Near Eastern Weapon Parallels Certain weapons in use in pre-
Columbian Mesoamerica resemble those that were used in the
ancient Near East. This Canaanite sickle sword (a) is so much
like a scimitar-like weapon shown in the Mexican Codex Borgia
(b) as to be very interesting. The odd curved weapon pictured in
the grasp of the sculptured warrior figure at Loltún Cave,
Yucatan (see p. 34), has two blades projecting in opposite
directions from a central handle. Whether the blades were of
chipped obsidian or hardened wood, this device would have been
fearsome to face in hand-to-hand combat. What seems to be
another version of the same concept is pictured in the early art
of highland Guatemala. Hamblin noted that this weapon has a
close parallel in ancient Syria and India. There it has been
called a curved double-dagger or haladie. Each of its blades was
approximately 8 1/2 inches long and the two were connected by a
small handgrip, probably of wood.1 The fact that the Nephites,
Lamanites, and Mulekites of the Book o