Regarding Some Peculiarities of the Defensive and Offensive Weapons of Amir Timur and Timurid Warriors in the Last Third of the Fourteenth to the Fifteenth Centuries

The flourishing of Muslim science and culture during the Timurid Renaissance was largely due to the patronage of the descendants of the great conqueror Amir Timur (Shah Rukh, Iskandar Sultan, Ulugh Beg, Ibrahim Sultan Baysunghur, etc.). In turn, the political power of the Timurids was based on a very effective military art, which for about a century ensured their dominant position in Maverannahr, Khorasan, and some adjacent territories. An important component of the Timurid military art was the original complex of weapons. Despite the fact that the weapons and armor of the warriors of the region have repeatedly attracted the attention of researchers, they have not yet been sufficiently studied. This paper examines some typical examples of weapons used by the warriors of Amir Timur and the Timurids in the last third of the fourteenth and during the fifteenth centuries: the so-called ‘dragon’ sabers, riveted plate armor of the ‘Timurid type’ and the segmented armguard ‘kharabchi’. They demonstrate the evolution of the weapons of the nations of Western Turkestan in the period considered. This study establishes that the ‘dragon’ sabers were borrowed by the warriors of Amir Timur in India at the end of the fourteenth century. Riveted plate armor with plates of armor riveted from the internal side (‘kujak’) and armguards (‘kharabchi’) appeared in Maverannahr as a result of the Mongol invasion of the thirteenth century, and were subsequently improved by local craftsmen. The fate of these types of weapons was different. The “dragon” sabers were liked by the warriors of Ottoman Turkey and Safavid Iran. Their derivatives continued to be used by warriors of the Muslim East, as well as Eastern and Central Europe, until the seventeenth century. The ‘Timurid-type’ armor and ‘kharabchi’ armguards, on the contrary, were ousted from the widespread military use of the peoples of Maverannahr after its conquest by the troops of Muhammad Shaybani Khan at the beginning of the sixteenth century. However, they did not vanish into thin air. Together with the warriors of Zahir ad-Din Muhammad Babur, the Timurid ‘kujaks’ and armguards penetrated into India, where they continued to be used for more than a century. The analysis showed that the complex of weapons of the Timurid warriors was symbiotic in nature. Many types of weapons and armor were borrowed from neighboring nations, but were subsequently carefully refined by local craftsmen, thereby increasing their functional efficiency

Chivalry · Fifteenth · Offensive · Politics · The Renaissance · Eurasian Exchange Networks · Metallurgy and Cultural Artifacts · Turkish Literature and Culture