Kilij
The Yatagan sword
Gaddare
Karabela Sword
PALA – OTTOMAN KILIJ SWORD
Horasani
Kirmani
Dımışki Damascus Sword
Memluk sword
Shamshir Sword
The Central Asian Turks and their offshoots began using curved cavalry swords beginning from the late Xiongnu period. The earliest examples of curved, single edged Turkish swords can be found associated with the late Xiongnu and Kök-Turk empires.These swords were made of pattern welded high carbon crucible steel, generally with long slightly curved blades with one sharp edge. A sharp back edge on the distal third of the blade known as yalman or yelman was introduced during this period.
Vienna, Treasury of the German Order. Ottoman sabres ( 17th century )
A British Hussar general with a scabbarded kilij of Turkish manufacture (1812).
In the Early Middle Ages, the Turkic people of Central Asia came into contact with Middle Eastern civilizations through their shared Islamic faith. Turkic Ghilman slave-soldiers serving under the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates introduced "kilij" type sabers to all of the other Middle Eastern cultures. Previously, Arabs and Persians used straight-bladed swords such as the earlier types of the Arab saif, takoba and kaskara.
During Islamizaton of the Turks, the kilij became more and more popular in the Islamic armies. When the Seljuk Empire invaded Persia and became the first Turkic Muslim political power in Western Asia, kilij became the dominant sword form. The Iranian (Persian) shamshir was created during the Turkic Seljuk Empire period of Iran/Persia.
After the invasion of Anatolia this sword type was carried by Turkomen tribes to the future seat of the Ottoman Empire. During the Crusades, Turks of Anatolia were the first target to be attacked by the European armies, and their curved swords were misperceived by Europeans as the imaginative "scimitar of the Saracens", the generic sword type for all "Orientals".
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