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Myth of the Peaceful, Noble Savage (New York: St. Martin’s
Press, 2003).
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of Late Antiquity (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press,
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sum/mhak4.html#c11. Downloaded on May 13, 2007.
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Worl d (London: Routledge, 1993).
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Hans Van Wees, Greek Warfare: Myths and Realities (London:
Duckworth, 2004).▶ weaponry and armor
introduction
Warfare has been a constant element of life since ancient
times, yet relatively few ancient weapons and armor have
survived to be studied. Iron decays easily, as does the wood
and other organic materials that early people used for weap-
ons. Bronze has a better rate of survival, but this material was
not used in southern Africa, the Americas, and Oceania. Th e
study of ancient weaponry is further complicated by confu-
sion over how weapons were used. While surviving art and
literature from Europe, the Near East, and Asia contains de-
scriptions of weaponry and armor, the same sources are not
available for other regions of the world.
In Europe weapons were used almost exclusively to kill
enemies and prey. A few daggers and swords, highly deco-
rated and in the possession of high-status men, had ceremo-
nial purposes. Daggers, swords, and spears were typically
used for combat, with only daggers intended strictly for
attacks upon humans. Slings were the fi rst missile weapon,
followed by the enormously popular bows and arrows. Th e
Greeks invented chemical warfare in the form of Greek
fi re and sulfur gas. Metal, wood, skins, and leather were
employed to construct head and body coverings as well as
shields. Th e users of weaponry and armor in Europe were
almost exclusively male.
In the Near East warriors used the same sorts of weap-
onry and armor that were found in Europe. Th e Assyrians
are the earliest warriors of history of whom we have detailed
knowledge. Th ey were armed with spears, battle-axes, maces,
swords, and shields as well as bows and arrows. Assyrians
show liquid fi re on bas-relief artwork. Along with other peo-
ple of the region, they employed simple incendiary materials
such as blazing arrows, pots of boiling oil, and naphtha. Bab-
ylonian spearmen protected themselves with square shields
held edge to edge, as did the Greek phalanxes and Roman le-
gions 3,000 years later. Th e Assyrians were the fi rst to develop
scale armor that consisted of many small metal plates sewn
on a leather jacket so that the rows overlapped.In the Americas some of the aboriginal people used cop-
per and bronze, but they never developed wrought iron or
steel for weapons. Stone arrowheads and spearheads contin-
ued to be used century aft er century, as they were in Oceania.
In Asia the Hindus became renowned as the best temperers
of steel in the ancient world. Few clues to the weaponry of an-
cient Africa remain. Th e Africans passed from the Stone Age
directly into the Iron Age, missing the Bronze Age entirely.
In the context of ancient Africa a weapon has to be viewed
as part of a highly complex system of interdependent actions
and beliefs. Some weapons were empowered by the applica-
tion of magical substances. No matter how thick the hide of a
shield or well tempered the blade of a sword, both were con-
sidered incomplete without the symbolic designs applied to
them. Even accessories such as sword sheaths seem also to
have had great importance.AFRICA
BY CARYN E. NEUMANN
Western understandings of weaponry have limited applica-
tion to Africa. In ancient Africa the separation between mili-
tary and civilian life was not as distinct as in the West. While
European weapons were made to kill, ancient African weap-
onry came in a wide variety of forms developed for use in
political, religious, or other ritual or ceremonial contexts; not
all were designed to kill.
Weaponry in Africa began with rock. Th e oldest surviv-
ing weapons in the world are pebbles chipped into blades that
were found in Africa. Th ese weapons also could double as
tools or perhaps were an adaptation from tools; their use as
tools no doubt preceded their use as weapons. Th ese rough
weapons advanced into knives made of sharpened rock, spears
with stone tips, and hand axes shaped like almonds. One type
of hand ax, the cleaver, has been found only in Africa. It had a
heft y blade used for hacking, slashing, and cutting.
A wide variety of raw materials, including quartzite,
hornfels, mudstone, and chert, was used in southern Africa for
stone point production. Herodotus reported that Africans used
spears with heads constructed from the sharpened horns of an-
telope. Th e points, with distinctive tangs, were bound to spears
with plant twine, bark, leather thongs, and sinew. Th e bind-
ing materials would have been moistened before application.
Moistened bindings expand and become more pliable before
contracting to their original size upon drying. Th is shrinkage,
and the fact that individual strands on dr ying tend to adhere to
one another, leaves the point fi rmly secured on the haft.
Th e fi rst long-range missile weapon was probably a sling,
although no ancient African slings have survived. Slings were
originally used by ancient shepherds to scare predatory ani-
mals that were attacking their herds. Th ey gradually became
weapons of warfare, used by light-armed troops against simi-
larly defenseless warriors. Th e sling consisted of two leather
or sinew straps. Each strap was attached at one end to the
sides of a small piece of leather or cloth. Th e other end of oneweaponry and armor: Africa 11610895-1194_Soc&Culturev4(s-z).i1161 1161 10/10/07 2:31:17 PM