Судан и Большой Ближний Восток

237 Alexander S. Matveev. A Case of Survival of an Early Medieval Straight Sword... with his newly bought sword- kaskara : “Evidently, for the Sudanese the edge was mightier than the point !” (meaning, they use swords for cutting, not for thrusting). 1 On the other hand, Egerton’s suggestion that these swords originally were two-handed (cf. the above-mentionedKipling’s ballad) was a typi- cal attempt to apply another European tradition— this time a medieval one — to quite different Oriental practices. Theoretically, almost any sword could occasionally be used to produce a blow with both hands employed, but it would be an exception. Besides, for a dexterous applica- tion of the second hand, the handle of the sword should be rather broad. Thus, when the European armour had been further developing in the 14th C., the ‘hand-and-a-half’ swords emerged: though being designed for a typical use with one hand, they got a longer grip, some 15 cm or more, so as to use both hands when a mightier blow was required. The grip of the Sudanese sword, on the contrary, is not broad (typically some 10–12 cm), being obviously single-handed. Besides, kaskara , though rather long, is not as heavy as the late medieval European examples of similar length, so even a foot warrior could easily handle it with one hand, resembling in this respect the Viking swords. 1. Blade When we are dealing with blade weapons, the blade, naturally is supposed to be the most important element. The real variety of kaskara blades shape, though, is quite broad, especially taking into account that before the Kassala centre of swordmanufacturing has been established in the 1930s, 2 various imported European blades were predominantly used. Among them, there are flat blades or with rudiments of fullers, and blades withclearly seen fullers. Thenumber of fullers varies fromone (goingdown almost to the point, seemingly, being themost typical for local production of the pre-Kassala period) to three, 3 occasionally even five — running along the flat of the blade, usually on its forte and slightly beyond, but 1 Asher M. In Search of the Forty Days Road. Harlow, 1984. P. 63. 2 On the Kassala centre of the kaskara production see: Hunley E. The Social Economics of Small Craft Production: The Sword and Knife Makers of Kassala, Eastern Sudan; also videos mentioned on p. 234 footnote 3. 3 Egerton, Op. cit. No. 191. P. 168.