Судан и Большой Ближний Восток

240 III. Судан и его соседи inNorth Africa and Arabia. A notion, popular among scholars who are dealing with imported blades in the pre-modern MENA, that some of these blades might come from Toledo or Italy, is merely a misunder- standing based on the maker’s stamps. Though some of these stamps shapes had originated frommedieval Toledo or Italy indeed, they were later imitated by German sword makers, as in Passau and Solingen. In the 19th C. all the swords imported to the MENA were manufactured in Germany (mostly in Solingen) 1 ; by then Toledo had long stopped being a major centre of swords production, while Italian centres also lost their importance in comparison to the medieval period. The same is true for the curved blades as well, most of which were also imported, though they were mainly not German, but Hungarian, Eastern European and, at the end of the 19th C., Caucasian. 2 In fact, in all Arabic — as well as neighbouring African — regions, the Euro- pean blades, as well as other military equipment, became increasingly important in the pre-modern period (though the trade in European blades inNorth Africa dates back to theMiddle Ages; trade ‘in swords’, i. e. the Carolingian/Viking swords, has already been attested in the famous Ibn Khordadhbeh’s accounts about the trade of the Jewish al-Radhaniyya and the al-Rus merchants 3 ). Thus, the European blades have been prevailed in the pre-modern MENA. 4 However, it does not mean that the local blades have not been produced, but their number should be limited, since swords’ manufac- 1 In 1814, Burckhardt mentioned 3000 sword blades from Solingen being annually sold inCairo to the traders fromSudan [Egerton. Op. cit. P. 157]. Lane, who visited Egypt in 1825–1828 and 1833–1835, mentioned Germany as the only place where swords for the Sudanese market were manufactured: “The principal imports [to Egypt] from Europe are … straight sword-blades (from Germany) for the Nubians, etc. ...” [Lane E. W. An Account of the Manners and Customs of theModern Egyptians. London, 1860. Vol. 2. P. 319]. See also Burton R. The Book of the Sword. London, 1884. P. 162-3. 2 Elgood R. Op. cit. P. 99. 3 Matveyev A. International Long-distance Trade in Europe and Beyond in the 9thC. // XXXII ICSSHAA. Proceedings. St Petersburg, 2023. P. 77–78. 4 North A. Op. cit. P. 30. When Egerton had been purchasing Soudanese swords in Egypt in the early 1890s, he was “assured by Zubeyr Pasha that these blades are not, and have not been, manufactured in the Soudan”.