From the history of Mesopotamian weaponry
This short passage is part of a section in a larger work dealing with the warfare and weapons of ancient Mesopotamia (chiefly during the Protoliterate and Early Dynastic periods), which the author hopes to complete in a not-too-distant future. The paper gives a brief history of weapon types more or less falling into the “knives-swords-daggers” category, leaving aside many other kinds of weapons. Thus, it omits lances, javelins and axes - the most important and mass-produced types of weaponry at the early stages of Mesopotamian history. Describing weapons, the author mostly adheres to M.V. Gorelik’s classification [1].