194 CHAPTER 3
Besides sabres and single-edged swords with star-shaped crossguards, she also
described a ‘late Saltovo type crossguard’ and sabres with P-shaped suspension
loops. According to her study sabres were used from the last third of the 7th
century until the beginning of the 9th century.130
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 chronology and the origin of the sabres are based mainly on historical
hyptheses concerning migration.
1.3.2 The Definition and Aspects of Classification of the Sabre
Sabres are edged weapons with curved blade and false edge. In past research,
different terminology has been used for distinguishing the sabre from single-
edged swords. Various researchers have used different attributes in respect of
this distinction and in several instances sabres and single-edged swords were
not distinguished at all, despite different national research traditions, such as
Russian, German or English, having terms for differentiating the two forms.131
Whilst the curved blade of these sabres were already observed in earlier
research, the measuring of this curve as an attribute for classification was not
undertaken until much later. Svetlana Aleksandrovna Pletneva was the first
to classify sabre blades based on their curvature, describing it as the segment
height of a circle composed by a line between the tip and stem of the back of
the blade, observing an increase in this curvature from the 8th to the 13th cen-
tury.132 Umar Jusufovich Kochkarov combined different attributes in his study
of Caucasian sabres, examining instead the correspondence between this cur-
vature and length of the blade,133 both of which increased over time.134
Unfortunately very few followed the example of these two authors, and con-
sequently there is no full classification for the sabre. My intention is to contrib-
ute to the definition and classification of sabres in some detail. Curved blades
are considered to be those where the midline of the blade cannot be described
as straight, and where the curve of the edge and the back of the blade can
130 Garam 1991a, 142–160.
131 The Russian and Slavonic languages in general distinguish the sabres (сабля) of curved
blade and the single-edged swords of straight blade (палаш).
132 Pletneva distinguished five types based on the curvature of the sabre blades (Pletneva
1973, 17–19).
133 Kochkarov (2008, 25–27) distinguished 8 blade types based on the correlation of curva-
ture and blade length.
134 Kochkarov 2008, 39.