Origins And Cultural Contacts 321
Caucasian close combat weapons.105 In his dissertation on Saltovo culture
horse burials and other studies, Aksenov used the crossguard classfication of
Korzukhina and Merpert.106 However, Hungarian research was mainly influ-
enced by the studies of Arendt107 and Merpert108 on crossguards, while the
blades of these sabres were not considered.
Several scholars argued that on the 7th-century wall paintings of Afrasiab
(Old Samarkand) Turkic warriors are depicted with slightly curved sabres,109
but firstly Irina Arzhantseva measured the curvature of the blades on the wall
paintings and she discovered that the blades of fig. 37 and 38 are curved in
fact: this observation verifies the early (7th century) appearance of sabres in
Central Asia.110
On the basis of this short overview of the history of the study of the sabre, it
is obvious that most studies focused either on the crossguard or the false edge,
with very little attention given to the blade itself. Moreover, discussion of chro-
nology and the origin of the sabres are based mainly on historical hyptheses
concerning migration.
The various attributes of these sabres will be examined in each region contem-
porary to those of the Carpathian Basin.
1.4.1.1 False Edge
Single-edged swords with false edge appeared in Eastern Europe during the 7th
century. One of the earliest examples was found in the burial of Üch Tepe on a
sword with P-shaped suspension loops, and was dated by Csanád Bálint to the
middle of the 6th century based on the coin of Justinian found as part of the
burial assemblage,111 though the same burial is usually dated to the 7th century
in Russian research.112 The false edge being observed on the single-edged sword
105 Kochkarov 2008, 24–25.
106 Aksenov – Mikheev 2006, 107.
107 Zakharov – Arendt 1935.
108 Garam mainly usd the study of Merpert (1955) on the origin of sabres (Garam 1991a, 146).
109 M.G. Magomedov, A.K. Ambroz, L. Kovács and J. Werner shared this view. Cited by Kovács
1980, 7–9.
110 Arzhantseva 1987, 127.
111 The burial was dated by Iessen (1965, 179) to the 620s, and identified with a Khazar elite war-
rior participating in the siege of Tiflis (Tbilisi) in 628. Csanád Bálint (1978, 186; Bálint 1989,
36–37) dated it by associated coin to the 6th century (Bálint 1992, 332, 370; Bálint 1995, 118).
112 Alternate datings: the 7th century: Kiss 1997, 261–265); second half of the 7th century,
parallel to Malaja Pereshchepina and Kelegej: Komar (2006, 118).