In the US, a Drum Major carrying a large baton or mace will often salute by bringing the right hand, holding the mace with the head upward, to the left shoulder.

A mace is a blunt weapon, a type of club or virge — that uses a heavy head on the end of a handle to deliver powerful blows.

A mace typically consists of a strong, heavy, wooden or metal shaft, often reinforced with metal, featuring a head made of stone, copper, bronze, iron, or steel.

The head of a military mace can be shaped with flanges or knobs to allow greater penetration of plate armour.

A rounded pear form of mace head known as a " piriform " replaced the disc mace in the Naqada II period of pre-dynastic Upper Egypt ( 3600-3250 BC ) and was used throughout the Naqada III period ( 3250-3100 BC ).

An Neo-Assyrian Empire | Assyrian mace head with inscriptions

With the advent of copper mace heads, they no longer shattered and a better fit could be made to the wooden club by giving the eye of the mace head the shape of a cone and using a tapered handle.

If these are ruled out, then the earliest Set-animal appears on a mace head of the Scorpion King, a protodynastic ruler.

Pottery, bones, stone tools and a polished stone mace head have also been discovered.

* Stone mace head from Sippar-British Museum

Standard iconography pictured Nergal as a lion, and boundary-stone monuments symbolise him with a mace surmounted by the head of a lion.

The runner stone is supported by a cross-shaped metal piece ( rind or rynd ) fixed to a " mace head " topping the main shaft or spindle leading to the driving mechanism of the mill ( wind, water ( including tide ) or other means ).

Early in the 15th century the flanged end of the mace ( the head of the war mace ) was carried uppermost, with the small button bearing the royal arms in the base.

The next development in the embellishment of the shaft was the reappearance of these small scroll-brackets on the top, immediately under the head of the mace.

This mace is still in use today, though without the original head.

The remarkable mace or sceptre of the Lord Mayor of the City of London comprises crystal and gold set with pearls ; the head dates from the 15th century, while the mounts of the shaft are from the early medieval period.

A mace of an unusual form is that of the Tower Ward of London, which has a head resembling the White Tower in the Tower of London, and which was made in the reign of Charles II.

The words " Wisdom, Justice, Compassion, Integrity " are woven into thistles at the head of the mace to represent the aspirations of the Scottish people for the Members of their Parliament.

The head of the mace bears the words: " There shall be a Scottish Parliament-Scotland Act 1998 ".

The National Assembly for Wales has a gold, silver and brass mace which bears the Assembly's official symbol at its head.

Besides the previously mentioned spices, other commonly found spices in different curry powders in India are allspice, white pepper, ground mustard, ground ginger, cinnamon, roasted cumin, cloves, nutmeg, mace, green cardamom seeds or black cardamom pods, bay leaves and coriander seeds.

There are seats for each of the 79 councillors, situated in a Hemicycle, all facing the Lord Provost ( the Scottish equivalent of the lord mayor found in London and other cities ), his Depute, and the Chief Executive, who are seated behind the mace.

Earthenware mace found near Samotovac

* In Vagrant Story, a treasure chest containing a mace named Pink Squirrel can be found in the wine cellar.

One such weapon can be found in the Royal Armouries and has an all-steel head with six flanges forming three spikes each, reminiscent of a mace but with a short thick spike of square cross section extending from the top.

When the Portuguese reached Sulawesi in 1511, they found Makassar a thriving cosmopolitan entre-port where Chinese, Arabs, Indians, Siamese, Javanese, and Malays came to trade their manufactured metal goods and fine textiles for precious pearls, gold, copper, camphor and spices-nutmeg, cloves and mace imported from the interior and the neighbouring Spice Islands of Maluku.

Sulaima al-Mahr writes: " East of Timor sandalwood is found are the islands of Bandam and they are the islands where nutmeg and mace are found.

The management of the College caused stir when press found out it ordered a mace worth £ 22, 000 to enhance the students ' experience during the graduation ceremony back in December 2011.

Similar forms are found in the hovering winged disc and sacred trees of Mesopotamia, the caduceus wand of Hermes, the ubiquitous scrolled scallop shells in the canopy of the renaissance sculptural niche, originating in Greek and Roman sarcophagi, echoed above theatrical proscenium arches and on the doors, windows, wrought iron gates and balconies of palaces and grand houses ; the shell-like fanlight over the door in Georgian and similar urban architecture, the ' gul ' and ' boteh ' motifs of Central Asian carpets and textiles, the trident of Neptune / Poseidon, both the trident and lingam of Shiva, the ' bai sema ' lotus-petal-shaped boundary markers of the Thai inner-temple, Vishnu's mount, Garuda, the vajra thunderbolt, diamond mace or enlightenment jewel-in-the-lotus of Tibet and South-East Asia, the symmetrically scrolled cloud and bat motifs and the similarly scrolled ruyi or ju-i scepter and lingzhi or fungus of longevity of the Chinese tradition.

As well as this there were other differences such as, on the PlayStation 2 version items could be bought and sold at merchants, however on the PlayStation version a choice of only three weapons were available ( a sword, an axe and a mace ) which upgraded each time you found that particular weapon ( for instance you have a sword, you find another sword upgrading your sword to level 2 etc .).

In the 17th century, Run was of great economic importance because of the value of the spices nutmeg and mace which are obtained from the nutmeg tree ( Myristica fragans ), once found exclusively in the Banda Islands.

One of these is a Swiss " morning star mace " dated to approximately 1530, consisting of a relatively long handle compared to the others, a long chain almost as long as the handle, ending in a large spiked ball.

Similar mace heads were also used in Mesopotamia around 2450-1900 BC.

" Spice Islands " most commonly refers to the Maluku Islands and often also to the small volcanic Banda Islands, once the only source of mace and nutmeg.

The most infamous of these is a quest given by the Daedric Prince Boethiah where the Dragonborn must sacrifice one of his or her followers in order to progress further into the quest and the Daedric Prince Molag Bol requires the player to sacrifice a corrupt priest by murdering him with a rusted mace once he is caught in one of Molag Bol's traps.

The Acharya got a mound there, excavated and demonstrated to his disciples the buried mace of ( the epic hero ) Bhima therein ; and once again had it buried under the ground.

The wind blew the mace and it fell to ground, bouncing once.

The mace and seal of the borough are still preserved and show the name of the borough as ' Tintaioel ' ( they are thought to be from the 16th century ).

In his own personal views, Nakula thought the sword to be the most superior, since even on having lost one's bow, horse and the chariot, a skilful swordsman could still defend himself against the mace and spear wielders.

But one day Zahhāk had a terrible dream – he thought that three warriors were attacking him, and that the youngest knocked him down with his mace, tied him up, and dragged him off toward a tall mountain.

That he enjoyed warfare there can be no doubt ; yet he was not like the ordinary fighting bishops of the Middle Ages, whose sole indication of their religious role was to avoid the shedding of blood by using a mace in battle instead of a sword.

The handle may be of different lengths, the longest being roughly equivalent to the halberd, and the shortest about the same as a mace.

Cadets were given 5 kg stone maces were taught to maneuver without breaking movement and when the cadet would become well versed at combat manevers it would be switched with a heavier weight to go upto 35 to 45 kg's to a point that the combatant could swing a heavy mace the whole day.

This meant that pikemen had to be equipped with a shorter weapon such as a sword, mace, or dagger in order to defend themselves should the fighting degenerate into a melee.

The pike was issued as a British Home Guard weapon in 1942 after the War Office acted on a letter from Winston Churchill saying " every man must have a weapon of some kind, be it only a mace or pike ".

Kubera should be four-armed, holding a gada ( mace: symbol of dandaniti — administration of justice ) and a shakti ( power ) in his left pair, and standards bearing a lion — representing Artha and a shibika ( a club, the weapon of Kubera ).

Before the reigning monarch or one of his or her representatives ( the governor general or one of the lieutenant governors ) may enter a legislative chamber, the mace must be completely hidden from view.

Cataphracts would often be equipped with an additional side-arm such as a sword or mace, for use in the melee that often followed a charge.

The band follows the direction of the pipe major ; when on parade the band may be led by a drum major, who directs the band with a mace.

Notably Hans Talhoffer depicts techniques to be applied in such duels, separately for the Swabian ( sword and shield ) and Franconian ( mace and shield ) variants, but other Fechtbücher such as that of Paulus Kal and the Codex Wallerstein show similar material.

Coen also set about establishing a monopoly over the trade in nutmeg and mace, which could be obtained only from the Banda Islands.

The mace must be in position in the National Assembly Chamber during a plenary sitting.

Images of the mace can be viewed at a page on the university's website.

There was little improvement in June 1941 when Churchill wrote to the War Office saying that " every man must have a weapon of some sort, be it only a mace or a pike.

Learning martial skills from his gurus, Kripa and Drona, he proved to be extremely skilled with the mace.

" Once, Graner was accused of putting mace in a new guard's coffee as a joke, causing him to be sick.

This makes it an enchanted item that can be wielded in combat as a + 3 mace, with the added feature that it warns the wielder of any evil alignment creature of at least five Hit Dice that has come within 30 feet of them.