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,[504] with a foining point like that of the Somal.[505] These large weapons seem to have 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[506] (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;[507] and the Georgian Khanjar, hanging to the girdle in the place of the Sword, is also a survival.
Fig. 169.—Assyrian Daggers, Sheaths, and Belts. (British Museum.)
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 of an inch near the point. Dr. John Evans[508] 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.
Fig. 170.—Dagger from the Caucasus.
Fig. 171.—Egyptian Chopper-Swords.
Fig. 172.—Egyptian Khopsh.