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Before we delve into the meat of why ancient cultures develop certain types of weapons, it would be helpful to examine the most prominent form, the sword. Almost every culture has, at one time or another, produced a bladed weapon. For ancient Latin American civilizations, it may have been made of obsidian. In the ancient near east, discovering better sword-making material was analogies with the cold war nuclear arms race. Regardless of what they were formed from (we may deal with ancient metallurgy in a future post), all swords share some very basic characteristics.

The anatomy of a sword

 Before everyone writes me nasty letters about how that is a medieval interpretation of the sword, please forgive me. Google Images didn’t return much in the way of ancient sword diagrams.

As you look at the image above, here are some things to notice about this sword straight away. 

1. Length – Although there isn’t anything in the diagram for comparison, the sword’s blade is a good 3-4 feet long. This length allows you to hide behind your shield and swing at your opponent from a “safe” distance. This weapon is definitely designed for slashing. (and hacking, if you’re into that kinda thing). This length also probably cuts down the effectiveness of a compact fighting formation. Who wants to be standing near their buddy as they go crazy swinging around a 4 foot long blade-o-death?
2. Cross Guard - This feature of the sword allows the person wielding it to parry opponent’s blows more effectively. (And without the loss of filangies.)
3. Pommel - The pommel is the weighted bit at the end of the hilt that helps to balance out some of the weight of the blade. This helps the user whirl the sword around with more effeciency, increasing the number of swings they can perform.
4. Weight - A sword of this length and size could easily weigh in at around 6-8 lbs. That may not sound like much, but try swinging around a light bowling ball for a few hours on the battle field.

In the interest of brevity, and actually having some people stick around to read future posts, I’ll sum all this examination up in one sentence. Swords of this nature are perfectly designed for one on one confrontations.

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I’m sad to say that it’s been a while since I’ve thought about what the title of this post implies. Initially the idea came to me when I was an undergraduate in History at Lee University, as part of a paper on Rome battle tactics. Since graduating with my BA, I have had little time to devote to historical endeavours. Even though I still plan on getting my PhD at some point, the incessant need of people to take my money for things like rent, has caused me to find work outside of the academic realm of history.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I wholelly acknowledge that this removal from academic engagement to be of my own doing. Up until a few years ago, this blog itself was a place of academic investigation, drawing the attention of the likes of Rook Hawkins of the Rational Response Squad. Of my own ill planning and discipline did this small nook of the blogosphere (do people still call it that?) become home to nothingness and twitter-updates. 

Sunday, after church, I was talking to some new friends about the direction that life was taking them for their MFAs in creative writing. After talking about their Master’s Thesises (thesi?), the attention turned to what I would want to do for my MA in Classics/Ancient History. I explained to them the theory that I hope to begin to piece together here for you in the coming posts. I’ve had some friends discourage me from posting my theories before my thesis is completed, but, I think that writing about it here and getting some honest feedback could help it more than hiding away.

The theory that I am going to post about in the next few days deals with how we interpret cultures of the ancient world. We’ve all, even if we aren’t historians, had classes or seen documentaries in which paintings or literature were offered up as examples of a particular culture.  It makes sense: the stuff we produce says a lot about who we are and what we value, why wouldn’t it be the same for those before us? It seems like a no-brainer to assume that a piece of Athenian pottery dating from the 5th century CE tells us about ancient Athens. But what if we examined their weapons in the same way? What if these items designed for warfare told us more than just how many men they could kill. Join me over the next few weeks as we explore this question.

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I didn’t think that my first stab at a new series for this year would be about computer software, but here we are. A few days ago I downloaded Windows 7 Beta. (In case you haven’t heard, Windows 7 is slated to be the next version of Windows, replacing the much maligned Vista.)

Full Disclosure: I have never had any problems with Windows Vista. I know that, as a computer geek, I am required by the Geneva Convention to disdain Vista in favour of XP, but I don’t. Sorry. It’s been good to me for the few months that I’ve had it. So I’m not coming into this beta test of Windows 7 looking to replace my current operating system.

After installing the new OS, the first thing I noticed was Windows 7’s boot speed. I haven’t “officially” timed it against Vista, but from personal perception its much faster. Cosmetically Windows 7 isn’t very different from Vista. Round Start button? Check. Transluscent Taskbar? Check. Status/notification area? Check. The background is even set to a beta fish. Get it? Beta. Fish. Puns aside, at first glance this version of Windows doesn’t look much different than Vista. That is, until you start to poke around.

One of the first things I noticed was the “new” pinned taskbar items. While it’s true that large taskbar icons aren’t really a “new” feature (you can do the same thing in XP and Vista), having them act as running program icons is. If you click on the standard blue “E” on the taskbar in Windows  7, you’ll notice that you don’t get a new “task” icon on the taskbar. The launch icon is now pulling double duty. Here are a couple of pics so you can see what I mean:

Overall my first impressions of Windows 7 are very positive. Stay tuned as I dig into the other aspects of the latest offering from Redmond.

Microsoft has extended the beta download until January 24th, and you can pick up your copy here.