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Country of Origin: Damascus
Syria in the Ottoman Empire
Date of Origin
Circa A.D.1550
JBOC Comments:
Auction Catalogue Description:
THE TIPU SULTAN
COLLECTION
SALE L05222 LOT 7
SESSION 1 | 25 May 05 10:30 AM.
LOCATION
London, New Bond Street
AN EXOTIC GEM-SET TROPHY SWORD, THE POMMEL TAKEN
FROM TIPU SULTAN'S REGALIA OF OFFICE AND MATCHING
THE FINIALS OF THE GOLD THRONE, SERINGAPATAM,
CIRCA 1782-93
50,000—70,000 GBP
Lot Sold. Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium:
60,000 GBP
MEASUREMENTS
measurements note
blade 80.7cm.
DESCRIPTION
with fifteenth-century Mamluk or Ottoman
blade of true Damascus watered steel,
slightly curved, double-edged towards the point
and retaining traces of a series of cartouches
punched and engraved towards the base (patches of
light rust staining and the back edge slightly
reduced towards the point), silver-gilt hilt cast
in relief and further heightened by contrasting
punched matted segmental panels, including a pair
of shaped langets coming to an ogival point, a
pair of quillons formed as tiger's paws, and
shaped solid grip inset with a garnet front and
rear and richly decorated with crystal, rubies
and emeralds set within a bubri pattern, the
pommel formed as a tiger's head thickly encased
in gold on a wooden core, profusely decorated
with rubies and diamonds, the teeth formed of
diamonds and the tongue, eyes, whiskers and brow
all studded with rubies, finely punched in
imitation of a pelt and incorporating a basal
collar further studded with small rubies (one ear
slightly damaged), in its original scabbard
constructed in the neo-Indian taste, involving
facing panels of black leather enriched with gilt
flowers, large silver-gilt mounts formed with
openwork patterns matching the langets of the
hilt, inset with three calligraphic roundels
front and rear, engraved with a running pattern
of plantain leaves and flowerheads along the
edges, and with a running bubri pattern over the
full length of the borders
EXHIBITED
The Tiger and the Thistle: Tipu Sultan and the
Scots in India 1760-1800, National Gallery of
Scotland, Edinburgh, 1999, cat. no. 9, Pl. 25 (A.
Buddle, P. Rohatgi and I.G. Brown)
Tigers round the Throne, the Court of Tipu Sultan
(1750-1799), Zamana Gallery, London, 1990, pp.
42-3
LITERATURE AND REFERENCES
Robin Wigington, Souvenir Weaponry from
Seringaparam, The Journal of the Arms &
Armour Society, vol. XV, no. 3, March 1996, Pl. 1
CATALOGUE NOTE
inscriptions
On the scabbard mounts, repeated six times:
Qur'an, surat al-saff (lxi), parts of 13
The pommel was evidently made to match the eight
larger tiger's head finials which surrounded the
rail of Tipu Sultan's celebrated gold throne. Two
finials are known to survive, one sold in these
rooms, 19 March 1973, lot 180, and another from
the collection of the second Lord Clive, now at
Powis Castle; see Mohammad Moienuddin, Sunset at
Srirangapatam, After the Death of Tipu Sultan,
New Delhi, 2000, p. 53, pl. 2
JBOC: There is a popular theory
today that these blades are neither Damascene or
Mamluk but are really wootz steel from India.
This has been added to by a suggestion of Carbon
nanotubes in the steel that increase interest in
the subject. In the November 16 2006 Nature
magazine the following abstract of a paper by Reibold,
M; Paufler P, Levin AA, Kochmann W, Pätzke N,
Meyer DC was published:
Nature 444, 286 (16 November 2006) |
doi:10.1038/444286a; Received 24 July 2006;
Accepted 25 October 2006; Published online 15
November 2006
Materials: Carbon nanotubes in
an ancient Damascus sabre
The steel of Damascus blades,
which were first encountered by the Crusaders
when fighting against Muslims, had features not
found in European steels — a characteristic
wavy banding pattern known as damask,
extraordinary mechanical properties, and an
exceptionally sharp cutting edge. Here we use
high-resolution transmission electron microscopy
to examine a sample of Damascus sabre steel from
the seventeenth century and find that it contains
carbon nanotubes as well as cementite nanowires.
This microstructure may offer insight into the
beautiful banding pattern of the ultrahigh-carbon
steel created from an ancient recipe that was
lost long ago.
- Institut fur Strukturphysik,
Technische Universität Dresden, 01062
Dresden, Germany
- Triebenberg Laboratory,
Technische Universität Dresden, 01062
Dresden, Germany
- Krüllsstrasse 4b, 06766 Wolfen,
Germany
Correspondence to: P. Paufler1 Email: paufler@physik.tu-dresden.de
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