BTW, an interesting idea of certainty regarding the term machaira seems to have entered the market place of ideas and I'm curious to know how; in my youth I remember reading in the official type histories (for what they're worth) that, as with many ancient weapon terms, it was not known precisely what object machaira referred to, but only that it was a cutting hilt weapon (ie. sword); some said it had no thrusting point, though this seems to be a commonly developed falsehood about swords primarily for cutting (ex nihon-to) double edged leaf swords were considered to be in the running..... Perhaps this was one of the many errors of isolationistic N American Nationalist science; I don't know; certainly most of the work comming out of the steppes was sneered away and ignored as supposedly politically driven "Communist science" in USA until quite recently. I'm also curious as to whether the term was used to refer to tools (knives) in the ancient days, or only to weapons; I've only encountered it (anciently) as a weapon term, but then I've only encountered it when reading about weapons.
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