The khopesh
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ม.ค. 2014
- Khopesh made by Neil Burridge and owned by Mick Skelly.
This was the first and will quite possibly be the last video I edited using Adobe Premiere. It was not a pleasant experience, but perhaps I will give it another chance one day. I now have Avid Liquid/Pinnacle 17, so I'm hoping that once I've learned to use that, my problems will diminish. In the last few months I tried four editing packages on my new computer and none has been great. I suspect that if I could get some twenty year-old professional software, it would prove much better. I notice that in common with Sony Vegas Studio, it has screwed up the colours of the title plates, which is very annoying.
Anyway, happy New Year, viewers!
www.LloydianAspects.co.uk
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Who else is just binge watching 'ole Lindy? This channel is amazing, I am so happy to have found it.
This is my 4th way through
Going through a Lindybinge
Guilty, this channel was a recent find for me must gone through half his library at least by now.
dont you mean beige watching ;)
Tanks? YES! Swords? YES! Mud bricks? YES!
For a moment there I believed that this particular khopesh was THE VERY one from Tutankhamun's tomb. Then I read the description and grew very disappointed very quickly.
I once was at a Renaissance Fair, and a guy selling an assortment of weapons tried to tell me that a Kopis and Khopesh are the same sword, only the Khopesh was a little longer.
Needless to say, I didn't buy anything from him.
Uhhh nice bro, you totally history'd him!
LupusInCaligo I did argue the point, but when he started getting dismissive I dropped it. My point was not that I educated him or destroyed him in argument, but that here was a man forging and selling weapons at a major historical reenacting event and had no clue as to what some of the weapons he was selling were.
Scipi
I was just joking, you know? :D I was never trying to make you look bad or overreacting or something like that :D Just a bit of sarcasm :)
LupusInCaligo Ah, my apologies. Sarcasm sometimes doesn't translate well through text ^_^
he didnt make them did he? if so he gave bladesmiths a bad reputation and i apologize
Definitely good for chopping carrots and herbs, but you neglected to mention the most basic of foods. Clearly it would have been very good at quickly slicing up a pizza.
If you were a soldier in Egypt back in the day imagine the disappointment when lil Caesar's showed up at the tent door with an unsliced pizza! No problem, whip out your khopesh and take care of the tip and the slicing at the same time.
badlandskid wth did I just read lol
Dude, this is so anachronistic. Ceasar didn't live in the bronze age, stupid.
Effective Altruist so? It is for comedic value
You didn't get the joke, m8.
Effective Altruist ......oh.
The Hebrew language has an interesting reference in it to the Kopesh sword. The seventh letter in the Hebrew alphabet is ז , and is called "Zayin". Zayin is also the word for "weapon". The shape of the letter has changed somewhat over the millennia, but it was originally designed to look like a Kopesh sword, and still kind of does in some fonts. So Hebrew immortalized the Kopesh right in its own alphabet.
+Headrock Actually in modern Hebrew cursive script, zayin is a dead ringer for the khopesh. I can't put text of it here because I don't think cursive Hebrew is supported as text, but just look it up you'll see.
Jan Weber
Yes, I'm aware of that, but the cursive script is a much later form. You'll note I was referring to the original shape of the letter.
oh those Hebrews
fun fact you got there, the oldest inscription with a kopesh that i remember is an akadian piece of art... i dont remember what it was, but it was a battlefield scene and there were some soldiers with kopesh
Fancy finding a @Headrock here.... :D
It's a coincidence, the Greek κοπίς means "the chopper" and it's a feminine noun (3rd declension) that derives from the verb κόπτω kóptō, "to smite, strike, beat", cognate with the Russian копать, "to dig" (both Indo-European languages).
The Egyptian khopesh on the other hand, probably derives from the (Egyptian) word for "leg", as it resembles an animal's leg.
Besides, in the Egyptian word the initial consonant is an aspirated kʰ- while the initial κ- in κοπίς is unaspirated. If the Greeks had borrowed the name of the weapon from the Egyptians, they'd probably write it with χ- (χοπίς) as chi in ancient Greek represented the sound of aspirated /kʰ/
Amazing channel you have there Lindybeige.
wow.
I think I remember having read somewhere that unlike most swords, which evolved from the dagger, the kopesh might have evolved from the axe. I might just be making that up, though.
Kopis and Kopesh are independent swords, no connection with them. except that they are both chopping weapons
Lindy, is it possible for you to do a video about borders in the medieval world?
I got interested with that topic, since I knew it wasn't possible to just cover the entire line with troops and whatnot. However, the Polish stopped the plauge from entering their country through strict border control, so there had to be some form of that.
I'd love to hear from you how all of that worked.
The plague wasn't stopped from entering Poland. There are no reliable death figures for Poland, but we do know that there are two outbreaks of plague for the country, one in 1349 and one in 1351, and a group of students who visited Bologna towards the end of the plague said this "students saw that in most cities and castlesfew remained alive, and in some all were dead. In many houses also those who had escaped with their lives were so weakened by sickness that one could not give the other a draught of water, nor help him in any way and so passed the time in great affliction and distress. In many places, too, the air was more infected and more deadly than poisoned food, from the corruption of the corpses, since there was no one left to bury them.”
(Source: The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death)
John Johnson
Many sources and maps of the Black Plague show that the Kingdom of Poland was left mostly untouched, like, for instance, here:
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/Bubonic_plague_map.PNG
or here:
boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=14105557&postcount=17
Supposedly some of Copernicus' subordinates in Poland are credited with creating butter/marrying butter to bread, since it could be spread on the bread and then during the siege, any fine debris on the bread could be seen and that bread could be avoided--thus avoiding the/a plague from spreading. I can't remember if it was "the" plauge or just "a" plague though--been awhile since I read the story. But yeah supposedly Copernicus was in charge of a Polish castle being sieged or something.
"the air was more infected and deadly than poisoned food". I want to remark that "bad air" as a cause for disease was a superstition of the time.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miasma_theory
It looks exactly how I'd imagine a one-piece cast axe. You need to save weight yet maintain strength and if for some reason you don't want a shaft (e.g. shortage of decent wood or rapid production) then it is perfect for fighting or daily use.
Another fantastic video.
I'd love to have one of these. Dexterity of a sword and the power of an axe. Honestly my favorite sword, and it's complimented very well by a shield (which I suppose is pretty common with one handed swords)
Hi Lindy love your work.As per your video on the hoplite sword.Reminds me of the reputed origin of the Sam Brown belt.S.B. had lost an arm someplace and designed the belt so he could pull a saber with one hand.Cheerio.
One of my favourites!
Those things would look pretty sweet to dual wield with a loin cloth and ninja mask.
A khopesh in one hand, a katana in the other...
InterestedMe Or better yet, the best of both worlds... A KATANAPESH!
You should watch the episode: "A point about dual-weilding" ; )
So these things remind me of the "Arakh" from HBO's Game of Thrones, the design team there seems to have borrowed from egyptians.
I don't think that they put the forefinger above the hilt, you have to think of the fact that people were smaller these days. I only know Roman numbers which were about 1,65-1,70 on average, so really small when you think about it.
HamsterPants522 Could mere metal contain such destructive power?
M. Vipsanius Agrippa "HBO's Game of Thrones" you would say George Martin Song of Ice and Fire. The TV series are awesome but the root is the root.
Thanks for posting this Lindybeige!
I would love to see an updated version of this if possible. hell, i'd love to see more coverage on what is my favourite weapon I've ever laid eyes on.
* looking forward to your new line of culinary merch! *
Next on my purchase list!
Very nice video. I have been curious about the kopesh for a long time.
It throws off my sense of scale for weapons compared to Lloyd because he's so tall
Such a cool friggin' sword, the khopesh.
The Khopesh was also used for hooking the enemy's weapon and twisting it out of his hand
Very informative, thanks man!
FINALLY!
Thank you iv bin curious of that weapon for a very long time.
Lindy have you ever played the Total War series games and read through the info dumps? They're all quite super interesting to read, sometimes I just read through the encyclopedia for an hour,
Oh, I would love to see Lindy's thoughts on some of the design decisions made by Creative Assembly.
Possibly he can finding there mistakes (like things that cannot worked). And beleve me, they are there :)) At least in my M2TW.
Telemmar númenórëan
Oh, yes, Total War are great games, and historically as good as any mainstream game, and possibly better than most, but there are many inaccuracies. If you want to really spend hours reading an incredible amount of historically accurate info while playing a Total War game, try a mod for Rome: Total War called "Europa Barbarorum".
I don´t think tht this is good place for spaming with computer games ;) If you are playing M2TW, we can discus everythink on my channel with comentary battles in pseudo-english.... but not here. Let this be for real history.
Do you think that ancient soldiers spent a significant portion of their time chopping vegetables, and didn't have a separate tool for doing so?
Who would want to pay for that many vegetables cutting knives!?
If you have tens of thousands of troops, would each one want to carry a kitchen cleaver as well? The khopesh blade would be a bit thick for dainty thin slices of cucumber, but it's a perfectly serviceable cleaver.
Possibly.
I know that in the Roman army, small units of soldiers would have a rotation of their work detail. You might dig ditches most of the week, but on a particular day you'd have to serve up a meal to the rest of your boys. It's reasonable to assume that, like today, some people had a knack for it and some people didn't. Those who didn't? Well, perhaps they'd chop up the celery root (or whatever the hell was on the menu) with whatever was available. They were a resourceful lot, after all.
"Now where did they put that kitchen knife? Ehhh, fuck it." (Starts using his gladius, which he's never cleaned)
johnnytastetest I don't think people back then were too worried about using a barely cleaned gladius (I'm sure it was wiped after a battle at least) - a bit of dirt never hurt anyone, builds a strong immune system after all.
Lindybeige
Isn't bronze notorious for losing it's edge quite quickly? (Hence the switch to Iron when it came out?) I can imagine chopping a lot of vegetables or grinding herbs with it would dull it slowly over time as many late night vegetable stews were brewed, reducing its effectiveness in battle.
Do the gunblade next. j/k Love this channel :P
I have been following your videos for a while now, and it would be very interesting to see you do a video about bronze - and the properties of the metal.
I think most people do not realize just how good bronze alloys are for weapons and armour, and most would perceive iron as a better metal.
the reason for a 3 finger handle is specifically to put your index finger up over the cross to make it much harder to have the weapon pulled out of your grasp. it's life or death fighting, you'll be willing to grab a kind of sharp object by the blade and get a deep cut on your palm over getting killed.
the Kopesh also had a slight hook at the bottom of the curve, possibly for hooking and then pulling down a shield?
Holding the weapon of an ancient pharaoh… “I could use this to chop carrots” 🤣
Someone is spinning in their sarcophagus because of this video and I got a good chuckle out of that.
"This is THE kopesh found in Tutankhamun's tomb"
*Made by Neil Burridge*
What happened to your hand?
He punched a camel on the mouth. Knocked it right out, but busted his knuckle doing so.
Matthew Kiefer It looked at me oddly. I didn't trust it.
9
BTW There where many crooked blades between the khopesh and the kopis, so your statement about them being "related" is not untrue!
Lindybeige lol
this is amazing Ive just the weekend forged one
Khopesh were actually not forged, they were typically cast in bronze and then sharpened and fitted with a handle. This was more to do with the technology of the time than the ideal production method. Casting them did make it much easier to quickly produce a lot of them if you needed to arm an army on short notice. As I’m sure you encountered while forging one, the shape is not particularly easy to hammer forge. I would imagine that you probably used a grinder to give it the right shape, or perhaps you started with a blank already in the shape you were going for.
Canaanite version with the rounded tip, originated from Khopesh designs, is the 'Sappara", and appeared to be a bit longer than the "standard" Khopesh design as the one you're holding. Some of my favorite weapons in history for sure. Also don't forget the uses for it from a chariot.
The "hind leg" idea makes more sense considering how similar to modern prosthetic legs it is.
***** If I lose my leg, I want a modified bronze khopesh to be my prosthetic.
I wonder if the rounding of the blade is perhaps for supports. The arch formation would add structural benefits when chopping. You can see that the hitting someone would be the stress and the arch would certainly help. Any ideas on that?
I recall reading somewhere that the khopesh were evolved from axes and would therefore perhaps more accurately be classified as battle axes rather than swords. I still think of them as hacking swords like kopis(es?) and falcatas, though.
Also, I think a steel khopesh might be pretty handy in a zombie apocalypse. :P
My favorite style of sword.
Yay, the khopesh, my favorite poorly-described weapon from Unearthed Arcana :D
Love your videos. I really wish a lot of the people who make the weapons in your videos could have a website specifically for historical weaponry made by artisans. That would be awesome. Being able to buy functional but historically accurate weapons by various people on a single website. It would not only be great for people like me who like collecting weapons but would also be good for them and would also enable the makers of such weaponry and armour to connect and share ideas/theories.
include armor in that and you have me interested. I'm planning to become an armorsmith and it would be amazing to have a sort of network to bring craftsmen, collectors and enthusiasts all together.
www.sword-buyers-guide.com
Graidon Mabson I don't think that was exactly the sort of website being proposed.
HamsterPants522
Probably not exactly, but it's pretty close.
Graidon Mabson
Fot Historical Accuracy?
You'z Trollin?
Nah, just naaaahhh!
Most of the folks that write reviews have the best of intentions, but lack a bit of experience with historical originals, haven't had the occasion to wielded any exact reproduction, and even if so, probably not putting it through it's paces, such as going from guard to gard sticking with histrocial techniques...
What most of the users of this website want is to be proud of "their" sword, an cut jugs or pound tires, ennemies that dont really care about timing, accuracy, recovery of the cut, because they dont fight back!
They also want them to be rather inexpensive, so they dont and most wont bother to read anything about actual cross sectional dimensions, taper, etc, as comparing there slo to an historical artifact would show them how far some of the objects of their praises are from their purported models.
Hence the strong taste for sword shaped cleavers built like tanks on these parts of the intarwebs
That's no problem because 90% of the swords bought due to sbg reviews will also be used to maim jugs and bash tires, for wich the slow but powerfull sharpened iron crowbar suffices!
I wouldn't recommend Dothraki weapons. They don't cut through the thick plates of Westerosi knights
i fight with a arakh for around 2 years it works fine.
He died later in a mysterious fashion after handling a blade taken from an Egyptian tomb.
Great
I'm sure going to save for one of these :o
Love the editing software nurdery. What would the Kohpesh be made of?
Awesome, is it cast Lloyd ?
Such a strange thought that you might use the same tool to cut your veggies that you would use to slice up your enemies as well.
I always thought they were a lot bigger but it looks so small and so light whith you holding it.
And again, the void of ignorance fades for a some while.
i would love to see video about Shotel - very interesting weapon.
Very insightful section on the kopesh in Mike Loades' book Swords and Swordsmen. By the by, I onced touched a bit of gum under a pub table and ever since I've had the nagging feeling that I've been cursed.
The curse of chewingumen.
Get it?
Like tutankhamun.
._.
HA
The shape is very interesting, it makes me wonder how the weapons was used in combat, as it seems like for such a specific and unusual shape to be used like that for such a long period of time that it must have provided advantages in battle.
I think that the back hand attack, or perhaps what could be called a wrap, would give a few extra inches in getting around shields. I also wonder if the front of the blade would be useful in hooking onto a shield and then following up with a stab.
Likely used not too disimilar to a scimitar or sabre, as the blades aren't that different. I'd imagine the back of the tip would do nicely for hooking shields/limbs. It is something I REALLY want to get and try out.
I'd like to see somebody choreograph a duel with these.
The _words_ "kopesh" and "kopis" may be related, even if the swords themselves are not. The word "kopesh" is to be found on the Rosetta stone, for example, suggesting that the word survived the object it originally described. Much like "kendo", for example, which doesn't actually have anything to do with the specific sword "ken". Or the Italian word for sword, "spada", from "spatha", although it no longer means specifically that sword.
Lindy, not sure about the etymology of the word Kopesh but in a video I was watching about Greek Pankrateion and they mention that Kopis was the Ancient Greek for "to cut". It would be interesting to see what Kopesh meant.
I heard from one source that the kopesh could have been used to hook onto an enemy's weapon and disarm them.
I'm watching them in clumps, at work. He could talk about cardboard, and it would be interesting. I was watching 'Cody's Lab', another addictive channel, and Cody mentioned Lindy's site. I was watching 'Cody's Lab' after seeing him destroy a toilet by flushing a load of Sodium down it (as you do), with Grant Thompson, 'The King Of Random'. And I was watching him, because I had been watching Colin Furze, who mentioned him. That's the problem with channels with excellent content - you can't just watch one.
The ending music was sort of awkward honestly. And what happened to the silly jokes in the end anyway? :c
What music would you have preferred? Back to the jazz? The sound of wind over the plains blowing tumbleweed?
Lindybeige Clearly we must go on a musical journey through time and space.
Lindybeige Please do a video with wind over the plains blowing tumbleweed. PLEASE! (including the silly jokes) :3
Lindybeige this one would be just fine
/watch?v=8vISdvJLMUM&list=PL2BCDA8AD96BBEC87
From what I know ancient Greeks were always open for knowledge and invention of other cultures, especially Egyptians who were among the few cultures as sophisticated as Greeks (in some areas at least). Greeks have travelled to Egypt a lot and it is very likely that they'd borrow some ideas for warfare from them as well.
Did they have cucumbers in Egypt xD also, did Egyptian soldiers light a lot of fires? I think of Egypt as desert. Perhaps my perception is wrong. Great video.
You see those warriors from Hammerfell? They've got curved swords. Curved. Swords.
@Lindybeige Do you think the copes may have been worn through a ring one a belt, or perhaps directly through the belt ?....It's hard to imagine a scabbard for such a weapon...
Ima just chop some carrots with my khopesh
Wish they mass produced the khopesh like machetes. They look to be extremely versatile weapons. You have the point which lines up for a straight thrust, but with a puncture would have more wound than a straight sword. The curve for obvious slashing, and two hooks (one more pronounced than the other), and different grips.
Maybe some variants had their point sharpened to bypass shields similar to the design of a shotel.
I'd have thought the curved edge of the knife is a way of not bashing your fingers when hacking away at wood and so on.
Cool
King tatu-tatu
looks exactly like the dragon priest dagger from Skyrim
The curse of king Tut's tomb is being pelted with sword pommels and being ended rightly.
Khopesh is a semetic word meaning stag's leg.
the dothraki made this weapon great
Avid is usually the best software for general editing. it's a bit un-intuitive but once you get around that it is super easy to use
Damn straight.
Do we know how they were carried? Were there sheaths or some suspension for them? It seems that a soldier would need to be able to stow it when not in use, but still need a quick deploy solution, but I don't see that happening with a traditional sheath.
could a khopesh be characterized as an early axe ? or a sword/axe hybrid ? since from what i understood half of it's "blade" is blunt (as an axe shaft is ) and looks like aside from slashing like a sword it could also have a good whack like an axe ?
+George Physentzides i remember seeing somewhere(i can't remember where) that the Khopesh was probably a sword that would mimic an axes functions.
Lindybeige, do you think that khopesh was actually made to functional specs, or was it simply a burial ornament?
Looks like the dragon priest dagger from Skyrim
relating to your "scimitars" anecdote, do you think there would be any use in wielding it close to body ?
That is much smaller that I imagined it would be, haha
Diana from League uses something like that, but is 1.5 handed (like a katana)
Is there some advantage to rounding the tip that you can think of? Is it particularly difficult to make it pointed?
Because if not, then I cannot see any reason why it would be rounded, and I would be strongly inclined to think that the ones which were rounded were so either because of heavy use (perhaps you'd stab into armour, and the tip would break off, and you'd have to grind it down to a round shape?), or because of artistic considerations on the part of the artists who drew pictures of them.
It could be some other explanation as well, but my point is that there would have to be one. Even a small advantage counts for a lot in a highly competitive situation like close combat, and being able to stab has certain tactical advantages, even if your weapon isn't balanced primarily for stabbing.
Some early swords had rounded tips to strengthen them against damage. They are working with fairly fragile materials until steel comes along.
Hey Lindybeige, I know this is an old video, but I was wondering: if you were to choke up on the khopesh like how you showed here, would it be serviceable in grappling or close-in knife work similar to how a large bowie would be used? Given it's length, and the fact that only about half of it is actual blade, I feel like it could work well as a fighting knife as well as a short sword depending on where you hold it. What do you think?
how would the scabbard for a The Khopesh look? i've always wondered...
Did you know that from King tuts toom the main thing that we know is that he loved the hunt and the chase and that he was the king at boshcraft
I think you mean Minecraft.
would this be usefull if made in steel? also if so , would it cost more then 200 usd?
very axe like
Huh. I always imagined khopesh's being much bigger than that. Well, considering my biggest point of reference is the enemies from God of War, there you go.
I wonder if there's less a morphological relationship between "kopis" and "khopesh" and more a linguistic one; the Greeks inheriting the "word", but not the "form" of the weapon. Perhaps the word meant something like "Chopper" instead of just "sword".
Awesome stuff as usual. Can you use metric as well for measurements. Makes it easier than looking it up.
I regard the use of imperial units as part of the education of my viewers. They will have to know them one day.
I keep thinking "arakh" because of Game of Thrones.
That reminds me.
Lindybeige, when are you going to ridicule Game of Thrones for its completely ridiculous scenes whenever any level of combat is involved?
Alon Shechter as an asoiaf/got fan, I'd find that very amusing. My personal favorites are when the Lannisters ambushing Eddard throw their javelins so hard they completely impale the Stark guards, and when Tyrion chops a Storm Lord's leg off like it's butter during the Battle of the Blackwater.
Tim Lee I'm a fan too, but the show has some utterly ridiculous stuff.
Anything that happens in Essos is particularly offensive, that part where three guys kill all the guards in a damn city, and it's all done in a fairly cramped place surrounded by buildings. You'd think the guards would have an archer or two.
There is one thing I am surprised you didn't mention which is that these weapons were used in this shape because they could easily be converted to weapons and back from farm tools in the days before iron when metal was extremely scarce. I think I heard that these are specifically made out of plough blades, is this true?
Did they have carrot and cucumber in ancient Egypt?
Carrot possibly. They originated in nowadays afghanistan.
In the Bible, cucumbers are one of the foods the Israelites complained to Moses that they didn't have in the desert, that they had an abundance of back in Egypt.
He was cursed with repeated growing success in his channel
You see this English youtuber who talk about middle ages ? He has curved swords, curved swords.
If you turn it around it's also a weak battle axe. Perhaps not in a battle, but if you are a person that carries this weapon and you get in a brawl with someone who is larger than you, it has more reach
Skallagrim has one! :D
are there any other Egyptian swords? and do they closely resemble most bronze age swords?