Katars from the Metropolitan Museum of Art

[estcrh]

The Indian katar (jamdhar/jamadher) has undergone very little change in form during many centuries. This can be seen by studying old paintings, miniatures and other ancient art. It is known that Ibn Battuta, an Algerian travelling in India in the 14th century, described an attack with a katar, but so far the roots and the age of the katar have not been researched further back. Jens Nordlunde has traced it back to Orissa in the 10th century, showing a form very similar to how it looks today.

The Metropolitan Museum has 82 katars in their collection, of these only 2 are on display and 63 are available for viewing online. The majority of the museums katar were willed to the museum by George C. Stone, it is a superb and varied collection and yet it is practically unknown and unseen. Many of the images are high resolution which allows the fine details to be brought out with editing.

I have gone through and edited all of the images and created many new ones including some with incredible detail. I have also created a pinterest site and added the images of each katar there so that anyone can view them. Unfortunately there is not a lot of info attached to the museums katars as far as region of manufacture etc. These are not your typical katar such as you would see on ebay etc, many of these are from the 16th and 17th century and reflect an advanced degree of workmanship and artistry, they are both beautiful and deadly.

http://www.pinterest.com/worldantiques/ ... t-collect/

[ckkalyan]

Thanks for sharing estcrh - some lovely work, fine detail!

[estcrh]

Thanks for sharing estcrh - some lovely work, fine detail!

Your welcome, the Metropolitan Museum has the largest and most diverse collection of Indian knives and daggers that I know of, I am in the process of editing all of the other images besides katars and will post a link when I am done here are a few examples.

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