Weapons & Warfare
Ancient Egyptian Weapons: Projectiles, Javelin, Bow and arrow, slingshot. The Throw Stick This somewhat boomerang shaped weapon had little military value, but was, according to the tomb depictions of hunting scenes, extensively used for hunting fowl in the thickets of the Delta reed marshes. They were cheap to make (unlike the much more sophisticat...
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The Hellenistic Age began with the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and lasted until the true establishment of the Roman Empire upon the death of Cleopatra in 30 BC. The method of warfare inancient Greece, and the world, consisted of arrows spears, swords, axes and shields. Because of its ease of casting and superiority in strength, bronze wa...
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Ancient Greek Artillery Technology: From Catapults to the Architronio Canon
- Bows (the first machine invented by man?) were used at least since 8000 BC according to cave paintings in 'les Dogues' (Castellón, France). Probably bows were invented much earlier (around 20000 BC). The word Catapult comes from the Greek words kata and peltes. (Kata mea...
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Ultimately, and outside of military architecture such as fortresses, the ancient Egyptians used three forms of defensive military equipment, which included body armor and helmets, shields and siege shelters, though most of these items were seen fairly late in the Dynastic period (with the exception of the shield, which may be dated back as for as t...
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One distinguishes between two kinds of battle axe: the cutting and the piercing axe. Both were used by Egyptian soldiers, but under different circumstances. The cutting axe is a blade fastened to a sizable handle, the idea being to keep as far as possible from harm's way. As relatively little power was exerted the affixing of the blade to the handl...
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The book of Judges describes the period when the Israelites were settling into the Promised Land following the Exodus from Egypt. Because the conquest was not complete, warfare was frequent, and resulted in the hero stories preserved in Judges. These heroes were known as "judges", meaning, not people who decided court cases, but military leaders wh...
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The Old Kingdom had soldiers equipped with a great variety of weapons: shields, spears, cudgels, maces, daggers, bows and arrows... Quivers and battle axes came into use before the second Intermediary Period, which was a time of revolution in the Egyptian martial arts. The earliest metal arrowheads date from the 11th dynasty (ca.2000 BCE), made of ...
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The Roman engineers wanted a bigger machine with a greater range, so in 50 b.C., they invented the ballista. The ballista was, unlike the Greek Catapulta, built almost entirely out of wood. The ballista used an older spring frame type that was more powerful as the arms could travel further, but it was also more expensive so it was used primarily fo...
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By Werner Soedel and Vernard Foley Scientific American, March 1979, pp. 150 - 160 In 399 B.C. Dionysius the Elder, ruler of the Greek colony of Syracuse in Sicily, prepared his city for a long war with Carthage by undertaking search and development program. Utilizing such now familiar techniques as the assembly of large teams of specialists, the di...
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To win a war, the successful adversary must have a leading superiority in tactics and weapons. Even though a tactic could fail, if the army had good weapons, it could still help the soldiers to win. Even if the strategy to save more people actually meant more losses because it did not work, there could still be a victory in the end. Every army must...
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