[Echodyne]

I've seen it stated repeatedly in history books that samurai were primarily horse archers. As far as shields go, a single samurai carried a variety of weapons as their standard arsenal: a bow, a katana, a shorter secondary blade, and a slashing polearm (I have forgotten the Japanese names for both of these), all used for different combat situations. As all but one of these are two-handed weapons, a shield would just be a hindrance.

I have heard from a veteran SCA-er (they are absolutely obsessive about this kind of thing) that medieval katanas were made from a softer iron than the steel we imagine today. Yes, it was capable of being folded into insanely sharp weapons by some of the finest smiths in the world, but it could not actually *parry* another katana of the same make without damaging itself. Weather this helped lead to the offensive samurai style, or the style led to the development of the weapon, I cannot say.

Samurai used guns? The way I understood it, guns were outright banned, even for the nobility, for a very long time, and when they were finally adopted, it was simultaneous to the adoption of the entire western warfare strategy of the late 19th century and the samurai class was left in the dust.

Ancient Egypt was DEFINITELY inhabited by lizardmen. Don't you pay attention to bio-anthropology?