Talk:Kopis

knife or sword
The article currently starts by calling the kopis a heavy knife in the introduction. A few paragraphs later, an average length of 3 feet is given. This does not seem to match up. So I will change the article to say sword instead of knife as I've never seen it described as the later in other sources. If anyone objects go ahead and revert.--85.93.200.188 (talk) 14:45, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Egypt
Can it be pure coincidence that the Ancient Egyptians had a curve-bladed cutting sword called the khopesh - it sounds a lot like kopis.Urselius

"κόπτω / κόβω " means "cut". What "khopesh" means?? Can you please stop writing jokes and write some serious articles?


 * KHPSH meant, I believe, 'leg' in Ancient Egyptian. This was because the sword looked like the fore-limb of a hoofed animal when bent. I have written many serious articles, why don't you look at the passage below for the scholarly support for the khopesh/kopis hypothesis? Urselius (talk) 07:10, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

(talk) 15:11, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
 * It looks like similarities between them are coincidental. The kopis is a totally different weapon, which developed from the late bronze age urnfield knives, many centuries after the khopesh had disappeared. The only similarity between the khopesh and kopis is the name, but the two are not connected etymologically. Macedonian (talk) 11:52, 19 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Gordon, D.H. (1958) Scimitars, Sabres and Falchions.in 'Man,' Vol 58, Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. I quote: "It is also for consideration whether the word kopis might not be derived from khopesh. Its normal derivation is from kopto, but it could have been popularly connected with kopto as "cutlass" is often and wrongly with "cutting" [in English]. Sir John Myres says of the word 'sf.t' which the Egyptians used for a long straight sword: 'If the Greek xiphos is also connected, 'sf.t' may originally have been a Libyan or Searaider word.' Similarly the kopis which embodies the same principles as the khopesh may also be derived from it in name.""


 * I think there is sufficient scholarly weight here for this possible derivation to be included in the article as well as the "kopto" derivation.Urselius (talk) 13:45, 20 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Of course we might as well include it in the article, although an etymological connection between the two hasn't been confirmed. Macedonian (talk) 06:36, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Kopis. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20070304174019/http://members.ozemail.com.au:80/~ancientpersia/images/dish.gif to http://members.ozemail.com.au/~ancientpersia/images/dish.gif

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 14:32, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Other images of the kopis in art
The Lion Hunt pebble mosaic from Pella features a kopis in the right male figure. The mosaic dates from 325-300 BC. Do you think it's worth adding to the article?
 * Absolutely! Macedonian (talk) 06:30, 12 April 2021 (UTC)