A BONE HILTED DAGGER WITH SAFAVID WATERED-STEEL BLADE, PERSIA 17TH CENTURY A BONE HILTED DAGGER WITH SAFAVID WATERED-STEEL BLADE, PERSIA 17TH CENTURY A BONE HILTED DAGGER WITH SAFAVID WATERED-STEEL BLADE, PERSIA 17TH CENTURY

A BONE HILTED DAGGER WITH SAFAVID WATERED-STEEL BLADE, PERSIA 17TH CENTURY

Reference: ART3004954

The tapering, double-edged watered steel blade with central ridge and raised inscription in shaped cartouches chiselled on both faces at the forte, the bone hilt with waisted faced grip.
Length: 50 cm.

Inscriptions On the blade: On one side: the Basmallah with a cartouches enclosing 'ya fattah', 'O The Opener [of all doors]!' On the second side part of v.13 from surah Al-Saff" ya fattah". On the grip: surah Al-Ikhals repeated two times.

Attributed to Faizallah Shushtari Isfahani, the Persian metalsmith who forged this weapon. Some information is known about Faizallah Shushtari Isfahani, who lived and worked in the late 17th to early 18th centuries in Persia and whose nisba (place-name) associates him with the city of Isfahan. In 1707–8, he was commissioned by the Safavid Shah Sultan Husayn (r. 1694–1722) to make sets of steel door plaques for the Shrine of Imam Reza in Mashhad.