shotel

{{short description|Type of curved sword originating in Ethiopia}}{{Infobox weapon

| name = Shotel
{{script|Ethi|ሽተል}}

| image = File:Sabre etiopien (shotel).jpg

| caption = A shotel, a shotel scabbard and a Gasha shield.

| origin = Northern Ethiopian Highlands (Amhara, Tigray, Eritrean highlands)

| type = Sword

| is_bladed = Yes

| service = Ethiopian Empire

| used_by = Chewa regiments, Army of the Empire

| wars =

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| weight = {{convert|0.9-1.8|kg|abbr=on}}

| length = {{convert|76-102|cm|abbr=on}}

| part_length = {{convert|40-64 |cm|abbr=on}}

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| blade_type = Curved blade, double-edge

| hilt_type = Simple wooden or rhinoceros horn piece with no guard

| sheath_type = Leather, decorated with precious metals

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A shotel ({{langx|am|{{script|Ethi|ሽተል}}}}) is a curved sword originating in Eritrea and northern Ethiopia. The curve on the blade varies from the Persian shamshir, adopting an almost semicircular shape. The blade is flat and double-edged with a diamond cross-section. The blade is about {{convert|40|in|m|0}} in total length and the hilt is a simple wooden or rhinoceros horn piece with no guard similar to the jile or jambiya. The shotel was carried in a close fitting leather scabbard which was often decorated in precious metals and worn on the right side.*{{cite book | last = Stone | first = George Cameron |author-link= George Cameron Stone | title = A Glossary of the Construction, Decoration, and Use of Arms and Armor in All Countries and in All Times | orig-year = 1934 | year = 1999 | publisher = Dover Publications | location = Mineola NY | isbn = 0-486-40726-8 | page = 562}}

History

After the Solomonic Dynasty restoration of Emperor Yekuno Amlak, the resurgent emperors began to organize their armies in a similar manners to the Aksumites, culminating in the reign of Emperor Amda Seyon I. Shotel wielders, known as shotelai or hanetay and organized in the Axurarat Shotelai, comprised one of the elite forces of Amda Seyon's Imperial host. Along with the Hareb Gonda and Korem cavalry, Keste Nihb archers and Axuarat Axuarai lancers were said to be the forces that "flew through the air like the eagle and spun on the ground like the avalanche". Shotel techniques among others included hooking attacks both against mounted and dismounted opponents that had devastating effect especially against mounted cavalry. The shotel could be used to hook and rip the warrior off the horse. Classically, the shotel was employed in a dismounted state to hook the opponent by reaching around a shield or any other defensive implement or weapon.

Due to increased trade with the west, over time the shotel began to be replaced in the southern Kingdom of Shewa and Shewan dominated Ethiopian Empire by swords fitted with European sabre blades known as Gurade or Gorade. In Amhara culture the generic word for sword, "seif" (Amharic: ሰይፍ), is mainly used to refer to a straight bladed, double edged sword. Traditional Shotel fencing incorporated much jumping and lunging. Traditionally, warriors in Northeast Africa wore circular shields strapped to their forearm with weapons (carried on their right side in order to be able to draw them on horseback) which were wielded in their dominant hand. This left their shield hand, and only their shield hand, to steer Ethiopian horses. The Ethiopian riding style thus involved a unique approach characterized by single rein control, often without a bit, and mounting from the right side (unlike most others). Ethiopian curved swords being awkward to draw and, like most other historical swords, ceremonial in nature was thus unavoidable. Historically they mainly served as a status symbol and were highly attractive to women.

“A great long Shotel with its silver ball,

Goes down with the women, and that’s all –

A first-rate sword with its silver knob,

Goes down with the women, that’s its job”

Journal of the Royal United Service Institution, Volume 12 - Royal United Service Institution, Jan 1869, Mitchell

A shotel can be sharp on both sides and used to get around shields. Some can be found with bakelite handles and that the sheath comes in different colors, such as red and green, and is commonly richly ornamented with envragins of braided spirals and other patterns, metal mounts of brass, silver, and sometimes precious minerals like the traditional Gasha (Amharic: ጋሻ) shields it was worn alongside, both often being made of Morocco leather and covered with rivets. Though rarer, surviving swords are known to have decorated handles. Add that scabbard had a slit at the front near the opening to make it easier to draw and that like other blades in the region it was worn on the right side but still drawn using the right hand as horses were also mounted from the right, and holding one's reins with your left hand would impede you from grabbing a sword. According to William Cornwallis Harris, the sword protruded from behind the wearer like a tail and was difficult to draw: "girded to the loins of every male subject in the kingdom (of Shewa) be his profession what it may." "Highly crescent shaped, it rather resembles a sickle than an implement of war - It serves equally at the banquet and in the field."The highlands of Æthiopia (1843-44) p. 279 - William Cornwallis Harris, https://books.google.com/books?id=6qj0DwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=The+Highlands+of+Ethiopia+By+William+Cornwallis+Harris&ei=wuMkZtjaKIekjMcP9rWm8AY&cd=2#v=onepage&q=The%20Highlands%20of%20Ethiopia%20By%20William%20Cornwallis%20Harris&f=false He continues, "the serf still appears in the raw fleece of the sheep. During the journey or the foray a cloak, composed of the prepared skin of the lion, the leopard, or the ocelot, is thrown over the shoulders of the better classes." Add that beneath the hilt was usually a silver or golden-colored circular pommel carved with a design said to be known as a "timbora" or a coin. Add that the end of the sheath was originally heavily curved, likely to stop it from slipping off of the wearers hip (similarly to the more popular Yemeni variant of the jambia) and was slipped through a (thin) leather belt. The scabbard was often topped with a cross or, on older depictions, spherical decoration at the tip. While some had fullers and raised midribs, many swords flat sides were decorated with Amharic inscriptions extolling their quality or of a religious nature; Negus Sahle Selassie would pass on to his descendants (among them Menelik II and Haile Selassie) a sword made of gold.

Design

File:Coa Illustration Elements Arms Shotel.svg

Its shape, similar to a large sickle, was effectively used to reach around an opponent's shield and stab them in vital areas such as the kidneys or lungs. While closely resembling the Afar gile, the gile has two cutting edges, while the shotel's upper edge is unsharpened and sometimes braced against the swordsman's shield for strength. The shotel and other Eritrean and northern Ethiopian swords are occasionally referred to collectively in Geez as han'e.

The mid-18th century European visitor to Eritrea and northern Ethiopia, Remedius Prutky, often used the word shotel to describe a carving knife.J.H. Arrowsmith-Brown (trans.), Prutky's Travels in Ethiopia and other Countries with notes by Richard Pankhurst (London: Hakluyt Society, 1991), pp. 77, 165. In appearance it's similar to Armenian-style Yatagan sabres which feature a prominant curve and sickle swords of the Zande people native to central africa (although they aren't related and the "makraka" as they're known{{citation needed|date=June 2025}} are similar to various throwing kinves and axes from that region such as the Mambele, Onzil, Sengese, & Trumbash), and less so to middle eastern scimitars.

Gallery

File:Dejazmach Hailu.jpg|Dejazmach Hailu carrying a shotel.

File:Peaceful personalities and warriors bold (1907) (14577551367).jpg|1907 engraving of an Ethiopian soldier

File:Bataille de Dogali.jpg|1896 painting of the Italo-Ethiopian War of 1887–1889

File:Shotel, BM.jpg|A shotel in the collection of the British Museum

File:P 216 - 0002 (1).tif|An Ethiopian cutting a meat with a shotel.

File:The National Archives UK - CO 1069-5-114.jpg|An Ethiopian child with a shield and a shotel.

File:Mansfield Parkyns among Abyssinians.tif|A shotel and shield hanging on the roof of an Ethiopian shack.

File:Officer Thaime.jpg|Depiction of a nobleman and officer under the service of Dejazmach Wube Haile Maryam

File:SIMON(1885) p109 Armement d'un Abyssin.jpg|Voyage en Abyssinie et chez les Gallas-Raias. L'Ethiopie

File:Shotel Af1868,1230.9.a.jpg|Sword (shotel) forged from iron with carved wooden hilt. Sickle shaped, double edged, with central riser; bevelled on either side.

File:Weapons 1 - Goritsky monastery, Pereslavl museum.jpg|19th c. shotel among other weapons at the Russian Goritsky Monastery (Pereslavl-Zalessky) historical museum.

File:A lancer of Tigre.jpg|A lancer of Tigre, 1849

References

External links

{{cite web|url=http://oriental-arms.co.il/item.php?id=569|title=Shotel Sword from Eritrea and northern Ethiopia|publisher=Oriental-Arms|access-date=2012-05-20|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120206102953/http://oriental-arms.co.il/item.php?id=569|archive-date=2012-02-06}}

Category:Edged and bladed weapons

Category:African swords

Category:Culture of Ethiopia

Category:Weapons of Ethiopia