Yatagan
The yatagan or yataghan is a type of Ottoman knife or short sabre used from the mid-16th to late 19th centuries. The yatagan was extensively used in Ottoman Turkey and in areas under immediate Ottoman influence, such as the Balkans and the Caucasus. Yatagans consist of a single-edged blade with a marked forward curve and a hilt formed of two grip plaques attached through the tang, the end of the hilt being shaped like large ears; the gap between the grips is covered by a metal strap, decorated. The blade varies from 60 centimetres to 80 centimetres in length and is curved forward, sometimes reclining backwards again towards the end; this blade form is referred to as being'recurved.' While the back of the blade is made of softer steel, the sharp edge is made of hard, tempered steel for durability. The hilt has no guard; the grip plaques are made from bone, horn or silver, spread out in two'wings' or'ears' to either side at the pommel. Regional variations in the hilts have been noted: Balkan yatagans tend to have larger ears and are of bone or ivory, whilst Anatolian yatagans characteristically have smaller ears which are more made of horn or silver, while Ionian coast Zeibeks carried T Hilt Yataghans.
Sophisticated artwork on both the hilt and the blade can be seen on many yatagans displayed today, indicating considerable symbolic value. Having no guard, the yatagan fitted into the top of the scabbard; the blade may have the Seal of Solomon motif pressed into the blade. Other popular imprints include text from the Quran; the majority of yatagans date from the period 1750-1860, from the number of plain, wooden-hilted weapons they were honest fighting weapons as well as ornate parade weapons. The more ornate examples were worn as a status symbol by civilians, as well as military men, much in the way smallswords were worn in 18th century Western Europe. Blades were cut down from broadswords or cavalry swords, but in general the forward-curving single-edged blade was used. Verses in gold or silver are laid along the blade. Silver hilts mounted with filigree and coral, for example, are associated with Turkish Yataghans; the most flamboyant scabbards are of wood, encased with silver. By contrast, in the half of the 1800s, the prevalence of sword bayonets on military rifles gave rise to an entire style of mass-produced military bayonets known as "Yataghan style".
The yatagans used by janissaries and other infantry soldiers were smaller and lighter than ordinary swords so as not to hinder them when carried at the waist on the march. The town of Yatağan in southwest Turkey was famous for its yataghan smithing and in folklore is considered to be the birthplace of yataghans. According to legend, the town was conquered by a Seljuk commander and blacksmith named Osman Bey, whose cognomen was Yatağan Baba. Yatağan Baba settled there and invented the yataghan type blades, gave his name not only to the town, but to the weapon he invented and produced there, but today scholars indicate. Recurve blades and "eared" handles can be traced back to Central Asia, where this type of bronze knives were found in several Bronze Age archeological sites. Etymology of the term "yataghan" is considered to come from Uzbek tribe of Kataghan or given because of the way the knife was carried in "lying down" fashion in the belt In Ottoman period, yatagans were made in all the major cities of the Ottoman Empire Constantinople and Filibe.
One of the finest and earliest examples of the type was the weapon made for Suleiman the Magnificent, who ruled over the Ottoman Empire from 1520 to 1566. This specimen now lies in the treasury of the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul and is of particular interest since it is not only dated 1526/7, but has the name of the artist who made it, Ahmed Tekelü, on the back of the blade; the hilt is of ivory overlaid with gold delicately carved with cloud scrolls. Balkan war museums display many examples dating from the decline of the Ottoman Empire. Kukri Shashka
Mercenary
A mercenary, sometimes known as a soldier of fortune, is an individual who takes part in military conflict for personal profit, is otherwise an outsider to the conflict, is not a member of any other official military. Mercenaries fight for money or other forms of payment rather than for political interests. In the last century, mercenaries have come to be seen as less entitled to protections by rules of war than non-mercenaries. Indeed, the Geneva Conventions declare that mercenaries are not recognized as legitimate combatants and do not have to be granted the same legal protections as captured soldiers of a regular army. In practice, whether or not a person is a mercenary may be a matter of degree, as financial and political interests may overlap, as was the case among Italian condottieri. Protocol Additional GC 1977 is a 1977 amendment protocol to the Geneva Conventions. Article 47 of the protocol provides the most accepted international definition of a mercenary, though not endorsed by some countries, including the United States.
The Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts, 8 June 1977 states: Art 47. Mercenaries 1. A mercenary shall not have the right to be a prisoner of war. 2. A mercenary is any person who: is recruited locally or abroad in order to fight in an armed conflict. All the criteria must be met, according to the Geneva Convention, for a combatant to be described as a mercenary. According to the GC III, a captured soldier must be treated as a lawful combatant and, therefore, as a protected person with prisoner-of-war status until facing a competent tribunal; that tribunal, using criteria in APGC77 or some equivalent domestic law, may decide that the soldier is a mercenary. At that juncture, the mercenary soldier becomes an unlawful combatant but still must be "treated with humanity and, in case of trial, shall not be deprived of the rights of fair and regular trial", being still covered by GC IV Art 5; the only possible exception to GC IV Art 5 is when he is a national of the authority imprisoning him, in which case he would not be a mercenary soldier as defined in APGC77 Art 47.d.
If, after a regular trial, a captured soldier is found to be a mercenary he can expect treatment as a common criminal and may face execution. As mercenary soldiers may not qualify as PoWs, they cannot expect repatriation at war's end; the best known post-World War II example of this was on 28 June 1976 when, at the end of the Luanda Trial, an Angolan court sentenced three Britons and an American to death and nine other mercenaries to prison terms ranging from 16 to 30 years. The four mercenaries sentenced to death were shot by a firing squad on 10 July 1976; the legal status of civilian contractors depends upon the nature of their work and their nationalities with respect to that of the combatants. If they have not "in fact, taken a direct part in the hostilities", they are not mercenaries but civilians who have non-combat support roles and are entitled to protection under the Third Geneva Convention. On 4 December 1989, the United Nations passed resolution 44/34, the International Convention against the Recruitment, Use and Training of Mercenaries.
It entered into force on 20 October 2001 and is known as the UN Mercenary Convention. Article 1 contains the definition of a mercenary. Article 1.1 is similar to Article 47 of Protocol I, however Article 1.2 broadens the definition to include a non-national recruited to overthrow a "Government or otherwise undermining the constitutional order of a State. Critics have argued that APGC77 Art. 47 are designed to cover the activities of mercenaries in post-colonial Africa and do not address adequately the use of private military companies by sovereign states. The situation during the Iraq War and the continuing occupation of Iraq after the United Nations Security Council-sanctioned hand-over of power to the Iraqi government shows the difficulty of defining a mercenary soldier. While the United States governed Iraq, no U. S. citizen working as an armed guard could be classified as a mercenary because he was a national of a Party to the conflict. With the hand-over of power to the Iraqi government, if one does not consider the coalition forces to be continuing parties to the conflict in Iraq, but that their soldiers are "sent by a State, not a Party to the conflict on official duty as a member of its armed forces" unless U.
S. citizens working as armed guards are lawfully certified residents of Iraq, i.e. "a resident of territory controlled by a Party to the conflict", they are involved with
Kopis
The term kopis in Ancient Greece could describe a heavy knife with a forward-curving blade used as a tool for cutting meat, for ritual slaughter and animal sacrifice, or refer to a single edged cutting or "cut and thrust" sword with a shaped blade. The kopis sword was a one-handed weapon. Early examples had a blade length of up to 65 cm, making it equal in size to the spatha. Macedonian examples tended to be shorter with a blade length of about 48 cm; the kopis had a single-edged blade that pitched forward towards the point, the edge being concave on the part of the sword nearest the hilt, but swelling to convexity towards the tip. This shape termed "recurved", distributes the weight in such a way that the kopis was capable of delivering a blow with the momentum of an axe, whilst maintaining the long cutting edge of a sword and some facility to execute a thrust; some scholars have claimed an Etruscan origin for the sword, as such swords have been found as early as the 7th century BC in Etruria.
The kopis is compared to the contemporary Iberian falcata and the more recent, shorter, Nepalese kukri. The word itself is a Greek feminine singular noun; the difference in meaning between kopis and makhaira is not clear in ancient texts, but modern specialists tend to discriminate between single-edged cutting swords, those with a forward curve being classed as kopides, those without as makhairai. The Ancient Greeks used single-edged blades in warfare, as attested to by art and literature. Greek heavy infantry hoplites favored straight swords, but the downward curve of the kopis made it suited to mounted warfare; the general and writer Xenophon recommended the single edged kopis sword for cavalry use in his work On Horsemanship. The precise wording of Xenophon's description suggests the possibility that the kopis was regarded as a specific variant within a more general class, with the term makhaira denoting any single-edged cutting sword. Greek art shows Persian soldiers wielding the kopis or an axe rather than the straight-bladed Persian akinakes.
It has been suggested that the yatagan, used in the Balkans and Anatolia during the Ottoman Period, was a direct descendant of the kopis. Falcata Kukri Khopesh Makhaira Xiphos Iron Age sword Illustration of Kopis in Ancient Greek Art
National Archaeological Museum (Madrid)
The National Archaeological Museum is a museum in Madrid, Spain. It is located on Serrano Street beside the Plaza de Colón, sharing its building with the National Library; the museum was founded in 1867 by a Royal Decree of Isabella II as a depository for numismatic, archaeological and decorative art collections of the Spanish monarchs. The museum was located in the Embajadores district of Madrid. In 1895, it moved to a building designed to house it, a neoclassical design by architect Francisco Jareño, built from 1866 to 1892. In 1968, renovation and extension works increased its area; the museum closed for renovation in 2008 and reopened in April 2014. The remodelled museum concentrates on its core archaeological role, rather than decorative arts, its collection is based on pieces from Prehistory to Early-Modern Age. However, it has different collections coming from outside of Spain from Ancient Greece, both from the metropolitan and, above all, from Magna Graecia, and, to a lesser extent, from Ancient Egypt, in addition to "a small number of pieces" from Near East.
Prehistoric and Iberiana replica of the Altamira cave Lady of Elche Lady of Baza Lady of Galera Dama del Cerro de los Santos Biche of Balazote Bull of Osuna Mausoleum of Pozo Moro Sphinx of AgostRoman and VisigothicLex Ursonensis Treasure of GuarrazarMedievalCrucifix of Ferdinand and SanchaAl-AndalusPyxis of Zamora One of the Alhambra vases List of museums in Spain Media related to Museo Arqueológico Nacional de España at Wikimedia Commons National Archaeological Museum of Spain - Muselia Official list of museums in Spain
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece was a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Three centuries after the Late Bronze Age collapse of Mycenaean Greece, Greek urban poleis began to form in the 8th century BC, ushering in the Archaic period and colonization of the Mediterranean Basin; this was followed by the period of Classical Greece, an era that began with the Greco-Persian Wars, lasting from the 5th to 4th centuries BC. Due to the conquests by Alexander the Great of Macedon, Hellenistic civilization flourished from Central Asia to the western end of the Mediterranean Sea; the Hellenistic period came to an end with the conquests and annexations of the eastern Mediterranean world by the Roman Republic, which established the Roman province of Macedonia in Roman Greece, the province of Achaea during the Roman Empire. Classical Greek culture philosophy, had a powerful influence on ancient Rome, which carried a version of it to many parts of the Mediterranean Basin and Europe.
For this reason, Classical Greece is considered to be the seminal culture which provided the foundation of modern Western culture and is considered the cradle of Western civilization. Classical Greek culture gave great importance to knowledge. Science and religion were not separate and getting closer to the truth meant getting closer to the gods. In this context, they understood the importance of mathematics as an instrument for obtaining more reliable knowledge. Greek culture, in a few centuries and with a limited population, managed to explore and make progress in many fields of science, mathematics and knowledge in general. Classical antiquity in the Mediterranean region is considered to have begun in the 8th century BC and ended in the 6th century AD. Classical antiquity in Greece was preceded by the Greek Dark Ages, archaeologically characterised by the protogeometric and geometric styles of designs on pottery. Following the Dark Ages was the Archaic Period, beginning around the 8th century BC.
The Archaic Period saw early developments in Greek culture and society which formed the basis for the Classical Period. After the Archaic Period, the Classical Period in Greece is conventionally considered to have lasted from the Persian invasion of Greece in 480 until the death of Alexander the Great in 323; the period is characterized by a style, considered by observers to be exemplary, i.e. "classical", as shown in the Parthenon, for instance. Politically, the Classical Period was dominated by Athens and the Delian League during the 5th century, but displaced by Spartan hegemony during the early 4th century BC, before power shifted to Thebes and the Boeotian League and to the League of Corinth led by Macedon; this period saw the Greco-Persian Wars and the Rise of Macedon. Following the Classical period was the Hellenistic period, during which Greek culture and power expanded into the Near and Middle East; this period ends with the Roman conquest. Roman Greece is considered to be the period between Roman victory over the Corinthians at the Battle of Corinth in 146 BC and the establishment of Byzantium by Constantine as the capital of the Roman Empire in AD 330.
Late Antiquity refers to the period of Christianization during the 4th to early 6th centuries AD, sometimes taken to be complete with the closure of the Academy of Athens by Justinian I in 529. The historical period of ancient Greece is unique in world history as the first period attested directly in proper historiography, while earlier ancient history or proto-history is known by much more circumstantial evidence, such as annals or king lists, pragmatic epigraphy. Herodotus is known as the "father of history": his Histories are eponymous of the entire field. Written between the 450s and 420s BC, Herodotus' work reaches about a century into the past, discussing 6th century historical figures such as Darius I of Persia, Cambyses II and Psamtik III, alluding to some 8th century ones such as Candaules. Herodotus was succeeded by authors such as Thucydides, Demosthenes and Aristotle. Most of these authors were either Athenian or pro-Athenian, why far more is known about the history and politics of Athens than those of many other cities.
Their scope is further limited by a focus on political and diplomatic history, ignoring economic and social history. In the 8th century BC, Greece began to emerge from the Dark Ages which followed the fall of the Mycenaean civilization. Literacy had been lost and Mycenaean script forgotten, but the Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet, modifying it to create the Greek alphabet. Objects with Phoenician writing on them may have been available in Greece from the 9th century BC, but the earliest evidence of Greek writing comes from graffiti on Greek pottery from the mid-8th century. Greece was divided into many small self-governing communities, a pattern dictated by Greek geography: every island and plain is cut off from its neighbors by the sea or mountain ranges; the Lelantine War is the earliest documented war of the ancient Greek period. It was fought between the important poleis of Chalcis and Eretria over the fertile Lelantine plain of Euboea. Both cities seem to have suffered a decline as result of the long war, though Chalcis was the nominal victor.
A mercantile class arose in the first half of the 7th century BC, shown by the introduction of coinage in about 680 BC. This
Roman army
The Roman army was the terrestrial armed forces deployed by the Romans throughout the duration of Ancient Rome, from the Roman Kingdom to the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, its medieval continuation the Eastern Roman Empire. It is thus a term that may span 2,206 years, during which the Roman armed forces underwent numerous permutations in composition, organisation and tactics, while conserving a core of lasting traditions.. The Early Roman army was the armed force of the Roman Kingdom and of the early Republic. During this period, when warfare chiefly consisted of small-scale plundering raids, it has been suggested that the army followed Etruscan or Greek models of organisation and equipment; the early Roman army was based on an annual levy. The infantry ranks were filled with the lower classes while the cavalry were left to the patricians, because the wealthier could afford horses. Moreover, the commanding authority during the regal period was the high king; until the establishment of the Republic and the office of consul, the king assumed the role of commander-in-chief.
However, from about 508 BC Rome no longer had a king. The commanding position of the army was given to the consuls, "who were charged both singly and jointly to take care to preserve the Republic from danger"; the term legion is derived from the Latin word legio. At first there were only four legions; these legions were numbered "I" to "IIII", with the fourth being written as such and not "IV". The first legion was seen as the most prestigious; the bulk of the army was made up of citizens. These citizens could not choose the legion. Any man "from ages 16–46 were selected by ballot" and assigned to a legion; until the Roman military disaster of 390 BC at the Battle of the Allia, Rome's army was organised to the Greek phalanx. This was due to Greek influence in Italy "by way of their colonies". Patricia Southern quotes ancient historians Livy and Dionysius in saying that the "phalanx consisted of 3,000 infantry and 300 cavalry"; each man had to provide his equipment in battle. Politically they shared the same ranking system in the Comitia Centuriata.
The Roman army of the mid-Republic was known as the "manipular army" or the "Polybian army" after the Greek historian Polybius, who provides the most detailed extant description of this phase. The Roman army started to have a full-time strength of 150,000 at all times and 3/4 of the rest were levied. During this period, the Romans, while maintaining the levy system, adopted the Samnite manipular organisation for their legions and bound all the other peninsular Italian states into a permanent military alliance; the latter were required to supply the same number of troops to joint forces as the Romans to serve under Roman command. Legions in this phase were always accompanied on campaign by the same number of allied alae, units of the same size as legions. After the 2nd Punic War, the Romans acquired an overseas empire, which necessitated standing forces to fight lengthy wars of conquest and to garrison the newly gained provinces, thus the army's character mutated from a temporary force based on short-term conscription to a standing army in which the conscripts were supplemented by a large number of volunteers willing to serve for much longer than the legal six-year limit.
These volunteers were from the poorest social class, who did not have plots to tend at home and were attracted by the modest military pay and the prospect of a share of war booty. The minimum property requirement for service in the legions, suspended during the 2nd Punic War, was ignored from 201 BC onward in order to recruit sufficient volunteers. Between 150-100 BC, the manipular structure was phased out, the much larger cohort became the main tactical unit. In addition, from the 2nd Punic War onward, Roman armies were always accompanied by units of non-Italian mercenaries, such as Numidian light cavalry, Cretan archers, Balearic slingers, who provided specialist functions that Roman armies had lacked; the Roman army of the late Republic marks the continued transition between the conscription-based citizen-levy of the mid-Republic and the volunteer, professional standing forces of the imperial era. The main literary sources for the army's organisation and tactics in this phase are the works of Julius Caesar, the most notable of a series of warlords who contested for power in this period.
As a result of the Social War, all Italians were granted Roman citizenship, the old allied alae were abolished and their members integrated into the legions. Regular annual conscription remained in force and continued to provide the core of legionary recruitment, but an ever-increasing proportion of recruits were volunteers, who signed up for 16-year terms as opposed to the maximum 6 years for conscripts; the loss of ala cavalry reduced Roman/Italian cavalry by 75%, legions became dependent on allied native horse for cavalry cover. This period saw the large-scale expansion of native forces employed to complement the legions, made up of numeri recruited from tribes within Rome's overseas empire and neighbouring allied tribes. Large numbers of heavy infantry and cavalry were recruited in Spain and Thrace, archers in Thrace and Syria. However, these native units were not integrated with the legions, but retained th
.jpg)
_03b.jpg)
