South Arabian spears

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by kahnjar1

Nice lot of pics on the thread now, but description of the shaft of ARABIAN spears states the shaft is (usually) bamboo. Many of those shown appear to to be of some other wood (not that it means they are not Arabian)....just an observation.
Stu

Good observation, and it does seem that virtually all these Arabian shafted weapons do seem to have used various types of bamboo, reed and cane in their shafts. Most of the entries I read in Elgood noted that these woods were used from early times and brought in from various places.

The shafts on some of these appear to be smooth and not ribbed like I always think of bamboo, but it seems botanically (NOT my area by far) there are male and female plants.

In the entries that comment on the scarcity of these lances, spears and javelins it does seem that one of the factors that may contribute to this is that the shafts have not survived. Possibly numbers of these heads and butt items have been rehafted with hard woods of other kinds. Elgood does note one type of javelin (mizrak) from the Hijaz with a shaft of 'hard, pliant wood' which was of unknown identity.