Pre-colombian weapons anyone?

[fearn]

Hi Jim,

Always glad to do research for you. I don't have a collection like Lemmy's, but at the Museum of Man in San Diego, they've got an interesting exhibit that shows all phases of Andean trepanation, including the skulls. They show trepanned skulls and some stone blades they believe were used in trepanation. They also show skulls from people killed by cogwheel maces, and some of the mace heads, such as Lemmy has. The wounds in the skulls matched the shapes of the cog points.

So, yes, those cogwheel maces were used in battle. Trepanning (cutting a hole in the skull) looks like it was used as a way to repair the damage from a mace blow (among other things). The surgeon would cut around the impacted area and remove them the bone fragments, basically as a way of getting the dent out. Apparently it worked occasionally.

As an aside, one of the cogwheel mace heads at the museum even had a spoke shaped into an axe blade. As I recall, they also had stone cogwheel heads on display. Stone or metal, it's a good design.

Best,

F