Ethiopian alternative straight swords

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

Iain, the example you show in post #10 is an interesting example of a type of hilt which resembles the European 'karabela' hilts and is noted as having been found often in Yemen and various Arabian regions. I have one of these exact hilts with a short hanger type blade, and I will try to find photos. They seem to have the exact same features with the horn karabela hilt, roundels and the wire wrapped hilt neck, short crossguard.
It seems many of the short versions of these likely did find use in the maritime trade networks, as I understood when I first obtained this back in the 90s sometime.

The blade on this does resemble German trade blades of the mid to latter 19th century as we have discussed, and could very well have been among the 'blanks' exported for North Africa. It is actually unusual as far as I have known to see this type blade on this style hilt.

Lofty, the cosmological grouping seems to be a variation of the marks used by the Solingen Schimmelbusch and Kirschbaum families, who produced blade through the 19th century. Thier mark was basically a shooting star surrounded by stars, usually groupings of six, however there were numbers of variations including the tail of the shooting star perceived as a crescent, which led to multiples of crescents and stars. As with many of these marks, it is believed importers would add thier interpretations to these blades, which were seen as talismanic by native traders and buyers.

Ibrahiim, these blades probably were among those which entered the Red Sea trade typically through the Egyptian entrepot, and while most went into the Sudanese markets for kaskara, many seem to have entered Arabia via Yemen. Here it seems some of the blades were mounted in San'a, and of course some blades went via caravan to the east. These straight blades would seem more likely to have been destined for the Omani sayfs, but of course here is one which apparantly stopped short of that destination.

As we have seen, the other heavily channeled blade with three fullers and known to be Ethiopian (also Solingen import) was another blade form which seems to have been hilted in these Yemeni regions.

The suggestion on the possible influence of 'schiavona' blades in the Red Sea trade actually does have merit in that Italy was indeed a source for North African blades from end of the 16thc into the 17th (Briggs. p.90). The primary points of entry seem to have been Tunis, Tripoli and Benghazi. Here they entered caravan routes and of course diffused in various directions.
Though it seems that they were superceded by German imports, it remains unclear how extensively Italian blades continued. The volume of German blades certainly overtook that of the Italian.

Just to clarify though, again with terminology, the term 'schiavona' refers primarily to the trellis hilt swords used typically in Venice, and these particular swords though usually backswords, did on occasion have broadsword blades. The presence of broadswords among Italian swords of various forms is of course well established, most of these considered and called by the term 'arming swords', which included rapier type hilts with heavier blades for military rather than civilian use.

I am curious which Greek swords you are noting in the previous post on the Mamluk sword.

All the best,
Jim

Salaams Iain and Jim ~ The passage of design appears to be Greek Abbasid Mamluke Ottoman and then diffused generally around the Mediterranean region etc... The Abbasids were Greek fanatics and in everything from the stars to mathematics architecture to weaponry they copied vast amounts of Greek work. The Abbasids then were a conduit passing on the designs through dynastic handing on / copying and mirroring through the passage of time into Ottoman styles. The Abbasid sword ca 9th C at the Istanbul museum is similar in many respects to the Omani Sayf Yamaani.. the latter "design froze" in Oman etc etc

See http://users.stlcc.edu/mfuller/turk/TopkapiArms2.html for a museum view of the swords.

It appears that there is a fusion of Greek Persian and Roman(Gladius) style in the Abbasid weapons and perhaps, though tenuous, a Greek root to the Arabic word Sayf (XIPHOS). A short concise history of the Abbasid is attached for reference.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scimitar

http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/LX/NAM...nBronze01.html

The Abbasid Caliphs came to the throne after declaring a revolution against the Umayyads. The core of the revolution was the province of Greater Khorasan (now in Iran and Afghanistan). They successfully destroyed the army of the Umayyad Caliphate in the Battle of Zab River in 750. Following the battle, they seized Damascus, the seat of the Umayyads, and exterminated most (but not all) of the Umayyad royal family. Abu al-'Abbas as-Saffah was declared as the 1st Abbasid caliph. He made the city of Anbar (now in Iraq) the capital of the new Abbasid Caliphate. His empire extended from Iberia to the borders of India and China. When he died, he was succeeded by his brother, caliph Abu Ja'far al-Mansur. During his reign, al-Mansur built Baghdad and encouraged his court to translate the books of the Persians and Greeks. Also during this period, Abd ar-Rahman, a remaining Umayyad prince, escaped to Iberia and established an independent emirate there.

Regards,
Ibrahiim al Balooshi.

[Iain]

Just to clarify I think in this particular sense its probably more clear to write Byzantine than Greek. At least in a modern sense that's the more common terminology. If you want to get archaic we can just call it the Roman Empire as it was known at the time.