the tomb of Ramses III., and a 'weapon Kops' with the gold, of which the hilt consists, running up the concave back of the blade. 'The gold was therefore either 2 3 FIG. 161.-1. EGYPTIAN SLING; 2. UNKNOWN WEAPON ; 100 FIG. 162.-EGYPTIAN DAGGERS. sunk into the iron, or gilded on the back. In other cases the Kops of kings was entirely of gold, or, like other Swords, entirely of brass (copper ?). In another similar weapon, brass (copper?) and iron were blended in the blade.' An iron 'Kops' was found in a tomb at Gurnah. The Khopsh, a sickle in type, and originally a throwing weapon as well as a cutting arm, was always carried by the Pharaoh, who used it indifferently with the pike (Taru), the mace, axe (Aka, Akhu), battle-axe, or pole-axe (Kheten). Officers and privates, 'lights' as well as 'heavies,' also wielded it in pictures. Those commanding infantry-corps are armed with the simple stick like the Roman centurion and our drill-sergeant of bygone days. The fourth or long-straight Sword, which does not appear in the hieroglyphs, had a two-edged cut-and-thrust leaf-shaped blade from two and a half to three feet long,' with a foining point like that of the Somal. 1 Rosellini shows a long tapering blade with a mid-rib, apparently sunken, and a raised surface on each side. The length is divided into five parts, smooth and hatched (?). 2 The Somal have retained three other notable peculiarities of ancient Egypt; the wig (worn by the These large weapons seem to have old Nilotes); the Uts (I) or wooden head-stool been used by foreign mercenaries. The leaf- also becomes a trowel-form, betraying its origin and derivation, the spear-head. The grip was hollowed away in the centre, gradually thickening at either end, and was sometimes inlaid with metal, stones, and precious woods. The pommel of that worn in the Pharaoh's girdle is surmounted by one or more hawk-heads, this bird being the symbol of Ra' (the Sun). The handle is also adorned with small pins and studs of gold, shown through suitable openings in the front part of the sheath. With this weapon the warrior stabs the enemy in the throat, as Mithras strikes the bull behind the shoulder. A modified form was the Sword-dagger, of which two are sometimes represented with the Pharaoh it was generally carried in the belt. This shape of weapon found its way to the Caucasus; and the Georgian Khanjar, hanging to the girdle in the place of the Sword, is also a survival. The Egyptian weapon is of various lengths. The bronze blade of Amunoph II., found by Wilkinson at Thebes, measures only five and a quarter inches: others rise to seven and even ten. Mr. Salt's specimen in the British Museum covers eleven and a half inches, including the handle; and others reach one foot, and even sixteen inches. Many of these blades taper from an inch and a half to two-thirds feathers are of equal length. The Romans adopted it as a military decoration. Your courage has not yet given your helmet wherewithal to shade your face from the burning sun,' say the Kurds, who add to the crest a new feather for every foe slain in fight. The Somal, after victory or murder, stick the white variety in the mop-head. We still use the phrase 'a feather in his cap.' The Prince of Wales' feather' is an Egyptian ideograph of Truth. Mr. Gerald Massey seems to think that Wilkinson s' Thmei' (II. chap. viii.) is only a backward rendering of the Greek "Themis "; that the feathers are 'Shu' and that the goddess is 'Ma' (——), or 'Mati.' But surely the root of Themis would be in Ta-Ma,' the Goddess (of Truth)? 1 Compare Raa, Heb. and Ar., 'he saw'; Gr. Spáw, and Lat. Ra-dius. 2 Colonel A. Lane Fox remarks that the groove which is constant in these Caucasian blades is a little out of the central line, and does not correspond on each side, an alternation showing that it is derived from the ogee form. I have suggested that the idea arose from the arrow-head 'bellied on a twist,' and have figured the weapon in the next page (fig. 170). of an inch near the point. Dr. John Evans' has a Sword, found at 'Great Kantara' during the construction of the Suez Canal; the blade is leaf-shaped, and measures seventeen inches, and the whole length twenty-two inches and three-eighths (fig. 165). 'Instead of a hilt-plate, it is drawn down to a small tang about three-sixteenths of an inch square. This again expands into an octagonal bar about three-eighths of an inch in diameter, which has been drawn down to a point, and then turned back to form a hook, perhaps the earliest mode of hanging to the belt.' At the base of the blade are two rivet-holes, and the hilt must have been formed of two pieces which clasped the tang. Dr. Evans also mentions a bronze Sword-blade, presumably from Lower Egypt, in the Berlin Museum: it has an engraved line down each side of the blade; it is more uniform in width than the Kantara specimen, and the hilt is broken off. Not a few Egyptian Swords are much thicker at the middle than at the edges, and many are slightly grooved. The bronze is so well tempered, either by hammering, by hydraulic pressure, or by phosphorisation (?), that it has retained spring and pliability after several thousand years, and is still elastic like the steel of our modern days. I have already noticed the Passalacqua and the Harris daggers--both from Thebes. The dagger-handle was generally covered in part with metal like that of the Sword; and the sewing of the leather-sheath again recalls the hide-scabbard of the Somal. The Egyptians, as the hieroglyphs prove, had also single-edged 1 Bronze, &c. p. 298. 2 Chap. v. 3 Returning from the exploration of Harar (1853), I sent a small collection of Somali weapons to the cutting-knives shorter than Swords, and apparently of stecl; they resemble our flesh-knives,' and may correspond with the Greek páxaipai (Ang.-Sax. Meche), while the daggers proper represent the xapídia and the parazonia. The long Sword must have been rare or rather barbaric, for it is seldom found in the pictures and bas-reliefs. Yet Rosellini figures one which resembles an Espadon or heavy two-handed weapon of our Middle Ages. An inscription of Ramses takes as booty from the Maxyes (Cyrenians) of Libya one hundred and fifteen Swords of five cubits (seven and a half feet), and one hundred and twentyfour of three cubits long. Meyrick, in his general introduction to the weapons of all nations (vol. i. Pl. 1), gives two forms of Egyptian blades, or rather choppers. One (a, fig. 174) is a straight bill-shaped cutting-blade with the tip upturned, and the handle is provided with cords and tassels. This is in fact the old Turkish Scymitar and its offshoots, of which I have already spoken; and thus Egypt led to the chopper-types, which will presently be noticed. The other (b) is a curved Scymitar, with a bevelled end and a double cord at the hilt.3 The former seems to be an imitation of the obsidian flake the latter is a development of the Khopsh or sickle-Sword. The form is accurately preserved in the formid able Afghan Charay' or one-edged knife. 2 A Critical Inquiry, &c. 3 I have shown that the heraldic Sword in the East preserves this double sword-knot (chap. vii.). M |