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*Flanged* maces?
#1
A forum search turned up nothing, so I will ask around.

Maces have been used for a long time, a very long time, and I have read descriptions of maces being used especially by heavily armoured mounted warriors such as cataphracts, for the mace can do damage without penetrating armour as opposed to the sword or spear(though wouldn't that make it better for use against cataphracts?)

However, I have not heard descriptions of maces themselves in antiquity. It seems to me that the best kind of mace would be the flanged mace; heavy enough to do some real damage, and the flanges are small enough to have a real chance of penetrating good armour. It would seem to me that these flanged maces would be especially effective against flexible armour like mail or scale.

Wiki, however, states that flanged maces only started to be used in the early Middle Ages. Could someone clear this up for me? Were they using only balls of iron on wooden shafts before this?
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#2
Maces were everywhere in the Bronze Age. There is a section on them in my book. The earliest metallic weapon ever found is a copper mace from Can Hasan dating to the late 6th millenium. The "disc mace" was unique to Egypt - Its edge concentrates the blow just like a flange does. Vertical fluting in spherical and piriform maces seems to have been an early attempt to make a flanged mace. They start to appear around 3000 BC. Adding knobs was another variation and saw constant use from this period right through to the end of the Middle Ages. The "truncheon mace" was also used. I can't think of any true flanged maces dating any earlier than the Middle Ages. I listed a sample of ten different maces dating to the end of the Bronze Age with all of their measurements and weights.
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen & Sword Books
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#3
Roman accounts, such as those describing Aurelian's battles with cataphract-containing armies, describe "iron-tipped clubs", by my reckoning these are de-facto maces. However, it is obvious that Romans did not have a specific word for this weapon, which argues for its rarity and possibly its crudity of construction. Flanged maces seem to have been developed by Central Asian Turks in the Early Middle Ages and I imagine their use spread more-or-less in parallel with their other weapon invention, the sabre.

The Romans had plenty of iron nails, perhaps the easiest way of creating an "iron-tipped club" would be to drive lots of close-spaced iron nails into the head of a wooden club. This would give extra weight to the tip and create a hard and uneven surface not easily deflected by armour.
Martin

Fac me cocleario vomere!
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#4
The only Roman-era mace discovered within the european* territory of the empire is this one, found at Vinkovci (ancient Cibalae) in a layer dating to the second half of the fourth century:

[attachment=8562]Mace2.jpg[/attachment]

It's forged from a single piece of iron, with eight short spikes.

* edit - I've just had a look in Simon James' Final Report from Dura-Europos, and he has a small drawing (p.189) of a copper alloy mace head found at Dura and now in Damascus museum. Once again it's a 'spiked' design, rather more compact than the one above. He mentions another one from Mauretania, and an Iranian version in the Louvre.


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Nathan Ross
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#5
Most interesting. How big is the Cibalae mace head, Nathan?
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#6
Quote:How big is the Cibalae mace head?

9.26cm long by 4.48cm wide, with a 2.2cm shaft hole - which is actually a lot smaller than I'd imagined!
Nathan Ross
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#7
There is a mace depicted at Bamiyan, 6th - 7th Century, which appears similar to later Polish and Ottoman "bulawa" maces. I am unsure whether it is flanged, or simply has vertical grooves in it.
Nadeem Ahmad

Eran ud Turan - reconstructing the Iranian and Indian world between Alexander and Islam
https://www.facebook.com/eranudturan
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#8
Quote:The only Roman-era mace discovered within the european* territory of the empire is this one, found at Vinkovci (ancient Cibalae) in a layer dating to the second half of the fourth century.

Nathan, where was the find published? Thanks
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#9
So the flanged maces like those used during the Renaissance(at least used by armored knights) really were not around during Antiquity? It would seem to me that making something like that requires some very advanced metalworking capabilities, although it might be pointless if they did not have harder metals that wouldn't bend into just a normal club.
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#10
Quote:where was the find published?

Unpublished. I've sent you a PM...
Nathan Ross
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#11
Is the mace mainly a weapon for cavalry?
Virilis / Jyrki Halme
PHILODOX
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[Image: fectio.png]
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#12
It seems to have been largely confined to cavalry. They had more provision for stowing secondary, or tertiary weapons - on the saddle - than an infantryman. In a description of a battle in the 1150s between the Hungarians and Byzantines, the Byzantine heavy cavalry are described as first shattering their lances, then blunting their swords and finally resorting to their maces.

Aurelian had some club-armed infantry who knocked the Palmyrere cataphracts silly in his campaign against Zenobia, however.
Martin

Fac me cocleario vomere!
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#13
Quote:Aurelian had some club-armed infantry who knocked the Palmyrere cataphracts silly in his campaign against Zenobia, however.

Thanks Martin, this is what I remembered vaquely.
Virilis / Jyrki Halme
PHILODOX
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#14
Ross Cowan reminded me earlier of a passage from Libanius's Orations, describing the battle of Singara in c344, another occasion where Roman soldiers (in this case, definitely infantry) used blunt weapons against armoured cavalry:

The warrior on foot sidesteps the horse that comes up against him and thus foils its move. Then, as the horseman rides by, he strikes him with the club on the side of the head and brings him down. The rest is easy
. (Lib. Or. 59.110)

Whether the 'club' here was a crude length of wood, or something more like a mace, is not clear.

I realised, however, that I've never seen the whole text of this oration, only a few snippets like the one above. Is it available online anywhere, or in a published translation?
Nathan Ross
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#15
Quote:
Ross Cowan post=348259 Wrote:How big is the Cibalae mace head?

9.26cm long by 4.48cm wide, with a 2.2cm shaft hole - which is actually a lot smaller than I'd imagined!
Most maces are a lot smaller and lighter than people imagined.
http://www.myarmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=15182
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen & Sword Books
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