Wednesday, May 1, 2024

Boyd Seevers on Curved Swords (cimeters/Book of Mormon 'scimitars')

  

Sword

 

The sword went through a somewhat similar evolution over time. Earlier on, swords were shaped rather like a harvesting sickle (Fig. 4.2—left) and thus were called “sickle-swords.” Unlike harvesting sickles with the sharp edge on the inside for cutting grain, sickle-swords had their sharp edge on the outside for slashing an opponent. The biblical expression of striking “with the edge of the sword” (Josh. 6:21, ESV; etc.) probably comes from the use of this type of sword. Sickle-swords started with a relatively long shaft and shorter cutting blade but changed to a much shorter shaft and a relatively long cutting blade (Fig. 4.2—left). Reliefs during the New Kingdom often portray the pharaoh with a sickle-sword, suggesting that it had replaced the mace as the pharaoh’s weapon of authority. Toward the end of the New Kingdom, Egyptians began using straight, tapered swords as well (Fig. 4.2, 4.3, 4.11—on ladder). The straight swords first appear in reliefs in the hands of Sea Peoples (Fig. 5.11), suggesting that the Philistines and related peoples may well have brought this design to the region. (Boyd Seevers, Warfare in the Old Testament [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Kregel Publications], 2013], 121)

 

Here are figures 4.2 and 4.3 that are relevant to the above:




 


 

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