Weapons - Armour-piercing sword
Kashan Beg (fallen 1532)
Origin and time: Turkey, around 1532
KHM (Museum of Fine Arts), Vienna
Inv. No. C 162
The armour-piercing sword was a thrusting weapon with a long square-edged blade, primarily employed in Eastern and Southern Europe and especially used for piercing through the opponent´s chain mail. In addition to the sabre, the armour-piercing sword was carried as secondary weapon and was affixed beneath the horse saddle. This specimen of a richly ornamented armour-piercing sword belonged to Kashan Beg, the commander of the Turkish armed forces. In 1532, he fell in battle on field Steinfeld (between Baden and Wiener Neustadt), were his troops were beleaguered by the Emperor´s army under Schertlin von Burtenbach and suffered a crushing defeat. The Turkish troops were almost entirely wiped out in this battle.
