Khanjali
double edged dagger

Khanjali (Abkhaz: Аҩҽы/Кама; Adyghe: къамэ; Avar: Ханжар;
Armenian: խանջալ;
Azerbaijani: Qəmə/xəncər; Chechen: шаьлта; Dargin: ханжал, Georgian: ხანჯალი; Ingush: шалта; Lezgin: Гапур; Ossetian: Хъама) also known as a kindjal, is a double-edged dagger used in the Caucasus. The shape of the weapon is similar to that of the ancient Roman gladius, the Scottish dirk and the ancient Greek xiphos. Inhabitants of Caucasus have used the Kindjal as a secondary weapon since the 18th century.
Such daggers and their scabbards are often highly engraved with gold or silver designs, and sometimes include embedded gemstones. The scabbard will generally feature a ballpoint extension on the tip, and the handle is usually made of materials such as wood or ivory.
Name
In Georgian it can be called khanjali or satevari.
In Dagestan it is called khanjali.
In Azerbaijan it is called khanjar .
In Armenia it is called khanchal.
In Chechnya/Ingushetia it is shalta.
“Khanjali” enters the record as double edged dagger. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Khanjali, double and edged can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Khanjali” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Khanjali, double and edged provides the most credible route into that argument.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q960281. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Khanjali” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.