Bows and Arrows

Read my post, Set: I didn't say anything of the kind.

Indigenouse Nz mammal

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f4/teenysteeny5/NZ%20trip%2003/Sheep3.jpg

Jock Pākehā, all jokes aside, haere mai, kia ora. There are many hoa to be found On A2k cuz. Take care how you go bro.

Sweet az?

Upon further reflection, i submit the following: for as much as you may know of "Viking" and Anglo-Saxon archaeology, Syntenin, you appear not to know that much about the history of western Europe in general in the period up to the 11th century (closing the subject with the Norman invasion of England).

Walter has consistently referred to "the sax." That is a spelling with which i am unfamiliar, but i have found it used as an alternate spelling to "seax," which is much easier to find--although there are lots of silly references to the sham religion of the self-styled "Wiccans." The seax was a long knife or a short sword commonly used by German tribesman in the lands beyond the Rhine frontier of the Romans. With the advance of the Romans and the southerly migration of Gothic tribes from Scandanavia, the tribes who had originally opposed Caesar and his successor were ground between an upper and a nether millstone. Many members of the shattered Cheruscii, Chatii, Suebii, Ubii and Treverii, and several others, joined in a confederation of tribes who called themselves Franks, from the word for a free man. The Franks themselves soon split into Ripurian and Salian Franks.

The remaining German tribesmen of the region between the Rhine and the Elbe did not necessarily confederate, but soon became known as Saxons, a reference to the seax, or short sword, which they commonly used. It likely evolved from the assegai-like weapon which the Romans record the German tribes as having used in the era of Iulius Caesar. Whether the name were applied by others or by themselves, large numbers of tribesmen derived an identity from it, and Saxons became a reality in the region. They became a more distinct and importantly recognizable group because they remained "pagan" when the Franks had become Christian--hence, Charlemagne's obsessive "crusades" to either convert or exterminate the Saxons (as attested to by Anselm, the biographer raised and educated in his court at Aachen), which was cordially riposted by Saxons gleefully slaughtering Christians whenever the opportunity presented itself.

That Saxons were so-called because of their use of a particular type of short-sword:



Source for that definition.



Source for the above definition.

There are more examples, but i'll only provide these two, to demonstrate that it was no freakish incident that i found one.

Therefore, we find that Saxons, originally at least, were not defined by a necessarily common linguistic and cultural heritage, but by a single common military artifact. It is just as likely that Saxons soon came to have a common linguistic and cultural heritage simply by association--as is demonstrably the case with the tribes who intentionally formed the Frankish confederation.

And yet you would have us believe that "Vikings" and Saxons had so common a cultural hertigage (without mention of language) that one can assume any artifact in a "Viking" burial can be considered as exemplary of Saxon culture, as well. I've already pointed out the difficulty with asserting that "Vikings" can be considered to have had a unitary linguistic and cultural heritage. In a thread at AFUZZ once, i pointed out that Amerindians trading at York factory or any of the other posts on Hudson's Bay could have a Hudson's Bay Company musket, two pounds of lead and a bullet mold, a cleaning kit and a five pound keg of fine-grain black powder for 23 made-beaver pelts--while in the Bitterroot range of mountains in what is now Idaho, the same musket, without any of the extras, traded for 200 made-beaver pelt. Another member there very perceptively pointed out that the great value of the musket two thousand miles from the nearest HBC post could very likely have had ceremonial significance--it was a rare and beautiful artifact of power. Why indeed could not the appearance of a longbow in a Saxon burial (something which i do not know you to have asserted has been found) have been the same thing--in a rich burial site, a rare artifact was included because its very rarity was evidence of the wealth and power of the deceased? You've not produced a shred of evidence that longbows were included in Saxon burials, let alone that they were commonly included.

I submit that given that any one of several peoples who are described as Vikings could long have traded with the islands of Britain and Ireland, and that therefore the long bow was not unknown, but was also not to be considered a common artifact of Saxon culture. I submit that you are so narrowly focused on Viking and Saxon archaeology in the small area of the two large and many lesser islands of a single European archipeligo that you ascribe to a few artifacts found a significance which they do not deserve, and from which you infer a commonality which is unwarranted on the face of the evidence.

Freisan was a significant influence on the development of the English language. This is not because it is reasonable to assert that the Freisans settled in the islands in any large numbers, but because they were tireless traders on the shores of the North Sea. The same applies to any one of the several people who are loosely referred to as "Vikings." Their influence was wide-spread even when they did not settle in large numbers because they traded throughout the region.

Saxons are called Saxons because they used the seax commonly. The Norge, Danes, Goths, Jutes and many others were called Vikings because they had the habit of going on the trading/raiding expeditions which were commonly described by a verb which had them "going a-viking." There is no good reason to ascribe a common and unitary culture to the people of those islands simply on the basis of proximity. After all, Saxons both in what is now Germany, and in what is now England had much experience of the Roman pilum, but we have no reason to state that they commonly used javelins. Unless, of course, as the voice of authority that you claim to be, you are now going to assert that the Saxons also commonly used throwing spears.

The seax is called in German Sax - I'd thought it would have been the same in English.

Here - what is Saxon territory a bit longer than England :wink: - the first known written 'history' about the is by Widukind of Corvey, Res gestae saxonicae sive annalium libri tres, written about 950.

I've got at home a later history, by Hamelmann



which is part of



On a quick look through it - which means, since it's in Latin, I might have missed something - I found nothing about Saxon weapons there.

Returning to the topic of the thread--bows and arrows:

I have no brief to disagree with Gunga just because it's Gunga, so this should not be construed in that light. Gunga posits that the use of bows and arrows by those whom the Chinese were pleased to describe as "horse barbarians" gave them a technological superiority which lasted from the days of the Roman Empire to the advent of gun powder. I submit that the advantage was secondary to the issue of leadership, and i now will explain what i mean.

Timber has pointed out that the Zulu, who, during what is known as the Ninth Kaffir War, or Ninth Frontier War, destroyed at Isandlwana the northern-most of the English columns then attempting the invasion of "Zululand." There were survivors from that debacle, and their evidence is that the column was taken complete unaware, and that the units were scattered, and that the commanders never united them and exercised effective command control. It appears that Lt. Col. Henry Pulleine, an administrative officer with no battle experience, attempted to retreat in the face of overwhelming force, and his line disintegrated under the pressure of several Zulu impis, which can loosely be translated as regiments.

Later that same day, Lieutenant John Chard of the Royal Engineers, relied upon no more than about 350 members of the Welsh Borders (whose fellow soldiers had been slaughtered at Isandlwana), some Natal Native Force (i.e., Boers) and some mounted "native" (once again, Boers) to defend himself against the victorious Zulus from Isandlwana. The core force was B company, First Battalion, 24th Regiment of Foot, numbering 139 officers and men, including those "absent sick" from other companies of the Regiment. He was attacked at Rorke's Drift on the Buffalo River. Two officers of the Natal Native Force arrived with news of the debacle at Isandlwana, and Chard quickly put the little mission station in a condition to defend the position, it then being used as an operational base for Chelmsford's column (he was the commander who had left Pulleine with 1400 members of the 24th and some troops of the NNF at Isandlwana, while he chased chimeras in northern Zululand). Three Zulu impis, numbering perhaps 4000 men attacked, and continued to attack throughout the afternoon, evening and the night, only finally desisting after dawn on the following day.

The difference between the two engagements was military competence on the part of the commanders. The portion of the column which Chelmsford had left at Isandlwana under Pulleine's command were on rocky ground, and therefore forbore to dig-in, and did not put out effective pickets to warn of the approach of the enemy. No attempt was made to establish an effective defensive position when they were attacked, and Chard's timely measures at Rorke's drift demonstrate that "circle wagons" could have effectively been used for the purpose. Pulleine lost his head, and more than a thousand English soldiers and members of the NNF therefore lost their lives (i believe there were 50 or so survivors). Chard kept his head, killed more than 500 of the enemy, and had fewer than 20 of his own force killed, and garnered for himself and many of them the Victoria Cross.

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From which i return to the subject of the "horse barbarians" of east and central Asia. The Goths who migrated south from Scandanavia a few centuries before the time that Iulius Caesar began his campaigns in Transpadane Gaul were forced east by the pressure of the German tribes already in the area between the Rhine and the Elbe--the tribes Caesar would face. They eventually migrated east to the region once known as Scythia, or Sarmatia, and there divided into eastern Goths (Ostrogoths) and western Goths (Visigoths). As appears to have been the case with all the German tribes of the era, they used a stabbing spear. The Roman historical record shows that the tribes across the Rhine had lengthened and broadened the blade of their spears, and shortened the haft, producing a weapon like the assagai the Zulus used at Isandlwana. Most historians simply use the term assagai as a short-hand for the common German weapon in Caesarian times. It is probable that further devolopment resulted in the creation of the seax from which the name Saxon seems to derive--given that the Romans were successful using a short sword as standard equipment, it was possibly derived by emulation.

But the Goths north of the Black and Caspian seas encountered "horse barbarians" who were very likely Turkic speaking tribesmen, and the Goths took up the horse with a vigor, lengthening the haft of their spears, and narrowing and shortening the blade, until eventually the lance of the mounted cavalryman descended from their weapon of choice. Very early in the current era, perhaps in the first century, they are thought to have migrated back to the west to the area of Poland, and by the mid-third century, they had come anocking on the Roman door, desperately begging admission. They were under pressure from the east, and that pressure came from the Huns.

The Chinese in the period of the Yellow Emperor, Huang-ti, who founded the first true Chinese empire in the second century before the current era, called the semi-nomadic tribesmen of the Mongolian steppes and the Gansu Corridor hsiung-nu or hu-nu, which is to say, "horse barbarians." That is the likely derivation of the name Hun. The history of China is too vast to canvass here, but suffice it to say that Chinese dynasties went through cyclical developments--first a vigorous "barbarian" phase during which they would overrun the empire and establish their dynasty, and during which they traded freely with the tribes of the steppes and the Gansu Corridor. Later, as they left behind their "barbarian" roots and became more "civilized," they would hew to an established Mandarin policy and institute an annual "tribute" meeting during which the tribes would provide horses to them (which the Chinese were pleased to call "tribute") and receive silk and bronze and other desirable products (which the Chinese were pleased to call "gifts"). Finally, each dynasty subsided into a dynastic senescence during which the class of the Mandarin bureaucrats assumed complete control, and cut off all trade with the "barbarians" in the howling savagery without (as the Chinese were pleased to see it). During these later periods, the "horse barbarians" would either attempt invasion to get the goods they desired, or they would turn west in search of plunder. It seems likely that the Huns had turned west during Huang-ti's foundation of the empire, and a sizable portion of them arrived in the central Asian highlands at the time that the Goths headed back to the west, a very suggestive coincidence.

But the admission of the Goths into the empire, and their federation in the empire, caused a good deal of trouble. The most notable incident was the discontent and migration of Goths under Alaric which eventually resulted in the sack of Rome in 410 CE. This is commonly and erroneously referred to as "the fall of the Roman empire." It is not the purpose of this discursus to pee on the Wheaties of those who subscribe to the "destruction of the degenerate Romans by the wily barbarians" crowd. Suffice it to say that Ravenna was then the administrative capital of the western administrative division of the empire, and that Rome was no longer politically, economically or militarily significant to the empire. The authority of the empire in the west gradually crumbled over centuries for a variety of complex causes which beggar the popular thesis about Roman degenerency and the "fall of the empire."

The Romans lasted as long as they did because they were adaptive. One of their successful adapations of the era was to take up the Gothic military practice of using "heavy" cavalry equipped with long spears with short blades, the ancestor of the lance. Previously, they had relied upon their heavy infantry (peditum) who then largely came from Gaul and who are commonly referred to by modern historians as "French" heavy infantry. They very quicly made the switch to relying upon heavy cavalry.

The arrival of the Huns, whose weapons and tactics were those which the "Mongols" would later use, did not, however, result in the adoption of their style of bows and their use of highly mobile light cavalry. One might well ask why, which is the intention of this too long post to begin with.

The Huns gave the Romans heartburn to be sure, but they did not cause serious trouble for the empire until Attila killed his brother and made himself "King" of the Huns. They had arrived in what is now Hungary (go figure), and Attila provided effective leadership and command control which made them militarily effective over a wide area and in large numbers as they had previosly never been. But Attila overreached himself, and drove west into what is now northern France, where he was met by and defeated by Aetius in an alliance with the Franks. The effectiveness of their bows and their light cavalry was totally lost in the heavy forests of Neustria and Austrasia, and the Franks gleefully hunted the survivors of the Hunnic debacle in the dark forests in which they had been born. Why adopt weapons and techniques which were proven ineffective in the terrain in which one operates?

In the 13th century, there was the most famous irruption of the "horse barbarians" into what the inhabitants were pleased to consider the civilized world. Lead by the Mongol clan chieftan Temujin (known as Chingiss or Ghengis Kahn), the tribesmen of the Mongolian steppe were united and then began a two-generation career of murder, plunder and terror into China, and west into Afghanistan, Persia, the middle east and eastern Europe. The Mongols, as they were collectively known, swelled their ranks with tribesmen from the Gansu Corridor and the central Asian highlands beyond. Their object was plunder and laying the "nations" and peoples in their path under tribute. Their slaughters and rapine were legendary, and their name was feared. And their influence was but a season in the long roll of history. Once again, one might wonder why that is so.

Temujin decreed that when the Khan (roughly, "King") died, the "Princes" must return to the homeland for the succession of the heir--he obviously envisioned the establishment of an enduring dynasty. The return of the "Princes" was a necessity. These were the commanders of the advance of the "Mongol" hordes (few of them were actually ethnically Mongol, but their commanders were, and their weapons and tactics were identical), and their departure for the east brought operations to a halt in their absence. Just such an event prevented the crossing the Sinai, and allowed the Mamluks to claim they had defeated the Mongols (a dubious claim at best). Back on the Mongolian steppes and in the Gansu Corridor, the tribes who were not directly related to Temujin's clan, and therefore techincally not Mongols, seethed in potential rebellion. Even in Temujin's lifetime, small, local "brushfire" rebellions were common. The tribesmen of the Turkic and Mongolian bands upon which his empire relied were independent people, for whom the clan was the repository of loyalty. His "empire" could only survive with a strong hand. From 1206 until his death in 1227, he provided that. Tribal confederations of the Naimans, Merkits, Uyghurs, Tatars and Keraits were unified by him along with Mongols. This empire was too vast to be effectively controlled by Temujin alone, and he broke it up into Khanates which were tributary to him. He was succeeded by Ogedei, but his son proved not to possess the vigor or talent of his father. When no new plunder rolled in, and with tribute going to the ruling clan, there was increasingly little reason for tribesmen to follow the Mongol banner.

The Tatar Batu Kahn and Temujin's life-long companion and trusted General Subutai drove into eastern Europe, defeating King Bela of Hungary, and defeating the Duke of Silesia and some of the Knights of the Teutonic Order at Leignitz (or Legnica) in Poland, in 1241. That proved to be the high-water mark of the Mongol empire. At Leignitz, it is the preponderance of modern historical opinion that the "Mongols" (again, largely relying upon Tatar and Turkic tribesmen), dismounted to fight the surviving Knights Templar and Teutonic Knights on foot, suffering horrible casualties as a result, far heavier than Subutai had anticipated. It was a pyrhhic victory. (Subutai is generally thought not to have been personally present, and is thought to still have been in Hungary--it is considered most likely that Kaidu commanded.)

Mongol tactics required large open spaces. Bodies of light (in terms of armor, very light) cavalry would inflict gauling casualties on the enemy, feinting and withdrawing, with the object of drawing the enemy out of formation, to be cut up in flank attacks when detached from the main body. This was the tactic employed by the Huns, as well. But their allegedly superior weapons and tactics were never adopted by Europeans in central and western Europe, and with good reason. In eastern Europe, and throughout most of Asia north of the central Asian highlands, the terrain is ideal for this type of tactical doctrine. In central and western Europe in the middle ages, towns and cities were isolated islands in a sea of heavy forest. Mongols attempting to drive into France would have found themselves as hampered as the Huns were when they were defeated by Aetius and the Franks. They were only very lightly armored, and often their horses were better protected than they were themselves. At Leignitz, they quickly killed the horses of the Knights Templar and the Teutonic Knights, but they suffered very badly when they attempted to close in for hand-to-hand fighting with well-armed and well-armored knights. They'd have had the same problem in spades in central and western Europe, where they could never have practiced the tactics which allowed their inferior force to equalize the odds with the Germans and Poles before they closed in for the slaughter--and in which they suffered horribly themselves. It is entirely possible that Henry "the Pious" of Silesian need not have been defeated and killed as he was at Leignitz had he retreated into built-up areas and/or forests. That the Mongols and Tatars were outnumbered resulted from the severe strain on the logistics of the the armies of Batu and Subutai occasioned by campaigning so far from their base.

In China, the Mongols managed to survive for more than a season, as the Yuan dynasty. That they managed to survive for a bare century was, however, only possible because of the "sinicization" of their administration, which found it as easy to take over a well-regulated and established empire as did all previous dynasties, and as did the Ming who succeeded them. The failure of their tactics and weapons was demonstrated in Afghanistan, where they took all of the cities, but failed to drive into the Hindu Kush. Their ponies would have been useless in the mountainous terrain, and the Pathans would have known how to deal with their bowmen, as they have effectively dealt with all invaders, save only Sikander--Alexander of Macedon. Taking Kiyiv (or Kiev) in the midst of the Ukranian plains, they drove on to Suzdal to defeat the Russians. But they did not follow the Russians into their forests to the north and west, which was likely the intelligent decision. The Mongol Empire was taken and only briefly held because their armies, like water seeking its own level, followed the paths of the least military resistance--they were uniformly ineffective when they could not deploy their cavalry efficiently, and when at the end of their never very efficient logistical communications.

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No weapon or tactic in history has ever been universally supreme. The platoon fire of the English became justifiably legendary in the history of European warfare. With it, John Churchill, first Duke of Marlborough, shredded the French infantry at Blenheim, Ramilles, Oudenard and Malplaquet. But it could not save Braddock's regiments at Turtle Creek in 1755, when 90 Frenchmen and a few hundred Amerindians routed the English. It could not help them in their long, nightmare march from Concord to Boston in April, 1775, nor could Major Pitcairn's use of the light infantry and the Royal Marines, who could only force the American militia snipers to fade away into the woods, into which the light infantry dared not follow. The superiority of the few thousand Tiger and Panther tanks the Germans were able to deploy in the Second World War could not save them from the literally many tens of thousands of Russian T-series tanks and American Stuarts and Shermans (i believe i am correct in stating that of Sherman tanks alone, the Americans produced more than 50,000).

By the same token, the failure of logistics and continuous, effective administrative and military command control doomed the Mongol empire to an ephemeral existence. The light cavalry of the "horse barbarians" with their so very lethal bows were a fact of life on the Mongolian steppes and the central Asian highlands for literally thousands of years--and in more than 2000 years of history (considering both European and Chinese history), these tribes produced exactly two leaders capable of successfully exploiting these weapons and tactics on a large scale--Temujin and Attila. These two exceptions serve to prove the rule that these horse barbarians consistently lacked the social and military organization necessary to conquer, establish and maintain an enduring empire. Superiority of military technology does not guarantee conquest, and is never either universal nor perpetual.

And the above has to do with what ?

The last major "Maori Migration " may have been around 1350 .

Others have been here for a lot longer . Research the Hawea people .

And no , I will not post a link , as I say , spoon feeding is not my way.

Tena Koe E hoa ,
pākehā , ... Kati Whao ahau , hehehe .
amazing eh , how entering a word or name into a search engine seems to be beyond some folk . Even after the word is supplied .
Maybe the posting a link to a specific page is preferred , so that the pedant's can dispute minor points within.
I supply names and words so that the intelligent can do in-depth research if they wish . You know , our way at the cafe .

ka kite ,
na Jock

Well, Jock, some might infer your aversion to spoons could be due to the fact the product you're peddling typically is handled with shovels.

I submit that the scientific consenus is that actual evidence indicates humans first arrived on New Zealnd some time around the 13th century, give or take perhaps a century either way. I submit I have provided abundant documentation to such effect. I submit you press a claim absent support.

Of course, you are entitled to do so - certainly no rule against that. No rule says anyone need take seriously any unsupported, unvalidated, or otherwise undemonstratedly credible statement, either, and hereabouts, most folks don't. Opinions are fine, invited, even, and whether popularly received here or not, just about any statement of opinion on anything is fine. When it comes to assertions of fact, or challenge thereto, we hold a rather more rigorous standard here; say pretty much whatever you care to, claim whatever you wish, with the understanding substantive challenge not met substantively is proposition invalidated by default.

I will say again science validates my refutation of your proposition. Perhaps in your opinion that is not so, but by academically valid criteria, it is and has been demonstrated to be so. You are perfectly welcome to hold and espouse any opinion you find suitable, and any who choose may weigh that opinion as they find suitable, with or without regard for fact or other documentation, just as any are welcome to weigh any fact or documentation. Folks can make up their own minds, and often they do.

One of the problems with simply supplying names and words and letting "the intelligent" "do in-depth research" is that all sources of internet 'information' are not created equal, common references and points of agreement as to reliable sources etc. are pivotal to a congruent dialogue.

There is something to be said for either weapon type. The crossbow had more power, range and accuracy than a longbow, but the longbow had a higher rate of shooting.

The ideal use of longbows was to mass archers and let fly clouds of arrows that were very effective against formations of cavalry and lightly armoured infantry. The crossbow was ideally used from defensive positions for aimed single shots that could take out even the most heavily armoured soldier. They were easier to use, but more difficult to produce than longbows.

The longbow certainly has had a better press (mostly due to the successes attributed to it during the Hundred Year's War), but the crossbow survived longer on the battlefield in Western Europe. Steel crossbows were used with devastating effect against the elite German landsknechts by Swedish peasant armies in the first half of the 16th century, for example.

Some Sources:
The Crossbow vs. the Longbow in the Medieval Period
The Medieval Crossbow (BBC)
Nils Dacke (at Wikipedia)

Right! Kind'a like comparing a machine gun to a rifle. I saw a great show on the tube about early weaponry, and they talked about this as well as the trebuchet and battering ram.

Oh deary, deary me, Set. You don't actually seem to be willing to read what my posts actually say; you keep sniping at me for statements that I have certainly not made; and you keep racing off chasing irrelevancies.

All that about the seax and the Saxons. Yes, the Saxons got their name from their characteristic weapon. Nobody at all in this thread is disputing that, so why get into such a lather over proving that it wasn't a "freakish incident" that you found that definition? Calm down!



But this whole question blew up over whether the Anglo-Saxons - not the continental Saxons - used bows. By the time the various groups of Germanic (for want of a better word) tribes had settled down in Britain and started being called "Anglo-Saxon" there is no question that they did have a "common linguistic and cultural heritage" . Of course there were regional differences, some of them quite strong and persistent - you can tell a Northumbrian manuscript from a Wessex one right to the end of the Anglo-Saxon period - but in archaeological and anthropological terms they unquestionably shared a common culture.



I know "Vikings" is an unsatisfactory word. Everybody concerned with the subject is agreed on that, but nobody has been able to come up with a better one. My old professor, Sir David Wilson (later Director of the British Museum), preferred to call his specialism "Viking archaeology" rather than something along the lines of "Scandinavian/ Baltic/ Kievan Rus/ North Sea/ Irish Sea/ NE English/ coastal & insular Scottish archaeology AD 700-1300".

The "Viking world" was a much larger and more diverse one than Anglo-Saxon England, but even so there is no doubt that despite many regional and tribal differences the "Vikings" did inhabit a common economic, linguistic and cultural milieu. (Nobody would call it a "unitary" one, or define it "on the basis of proximity" - those are red herrings of your own.)



I have already pointed out that I have never stated anything of the kind. Read the words!



Oh, for Pete's sake. Will you kindly stop arguing with things that I have not said, nor even implied? I said quite clearly right at the beginning that no Saxon bow, long or short, has ever been found. I pointed out also that this was not evidence that they didn't exist, since no mediaeval English or Welsh longbow has ever been found either. I never said anything at all about bows being included in Saxon burials. (Though now you - not I - have raised the subject of burials, note firstly that in the vast majority of soil conditions a bow, being made wholly of biodegradable organic materials, would leave no archaeological trace, which is precisely why archaeological finds of bows are so rare from any European context, and secondly that as soon as the Anglo-Saxons converted to Christianity they stopped burying their dead with grave-goods anyway.)



No: I inferred the existence of Anglo-Saxon longbows from their existence in Anglo-Saxon art. I only adduced the surviving Viking examples as being a possible guide to the characteristics of the Anglo-Saxon longbow as being from the culture with which the Anglo-Saxons had closest contact from the 8th to the 11th centuries and which used similar military tactics and technology.



I have never claimed to be "the voice of authority" - that's another of your red herrings.



Oddly enough, yes, I am going to assert just that. The early Continental Saxons and Franks used a throwing spear called an angon, which had a long slender iron neck just like the Roman pilum, from which it is assumed it was derived. Look it up.

You'll get used to it, it's better than watching TV, & a warm welcome from yours truly

You know Syntinen, on the one hand, you deny that you have claimed to be an authority, and yet on the other, you make a statement like this:



. . . which is the second time you have made such an elliptical reference to your credentials in this subject, and in both cases, despite your silly protestations to the contrary, your obvious intent is to establish the superior quality of your authority. After all, "my old professor preferred to call . . ." would have served that sentence just as well, but you wanted to lean heavily on his credentials.

Reference to the continental Saxons was pertinent, and the reference to the weapon of their choice was pertinent, because the topics had not been canvassed before. I also would point out to you that the amalgamation of Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Norge, Danes, Friesans, etc. occured over time--to simply suggest that once they arrived, presto, they had a common culture, is nonsense. Before you deny that, i am referring to your statement that:



Note the word "heritage"--it refers to the past. When those tribes had settled in Britain, commonality was their future, not their past. As for them being called Anglo-Saxons, that is hardly relevant to a discussion of their cultural antecedants. Either you're playing a game here, or you, despite your claim to credentials as an archaeologist, fail to recognize the dynamism of culture over time. I submit that you are making things up--no such common culture existed by the time those tribes arrived in Britain, it only arose thereafter.

The point about the Vikings is that it is not only imprecise, but it is not a discussion of Saxons and their attributes.

You are attempting to claim that i've trailed red herrings when i have not done so. I have not stated that you claimed long bows were found in Saxon burials. I was pointing out that as you have not provided any such evidence, but have only referred to Viking burials, your thesis is unconvincing.

The first google search which i did for angon lead to a simple and generic definition of a spear. The next definition (which happens to coincide with anything i've ever read on the subject) defines angon as follows:

ANGON: demi-pique à l'usage des Francs, dont le fer avait, dit-on, quelque ressemblance avec celui de la hallebarde.

So you are now attempting to contend that any spear which resembles a halberd can be considered a throwing spear ? ! ? ! ? ! ?

You just get sillier and sillier. The angon seems very obviously to be a descendant of the assagai-like spears which are reported by the Romans to have been used by those Germanic tribes in Caesarian tribes.

Again, much sound and fury, and little substance from you.

This is the sole reference i have been able to find to an angon which might resemble the pilum. Note that the superscription describes is as a javelin, but then claims that is a weapon exclusive to chiefs--which would be the antithesis of a common weapon.

No reference to the angon which i have been able to find is to any other group than the Franks, the Saxons are not mentioned. It appears that you have yet again attempted to speak ex cathedra on a subject. Tell us again about your old buddy at the British Museum, huh?

As far as I could find out, Agathis mentions the angons as weapons of the Alemans in his Historiae [ A (I) 7, 1-2; B (II) 5, 2-6.]

See if you can come up with another definition, Walter, if you would--i could only find the one, which is not consonant with a throwing spear, yet the image clearly shows such a spear.

Not a definition, just a pic from some "amateur Alemans"



(The history library in our local university isn't that good stocked with literature about early history and I'm not driving to some special library now ...)

Well, that looks like a javelin as well, although it does not resemble the Roman pilum--now all Syntenin needs to do, is import it into Britain in the period 400-1066CE.

I've seen a couple of reconstructed Saxon spears in various museums around here, but
a) I can't remember, where the "best pieces" are,
b) I'm not in the mood to visit them now.

Close to us, they found in the 70's of last century a so-called "Saxonian prince's thomb" ('Fürstengrab Beckum'), which actually is a field of thombs, used until the 9th century (although next to it was a Christian chapel situated, at least for the last about 50 years of its existence!).

Well, this was the border region between the Franks and Saxons - while e.g. these thombs are Saxonion origin, you find 30 miles (50km) eastward [sic!] in my native town a Frankonian pottery - both on exhibit now in the State Archaeological Museum.


This is the reason that the burial objects might be of "mixed" cultural heritage: ango, sax, shield, no helmet and a "ringspata".