DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1021#0256
ARMS AND WAR 205
which was further secured by rivets.1 A specimen from
Grave IV. has not only the socket for the shaft but a ring
on either side — as SchJiemann thought for a
cord to fasten it to the shaft; but Schuchhardt
conjectures that it may have served to hold the
object (knapsack or whatever it be) which the
marching men of the Warrior Vase carry on their
lances.
The butt end of the shaft was occasionally shod
with a spike to fix it in the ground; but this
spike was hardly invented, or at any rate had not
come into general use, till late in the Mycenaean
age. This is clear from the fact that not one 0 *%-M
° opear-iiead
lias been found thus far in the excavations, and
that among the monuments it is represented on the War-
rior Vase alone. Singularly enough, the spiked lance oc-
curs only once in Homer, and that in the late Tenth
Iliad," unless we are to interpret in this sense the nine times
recurring ey^eOLV a^tyiyvoLii — an interpretation by no
means certain.
While we have recovered no example of a bow, whether
of wood or of horn, arrow-heads abound, and the monu-
ments not unfrequently show us the archer in
action. In the Siege Scene, for instance, we see
the archers with bended bows in a kneeling attitude, as
they continued to be represented in. archaic Greek art,
notably in the Aeginetan pediment now at Munich. Like
1 In this it is like the Homeric lance, as are all those found in the Swiss
lake dwellings and the tombs of Northern Europe. The Trojan lance is the
reverse of this : the head is not provided with a socket to receive the shaft, but
with a tang which fits into a slit in the shaft and is secured there by a rivet.
The tang, as a rule, still shows the rivet-hole. Cyprus alone has yielded lance-
beads to match the Trojan : cf. Ilios, p. 475 f-
2 152 f.
which was further secured by rivets.1 A specimen from
Grave IV. has not only the socket for the shaft but a ring
on either side — as SchJiemann thought for a
cord to fasten it to the shaft; but Schuchhardt
conjectures that it may have served to hold the
object (knapsack or whatever it be) which the
marching men of the Warrior Vase carry on their
lances.
The butt end of the shaft was occasionally shod
with a spike to fix it in the ground; but this
spike was hardly invented, or at any rate had not
come into general use, till late in the Mycenaean
age. This is clear from the fact that not one 0 *%-M
° opear-iiead
lias been found thus far in the excavations, and
that among the monuments it is represented on the War-
rior Vase alone. Singularly enough, the spiked lance oc-
curs only once in Homer, and that in the late Tenth
Iliad," unless we are to interpret in this sense the nine times
recurring ey^eOLV a^tyiyvoLii — an interpretation by no
means certain.
While we have recovered no example of a bow, whether
of wood or of horn, arrow-heads abound, and the monu-
ments not unfrequently show us the archer in
action. In the Siege Scene, for instance, we see
the archers with bended bows in a kneeling attitude, as
they continued to be represented in. archaic Greek art,
notably in the Aeginetan pediment now at Munich. Like
1 In this it is like the Homeric lance, as are all those found in the Swiss
lake dwellings and the tombs of Northern Europe. The Trojan lance is the
reverse of this : the head is not provided with a socket to receive the shaft, but
with a tang which fits into a slit in the shaft and is secured there by a rivet.
The tang, as a rule, still shows the rivet-hole. Cyprus alone has yielded lance-
beads to match the Trojan : cf. Ilios, p. 475 f-
2 152 f.