05-09-2013, 01:17 AM
Hello Michael,
The word nadziak probably originates in the Arabic word nachakh, the battle-ax. The Middle East also knew a battle-hammer looking like the Polish weapon, but they called it (in Arabic) a latt, which seems to have originally been a weapon for infantry. Still, many weapons, or at least their names, went through a process of emancipation and ended up in the hands of the more elevated (literally and socially) cavalry, so this could have happene with the latt too. From the late Roman period to the Seljuk period however, the cavalry battle-hammer of the Middle East usually looked like a small hockey-stick with a zoomorphic head (a bull or feline).
The Polish lance is probably a unique development and not derived from Turkish or Tartar examples, because they used their lances in a very different way from the Poles.
The word nadziak probably originates in the Arabic word nachakh, the battle-ax. The Middle East also knew a battle-hammer looking like the Polish weapon, but they called it (in Arabic) a latt, which seems to have originally been a weapon for infantry. Still, many weapons, or at least their names, went through a process of emancipation and ended up in the hands of the more elevated (literally and socially) cavalry, so this could have happene with the latt too. From the late Roman period to the Seljuk period however, the cavalry battle-hammer of the Middle East usually looked like a small hockey-stick with a zoomorphic head (a bull or feline).
The Polish lance is probably a unique development and not derived from Turkish or Tartar examples, because they used their lances in a very different way from the Poles.
