What are the oldest weapons in the world?

The oldest weapons in the world are spears, specifically the spears found in Schöningen, Germany in 1995 dated to c. 400,000 BCE

What were weapons originally made of?

Weapons were originally made of wood and stone.

What is the oldest gun in the world?

The oldest firearm found to date is the Heilongjiang Hand Cannon from China, dated to c. 1288.

What are the oldest swords in the world?

The oldest swords in the world were discovered only in the 1980s at Arslantepe Mound in Turkey and date to c. 3300 BCE.

A Gallery of Prehistoric and Ancient Weapons (Image Gallery) p. 24

Image Gallery

by Joshua J. Mark
published on 08 October 2024

Subscribe to topic Subscribe to author

Aztec Turquoise Shield

by The British Museum
published on 29 July 2022

Subscribe to topic Subscribe to author

Aztec Turquoise Shield — View Full-Size Image

An Aztec (Mexica) shield of wood covered in turquoise and shell mosaic. Likely used only as a ceremonial shield. The design shows solar disks and a long, winding snake crisscrossing the shield horizontally. The shield was dedicated to the rain god Tlaloc and buried beneath the Templo Mayor at Tenochtitlan, Mexico, 1400-1521.

The British Museum, London.

« Previous Image

Images in this Gallery

Questions & Answers

What are the oldest weapons in the world?: The oldest weapons in the world are spears, specifically the spears found in Schöningen, Germany in 1995 dated to c. 400,000 BCE
What were weapons originally made of?: Weapons were originally made of wood and stone.
What is the oldest gun in the world?: The oldest firearm found to date is the Heilongjiang Hand Cannon from China, dated to c. 1288.
What are the oldest swords in the world?: The oldest swords in the world were discovered only in the 1980s at Arslantepe Mound in Turkey and date to c. 3300 BCE.

Add External Link

External Links

10 Oldest Swords Ever Discovered - Oldest.org

oldest.org

World's Oldest Spears - Archaeology Magazine Archive

archaeology.org

Archaeologists Find 3,000-Year-Old Sword So Well Preserved It 'Almost Still Shines' | Smithsonian

smithsonianmag.com

Evidence of Bows and Arrows Found in the South of France | Real Archaeology

vassar.edu

License & Copyright

The British Museum has released this image under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license. You can read more about the British Museum and Creative Commons here. Original image by The British Museum. Uploaded by Mark Cartwright, published on 29 July 2022. The copyright holder has published this content under the following license: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon this content non-commercially, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms. When republishing on the web a hyperlink back to the original content source URL must be included. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms.