Help needed identifying shamshir wootz blade

[William Fox]

Originally Posted by mariusgmioc

Can't help you with the translation but to me, it looks like the blade is older than the grip, possibly 18th century.
The photos are not very good, but the blade appears to be in pretty good condition. Could you discern any pattern in the wootz?

Thanks.

You are correct. To me, it looks like the blade is an old quality piece, but the hilt has been repaired, or the blade re-hilted, in an unskilled way. It is firm in the hilt and could be used in combat, but it was crudely done.

I have a feeling that the old Persian blade was at some point in its history disassembled and was later put back into use somewhere in Arab world, probably the Gulf. I say this because the re-hilt is so crudely done. If it had been constructed in one of the major cities like Damascus surely it could have been done better. There is some form of plaster crammed into the gaps, to give it extra strength! This is the sort of field repair I would expect was done in the Hejaz. All of this is just a felling, nothing more.