Sagaris is the ancient Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 name for a shafted weapon used by the horse-riding ancient North-Iranian Saka

Saka

The Saka were a Scythian tribe or group of tribes....

 and Scythian peoples of the great Eurasian steppe

Eurasian Steppe

The Eurasian Steppe is the vast steppe ecoregion of Eurasia in the Temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands Biome. It stretches from Hungary to Mongolia...

, also by the Western and Central Asian peoples: the Medes

Medes

The MedesThe Medes...

, Persians

Persian people

The Persian people are part of the Iranian peoples who speak the modern Persian language and closely akin Iranian dialects and languages. The origin of the ethnic Iranian/Persian peoples are traced to the Ancient Iranian peoples, who were part of the ancient Indo-Iranians and themselves part of...

, Parthayans, Indo-Saka, Kushans, Tocharians

Tocharians

The Tocharians were the Tocharian-speaking inhabitants of the Tarim Basin, making them the easternmost speakers of Indo-European languages in antiquity. They were known as, or at least closely related to, the Yuezhi of Chinese sources...

. Mossynoeci

Mossynoeci

Mossynoeci is a name that the Greeks of the Euxine Sea applied to the peoples of Pontus, the northern Anatolian coast west of Trebizond.-Herodotus:...

, and others living within the milieu of Iranian peoples, and according to Aristarchus of Samothrace

Aristarchus of Samothrace

Aristarchus of Samothrace was a grammarian noted as the most influential of all scholars of Homeric poetry. He was the librarian of the library of Alexandria and seems to have succeeded his teacher Aristophanes of Byzantium in that role.He established the most historically important critical...

, by the legendary Amazons

Amazons

The Amazons are a nation of all-female warriors in Greek mythology and Classical antiquity. Herodotus placed them in a region bordering Scythia in Sarmatia...

. The weapon was a kind of battle-axe, collected from Eurasian steppe archeological excavations and depicted on the Achaemenid cylinder

Cylinder

Cylinder most commonly refers to:* Cylinder , a three-dimensional geometric shapeCylinder may also refer to:-Science and technology:* Cylinder , the space in which a piston travels in an engine...

s and ancient Greek pottery

Pottery

Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...

 and other surviving iconographic material as a long-shafted weapon with a metal head, with a either sharp

Sharp

Sharp or SHARP may refer to:*Sharp *Sharp , a flour made from hard wheat*Sharp , Canadian magazine*Sharp Daily, a free newspaper published in Taiwan and Hong Kong*Sharp...

(ax-like) or blunt

Blunt

Blunt may refer to:* Blunt , a surname * Blunt , a term used in the cigar industry to designate blunt-tipped, usually factory-rolled cigars* Blunt , a slang term used in cannabis culture...

 (hammer-like) edge on one side and a sharp (straight or curving) 'ice-pick'-like point on the other (shown here in the Greek pottery painting of a Scythian archer

Archery

Archery is the art, practice, or skill of propelling arrows with the use of a bow, from Latin arcus. Archery has historically been used for hunting and combat; in modern times, however, its main use is that of a recreational activity...

 holding a sagaris). Possibly from this weapon arose an attribution of the invention of the battle-axe to the Amazons by medieval and Renaissance authors (e.g. Johannes Aventinus

Johannes Aventinus

Johannes Aventinus was a Bavarian historian and philologist. He wrote Annals of Bavaria, a valuable record of the early history of Germany...

), and a (modern) association of the Amazons with the Labrys

Labrys

Labrys is the term for a symmetrical doubleheaded axe originally from Crete in Greece, one of the oldest symbols of Greek civilization; to the Romans, it was known as a bipennis....

. A shorter form of sagaris, as shown held by Spalirises

Spalirises

Spalirises was an Indo-Scythian "Great king" of the 1st century BCE. He was the brother of Vonones , and probably identical with Spalahores....

, was labelled klevets by Russian archaeologist and ancient military historian V.P.Nikonorov (The Armies of Bactria

Bactria

Bactria and also appears in the Zend Avesta as Bukhdi. It is the ancient name of a historical region located between south of the Amu Darya and west of the Indus River...

700 BC-400 AD, Valerii.P.Nikonorov. Montvert Publications, 1997).

External links

• Battle-Axe or Sagaris
• Persia: Arms of the Shah-an-Shah - Persian Arms an at wildfiregames.com