teh-tula vs koftgari on kindjals and other weaponary of the caucasus

[Interested Party]

Ariel thanks for the feedback. I joined this group to hear what other people had to say.
I thought I was buying a plain Dagestani blade. I hoped to find a differential temper as well. Maybe it will show up in the final polish.
Tel-tula to my understanding is attaching a soft metal to a ferric one similar to koftgari but instead of cross hatch using dots (stimples) to roughen the surface. If you blow up the picture and look below the fuller you will see a pattern of dots. I found traces of them period surrounding the fuller. there is still some gold attached to the tang.
Teh-tula seems to be an Indian technique from what I've read. I guess part of my question was to find out if anyone had heard of it in Transcaucasia or Caucasia? This also could be a fairly modern reproduction. Looking around the internet has been making me wonder if people aren't corroding new objects to make them seem old. I'm just learning about blades from this part of the world so I hope the group forgives me if I a little on the remedial side of things.

[Ren Ren]

If the dots have the correct triangular shape, then this is an old Persian jewelry technique, which was also owned by some craftsmen in Dagestan.
In my opinion, the mild steel of the blade suggests that the solid blades were destroyed with a grinder.

[ariel]

Can you give a reference to this technique/name?
All this is totally new to me.

[Interested Party]

Thanks Ren Ren. I can't tell if they were triangular, but knowing that technique was in Dagestan is enlightening. Were the triangles simply indentions or was the back of the triangle slightly raised like a riffing file and smoothed down later? I'm guessing the Dagestani craftsmen used it in the 1880s-1920s?

Ariel what kind of acid do you use to highlight differential tempers?

[corrado26]

One of the really best books dealing with Caucasian arms with lots of fotos and very good description of the background and origin of kinjals, shashkas, guns, rifles, pistols etc on 353 pages is the yearbook 2000 of the Danish Arms Collecting Society, the Vabenhistorisk Selskab.
corrado26

[Ren Ren]

Originally Posted by Interested Party

Thanks Ren Ren. I can't tell if they were triangular, but knowing that technique was in Dagestan is enlightening. Were the triangles simply indentions or was the back of the triangle slightly raised like a riffing file and smoothed down later? I'm guessing the Dagestani craftsmen used it in the 1880s-1920s?

In this case, the triangular dots (or better to say the pits) are completely different from the surface of the file. The surface after filling the pits with gold is completely flat (perhaps this is the result of numerous cleanings). I assume that in the years 1880-1920 no one used this technique for about 100 years, either in Dagestan or in Iran. Those items that I saw personally date back to the 18th century or at the very beginning of the 19th century.

[ariel]

Bidri technique is characterized by perfectly flat surface. What is described in the Indian paper cited by Kwiatek is an inlay technique with gold/silver/brass wire hammered into incised channels and polished flat with the surface. This was used in the Caucasus and locally known as Zarnishan. Zarbuland is when the same wire protruded above the surface.
What the author describes as Zarnishan sounds suspiciously like Koftgari.

I can see Indian bidri-workers mixing their classical techniques with inlay for additional beauty effects. But to the best of my knowledge, nobody in the Caucasus did bidri work. A very, very different Caucasian technique somewhat resembling bidri ( black/white contrasts) was indeed niello, but again only very superficially.
My guess ( and we all are guessing here) is that we are talking local (linguistic?) variability of terminology. Perhaps ( another wild guess) in India Teh-nishan ( teh-tula?) was a local name of bidri+ inlay of some variety.

[kwiatek]

I don’t think the terms teh-nishan or teh-tila/tula are in India restricted to Bidri ware. I cited that paper because it was one of the few places in English where they give an explanation for teh-tila. I suspect what has happened is that in the secondary literature terms are used across borders to refer to the same or similar techniques even where they were not originally part of the local parlance.

[Ren Ren]

Originally Posted by ariel

Can you give a reference to this technique/name?
All this is totally new to me.

I saw objects with this inlay technique in the collection of Kamil Khaidakov (you know him). Examples are also given in his book Камил Хайдаков "Персидские сабли. Некоторые вопросы атрибуции" ("Persian sabers. Some attribution issues") on pages 25, 111, 125.