Ancient Egyptian Royalty Wielded Serious Weapons

LiveScience ^ | Thursday, July 21, 2011 | Owen Jarus

[SunkenCiv]

Elite members of ancient Egypt, including the pharaoh himself, likely wielded ornate daggers, swords and axes in battle, or to personally execute prisoners, rather than using the shiny metal for ceremonial purposes, research suggests.

The weapons were used during the Bronze Age, a period between 5,000 and 3,000 years ago when the civilization was at its height, according to Daniel Boatright, an Egyptologist at Isle of Wight College in the United Kingdom.

This finding is "strange considering the amount of literature that's been composed so far that basically says that all of them were for ritualistic purposes and were never used in battle," Boatright told LiveScience... Boatright did caution that it can't be ruled out that the weapons may have been used for animal sacrifices.

Boatright analyzed 125 Bronze Age weapons from Egypt, including daggers, swords, arrowheads, axes and spears. He also reviewed reports on 350 additional weapons from that period... He used microscopy and other lab analyses to look for evidence of how the weapons were used...

Not only were they able to be used in battle, it seems about half of the 125 weapons studied showed evidence of wear and tear, suggesting they were actually used. Some of them, such as an ax with a dent in it, are obvious, while others are more subtle, like small nicks on the edge of a blade.

The evidence suggests that elite members of Egyptian society may have gone into battle or executed prisoners personally.

[bigheadfred]

And we can’t dispute it because they are the “experts”.

But we can pull out our 'ceremonial' swords and daggers and slaughter them at will...

[muawiyah]

I'd never tried fencing before so I signed up for a semester of it in the university's required physical training/activity course.

First meeting we got our list of stuff to bring to class. Next meeting we picked up epe's.

So all at once the instructor is over there telling me "Monsieur, you haf, ze' natural grace" ~ and, so it was. I took to sword whacking like it was the family business.

Years later I discovered that it was, in fact, the family business.

We have been MODIFIED by the warrior's occupation!

[hellbender]

I’ve been reading about medieval British history, and kings and aristocrats were originally warriors. They fought their dynastic rivals on the battlefield, and the loser usually got whacked, just as in Mafia power struggles. They would kill their own brothers and cousins if they got in the way. Rebellions and civil wars went on much of the time.

[I still care]

http://www.docufans.com/index.php/home.html

I’ve actually donated to this site.

[I still care]

Here’s part of it, but I cannot find the whole thing.

I would love to legitimately purchase it.

http://britain.docuwat.ch/videos/monarchy/royal-deaths-and-diseases-01/?channel_id=2&skip=0

[thecodont]

First meeting we got our list of stuff to bring to class. Next meeting we picked up epe's.

They didn't start you out with foil?

[muawiyah]

I'm pretty sure we didn't use "foil" design ~ and that would be based on weight alone. You could definitely "feel" the blade. Even though there were women in the class and the lighter weight foil would make more sense I gather that historically swordchopping at that university reflected what had always been a German kultural dominance.

I did very well in the class and the instructors thought I should take the more advanced class and see if I could make the competition level.

Frankly, I had better things to do than swordchopping.

My brother came along years later and he decided bowling and judo were better. He got into Big 10 competition.