Subject: khassaki knight

Culture: Circassian-Mamluk

Setting: Burji sultanate, Egypt/Mediterranean 15thc

Object: spear

* Metropolitan Museum of Art > Stone Gallery of Arms and Armor

"Lance Head, Gilt Steel

Syria or Egypt, Mamluk period, about 1500" ...

* Metropolitan Museum of Art > Stone Gallery of Arms and Armor

Field Ensign

Steel Syrian, Mamluk period, about 1500

Ensigns like this one, which often served as finials for standards, were used to identify units of the army on the battlefield and in military reviews before the sultan. This ensign bears a Koranic inscription and the name of a Syrian emir, Sayff al-Dīn Tarabāy, who is recorded to have commissioned a mausoleum in Cairo in 1503/4.

"This is probably one of the many ensigns that were taken as booty by the Ottomans when they defeated the Mamluks in 1517." ...