Chariots

[Malthus]

I can't think of one unambiguous Greek Bronze age battlefield.  I don't think any are known.

Not sure what you mean by unambiguous.  Homer gives us some pretty good detail of how chariots were used during that period.

My understanding is that Homer's depiction of battles set during the Mycenaen period was somewhat anachronistic - much like medieval depictions of Romans fighting like medieval knights.

The speculation is that Mycenaen chariot warfare was much like chariot warfare in the ME - that is, used essentially like light cavalry, to harrass and raid with arrow-fire. Homer (or the collection of poets known as Homer) knew the Mycenaens used chariots but not exactly how they were used - his warriors fought much like contemporary-to-Homer Greeks, on foot, with chariots used as transport only.

Somewhat ironically, the Mycenaens had a somewhat higher level of social organization than the "dark ages" Greeks of Homer's day.

Another example of this could be the famous "wooden horse" at Troy, which might represent an imperfectly understood use of a siege weapon of some sort - presumably something like a mobile assault tower with a battering ram. By the "dark ages", the ability of the Greeks to make such things had faded.   

[Razgovory]

Both of you, lay off the Homer Hate.

I like the Iliad and the Odyssey, but I don't think they should be used to understand events that occurred during the Bronze age.  It seems unlikely that Diomedes actually wounded Ares and Aphrodite in combat.

[Siege]

Well, nobody knows for sure ( I advise you to be wary of anyone who has a great deal of confidence in talking about such things), but what Spellus is talking about does have some backing.  Almost all European languages along with most of the Iranians and Indian languages are related.  It's called the Indo-European Language family.  Why they are like that is not certain.

The tower of babel, dah!
Everybody comes from Noah and his sons, and they all spoke the same language, of course.
As they expanded across the globe, their descendant started speaking diferent dialects, since language never stops to evolve, especially back then with so little communications and so much isolation.

[11B4V]

It's like calling a M2 Bradley a tank.

tank   /tæŋk/ Show Spelled[tangk] Show IPA
noun
1. a large receptacle, container, or structure for holding a liquid or gas: tanks for storing oil.
2. a natural or artificial pool, pond, or lake.
3. Military . an armored, self-propelled combat vehicle, armed with cannon and machine guns and moving on a caterpillar tread.
4. Slang . a prison cell or enclosure for more than one occupant, as for prisoners awaiting a hearing

M2 Bradley
The M242 Bushmaster is a 25 mm (25×137mm) chain-fed autocannon.......check
Self propelled....check
7.62 Coax MG.....check
Tracked......check

M2 Bradley: also not a tank.  It's an IFV.  Your definition would also cover self-propelled artillery and AA guns.

Yaaaaaa think, scroll up a few. Goofball

[mongers]

Do you think this debate might be some reflection of a long ago bronze age debate about what was officially a chariot ?

BzA.guy A " It has to have wicker screens or it's not a chariot"

BzA.guy B "four asses or it's just a sports machine"

BzA.guy A  "Dude, horse power is the way to go"

BzA.guy B "Give me a break, those things will never catch, too high maintenance"

[Razgovory]

Well, nobody knows for sure ( I advise you to be wary of anyone who has a great deal of confidence in talking about such things), but what Spellus is talking about does have some backing.  Almost all European languages along with most of the Iranians and Indian languages are related.  It's called the Indo-European Language family.  Why they are like that is not certain.

The tower of babel, dah!
Everybody comes from Noah and his sons, and they all spoke the same language, of course.
As they expanded across the globe, their descendant started speaking diferent dialects, since language never stops to evolve, especially back then with so little communications and so much isolation.

If this was true then relationships between languages wouldn't breakdown in the groups they do today.  English and Hebrew are unrelated.  They may share a few incidental words due to contact but are structurally very different.  Hebrew and Arabic are related, though.  They share a common ancestor.  English is related to French but also languages much further away.

Take for example the word "Mortal".  You can see how it's related to a few other English words like Mortuary.  It's related to French "Mort" (which means death).  But it's also related to languages further afield.  Such as Latin "Mors, Mortis" (meaning death), the Sanskrit "mrtih"(also meaning Death),  the Armenian word "meranim" (which means to die), and old Persian word "Martiya" (meaning a man).

There are a lot of languages that part of this family.  This is odd.  Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese and Thai are all unrelated despite being fairly close to one another.  Farsi, the main language of Iran is not related to Arabic.  It is however distantly related to English.  For instance the English word "Mother" is quite similar to the Iranian word for "Mother" which is "madar".

[The Minsky Moment]

My understanding is that Homer's depiction of battles set during the Mycenaen period was somewhat anachronistic - much like medieval depictions of Romans fighting like medieval knights.

I've heard claims to the contrary that certain aspects of Mycenaean warfare or equipment were accurately reported in Homer despite not being extent during the time period of Homer.  Which is then used to make claims about the possible level of accuracy of transmission in the oral tradition that is reflected in the Homeric tales.

I am in no position to evaluate this either way.

[Razgovory]

My understanding is that Homer's depiction of battles set during the Mycenaen period was somewhat anachronistic - much like medieval depictions of Romans fighting like medieval knights.

I've heard claims to the contrary that certain aspects of Mycenaean warfare or equipment were accurately reported in Homer despite not being extent during the time period of Homer.  Which is then used to make claims about the possible level of accuracy of transmission in the oral tradition that is reflected in the Homeric tales.

I am in no position to evaluate this either way.

Who said that?

[Iormlund]

My understanding is that Homer's depiction of battles set during the Mycenaen period was somewhat anachronistic - much like medieval depictions of Romans fighting like medieval knights.

I've heard claims to the contrary that certain aspects of Mycenaean warfare or equipment were accurately reported in Homer despite not being extent during the time period of Homer.  Which is then used to make claims about the possible level of accuracy of transmission in the oral tradition that is reflected in the Homeric tales.

I am in no position to evaluate this either way.

Who said that?

An example is the description of Ajax's shield. While Homer usually describes weaponry as it would have been during his own time, he mentions that this particular shield was huge, made like a tower. This indeed fits archeological evidence of the Mycenean period when such devices where commonly used.

[Queequeg]

I assume chariots were effective. Otherwise, why would people use them for centuries? But I have trouble buying this. What a nightmare it would be just to travel across Europe in a chariot without roads, never mind fighting a battle on ground that wasn't a grazed open field. Also, languages aren't culture. If there was a simple trick of warfare that enabled indo european language speakers to conquer others, other groups would have picked up on it before they moved across most of eurasia.

Well, it was reasonably simple-the Kassites picked up on it, and conquered Babylonia. The migration of Indo-Europeans into the steppe and border zones triggered a huge out flux of people, often perused and mixed with Indo-Europeans; this was basically the exact same process that would continue up until the Mongols.  We have something pretty close to an actual model of this with the Cimmerian invasion of the South Caucasus in the Classical period.

I don't think we are just talking about chariots- we are talking about wagons as well, mass mobility of a type not possible before. 

Languages are very closely related to culture in this period.  Most of the oldest Indo-Europeans ethnoyms are based on the ability to perform the correct sacrifices to the various Gods, and maintaining the classic Indo-European class structure.  The Proto-Indo-Europeans would franchise out across the steppe, taking on traits of conquered peoples along the way. 

Honestly, AR, a lot of this is as close to fact as you can get in the pre-literate Copper Age.  There's a ton of physical, genetic and linguistic evidence.  Check out "The Horse, The Wheel and Language."

The problem is of course that's all theoretical.  There is no concrete proof of this.  Since these people were illiterate nobody wrote it down, and artifacts from six thousand years ago are hard to come by.  Proof is in linguistic comparisons and circumstance evidence.  Still it's held up pretty well.  And it makes sense.  It's not the only theory of PIE expansion though.

I think there's a generally accepted narrative at this point, of a migration from the west of the Urals, near the urheimat of the Uralic peoples, towards the Northern Caucasus, with various peoples (first the Hittites and allied Anatolian groups, then the proto-Germans and Tocharians, then the Satemized Indo-European peoples who reflect linguistic contact with the North Caucasus).  This is associated with the spread of the R1a haplotype and the Kurgan culture. 

[katmai]

Keep your damn dirty indo-european languages away from me.

[Queequeg]

My understanding is that Homer's depiction of battles set during the Mycenaen period was somewhat anachronistic - much like medieval depictions of Romans fighting like medieval knights.

I've heard claims to the contrary that certain aspects of Mycenaean warfare or equipment were accurately reported in Homer despite not being extent during the time period of Homer.  Which is then used to make claims about the possible level of accuracy of transmission in the oral tradition that is reflected in the Homeric tales.

I am in no position to evaluate this either way.

My favorite class in Turkey was a Hittite Archaeology course.  I wrote my final paper on domestic correspondence between the Hittite court and Ahhiyawa, a foreign power of equal status, who was apparently in control of Miletus.  There is even a reference to an 'unfortunate episode' at the site of  Wilusa (Wilion-Ilion episode), which I found fascinating.    I left the class more or less convinced that the Iliad was likely more accurate than most scholars assumed in the 20th Century, which I think is an increasingly influential opinion.

[Razgovory]

My understanding is that Homer's depiction of battles set during the Mycenaen period was somewhat anachronistic - much like medieval depictions of Romans fighting like medieval knights.

I've heard claims to the contrary that certain aspects of Mycenaean warfare or equipment were accurately reported in Homer despite not being extent during the time period of Homer.  Which is then used to make claims about the possible level of accuracy of transmission in the oral tradition that is reflected in the Homeric tales.

I am in no position to evaluate this either way.

Who said that?

An example is the description of Ajax's shield. While Homer usually describes weaponry as it would have been during his own time, he mentions that this particular shield was huge, made like a tower. This indeed fits archeological evidence of the Mycenean period when such devices where commonly used.

Okay, it was you.  Thanks.  I think large shields existed in 8th century.  They certainly did after.  Romans were keen on large body shields.  I suspect that Ajax's shield is large because Ajax as large.  It's sort of a reflection of him.  Like the finely made shield of Achilles or the Bow of Odysseus.

There are some things indicative of Mycenaean times that are described by Homer, such as the helmet of Odysseus.  I don't think this means that Homer is giving an accurate account of a battle.  For instance, I doubt there was a man named Achilles who got in a fight with a river.

[Razgovory]

Keep your damn dirty indo-european languages away from me.

What are you Tamas now?

[Queequeg]

Keep your damn dirty indo-european languages away from me.

What are you going to do, swear at me in Nahuatl?