spear or pilum?

[Robert Vermaat]

'Kontos', as such, did not mean a spear of any sort, at any time . From the time of Homer, through Herodotus and into Hellenistic times, a kontos just means a thick punting pole. By the third century B.C. it can be used to mean 'boathook' or even (once) 'elephant goad' ( see Liddell Scott et al). In late Hellenistic times, it becomes a 'nickname' for a 12 ft two-handed cavalry spear, due to it's heavier/thicker than usual two-handed shaft.
I think it is because of this 'boathook/goad' connection that it came to be used as a translation of 'pilum' (thick shaft with iron on the end)

I disagree. The word ‘kontos’, like you say, becomes the name of a 12 ft. cavalry spear. And this meaning sticks, because we see no difference throughout the period after that, and even when the word enter Latin as ‘contus’ I see no-one having trouble as a characterisation of (still) a cavalry spear or a long infantry spear. Both are thrusting weapons.

Yet suddenly somehow it reminds people of a pilum because that supposedly looks like a ‘boathook’? I find that totally unbelievable. So the cavalry weapon does not look like a boathook? OK, I can relate to that. But the pilum somehow does? Just because it has an iron shank? And that suddenly means that everywhere an author uses ‘kontos’ in an infantry connection, it means that they had a pilum in mind?

And furthermore, it never “came to be used as a translation of 'pilum'â€