From end to end along the Jagei gorge, a flock of dust demons flew up, The crow flew like a young deer, but the mare rushed like a chamois.
The black one bit the mouthpiece with his teeth, the black one breathed harder, But the mare played with a light bridle, like a beauty with her glove.
(Rudyard Kipling "Ballad of East and West")
Other peoples of the East, for example, the Kyrgyz, had no less sharp arrowheads. The Chinese noted in their annals that the iron weapons of the Kyrgyz are so sharp that they can even pierce the skin of a rhinoceros! But the protective weapons of the Kyrgyz were quite primitive. They did not use chain mail, but were content with lamellar shells, which they supplemented with defensive details made of … wood - shoulder pads, bracers, and greaves, which they retained even in the 9th-10th centuries.
Warriors of the Kyrgyz and Kaymaks - the ancient Turkic tribe Kaymak (Kimak) of the 8th - 19th centuries. Rice. Angus McBride.
However, throwing weapons among many peoples of Asia were effective not only because of their sharpness. The Chinese knew the Ilou tribe, which lived on the territory of modern Primorye, northeast of the Great Wall of China. The ilou warriors had very powerful bows, but they used arrowheads made of fragile "black stone", smeared with poison, from which "the wounded one dies immediately." It is clear that metal tips were simply not required for this method of waging war. It was enough to shoot accurately and injure the enemy.
Combat arrow. "Museum of Nature and Man" in Khanty-Mansiysk.
It is not surprising that such a deadly weapon, such as the bow and arrow, was deified by the nomads and was an obligatory attribute of many deities whom they worshiped. There are known deities depicted, both with one arrow and with a quiver filled with arrows, which symbolized lightning or were associated with rain fertilizing the earth. The arrow, associated with the cult of fertility, is still an invariable attribute of Mongolian wedding ceremonies.
Hunting arrowhead from Western Siberia. "Museum of Nature and Man" in Khanty-Mansiysk.
The ancient holiday of the peoples of the Caucasus "Kabakhi", which in the old days was usually held at a wedding or commemoration, has survived to this day. In the center of the site, a pillar 10 or more meters high was dug in, at the top of which various valuable objects or other purpose were fortified. The rider, armed with a bow and arrow, hit this target at full gallop and received a knocked down prize. Equally popular was the Jamba at-May competition in Central Asia, and its peoples had a reputation for dexterous arrows from time immemorial. Even the "father of history" Herodotus reported that, starting from the age of five, children are taught there only three subjects: horse riding, archery and truthfulness.
Arrows of the peoples of Western Siberia. "Museum of Nature and Man" in Khanty-Mansiysk.
The abundance of cattle (for example, on the tombstone of one of the Kyrgyz it is written that the deceased "was separated from his 6,000 horses") gave nomads such weapons as a lasso lasso in their hands. They owned it no worse than American cowboys, which means they could throw it on any rider unfamiliar with this simple device. A whip, a combat scourge with a weight at the end of a long braided strap attached to a wooden handle, was also very common among the nomads. Available to everyone (often instead of a metal weight they even used a large chiseled bone), this weapon was convenient both for a fleeting equestrian battle, and to fight off wolves, which were a considerable danger for pastoralists in the steppe.
The ruler accepts the offerings. "Jami at-tavarih" ("Collection of chronicles") by Rashid ad-din Fazlullah Hamadani. First quarter of the 14th century. State Library, Berlin.
Another very important type of weapon of the nomads were small axes, again of dual purpose. Heavy axes, like European ones, were simply inconvenient for horsemen, but small axes could be used with equal success both in war and in everyday life. More specialized weapons were punching tools for piercing protective armor, known in Asia since the second half of the 1st millennium BC. Equally ancient on the territory from the Volga to the Great Wall of China were straight swords, which had a length of a meter or more. Sabers are very rare among the excavated nomadic mounds, which suggests that they were valued - this is, firstly, and secondly, that for a long time there were very few of them, at least from the 8th to the 11th century. The mace was also known to nomadic peoples. Most often it was a bronze ball, filled with lead on the inside for greater weight and having pyramidal protrusions on the outside, with a hole in the middle. It was worn on a wooden handle, which, judging by the images on the miniatures, was quite long. In those cases when, instead of a ball, the tip of the mace consisted of six plates (or "feathers"), diverging to the sides, it was called a six-handle, but if there were more such plates - a first. However, many simple warriors, for example, among the Mongols, had the most ordinary clubs made of wood with a thickening in the butt.
Bone plates of armor of the Sargat culture from the Yazevo-3 burial ground. Rice. A. Sheps.
In addition to wood, bones and horns, leather played a huge role in the life of nomadic tribes. Clothes and footwear, dishes and horse equipment were made of leather. Protective armor very often also came from leather. Leather as a lining was used even when the armor itself was made of metal.
Already in our time, the English experimenter John Coles tested a leather shield, which could well have been in nomads. The dart pierced it with difficulty, and after fifteen hard blows with the sword, only slight cuts appeared on its outer surface.
Turkish or Mamluk shield of the late 15th century, diameter 46.7 cm. Weight 1546 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
In the 19th century, American Indians who roamed the Great Plains also made leather shields for themselves. To do this, the raw skin of a bison was laid over a pit with hot stones and water was poured over them. At the same time, the skin wrinkled and thickened, and became even stronger. Then wool was removed from the skin and a round blank was cut out for the future shield. Usually it was a circle not less than half a meter in diameter, on which all wrinkles and irregularities were smoothed out with the help of stones. Then it was covered with thinner skin, and the space between the tire and the shield was stuffed with bison or antelope wool, hawk and eagle feathers, which further increased its protective qualities. Such a thick and heavy shield was a reliable defense against arrows. A skilled warrior, holding it at an angle, could protect himself even from bullets ricocheting from its surface, although, of course, this only concerned bullets fired from smooth-bore firearms.
Leather shield with metal overlays and embossings. Belonged to the Mongol sultan Akbar. Near Aurangeseb's saber. Museum in Bangalore, India.
There is no doubt that the nomads of the Middle Ages made leather shields no worse than the Indians and, having plenty of cattle, could afford any experiments in this area. Weaving a light shield from willow twigs (willow thickets are also found along the banks of steppe rivers) and covering it with leather was not particularly difficult for them. Protection for the warrior turned out to be quite reliable and at the same time not too burdensome. In addition to leather, plate armor from a wide variety of materials played an important role in the protective equipment of the nomadic warriors. Already the ancient peoples who inhabited Central Asia and Siberia were able to make shells from bone or horny plates connected with leather straps. The plates were often decorated with ornaments. Conical helmets were made from larger plates of an elongated triangular shape. In the last centuries BC, iron helmets have already appeared here.
Iron plates from Western Siberia. Rice. A. Sheps.
Such a spread of plate armor is primarily due to the fact that it was in the East that they just appeared, and were widely used already in ancient Sumer, Egypt, the Babylonians and Assyria. They were known in China and Persia, where nomadic peoples made their raids from the north and south. The Scythians, for example, in their campaigns reached Egypt and, therefore, could easily adopt (and adopted!) Everything that was somehow convenient for battle.
Selkup arrowheads. Rice. A. Sheps.
Of course, the conditions in which these peoples had to roam were different from each other. It is one thing - the regions of the Mongolian steppes, the Black Sea region or the Urals at the very border of the harsh taiga, and quite another - sun-drenched Arabia with its sands and palm trees in rare oases. Nevertheless, traditions remained traditions, and craftsmanship was passed down from generation to generation, no matter what. And so it happened that the military technologies of the Ancient East and its civilizations did not die at all, but gradually spread among new peoples who had not even heard of each other, but which nomadic life itself became related. Hence all their belligerence, which we have already discussed, and very similar weapons, inextricably linked with their habitat.
Rice. V. Korolkova
