Journal Analele Banatului N.S. Archaeology-History

Zoran Marcov

Contribuţii la identificarea şi clasificarea puştilor vest-balcanice cu cremene prezente în muzeele din România / Contributions to Identifying and Classifying Western Balkans Flintlock Rifles from the Romanian Museums

Jan. 1, 2015

Abstract

During the Ottoman domination in the Balkan Peninsula, the powerful oriental influences layered on ancient European cultural legacy in the area paved the way to the arrival of some specific types of portable weapons, unseen in the rest of the Ottoman Empire. Massive import of barrels and flintlock mechanisms from Western Europe, especially from the Italian space, promoted full development of rifle production in the Western Balkans. Shortly, under the influence of Ottoman armorers, Balkan craftsmen gave up the standard shape of the hunting rifle of Italian origin and gave free rein to their imagination. Remarkable results came from the cultural and artistic confluences of East and West, at least in the field of portable weapons; the specific shapes of some gun-stocks from the tančice category – especially the roga, karanfilka and rašak types – firmly certify the originality of the Balkan armorers. The flintlock rifles crafted within the western Balkan Peninsula, during the 17th and 19th centuries, are well known under the name of tančice or arnautke. Etymologically speaking, the term tančica comes from SerboCroatian and refers to the narrow and slender shape of these rifles; translated word by word into Romanian, tanak means slender. Regarding the second name used by literature, arnautka, the term is referred to the Albanian origin of those rifles; Albania is considered to be the birthplace of these rifles inspired by the Italian model, then craftsmanship was spread throughout the Balkans. Depending on the shape of the gun-stock, there are two types of tančice rifles: tančice including rifles known as roga, karanfilka and rašak; and the džeferdar and čibuklija rifles, weapons more similar to the Italian hunting rifles than to the Ottoman guns. The main characteristic of the džeferdar and čibuklija rifles is given by the weapons decor, typical for the Balkans, more than the gun-stock shape (identical to the Italian type). Generally, in Romania, these flintlock rifles are considered to be of Turkish origin, most rarely identified as Balkan weapons of Albanian, Bosnian or Montenegrin origin. Since the interwar period, many research studies had been dedicated to the flintlock rifles within their territory of origin, the former Yugoslav territory. Nowadays, many categories of flintlock rifles had been researched. Speaking about the process of dating the Western Balkans rifles, the large majority of the exhibits harbored by the Romanian museums are dated between the 18th and the 19th centuries. The turn of the centuries is considered to be time of intense production of weapons in the Balkans. In the Balkan Peninsula, the flintlock rifles have been used until late 19th century.