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![spiked hoplite shield spiked hoplite shield](https://3.bp.blogspot.com/--Sx2xqqUvh0/TvNK2al0QQI/AAAAAAAABRM/TnktkszHyVQ/s1600/28mm+Analogue+Hobbies+006_2.jpg)
For the first 200 years after the invention of the round hollow shield, warriors did not often fit their spears with these spikes.
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So these spikes only appear at Olympia around 525 BCE. Doctoral Dissertation, Vrije Univresiteit Amsterdam. Brouwers, Josho (2010) Warfare and Society in Early Greece: From the Fall of the Mykenaian Palaces to the End of the Persian Wars. Of the sauroters, about half a dozen belong to the sixth century, the rest are later. The bulk of the spearheads are Classical less than a tenth can be dated to the sixth century. Interestingly, some spearheads and swords were ritually ‘killed’, i.e. The weapons include more than three hundred spearheads, more than thirty sauroters, over seventy arrowheads, more than sixty swords (of which twenty-two indeterminable fragments), and nine knives (of which only one dates to the sixth century, the others are Classical). A butt-spike ( saurotēr, literally ‘lizard-killer’) was fixed to the bottom end of a spear it gave some balance to the spear, allowed it to be stuck into the ground, and was also used to dispatch fallen enemies. Toward the end of the sixth century, butt-spikes were also offered as tropaia at Olympia no earlier examples are known. It seems likely that most of the earlier spears were also taken from vanquished opponents to be dedicated to the gods. Most of the spearheads (excavated from Olympia), of which no less than 840 are made of iron, were definitely weapons of war: some of the later examples feature inscriptions that clearly identify them as booty. Josho Brouwers summarized the weapons from these sites in his PhD thesis. These were sometimes buried when there was no more room for them (as at Olympia) and sometimes buried when the site was destroyed by invaders (such as at Kalapodi in central Greece, which was probably destroyed by Xerxes’ troops in 480 BCE). By the 6th century BCE it was not common to bury people with weapons in southern Greece, but it was common to dedicate arms and armour to the gods at sanctuaries. But we can check this against archaeology. I don’t know any basis for this in an ancient text, and in my experience much less than half of all warriors with round shields in Greek art have a spike ( saurotēr) on the butt of their spear. Many people today believe that most Greek hoplites carried a long spear with an iron-clad or bronze-clad butt. Adapted from Wikimedia Commonsīecause most of the participants in the old hoplite debate were English-speaking philologists not German-speaking archaeologists, English speakers have many misconceptions about the things Greek hoplites carried. Athens Greece, National Archaeological Museum of Athens, accession number 884. His longer spear is 1.62 times as long as he is tall, which would make it about 275 cm (9′) if he were an average ancient Greek man 170 cm tall. The grave marker of Panoitios of the deme Hamaxanteia who died around 400 BCE. Posted on MaUpdated on Aug7 Comments This horseman carries two spears, one long and one medium-sized. How Many Hoplites had a Butt-Spike on their Spears?
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