art-of-swords:

Ear Dagger

• Dated: circa 1300
• Culture: 

  Moorish

The dagger has a straight, single -and false-edged blade, while the base is stamped with a cross and a circle. There’s a slight fuller at the tang, gold-inlaid with fine hunt drawings (hunter, deer, wild boar, dogs and lion) on racemes. The typical, iron hilt, the band, the inside of the ears, the inside of the risers and the pommel are gold-inlaid with oriental symbols framed by arabesque. The quillon -block is covered with dark horn plaques in the shape of a hourglass, ebony grip scales, engraved with floral motifs, the plaques of the ears worked en suite, at the borders some letters looking like the “R” and the Greek “Pi”, gold rivets.

For similar daggers see “A Record Of European Armour and Arms”, Vol. III, by Sir Guy Francis Laking, pp 49 – 55, the number 827 shows the same mark and has a very similar decoration in gold. There is another similar dagger in “Blankwaffen” by Heribert Seitz, Vol. I, page 214/215. Dated 1372, it is in the National Museum of Florence and shows, a part from the same structure, a similar gold decoration.

Source: Copyright © 2017 Live Auctioneers