Dacorum falces. Armele incovoiate ale dacilor,
Cătălin Borangic2016
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Abstract
The appearance of this book was predictable, given the concerns and publications of Cătălin Borangic from the last decade. The combination of several studies and articles of the author in this volume, otherwise scattered through various publications, some difficult to obtain, has several advantages. On one hand, we were able to logically arrange and analyze the multitude of aspects regarding the various categories of curved weapons and, on the other hand, in the meantime, a lot of other information was accumulated, and his experience increased, so that it was possible to highlight new sides of the problematic or nuance others already addressed. I agreed to make this brief presentation of the book for several reasons. First of all because some aspects of the phenomenon have worried me over time, then because the author is my doctoral student with a topic that includes many problems in this volume and, finally, because we collaborate in highlighting and analyzing the characteristics of some types of Dacian curved weapons or the publication of older discoveries, which are still unknown. The purpose of the book is clearly expressed by the author: “The present work aims to gather at a maximum of historical, artistic and archaeological information regarding the curved weapons used by the Dacians, to clarify, where appropriate, the terminology, the origin, the spread, the ethno-cultural footprint and, finally, to be constituted in a database from which to be able to continue the research, being aware that this study is only a stage of the project to reconstruct theDacian military phenomenon ” (p. 4). According to the stated purpose, the summary highlights both the multitude of categories of information used, as well as the various aspects approached by the author: from those regarding the origin, typology, chronology and area of spread of curved weapons used by Thracians, to those of social and psychological interpretation or of experimental archeology. The author has used, practically, all the categories of existing information, from the archaeological discoveries to the written sources or the iconographic representations, including from the coins, taken from publications or from the Internet. Given the multitude of issues he set out to address, some topics inevitably were less well documented and analyzed (for example, those regarding the origin of curved weapons and their significance, the weapon-weapon ambivalence of parts or frames or the cultural-archaeological and historical events in the south of the Danube). In contrast, the wide-ranging analysis of curved weapons, from the southern Balkans to Transcarpathia, and over a long period of more than half a millennium to highlight some interesting aspects of these categories of weapons used by the Thracians. The difficulties encountered were many. A lot of archaeological discoveries lack context, so the possibilities of precise dating or more detailed interpretations are greatly reduced. The written sources are extremely few and ambiguous, for some chronological intervals the categories of information are out of phase, so they cannot be corroborated. For example, from sec. VII-VI B.C., we have only weapons of a certain type, especially from the north of the Danube. The archaeological discoveries are more numerous for the century II-I B.C., but other categories of information are missing. The vast majority of iconographic representations come from the century II-III A.D.. Most weapons are from tombs, but for the sec. I B.C. tombs are missing, as weapons discoveries in cities, temples or places of worship are rather scarce. Due to these reasons, often conclusions with general validity or detailed observations could not be issued. Cătălin Borangic tried to fill these gaps in documentation by using historical logic and analogies in other areas, duplicated by experiments. The essential observation of Cătălin Borangic is the appetite of the entire Thracian lineage for curved weapons, of various sizes and shapes, from the southern Balkans to the northern Carpathians, and this consequence for a period of over half a millennium must have had profound motivations. It is evident that this option had both objective causes, namely their effectiveness, but also some psychological ones, which proved to be the most suitable for the psychology and the way of fighting the Thracians. "Whether the curved weapons have changed the psychological structure of their users, or, more likely, the Thracian warrior mentality has found in the curved arms the right extension of their martial inclinations, it is certain that a human-weapon link has succeeded in shaping the trajectory”. Thracians through history ”. This close connection between the Thracian nation and their curved weapons has become a commonplace in antiquity, a way of ethnic identification is a phenomenon well argumented by the author. It cannot be by chance that on two of the most famous monuments erected by the Romans - the Trajan's Column in Rome and the Triumphal Monument at Adamclisi - the Dacians often appear in battle scenes with different types of curved weapons or they are depicted as trophies. The various categories of curved weapons known in the area of the Thracians from the huge rhomphaea and mahaire characteristic of the southern Balkans, to the Dacian falx or the sica daggers typical of the Dacians or the knives and sickles benefit from thorough analyzes, in which the technical and typological characteristics are highlighted, as well as their modalities of use in combat, including the consequences on the enemies. Cătălin Borangic often went through the analysis of the physical characteristics of the curved weapons, referring to their handlers - from a military, social, religious, psychologic and identity point of view - sometimes with remarkable results. Of course, these sensitive aspects are always arguable, but they must be addressed nevertheless, to understand the complexity of the phenomenon, as assessing the weapon without its user does not make any sense whatsoever. Welcomed and clarifying are two other sections of the book, namely experimental archeology and how to use curved weapons in combat. The experiments not only provided useful information regarding techniques and workshops, but the ways of obtaining them allowed the necessary processing time and their likely costs to be estimated, resulting in some invaluable clues as to who could afford to procure them. Then, from the use of different types of curved weapons in battle, with enemies using the same types of weapons or with those used by the Roman army, a number of valuable information could have been obtained, both to understand their notoriety in antiquity and to fill in the gaps in the written sources. Cătălin Borangic proves to be a good connoisseur of the technical and typological aspects of weapons or of their use in combat. In our opinion, some formulations go beyond the data we have about the society and the general behavior of the Thracian people, so the expressions should have been more nuanced. Among them we mention: "the Thracians were well-known warriors", "the Dacian warrior society, with a mind inclined towards heroism", "that detachment with which the Thracians regarded dying in general, but especially the Geto-Dacians", "the mysterious world of the Danube warriors" , a civilization with deep military accents ”etc. But perhaps in a book that addresses not only the specialists, but also the people of culture who want to know the history, as the author wishes, the "more accentuated" formulations could be justified. The illustration of the book is varied and generally of good quality, so it well documents the author's analysis and appreciation. Undoubtedly, the book is a success, and its author deserves to be congratulated both for the careful analysis of the different categories of curved weapons, as well as for trying to decipher the psychological springs that determined the Thracians to use them with a predilection or for highlighting magical meanings and their religious.
