Antiquity , Iran, 2600–2350 BCE dagger from the
Muséum de Toulouse , Museum of
Sanandaj 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, and copper daggers of
Early Minoan III (2400–2000 BC) were recovered at
Knossos. , a type of ancient dagger, worn by an
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, () daggers were adorned as
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
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), , and bronze armour,
swords and daggers of Mene-ptah II. of the (Nineteenth Dynasty) .
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. These facts, and the composition of the dagger had long suggested a meteoritic origin, however,
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. 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. 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.
Middle Ages The term
dagger appears only in the
Late Middle Ages, reflecting the fact that while the dagger had been known in antiquity, it had disappeared during the Early Middle Ages, replaced by the hewing knife or
seax. (1467) The dagger reappeared in the 12th century as the "knightly dagger", or more properly, cross-hilt or quillon dagger, and was developed into a common arm and tool for civilian use by the late medieval period. ,
Rondel dagger, and a
Quillon dagger The earliest known depiction of a cross-hilt dagger is the so-called "Guido relief" inside the
Grossmünster of
Zürich (). Some depictions of the fully developed cross-hilt dagger are found in the
Morgan Bible (). Many of these cross-hilt daggers resemble miniature swords, with cross guards and pommels very similar in form to swords of the period. Others, however, are not an exact match to known sword designs, having for instance pommel caps, large hollow star shaped pommels on so-called "Burgundian Heraldic daggers" or antenna style cross and pommel, reminiscent of Hallstatt era daggers. The cross-hilt type persisted well into the Renaissance The
Old French term
dague appears to have referred to these weapons in the 13th century, alongside other terms such as
poignal and
basilard. The
Middle English dagger is used from the 1380s. During this time, the dagger was often employed in the role of a
secondary defense weapon in
close combat. The knightly dagger evolved into the larger
baselard knife in the 14th century. During the 14th century, it became fairly common for knights to fight on foot to strengthen the infantry defensive line. This necessitated more use of daggers. At Agincourt (1415) archers used them to dispatch dismounted knights by thrusting the narrow blades through helmet vents and other apertures. The baselard was considered an intermediate between a short sword and a long dagger, and became popular also as a civilian weapon.
Sloane MS. 2593 () records a song satirizing the use of oversized baselard knives as fashion accessories. Weapons of this sort called
anelace, somewhere between a large dagger and a short sword, were much in use in 14th century England as civilians' accoutrements, worn "suspended by a ring from the girdle". In the Late Middle Ages, knives with blade designs that emphasized thrusting attacks, such as the stiletto, became increasingly popular, and some thrusting knives commonly referred to as 'daggers' ceased to have a cutting edge. This was a response to the deployment of heavy armour, such as
maille and
plate armour, where cutting attacks were ineffective and focus was on thrusts with narrow blades to punch through mail or aim at armour plate intersections (or the eye slits of the helmet visor). The shape of their hilt sometimes classes these late medieval thrusting weapons as either
roundel,
bollock or
ear daggers. The term
dagger is coined in this time, as are the
Early Modern German equivalents
dolch (
tolch) and
degen (
tegen). In the
German school of fencing,
Johannes Liechtenauer (
Ms. 3227a) and his successors (specifically Andres Lignizer in
Cod. 44 A 8) taught fighting with the dagger. In some respects, these techniques resemble modern
knife fighting but emphasize thrusting strokes almost exclusively, instead of slashes and cuts. When used offensively, a standard attack frequently employed the reverse or
icepick grip, stabbing downward with the blade to increase thrust and penetrative force. This was done primarily because the blade point frequently had to penetrate or push apart an opponent's steel
chain mail or
plate armour to inflict an injury. The disadvantage of employing the medieval dagger in this manner was that it could easily be blocked by various techniques, most notably by a block with the weaponless arm while simultaneously attacking with a weapon held in the right hand. Another disadvantage was the reduction in effective blade reach to the opponent when using a reverse grip. As the wearing of armour fell out of favor, dagger fighting techniques began to evolve, emphasizing the use of the dagger with a conventional or forward grip. In contrast, the reverse or icepick grip was retained when attacking an unsuspecting opponent from behind, such as in an assassination. During the Renaissance Age the dagger was used as part of everyday dress, and daggers were the only weapon commoners were allowed to carry on their person. In English, the terms
poniard and
dirk are loaned during the late 16th to early 17th century, the latter in the spelling
dork,
durk (presumably via Low German, Dutch or Scandinavian
dolk, dolch, ultimately from a West Slavic
tulich), the modern spelling
dirk dating to 18th-century
Scots. Beginning in the 17th century, another form of dagger—the
plug bayonet and later the socket
bayonet—was used to convert
muskets and other
longarms into
spears by mounting them on the barrel. They were periodically used for eating; the arm was also used for various other tasks such as mending boots, house repairs, and farm jobs. The final function of the dagger was as an obvious and ostentatious means of enhancing a man's apparel, conforming to fashion which dictated that all men carried them.
Modern period (19th–21st century) WW1 trench warfare caused daggers and fighting knives to come back in play. They also replaced the sabres worn by officers, which were too long and clumsy for trench warfare. They were worn with pride as a sign of having served front-line duty. Daggers achieved public notoriety in the 20th century as ornamental uniform regalia during the Fascist dictatorships of Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Germany. Several other countries, including Japan, have used dress daggers, but never to the same extent. As combat equipment, they were carried by many infantry and
commando forces during the
Second World War. British Commando and other elite units were issued an exceedingly slender dagger, the
Fairbairn–Sykes fighting knife, developed by
William E. Fairbairn and
Eric A. Sykes from real-life close-combat experiences gained while serving on the Shanghai Municipal Police Force. The F-S dagger proved very popular with the commandos, who used it primarily for sentry elimination. Some units of the
U.S. Marine Corps Raiders in the Pacific were issued a similar fighting dagger, the
Marine Raider stiletto, though this modified design proved less than successful when used in the type of knife combat encountered in the Pacific theater due to this version using inferior materials and manufacturing techniques. During the Vietnam War, the
Gerber Mark II, designed by US Army Captain Bud Holzman and Al Mar, was a popular fighting knife pattern privately purchased by many U.S. soldiers and marines who served in that war. Aside from military forces, most daggers are no longer carried openly, but concealed in clothing. One of the more popular forms of the concealable dagger is the
boot knife. The boot knife is nothing more than a shortened dagger that is compact enough to be worn on the lower leg, usually using a sheath clipped or strapped to a boot or other footwear. ==Cultural symbolism==