Help wanted Identification of Katars

[Jim McDougall]

Hi Jens,
You're right, it is remarkably difficult to try to read or decipher armoury or arsenal markings because of the varying dialects and alphabetics. Even more confounding is the fact that such markings are typically the result of often reluctant bureaucratic tediom, inventorying. I cannot think of anyone who ever looked forward to 'inventory'! Thus the result of diminishing accuracy and omissions etc. The abbreviations and numbers can only have made sense to those directly involved in that particular armory and period. There was no standardization or system employed outside that armory and by others.

I recall some time ago trying to discover the meaning of such a marking on a Chinese sabre, which was apparantly inscribed in Manchu. Hoping for some meaningful, telling mark I pursued having it translated, not easily done as this is apparantly elusive these days in Chinese linguistics. When finally it was done all that could be determined was a vague interpretation of 'tempered steel' or 'good steel' or something of that form.

Even European military weapons are maddening in trying to discover the significance of key placed little letters and numbers and symbols in all manner of places on weapons. With these one is always hoping to find regimental attribution, but with such markings there is the one constant...inconsistancy!

Looking forward to seeing these next photos Geneacom!!!

All the best,
Jim

[geneacom]

Well, here's something coming.

[geneacom]

This is a large one, the ruler is 30 cm long!

[geneacom]

Here is my special piece, the one I like the most.
More detailphotos following soon ...

[geneacom]

here are some additional (detail) pictures of the small katar.

[geneacom]

Katar with text on 2 sides

[geneacom]

The last week I have published 4 photosets of katars from different viewpoints.
That's what everybody was asking for.
Up until now, not a single reaction.
Nobody interested anymore?
That's a pity, because I have another 25 katars waiting to be photographed.

If there is no reaction at all, I wil stop and save myself the trouble of making all these pictures, put them all together and publish them!
Rob van Willigen (Geneacom)

[spiral]

Thanks for your time & effort Rob!

I have found this a fascinating thread, especialy your photos & the discusian re armoury marks.

I am jealous of such a museam quality collection!

I would imagine this group of katars is the envy of anyone who collects katars.

Spiral

[Rick]

I think that from reading the discussion Rob no one here knows how to decipher the armory marks . Many legitimate reasons were given for this .
I'm sorry if we seem to have let you down in this respect .
Quite possibly no one has ever made a study of these markings .

The katars are quite beautiful .

[PUFF]

As far as I know, hindu-arabic scripts could be associated with period and place. You might be able to catagorize your speciments according to their period and place.

3-5-8 in figure 12a is a good start (hopefully, nothing related to its caliber )

[Jens Nordlunde]

Hi Puff,

Interesting stuff you are showing, although I doubt very much that many here on the forum have much use for the numbers from 300 BC. It does however give the forumites an idea of the difficulty when it comes to inscriptions and dates.

Some dates on weapons were made older than the actual year the weapon was made, some put on later, for decoration together with an inscription or a name, or when entering an armoury, and some were, much later, faked by collectors to improve the value of the collection, so any date on a weapon should be compared with the weapon itself, to see if the date and the style it was made in seems to fit the age of the weapon.

[Lew]

Here is a link to a Bikiner museum with lots of interesting items.


http://www.leyline.org/cgi-bin/photo...egory=armories

The link should work now.


Lew

[Jens Nordlunde]

Geneacom,
I was just looking at this old thread, and I have some news.
The katar you show in post 26 is from Bundi.
I have researched these katars, and written an article about them. They are from first half of the 19th ceentury.
Jens

[B.I]

the dotted inscriptions are thought to be inventory or shelf marks. this is a loose description, but it has been debated and no better 'guess' has been offered. they are from the bikaner armoury, as others have stated and thought to have been put onto the contents of the armoury at some point in the 19thC.
there is an account from the armourer of bikaner in 1900, discussing the potential origins of some of the pieces and the placement of there marks could have hailed from this time (as it was hinted that this armourer had gone through the collection. either way, the 19thC date comes from the fact that certain 19thC pieces hold the same type of marking, as well has 16thC pieces in the same armoury. the marks were put onto all pieces, whether made in the region or captured at some point in the armouries history. some pieces (like some of your daggers) held more than one set of marks, and some had up to 4. again, this has fed the 'shelf mark' theory, in that when moved, an additional set of marks were put on. personally, i feel this is little thin, but i am happy to believe they are inventory marks of some kind. they cannot be armourers marks (which has been agreed, no matter what else is debated) as these marks were put alongside armourers marks, and were normally poorly done. also, they were put onto pieces that were many hundreds of miles apart in origin, and upto 400 years apart in date.
the marks are normally numbers, and many (maybe even a majority) were preceded with a 'symbol' that was neither a number nor a letter. i have attached a compliation of this symbol found in the pieces on this particular post.
what this symbol is i dont know, but hope to find out at some point in my lifetime. i have been pursuing it for a number of years and have only heard specualtion. the armoury itself (now a series of museums) cant offer any more information. an interesting point is that there did exist a written inventory, which was seen a number fo years ago. this ledger may hold clues, but i'm afraid it will never be seen again, being condemning evidence against the hoard of pieces going missing some 10 years ago (and ultimately ending up in your brothers collection).

the numbers itself could be a number of different languages, but the presence of other dotted inscriptions (other than numbers and this symbol) show the language to be a strange for of devanagri, although different enough to be a possible language in itself.
i have had aome of these longer inscription read, but with no satifactory results.
the problem is that devenagri is a written language only, and whatever form of it this is, seems to have been forgotten many years ago.

inscriptions aside, look again to the very large katar your brother has. the grip bars seem a little mishapen.
this is because they could possibly have been chisselled elephant heads (one on either side - 4 in total) which was a feature shown in some other pieces from the same armoury. yours are very worn, as are the facets of the grip bars but i'm sure this was the original feature.

[Andrew]

Excellent post, Brian. Thank you.



Rob, a great wealth of information resides in this forum and its archives. The membership here has a broad base of experience from collecting to research.

However, the study of ethnographic weaponry is often a rather esoteric and exotic pursuit. Poor documentation, extravagent and incredible provenance, colonialistic perspective and language barriers all contribute to the unanswered questions. It was this very lack of reliable information that first attracted me to ethnographic weapons and continues to keep me engaged and intellectually stimulated. While such things as militaria and nihonto have always fascinated me, there are few "mysteries" left to explore in those areas.

These forums are often a good starting place for research and investigation, as well as a place to share knowlege, experience and speculation. I once described the process as "edged weapon free-association" (or something similar). I truly hope you'll stick around and share more with us, despite your obvious disappointment. You may yet find the answers to your questions, or even to questions you've not yet thought of.

Best,
Andrew

[geneacom]

Ridk, Spiral, B.I. and Andrew, thank you very much for your support!
Your very interesting explanations are helping me to better understand the problems.
Since I am completely new and uneducated to this matter, I have learned a lot since I joined this forum.
You reply is giving me the necessary push to go on.
I will start publishing new pictures tonight.

[Jens Nordlunde]

Hi Rob,

Thanks for showing the katars, but as you can see from the different mails, last from Brian’s excellent answer; it is very difficult, if not impossible, at the moment, to come up with something specific about the translation. What we can conclude is, that the katars shown, most likely, have been at the Bikaner armoury at one point or another, but not necessarily were ‘born’ there. If you have read a few books on the Indian history, you will know, that wars were going on all the time, from east to west, and from north to south. Big armies moving around the country all the time, weapons getting mixed, and remixed before they ended in an armoury somewhere, and maybe years later ending up in another armoury after a lost battle.

The thing of interest will therefore be, does the katar fit into the area where the armoury is, or is it likely to be from another area?

As your brother has been collecting for twenty years, I guess that he is likely to have some answers to this.

If you post any more pictures, please help us to a better understanding, by keeping the pictures of the whole weapon and the details together. I have no doubt that you and your brother have no problem seeing the pictures, but it will make it easier for the rest of us who don’t know the weapons.

Jens

[geneacom]

Every day I learn more and more, thanks for all your support and kind help.

Here is the last katar for now.

I have to make new photos next week.
Actually, I started to make pictures only from the 3 katars with text on it plus 2 katars which I like very much (the small one with the ivory knobs and the largest one I could find in my brothers collection).

Enjoy and I'll be back ...