edged sword, and in the sixth century CE a longer, slightly curved cavalry variety of this weapon appeared in southern Siberia. This "proto-sabre" (the Turko-Mongol sabre) had developed into the true cavalry sabre by the eight century CE, and by the ninth century, it had become the usual side arm on the Eurasian steppes. The sabre arrived in Europe with the Magyars and the Turkic expansion. These oldest sabres had a slight curve, short, down-turned quillons, the grip facing the opposite direction to the blade and a sharp point with the top third of the reverse edge sharpened. Early modern period The introduction of the sabre proper in Western Europe, along with the term sabre itself, dates to the 17th century, via the influence of the szabla type ultimately derived from these medieval backswords. The adoption of the term is connected to the employment of Hungarian hussar (huszár) cavalry by Western European armies at the time. Hungarian hussars were employed as light cavalry, with the role of harassing enemy skirmishers, overrunning artillery positions, and pursuing fleeing troops. In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, many Hungarian hussars fled to other Central and Western European countries and became the core of light cavalry formations created there. The Hungarian term szablya is ultimately traced to the northwestern Turkic selebe, with contamination from the Hungarian verb szab "to cut". The original type of sabre, or Polish szabla, was used as a cavalry weapon, possibly inspired by Hungarian or wider Turco-Mongol warfare. The karabela was a type of szabla popular in the late 17th century, worn by the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth nobility class, the szlachta. While designed as a cavalry weapon, it also came to replace various types of straight-bladed swords used by infantry. The Swiss sabre originated as a regular sword with a single-edged blade in the early 16th century, but by the 17th century began to exhibit specialized hilt types. Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth In the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (16th–18th century) a specific type of sabre-like melee weapon, the szabla, was used. Richly decorated sabres were popular among the Polish nobility, who considered it to be one of the most important pieces of men's traditional attire. With time, the design of the sabre greatly evolved in the commonwealth and gave birth to a variety of sabre-like weapons, intended for many tasks. In the following centuries, the ideology of Sarmatism as well as the Polish fascination