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The Mycenaean army and its influence
#16
Hmm... It seems you have to read other people's posts more carefully before adopting such an aggressive style of response. As far as your comments regarding the "epic" sizes of the spears in Iliad are concerned they are totally irrelevant to what I or anyone else wrote. Spears utilized for naval warfare have nothing to do with the Homeric egchoi. So, taking into account the sloppiness you displayed in thoroughly reading before posting, you might also want to reconsider your characterizations of people you know nothing about. There are infinitely more polite ways to express any objections you might have. Such approaches only make you look like an unreasonably arrogant bad reader and seriously impede serious exchange of opinions.
Macedon
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#17
Quote:I will just remind you all of the famous ironic lines by E. Vermeule who had written in her Greece in the Bronze Age (1964) demonstrating against dominant traditional views: We say in justification [of the dominance of Homer in reconstructions of Mycenaean Age] that large parts of the poems incorporate Mycenaean traditions, that the five hundred years separating the fall of Troy VIIA from the Homeric version of its fall have wrought only minor innovations, a few misunderstandings of the past and adaptations to a more modern experience. We hope that the core of those great poems has not been terribly changed by successive improvisations of oral poets – surely poets will guard for us the heritage of the past
There is nowhere near five hundred years separating Homer and the fall of Troy. Once the chronology is corrected and the ridiculous "dark Ages" are removed then the difference in time between Homer and the alleged Trojan War could be as little as a few generations.
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen & Sword Books
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#18
Quote:I am sure you would not mind presenting evidence and counter evidence for your claims.
I already have.
http://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Bronze-Ag...nt/p/3272/

I would welcome reviews - both positive and negative.
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen & Sword Books
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#19
You're kidding right?

The dark ages are hardly a useless concept, despite the evidence of Lefkandi and some Cypriot sites. But as for the fall of Troy, read Burkert's article summarising all the ancient Greek writers on chronology...they give anything from the 15th to the 9th century. Arbitrarily choosing a date from this and correlating it with physical ruins to imply a definitive date is sloppy and, at best, fallacious. That's just now how oral poetry or cultural memory works anyway.

Define "as little as a few generations" please? I thought you accepted a bronze age date for the Trojan war? In which case a few generations really is a few centuries. The relative chronology of the epics themselves ensures this, this is a fact, sorry. The Epics are at best from the 8th century BC.

Gulan: Yes, Vermeule's comments were a bit of a crock but to be fair her way of thinking is fast becoming unorthodox amongst bronze age archaeologists too do they're starting to be more sensible. It does scare me, the way they throw around the words "oral tradition" to mean "lol whatever the fuck we want to mean" and cite no modern Homerists but Nagy.
Jass
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#20
Its all in the book.
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen & Sword Books
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#21
Some nice comments pointed by all directions:

Dan is right saying that there is substantial elements showing that fights described in Heroic Age point at least substantially to late Mycenaean era rather than Homer's own age (at the end of the dark age around mid-8th BC century). This comes in parallel to the research showing that the mappnig of the Aegean world in Homeric poems also points not to the situation during Homer's era but rather to the sub-Mycenaean era at latest (1100 BC) which is afterall the era when the Ionian and Aeolian poems were composed on which Homer was based.
And I would add that this does not necessarily imply that warfare in Homer's age was substantially different from Mycenaean era - it is mostly the surrounding conditions (smaller armies, fragmentation of power) that were different.

Macedon is also right pointing to late archaic Macedonians' warfare (i.e. prior to 5th-4th c. reforms). It is not a secret that everything in the local culture of Macedonians pointed to them being a fossilised society - their language was more archaic, their customs were more archaic, their political organization was more archaic. And the same held true for their fighting styles, them too were more archaic. What is interesting to note is that Macedonians were not the only archaic-fossilized society in ancient Greece : fellow Epirotans and Aetolians and Akarnanians and Eurytaneans and even partially Thessalians were too fossilized societies : it is not accidental that none of these ever developed fully the notion of the phalanx-based infantry (Epirotans too passed directly to Macedonian-phalanx styles, Thessalians were cavalry based and provided the basis for Macedonians, Aetolians and Eurytaneans stuck with an almost Homeric-like style till the very end and it is such tactics they employed against the Gauls in the 3rd century BC).
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#22
Quote:...Macedonians were not the only archaic-fossilized society in ancient Greece : fellow Epirotans and Aetolians and Akarnanians and Eurytaneans and even partially Thessalians were too fossilized societies

It is not accidental that all these Epirots, Macedonians, Magnetes, Aetolians, Akarnanians, Eurytaneans and Dorians were part of the one and same basic tribal group that is neutrally called "Northwestern" branch but which many retro-spectively call "Dorian" to make clearer the connectivity and the relevance of all these tribes.

And it is here that gets more interesting. As it has been established, it is the mountainous region of eastern Epirus - western Macedonia that was the starting point of an independent series of descending tribes that naturally exploited power vacuums in the then richer southern kingdoms. While up to recently (i.e. several decades ago) and contrary even to all the then existing elements, many in their effort of creating own theories, though of Dorians as being not a part of the Mycenaean world but invaders (destroyers, then not) of it, today all modern research agrees that Dorians were integral part of the Mycenaean world since... prior to the rise of the Mycenaeran world as the whole region followed the same basic evolution (regardless of economics) throughout as well as being populated by same-language dialectal groups. Absolute proof comes from archaeology. The archaeological excavation in Aeani and in Assyros (western and eastern Macedonia / western near-coastal Thrace respectively) reveals that Macedonian kingdoms of that era were parts of the Mycenaean world not by any short of "commerce/culture-proxy" as some tried to explain but as integral parts of it and very important ones as the Aeani site reveals: Aeani is a site that is big even for the standards of rich southern ones and it is a site that even rendered Linear-B examples written locally.

I.e. it is established that Dorians WERE Mycenaeans. And thus if Epirot and Macedonian kingdoms are known to have remained fossilized Dorian societies till late archaic / early classical times then these may possibly give - by cross-comparison always - some hints to give us about the pre-Dark Age Aegean region.

However from this, to jump on straight to deductions on specific weaponry, will require more back-up. I think it is much more prudent to go directly to Mycenaean era artifacts and artistic depictions and try figure out and from that point to have a look on what these fossilized societies were up to late archaic era - rather than start from the opposite opposite.
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#23
Going back to the initial questions:

Quote:...I consider the topic of the Mycenaean army to be very difficult

Hit Matt, I think Mycenaean warfare is a splendid field for archaeological reconstruction and experimentation! Let me first comment on a couple of Angus McBridge's points:

Quote:Pg.8: ...backbone of a Mycenaean army was its heavy infantry...long spear (enkhos) as their main weapon... and a sword... Clothing was minimal, consisting only of a cloth kit or loincloth, and warriors went barefoot...

Yes. But note that clothing was minimal not for cultural/military purposes but for the simple fact that the Aegean region back then was considerably hotter to near-tropical levels, this well until early sub-mycenaean era. This is also why men working out were considerably darker nearly all-year explaining the notable difference of skin depiction between men and women who preferred to stay in the shade.


Quote:; however, this lacks of body armor was compensated for by a large shield (sakos) which covered the body from neck to shins, as well as a helmet.

Yes. Note though that this lack was more of a choice of fight-style imposed by comfort and/or finances rather than lack of ability to built armor. Armors of Mycenaean times were truly impressive even if compared to late Medieval ones! We naturally find more of them in later times as... Mycenaean businesses flourished and bronze provision increased. The use of a large shield did indeed compensate but at the end this was part of the overall fighting style prevalent at the times which is also found in all contemporary as well as later armies of the wider region west and east, from Latins to Persians.

In Mycenaean times there were three basic shield types: Sakkos, 8-Figure and Dipylon shield. I have actually moved on last year to the reconstruction of a Dipylon of sybmycenaean era made by acclaimed researcher Mr. D.Katsikis.

There are numerous depictions of Dipylon from 1600s BC down to end of Dark Age (750 AD.) when the shield was getting smaller giving way to Boetian, present in medallions, pendants, rings, sculptures and even in pottery of civilian use. Over this vast time-framework the Dipylon is depicted in various shapes from body size to near-circular shape and from very concave to flatter concavities. For our experimental construction we aimed at sub-mycenaean era thus remained to body-shield size. The shield was constructed of wicker and leather layers tied together with no gluing and decorated with copper bosses. We went for a well-made heavy construction on the basis of the basic deductions:

1. A body-shield is already so voluminous that if produced at anything lower than 8-9 kilos (even for my average 1,72m) cannot provide any effective protection at all. If weighting less than 8, we should rather talk of an African-style shield i.e. used to push aside the opponent's armed hand - i.e. a style which is not traced in Aegean. However this was not even any scutum since it was strapped on even during battle (we have explicit scenes for Sakkos and 8-fugure at least) thus protecting levels should be at minimum enough to forbid untrained modern men like us to fully penetrate it with a sharp weapon or to break its outer structure with a blunt one. It should also make it difficult to the savagely trained warriors of that time otherwise nobody would hang a death-trap over his shoulder
2. Reference to large heavy shields is a favourite of Homer. Ajax is mentioned to have had a large "tower-like" shield that even him found hard to lift! And Ajax was of course the most monstrous warrior in the Achaean camp!

We built ours basket-case, wicker/leather/copper bosses plus leather reinforced strap at 11,400k which we esteemed as a fair trade-off to start.

My first experiences?
1. Even a modern untrained man like me can carry fairly easily 11 kilos of body shield for 3 hours if using the strap and given 3-4 small breaks posing it on the ground that certainly a warrior had in the course of long battles. For an ancient warrior this should be piece of cake.
2. Use of side-openings with spear in attack mode is not evident. These are useful at contact with the enemy - eg. if the enemy tries to bring you down by your strapped shield (you can stab him through the apertures even with a large sword, [preferably with a smaller)
3. The shield considerably hinders motion, you cannot run (but you can hide behind it as you can see!). However what I could do fairly efficiently was to run the steps of throwing a javelin without problem by keeping the lower edge of the shield stable onto my left knee - as such the shield could had indeed been used by javelin throwers.

... and there is much more to experiment with it! E.g. we started with an odd experimental choice - a double handle which breaks the traditional approach of large shields having only one central grip (e.g. scutum-like). This shield hangs onto the body so even if you construct it on the upper limit of concavity, the use of central grip is not necessarily as obvious as it is in the scutum. If using only the central grip and not the side grip, the double grip permits carrying 1 spear more than the single grip (-1 spear for holding the single grip) but the great advantage of the double grip is the use of shoulder in pushing which might had been the case for a heavy shield - but then this is down to the utilization of the shield (spear throwing or close combat?). And so on! Smile


[attachment=5545]Dipylon_2012-10-16.jpg[/attachment]


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#24
Love the shield. Do you have a pic showing the back?
Author: Bronze Age Military Equipment, Pen & Sword Books
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#25
Thanks Dan.

Strangely we have not done a proper photo shoot for it and we have really to do it! Quickly I may forward the association's old site and the researcher/creator's site where a couple of photos exist.

http://www.koryvantes.org/koryvantes/sho...jsp?key=14
http://www.hellenicarmors.gr/products.php?pageId=17

The photos were during an event so I was mostly showing the exterior. Also note that my impression of a sub-Mycenaean was not and is not yet complete, that is why I did not make myself any proper series of photos - as lately Mr. Katsikis was too busy with many commands. But this year we move on to construct a proper wooden baldric with rich decoration for the sword which will also undergo extensive treatment for its "too modern for the era" handle and its weight and pronounced central spine. In the photos you can see I had just received it so I wore consciously wrongly on the traditional vertical position - Aor swords were shorter than the long Phasganon (90 to 110cm!) but could get as big as much as 80-90cm (mine is 90!) and the longer ones were worn semi-horizontaly like the Phasganons on the waist height.

I am aiming this to be between 1100 and 900 BC, period of Dorian conquests, after the downfall of Mycenaeans, therefore I do keep it "simple". The complete impression will include: the Dipylon, the thick belt, a spear, the bronze Aor in a wooden baldric, a helmet that will look like the typical Mycenaean-MinorAsian-Mesopotamian good-old-design. We are even thinking eventually of other parts shown on depictions of Mycenaean-era soldiers.

You can see in the detailed photo of the side-inside that I hold it through the double grip. The inside was either to be dressed in leather or to be left naked but I personally chose to cover it with a rustic thick linen taken from traditional carrying sacks that could date easily a century! Smile - this adds more comfort and is lightweight. From the inside the only visible elements are the 2 leather grips. These gathered a lot of well-expected criticism as large elongated shields had a single grip. Of course, neither the "gerron" nor the "scutum" were meant to be worn with a baldric and that makes a huge difference in use. Dipylon was used from at least 1600 to 750 BC and we know that its continuation the Boetian had a double grip, yet the Boetian's vertical positioning somehow was not evident in the tests prior to construction so we chose this. We can still test it as the construction of the shield permits re-arrangement of grips. We also received well-meant criticism for playing at the low-end of concavity (ours is at least 10cm though not that visible due inner linen and shield size). It'd require 20cm of concavity to be as visible as for figure-8 shields but then artistic depictions do not show always Dipylons as concave. The later Boetian often came with a minimal concavity. Note our initial concavity was in fact more pronounced but given the limited time we had to do it (me pressing!) the maker consciously applied the 2 leather layers much earlier on the wicker so wicker lost nearly half its concavity. The whole construction is a real miracle given the creator made it all by hand with strict use of ancient tools (saw, knifes, hammer, anvil, ropes and leather cordons), no chemicals and glues, no modern tools - I have seen this with my own eyes and it was impressive! Stretching the double layers was itself an immense task as it had to be done by hand (80 stiches!) over several days period since leather over wood is a live thing and moves!.

The prime concern of the maker was to present a shield that actually works as a real weapon and not as "an example that looks like a Dipylon". I.e. the skeleton is tough enough to forbid a modern man like us to break it and the leather layers protect sufficiently from sharp-weapon attacks. As a joke, he formally 'forbade' putting it on the plane as fragile: I have travelled 3 times on the plane with it wrapped in a... car-cover and only a layer of air-bubbles plastic resulting in a quite unusual test of its skeleton, successful one. Now, many people irrelevant to our field loved it as an art-object ignoring this is actually a reconstructed military shield! I do present it with pride as an experimental reconstruction of an ancient Dipylon shield, one of the first of its kind worldwide and as an advertishment for what really our field is all about.
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