Zaghnal

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by Anandalal N.

Dear Jim,

Your sentiments on the hazards of collecting and regarding what a wonderful and stimulating place this forum is; I shall not dwell on other than to express my wholehearted approval of same.

I am on the following part of the post where we are all trying to make sense of these interesting and miscellaneous pieces that appear from time to time.



I wonder if I would be able to pursuade you otherwise in you conclusion that this Zaghnal is a composite made up of components of other weapons by posting images of what is surely the twin of the zaghnal under discussion. In the handling of the piece; to me it appears quite serviceable. Its weight which is well forward only requires you to arm and aim and it moves of its own volition -- almost.

Another issue that arises at least with this type of Zaghnal is that in view of the fact that these Zaghnals have a point and no actual cutting edge they were probably helmet and armour piercing weapons rather than hamstringing.

Regards.

Hello Anandalal,
I think perhaps you should teach a class in friendly persuasion !! and coupled with a most convincing example to support your case, it would be difficult to resist.
Actually I intended my comments on many Indian weapons often being composites was intended in a broad sense. My comments on this piece noted that Emanuels comments were well placed, based on the seemingly fragile attachment of the blade to the knob on the head block, and its variance from most of the examples shown not having the spike atop.
In reviewing several sources, it does seem that there were extremely wide variants of these, and that the spike atop did appear on some. Also,many of the examples shown had similar knob bases for the blade attachment.

With that, I would note that this example does well correspond to the one you have posted, as well as in degree to others shown in various resources.
It is noted in the brief entries that these were indeed intended for piercing armor (mail) and helmets (probably well turbanned heads as well), so would not have had cutting edges, as you have noted. I have not found the hamstringing reference but suspect that particular use might not be necessarily well supported ( I cannot as yet find the reference and I do not have the Nicolle reference handy).

All the very best,
Jim