Ancient Egyptian weapons?

S

satin

Joined
Apr 6, 2001
Messages
1,394
Called my girlfriend today, and she has this project she's doing for some class or another, and she's doing it on egyptian weapons.

Her computer is in the shop so I have been assigned with the duty of "research assitant".

So anybody got any links to good site that provide good general information on ancient egyptian weapons? (I put this thread here cause I assumed a good number of the weapons would be blades of one form or another.)

Or any pics/info you got yourselves?

I have absolutely JACK idea about this stuff....so any help will be appreciated/
 
Check out Richard F. Burton's The Book of the Sword, the reprint of the 1884 edition: ISBN 0-486-25434-8.
 
Thanks y'all!

Tired now, its late, but i went, and bookmarked them all.
Looks good. Will read them tomorrow. Cull out any and all information for her.

Any more links, info, pics will be appreciated.

Also, to get down to specifics, anyone know of anywhere (prefferably online!!!) that I can find information on the methods of forging weapons that the egyptians used??
Since my girl is talking about getting me involved in an extension of her project to re-create an egyptian battle tool of some sort, using authentic methods would be all that much better.

Thanks again (and in advance for whats yet to come I hope) y'all.
 
The Ancient Egypt of which we think when we we think of Ancient Egypt was a Bronze Age society. They did not so much forge weapons as cast then and the hammer anneal the edge. If you beat on bronze, at least up to a point, you can harden it so that it can take a really quite sharp edge. There was some iron available by the time of the XVIIIth Dynasty, mostly by way of trade, it is thought, from the Hittites. Among teh items found in the Tomb of the Phaoah Tutankhamun was a very elaborate dagger with a carburized iron blade. The hilt and scabbard were made of extremely elaborate goldwork. Finding such an item is a royal grave would not be uncommon, as iron blades were restricted by their value to the highest nobility.

The basic weapons of the Ancient Egyptians were the mace, usually a stone head on a wooden shaft; the spear, a shaft with a bronze spearhead and bronze butt-spike; bow and arrows, using a built-up bow of horn, sinew, etc. and cane arrows with various points on them including bronze, stone, bone, and even very hard wood; bronze daggers, axes made of cast bronze heads on wooden hafts; and a sickle-like sword called a kopesh or kopis made of cast bronze with a hammered blade shaped sort of like a (?) with the hilt at the bottom and the inside of the loop sharpened and the tip pointed, clearly a slashing weapon and not a thrusting weapon.

Again, I stress that you do not so much forge bronze as you hammer anneal a blade already cast into the rough shape. The hammer-annealing does make the material denser and more able to take and to hold an edge, but it is not the same as forging a blade.

I hope that this is of some help. I don't have sites for you, as this is based upon the many books that I have read and I haven't a scanner to put the pictures on the system.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top