knifephotograph

Gurkha Kukri Almora 1921 Kukri, Cookri, Kookeri: national knife and principal weapon of the Gurkhas of Nepal. Following war with Britain 1814-16, Nepal ceded 2 territories but remained independent and has supplied volunteers to Gurkha Regiments serving alongside the British, and since 1947, the Indian Armies. The kukri’s shape is said to derive from the blade of the kopis,(or khopesh), carried by the troops of Alexander the Great into India in the 4th century BC. This is a particularly fine steel-hilted example. Hilt: steel, swells from shoulder to a hand stop consisting of a ring and then swells out to a flat oval-sectioned pommel 65mm/2.6ins. long. Blade: widens from shoulder and approximately halfway down bends at 30 degrees finishing in a leaf shape. The edge is on the concave side.2 fullers at the back edge. There’s a small M-shaped cutout at the shoulder. This is the cho (or kauri), the purpose of which is not agreed on. The weight of the blade is well towards the point.