European archaeologists have discovered Bronze Age weapon treasures dating back over 4,000 years. Some of the larger and more elaborate weapons, like the 28-inch dagger known as the Oxborough Dirk, may have been ceremonial or prestige pieces, but others show clear marks of combat, signs of violent clashes between ancient communities.
“Throughout the Bronze Age, you see real developments in weaponry,” explains Andrea Dolfini, lecturer in late prehistory at the University of Newcastle and author of Bronze Age Combat: An Experimental Approach. “The manufacture of bronze was a major technological innovation compared to copper. It is a stronger alloy and easier to mold into complex shapes and longer guns.
The following eight Bronze Age weapons began to appear in archaeological records around 2,200 BC.
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1. Lances
Spear points recovered in present-day Italy and dating from the Bronze Age.
iStock / Getty Images
Long before there were swords, there were spears. The first ancient spearheads were chiseled from flint, obsidian and other chipped stones, then attached to the end of a wooden handle. Invented for hunting, stone-tipped spears were later adapted for war, but they pale in comparison to the first bronze spear points cast in Europe around 1800 BC.
Bronze Age spearheads came in a variety of shapes and lengths, some almost as small as an arrowhead and others over a foot long. The oldest bronze spearheads were attached to the rod with an elongated “tang” in the shape of a tail, but few wooden rods survive. As metallurgists improved their casting techniques, they produced longer, sharper spearheads with taper sockets into which the wooden rod was inserted and bolted in place.
Since bronze is still a relatively soft metal compared to iron and steel, Dolfini believes that Bronze Age warriors may have used spears in a “hybrid” fashion, both as weapons. stabbed and sharp. Dolfini and his team staged experimental fights using replica Bronze Age spears to test the theory.
“If you use a shorter, lighter handle, the spear becomes a fantastic weapon,” says Dolfini. “You can use it as a sword or throw it as a javelin. The question is whether the Bronze Age people did it that way. The damage patterns found on ancient weapons seem to confirm it. .
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2. Swords
Swords were a later invention and evolved from shorter daggers or large spearheads. The first true Bronze Age swords appeared between 1600 and 1500 BC and were tapered and light like an elongated dagger. But Dolfini says the damage patterns on these early swords, known as rapiers, show that they were too soft to withstand repeated blade-to-blade contact.
Closer to 1500 BC, a new type of sword with a revolutionary design spread throughout Europe.
“These latest swords have a bulge two-thirds the length of the blade which changes the point of balance and adds weight,” says Dolfini. “If you hit an enemy’s armor or blade, they’re more able to withstand that kind of heavy contact.”
Dolfini notes that even the longest Bronze Age swords weighed less than a kilogram (2.2 pounds), so they were much smaller and lighter than a medieval long sword, for example.
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3. Shields and armor
Shields were essential weapons of the Bronze Age and 99% of them are said to have been made from leather or wood. Only a few of these wooden or skin-covered shields have survived the millennia, mostly in Irish bogs.
Bronze armor of Dendra, Midea (Greece), 15th century BC.
DeAgostini / Getty Images
Making bronze shields involved beating the bronze into flat sheets, a technique that was not discovered until the late Bronze Age. What is amazing, says Dolfini, is the strength of hand-beaten bronze compared to a modern machine-rolled sheet of bronze.
“It’s not a question of thickness,” explains Dolfini. “The average thickness of a Bronze Age shield is 1mm, but the difference is inside the bronze. When you beat the bronze into shape, you stretch the micrograins in such a way that it creates a very effective barrier against penetration.
In their combat experiments with replica beaten bronze shields, Dolfini’s lab bent a replica sword and broke a spearhead while trying to penetrate the shield. The same technique for beaten bronze was used to create armor designed for an elite warrior.
4. Axes
A Palstave ax, circa 1400-1200 BC.
Heritage Art / Heritage Images via Getty Images
“The most common object in the Bronze Age was the ax, but they are mostly made of stone and used as tools, not as weapons,” says Dolfini. “You could go into battle, hit someone’s head with an ax and do some damage, though.”
There are also many examples of Bronze Age axes with metal heads. Metalworkers have perfected their casting techniques over the centuries to produce different types of ax head designs: flanged, socketed, and a third style called a palstave.
The palstave is a particularly nasty looking ax with flat side flanges that fit squarely into a shaped piece of wood. To function as an ax, toolmakers in the Bronze Age would have chosen a handle with a natural 90 degree hook like these replicas. Whether it is a tool or a weapon, the palstave is an imposing object.
5. Halberds
A halberd is a scythe-shaped bronze blade that is attached to a wooden or metal handle at a right angle. Archaeologists have unearthed them across Europe dating from 2,200 to 1,700 BC. AD, with the highest concentration in Ireland. When used as a weapon, it functioned like a hand sickle, transforming the momentum of the heavy swinging hilt into a sharp blade.
One wonders whether the halberds recovered in Ireland were ceremonial or used in combat. According to recent research, however, damage marks on halberds of museum pieces show telltale battle scars, and experimentation with replica bronze halberds has shown that a properly seated halberd blade can easily pierce the body. skull of a sheep, which makes it a formidable weapon.
6. Daggers and daggers
A Bronze Age dagger blade recovered in Cyprus and dating from 2500 to 1900 BC.
The Met / Public domain
Short, tapered daggers were among the earliest weapons of the Bronze Age, as they required relatively small amounts of the precious metal to be cast. A nearly 6-inch bronze dagger from Cyprus (pictured above) may date back to 2,500 BC.
Later daggers, like the one in the Museum of London, were thicker in the middle with tapered edges and rivet holes for bolting them into a handle. The same pattern is found on daggers, a Scottish term for the massive Bronze Age dagger blades probably used as ceremonial objects. This dagger auctioned by Christie’s is one of five that exist. As it lacks rivet holes at the base, the dagger was never intended for use in combat, but was a potent symbol of power.
If bronze was too expensive or insufficient, Bronze Age artisans also made razor-sharp daggers out of flint, like this impressive specimen recovered in Denmark.
8. Bows and arrows
Bow and arrow are an ancient weapon used both for hunting game and killing enemies. Bronze Age arches were of two types: the curved simple arch and the composite arch. The simple bow was constructed from a single piece of wood, sometimes reinforced with sinew and natural glue. Composite arches, more common in Egypt and the Aegean during the Bronze Age, offered much greater power and distance by gluing together layers of wood, animal horn, sinew and sinew.
Throughout the Bronze Age, arrowheads were just as likely to be flint or obsidian as they were to bronze. In Germany, archaeologists have recovered dozens of weapons from what appears to be a Bronze Age battlefield dating from 1300 to 1200 BC.
9. Wooden clubs and mallets
“Blunt weapons remained common throughout the Bronze Age and even later,” says Dolfini, although wooden objects like clubs rarely survive in archaeological records.
This is why it was so remarkable when researchers identified two well-preserved wooden weapons on this same Bronze Age battlefield in Germany. One was a heavy wooden club over two feet long with a thickened end similar to a baseball bat. The other was more menacing – he looked like a croquet mallet with a slightly curved handle and a fist-shaped head.
“There is no doubt that such wooden hammer-like weapons could cause serious injury,” the researchers wrote, citing that one of the recovered human skulls had a large round fracture on the forehead.
