7 weapons cataloged
If you had to pick one weapon category that won more battles than any other, it's polearms. Not swords, not bows, not guns. Polearms. A sharpened point on a long stick is cheap, easy to learn, and terrifyingly effective in formation. The spear was the backbone of organized armies for longer than every other weapon on this site combined. Its descendants, the pike and the halberd, ended the age of the mounted knight. Even the bayonet is just a spear bolted onto a gun.
The javelin is a light spear designed to be thrown rather than thrust. Archaeological finds at Schöningen, Germany, include eight spruce-wood javelins dating to approximately 400,000 years ago — among the oldest known wooden artifacts. These were not...
The spear is arguably the most important weapon in human history. A sharpened point on a long shaft, it extends the reach of the wielder and concentrates force into a tiny area. Fire-hardened wooden spears from Clacton-on-Sea date to roughly 450,000 ...
The pike is an extremely long thrusting spear, typically 4–6 meters in length, wielded in dense formations. Alexander the Great's Macedonian phalanx carried the sarissa, a 5.5-meter pike that created an impenetrable wall of iron points. The weapon wa...
The pollaxe is a sophisticated combination weapon designed for armored foot combat. Mounted on a shaft of roughly 1.5–2 meters, it combines an axe blade, a hammer head, and a top spike in a single weapon, giving the wielder options against any type o...
The bill evolved from the agricultural billhook — a curved chopping blade used for hedge-laying and woodland management. Military bills added a thrusting spike, a back hook for pulling riders from horses, and a reinforced cutting edge. The weapon was...
The halberd combines an axe blade, a thrusting spike, and a rear hook on a shaft of roughly 1.8 meters. This triple-threat design made it extraordinarily versatile: the axe could cleave armor, the spike could thrust like a short spear, and the hook c...
The bardiche is a long poleaxe distinguished by its wide, cleaver-like blade attached to the shaft at two points. Common across Eastern Europe and Russia, it was the signature weapon of the streltsy — the Muscovite musketeers who served as Russia’s f...