Armor from Mycenaean Greece turns out to have been effective
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
This is science at its best.
> During those 11 hours, a typical warrior in Homeric tales would go through 31 one-versus-one duels, 10 encounters with the enemy on a chariot, two chariot-versus-chariot engagements, and one chariot-versus-warrior-on-ship encounter (a ranged battle where the warrior defended beached ships from charging chariots).
> People suspected the Dendra armor was ceremonial
That's not true. I don't think that there was ever anything approaching a consensus that the Mycenean Greek armor in question, the Dendra Panopoly, was entirely ceremonial. In fact, I've never even seen that view expressed. Many people believed that it would prove practical enough for infantry fighting. The old counter-argument -- which even then was speculative -- was that the armor was intended for charioteers. See:
https://www.ancientworldmagazine.com/articles/encased-bronze...
What's more, people have been making and sparring in reproduction pieces for years:
https://mindhost.tumblr.com/post/141243954157/dendra-panoply...
And especially:
https://www.salimbeti.com/micenei/armour1.htm
> "Some high fidelity reconstructions have demonstrate how this panoply, despite the huge aspect, was enough flexible and comfortable to be used also during fights on foot and not, as sometimes argued, exclusively by warriors fighting from the chariots."
You work with two loud, tenured professors who both believe a certain thing that your advisor thinks is bullshit, and your dissertation or post doc publications become about how Steve and Mark are wrong. Suck it, Steve.
There's also, assuredly, an element of that very recent controversy: "If it's not published in a peer review journal, it doesn't exist."
Now that somebody has written up a report of people sparring in modern recreations of the Dendra Panopoly, and has had it published in a decent journal, the matter is settled. Before, despite dozens of people and groups doing the same exact thing, I suppose it wasn't!
Goes to show.
From the introduction: "Earlier experiments with replicas demonstrated its flexibility for use in combat but not its suitability for use in extended battle contexts [...]. Was it purely ceremonial [...]?"
From the conclusion: "The discovery of the Dendra panoply in 1960 immediately raised the issue of its function. Could it have been worn in battle [...]–as repeatedly demonstrated by the exploits of the warriors in the Iliad? Was its use restricted to those who rode to battle in chariots? [...]–again, a regular practice in the epic and indicated in the Linear B archives by the association of armour and chariots. Or was it too cumbersome to be worn except on ceremonial occasions [...], as stated, for example, in the caption to the pieces of armour from Thebes on display in the Archaeological Museum of Thebes?"
The paper lists several references for the the positions mentioned (which I have not cross-checked). Among them is also the study that is provided as reference for the sentence you quoted. The author's of the paper summaris the result of this predecessor study as follows: "Sixty years on we now understand, despite its cumbersome appearance at first sight, that it is not only flexible enough to permit almost every movement of a warrior on foot but also resilient enough to protect the wearer from most blows", and explain what their own study has added to this insight: "In addition, our experiments have now demonstrated, we hope convincingly, that the armour is also of a weight and structure to permit extended use in combat, day after day, for up to 11 hours, without detriment to a fit warrior (although, apart from the Iliad, we have no accounts of battles of such duration)."
Source: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
> "The Dendra armor, one of the oldest suits of bronze armor ever found, had been considered a purely ceremonial piece. It seemed impossible to use in battle due to its cumbersome design."
Of course, this is completely false. It's more of a journalism problem than an issue with the study they're reporting on, of course.
> "Earlier experiments with replicas demonstrated its flexibility for use in combat but not its suitability for use in extended battle contexts [...]. Was it purely ceremonial [...]?"
This is a remarkably thin justification. If a set of armor can be used in combat, then its suitability for extended use hinges only on its weight and weight distribution. (Assuming the set doesn't include a closed helmet, as those can be troublesome in other respects; they can make it hard to breathe and hard to see.) A simple in silico ergonomics study, the kind that can be run in a single afternoon, could have answered their question. Though, admittedly, that would be less fun.
If the journalist talked to one guy who said you know, I think that’s ceremonial, blah blah, the quote is fair. One person thought it. One person told the reporter as much. You disagree. Journalism is working as intended.
Tip for the future: “journalism is broken” is usually a synonym for “I’ve taken a position that differs, and I therefore overfeel that the world is doing things wrong”.
But the job of journalists is to do the research. That's the whole purpose of good journalism: ask around, build some context on a story, then report it. Don't just tell me what one guy believed, I can find that out on my own. Tell me if others with context also believe the same: that's the part I don't have time for.
It seems like the whole point of elevating a field of activity and dignifying it with a fancy term like journalism is that it has some sort of standards. Otherwise, what good is it to anyone?
If it doesn't have standards, then we should just call it "people making up random stuff" instead. Then at least we'd be describing things with a bit more accuracy.
It’s kinda weird that people keep dismissing the armor of the past as completely impractical, even though the people in the past keep saying or implying that this is exact what they wore into battle.
terrifying...
The sci-fi version would be seeing a space marine.
But it doesn't always work, and there's some pretty glaring holes in modern perspectives as a result of its overuse.
So it is like physics, there is widespread belief in Aristotelean physics but you wont see anyone talk about believing it online, even though we know from surveys that there is a significant fraction who do.
I remember reading this 'fact' in books as a kid in the 80s.
The Zero's first adversary was the P40 Warhawk. The P40 was inferior in every way but one - it had forward armor. The pilots figured out that the way to beat the Zero was a head on attack, with both pilots blasting away. With no armor the Zero would get shredded. The Zero pilots had a pretty hard time of it during the war.
Modern fighting jets don't have armour either because missiles blast straight through it anyway.
I would not say ahead, rather out of step with the times.
Sounds like that lack of armor wasn't an advantage.
A decade of research and mathematical models to determine that an ancient civilization wasn’t just making useless armor for fun?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitznefet_(Israeli_military)
https://www.twz.com/israeli-troops-chefs-hat-helmet-covers-e...
To be fair, making armor for fun is a decent industry/hobby in modern times, for stuff like LARPing, movie props, etc. Who's to say that the armor wasn't an example of something similar in ancient times? Taking the time to actually put it to the test, in its original context, is a good effort to prove or disprove that.
Where do I sign up?
Replace "divine gift" with "innovation" and now we have a story about how exactly this sort of armor was a hot new technology.
I love the idea of people 2000 years from now doing statistical analysis of Rambo movies to deduce how wars were fought in 20th century.
The neck part of the armour is actually quite clever on closer inspection -- no complex moving part, doesn't restrict the wearer's head movements (well, other than looking at your own feet I guess) and seems to offer robust protection.
It reminds me somewhat of the benevolent aliens in Fifth Element.
However, usually objects of ceremonial use are also functional, just too expensive for everyone to use. E.g. we would tend to find an especially engraved bowl in ruins of a religious building—-it could still hold soup or beer in a pinch.
To make bronze, you need to alloy copper with tin which is rather rare
The alternative to tin was arsenic which is incredibly toxic to work with.
My money is on the cybertruck
Jesus fucking Christ.
Where do I sign up ...
Stop there and try to prove that, first.
Persia won't come into existence for at least 600 years if "the era" is Mycenaean Greece.
If you're talking about the region of the Persian homeland, there are zero records of invasions by Greeks of the era. It's on the other side of Mesopotamia from them. Troy is located in Anatolia both according to classical tradition and modern belief.
The best currently known evidence for the Trojan War is stuff like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tawagalawa_letter
e.g. the distance between ancient Persia and Egypt significantly (~50%) larger than between Egypt and the Greek mainland and sea travel was much faster in the first place.
Distinctively Iranian languages would have existed at the time - in fact, distinctively Indic and Iranian languages are both documented for the period - but there was no polity identified with Persians and there was certainly nothing identified with Persia.
Terminology of the region tends to use different ethnic identifiers for different Iranian groups. (Medes / Persians / Parthians etc. etc.) This means that referring to "Persia" is a lot more specific than just a geographical designator. It's kind of weird, since in other historical contexts you do see ethnically similar groups treated as if they were the same.
But if you do want to just consider the people broadly construed, you're stuck with the fact that the relevant state in the late Bronze Age was Elam, which isn't Iranian at all, and "Persia" still doesn't apply.
If you want to consider the geographical extent of the Achaemenid Empire, then it included Egypt, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, the homeland of the Iranian plateau, Afghanistan, and everything in between, and there are indeed lots of records of contact between the Sea Peoples and "Persia" by that definition.
But it's completely absurd to call that "Persia" in a Bronze Age context. We'd have to stop referring to "Egypt" at all! At the time, there was no relevant concept that would relate to "Persia", the regions were not politically or culturally unified, none of them including the ones on the Iranian plateau would have thought of themselves as "Persian"...
Is it necessarily that much (to an extent it is of course) more absurd than to call the Bronze Age Mycenaeans/Achaeans Greek though? Yes they were a lot more concentrated geographically and the link between them and classical Greeks/Hellenes is strong but still seems like an anachronism.
> If you want to consider the geographical extent of the Achaemenid Empire
Not sure why would anyone want to considering the 700 year gap.
> But it's completely absurd to call that "Persia"
Certainly, that why I wasn't sure why did they mention Persia in the first place.
> none of them including the ones on the Iranian plateau would have thought of themselves as "Persian"
Considering that the word is derived from Farsi/Farsi wouldn't the people living in the territory that became heartland of the Achaemenid empire have called themselves that?
If you want to refer to an Iranic group in the Bronze Age as "Persian", that's not what I meant to label as completely absurd.
Referring to Anatolia as "Persia" because Persia conquered it many centuries later, and then failed to maintain control, is completely absurd.
> Not sure why would anyone want to considering the 700 year gap.
Yes, agreed, but that was the only reason I could think of for the original claim about contact between Bronze Age Greeks and "Persia".
> Considering that the word ["Persia"] is derived from Farsi/Farsi wouldn't the people living in the territory that became heartland of the Achaemenid empire have called themselves that?
To the best of my knowledge, the ancient form is Parsa and "Persia" derives from that, not from the much later form "Fars". https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%F0%90%8E%B1%F0%90%8E%A0%F0%9...
I don't know when that term originates. It's possible that people living in the region would have used a related term for themselves in the Bronze Age. It would have had nearly no political significance. It's also possible, as far as I know, that the term is more recent than that.
I also don't know whether Achaemenid Persians would have referred to themselves by a term of that nature. There's a huge ongoing fight on Wikipedia over what terms are appropriate as Persian endonyms. What appears to be beyond dispute is that the people tended to refer to themselves by a term cognate with Aryan or Iranian. (Though when the Parsees leave for India, a thousand years later, they end up being called Parsees.) If you know more about this, I'd like to hear it.
Yeah, that was the entire point of my initial comment. To be fair I don't think I was able to contribute much besides that and of course I agree overall with what you're saying.
"Our hypothetical date for the Trojan War (1300–1200 BC) was needed to enable estimates of the environmental conditions (temperature, day-night cycle, etc.) but should not be considered as a contribution to the continuing discussions about the date of the War. Moreover, the Trojan War cannot be taken as a historical event, at least in the form described in the Homeric epics [...]. There is no way to know whether it reflects a single event or a period of turmoil that was triggered during an alleged migration from Greece to the eastern Aegean, a narrative that has been also put into question [...]"
Source: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy
also there are burned remain, anti-chariot defensive works, and bronze arrow heads radio carbon dated to the right era.
That should suffice to underline the uncertainty, from a purely scientific point of view, of what, exactly, was found by Schliemann. My opinion is that this man has caused no end of damage to any attempt to find the historical truth, if any, of the Homeric epic. I've had a few fights with fellow Greeks who were convinced that Schliemann really-really found Troy, the actual city from the Iliad, which was a true story then. A friend once told me that not only Troy was found, but that it was "seven cities", as Troy is described in the Iliad; most likely a reference to the multiple layers of ruins at the place excavated by Schliemann. Some of whom were indeed destroyed by fire, suggesting war, if memory swerves, but not all and in any case there have been so many wars in the thousand years since the first city was built there that we might as well assume it was aliens who first destroyed it.
... which some people inevitably will.
___________
[1] Some of the history of those excavations is on wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy#Excavation_history
The rest I know by dint of being born Greek and having read my fair share of ancient history (extracurricularly, obviously) as a child. I might misremember some things.
So... it sounds like the armor was kind of ceremonial in a way. Even if it was functional it didn't sound very practical - it only existed as a projection of force and wealth in defensive situations.