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19th century Turkish sword of a classic style, with a horn handle and a Turkish hilt of the 1840s to 1860s. The blade is of watered steel and of Persian manufacture. The blade has been forged to exhibit a ladder pattern in its watering.
Ladder patterns like those on the sword's blade reference the Prophet Muhammad's accession to heaven. A sword like this would have belonged to a Turkish gentleman.
fighting
These objects are only a part of our collections, of which there are more than 350,000 objects. This information comes from our collections database. Some of this is incomplete and there may be errors. This part of the website is also still under construction, so there may be some fields repeated or incorrectly formatted information.
The database sometimes uses language taken from historical documents to help research, which may now appear outdated and even offensive. The database also includes information on objects that are considered secret or sacred by some communities.
If you have any further information about objects in our collections or can suggest corrections to our information, please contact us: enquiry@horniman.ac.uk
