Reddit mentions of Arms and Armor from Iran: The Bronze Age to the End of the Qajar Period

Please don’t touch steel blades with your fingers, that’s what creates rust. Keep the blade oiled.

It's a shamshir, but it depends what you mean by “real damascus.” This looks like a well forged form of pattern welding, but not classical “wootz” crucible steel. Does that mean it’s wrong for this type of sword? I don’t know if that’s necessarily true, especially if it’s a later-period sword (as I suspect this is). This topic is so far outside my primary field that I really don’t know how this sword should be judged. Overall though I’d say the level of fit and finish makes me somewhat optimistic. It does seem like a “real” sword (as opposed to tourist knockoff or purely ceremonial). The koftgari is nice but not masterful. I’d very tentatively guess 18th–19th century.

Sorry I don’t have any more germane knowledge to offer, but congrats in any case.

---

FWIW, here are (maddeningly unlabeled) similar examples:

Horse head

Peacock

---

If I were you, I’d post it to the Middle Eastern subforum at SFI, where Dr. Khorasani posts (as Manouchehr M.) – as well as other experts. You will get a much more knowledgeable response there than you could ever get on Reddit. But thanks for sharing it with us!

---

EDIT: So the more I look, the more pessimistic I become. Although it looks nice enough, the genuine examples I see all have a much tighter form of pattern welding or wootz, whereas examples with this large “whorl” pattern welding are all more recent Indian tourist pieces (and are accordingly much less valuable). Just for example.

I will keep looking, but you really ought to just post them to SFI. Please let us know if you do. Thanks!

How so? The handle lengths given in Khorasani, Arms and Armor from Iran seem normal enough, rather than "very short". As long as the hand fits between the pommel and guard, it all works. Median hand breadth for adult military age males is about 9cm, so shamshir hilts seem to be plenty long enough.

I summarised this from "Arms and Armor of Iran"

https://www.amazon.com/Arms-Armor-Iran-Bronze-Period/dp/3932942221

This page by a Kiel faculty of Engineering student is also useful.

https://www.tf.uni-kiel.de/matwis/amat/iss/kap_a/advanced/ta_4_1.html

This is the paper that lead to the discovery of the importance of vanadium and other carbide formers in wootz:

https://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/9809/Verhoeven-9809.html

And here's a streamlined, updated review

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11837-018-2915-z