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1884.24.147

Katar with long triangular blade and gilt handle decorated with a flower design. [SM 27/04/2007]

On display

1884.24.147

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Collection type
Object
Description
Katar with long triangular blade and gilt handle decorated with a flower design. [SM 27/04/2007]
Long description
Katar with long triangular blade and gilt handle decorated with a flower design. The blade has deep grooves running down its length. The katar has long side guards and there are two cross bars which are expanded in the centre. [SM 27/04/2007]
Date / Period
Date made: Possibly before 1874
Date collected
?By 1874
Acquisition information
Donated: 1884
Materials and processes
Material Steel Metal, Material Gilt Metal, Process Forged (Metal), Process Gilded, Process Decorated
Dimensions
Length: max 443 mm, Width: max 84 mm
Object numbers
Accession number: 1884.24.147 PR Cat other PR nos: 1214
Research and responses

The following notes are drawn from research compiled by Andy Mills as part of the DCF Cutting Edge Project 2006-2007. The katar is a very particular weapon, quite unique to India. They are transverse-handled stabbing knives, with aesthetically refined arch-profiled blades, which are often etched with deep fullers, decoratively incised with relief designs, and occasionally pierced. There is often the rich use of mixed metals – the arm-guards being composed of cast relief-work gilded brass, as in our examples. Katars bearing high-relief sculptural decoration are characteristically associated with the northern Maratha (Mahratta) states of the 17th and 18th centuries, spanning the entire width of the subcontinent (see Indian & Oriental Armour. by Lord Egerton of Tatton, published in 1896 by Arms and Armour Press. p.65). The Mina tribe of Rajputana were among the Maratha army’s most accomplished users of the katar (Egerton 1896. p.114). The secular nature of the decoration to be seen on these knives is another Maratha characteristic, although Egerton figures a number of Punjabi katar which bear much the same decoration (Egerton 1896. p.131). Their diversity, extremely wide distribution and lack of academic attention makes any truly meaningful attribution almost impossible. The transverse grip is particularly interesting, as it reflects a more ergonomically-informed approach to a stabbing weapon than most other knives.

This katar is much larger than either 1902.87.15 or 1884.24.152, although it is stylistically much closer in form to 1902.87.15. It has the same straight-sided forearm-guards, although this weapon is decorated with a niello technique. Niello is a widely-practiced technique very similar to koftgari, whereby a gold (or, as here, gilt-brass) ground is incised with a design and infilled with niello (a black alloy of sulphur, copper, silver and often lead) (Wikipedia). Insofar as the Indians derived niello technology from the Persians (Egerton, 1896. p.70), it is likely that this piece is Mogul in origin, or at least from Northwestern India. The blade is very nice, wrought with a relief panel containing a conventionalised floral motif. However, it is highly abstracted and refined. [SM 16/06/2008]

Search terms: Weapon, Tool, Knife, Dagger

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