I usually enjoy watching the history channel. Okay, even today I enjoyed the program. The program was about the build up of military might and weapons by Ramses the Second in preparation to invade the Hittites. I was watching a channel on the history of ancient Egyptian weapons it was informative and interesting; however, the demonstrations left much to be desired. The first demonstration was to prove that the traditional mace as used by ancient Egyptian infantry was a useless weapon. The Egyptian mace was a large rock with the middle section hollowed out so it could fit on the end of a wooden shaft. (For pictures go to http://otlichnik.tripod.com/medmace.html)

For the demonstration of the mace they made a replica then used it to smash an animal skull on the place on the top of a pole. The guy doing the demonstration smashed the mace straight down on the skull crushing it between the mace and the pole. This was to demonstrate the mace was an effective weapon against an unprotected skull. The next demonstration they set modern reproduction of a steel helmet on the pole and smacked it at an angle so that the helmet went flying off of the pole. There were two problems with this demonstration. First, the blow was at an angle causing the helmet to fly away rather than the straight down blow as before. Second steel was not known to ancient Egypt of any of its contemporaries so demonstrating the effectiveness of a Bronze Age weapon against a steel helmet is not an effective demonstration of the weapon.

One of the other weapons that was highlighted by the history channel was a composite short bow. A composite bow is made form a bone or horn bonded to wood by resin the wrapped in animal sinew finally coated in resin to hold the whole thing together. The point of manufacturing a bow like this was to make a very effective weapon that fires arrows fast and hard but reduce weight and length to make the weapon more usable on a battle field. Archaeologists know that Egyptian’s used the composite bow because they have found some in King Tut’s tomb.

For the demonstration of the composite bow they used a reproduction not of an Egyptian bow but rather they used a reproduction a Mongolian bow. This is a bad demonstration because the Egyptians were just figuring out how to make and use the composite bow. The Mongols had about 2000 years to prefect the art. The Mongol composite bow is the pinnacle of composite bows. Comparing a Mongol bow to an Egyptian one is like comparing a modern assault rifle to a musket. The incredibly sad thing is they had on the show a military historian using the same techniques as the Egyptians had made reproductions of Egyptian composite bows why did they not use those bows in their demonstration.

The show was interesting but I think that they should have done a better job with the demonstrations.