Critical Reflection on the chosen object-
The object that I chose was weapons because before I started my research on this particular object I felt like weapons held great significance and importance in all civilisations and I wanted to study it in detail.
My timeline showed the evolution of weapons from the 40,000 BCE to the 21st Century. I included 8 civilisations–
- Mesopotamian Civilisation
- Persian Civilisation
- Indus Valley Civilisation
- Roman Civilisation
- Chinese Civilisation
- Egyptian Civilisation
- Greek Civilisation
- South American Civilisation
Taking weapons as an object took me some time to sort and eliminate the information since it is an extremely vast topic of research. It was also difficult to find out the exact dates for weapons in each civilisation.There were innumerable weapons in each civilisations with different types that varied from one civilisation to the other.
I had assumed swords to be the most common weapon amongst all civilisations but when I researched, I realised that spears were used in most of the civilisations.Previously, I had very little knowledge about the types of weapons and I could only count a few names on my fingertips but by the end of this project,I learnt about interesting weapons in different civiisations,like-
- Chinese civilisation- Dao, Qiang, ji, Jian
- Greek Civilisation-Ballista
- Persian Civilisation- palta, sagaris, spara
- Roman Civilisation- Gladius, Pilum
Now,I also have a good understanding of the fact that weapons have both offensive and defensive purposes. I learnt about different shields and armours that were used by the soldiers to protect them from sharped weapons, especially arrows and spears. For example, Phalana was a shield worn by Greek soldiers.
I realised that all civilisations had a varied collection of weapons. For example, the Egyptian civilisation had tons of sharp and deadly weapons, while the Greek Civilisation had sharp and sophisticated types both. However, The Indus Valley Civilisation had very few weapons and was considered to be the most silent one compared to the rest.
I learnt about Pugio, a weapon that was used in the Roman Civilisation to stab Julius Caesar during his assassination. I have read about the assassination but I found myself totally engrossed and interested while reading about the weapon that was used.
Overall, researching about weapons did clear a lot of my misconceptions. The fact that it had great significance was definitely true but the different types of weapons and their varied utility surprised me. The evolution of spears and swords to bombs and rockets has been over hundreds of years but reading about it made me feel like it was a quick evolution, is still evolving and will continue to evolve in future.
Sirina’s blog 