Subject: tabardar elite guard / halberdier
Culture: Mamluk
Setting: Mamluk sultanate, Egypt/Mediterranean 13th-15thc
Object: tabar ax
Metropolitan Museum of Art > Stone Gallery of Arms and Armor *
"Ax, Steel damascened with gold Syrian, Mamluk period, 15th century
The Mamluk sultans and emirs employed a special corps of ax-bearers,
probably in imitation of the Varangian (Viking) guard of the emperors of Byzantium.
The cup decorating the socket of this ax is the blazon of a Mamluk emir
and indicates that he was originally a cupbearer to the sultan." ...
Windlass *
