Sobre el lote Lote N° 237
Título : A RARE SAMSAMA SWORDBLADE WITH A HIGHLY UNUSUAL TANG, MIDDLE EAST, EGYPT, NORTH AFRICA OR SICILY, 12TH-14TH CENTURIES
Notas : Physical DescriptionThis is an iron blade with no evidence of "watering". The corrosion, though extensive, is largely superficial though there is slight damage to the tip of the blade where it has stood, or been dropped, on a hard surface. There is also slightly more corrosion here. The fuller groove extends for at least seven-eighths of the blade and its upper end goes "around" the lowest of the three rivet. At the other end of the weapon the top end of what might be called the "pommel disc" is chamfered to a blunt edge.Of the weapon's total length of 8.94 cm, the blade forms 73.7 cm, the pommel disc approximately 4.6 cm, while the remainder forms the grip. The maximum width of the blade is 5.6 cm, including a fuller groove appriximately 1.2 cm wide. The maximum width of the grip is 2.4 cm while the maximum width of pommel disc is 5.9 cm. The rivets apparently survive to their full length of approximately 2.1 cm, indicating that the grip would have been almost round in section whereas the complete pommel would have been disc-shaped rather than spherical. This suggests a close similarity with a 12th or early 13th century short sword from Sicily rather than the two full-sized 12th century swords from Gibraltar (see below).InscriptionsOn both sides of the blade there are different, small and as yet undeciphered inscriptions in Arabic script. These were stamped into one of the two edges of the blade rather than inside the fuller. Further confusion stems from the fact that the tool which was used to stamp one of these inscriptions appears to have "bounced" and thus to have made a secondary but less clear impression next to the primary inscription. The letters of one inscriptions appear to be M Y R Z (or a second R) Y (or 'ain) K (or L) W. The inscription on other face of the blade is more garbled but might consist of two words; the first with the Arabic letters B N B and the second with S B R.Archaeological comparisonsThree or four known swords have tangs which either clearly, or perhaps, include pommel discs which are similar enough to serve as relevant comparisons. However, none are similar in all respects. The most problematical is a sword accredited to a 13th century ruler of Egypt which was displayed in the Askeri Muze (Army Museum) of Istanbul in 1970s. Athough the pommel of the weapon appeared to be integral with the tang and blade this was not clear enough to state with certainty. Furthermore the blade of the Istanbul sword was roughly 10 cm broad at the top and tapered regularly to a point. Instead of having a fuller groove, it had a central ridge which gave the blade a flattened diamond section throughout almost its entire length and made it look like a late medieval Western European "swords of war". It should be noted that other medieval swords from Egypt and immediately neighbouring regions are not of this form and have normal tangs without the distinctive pommel disc. On the other hand several surviving blades associated, sometimes firmly but often less obviously, with Egypt have a similar outline and fuller groove to the sword under consideration, though again without the pommel disc. Furthermore, they include weapons which are dated, or associated with persons from, as late as the early 16th century.A much closer, and probably more important, archaeological parallel is to be found in two swords from Martin's Cave on the Rock of Gibraltar during the mid-19th century (British Museum, inv. 67.12-23.1 & inv. 67.12-23.2; until recently on loan to the Royal Armouries). Though the blades are broken and severely corroded, the all-metal hilts of both these weapons are almost complete. One is decorated across the pommel, metal-covered grip and what remains of the quillons, while the other is undecorated though again with a metal-covered grip. Rather than hiding the ends of simple bar-shaped tangs within these hilts, both had tangs with almost certainly disc-shaped tops which would seem to have been virtually identical to the sword under consideration. There appear to be signs of two rivets through the grip of the weapon with the undecorated hilt, although until further cleaning and study this remains unproven. The shape and proportions of the blades are again similar to that of the weapon under consideration, though a little narrower, and both lack fuller grooves. However the poor and still unconserved state of the broken blades means that the presence of fullers cannot be entirely ruled out. These two, until recently unique, swords probably date from the 12th century foundation of the town of Gibraltar by the invading Muwahhidun dynasty from North Africa and seem to have been deposited in Martin's Cave for totemic and somewhat un-Islamic reasons, perhaps stemming from Berber tribal practice. Since the blades themselves, and especially their pommel disc tangs, have no known parallels in the Iberian peninsula, they may therefore be regarded as North African or perhaps as imports from the Arab Middle East where the strongest evidence for pommel disc tangs has so far been found.Another comparable weapon is a short sword or large dagger currently in the Furusiyya Art Foundation (inv. RB-133). Its blade is straight and non-tapering for most of its length, although each edge then curves sharply before a short straight edge to a broad point. A broad fuller groove, the width of which is proportionately similar to that of the sword under consideration, runs from beneath the quillons and then narrows towards the point. Both sides of the quillons, grip and pommel are covered by decorated ivory plates which are held in place by iron rivets. Sandwiched between the ivory quillon plates is a relatively slender iron quillon bar which appears to be fused to the lower part of the tang and uppermost part of the blade. Most distinctivly of all, however, the tang broadens between the two ivory plates which form the pommel, probably into a disc. Nevertheless, without closer study and X-ray photography it is impossible to confirm that this iron pommel-disc was forged as one piece with the tang and blade, though it seems likely to be so. The ivory plates of the grip are secured to the tang by three rivets and the pommel plates by one rivet. The length of these rivets are again similar to those of the sword under consideration.Attention should also be drawn to swords in which the tops of the tangs are again broadened into shapes which, though not disc-like, were the same as that of their pommels or hilts when complete. The very corroded and fragmentary sword from a ship which sunk off Agay, on the Mediterranean coast of France, was once through to date from the 10th century but now seems more likely to be 11th or even 12th century. The presence of North African amphorae indicated that the vessel was either from, or had recently traded with, an Islamic North African port, while the hilt of the sword itself was unlike anything seen in Europe during that period. Totalling some 88 cm in length, its blade was barely tapering and had a single broad fuller groove, but almost certainly ended in a pointed rather than a rounded tip. Its quillons were curved and had a broad slot capable of going over the considerably broaded end of the tang. However, this broad end was flared rather than forming a disc. As such it is remarkably similar to the perhaps similarly dated weapon from Beshtam-Kala, south of the Aral Sea in Central Asia. The dating of the latter has recently been reinterpreted from an unspecified "ancient" pre-Islamic period to a 12th-13th century Islamic context. This weapon from Beshtam-Kala is roughly 80 cm long and its broad tang again expands into a flared outline rather than being a straight bar-shape.Quite where the concept of the tang expanded to fit the outline of a pommel, whether disc-shaped or flared, originated it unclear. There is no evidence for it in the pre- or very early Islamic Middle East, nor in the pre-Islamic Romano-Byzantine world, nor in the Iranian heartlands of the pre-Islamic Sassanian Empire, nor in pre-Islamic India. The closest conceptual parallel appears to be the "ring pommel" swords, usually straight but with both double- and single-edged blades, which were found across much of northern Asia and culturally associated regions of east and central Europe as well as China, Manchuria, Korea and Japan. They were very widespread during the early medieval period and probably persisted to a lesser extent in more limited regions into the later Middle Ages. The finest examples generally had the pommel-ring as a separate piece of metal, attached to the sword by having the slender end of the long tang folded around the ring. However, the many simpler weapons may have continued an earlier and perhaps original form by simply having a very long and slender tang folded into something approximating to a circle. Without stretching this argument too far, it may be the case that simple ring pommel swords reached the early Islamic world as trade goods or more likley in the hands of Turkish and other military recruits from the steppes or even from the forests of northern Asia.Perhaps the westernmost example of such a ring pommel, apparently formed by folding over a long tang, was found in the "upper city" of Vitoria in northern Spain (Alava Provincial Archaeological Museum, Vitoria). Though labled as 12th century, its dating remains highly uncertain. In all other respects, however, there is no evidence for the disc pommel or flared pommel in the medieval Iberian pensinsula, either Christian or Islamic. Even where swords have substantial disc or spherical pommels of roughly the same proportions as the pommel disc of the blade under consideration, the tangs which go through such pommels invariably are, or appear to be, of simple bar form.Early blades with the same or similar outlines, but without a pommel disc, have been found in late Sassanian or early Islamic contexts from the eastern parts of what became the medieval Islamic world, including a sword 82 cm long sword, excavated in Oman by Carl Phillips of Edinburgh University. Some of the early swords credited to early Muslim Caliphs from the mid-7th to mid-8th century (now in the Topkapi Reliquary and Armoury) are again similar. However, a recently published sword from Umayyad Andalusia, dated to around 880 AD, has a blade whose outline is very similar to that of the weapon under consideration but lacks a fuller groove or central ridge, and has an entirely different tang. A broken fragment of the latter has been crudely welded to the end of the tang to form an almost certainly inaccurate cross-piece. What is clear from the slot of the quillon bar, however, is that there was certainly no broadening of the end of the original tang which was almost certainly a simple straight bar. Another short sword or oversized dagger found in a specifically Islamic Andalusian context came from Lietor, along with an assortment of other military artefacts. It dates from the 9th or 10th century, is only 26.5 cm long, is barely tapering for most of its length but then tapers to a point, and has a broad fuller groove down the blade. In this instance the tang is complete, and is again a simple tapering bar. Hence there seems to be no evidence for the disc-shaped or otherwise broadened tang in early medieval Islamic Andalusia.Documentary and Pictorial comparisonsThere is much more abundant evidence for disc or spherical pommels in illustrated sources, both two dimension pictures and three dimensional carvings, metalwork and suchlike. However, the only illustration which shows a sword-blade without its hilt elements, but with a disc-shaped end to its tang, it therefore highly relevant. It is found in a perhaps 13th century copy of Al-Suyuf wa Ajnasuha (Swords and their Types) written by al-Kindi in the 10th century. It forms the sixth chapter of the ninth book of A Compendium of Islamic Prose and Verse assembled by Amin al-Din Abu'l-Ghunaym Muslim Ibn Mahmud al-Shayzari who was working, probably in the Ayyubid Middle East, during the first half of the 13th century. Of the extant copies of al-Kindi's seminal work on swords, only this one in Leiden University Library (Ms. Leiden Or.287) includes the phrase; "and of this form is the enclosed drawing of the samsama sword" followed by a small and distorted picture of a straight non-tapering sword-blade, in the section of al-Kindi's text dealing with "The Yemeni Swords".Whether the compiler of the anthology, Amin al-Din al-Shayzari, was responsible for inserting the additional phrase and drawing is unknown. It is also unclear how accurate a copy of al-Shayzari's original text, and perhaps of the drawing, the Leiden manuscript is. Furthermore the drawing only provides an outline of the blade and is so stylized as to be almost unrealistic. Even so, certain features can be identified. The blade is, for example, straight and non-tapering, though with an angled point. No shoulder is shown between the blade and what is presumably its tang, but the latter part of the weapon narrows abruptly before terminating in a large disc whose diameter is approximately the same as the width of the blade. That part of the highly stylized weapon which would served as the tang is also shown with two rivet holes but, unlike the real blade under consideration, there is no third hole through the disc-shaped end of the tang.What is certain is that pre-and early Islamic samsama blades had huge prestige during the early and medieval Islamic periods, as confirmed by al-Kindi and many other sources. This opens up the possibility that the pommel disc became, for whatever reason, associated with those almost legendary Yemeni samsama swordblades. Presumably more difficult to make than a simple straight, bar-like tang, and not offering a great deal of added strength or security for the attachment of a disc-shaped or spherical pommel, it might nevertheless have carried additional prestige. Such prestige may even have amounted to a sort of quasi religious, totemic or historical status. If this was indeed the case, then the very limited number of surviving such blades, and the specific significance given to the two swords from Martin's Cave in Gibraltar could be explained. Even the survival of the rather strange short sword from Sicily, with its beautiful but, at least where the quillons are concerned, rather impractical ivory-covered hilt, could reflect a now forgotten but once high status.Bibliography:R.G. Hoyland & B. Gilmour, Medieval Islamic Swords and Swordmaking: Kind's treatise 'On swords and their kinds' (Oxford 2006).B. Mohamed (ed.), L'Art des chevaliers en pays d'Islam. Collection de la Furusiyya Art Foundation (Paris 2007).D. Nicolle, "Two Swords from the Foundation of Gibraltar", Gladius, 22 (2002) 147-199.A. Visquis, "Présence Sarrazine en rade d'Agay au Xme Siècle", in A. Visquis (ed.), Rencontre d'Archéologie Sous-Marine de Fréjus, Saint-Raphael (St. Raphael 1975) no page numbers.
Sotheby's, subastador, London, UK
🔓Sin tarjeta de crédito.
Título de venta : Arts of The Islamic World
Fecha de la venta : 14/04/2010
🔓Sin tarjeta de crédito.
Referencia de la subasta : Live Sale
