[split] Phalanx warfare: use of the spear

[Paul Bardunias]

"or more serious one - any chance you can find one where sauroter is clearly visible and is used overarm?"

This is one of the good things about Mathew's thesis.  Since he puts up the assertion that all images of overhand spears are those being thrown, even a single image that showed a spear being used overhand and either showing an obvious sauroter or being held near the back end to indicate it was not well designed for throwing overturns the whole theory.  This is a classic use of falsification that goes back to Karl Popper and is the heart of all modern science.  If I say all swans are white, if you find even a single black swan, then I am wrong and need to rethink my theory.

Gentlemen, I give you the black swan:

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"or more serious one - any chance you can find one where sauroter is clearly visible and is used overarm?"

This is one of the good things about Mathew's thesis.  Since he puts up the assertion that all images of overhand spears are those being thrown, even a single image that showed a spear being used overhand and either showing an obvious sauroter or being held near the back end to indicate it was not well designed for throwing overturns the whole theory.  This is a classic use of falsification that goes back to Karl Popper and is the heart of all modern science.  If I say all swans are white, if you find even a single black swan, then I am wrong and need to rethink my theory.

Gentlemen, I give you the black swan:

Also, you will note that the Greeks knew the problem with underhand grips with men behind you: