Dagger of Tutankhamun

The dagger shown here belonged to Tutankhamun. The blade was 20cm long. It looks like silver but it is made of hardened gold. The gold handle is very delicately crafted. You can see two falcons on the top holding the hieroglyphs for infinity, shen. It is supposed to protect the king.

Under this the haft is decorated with bands of geometric designs in granulated gold, and lily palmette designs in gold cloisonné work of semi-precious stones and glass.

This dagger came with a gold sheath, decorated with scenes of lions and a leopard attacking antelopes and a dog attacking a calf.

Daggers were usually made of copper or bronze, not gold. Only royalty had gold weapons. As well as this gold blade, Tutankhamun had a dagger with an iron blade. Iron ore was not found in Egypt, so iron objects are rare. 

The Egyptians used lots of different kinds of weapons. As well as daggers and short swords they used scimitars (swords with curved blades), hand axes, maces (like a club), spears, and bows and arrows.

The picture here shows a model of an Egyptian troop of soldiers carrying spears and shields. You can see they didn't wear much armour!