Early Yataghan for Comments and Discussion

[Changdao]

Originally Posted by gp

The list of post 21 is the actual description of the pics in post 20.
My apologies for the misunderstanding.
The first 3 are Celts,followed by some Dacians, Greek, items found in Romania and Bulgaria and last 2 from Iberia.

I agree with Teodor there must be a link between these swords , long daggers of 2500 years ago in that area with the ones from the 16 to19 century….
The visual “likeness” is a strong indicatian, also since the Turkish source confirms it to a certain level.
Although “ the transfer” mentioned in. #2 of the above link from the Turkish publication might be open for discussion (or perhaps a little bias ?).

Nevertheless the resemblance in such a small region and the interaction between the peoples in those days might be a strong indication for these old weapons to be “forebearers” of the yataghan. This is something that needs to be investigated by scolars further. A matter which requires an international approach which was not that much possible due to the geopolitical situation in the last century.

It might certainly be possible. Fernando Quesada Sanz established pretty well that the origins of the machaira/Kopis/falcata complex were utilitarian knives from the Balkans that were upscaled. These swords dissapeared from use in the military world, trampled by the Roman Empire, but if the knives kept being used, and part of the cultural imagery of the Balkans, it might be the case that the upscaling happened again towards the end of the Middle Ages

[serdar]

Originally Posted by TVV

Thank you for sharing this example with provenance, which gives a good idea about its dating. For future reference, would you be able to provide its length?

Hy, offcourse, it is as i remember 72 cm in lenght, width i realy dont remember.
It is a realy nice piece.

There are allso “yatagan” swords with bird like handle and similar style handles with crossguards that have the same blade profile and age like these older yatagans, 17 century some even end of 16 century, but are very rare, and very few people know about them, which is a good thing, when one comes to auction, people place it for something strange, i purchased one from begining of 17 century, amazing example for very very small amount, they declared it like something from balkan )))

There are allso ones with bent crossguards toward the blade like ottoman pala or ottoman version of gadara, some call them a naval yatagans but they are not that, they are just later from end of 17 but more begining of 18 century.