Ancient Zealot daggers

[Jim McDougall]

Thank you very much for the responses guys! Interesting perspective DrDavid with the term cica (=incision) and the term sica. I always very much admire linguistics and how much pertinant information can be derived from word and term associations, semantics and transliteration.

Rivkin, actually my interest in this topic began with the recent media articles and National Geographic documentary on the ancient document holding the text of the Gospel of Judas, which has recently surfaced after being virtually lost for nearly 1700 years. My reference to the Sicarii comes from an article from the Dallas Morning News (by Susan Hogan-Albach, section G, April 12,2003). In it the author discusses possibilities for the name/word (?) commonly associated with Judas, Iscariot. She asks if it is a surname, name of a town, or "...a corruption of the Latin word 'sicarius' referring to a dagger carried by terrorists known as the Sicarii".
While there are numerous interpretations of the political dealings and motivations of this group, it is stated, as noted, that they were known for assassinations, with these daggers presumably. Possibly the daggers were simply symbolic for the militant function of the group?
In any case, the illustration of the gladiator with a 'sica' gives a reasonable idea of the form, but as you suggest, possibly derivative of the larger swords.
It seems like clandestine activity such as assassinations would call for a more concealable weapon though.

Ariel, thank you for that thread, which is indeed helpful, I must have missed that one! It really is interesting to see the types of weapons used during these Biblical times, a period it seems not often dealt with in weaponry.

Thank you again guys!
All the best,
Jim

[VANDOO]

LOOSE ROBES AND TOGAS WOULD LEND THEMSELVES TO CARYING CONCEALED WEAPONS SO THE KNIVES COULD HAVE BEEN FAIRLY LARGE AND CARRIED IN SOME TYPE OF CONCELED HARNESS. BUT AN ASSASINS BLADE DOSEN'T NEED TO BE VERY LARGE AS SURPRIZE IS THE USUAL TECKNIQUE , AND BATTLE IS TO BE AVOIDED. IT KIND OF MAKES ONE WONDER WHAT SORT OF WEAPONS PAUL (SAUL) USED BEFORE HE BECAME A CHRISTIAN.

[fernando]

Hi Jim
May i save you some search time.
http://home.ix.netcom.com/~kiyoweap/...p/akinakes.htm
There seems to be no native name for the Zealots sica, as instead they picked the then current term, or maybe even the model, from the the Romans, to call themselves, or by the rest of their people, as Sicarii, which would be Aramaic ... actually a term still in use in portuguese; Sicários ... this with a conotation later applied by Romans, to make it become a perjorative term. It aparently was them who nick named Judas as Iscariotes ( Sicarius ) to distinguished from other timely known Judas.
Kind regards
fernando

[ariel]

Traditionally (and, probably, correctly) Iscariot was interpreted as corrupted rendition of Kirya (pl. Krayot): something like "settlement(s)" in Hebrew. In Israel there are quite a lot of Krayot: Kiryat Menahem, Kiryat Motzkin etc, etc. So, Judas was "...of the settlements". He likely lived in the vicinity of Jerusalem, in one of the outlying suburbs.

[Jens Nordlunde]

If you were an assassin, and your speciality was to sneak up on people from behind and cut their throats, I think a knife like the one shown by Ariel in post 1 might be handy, but for normal use rather unpractical.

[Rick]

It reminds me a bit of the shotel , also the korambit .

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=2036

The korambit was (IIRC) deployed with a sudden upward sweep thereby disemboweling the person attacked . One can also see this method as the primary purpose of the rencong .

Stomach wounds were invariably fatal .

[fernando]

Yes Ariel, Rielish qeriyoth.
But i had read that this was considered to be inconclusive, by modern Theologists and Bible exegetists, as not seeing much sense in a guy being named as from the place, and not as from such a place. The alternatives are that he was from an actual place in Samaria called Sycharis, hence ’sychar” [isch’sycar], the man of Sychar, allowing toponímy ‘ischarioth”.
On the other hand, some other experts do not exclude that he was named after Sicarii/Sicarius, in a non friendly association with the dagger circuit.
I came to see this version as a more plausible one, but not excluding that both versions could have existed, like Romans and non followers making a melange of both terms and atributions.
Sorry, this doesn't help to find details about the Sica.
Regards

[fearn]

Hi All,

Just saw this. My understanding of the term "sica" was that it was a product of Roman society. Basically, "sica" is a generic term for a single-edged, curved knives. This also had a strong social component: good Romans used straight, two-edged weapons such as the gladius (sword) and pugio (dagger). Only barbarians (and gladiators, and other such "uncultured scum" ) would use curved, single-edged blades.

So far as I know, "sica" did not define which side of the curve the edge was on. Sica is pretty obviously the predecessor to the modern english sickle, but so far as I know, it was perfectly possible for a sica to be sharpened on the outer edge instead. I think most people reading this could come up with a long list of knives that could be classified as "sica" in this way.

Given the social context of "straight, double-edged=good Roman" vs. "curved, single-edged=foreign," it's not surprising that there would be Jewish sicarii. What I think might get missed are the social and political connotations of the term.

F