Overlooked Weapon of Ancient History: The DISC MACE
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- čas přidán 22. 05. 2024
- You've seen flanged and spiked maces, but did you know about the disc type? Found in ancient Egypt, Neolithic (Younger Stone Age) Europe, Mesoamerica, Papua New Guinea, and probably other places. Made of various types of rock, copper, bronze, and even bone. It's almost more like a sort of omni axe than a mace, and definitely more sophisticated than a stereotypical caveman club / cudgel.
Unknown (and underrated) by many people, this unique impact weapon deserves a closer look.
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Also thanks to Rick Marchand for letting me do the testing at his place, and for coming up with the coconut holder.
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** Time Stamps **
00:00 - 00:50 Intro
00:50 - 04:54 Historical Examples
04:54 - 05:28 Steel reproduction / Patreon goodies
05:28 - 08:36 Testing on pumpkins and coconuts
08:36 - 10:50 Why were they rare?
10:50 - 17:07 Pros & Cons / Comparison to other Forms
17:07 - 19:13 Carrying on the hip: Too Awkward?
19:13 - 19:46 Ideas for interesting variations
19:46 - 20:25 Closing thoughts
20:25 - 21:21 Outtakes / outro
** Music **
Intro song:
"Illuminate" by Vindsvept
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Used with artist's permission
"Ritual Traps" by Alexandr Zhelanov (Ethnic Aztec \ Maya style)
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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)
Outtakes:
"Little People At Work" by Horrorpen
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CC BY 3.0
Outro:
"Highland Storm" by The Slanted Room Records
theslantedroom.github.io/stev...
Used with artist's permission
** Interesting Stuff **
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Srs question would it be easier to carry it if u were to put a hole at the top so u can use a string to hang it to your side?
I wonder if they could be used as a thrown object from a handle, simliar to the at-lat? the disc sits on top, then as you swing sideways maybe. it slides off flying like a frisbee, or ninja star if you prefer a weapon example.
But for real though, the disc mace is just an axe that cheated
I would love to see a video on the Kalimba tuning hammer. Like if it was bigger of course
These types of very light maces work great aiming for the ribs against an unarmored opponent. Pretty much guaranteed to break a few and put the opponent out of the fight.
Because the geometry is so simple, if you change the materials and finish, this could look hyper-futuristic.
Oh shit like a super durable but rare material that would defeat the weakness of the disk without using as much material.
One of my of species essentially uses these, called buckler hammers. I often wondered if they were practical or had a flaw I couldn't see. Lol. Guess they are practical. Mine have a wider head and is used to block and jab and then finish with swinging.
Halo, where your -sword- disk mace is so advanced, it can run out of ammo.
some sort of hard light generating down from the disc and forming flanges would be sick
Like if a rebel attached an advanced alloy gear to a stick.
I studied archaeology in germany and it is mind boggling that 90% of maces and axes are declared as "ceremonial". I had a lot of arguments with professors who always laughed at axes being used for fighting ("only the low civilized barbarians would use axes"). I think a lot of it has to to with the fact that most scientists do not do any martial arts or weaponarts. They are not even eager to try it out, which is very sad. I am happy though that Channels like yours exist, to debunk many of these "scientific" interpretations by people who have never tried out anything in their lives.
Sounds like they haven't realized that being arbitrarily "civil" isn't exactly taken into consideration when trying to murder people to death. When push came to shove, chivalry be damned, people always fought dirty.
I believe that to study history properly and effectively, one must be willing and able to experience and live it, at least to some level. Like if you're studying how certain tools might have been used, it might be helpful to try and use modern replicas of them to learn about them. Speculation and talk only goes so far.
Smart in one way, dumb in another. Or more accurately, knowledgeable/ignorant. I don't care of you're a quantum physicist, if the subject in question doesn't fall within your area of expertise then you need to stop being so adamant about your opinions. It's like a man who's had dogs for the last twenty years who's confident he can handle hyenas.
On a different note, there was another video from Skallagrim about weapons from fiction that wouldn't make sense in the real world and someone was saying that we think our ancestors were so bend on utilitarianism that we can't even fathom the idea that they made some things for the same reasons we did: because it looked cool/for fun.
It's like if someone 300 years down the line would say that the Desert Eagle, the Thunder .50 BMG pistol and other crazy guns never existed, because it wouldn't make sense to have a pistol fire big cartidriges like 44 magnum or 50 AE or even fucking 50 bmg, like "Why would they built an impractical heavy pistol like that when there are rifles and assault rifles that fit the role"
@@ionpopescu3167There is a wide misconception that homo sapiens now is somehow drastically different from homo sapiens back in the day.
i would guess the primary reason they used to make these in the stone age was that boring the hole would have been the most time consuming part of the manufacturing process. it's a hell of a lot easier to bore a hole through a thin flat stone than a round one when you don't have vices or drills. thanks for the video!
I’m no expert, but I believe the opposite. I’ve seen a lot of bow drills in use, and they are relatively quick. I imagine getting the symmetrical flat round disc shape was very difficult to achieve. Which is probably why these things were popular. When you are the one percent, you’re probably not fighting as much, so utility isn’t as important. But being the only guy with a disc mace, now that gets attention, that shows how rich or important you are.
@@warrendourond7236 i'm definitely not an expert either but I would assume the shape itself was achieved just by searching for stones that are already (mostly) shaped like that. a perfectly round one is probably a little difficult to find but flat semi-round stones are very common in river beds. the surviving examples are probably the most perfect ones of their type as is usual with old weapons because the richest people were the least likely to have to fight and the most likely to be buried with their weapons.
Wood vices are not that hard to make, you can make a vice out of wood and use the elasticity of it to make pressure when you pull the sides apart, and the piece in.
Don't know when they started to be a thing tho, I guess it would be hard to know since it would need to be made of wood, and wouldn't preserve.
This is something you really don't want to get hit by. The physics behind the design make it seem almost MORE devastating than regular axe design. Feels like it would be decent at breaking bones easily.
I love the progress he made over the years.
Started off as a bit of an edge lord blade lover
Now he’s an a weapons expert as well as a bit of a historian. We love love you skall never stop improving
If you become an expert in bladed weapons, doesn't that make you an "Edge Lord" once again?
@@HansLemurson He's come full circle. The kind of circle you slide onto a stick and call a disc mace.
@@HansLemurson Hello Mr. Lemurson. I am Steve Lemur. Do we share some relatives from Madagascar? I sometimes go by the handle "Captain Ringtail".
@@stevelemur6113 Haha, that's awesome. I go by some variant of "Hans Lemurson" most places on the internet. I picked it sort of arbitrarily ~20 years ago when I needed a character name for an RPG, and had just watched a Nature documentary about Lemurs the night before. It sounds ALMOST like a real name, until you think about it. I have been asked if I were swedish.
Popular doesn't equal expert.
Disc mace: shockingly simple, but nastily efficient. Easy to create with primitive tools and materials.
Yes, I knew of them, but not much.
They look like ancient weights from a Neolithic Gym. 🏋️♂️
@@seppukusushi2848 do you even mace, Bro?
@@lairdcummings9092 Shit, Bro, I do crossfit and parkour mace.
@@seppukusushi2848 Solid, Bro. Like a rock.
@@lairdcummings9092 Bro, when I mace my enemies, they end up Swole.
I have a theory that these were often not originally made solely to be weapons, but were likely tools that were converted to weapons at some point in their life. Like, imagine having a circular cutting stone that you use for crushing and cutting wheat, and then the village elder comes by to say, "Hey, we're raiding tomorrow.", I'd imagine it's a really easy weapon to make.
Ngl, that was exactly what I was thinking while watching this video.
It might make a good "axe" for chopping wood at an odd angle.
I was actually just thinking that these things seemed to cut a lot like a hoe.
I think you may be underestimating how much of an advantage this shape could have from manufacturing out of stone. It's pretty easy to find roughly disk shaped rocks already, and drilling through with an abrasive (e.g. sand) and a primitive drill is viable (far more straightforward than I would have expected before seeing any of those stone age tools channels).
I think it would be especially effective for butchering and might be a good defense weapon against bears and pigs.
Theory : mill man uses old mill head off of a mill to hit people trying to steal his flour
Wait how did they drill it? I'm too lazy too look up the videos
Don't even need to go through, would probably work great simply lashed by some notches with crosslashing holding it to the tip of a stick
@@scordova98 There are some very simple drill designs that are doable with stone tools. Probably the easiest to picture is basically a more substantial fire bow. And then just an abrasive like sand and patience.
Another factor that can limit people knowing is the heads might survive but without a handle nobody knew what they were for. Maybe discarding them as insignificant
Relatives of mine have thrown away a bunch of fossils and antiques because they saw no value in something without use, or being easy to sell...
@@edi9892 sadly most people are uneducated and do little to self educate after what schooling they did complete. It's a shame. My grandparents generation believes everything they see on TV and don't do any additional research.
Damn Mortvent I think you're into something there. I'm remembering images shown in my highschool history class of mysterious objects found at or near burial sites. I remember discs with a hole punched through...
Kind of like blunted arrows for small game. We have no surviving examples yet we know they existed because they are referenced many times. Using your brain to speculate, good sir. Not many do that these days
@@erikreber3695The Traditional Bowyer's Bible series shows examples of several blunt arrows found and made available in museums and such.
It's a weird axe/pick hybrid. I like it.
The sword CZcamsr I like watches another sword CZcamsr I like. This is improbable but accepted
Oh hey it’s you. Nice
Not to be confused with the pickaxe.
@@strain3652 I was about to say it seems to strike a little like I'd imagine a short-bladed, one handed mattock would.
More of an adze
There are a lot of utilities with this weapon for an army. It's easy to transport in bulk when dismantled and you can put it together in like 30 seconds. It's modular/tweakable, put a tip on it and you have a stabbing weapon with a hook, put a ball or big heavy stone on the top and you have a mace with slicing capabilities.
And forage parties can use it to gather food, cut branches, dig roots, and change it into different tools by simply switching the disc for something else. It has little maintenance outside of usage and easy to replace parts. Parts chipping off during fights can make it more lethal in some cases due to serration.
its also a mill, I remember the episode of how to make everything and the mill they used was a giant version of this
I bet there's a modern market for such a tool.
@@Enceladus... zombie tools tactical disc maze when?
@@PrimordialNightmare Honestly watching the video just make me think of sticking a saw blade on the end of a stick, easy construction and lightweight
It’s also a good chair when you have to milk goats on the way.
The mace was so powerful that it was a symbol of power in ancient Egypt wielded by the Pharos for smiting their enemies. This includes both stone and metal types of disc maces that were used on the battlefield.
I have to wonder if the Scepters that were trapping of power by European kings are related to this iconography at all.
If etymology counts for anything, then 'sceptre' comes from the ancient Greek 'skeptron' - 'a staff (for leaning on)', whereas 'mace' comes from vulgar Latin 'mateola' - 'a mallet'
In the UK at least, we have a ceremonial mace as well as a ceremonial sceptre, so I expect they've got different heritages
ceremonial maces plus the aforementioned sceptre were still used in Europe into the 19th century, not to mention similar baton (used for a symbol of authority plus the more practical police baton) which was used into the 20th century by officers as a badge of office.
I'd assume its symbolic of a cane (old and wise, meant to be respected) that's also a deadly weapon
@@feluto7172 @Feluto canes are important symbols as well but usually carry a different meaning. Canes are just short staffs and used the same way. They were meant to be non lethal and were tied to wisdom since elders often used them and they were commonly used by pilgrims and monks across cultures, such as Christian and chinese shaolin monks. The shaolin for example ecorproated them into their martial arts. Canes and staffs were common since these people were sometimes older but also often traveled alot. Gentlemen started carrying around canes as both a symbol and to help them walk. Theres also a further tie to wisdom since canes and staffs are similar to the Shepard's crook (which werent always hook shaped and were often just walking sticks or poles).
Another related thing is the "swagger stick" which was a special cane often used by officers and nobles and a modern version of the roman vine staff, ie a stick carried as a symbol of authority, used to point with, used to draw in the soil with (a common way to relay commands and draw plans), to get people's attention by banging it, and to dole out punishment. Since they were usually given to officers or statesmen they had a connection to wisdom, experience, and authority.
It probably is.
Anyway in France the kings had sergeants at arms who were also called mace sergeants because they wore maces. They were some kind of bodygyards but also for ceremonial purpose.
At a police “museum” of homemade improvised weapons, there was a mace made from bicycle sprockets on a shaft. Apparently, the bicycle-sprocket maces were confiscated from an aftermath of biker-gang “rumble”.
Seriously, the first thing that came to mind when i saw this was a auto transmission third gear on a stick would make for an awesome diesel punk version of this
@@CtrlAltRetreat: Actually automotive transmission sprocket might be a little too heavy to be practical . You can not know how long the battle may last. A bicycle sprocket has a thin light-weight profile, this gives it a great speed in follow up strikes. Also, remember that an increase in mass gives a linear increase kinetic energy, while an equal increase velocity yields a geometric increase.
Ha u said 'shaft'
@@SevenPr1me lmao gottem
So was this an actual motorcycle gang fighting over methamphetamine distribution territory, or a bicycle gang fighting over who gets to sell their Ritalin in the school cafeteria?
I thought it was amusing that a biker gang would use bicycle sprockets, but I assume it was actually a heavier motorcycle sprocket you were referring to. Either would probably mess you up, but a motorcycle sprocket sounds like it would be closer in weight to these disc maces.
Can we all just appreciate how much effort Skall makes when he not only talk about The Disc Mace but also the amount of times Skall changes clothes in the video?
Can we appreciate Skall’s drip?
The edged stone disk can be used as a scraping tool ...so you can have just the disk in an inconspicuous pouch. Find a stick for a handle, (or one long enough for a walking stick) and use the stone disk to taper the wood into a proper handle for a short or long swinging weapon. You can go from being completely unarmed in the woods to very effectively armed in not too much time.
That design is so obviously good ones you've seen it. A disk can't possibly make it too top-heavy by mace standards, it must be a fairly agile weapon, but clearly puts a lot of force on a small area. You can definitely do some damage with that.
I love how everyone says how something wasn't used that often because so few are found. It could also be that none survive. Sure, a ball mace lasts much longer and has a good bit of weight but putting a hold though a dusk is also much easier. It's all a trade off.
Not to mention they can be hard to identify as weapons, especially when they're broken, or damaged during excavation.
Perfect more modern example are bullseye lanterns, oil lamps with reflectors and a focused lens to fill the job of longer range beam lighting like a flashlight. Not many around nowadays because a flashlight does the job so much better they were all tossed, but you can't tell me that before the flashlight they weren't at least somewhat popular.
If Hollywood is to be believed, the hurricane lantern is the only oil lamp ever used.
Not the only one ever used, but once they were invented they did pretty much completely take over. They are safer and more wind resistant than other lanterns which were both big deals.
@@vara202 Bullseye lanterns were of equivalent era and were manufactured beside them right up until the development of electric flashlights with half decent batteries. Even then you can still find militaries making limited use of them as signal lamps even into the 1930s as they had a lot more endurance than battery lamps of the era.
Hurricane lanterns and bullseye lanterns filled different roles and thus didn't really compete with each other, hurricane lanterns being omnidirectional as opposed to directional lanterns.
The most prolific users of bullseye lanterns were police forces, since they filled the role of a flashlight being able to project a beam over a great distance. Most police style ones had a shutter so the flame wasn't visible until they wanted to flash the light onto some wrongdoer in a dark alley.
But yes, hurricane lanterns were the more popular general use light source, but they weren't the only ones around.
@@Skallagrim Indeed. Imagine finding a metal disc, where the wooden shaft has long since rotted away. How would a modern archeologist interpret the use or purpose of the metal disc?
Seems like a weapon that needs to seen more in the post apocalypse. Seems generally easy to make with some saw blades and a stick.
Would probably need to be post post apocalypse for something like this to show up. Given how unusual this would seem to people compared to taking said saw blade and mounting it like a traditional axe, you'd need a group who no longer have the knowledge of the people who survived the apocalypse rebuilding civilization.
Agreed. Even the crudest forging setup could make these.
@@insertname7325 It depends. It would be fairly easy to mount a small saw blade onto a long bolt or a using a welder to put it on some rebar. And its a LOT less work than mounting it as an axe. And once you develop it as a fairly standard weapon, it will be reproduced by smiths. Probably without the saw teeth. So I can see it happening. Its main competition would be an iron band shrunk onto a shaft (as with the Flemish weapon I won't butcher the name of) Both are effective and easy to fabricate.
If you have some threaded rod and two matching nuts, this would be a very easy and obvious way to mount a sawblade. Assuming the Home Depot you're looting has already been stripped of axes, kaiser blades, etc.
I’ll admit I had never heard of such a form of mace before this video and now I’m impressed.
Disc mace is definitely a contender for the weapon of one of my characters, Borfir. I want him to have something he could have made himself from limited materials and minimal skill. He's a retired guerilla fighter, whose taken up a role more akin to a stop on the underground railroad, so it makes sense he'd know how to make and use a simple weapon like a disc mace, goedendag, or shillelagh.
Why not all three? Goedendag with a disc mace head around the spike and a backup shillelagh-style head inside that, in case the disc is dislodged. Slightly heavy but it'd still be pretty easy to make, and it'd work excellently. (well, "excellently" if... digging chunks out of people's flesh can be called "excellent" in any circumstance, anyway)
I think the reason this type of mace was fade out is that it is essentially an axe but a bit more awkward structure-wise. You can take the same material and make an axe out of it and it would probably still be better structurally. Think it in the term of it easier to bend a metal pipe than to compress it vertically. After repeated use, the disk shape will deform into a less effective shape and it will deform faster since the force that applied on it is aimed at its weaker point. It is a viable design but it is outcompeted by the axe and traditional mace.
Gimmick build irl
Well, there's the adze, which's an axe with a *horizontal* blade instead of a vertical one, and *that* was used as a weapon as well as a tool, so the reason the disc mace fell out is probably something else altogether.
Like an adze but edge alignment doesn’t matter
@@-NGC-6302- And lower damage at the same head weight.
Edit: still deadly, as Skall showed, but with proper axes and adzes a kindergartener can kill you easily if they can align the edge.
I feel like it was probably something similar to that, yeah.
Just like how the ancient egyptians moved from the disc mace to egg mace, as Skall showed us.
Easier to just make a round ball, almost impossible to damage in comparison, and gets the job done.
Skal, could you overanalyse "Crazy Samurai Musashi"? It's last year's samurai flick with a 77-minute long single-cut fight scene of one guy against 400 opponents. Gratned, it commits a sin of over-compliant enemies, but both the protagonist and the opponents go at full speed and movement efficiency. And the single-cut fight leaves no room for posing which makes it stand out among other sword-fight movies.
Even if they aren't fighting perfectly realistically, even fake fighting for that amount of time is seriously impressive.
The actor also got injured during the take but kept going
Musashi is Kensi for a reason.
77-minute long fight scene? that's some serious stuff
Dang it, if this is true then Revenge of the Sith just got bounced for “longest sword fight sequence in cinematic history”
To me, it looks like you could make one by finding an already flat and round river stone and drill a hole in it. An egg shaped stone head means more work drilling out the hole.
I've been looking for a project to make a stone tool so I might try making my own, thank you for introducing me to a new weapon! I especially like the Papua New Guinea connection.
That's what I was thinking. Even if you didn't start with a perfectly flat stone drilling the hole is still the most difficult part with either head.
If you have a supply of already roughly flat and round river stones, that makes a good argument for opportunity. I forget how long ago people were drilling through stone, but it's an incredibly old technology. People were sitting in caves and making holes in rocks with primitive drills... I'm going to have to go read about it again to refresh my memory. I remember watching a documentary where they found disc shaped rocks with holes through them in a cave, and they said it must have been an art project or something... that people must have just liked doing it. I'm not so sure, but I do also enjoy drilling nice looking holes in strange materials.
@@somethingelse4424 People also drilled holes in rocks to act as anchors for their boats, for example in New Zealand. I also want to make one as an excuse to drill a hole in rock too, not too different from them. I have a star drill, I just need a suitable hammer.
You have to admire the skill it takes to make these various shapes in stone without modern tools.
The Incan star maces were effective against their own wood, copper, and bronze armours, and still proved capable of doing some serious damage to Spanish steel armour on those occasions when they managed to close with them. So the theorizing on AP potential holds up to the evidence we've got.
I thought of them too.
@@edi9892 One of the Incan variations also features a six foot shaft, which makes it less a club than a polearm, making the godendag comparison that skal alluded to pretty on point.
I've never heard of such a thing before.
Great info and well presented! I enjoyed this format quite a lot.
Thanks, glad you liked it.
@@Skallagrim - I am a maker of leather tankards. Would you like one. No strings or obligations. Just got a few spare, and have so enjoyed your channel through lockdown that I wanted to send a thank you gift.
@@nickcoffin8339 Thanks for the offer, I appreciate it. I don't really have a use for a tankard though, and lately I've been trying to limit the amount of stuff we have as much as possible.
@@Skallagrim - no worries. I'll find another victim, I'm sure. I was doing quite a trade with these for a while, and now I can't give them away 😔 . Anyway, keep up the good work mate.
There was an exhibit with these that passed through my local library one time. It's interesting to see how relatively complex stone weapons got before copper became commonplace.
I assumed these were a thing and gotta say I'm happy to be right. It occurred to me when I was changing weight plates on my buddies adjustable dumbbell.
I was almost done removing plates and when a single one was left I was like "you know this would make for a nasty mace if made with intent".
The 21cm one is definitely two-handed
Also this is literally the Sten Gun of melee combat
Cheap, easy to repair, somewhat effective but there's no easy way to carry it
In the Andes we actually have reports of a full on polearm variant, with a five or six foot haft. Making the godendag comparison skal alluded to even more on point.
@@KartarNighthawk Nice. Thank you for sharing
@@KartarNighthawk honestly I was considering this. Seems like it would be a good easy add on to a staff. Hook and poke.
especially considering the fact the average man was much smaller than today, even many nobles (who would be taller than average for the time) were around 5'6"/168cm to 5'8"/173cm during the time of Ancient Egypt and while lean and possessing good endurance thanks to hard labor would still be rather thin and lacking as much raw power as today. 6ft/180cm and 175lb/80kg would be a giant for the time.
@@arthas640 I'm 6'4" 205lbs, so going back in time for me would probably get me a job as a bodyguard for some noble or something.
So, minor point of correction, but the description mentions Mesoamerica, but none of the examples in the video are Mesoamerican: Most New World examples in the video are Andean, which is it's own seperate group of complex civilizations down in South America, or Costa Rican, which is in a part of Central America outside the Mesoamerican cultural sphere, and even then those Costa Rican examples are more spherical or knob shaped. There ARE some knob, oval, and torus shaped maces in Mesoamerica, I can think of same examples in West Mexico (look up "chapala mace", though some of the info on the museum label is wrong; there's one other I know of via Arnauld, Fauvet Y carot, 1993 but you won't find it via google), but none that are truly disc shaped or as much so as some of the Andean examples.
That being said Mesoamerica does have a WAY more varied and diverse range of weapons then most people realize, from what are basically glaives and halbreds, serrated spears, the aforementioned flanged maces, morning star like weapons, really interesting spiked clubs almost like picks, some clubs not disimilar to "gunstock clubs" with embeded axes or points, etc. tghosthero on pinterest , who is also on reddit (TheGhostHero) and the aztlanhistorian discord, collects a lot of images of wierder, more esoteric mesoamerican armor and weapons known via ceramics or other sources. If you look up "mixtec weapons" you can find some reconstructions of some of the serrated spears and weirder clubs used by the Mixtec civilization, though sadly the exhibit they were made for is poorly documented (if you can track a lot of photos or videos down, let me know!). I'd also be happy to share sources or info if you're ever curious (Majora__Z on twiter, MajoraZ#7023 on disc etc)
comment for visibility
yeah wooden weapons have a ridiculous diversity amongst themselves, which ironically ends up with some convergent evolution with metal weapons, like how some clubs are basically swords, and the main weapon of the Maori is vegan Dane axe
heck i saw some spears from amazonian tribes that were practically glaives, they even had the back spikes to catch opponents blades
@@joaosturza That's not ironic. That's just natural. Things diversify when new ideas and technologies evolve, and converge when people find out the best ways to use them.
I've been wanting to make a rose shaped mace for funsies, and this disk mace validates my idea for horizontal petal flanges 😁
"We've solved the whole axe head edge alignment problem, Chief."
"Excellent! How?"
"Well, axes have a single blade, usually straightish up and down, right? Well... turn it on its side and..."
"You've got a frisbee."
"No, those won't be invented for about 6000 years. This is a disc. A sharp disc."
"And, you tie this disc to a stick? The edge will cut the rope. You've been working on this for 5 years?"
"5 what?"
"I forgot...years don't exists either. 5 winters."
"Oh, yeah, at least 5."
"And...?"
"No ropes for this. We use a hole in the middle. It's all edge all the time, chief."
"Amazing! I love it! Let me swing it a few times here... oh yeah. Oh yeah! Oh... wait..."
"Wait what?"
"Listen... hear that?"
"Hear what, Chief?"
"EXACTLY! I want my weapon to sing. This is... mute. I can't use a weapon that doesn't make a sound people will fear. And how will they describe me in the sagas? The chief who killed men with a plate on a stick? Nah. Hard pass."
"It isnt... OK, its a plate, but with a hole in it!"
"Oh, so the chief used a stupid plate? Much better. Report to the peat bog with a massive stone and rope for bog floor cleaning detail."
Is it possible the more disc shaped ones were before the Advent of armor, when they are only whacking flesh. And then they switch to the more pear-shaped or donut shaped with the inclusion of simple forms of armor?
This is probably true.
Don't think it was much armor during the stone age. Thick padded stuff yes but not something who could break stone easy except weapon on weapon, perhaps solid wood shields took over from leather over an frame?
Its more damaging than an ball without doubt, downside of the stone dish is that its less durable. During an skirmish that is not that important, so for long battles its become weaker. Also I can imagine say in Egypt the fancy weapons was now bronze. Stone was the cheap stuff and none made fancy stone weapons. You might also need to use your stone weapon against bronze.
And yes put an small spear tip on it, perhaps something of bone and you have an easy to use and devastating weapon.
With metals other shapes probably works better.
@@thor498 How can you say probably without data?
The star shape on the Incan disc maces made them effective against armour. So that might hold true in some cases, but certainly isn't universal.
@@magnemoe1 We know of cases of early bone and wooden armor, besides possibly boiled leather. Some of the stone-using Native Americans used bark armor.
I've seen this before. It makes sense as a circular shape lowers the area of impact and increases the pressure on the target area.
First thing I thought as to why it wasn't used much, is that it would be hard to carry.
I'd love to see the pointed disk with a spike. That would be awesome.
round one would glance off metal armour, but otherwise would be effective.
I absolutely love this type of video you make. I know it takes more effort than game/movie scene reviews and livestreams, but it's worth the wait for me. Thank you very much for doing such a great job.
Not sure what it is exactly, but this is my favourite video of yours in ages.
You always do good stuff, but I just think this one was that perfect blend of in depth knowledge and entertaining. Keep it up, Skal!
So a steampunk version of this would be a gear mace
An even more modern, and less effective version would be a small stack of CD discs on a stick. 😉
Maces with gear heads were used in the trenches of WWI, but it's more dieselpunk than steampunk.
@@me.ne.frego. I saw a picture of one of those just a few days ago. Apperantly there was a lot of thease self made improvised trench weapons. Interestingly enough the germans got so fond of using spades as battleaxes that it became pretty much standard and they still do it.
@@michaelpettersson4919 Yeah, sharpened spades were used by germans and austro-hungarians, and all sort of improvised melee weapons were used by assault troops from every country. I imagine the beautiful italian Alpini axe was also used for assaults but not widely.
Finally, a practical use for all those free trials of AOL in my basement!
Also good as throwing stars.
Good vid & always neat to see some of these more obscure historic weapons!
👍👍👍 On the dismounted head on a simple belt lanyard for carry. Also the disc, as a component of the Gödendag seems to have provided a sort of shield capability in addition to the front spike (which was quite short from what I have seen on some Gödendag examples).
Thanks for the great work.
I'm glad I stumbled across ur channel, I like the testing and the cool history behind the weapon
Some Incan star-headed maces had one point of the star replaced with an axe head, resulting in a nice combination of cutting and anti-armor utility.
When you want a better weapon and accidentally end up inventing the wheel as well.
I loved this video! I am designing a fantasy barbarian race of centaurs right now and this is perfect! Please do more of these! Neolithic weapons are so unknown and super helpful!
Thank you for doing what you love. Your research has helped me with the miniatures I make so much.
Archaeologists 5,000 years from now, digging up a Planet Fitness: “Ah, and here we find the disc mace armory...”
"some of them are too big to be used as maces, must be ceremonial for sure !"
@@andredulac4456 "As you see, the variety of sizes shows that they began training as toddlers and progressed to immense strength. This steel quarterstaff weighs 20 kg by itself, and has space on each end for eight of the 20-kg mace discs. Their diet of fatty processed meats, oil-laden salted potato slices, and chocolate products was essential in giving them the strength to weild these 340-kg monsters in battle."
The disc mace is one of those weapons relegated to ancient times and technology,that maybe would be better with modern materials. Like the war adze and the dagger(or spontoon) axes.
Since we are here ,it would be nice to see other types of Luristan maces,they have pretty peculiar shapes.
Again,how about looking at stone types? Maybe for a rpg setting witouth metal,lookimg for flintknapping, and which stone is better suited for use as a weapon and so on.
I mean copper or bronze would be more than enough, but you can craft something way better from metal. Like people used flint for arrow and javelin heads deep in to bronze age, cause frankly stone did the job and metal was better used elsewhere. Back in the day it would be a waste and in more recent times it was pretty much forgotten design that wants to be something an axe can do.
@@demoncore5342 If the design is inherently inferior to the axe, you've got to ask why it continues to coexist alongside axes into a number of places. The Incas have axes, but they also continue to make stone, copper, and eventually bronze disc maces, eventually refining them into the star shape skal briefly mentioned. So the design has to have something going for it.
@@KartarNighthawk It's not as much inferior design, more like a 360deg fighting adze, kinda side grade of what we ended up using in the Europe when we switched to stone axehammers and more conventional stone (and later metal) mace heads. Kinda jack of all trades situation... Can see why they remained in use and even evolved in other parts of the world, but in european iron age it was legit forgotten design, no insult intended.
@@demoncore5342 No insult taken.
It may be that, when bronze age came and they tried disc shape mace, they found that after few blows bronze started to wrap around the tip of the weapon and concluded: this ball of metal also works just fine.
This is what I subscribed for! Great video!
Crazy thought, you can use the doughnut to hold the stick if you just had a loop. It wouldn’t be as fast as having it ready, but you’d have a stick to beat someone and that hefty stone could still do some damage in a hand. You could maybe also have it disguised as an ornamental piece on a belt or necklace depending on the size of the disc.
didn't know this existed. Thanks Skall.
Looks like what you'd make if you wanted a regular mace but didn't have enough material x) But perhaps the disc shape allows for some rotational power at the end of the blow?
Or some wonky cutting, like some kind of sideways axe
It's a smaller contact point.
If the disc is heavy, it's probably very nasty.
Actually its a legacy of stone tools. A disk with a hole in it is easier to make than a mace out of typical heavy tool making stones. All you need is a stick with a wide end to keep the stone on. Lazy man's stone club.
the force is being spread over a smaller area so it would probably lacerate where it hits
@@notamouse5630 I dunno man, that doesn't make any sense to me. Drilling a hole through a stone and meticulously fashioning it into a smooth disc is the "lazy man's" stone club? I feel like securely lashing a stone to a stick would be a better candidate for a "lazy man's" weapon. In my opinion they went out of their way to make these disc maces because like the guy above said, a heavy mace with a very small point of contact concentrates the force in a very nasty way.
I wonder if this weapon even counts as a mace or could one argue its a sideways disk axe?
Very much like a splitting maul to me
I think you’ve got the right idea with this form. It’s something between the mace and ax. If sharpened you it you’d always have an edge to cut with.
@@edwardphillips8460 disk adze
@@Grunttamer Battle Adze!
@@Grunttamer yep. With a striped pattern on the shaft you could continue to strike and apply your sharpest edge.
Video idea: Effectiveness of using different heavy metals in weapons, ignoring cost
AKA I want to know if a mace with some osmium put in the tip would be good
Could be interesting. I'd imagine if you had, say, a loose "plug" of osmium inside a hollowed out handle so that a swing pushes it up into the head, that could be horrifyingly effective, while making it easier to start up an attack.
Honestly the easiest way to carry one of these things would be to use a basic belt loop boot like sole of the hatchet loops used by frontiersmen with an wooden or leather disc attached to the top just slightly larger than the disc. The fact that the hole is concentric, it's lying right up against the disc, and you'd come in contact with the non choppy but first should make it quite safe to carry around and draw pretty much exactly like you'd do with a hatchet or tomahawk
It would be interesting to compare usage of this across time relative to what helmets (when any) were used. It seems to me the disk would be great against helmetless opponents or those with flexible caps, but as soon as hard helmets come in, either spiked or spherical maces seem to my mind like they might work better depending on if you were trying to pierce or deform the target.
Speaking to the Andes (only place where I have the data for) after wooden, copper, and bronze helmets come in, that's when you see the star pointed disc mace come in. Same basic design but with spikes for exactly that reason.
To me it would look like a ball mace would be better against thin metal armor like plate, that you can deform, but no so much against wooden, bone or tusk armor.
I wondered if they started to made picks against those thick armors.
@@bioemiliano ,
I would think spherical shapes would still be better against things like bone and boar tusk than disks would because with the latter, no you're not going for plastic deformation like with metal, but you are going for crushing deformation, and I think ball would still do better than disk at this. Of course, I hardly have the resources at hand to test that out practically.
As far as carry, might they have just taken the head off when not using it? It would still function for the most part even if you just slid the disc into place without tightening if you were in a hurry, so it could be made ready fairly rapidly it looks like
Look, make it like a chakram, small enough center hole to put a rod through it, but allow it to be wedged out and then be used like a chakram or discus.
I imagine if you broke your disk and were it simply friction fit to a tapered shaft you could easily slide a new one on and swinging once would then secure it to the shaft. Keep your spares in a belt pouch
@@shiyotso1 "end them rightly"
actualy since it had a hole in the middle i wonder if the spiderman grip would work for a trow
As a novice on this field I do have an idea about it. It looks like a horizontal axe, pretty cool and probably effective until people got some sort of protection where the shape was not effective anymore and they went to just mass and brute force.
But it is always guessing and speculation, but that's what makes it interesting to me
And when you're not making war, you can actually use it as a very effective drop spindle for making thread and clothing! (though maybe a bit heavy…)
Edit: I also just realised that the handle can be quite easily fitted to a tomahawk of the same size, so you can have two different weapons/tools using the same handle. Just pondering adventuring practicalities here.
*Drinks from coconut after smashing* - Skal drinking the blood of his enemies.
Why haven't I heard of this before now? Seems so odd this was so ignored, it just seems like a practical weapon, and surprisingly refined fine its time.
Really fascinating.
Unless you study the Incas or New Guinea, most people haven't heard of them. Those are the places where we know the most about their use and too many historians just aren't interested in outside of Europe.
@@KartarNighthawk It just seems like a weapon ahead of it's time in a lot of ways, had Metallurgy developed sooner in the places this design was used it may have been more prominent, shame we'll never really know. I just find it all so interesting.
@@BiasFree It's certainly a very prominent design in the places where it does see long term use. If you've ever heard the South American term "macana" it originally refers to these, and it's more or less the weapon of choice across the Andes, featuring one-handed, two-handed, and what I can only call a polearm variant, with a six foot haft. There you see it steadily upgraded both in terms of mechanical design, and the materials used, moving through stone, copper, and finally bronze models. The Incas used the star-headed bronze version on the longer shaft extensively to punch through the wooden, copper, and bronze armours of their local rivals.
Wow, I honestly didn't expect it to be as effective as it was. I expected maybe a cut or gouge, but it totally split the pumpkin and coconuts.
Wish the Discord server was public to all the community, I've got some very interesting things to show
I'm a weapon 3d modeller and I've made a few weapons you've discussed in former videos
Never knew this existed.
Would definitely be interesting to test this with a spike or short spear head. Maybe make a four to six inch spear head but with a ten inch or so hollow mounting part (don’t know the term) that fits on the shaft and wield it or slap a few pins in it hold the the whole thing together. Would also act as a guard to protect the wood from breaking due to missing or hooking objects.
Fun fact, in Dragon Age origins most of the generic maces you can find are similar to this one. Instead of more traditional six-edged mace design they are modelled with prominent horizontal disk-edge.
Hollow mounting part is called the socket I think
The Higgens Armory Museum used to have an example of a "triple disk" mace.
It kind of looked like the too of a power pole. Woulda been nasty getting wacked with it, it looked like it could cut you
Hey skall. Thanks to you I've made one out of a pipe disc and a jo staff. Still gotta add a edge to it but it looks good.
I've been making 3D models for a game (mod, not the original base game) and was doing some Egyptian bronze items, new kingdom, khopesh, axe and dagger. Had been thinking of a mace. The variety of blunt force weapons, even at a specific era, was amazing. So now I'm thinking a disc mace, a gold ceremonial long mace (there's some stunning examples) and maybe a more simple stone bludgeon.
Damn, that Mace: The Dark Ages reference. Lord Deimos was my favorite character in that game. One of my earliest screennames was even Lord Deimos.
I've known about the disc mace for a long time (mostly through throwaway references and footnotes), but Skall bringing it to bear is definitely something I'm glad got to happen. :)
Same. Lord Deimos was awesome
I marked out pretty hard from that reference too. Still have the game. It was better in the arcade versionn, but even with the 64 you had basically an early Soul Caliber.
@@TrueNomadSkies I only ever played Mace in its arcade form. The arcade spots I frequented never carried it, so it was one of those rare sightings in random shops or food places like several towns away.
Sadly, I missed out on the N64 version because I didn't know about it until about a decade later, by which time it was already long past the N64's time.
its also used by a gaint in the witcher 3: blood and wine DLC, first fight in tousant, the giant uses a mill stone as a disk mace
@@LordSephleon I can't remember where I played the arcade machine, but it wasn't in the actual arcade, maybe the airport or some restaurant. For some retro nostalgia it can still be enjoyed on the console, but there are always CZcams playthroughs that cost nothing to watch.
Here in south america many civilizations used those, some of them were really beautiful (there are quite a lot of them in a museum near my house). It looks like the flower/star shaped maces worked better against armoured enemies than their disc shaped counterpart.
The trench club or trench mace from WWI could be seen as a combination Disc/Flange mace. Looks like a large gear on a stick. That would make it a modern and popular mace design.
Cogwheel club
I was going to skip right to the smashing but you anticipated that so instead I watched the whole presentation and I am impressed with the depth of information.
Skall I truly love videos like this that teach you new things about topics I thought I knew enough about. I love learning new things, almost as much as I like watching you use these weapons to smash/slash/hack; or chop things with
My theory is that they switched to more durable shapes because of an increase in usage. Likely due to an increase in hostilities with other organisations of people precisely because they started using effective weaponry, thus increasing the amount of death and hatred in an upwards spiral.
Funnily enough, before you mentioned it, I was thinking about the transportation of it and I thought maybe you would carry it disassembled then attach the haft when needed, and if attacked before, well...you still have a good hefty stick!
To me these kind of clubs look like excellent tools for carving out a tree trunk, digging farm land etc..
This may sound weird, but think on this.
A disc of metal is a relatively easy shape to mold, be it with copper alloys, or molten iron.
Plus, when placed on a stick like so, it distributes the weight of the weapon rather evenly, and all on the top of the weapon.
From a purely statistical standpoint, a disc mace is one of the most simple and cost effective melee weapons you can mass produce if you were to use metal in its construction.
PS: to carry such a weapon on the hip, I would suggest a wooden cylinder with a quarter of the haft's length as a scabbard, and then strap it to a harness that would position it in an almost horizontal state. You could also create a small lid that goes on top end of the haft, and is strapped to the scabbard by chain.
Using a mold would make it brittle. Forged Damascus steel might be interesting
@@johnlocke9383 I personally hate the look of most damascus steel. :p
Plus, the whole concept I had was to have the most basic and readily available weapons as soon as possible, so yeah, it would likely be brittle, but you could have a ton of them and you could quickly recast them if need be.
I can't imagine the amount of damages that thing would do to your arms, it would destroy your bones for sure... personnaly I would put the disc higher on the shaft, I'm not confortable with the idea of the wood tip catching the opponent before the disc and ruin the attack.
Also to carry it, I would attach a ring under the belt so it would move more freely without pushing against my torso, more resting on my thigh.
Also also, I wonder if the disc would slip more easily of an helmet like a sword would than a classic mace that would just crush it, that might be why they abandoned it ?
Yeah, you can haft it more like an axe, fit it with a wedge and saw the top flush. Although that removes the advantage of quick & easy hafting / disassembling.
Incan star maces went through their own helmets fine. Don't know about how the rounded disc would perform.
if it was put on a pointed stick the disc could function like the wings of a winged spear.
what if you make a more complex vertical mount? two stick, a wood peg in the hole, and tie them up with string on top?
@@joaosturza *angry australian noises*
It's like a horizontal Axe! Epic! Great video Skall, as per usual
The star shaped ones remind me of the mythic Indian Chakra weapon, carried and sent out from the tip of the finger of Yogeshwar (one of the many incarnations of Krishna). The chakra is a significant symbol, translating to a wheel, and often associated with King Ashok of the Mauryan Dynasty. Chakra can refer to a Spinning wheel, a spinning core of energy, and even dizziness, and is also on the centre of the Indian flag.
you covered a good deal of this style mace as a weapon, but i can see other uses i might try out, more utilitarian. i can see how the shape would make a good adze for digging out wood matter for, say, a canoe, or a hoe for cultivation. depending on the edge you could use it like a rotory cutter or if the edge is rounder you can use it for grinding/ milling grains. so, it could be a good utility tool more than weapon-- styling excluded.
One problem with the adze notion is that the Nakada culture in Egypt is known for having to import wood and construction lumber.
There are other uses too! it can be used as an improved grappling hook by trying a rope to it
you can alse "end them rightly" by discus trowing the head like an Olympian as someone's face
and that also reminds me of that fight scene of the punisher show where he uses a weight as a knuckle duster, which is definitely possible with the right kinda diameter and in a pinch
very good for tying actually, a big ring would give you a lot of option to tie a backpack
heck, given how boats were smaller, it may also have been a anchor for cannoes!
@@cantunamunch weapons like this one have been found in North and Central America alongside Mideast and Europe/Africa.
I would guess that this weapon evolved from some kind of tool. It is very similar is construction to an adze. The blade is just horizontal rather than vertical.
@@thatdudeoverthere2188 It looks very useful for meat processing to me and I trained as a butcher. The minute I saw it it looked like it was used for butchery. I wonder how good it would be at dismembering joints, pretty good I expect and real good for turning whole animals into steaks, chops and sausage and for cleaning skins. Plus easy storage.
What a cool weapon I never knew existed.
Have you ever thought about making a video on sokkas weapons from avatar the last air bender.
Not just his mederite sword but southern water tribe weapons.
He has a spear, machete, club ,dagger and a boomerang made of bone and leather.
Always wanted to see one of those tested. Thx man
LOVE the out takes!!!!
If you were to put a lead mace head on the remainder of the haft that is sticking up from the eye of the mace head, this would probably make a pretty good mace. The only real problem is the disk would probably slide off when hitting armor, so it would probably be like a worse axe.
Just a speculation but could it be that it was originally a sort of wood carving tool? Like, if you need to carve a log then this could be used alongside a regular axe.
Like an adze or a portuguese enxo?
The Egyptian examples are still hard to explain then - timber was an imported luxury.
Or how about for butchering? It looks very useful for cutting up meat.
Nicely done, Rick!
That bungee tube setup to simulate the natural give of a head on a neck is quite clever, and the slo-mo seems to support its legitimacy. GG Rick.
you could also carry spare heads that can equally be thrown as discuis
There's an interesting multi disk weapon used in the movie Excalibur. Lancelot uses the pointy end but now I'm wondering if it was also intended to use as a mace also.
Both ways.
I made something like this years ago with a hardwood dowel and an iron pipe flange attached to the end via hatchet wedge. It could crack cinder blocks and cleanly break bricks no problem.
Hey skallagrim. Long time viewer love the channel. Have you ever seen the game exanima? I wonder what you'd think of the weapons and their armor performance there
I've always wondered about how fragile and finicky this design would've been--especially since they were usually made from stone using the ol' "peck & grind" method. The track record suggests it was wildly successful at what it set out to do, but I still cant help but feel stone disc maces would be prone to cracking or spalling chunks off when impacting shields or the rare metal breastplate or whatnot. Must be my 21st Century prejudices flaring up again :p
I was wondering if this might actually be an advantage of the disc mace. If one side becomes damaged, the user could always rotate their grip to swing with an undamaged portion of edge.
13:01 I think you also missed or dismissed it's possible usage as a shield, or reverse hook, stopping a weapon by "hooking" it with the part of the disk and handle facing the enemy. And if the shorter part of the stick from the disk's position gets used as a handle, it makes a sort of short-spear with a sword-guard weapon, assuming the longer part of the stick is tapered into a point or edge (like a spear or chisel). You suggested using a godendag, but on the opposite end of the overall stick, from the location of the disk. Might be worth making a few prototypes from cement yourself, just to test them, but you would need less overall cement, more dirt or hard rock or crushed terracotta, less water in the initial mixture, and more packing down the mixture into the mold/form. After it initially cures enough to be taken out of the form/mold, more water can be used to allow it to fully cure. Quicker-setting cements are also idea, like a cement which sets in 15 minutes from when you add water and in a day becomes rock-hard, and would make at least a decent artificial stone.
you could combine a spear and a mace
this gives me an idea for a lance/sword-like hybrid, with the disk where a guard would be, and you can use half-swording/greatsword techniques
As always, informative, entertaining and relaxing. Yes I just answered a youtube survey for your video.
You go on to talk about how it was classified as "ceremonial" because by them being stone discs with no handle, its not always easy to determine how they were used. Im glad you touched on that because I was meaning to ask you: do we know how the archeologists determined these were weapons? Just finding stone discs comes across to me like they couldve been absolutely anything.
Wow what a cool overlooked weapon of history
That’s so neat!
Hey Skall I had always wondered and perhaps this isn’t your realm of expertise or interest but I was wondering about the feasibility of using bayonets as a fighting implement on its own or attached to the rifle( predominately 1890s too WW2 era )
Maybe not something you’d much care for but I’d love to see you try and use bayonets to cut and stab shit if nothing else
I wonder if it has a double use. It reminds me of the kind of weight you use to spin wool. So perhaps it was useful in a domestic setting, but then also used in combat.
Later I can imagine tools became more specialised, so the use for spinning wool was no longer seen as useful.
And fire starting as a spindle weight, I thought the same thing
lol. Love the out takes.
Interesting weapon though thanks for always taking the time to look at the fringe stuff.
Imagine that part of the reason it wasn’t that common was that there is less material connecting the head to the shaft. This would make disconnection a lot more likely
Weird I was just thinking of making something like this the other day. I can see a lot of advantages in balance and power with the narrower edges.
In the case of Ancient Egypt, the disc mace was supplanted by the bronze war axe with a narrow head for the Elites, but was used by ordinary foot soldiers for a long time. If you look at the remains of soldiers from Deir el-Bahr (Middle Kingdom 12th Dynasty during Reunification) they have defensive wounds on their arms from maces and some have mace wounds on the skull. A number were killed by arrows, still stuck in their bodies. The mummified head of Pharaoh Seqenenre Taa II (17th Dynasty when the Hyksos were driven out) shows multiple head wounds from a bronze war axe and possible mace wounds. He was captured by the Hyksos and executed on the battlefield.
You can kinda use it Like an axe
If I were to implement these as a common weapon in my setting, I'd likely have it typically carried in a sword frog. Another option I can think of is the "pimp cane" route of a long, two-handed variant that is used as a walking stick if not as a weapon, though using it with a shield is not an option. Something to think about for a fully-armored warrior of nothing else, though.
“Yo Steve, check out what I made!”
“Is that a plate lashed to a stick?”
“Exactly, now watch this” *slugs passerby