hello this is ipostswords and today we are looking at a "Laz Bichaq", or in
english, a black sea yataghan. This style of the Yataghan is a short recurved
pointed sword from the regions currently known as Georgia and Turkey, bordering
the Black Sea. It was used by coastal Raiders and pirates, as well as smugglers
in the region who were in need of a fairly short weapon that could be used
in the confines of a ship. It's a rather interesting weapon with a controversial
history in terms of research originally attributed to North Africa, Algeria, and
even Indonesia, by some auctioneers however visitors to museums in the
region have found out that this is in fact a weapon endemic to the Laz people
as previously mentioned they are in Georgia and present-day Turkey
there are a lot of small subtle decorative elements that I'm going to
roll in in footage and photos over the next few minutes few to admire the
decorations show an interesting mix of influences being superficially similar
to some African swords particularly North Africa however the sword itself is
very distinctly from one specific region they will produce from around 1850 to
1900 with many of them dating around the 1880 region
they have a peculiar geometry with an extremely thick tang
and an integrated ferrule.
they also have a sweeping false edge down most of the blade however it is not
quite sharp this example has some patination and
even shows evidence of use - having been afterwards resharpened or at
least minimally repaired I believe this was done in period due to the patent
nature and however of course I cannot be entirely sure of that
the black sea otter gun has a very unusual style of grip as can be seen it
is separated into two horned crescents with a brass ferrule in the middle and a
leather over wood grip
this forces of the hand in a way somewhat similar to a pulwar
although nowhere near as intensely as a tulwar which makes some sense given the
fact that this style of blade is more conducive to draw cutting than any other
form of cut the tip of this sword is quite pointed and the belly of the sword
is somewhat reminiscent of a flyssa, a style of African tribal sword
however the spine is evidently curved with the blade whereas in a flyssa they
tend to be straight along the spine it's also worth noting that the belly of
the blade is the widest point and this indicates that it was the point of
impact in the style of combat for which these we use which I again conduce was
almost certainly a draw cutting style the handle on this example is rather
fragile being made entirely of organic materials and thus having degraded over
time so I'm not going to be able to handle this all that much however led to
suffice to say that the point of balance is about here which is significantly far
up the blade for such a short weapon which gives it significant impetus when
cutting that combined of the rather fragile handle could lead me to believe
this would be a somewhat unwieldy weapon however in my limited handling of it it
seems to flow somewhat well once it actually has a tiny bit of momentum the
design features Fuller's mostly decorative and very shallow and narrow
they're doubled up in a rather aesthetically pleasing fashion with
decorative elements between each the false edge is also decorated as is
the spine I'm not sure how well it comes across on camera but there is a brass
inlay or gold even perhaps however I think brass is more likely along the
lines of the fuller this brass inlay is punctuated by small decorations quite
similar to what you see on some African arms I'm going to take a few quick quick
measurements with this digital micrometer to find out exactly what the
thickness of this blade is I will note that these metal tips have been
protective of tape in order to remove the chance of scratching the blade the
blade is approximately eight millimeters at its thickest it is six and a half
millimeters at the beginning of the false edge it is 4.5 millimeters at the
point between these two sets of Fuller's and it is three point four millimeters
at the end of this last fuller finally the tip section is about two point two
millimeters thick I will note that the tip is somewhat wavy and bent indicating
that this was not a spring tempered or mono tempered sword or perhaps more
likely that the carbon content was not spectacularly high
the set especially the tip area is a detriment to its functional capabilities
however I'd say that within the scope of the bording weapon it's not too unusual
for it to be slightly soft given that it's probably going to be in contact
with all sorts of things like rigging other weapons and it's unlikely to
really meet other swords in combat anyway I hope you enjoyed this quick
visit to another presents collection so we can admire this rare controversial
and interesting example of a black sea otter gun that's all for now until next
time stay sharp