Судан и Большой Ближний Восток

229 Alexander S. Matveev. A Case of Survival of an Early Medieval Straight Sword... The idea of the Proceedings was to select papers where technical and social aspects of pre-modern warfare have been analysed together, thus linking technology, culture and history (conceptionally marrying “technological”, “social” and “historic” approaches, was to be the main raison d’être for the Conference). The paper on the Sudanese straight swords was supposed to be such an example of a broader approach to the study of weapons. It attempts to keep both technolo­ gical and cultural sides of the studied phenomenon together and show how they influence each other, producing a cumulative result where military and social aspects are tightly interrelated. The paper points out inter alia , that the social aspects of local warfare led to surviving of the broadsword when most of neighbouring regions switched to a technically different curved sabre. The next aspect was to consider various elements of the weapon in a wider context of its perception in the given culture. In this respect, numerous symbolic elements in the kaskara decoration provide a wealth of material for discussing the combination of real and sacral in the weaponry, both being equally important for its owner. High quality steel and Qur’anic inscriptions created a deadly weapon against the enemies, or the best protection when the body armour or helmet were involved. For the Festschrift, I have altered the initial paper and considered newly published materials, though I had to omit the ‘Real and Sacral in Weaponry’ section for the sake of space, focusing mainly on the reasons behind survival of the early medieval straight sword in Sudan. *** The present paper aims to further examine a remarkable pheno­ menon of the straight-bladed double edged Sudanese swords, kaskara . These swords, following a traditional medieval Arabic pattern, were a main shock weapon in the hand-to-hand combat in pre-modern Sudan and survived as such until the 20th C. in the 17th — early 20th Centuries Sudan // Military Archaeology: Weaponry and Warfare in the Historical and Social Perspective. Materials of the Inter- national Conference, 2–5 September 1998. St Petersburg, 1998. P. 299–303.