# Communities > Antique Arms & Armour Community > Middle-East, India & Africa (MEIA) >  Kilij with gold gilt & triple fuller

## Bob Hudson

I've handled lots of swords, but nothing has boggled my mind as much as trying figure out the swords deriving from the Kilij form. 

This one has a triple-fuller sharp blade, nice detail on the hilt and scabbard, a lion's head on the pommel, and much of the detail appears to be gold gilt. There are patterns on the blade that look like they  could be Damascus.

It came out of a collection that had some very mundane items, so i wouldn't be surprised if someone told me it was just a very nice wall hanger.

In looking for real counterparts it seemed as though the Kilij sword/sabres with animal pommels came out of Dagestan.

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## Bob Hudson

Here's the "Damascus steel" marks on the blade:

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## Bob Hudson

And a couple more images:

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## Emanuel Nicolescu

Hi there,

Could you post pictures of the whole sword please? This looks like modern work.

The marks you show appear to be thumb prints. Please post higher-resolution pictures of the blade after cleaning.

Regards,
Emanuel

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## Aleksey Pastukhov

Surely! We need the full pic to judge about the saber.

AFAIK a lot of sabers are produced in Kubachi (the swordsmith center of Dagestan) even now. Every year they are demonstrated in the exhibition in Moscow.

They are going on the production of saber alongside with shashka (which is more common in Adyge). Crude niello and animalistic decoration are the features of the modern Kubachi work.

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## Bob Hudson

> Hi there,
> 
> Could you post pictures of the whole sword please? This looks like modern work.
> 
> The marks you show appear to be thumb prints. Please post higher-resolution pictures of the blade after cleaning.
> 
> Regards,
> Emanuel


Thank you for the feedback.

The sword is at my friend's house, a one hour drive from me, so I won't have a chance to photograph it again this week. But he had sent me some photos before and I have a larger one of my photos showing the marks that could be fingerprints.

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## Bob Hudson

..

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## Emanuel Nicolescu

Yup, very modern.

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## Bob Hudson

> Yup, very modern.


I assume this are made for the tourist trade? I've been trying to find some online listings for modern replicas. Do they use gold plating or actual silver on these?

Thanks, again.

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## eric t

Here is one that sold recently, it was described as being early 20th century, from Daghestan.

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## Bob Hudson

> Here is one that sold recently, it was described as being early 20th century.


Thanks - do you recall where you found that? This makes me wonder, when it comes to these swords, what period is considered "modern," after 1900, after 1930, after 1980, or ?????? It's hard to imagine these were produced during the Soviet era.

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## eric t

> Thanks - do you recall where you found that? This makes me wonder, when it comes to these swords, what period is considered "modern," after 1900, after 1930, after 1980, or ?????? It's hard to imagine these were produced during the Soviet era.


That is a good question but I know nothing about Daghestan swords, as far as identifying older, and or better quality examples you would need to find some others to compare against. 

Here is a link to were the image I posted originally came from. http://art-of-swords.tumblr.com/post...quarter-of-the

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## Aleksey Pastukhov

If you want I can share the soft copy of book of Emma Astvatsaturian about Caucasian traditional weapon. But it is in Russian. In any case you can browse and find something as possible analogue. Please use PM to share your e-mail for this purpose.

In any case the initial saber in the topic seems to be modern work - just a souvenir.

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