1172 weaponry and armor: further reading Cerro de las Mesas indicates that warfare was critical in the development and downfall of classic Mayan civilization Weaponry prevalent throughout South America, including the Chaco region, which comprises territories in northeastern Argentina, eastern Bolivia, and western Paraguay, shows that warfare was a main concern, and weapons like bows and arrows, spears, and clubs, mostly made of wood, were quite common Bolas, stones connected by cords, thrown to entangle and fell prey or an enemy, were a typical weapon In northern Peru’s Moche culture painted pottery dated to the sixth century c.e provides a stylized glimpse of the Moche warrior and his weaponry and armor Two animated warriors, their faces covered with fox face masks, wearing decorated helmets and belted tunics, carry round shields and war clubs Celebrating warriors on painted pottery shows clear veneration of the warrior culture See also art; borders and frontiers; ceramics and pottery; death and burial practices; empires and dynasties; foreigners and barbarians; hunting, fishing, and gathering; metallurgy; military; war and conquest FURTHER READING Simon Anglin, Rob S Rice, Phyllis Jestice, et al., Fighting Techniques of the Ancient World (3000 bce to 500 ad): Equipment, Combat Skills, and Tactics (New York: St Martin’s Press, 2002) M C Bishop and J C N Coulston, Roman Military Equipment from the Punic Wars to the Fall of Rome, 2nd ed (Oxford U.K.: Oxbow Press, 2006) John Carman and Anthony Harding, eds., Ancient Warfare: Archaeological Perspectives (Stroud, U.K.: Sutton, 1999) James T Chambers and Spencer C Tucker, Ancient Weapons: An Illustrated History of Their Impact (Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABCCLIO, 2007) Arthur Cotterell, Chariot: From Chariot to Tank, the Astounding Rise and Fall of the World’s First War Machine (Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press, 2004) Will Fowler, Ancient Weapons: The Story of Weaponry and Warfare through the Ages (Darby, Penn.: Diane Publishing Company, 1999) Sir John Winthrop Hackett, ed., Warfare in the Ancient World (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1989) Victor Davis Hansen, The Western Way of War (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000) Lawrence H Keeley, War before Civilization (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996) Eric W Marsden, Greek and Roman Artillery: Historical Development (Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1969) John R Mixter, “Man’s First Long-Range Missile Weapon, the Sling Was a Deadly Military Asset in Skilled Hands,” Military History 18, no (August 2001): 12–13 Helmut Nickel, Arms and Armor in Africa (New York: Atheneum, 1971) Daithi O’Hogain, Celtic Warriors: The Armies of One of the First Great Peoples in Europe (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1999) Robert B Partridge, Fighting Pharaohs: Weapons and Warfare in Ancient Egypt (Manchester, U.K.: Peartree Publishing, 2002) H Russell Robinson, The Armour of Imperial Rome (New York: Scribner, 1975) Ian Shaw, Egyptian Warfare and Weapons (Princess Risborough, U.K.: Shire Publications, 1991) Anthony Snodgrass, Arms and Armor of the Greeks (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997) Christopher Spring, African Arms and Armor (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993) Jwing-Ming Yang, Ancient Chinese Weapons (Jamaica Plains, Mass.: YMAA Publication Center, 1999) ▶ weights and measures introduction For a prehistoric hunter-gatherer a system of weights and measurements would likely not have been very useful It was enough to know that an object was so heavy that it required two people to move it or that it would take a day to move to an encampment on the other side of a distant hill The development of systems of weights and measures coincided with the development of civilization itself As people settled into permanent communities that evolved into towns and cities and as they developed trade relationships with other communities, they needed agreed-on systems for measuring and weighing food and other goods While these systems differed from culture to culture, they all had common elements and served common needs The earliest units of measurement were often based on the human anatomy Thus, hand spans, forearms, fingers, feet, and other parts of the body were used to specify length By extension, distance could be measured by, for example, how far a person could walk in a day, while area could be measure by the amount of land a worker could plow in a day Similarly, ancient cultures used natural objects as the basis for specifying weights and measures A reed, for example, could have been used to measure length The people of ancient India used such natural objects as louse eggs and dust particles to measure very small units of length Other cultures used such objects as mustard seeds as units of measure The problem with these units of measurement, of course, is that they varied from person to person and place to place Accordingly, ancient civilizations made efforts to standardize their weights and measures Often, this was a task assigned to the king or other ruler The king had a vital interest in accurate weights and measures Taxes, for example, were collected on volumes of grain or, in the case of ancient India, bolts of cloth Similarly, agriculture required some agreement on land boundaries Ancient builders had to have a common basis for measuring building materials If a building was to be made of bricks, then calculating the number of bricks needed to construct a building of a given size required agreement on the dimensions of a brick Usually, systems of weights and measures developed in connection with systems of counting and numbers Indeed,