Kaskara with gold and silver decoration

[Edster]

Ian,

Kaskaras are iconic swords worthy to grace any collection. You did well to snag such a mysterious piece.

The blade looks imported from the pic (deep central fuller and blade not sharpened in top 1/3). I doubt that many proper locally made blades were available at the time. It seems that most local blades then were wrought iron and hardly battle worthy. However, exceptions are always possible. The grip doesn't have the Beja signature tassel so I doubt it was a battlefield pick-up by the NSWC since the Osman Digna's Beja were their adversaries during their brief deployment out of Suakin. Ironically, other Beja were in charge of Suakin at the time and a NSWC officer could have purchased it in the market in 1885.

Best,
Ed

[Ian]

I posted this one a few years ago during COVID and promised more pictures. One of my sons grabbed it, and said "mine" before I could get some more pictures. I finally retrieved it from him.

Here are pictures of the sword, and of the NSW colonial force being farewelled before embarking on their ship transport at Circular Quay in Sydney. They wore red tunics and white helmets, which they quickly swapped for more appropriate attire on arriving in Sudan. This is the crowd watching the boys march along Circular Quay. The crowd was estimated at 100,000 (a huge number considering the population of Sydney at that time was about 700,000).



And here are more pictures of the sword. I think this blade is of local manufacture rather than Persian. The silver decorations of vegetation and birds are tarnished and somewhat difficult to photograph against the very dark blade. I can provide more pictures at higher magnification if you wish. The gold inscriptions are not very well done, again suggesting local work rather than Persian. If someone can translate these, I would be very grateful.















And here are the tags attached to the sword when it came, giving some of the history.

[TVV]

Ian, to me the blade looks like a 19th century German trade blade. There were two general patterns - one with three narrow fullers and one like yours, with a shorter, wider fuller. It is also possible that it was made in Sudan in imitation of the trade blades, but during the 19th century those were exported in huge quantities due to their combination of price and quality. Of course, the hilt and the decoration would have been applied locally.

[Edster]

Ian,

The new pictures and the tags are informative. The tag that says the sword was found with chain mail, etc. suggests that the sword was owned by a Sudanese knight and a Baqqara tribal calvary emir or unit commander. This group and their armour kit were influenced by western Sudan/Chadic military culture and mostly stationed in Omdurman during the Mahdiya. The tag notes that the sword was brought back "after 1900". This suggests that it could have been collected after the Battle of Omdurman in 1898 rather than during the NSW Contingent service in early 1885. Their service was against the Bega who did not use padded armour, steel helmets, etc.

The attractive silver floral-type designs do not follow the style of Quranic texts common on Mahdiya swords. The gold cartouches are crudely made and translations could hold the keys to its origin. Cartouches are also not common, if applied at all, on Mahdiya era swords.

Best regards,
Ed

[Tim Simmons]

Nice.