 In our last video, we explored and created one of the very first forms of the short sword, the Kopesh, that came to prominence in ancient Egypt 4,000 years ago. Using both the help of Greg, the swordcaster for the actual casting of it, and Daman to learn some of the sword's history. But now that I've made one, next I wanted to learn how it was actually used, presumably against bigger foes than the produce section. For that Daman has been researching and training on the background and tactical use of this ancient weapon and has been featured on shows like History's Deadliest Weapons. Daman teaches lessons on African martial arts and runs Street Forge Armory, which makes historical, cultural, tactical, and speculative weapons for martial arts, stage, screen, and cosplay. So I've been training in martial arts for over 30 years with an emphasis and focus on African Middle East for say the last 20 years. With the reconstruction of Egyptian martial arts, there's a lot of what we call frog DNA. That's a reference back to Jurassic Park, you know, trying to recreate something that was lost based off of old material, but using what we know and what we have available to do that. The sources that we have for, particularly for the Copech fighting, is pretty slim. Iconography, historical pieces that were questionable whether they were used on the battlefield, or they were just ceremonial pieces that were buried with the pharaoh. There's a medical book on treating wounds, especially wounds that come from the battlefield, spears, swords, axes, and stuff. And so we have to do a little reconstruction based off of the injuries that people will sustain on the battlefield. So a lot of forensic studies in that way. We have to look at what was the tolerance of the weapons they were using, like how could they functionally and effectively use the weapons without completely destroying their tools. We also look to living traditions that are being practiced in like Northeast Africa, as well as looking at contemporary societies of the Egyptians during their time to help us understand like the significance of the sickle sword. The one thing before we even get into the actual fighting portion of it, is all that outside research that goes into just kind of understanding like how the weapon was used. Even though I come up with the best theories based off of sound research, there's still guesswork at the end of the day. So it's kind of very humbling and at the same time it keeps you as a researcher and as a martial artist, it keeps you hungry. Egyptian training, military training consisted of like three main pillars, wrestling, stick fighting, archery. We're talking about a society that was at the dawn age of the sword. Egyptian understanding of fencing would have come from longer-range weapons, or it would have come from the idea of fighting with a stick. In certain cultures, if you're competing in a stick fighting tournament or whatever else, it's not just to show your prowess as a fighter. It serves as a social bonding for you to demonstrate your courage to your peers. In case for the Egyptians, stick fighting and wrestling were the most commonly revered martial arts that they practiced, and they used those arts for preparing for war. At the same time, they would use that almost like a reenactment of the eternal struggle between Horace and Set and the ultimate resurrection of Osiris. Again, you see this correlation of ritual, spirituality, community building, entertainment, training, all in this one seed in ancient Egypt and in other parts of Africa. So that's kind of one of the main differences is how it functions in the society. You want to tell me about the corpash? Yes, yes it is. Very nice. In West Asia, the city-states were going to war, and of course anytime that there's lots of fighting that's going on, there's a need for better tools, better weapons, and this kind of creates this spike in military technology in Western Asia. Swords were being made, and they were being made longer and stronger. The way the blades were made for the handles, it wouldn't allow for a lot of stress, lateral stress on the blade. So you couldn't do any cutting. So there's a lot of blades that look like daggers you can use for thrusting. It's less stress on the rivets or whatnot when you make these blades. This is a cutting weapon. It's a hacking weapon. You can cut and slash with this weapon. The shapes of it does allow for hooking shields, which is one of the common theories of how it was used. And we'll explore that in a little bit. The general narrative is this. The Egyptians were conquered by a group of people called the Hiksos. They were a group that came from ancient Palestine. When the Hiksos conquered Egypt, they brought in these new technologies. One they brought in the chariot, two they brought in the corpash, and then they brought in the composite boat. Once the Egyptians gained access to these weapons, they used these weapons to actually defeat the Hiksos and expel them. I don't want to say that's wrong. The story is more complex than that. They didn't use chariots against the Hiksos. They actually used their navy to get these early victories. And it was once the Hiksos had been expelled that they started to adapting some of their military technology. So we don't know for certain, but that's kind of like the popular narrative right now. Now to start training. But first, to suit up with some armor, generously provided by Matt Poitras. I'm an armor smith, a leather smith. I've been doing it in about 20-something years. My business is called MP Filmcraft. That's a very common type of armor that was used. You know, I think the Egyptians were the first to actually use it and they used plates that were a little bit bigger than that, made out of bronze, and they had like a raised ridge on them. They kind of bent down, sealed the flexibility, designed to like, you can wear it on a horseback. These are more Iron Age period. Scythians would use them. Persians would use them. Greeks would use them. How much is a sword weight? I think that one's about 16-17 pounds. It's not too bad. It's about like a set of chainmail. Before the Egyptians actually trained with the sword, they used stick fighting as a way to prepare. They used long sticks. They used single stick. They used stick and shield. They also used double stick. So we don't have our guard shields, so I want you to imagine that there's a plank here. But what we see in the images, we see the arms raised in these kind of guard positions here. There you go. The shield strapped on my arm like this, it creates this wedge of defense on this side here. I'm going to give you the attack here. You have your shield up to kind of guard and to fend that off to the side. So you see how it'll hit and it's going to glance off. Oh, damn. Good. Dang. Dang, good. Good. So we're going to add a little bit of movement to this. Okay, come here. Dang, good. If I go high, anything high as level with my shoulder, I'm going to have maximum range. But the moment I start going for lower targets without changing my base, I lose range. So if I go for your legs, and I haven't changed my base, I'm exposed. So head, head, and then work out. These are some of the suppositions of strikes that we have attacks coming from this side here, here, here, and also coming from this way and cuts from underneath. So now we're going to do a little bit of this kind of working angles, making contact with the stick first and then we'll move into the blade. Draw next to my head. Yeah. This is one of the most common cuts in some of the cranial evidence that we've seen are diagonal cuts to the back of the head. Good. Top of the head, top of the head. Okay, well, good. So I think we're ready for some bronze. It's like let it rest on your shoulder a little bit. We're going to take a step forward with our back leg and we're going to give a cut. Yeah, good. Recover and cut. Good. So now from here, we're going to go into two cuts. So two steps. One, two, and then back, back. Here, what's exposed? Good. Don't forget my legs. Good. And my head. Boom. Awesome. Good. Let's trade places here. You hold my shield for a second. I come in. Boom. That's over the head. From this angle here, your elbow's a little bit exposed. I can hit the elbow. And then from here, when I go down low, I bring my shield here and I come down and take the leg. Starting from the top so we go for the head. Boom. Good. And so if we come for the head, you can come from the side. You come from a diagonal. You can come straight. Go three times head, then the body, and then the leg. Boom, leg. Good job. So now what you can do is your cuffs can come head, side to side, or in front as well. One, two, three. Very good. Your shield's going to be your primary defense. Okay. It doesn't make any sense to, you know, use these short blades to try to like catch and parry like we do in modern styles of sword play. Put these away for a sec. Grab two sticks. This would be your shield holding in the middle. So now what we see in Egyptian warfare, from the transition from the middle kingdom to the new kingdom, shields had changed in their shape. And then they're the way they were held. In the middle kingdom, shields were held in a horizontal position strapped on the arm. They were shaped kind of like kites in a sense, whereas I came to a rounded triangle. He would brace it on your arm, and then you would fight from there. They changed the design, made it broader, center grip here, so I can hold the shield away from my body, and now I can cover myself much more from arrows. So I'm going to use this guy here. So here, your shield's out in front. So we're just going to do a basic defense with the stick and the shield. Okay. So I come here and do a slight cover. Boom. You strike from each side of my head. Same targets for coming around. Close it off and coming from my head. Boom. I go low for the body. You got that lower portion to catch it. But again, if you go for my legs, see how much you have to get in to hit my leg, right? So I can just move it. Okay. All right, so I go for your leg. Just move your leg. Yeah. There we go. Reach out. Reach out. Yeah. Reach out with your shield. Yeah. There we go. Bam. Good. All right. So I'm going to use a training cold pitch. Hold your shield out. Awesome. Push it out. As you do that, you're here. You caught it. Brush away, and I want you to push in with your shield. Make contact with my body, okay? Ready? I'm here. I attack. You're here. You clear and push. Don't bend. Push in to me. Good, good. Once again. Ready? And there and push in. Push, push, push in. Push in. There you go. Yes. Ready? Again, boom. Awesome. And push in. When I engage, we get this kind of effect here. So much that penetrate it in. So it binds and it traps into my shield. It allows me to go and then either use this to kind of take this away or to interspersed that into it, okay? So we're kind of going for it, catching a little bit so that I don't have to go here, here, but I can catch it with this and then clear and then come in for the rest. If I meet your sword edge to edge, what's going to happen is that you're going to get a nick in your bronze, right? And I probably even rolled my edge striking into the shield itself. So, and especially if you're fighting against a culture that's using like a bronze rim shield, you're going to roll edges and nicks are going to happen on your blade. That's just a reality. You may hit bone or hit something hard and it may cause the edge to roll. You want to make sure that your blade's going to function for as much as possible, but you are on a battlefield. You're trying to use this tool that can be replaced as best you can. So other options to going edge to edge, you can use the spine or the flat. If I strike this and use the flat of the blade, it's going to cause the sword to eventually bend. No problem. You can straighten your sword up later on. That's what comes with the territory using the flat to parry. Another possibility is to use the spine. The spine is thicker. You can use the spine theoretically to preserve your edge and to preserve the integrity of your blade. Now, that will require more redirective style parrys, which is a very advanced style of defense. Another aspect of Egyptian swordsmanship is taking out parrying all together and using purely defensive footwork and body movement to avoid strikes. So first round we'll go light and we're going to hit armored areas. Okay. Ready and go. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Good. There you go. Yep. So you see how I'm using this parry? Yeah. You're good. You can hit any area that's armored. Yeah. You can block. Now here's the drill. You can't make any contact with your sword. If you do make contact with your sword, you got to do push-ups. Okay. We'll say 10. All right. Okay. You can't block my stick at all. Okay. Any contact with our sticks, with our swords is push-ups and maybe push-ups for everybody. So I'm going to try. Okay. So now you see how it's more of a game of setting up trap. You see what I'm saying? So that's kind of a way we train the idea of making our opponent's weapons chase us by moving, by voiding and hitting. Oh. Okay. Thank you again to Daman for the amazing lesson. I know with these incompetence, how exactly it would feel to die in a Bronze Age sword fight. Check out his YouTube channel for more info on him and his lessons. In a few weeks, we'll be exploring some more Bronze Age weapons and more traditional swords. And we'll also seek Daman's help in learning how to fight with the primary weapon of the Bronze Age, the spear. Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. Couple more. Cool. Cool. Cool. Awesome. Okay, break. If you enjoyed this video, be sure to subscribe and check out other content we have covering a wide variety of topics. Also, if you've enjoyed these series, consider supporting us on Patreon. We are largely a fan-funded channel and depend on the support of our viewers in order to keep our series going. Thanks for watching.