Mace (bludgeon)
A mace is a blunt weapon, a type of club or virge that uses a heavy head on the end of a handle to deliver powerful strikes.
The head of a mace can be shaped with flanges or knobs to increase the pressure of an impact by focusing the force on a small point.
The Egyptians attempted to give them a disk shape in the predynastic period (about 3850–3650 BC) in order to increase their impact and even provide some cutting capabilities, but this seems to have been a short-lived improvement.
The Shardanas or warriors from Sardinia who fought for Ramses II against the Hittites were armed with maces consisting of wooden sticks with bronze heads.
[citation needed] The ancient Romans did not make wide use of maces, probably because of the influence of armour, and due to the nature of the Roman infantry's fighting style which involved the Pilum (spear) and the Gladius (short sword used in a stabbing fashion), though auxiliaries from Syria Palestina were armed with clubs and maces at the battles of Immae and Emesa in 272 AD.
It is popularly believed that maces were employed by the clergy in warfare to avoid shedding blood (sine effusione sanguinis).
[10] In the 1893 work Arms and Armour in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, Paul Lacombe and Charles Boutell state that the mace was chiefly used for blows struck upon the head of an enemy.
[citation needed] The mace is also the favourite weapon of Prince Marko, a hero in South Slavic epic poetry.
[citation needed] The pernach was a type of flanged mace developed since the 12th century in the region of Kievan Rus', and later widely used throughout the whole of Europe.
The name comes from the Slavic word pero (перо) meaning feather, reflecting the form of pernach that resembled a fletched arrow.
The warriors of the Moche state and the Inca Empire used maces with bone, stone or copper heads and wooden shafts.
In Persia, the "Gorz" (spherical-head mace) served as a primary combat arm across many eras, most often being used by heavy infantry or Cataphracts.
[15] In 2020 China–India skirmishes personnel of People's Liberation Army Ground Force were seen using makeshift maces (batons wrapped in barbed wire and clubs embedded with nails).
The ceremonial mace is a short, richly ornamented staff often made of silver, the upper part of which is furnished with a knob or other head-piece and decorated with a coat of arms.
The ceremonial mace was commonly borne before eminent ecclesiastical corporations, magistrates, and academic bodies as a mark and symbol of jurisdiction.
Maces may also be carried before clergy members in church processions, although in the case of the Roman Catholic pope and cardinals, they have largely been replaced with processional crosses.
