Afghan/Khyber Knife

[mahratt]

Originally Posted by Norman McCormick

Hi,
Thank you for your interest. I think this is probably a 19thc piece, have you any thoughts?
My Regards,
Norman.

Hi.
I think you're right and this is the middle - late 19th century

[ariel]

Hi Norman,
This is an honest khyber, no faking here. Regretfully those Pashtuns virtually never put the date on their weapons, and there are no objective features by which we can date them. So we can only look at the condition and guess. 1840? 1940? 1980? There are pics from the times of recent Russian occupation showing mujaheddins brandishing khybers. Field conditions determined everything. Fourty years of sun, rains,cold, heat are more than enough to age and degrade all organic materials. Yours has worn out scabbard, but the sword itself is in a very good condition and although blade was cleaned from patina, the bone handle is white.I wouldn’ t hazard a guess about its age, but it doesn’t matter much: it is a true fighter that was meant to kill, not to hang on a wall.
Enjoy!

[Norman McCormick]

Hi Guys,
Thanks for your insights. I have attached a few more photos. The scales are not as white as they appear, more yellow in hand (my poor photography no doubt!) I have attached a photo that may give a better sense of scale. It's a big old knife more dirk sized. Thanks again.
My Regards,
Norman.

[kai]

Hello Norman,

Looks like walrus to me...

Elegant blade and length at the shorter range of the spectrum.

Regards,
Kai

[Ren Ren]

I don’t think it is a walrus. It is very possible that it is a camel.

[ariel]

Camel, horse, cow, but not walrus or elephant.
It is a Khyber, only short. Stone mentions blade length between 14-30". I have one ( wootz) with the blade of 11.5", one 16" and one 34.5". They were handmade and there were no prescribed dimensions. Whatever the owner wanted.
The difference between them and ch'hura is that the latter has a sudden narrowing of the blade right at the ricasso and narrowing further to a needle point : ch'hura is a purely stabbing weapon, khyber ( selawa) is a slashing/stabbing one, kind of like a Bowie. You certainly can put it in a dirk category.

[Ren Ren]

The surface of the camel's bone is covered with a dense grid of small parallel strokes. There are similar strokes on the bone surface of cows and buffaloes, but this grid is much wider.

[Gavin Nugent]

Originally Posted by ariel

Hi Norman,
This is an honest khyber, no faking here. Regretfully those Pashtuns virtually never put the date on their weapons, and there are no objective features by which we can date them. So we can only look at the condition and guess. 1840? 1940? 1980? There are pics from the times of recent Russian occupation showing mujaheddins brandishing khybers. Field conditions determined everything. Fourty years of sun, rains,cold, heat are more than enough to age and degrade all organic materials. Yours has worn out scabbard, but the sword itself is in a very good condition and although blade was cleaned from patina, the bone handle is white.I wouldn’ t hazard a guess about its age, but it doesn’t matter much: it is a true fighter that was meant to kill, not to hang on a wall.
Enjoy!

Indeed dates are always very speculative.

I've a very fine wootz Choora named and dated to 1901 with a sheath in of similar manufacture... I personally find the weapons from the region the hardest to date accurately.

Gavin