Editing Dagger (section)

===Antiquity===
[[File:Dagger Iran Luristan 2600-2350 BCE Bronze.jpg|250px|thumb|A bronze dagger from [[Luristan bronze|Lorestan]], Iran, 2600–2350 BCE]]
[[File:Poignard 0.188.1 2 fond.jpg|150px|thumb|A [[Neolithic]] dagger from the [[Muséum de Toulouse]]]]
[[File:Puñal íbero de frontón (M.A.N.) 01.jpg|thumb|upright=.5|left|Pre-Roman Iberian iron dagger forged between the middle of the 5th and the 3rd century BC]]
[[File:Bronze age, Kurdistan, Sine.jpg|150px|thumbnail|Bronze Age swords, [[Iranian Kurdistan]], Museum of [[Sanandaj]]]]
[[File:Puñal ibero de Almedinilla - M.A.N.jpg|thumb|upright=.5|right|Iberian triangular iron dagger, {{c.|399–200 BC}}]]
{{See also|Chronology of bladed weapons}}
The earliest daggers were made of materials such as [[flint]], [[ivory]] or [[bone]] in [[Neolithic]] times.

[[Copper]] daggers appeared first in the early [[Bronze Age]], in the 3rd millennium BC,<ref>Sheridan, Alison, ''A Beaker Period Copper Dagger Blade from the Silees River near Ross Lough, Co. Fermanagh'', Ulster Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 56 (1993), pp. 61–62</ref> and copper daggers of [[Early Minoan III]] (2400–2000 BC) were recovered at [[Knossos]].<ref>C. Michael Hogan, [http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/10854/knossos.html#fieldnotes ''Knossos fieldnotes'', Modern Antiquarian (2007)]</ref>

[[File:Persepolis-Darafsh 1 (107).JPG|thumb|100px|Relief of [[akinakes]], a type of ancient dagger, worn by an [[Achaemenid Empire|Achaemenid]] guard in [[Persepolis]], Iran]]

In ancient Egypt, daggers were usually made of copper or bronze, while royalty had gold weapons. At least since [[pre-dynastic Egypt]],<ref>Iorwerth Eiddon Stephen Edwards, Cyril John Gadd, Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière Hammond, 1970</ref> ({{circa|3100 BC}}) daggers were adorned as [[ceremonial weapon|ceremonial objects]] with golden hilts and later even more ornate and varied construction. One early silver dagger was recovered with a midrib design. The 1924 opening of the [[Tutankhamun's mummy|tomb of Tutankhamun]] revealed two daggers, one with a gold blade, and one of smelted iron. It is held that mummies of the Eleventh Dynasty were buried with bronze sabres; and there is a bronze dagger of Thut-mes III. (Eighteenth Dynasty), {{circa|B.C. 1600}}, and bronze armour, [[sword]]s and daggers of Mene-ptah II. of the (Nineteenth Dynasty) {{circa|B.C 1300}}.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Burton |first1=Richard F. |title=The Book of the Sword |url=https://archive.org/details/booksword00unkngoog |date=1884 |publisher=London Chatto & Windus |location=Piccadilly |page=[https://archive.org/details/booksword00unkngoog/page/n122 80]}}</ref>

[[Ancient iron production|Iron production]] did not begin until 1200 BC, and iron ore was not found in Egypt, making the iron dagger rare, and the context suggests that the iron dagger was valued on a level equal to that of its ceremonial gold counterpart.<ref>{{cite book|title =Tutankhamun's armies: battle and conquest during ancient Egypt's late eighteenth dynasty|author =Jay Cassell|editor=Peter J. Fiduccia|publisher =John Wiley and Sons|year=2007|page=77 |isbn =978-0-471-74358-3}}</ref> These facts, and the composition of the dagger had long suggested a meteoritic origin,<ref>{{cite web
 | url =http://www.incose-cc.org/king-tutankhamuns-dagger/
 | title =King Tutankhamun's Dagger
 | last =Anderson
 | first =George
 | date =1 March 2010
 | publisher =INCOSE Chesapeake Chapter
 | access-date =5 June 2016
 | quote =History is replete with eyewitness accounts of meteors falling from the sky and impacting the earth. Further, there is a continuous record of metal being recovered from the meteoric remnants and frequently being described or labeled as meteoric iron.
 | archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20181008161104/http://www.incose-cc.org/king-tutankhamuns-dagger/
 | archive-date =8 October 2018
 | url-status =dead
 }}</ref> however, [[Tutankhamun's iron dagger blade|evidence for its meteoritic origin]] was not entirely conclusive until June 2016 when researchers using [[x-ray fluorescence]] spectrometry confirmed similar proportions of metals (Iron, 10% nickel, and 0.6% cobalt) in a meteorite discovered in the area, deposited by an ancient [[meteor shower]].<ref name=june16>
{{cite journal
 | title =The meteoritic origin of Tutankhamun's iron dagger blade
 | journal =Meteoritics & Planetary Science
 | volume =51
 | issue =7
 | pages =1301–1309
 | publisher = Wiley Online
 | doi =10.1111/maps.12664 |year =2016
 | last1 =Comelli
 | first1 =Daniela
 | last2 =d'Orazio
 | first2 =Massimo
 | last3 =Folco
 | first3 =Luigi
 | bibcode =2016M&PS...51.1301C|display-authors=etal |doi-access =free
 }}"Early View (Online Version of Record published before inclusion in a printed issue)".</ref><ref>
{{cite news
 | last =Panko
 | first =Ben
 | title =King Tut's dagger made from an ancient meteorite
 | newspaper =[[Science (journal)|Science]]
 | publisher =[[American Association for the Advancement of Science]]
 | date =2 June 2016
 | url =https://www.science.org/content/article/king-tut-s-dagger-made-ancient-meteorite
 | access-date =5 June 2016}}</ref>

One of the earliest objects made of smelted iron is a dagger dating to before 2000 BC, found in a context that suggests it was treated as an ornamental object of great value. Found in a Hattic royal tomb dated about 2500 BC, at Alaca Höyük in northern Anatolia, the dagger has a smelted iron blade and a gold handle.<ref>{{cite book |title =Out of the fiery furnace: the impact of metals on the history of mankind |author =Robert Raymond |publisher =Penn State Press |year =1986 |page=[https://archive.org/details/outoffieryfurnac0000raym/page/61 61] |isbn =978-0-271-00441-9 |url =https://archive.org/details/outoffieryfurnac0000raym/page/61 }}</ref>

The artisans and blacksmiths of [[Iberia]] in what is now southern Spain and southwestern France produced various iron daggers and swords of high quality from the 5th to the 3rd century BC, in ornamentation and patterns influenced by Greek, Punic (Carthaginian), and Phoenician culture.<ref name="WIS">Wise, Terence, ''Armies of the Carthaginian Wars, 265–146 BC'', London: Osprey Publishing Ltd., {{ISBN|0-85045-430-1}}, {{ISBN|978-0-85045-430-7}} (1982), pp. 20–21</ref><ref>Keay, Simon (Prof.), ''[http://www.swanhellenic.com/library/phoenicians-carthaginians-and-romans-in-southern-iberia-13715.html Phoenicians, Carthaginians and Romans in Southern Iberia] {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110907090040/http://www.swanhellenic.com/library/phoenicians-carthaginians-and-romans-in-southern-iberia-13715.html |date=2011-09-07 }}'', Swan Hellenic's Online Library & Archive, 30 June 2011, retrieved 2 August 2011</ref> The exceptional purity of [[Iberians|Iberian]] iron and the sophisticated method of forging, which included cold hammering, produced double-edged weapons of excellent quality.<ref name="WIS"/> One can find technologically advanced designs such as folding knives rusted among the artifacts of many Second Iberian Iron Age cremation burials or in [[Roman Empire]] excavations all around Spain and the Mediterranean.<ref>De Fontcuberta, Eduardo A., ''Bandolero Blades'', Tactical-Life.com, Tactical Knives (September 2010), retrieved 13 August 2011</ref> Iberian infantrymen carried several types of iron daggers, most of them based on shortened versions of double-edged swords, but the true Iberian dagger had a triangular-shaped blade. Hannibal and his Carthaginian armies later adopted Iberian daggers and swords.<ref name="WIS"/> The [[Lusitanians|Lusitanii]], a pre-Celtic people dominating the lands west of Iberia (most of modern [[Portugal]] and [[Extremadura]]) successfully held off the Roman Empire for many years with a variety of innovative tactics and light weapons, including iron-bladed short [[spear]]s and daggers modeled after Iberian patterns.

During the Roman Empire, legionaries were issued a ''[[pugio]]'' (from the Latin {{lang|la|pugnō}}, or "fight"), a double-edged iron thrusting dagger with a blade of {{convert|7-12|in|cm|abbr=on}}. The design and fabrication of the ''pugio'' was taken directly from Iberian daggers and short swords; the Romans even adopted the triangular-bladed Iberian dagger, which they called the ''parazonium''.<ref name="WIS"/> Like the ''[[gladius]]'', the ''pugio'' was most often used as a thrusting (stabbing weapon). As an extreme close-quarter combat weapon, the ''pugio'' was the Roman soldier's last line of defense. The ''pugio'' was a convenient utility knife when not in battle.<ref>{{cite book |title =A concise dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities |url =https://archive.org/details/aconcisediction00corngoog |author =Sir William Smith |publisher =Murray |year=1898 |page=[https://archive.org/details/aconcisediction00corngoog/page/n75 66] |editor=Francis Warre Cornish }}</ref>