Spear

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

a weapon of offense, consisting of a wooden shaft or pole varying in length up to eight or nine feet, and provided with a sharp piercing point. The spear may be regarded as the prototype of the various forms of piercing weapons, such as the arrow, bolt, bolt, and dart, which are projected from bows, catapults, or other engines, and the javelin, assegai, and lance, held in or thrown by the hand. In its earliest form the spear would 1 2 3 SPEARS 3-Mediæval type 1-Prehistoric bronze 2-Prehistoric bronze 4-Old British naturally consist of a simple pole of tough wood sharpened to a point at one extremity, which point might be both formed and hardened by charring in fire. From this an improvement would consist in fitting to the shaft a separate spear head of bone, or flint. To flint heads succeeded heads of bronze, but these came only late in the bronze period, and were still in use when the Homeric poems were composed. The bronze spear heads found in Great Britain and in generally were cast Northern Europe with the end of the shaft was inserted, but on the eastern Mediterranean coasts tanged spear heads were used. These spear heads were various in form and size, some being three-edged like the old bayonets, others were expanded leaf-shaped blades, some barbed, and some having loopholes either in socket or blade by which they were lashed to the shaft. The war lance of the medieval knights was 16 feet long; the weapon of modern lancers cavalry regiments known as be from 1 to 11 feet long, usually adorned with a small flag near the head. The Persians at the present day forge spear heads, for ornamental purposes only, with two and sometimes three prongs. The modern spears of savage tribes, used equally for hunting and for warlike purposes, are frequently barbed A