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All auctions / Medals, Arms & Armor / 19th C. Ottoman Yataghan-Style Short Sword and Bıçak, Bone Grips, Etched Steel
Near East, Turkey, Ottoman Empire. A pair of Ottoman edged weapons united by bone hilts, acid-etched blades, and leather-covered wooden sheaths. The larger, likely a varsak, carries a long recurved carbon steel blade rising to a zoomorphic head that forms the pommel; its sheath is fitted with a brass collar and chape, the collar hung with a steel suspension ring and the seam closed by a dense run of stitching. Its companion, probably a bicak, tapers to a stout point above a swelling grip, its sheath dressed with a carbon steel collar and scrolling suspension loop. Figural and animal imagery bitten into both blades follows a decorative idiom favored in Anatolian and Balkan workshops, where such arms served at once as personal weapons and as worn declarations of standing. The varsak takes its name from the Varsak Turkmen of southern Anatolia and belongs to a family of short, forward-weighted Ottoman swords built for close work, the recurved profile concentrating force at the belly of the blade. Bicak, simply Turkish for "knife", covers a broad class of single-edged utility and fighting knives carried across the empire. Etched ornament on Ottoman blades was typically laid down with a resist ground and an acid bite, letting a decorator work in beasts, figures, foliate scrolls, and occasional inscriptions far faster than a chisel allowed. Bone, horn, and marine ivory were the standard hilt materials, chosen for grip and for the deep polish they take from years in the hand. Item # 203809
Estimate:$300
To the auctionView all items fromArtemis Fine ArtsorMedals, Arms & Armor
Estimate:
$300
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