Shotel

Origins

The shotel's origins are not well documented. Curved and sickle-shaped blades have a long history in northeastern Africa and the Near East, from the ancient Egyptian Khopesh onward, but there is no clear line of descent, and most surviving shotels date from the nineteenth century. European travellers to Ethiopia described them from the eighteenth century, and by the nineteenth century the shotel was regarded as the Ethiopian sword, carried by the warriors of the regional lords and emperors. Richard Burton described it in his Book of the Sword in 1884.

Design & Construction

The shotel's blade forms a deep curve, sometimes close to a half circle. Measured along the curve, the blade can be over 40 inches long, while measured straight it is shorter. It is flat, double-edged and usually made of relatively soft iron, with a simple grip of wood, rhino horn or other horn and no guard. The sheath, made of leather, follows the full curve of the blade and often ends in a metal ball or tip. Because of its shape, a shotel can't be drawn and used like a straight sword; it is worn on the right side, and the fighter strikes with a hooking motion.

Combat Use

Ethiopian warriors fought with spears, round hide shields and the shotel, and the curved blade gave them an answer to the shield: a shotel could reach over or around an opponent's shield to strike his back, head or side. It could also be used to hook a mounted enemy and pull him from his horse. By the nineteenth century firearms had become the most important weapons in Ethiopian warfare, and the emperors Tewodros II, Yohannes IV and Menelik II built up large arsenals of rifles. But swords, shields and spears were still carried by many soldiers, and warriors with shotels fought in the wars against Egypt in the 1870s and at the Battle of Adwa in 1896, where Menelik II's army of about 100,000 men defeated an Italian army and secured Ethiopia's independence. Adwa was won mainly by rifles and artillery, but the traditional weapons of Ethiopian warriors are part of how the battle is remembered.

Legacy

Adwa made Ethiopia a symbol of African independence, and the traditional weapons of its warriors, including the shotel, became part of that symbol. The shotel is now mainly ceremonial, but it is widely known in popular culture and in the world of fantasy weapons. Genuine nineteenth-century shotels are relatively rare in Western collections, and many examples on the market are modern tourist pieces; a genuine blade with a period horn grip and sheath is a valued find, and one with a documented link to the Adwa campaign is rarer still. See also Ethiopian Arms & Weapons.