Ancient Zealot daggers

fearn · 20th April 2006, 06:23 PM

Hi Fernando,

That makes sense to me. I like your derivation of sickle, BTW.

One note about the falx--it's a tool too. Long handled, curved-bladed choppers were used for coppicing oaks and other trees certainly by Medieval times, and probably back into the Bronze Age (coppicing is an *old* art in Europe). The English brown bill is similar to the falx, and both are similar to the "bank blades" one can buy at a modern hardware store. All of these blades were more popular when coppicing was a major rural industry, and before pruning shears became popular. You can still find them around, for use in clearing brush. In fact, one of them is shown in May's National Geographic, where it's being using by the Inupiat to cut up a bowhead whale. But I digress...

After wandering through that linguistic thicket, it's interesting that so many cultures have some broadly defined term(s) for work cutters (i.e. knife, dao, parang, etc), sometimes weaponized (i.e. combat knife), and specific terms for weapon blades that have little utilitarian use (i.e. longsword, jian, katana, gladius, etc). Probably there's a basic bit of human psychology in there.

F

fernando · 20th April 2006, 08:12 PM

Hi Fearn
About the falx, maybe i didn't express as i wished. Naturally the falx=fouce is basicaly a tool, later "improved" for weaponry. The anatomy aproach was because i couldn't yet figure out whether was the so called brain structure shape that gave the name to the tool, or vice versa.
About people's broad or keen definition of either tools/weapons and objective weapons, i was considering that, in old days, the tools were the optional ( available ) weapons, therefore the little existance of old weapons names based on their unique lethal purpose like, as you remind, the Gladius adopted by Romans.
fernando
By the way
http://psychcentral.com/psypsych/Dagger

20th April 2006, 06:23 PM	#1
fearn Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 1,247	Hi Fernando, That makes sense to me. I like your derivation of sickle, BTW. One note about the falx--it's a tool too. Long handled, curved-bladed choppers were used for coppicing oaks and other trees certainly by Medieval times, and probably back into the Bronze Age (coppicing is an old art in Europe). The English brown bill is similar to the falx, and both are similar to the "bank blades" one can buy at a modern hardware store. All of these blades were more popular when coppicing was a major rural industry, and before pruning shears became popular. You can still find them around, for use in clearing brush. In fact, one of them is shown in May's National Geographic, where it's being using by the Inupiat to cut up a bowhead whale. But I digress... After wandering through that linguistic thicket, it's interesting that so many cultures have some broadly defined term(s) for work cutters (i.e. knife, dao, parang, etc), sometimes weaponized (i.e. combat knife), and specific terms for weapon blades that have little utilitarian use (i.e. longsword, jian, katana, gladius, etc). Probably there's a basic bit of human psychology in there. F

20th April 2006, 08:12 PM	#2
fernando (deceased) Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Portugal Posts: 9,694	Hi Fearn About the falx, maybe i didn't express as i wished. Naturally the falx=fouce is basicaly a tool, later "improved" for weaponry. The anatomy aproach was because i couldn't yet figure out whether was the so called brain structure shape that gave the name to the tool, or vice versa. About people's broad or keen definition of either tools/weapons and objective weapons, i was considering that, in old days, the tools were the optional ( available ) weapons, therefore the little existance of old weapons names based on their unique lethal purpose like, as you remind, the Gladius adopted by Romans. fernando By the way http://psychcentral.com/psypsych/Dagger