Судан и Большой Ближний Восток

242 III. Судан и его соседи Thus, we can see that, on the one hand, a sort of diffusion between local and imported blades took place; on the other hand, it seems that the real difference in the manufacturer of the blade was not so impor- tant for the customers. 2. Hilt All the above poses another problem: the shape of the blade itself cannot be defined as the main distinctive feature of the Sudanese kaskara . In fact, the most characteristic part of it is the hilt , which was always produced locally. Such a correlation between a blade and a hilt was also typical for Arabic sabres, which quite often made use of the imported Persian, Indian or European blades; however, they were always mounted on the locally designed hilts. The latter, thus, should be considered as the basis of sword identification, not the shape of the [according to Hunley E. Kaskara Fuller Styles & Names. P. 9.]. Dozy in his Supplément aux dictionnaires arabes , t. II, p. 710, mentions nuqara [ نُقارة ] with a reference to Burckhardt, Nubia, 319, though Egerton [Op. cit. P. 159] gives variant noggara . Likely, it is a Sudanese/ North African variant of a more common medieval Arabic form naqqara ( نَقّارة ) — a war kettledrum (‘ qaf ’ [ ق ] in some North African Arabic dialects (Libya, Sudan) is pronounced as ‘g’); all forms are derived from the verb naqara (“to knock”, “to bit the drum”). Fig 5. A typical kaskara hilt with the grip bound with leather strips