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Details
LOT 1096
Ottoman Inscribed Pattern-Welded Yatagan Sabre
C.1800 A.D.
31 1/2 in. (650 grams, 79.5 cm).
With a pattern-welded 'damascened' single-edged T-section blade with swept profile, guard with quadrant profile with rosettes, antler grip with projecting ears; silver-inlaid name panel to one face, with silver-inlaid arabesque panel to the other; blade inscribed with the Arabic year '1172'; silver maker's mark and inscription either side of the blade.
Provenance
Acquired in the 1970s.
Ex collection of a London gentleman.
Literature
See Nicolle, D., Armies of the Ottoman Empire 1775-1820, London, 1998; Tirri, A.C., Islamic Weapons: Maghrib to Moghul, Indigo, 2003.
Footnotes
The yatagan is a long knife or short sabre that lacks a guard for the hand at the juncture of blade and hilt, and that usually has a double-curve to the edge and an almost straight back. It was one of the favoured side-arms of the Janissary infantry regiments. Yatagans were carried by the Zeibeks, who lived on the Ionian coast, around Smyrna.
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