(4) With a fixed ‘dart’ grip: the weapon is held overarm in one hand, as if to throw it like a javelin. This permits a downwards blow, and was typical when in combat against men on foot.
The use of battle-axes by the peoples of the Khazar Khaganate reflected the influence of long-established Caucasian tradition. In fact such axes are not known in early Khazar and Bulgar burials, but are present in large numbers in Alan sites. Under Alan influence, battle-axes subsequently came to be used by the semi-settled Khazar population from at least the 7th century.
The axe was a universal weapon in the sense that it could be used by both horsemen and infantrymen. The handle was made of hardwood such as cornel or maple, normally from 60 to 75cm long (23–30in). In battle the axe’s effectiveness was comparable to that of a sabre, but it was much cheaper to manufacture. (Because axes were the most readily available weapons to the poorest among the population during the early period, little distinction may have been made between a weapon of war and a work-tool.) Nevertheless, all surviving axes are eye-catching weapons, though relatively small in size and weight. Their shapes can be categorized according to the details of both the blade and the socket which fits around the handle, but the majority of war axes from the Saltov culture are of one type, having a narrow, elongated blade; a small number also have a smaller secondary blade on the back of the head.
The war-flail was a variety of mace, consisting of a ball or other weight hanging from a short handle by means of a strap, plaited thongs or more rarely a chain. It was not easy to use in combat, requiring considerable room to deliver an effective blow. It was solely an offensive weapon, being useless as a means of defence, so those who used the war-flail may usually have been equipped with shields. Nevertheless, the number of finds suggests that it was effective, perhaps in the hands of both cavalry and infantry in fast-moving skirmishes. Consequently the flail may have been carried as part of a warrior’s full panoply, for use when a suitable occasion arose.
The war-flails of Khazar warriors may be divided by minor variations; in the most massive form the strap passed through a longitudinal hole in a flange at the top of the weight. The most common type had an oval weight made of bone with an inset iron bar, while other types had a solid weight made entirely of bone, stone, iron, bronze or lead.
DEFENSIVE EQUIPMENT
The appearance of armour among the Khazars can be traced back to the end of the 7th century, but the fact that only small fragments of mail have been found in such contexts seems to suggest that, as yet, full mail hauberks were rarely used. Perhaps mail was so expensive, having been imported from elsewhere, that small sections might have been sewn onto a leather or textile basis to protect particularly vulnerable parts of the body? In some warrior burials mail was found together with remnants of lamellar armour. It is probable that in this period efforts were still being made to achieve an optimal design which resulted, by the middle of the 8th century, in the adoption of a full mail hauberk, like those already seen in wealthier and more settled cultures. However, the mail found in Khazar-period graves was often of sophisticated manufacture, combining both riveted and hammer-welded links. The latter are sometimes made of square-section wire, formed into rings with a diameter of 10 to 14mm (0.4–0.5in). In their complete form most mail shirts had short sleeves, and slits in the hem of the skirt to prevent it riding up when astride a horse.
As pointed out by the Russian historian of arms and armour, Dr M.V. Gorelik, developments in armour were amongst the Khazars’ greatest technological achievements during the 7th to 9th centuries. In fact, the Khazars drew upon the traditions of Central Asia and China, Transoxania, Iran and Byzantium to produce something genuinely new, and the skilled armourers of the north Caucasus ensured that the results were often of the highest quality.[3]
Lamellar armour was popular from the Pacific to the Danube, and it was certainly important in the Khazar Khaganate. For reasons which remain unclear, lamellae with curved and scalloped edges fell out of fashion during the 6th and 7th centuries, and had disappeared by the close of the 8th century. What remained were rectangular plates with slightly rounded tops. These were central to the Khazar armourer’s art, and what came next demanded technological skills previously seen only amongst the Romans at the beginning of the 1st millenium AD. (Indeed, such skills only reappeared in Western and Central Europe at the close of the medieval period, though they probably survived in Byzantium.) Khazar armourers learned◦– perhaps from the Byzantines◦– how to connect plates, scales or other forms of lamellae by joining them with iron rivets rather than rawhide thongs. Even more significantly, they used a system of ‘loose riveting’, which required huge skill if the resulting armour was to be both flexible and strong. Such armours were, in fact, almost as flexible as traditional lamellar construction while being considerably stronger, because it was much more difficult to break or ‘pop’ an iron rivet than it was to cut leather, rawhide or silk lacing with a blow from a blade.
Another Khazar development was domed shoulder plates forged from a single piece of steel, which were then strapped to the cuirass◦– a form of protection probably developed from similar shoulder-pieces known in Eastern Turkestan during the 8th century. A cuirass with these ‘pauldrons’ still left most of the arms exposed, along with much of the body and the legs below the waist. To solve this the Khazars wore mail hauberks beneath the lamellar cuirass, in a style of armour that remained characteristic of Central Asia from the 6th century until beyond the end of the medieval period.
3
Gorelik, M.V., ‘Arms and Armour in South-Eastern Europe in the Second Half of the First Millenium AD’, in D. Nicolle (ed.), A Companion to Medieval Arms and Armour (Woodbridge, 2002) 134.