almost identical but now attributed to Zanzibar. Last edited by Ibrahiim al Balooshi; 20th May 2011 at 07:06 PM. Reason: name corrections |
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