Shotel

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A shotel is a curved sword originating in Abyssinia (ancient Ethiopia). It looks very much like a Near Eastern scimitar, but the curve is almost a full half circle. The blade is flat and double-edged with a diamond cross-section. The blade is about 40 inches in total length and the hilt is a simple wooden piece with no guard. The shotel was carried in a close fitting leather scabbard.^[1]

The Abyssinians did not use any fencing techniques, so these blades were not used to slice or cut through but to hook the opponent by reaching around.^[1] Its shape is similar to a big sickle and can be effectively used to reach around an opponent's shield and stab them in vital areas, such as the kidneys or lungs.

However, the mid-18th century European visitor to Ethiopia, Remedius Prutky, often uses the word shotel to describe a carving knife.^[2]

[edit] Shotels in media

Gundam Sandrock from the popular anime series Gundam Wing used a pair of large shotels as its primary weapons. Kamen Rider Gatack's Gatack Caliburs, in Kamen Rider Kabuto, are designed after shotels as well. The weapon also makes appearances in the Playstation games Vagrant Story and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Additionally the massively-multiplayer online game Final Fantasy XI features a Shotel as one of the the available weapons.

[edit] References

^ ^a ^b *Stone, George Cameron [1934] (1999). A Glossary of the Construction, Decoration, and Use of Arms and Armor in All Countries and in All Times. Mineola NY: Dover Publications, p. 562. ISBN 0-486-40726-8.
^ J.H. Arrowsmith-Brown (trans.), Prutky's Travels in Ethiopia and other Countries with notes by Richard Pankhurst (London: Hakluyt Society, 1991), pp. 77, 165.