A rare Khazar or Al-Arsiya Sword, Southern Russian steppe, circa 9th century

the slightly curved steel blade with single cutting edge regularly tapering to the tip, blade shoe with foliate edge at the forte, the hilt with short quillons and narrow pommel with traces of incised geometric decoration, two scabbard mounts with further incised decoration, presentation box

This rarely seen type of sword belongs to a group of the earliest extant sabres whose steppe origins in the 8th-9th century are only now emerging from obscurity.

The curvature of the blade and the position of the tip outside the axis at the back of the blade are characteristics of the slashing sword or Turkic sabre type. The earliest excavated examples are from graves around Kursk and Kiev dating to between the ninth and thirteenth centuries and the rule of the Khazaria Turks (Elgood 1979, p.179, fig.41, p.185).  A celebrated blade that relates to the Khazar group is the so-called "Charlemagne Sabre", one of the oldest sabres from the western steppe preserved in Europe; believed at one time to be the gift of Harun al-Rashid to Charlemagne, but now thought to have been brought back by Eric of Friuli in A.D. 796, the sword is housed in the Schatzkammer of the Hofburg Palace, Vienna (see Berlin 1989, p.531, cat.3/3, fig. 622). 

The Khazaria Turks, who are perhaps best known from their conversion to Judaism in the 8th-9th century, occupied an extensive territory that stretched from the Volga basin in the Caucasus to Khwarizm in Central Asia.  Their rule lasted for at least 250 years, supported militarily by Muslim mercenaries, known as al-Arsiyah, 'As or al-'As.  Their capital was at Kiev (Kuyaba or Kuyabad in the Arabic and Turkish sources).

Much of what we know about the Khazaria and al-Arsiyah comes from Arabic sources. The geographer and traveller, al-Mas'udi, in his Muruj al-Dhahab ("Meadows of Gold"), writes: 'The predominant element in this country are the Muslims as they form the royal army.  They are known in this country as Arsiyah and are immigrants from neighbouring Khawarizm. ... They are strong and courageous and the Khazar king relies on them in his wars.  They have continued to reside in his country on certain conditions; one being the open profession of their religion with permission for mosques and the call for prayer.  Further the Vizierate must belong to them.  At present the Vizier is one of them, Ahmed ibn Kuyah.'

Mas'udi continues: 'When the king of the Khazars is at war with the Muslims, they have a separate place in his army and do not fight the people of their own faith.  They fight with him against all the unbelievers.  At such times about 7000 of them ride with the king, archers with breast plates, helmets and coats of arms.  Some also are lancers, equipped and armed like the Muslims.  They also have Muslim judges (qudat).'

The single-edged slashing sword of the Al-Arsiyah military corps must have related closely to the blades of the Samanids, Ghaznavids and Seljuqs, as well as other nomadic Turkic tribes of the steppe, though precious few examples from any of these dynasties survive (see Hamburg 1993, no.123, pp.186-7).  There is a related example in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (inv. no. 40.170.168) found during excavations at Nishapur which "probably belonged to a Turkic warrior in the employ of the Samanid dynasty  which ruled in Nishapur from [A.H.] 261-390 / [A.D.]874-999" (Riyadh 1996, vol. II, p.99).  A further related example was sold at Christie's, 10 October 2000, lot 225.