Судан и Большой Ближний Восток

225 Alexander S. Matveev A Case of Survival of an Early Medieval Straight Sword: “ Kaskara ” Broadswords in Pre-Modern Sudan Abstract . The straight-bladed double edged Sudanese swords, known as kaskara , 1 were a main shock weapon in the hand-to-hand combat in pre-modern Sudan and survived as such until the 20th century. The kaskara ’s characteristic cross-shaped hilt drew the attention of European travellers and British officers who fought against the Mah- dist movement in the late 19th century; and prompted the assumption that these swords were borrowed from the Crusaders. Despite such a popular belief, they have nothing to do with the Crusaders or Medieval Europe, but represent a continuation of a pre-Islamic Arabic tradition brough to the Sudan by the Arab tribes that migrated there in theMiddle Ages; later this pattern was adopted by indigenous tribes in Darfur and Kordofan, as well as by the Beja in Eastern Sudan. 1 The term is not an ‘indigenous’ Sudanese name of the sword, as one may expect, but rather a result of some misunderstanding; hence it has to be considered as a European collectors’ convention to be used for the sake of brevity.