Can anyone explain how they were effective in warfare? In a premodern world with lots of trees and rocks and not a lot of roads, they couldn't have been maneuverable and were probably quite restricted in where they could go. Plus with 2 to 4 horses, I would think they were a large target for archers. I've been told they provided a stable platform to shoot from, but I doubt they stable when moving (ancient suspension ftl).
I don't think anyone is sure exactly. Egyptian ones seem to have been used in the same way horse archers would be used later. Quick mobile archers. They were probably used in flat desert areas of the Middle East. Since horses were to small to ride yet, they really the only way to move quickly around. They were pretty light in construction: like a basket with raw hide bottom mounted on an axle. That might have absorbed enough shock to give you a chance to shoot a bow. I imagine you had to practice a lot.
Others are a bit more difficult to understand. For instance the Hittites used really big ones with four guys and four horses. They may be been used as heavy cavalry, but they also could have been mostly for show. The Mycenaean Greeks used them, but Greece isn't really a flat place. So I don't know how they were used. There are some written accounts of chariot use from the Roman invasion of Britain and Alexander's invasion of Persia. That might give an idea. Note that chariots were not used that successfully in those campaigns.
There are also some primitive ones depicted being used in Sumeria that are pulled by wild Asses and have four wheels. Nobody knows what those were for.
Quote from: alfred russel on April 08, 2012, 08:31:39 PM
Can anyone explain how they were effective in warfare?
It doesn't take a Babylonian Bobby Bowden to know that speed kills, dang gummit.
They may not have been used successfully against the Romans, but I presume that if they were being used when the Romans showed up they were sucessfully used prior to Roman arrival.
I wasn't aware that horses were too small to ride at certain points.
I think that's why they started off with chariots. Horses hadn't been bred large enough to ride.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 08, 2012, 08:57:11 PM
Quote from: alfred russel on April 08, 2012, 08:31:39 PM
Can anyone explain how they were effective in warfare?
It doesn't take a Babylonian Bobby Bowden to know that speed kills, dang gummit.
See: Dale Earnhardt, Dan Wheldon.
Quote from: Razgovory on April 08, 2012, 09:01:49 PM
I think that's why they started off with chariots. Horses hadn't been bred large enough to ride.
Interesting. I learned something new today. Thanks Raz.
Quote from: alfred russel on April 08, 2012, 09:02:02 PM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 08, 2012, 08:57:11 PM
Quote from: alfred russel on April 08, 2012, 08:31:39 PM
Can anyone explain how they were effective in warfare?
It doesn't take a Babylonian Bobby Bowden to know that speed kills, dang gummit.
See: Dale Earnhardt, Dan Wheldon.
Heh. Walls were the issue, not speed.
Quote from: alfred russel on April 08, 2012, 09:02:51 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on April 08, 2012, 09:01:49 PM
I think that's why they started off with chariots. Horses hadn't been bred large enough to ride.
Interesting. I learned something new today. Thanks Raz.
Well someone will probably show up and prove me wrong, so who knows. I'm predicting Grumbler will.
Quote from: Razgovory on April 08, 2012, 09:36:55 PM
Quote from: alfred russel on April 08, 2012, 09:02:51 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on April 08, 2012, 09:01:49 PM
I think that's why they started off with chariots. Horses hadn't been bred large enough to ride.
Interesting. I learned something new today. Thanks Raz.
Well someone will probably show up and prove me wrong, so who knows. I'm predicting Grumbler will.
Well, what with him actually being there, and all. :lol:
Quote from: Razgovory on April 08, 2012, 09:36:55 PM
Well someone will probably show up and prove me wrong, so who knows. I'm predicting Grumbler will.
Then hopefully he shows up soon. Otherwise if this topic comes up at work tomorrow I might share an incorrect point of view.
You might reference the battle of Kadesh for starters.
This may have some good stuff in it.
http://filebox.vt.edu/users/bhollenb/EDCI5314/portfoliobkh/html/History_of_Chariot_Warfare.html
Quote from: 11B4V on April 08, 2012, 10:12:55 PM
This may have some good stuff in it.
http://filebox.vt.edu/users/bhollenb/EDCI5314/portfoliobkh/html/History_of_Chariot_Warfare.html
Thanks--that was a good read.
In ancient times chariots were mainly mobile archer platforms. Before stirups there wasn't really an effective way to use bow and arrows from horseback. Chariots were also used as a means of quick deployment for troops.
Quote from: 11B4V on April 08, 2012, 10:12:55 PM
This may have some good stuff in it.
http://filebox.vt.edu/users/bhollenb/EDCI5314/portfoliobkh/html/History_of_Chariot_Warfare.html
Anyone who uses the term "Scale Mail" has been reading to much D&D.
Quote from: Razgovory on April 09, 2012, 12:03:25 AM
Quote from: 11B4V on April 08, 2012, 10:12:55 PM
This may have some good stuff in it.
http://filebox.vt.edu/users/bhollenb/EDCI5314/portfoliobkh/html/History_of_Chariot_Warfare.html
Anyone who uses the term "Scale Mail" has been reading to much D&D.
Glad you pointed that out. :rolleyes:
It's like calling a M2 Bradley a tank.
Chariot use changed over time
The earliest uses had chariots being used as battle chariots. Where "heros" in full armor (http://www.larp.com/hoplite/Walpole.jpg) were carried to the battle, they jumped out killed two or three unarmored peasants, jumped back on their chariot and escaped to their own lines before the enemy chariots could converge on them.
The Hittite and Babylonia chariots were likely developments of this where an archer and shield carrier might have been added to the hero and driver. Now the "hero" had protection from archers and javelin men.
The Egyptians seem to have dispensed with the "hero" and shield carrier allowing the chariot to become much smaller and faster.
The Assyrians then make the whole thing obsolete when they get riding horses from central asia and invent the horse archer. In fact early assyrian horse archers (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/AssyrianHorseman.gif) had riders in tandem with a reinsman and an archer, just like in the setup with the chariot. Eventually these roles were combined.
A lot of it was mobility. Most warfare throughout Bronze Age and Copper Age Europe would have been raids for women or cattle, something that a chariot would make extremely useful. The Celtic and Hindu myths reflect a lot of this-most of the most ancient or conservative (the 1st Century Tain Bo Cuailnge is actually a lot closer to Copper Age myths than it is to anything else in the world from the time) Indo-European stories involve kidnapping and flock-stealing, usually with a chariot as a weapon or at least an escape vehicle.
There was also a shock factor; in a small-scale encounter, something as complex and elegant as a chariot, being pulled by something as strange as two horses-even copper age ponies-would have been terrifying. These men would also be something close to a professional warriors, born with a copper or bronze mace in their hand and buried with it. The primitive farmers and pastorialists of Old Europe, or even the relatively complex agricultural states of the Levant, would not have had the mobility or the professional skill to deal with this. The culturally, if not linguistically, Indo-Europeanized ("Kurganized") Kassites were just as able to completely subdue Babylon, for instance.
The Chariot basically made the linguistic world we know today. Seems strange, but it was the primary vector by which the Indo-European languages spread, at least in it's initial phase, which went from Assam to Ireland, and even in to Mongolia. Everything from Vishnu to the lady of the Lake. We can actually mark at what point an Indo-European language broke off from the initial Steppe population (the proto-Indo Iranians are basal in a lot of ways) by how complete their vocabulary is of a wagon or chariot.
Quote from: alfred russel on April 08, 2012, 09:54:06 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on April 08, 2012, 09:36:55 PM
Well someone will probably show up and prove me wrong, so who knows. I'm predicting Grumbler will.
Then hopefully he shows up soon. Otherwise if this topic comes up at work tomorrow I might share an incorrect point of view.
:lol:
In addition to the chariots described so far there were also what one might call "shock chariots" used by the Achaemenids, Mithridates of Pontus and a few others. These were one-shot weapons driven at speed into enemy formations, the aim was to disorder an infantry formation with the chariots and then follow up with a cavalry charge, routing the vulnerable troops.
They were usually ineffective, I can only recall one success, a minor skirmish in Asia Minor between a Persian satrap and some Greeks.
Quote from: Razgovory on April 09, 2012, 01:10:23 AM
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
The problem with scythed chariots is that they appear more often in sword and sandal movies than they do in history. All their appearances are well after Assyrian Horse Archers and western sources (at least) usually respond with "WTF they have scythed chariots!!!!1111oneoeon, and then we slaughtered them"
The one great appearance they have in history is Gaugamela. Scythes up to a meter long, the problem with that is that the Sarissas were 5 meters long.
Quote from: Razgovory on April 09, 2012, 01:10:23 AM
It's like calling a M2 Bradley a tank.
Or an arms warrior. :nerd:
Quote from: 11B4V on April 09, 2012, 05:38:54 AM
Quote from: Razgovory on April 09, 2012, 01:10:23 AM
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
The randomness of history gives me pause to chuckle.
Quote from: wikiWinston Churchill's biography states, "To disguise the device, drawings were marked "water carriers for Russia." When it was pointed out this might be shortened to "WCs for Russia," the drawings were relabeled "water tanks for Russia." Eventually the weapon was just called a tank.[61] (In fact, the prototype was referred to as a water-carrier for Mesopotamia [see below]. The Russian connection is that some of the first production Tanks were labelled in Russian "With Care to Petrograd," as a further security measure.)
wait, so if early horses couldn't carry people, how were they domesticated?
Dogs can't carry people either.
We ain't heavy.
Quote from: Faeelin on April 09, 2012, 07:51:49 AM
wait, so if early horses couldn't carry people, how were they domesticated?
they could pull carts and plows as well as carrying lesser loads. But, there is a difference between carrying a man in battle and carrying a man.
Quote from: 11B4V on April 09, 2012, 05:38:54 AM
Quote from: Razgovory on April 09, 2012, 01:10:23 AM
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.
Quote from: Razgovory on April 09, 2012, 10:14:22 AM
M2 Bradley: also not a tank. It's an IFV. Your definition would also cover self-propelled artillery and AA guns.
Remember, you're talking to an infantryman.
Quote from: Queequeg on April 09, 2012, 02:23:42 AM
The Chariot basically made the linguistic world we know today. Seems strange, but it was the primary vector by which the Indo-European languages spread, at least in it's initial phase, which went from Assam to Ireland, and even in to Mongolia. Everything from Vishnu to the lady of the Lake. We can actually mark at what point an Indo-European language broke off from the initial Steppe population (the proto-Indo Iranians are basal in a lot of ways) by how complete their vocabulary is of a wagon or chariot.
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.
Quote from: alfred russel on April 09, 2012, 10:34:19 AM
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.
At least in the Egyptian case Chariots were NOT used for transport. When the army marched the chariots were broken down and carried by beasts of burden. When the battle approached, they were re-assembled for combat.
Edit: There was a disassembled Chariot in Tutankhamen's tomb.
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. It assumed that there was a proto-Indo-European language (sometimes called PIE), that spread out across much of Eurasia and heavily influenced and often displaced local languages. Horses were first domesticated and chariots built in the area where it's thought these PIE people lived. 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.
Quote from: alfred russel on April 09, 2012, 10:34:19 AM
Quote from: Queequeg on April 09, 2012, 02:23:42 AM
The Chariot basically made the linguistic world we know today. Seems strange, but it was the primary vector by which the Indo-European languages spread, at least in it's initial phase, which went from Assam to Ireland, and even in to Mongolia. Everything from Vishnu to the lady of the Lake. We can actually mark at what point an Indo-European language broke off from the initial Steppe population (the proto-Indo Iranians are basal in a lot of ways) by how complete their vocabulary is of a wagon or chariot.
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.
chariots in warfare was mainly a plains thing and desert thing. Worse comes to worse you could get your skirimshers to clear the field (a la the persians versus alexander... which backfired becasue now the persians had a tired army). As a means of transport they could be used in harder to traverse area. If you can move a baggage train through you can move chariots through.
The Bronze age Greeks and the Hittites both are known to have had chariots. Neither Greece nor Turkey is know for being particularly flat. I imagine that chariots were used differently in different cultures and different times. It's entirely possible that some were used only as "battle taxis", either to save the strength of the soldiers or as prestige pieces.
Chariots were used over a large area and over a great deal of time. Blanket statements about their use are difficult. Add that to the fact that very little recorded history is preserved from that time period and the stuff that exists isn't always accurate. The battle of Kadesh has been brought up, but it's not even clear who won the battle. Both sides claimed to have won. So it's kind of difficult to come away with any solid facts.
Quote from: Razgovory on April 09, 2012, 12:24:10 PM
The Bronze age Greeks and the Hittites both are known to have had chariots.
But the battlefields on which they fought were mainly flat. Iirc Both the bronze age Greeks and Hittites used the chariot as a means of transporting the hero in his heavy bronze armour to the fight and back to friendly lines the refresh and then have at it again.
I can't think of one unambiguous Greek Bronze age battlefield. I don't think any are known.
Quote from: Razgovory on April 09, 2012, 01:35:26 PM
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.
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 09, 2012, 01:06:06 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on April 09, 2012, 12:24:10 PM
The Bronze age Greeks and the Hittites both are known to have had chariots.
But the battlefields on which they fought were mainly flat. Iirc Both the bronze age Greeks and Hittites used the chariot as a means of transporting the hero in his heavy bronze armour to the fight and back to friendly lines the refresh and then have at it again.
I thought this was a poetic license by Homer. Bronze Age remains like the Dendra panoply include heavy armor and big-ass lances that seem cumbersome to use dismounted. To me that's indicative of the use of chariots as shock troops.
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 09, 2012, 01:37:21 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on April 09, 2012, 01:35:26 PM
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.
Events described by Homer ~1200 BC
Life of Homer ~800 BC
If anything Homer was describing war as it was fought in his own time with a little bit of embellishment from the epic as handed down.
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 09, 2012, 01:37:21 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on April 09, 2012, 01:35:26 PM
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.
Homer wasn't there, lived several hundred years after the alleged battle and was blind. And it's not clear if that battle actually happened. Or that Homer actually existed. That in my mind causes a great deal of ambiguity.
The sad and somewhat startling fact is that really isn't much information on the topic either way.
http://www.salimbeti.com/micenei/chariots.htm
This site has a large number of chariot imagery. Curiously few appear to be used in warfare. They are often depicted in a hunting scene. whether they were used for hunting or this is some sort mythical representation is unknown. We do know the Bronze age Greeks had a lot of chariots. Several clay tablets containing records have survived and these include chariots and chariot parts held at palace for warriors. How they used them, is unknown. Some of the chariots appear to be drawn by winged horses. This seems unlikely in real life.
Both of you, lay off the Homer Hate.
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 09, 2012, 01:37:21 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on April 09, 2012, 01:35:26 PM
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.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 09, 2012, 02:12:31 PM
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.
Quote from: Razgovory on April 09, 2012, 10:49:29 AM
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.
Quote from: Razgovory on April 09, 2012, 10:14:22 AM
Quote from: 11B4V on April 09, 2012, 05:38:54 AM
Quote from: Razgovory on April 09, 2012, 01:10:23 AM
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 :lol:
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"
Quote from: Siege on April 09, 2012, 03:21:22 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on April 09, 2012, 10:49:29 AM
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".
Quote from: Malthus on April 09, 2012, 02:19:21 PM
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.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 09, 2012, 06:11:31 PM
Quote from: Malthus on April 09, 2012, 02:19:21 PM
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?
Quote from: Razgovory on April 09, 2012, 06:14:10 PM
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 09, 2012, 06:11:31 PM
Quote from: Malthus on April 09, 2012, 02:19:21 PM
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.
Quote from: alfred russel on April 09, 2012, 10:34:19 AM
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."
Quote
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.
Keep your damn dirty indo-european languages away from me.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 09, 2012, 06:11:31 PM
Quote from: Malthus on April 09, 2012, 02:19:21 PM
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.
Quote from: Iormlund on April 09, 2012, 07:38:03 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on April 09, 2012, 06:14:10 PM
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 09, 2012, 06:11:31 PM
Quote from: Malthus on April 09, 2012, 02:19:21 PM
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.
Quote from: katmai on April 09, 2012, 08:47:35 PM
Keep your damn dirty indo-european languages away from me.
What are you Tamas now?
Quote from: katmai on April 09, 2012, 08:47:35 PM
Keep your damn dirty indo-european languages away from me.
What are you going to do, swear at me in Nahuatl?
Quote from: Queequeg on April 09, 2012, 09:00:55 PM
Quote from: katmai on April 09, 2012, 08:47:35 PM
Keep your damn dirty indo-european languages away from me.
What are you going to do, swear at me in Nahuatl?
I can if you want, but i was talking Euskara, ya dumbass
:lmfao:
Quote from: Queequeg on April 09, 2012, 08:43:47 PM
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.
What was that? And how do we know?
My guess is he's going on about the Triparte division theory. Worker, Priest, Warrior.
Quote from: Razgovory on April 09, 2012, 08:58:07 PM
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.
I'm not saying Homer should be taken literally.
Much of the poems was added along the way, during several hundred years. But some stuff is clearly older. That shield or the helmet are just examples. Another is the mere presence of chariots themselves, which were common in Bronze Age warfare, but not at all during the Dark Ages.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on April 09, 2012, 09:35:35 PM
Quote from: Queequeg on April 09, 2012, 08:43:47 PM
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.
What was that? And how do we know?
By burial it is possible to acknowledge a warrior caste, and the sheer complexity of the sacrifices and religious rights required a priest caste, with a likely office of king. If it sounds like Dark Age Europe, that's because it is pretty close at least in the outline.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on April 09, 2012, 09:35:35 PM
Quote from: Queequeg on April 09, 2012, 08:43:47 PM
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.
What was that? And how do we know?
By analyzing words. You can deduce when a concept took root by looking at which languages share common words and which do not. You can also reconstruct religion and other societal structures studying language.
Then you attempt to match this with archeological and genetic evidence.
Quote from: Iormlund on April 09, 2012, 09:38:23 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on April 09, 2012, 08:58:07 PM
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.
I'm not saying Homer should be taken literally.
Much of the poems was added along the way, during several hundred years. But some stuff is clearly older. That shield or the helmet are just examples. Another is the mere presence of chariots themselves, which were common in Bronze Age warfare, but not at all during the Dark Ages.
In addition the descriptions of the armour worn has been confirmed through archeological finds. the Iliad didnt get everything historically accurate of course. But the bits about the arms and armour and how the chariots were used (to get back on topic) appear to have been memories of warefare passed down in the oral tradition.
Have your read about the work that Milman Parry did with Serbian oral poets? They don't memorize a story but thousands or formalistic expressions that fit the meter. The poet has a general idea of the story he wants to tell and combines two or three of these expressions together to get the line. In this way the poem sort of writes itself and the poet can think about the next line before he finishes uttering the expression of the previous line. It's thought that Homer worked the same way. These expressions may be in the catalog of poets for hundreds of years. So an expression from several hundred years ago my be combined with one the poet made up himself or has only been in the poetic community for fifty years. The result is that the poems are very flexible, and change quite a bit. For instance a poem was told an incident in WWII (which wasn't very long ago when it was recorded), but didn't resemble much the actual incident. The poet filled it mostly with standard stock characters. This is probably how most pre-literate oral poetry was conceived. For example the Song of Roland which was composed in a much shorter period of time after the actual battle it lionizes and misidentifies one of the sides. Christian Basques are replaced by idol worshiping Muslims.
Quote from: Queequeg on April 09, 2012, 09:41:58 PM
Quote from: jimmy olsen on April 09, 2012, 09:35:35 PM
Quote from: Queequeg on April 09, 2012, 08:43:47 PM
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.
What was that? And how do we know?
By burial it is possible to acknowledge a warrior caste, and the sheer complexity of the sacrifices and religious rights required a priest caste, with a likely office of king. If it sounds like Dark Age Europe, that's because it is pretty close at least in the outline.
I don't think professional priests are unique to Indo-Europeans.
Quote from: Razgovory on April 09, 2012, 10:01:22 PM
Quote from: Queequeg on April 09, 2012, 09:41:58 PM
Quote from: jimmy olsen on April 09, 2012, 09:35:35 PM
Quote from: Queequeg on April 09, 2012, 08:43:47 PM
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.
What was that? And how do we know?
By burial it is possible to acknowledge a warrior caste, and the sheer complexity of the sacrifices and religious rights required a priest caste, with a likely office of king. If it sounds like Dark Age Europe, that's because it is pretty close at least in the outline.
I don't think professional priests are unique to Indo-Europeans.
Obviously not.
Well neither are warriors, so I'm not sure what distinguishs this class structure from any other one.
Quote from: Iormlund on April 09, 2012, 07:38:03 PM
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.
This is quite possibly due to that particular phrase being particularly evocative in the oral tradition wen homer recieves it from traidition and codifies it. The memorable favorite phrases tend to remain unchanged in the oral transmission, while much of the rest gets changed and modified. The meter, rhyme and alliteration are used as memory aids and the skald or poet's main skill is memory and presentation. The poet might forget a phrase here or there and make up something which has the same content and that is the change. A particularly evocative phrase, however, will be remembered both by the poet and audience e.g. "once more into the breach" and "it was the best of times it was the worst of times".
The icelandic tradition represents a similar gap (850 AD to 1250 AD) and there is quite alot of fidelity in the transmission, but there is quite a bit of invention each generation as well, especially in the "boring bits".
Quote from: Queequeg on April 09, 2012, 08:56:57 PM
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 09, 2012, 06:11:31 PM
Quote from: Malthus on April 09, 2012, 02:19:21 PM
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.
The issue here is not whether the large-scale events had some truth to them, but whether the blow-by-blow tactics used during the fighting were accurately described.
The former is more likely to be transmitted than the latter.
Again, the example of how Europeans remembered Roman events hundreds of years later is instructive. They had of course written accounts to go by (which the dark ages Greeks did not), but nonetheless there was a definite tendency, prior to the rise of historical scholarship, to see Romans as basically fighting like contemporary europeans fought. Hell, European accounts of Biblical battles were often similar.
The problem here is that ancient Mycenae was a very different culture and had different social and political organization than dark ages Greece. The chances that the Mycenaens were (1) able to conduct large-scale siege operations hundreds of miles from their homelands and yet (2) fought battles as basically individual duels of champions (which was more a 'barbaric' or rather 'low level of social and political organization' trait) is, on its face, somewhat unlikely.
It is sort of as if an Irish Bard of the 8th centurty wrote a poem in which Julius Caesar beat up Pompey Magnus in hand-to-hand fighting during a massive cattle raid into Greece.
Quote from: Razgovory on April 09, 2012, 09:59:34 PM
Have your read about the work that Milman Parry did with Serbian oral poets?
To argue the other side, Raz...have you read the studies done on oral poets in Central Africa or the Northwest Coast? There, many thousands of details are passes with great accuracy about heritage, actions, and events. The point I am making is that one oral tradition might well be story influenced (with changing details) or detail oriented (with long lists using mnemonics) - they are for different purposes.
Do not hit on one or the other as all inclusive of "oral tradition" as that category is quite broad.
Quote from: Malthus on April 10, 2012, 08:23:13 AM
The issue here is not whether the large-scale events had some truth to them, but whether the blow-by-blow tactics used during the fighting were accurately described.
The former is more likely to be transmitted than the latter.
Again, the example of how Europeans remembered Roman events hundreds of years later is instructive. They had of course written accounts to go by (which the dark ages Greeks did not), but nonetheless there was a definite tendency, prior to the rise of historical scholarship, to see Romans as basically fighting like contemporary europeans fought. Hell, European accounts of Biblical battles were often similar.
The problem here is that ancient Mycenae was a very different culture and had different social and political organization than dark ages Greece. The chances that the Mycenaens were (1) able to conduct large-scale siege operations hundreds of miles from their homelands and yet (2) fought battles as basically individual duels of champions (which was more a 'barbaric' or rather 'low level of social and political organization' trait) is, on its face, somewhat unlikely.
It is sort of as if an Irish Bard of the 8th centurty wrote a poem in which Julius Caesar beat up Pompey Magnus in hand-to-hand fighting during a massive cattle raid into Greece.
I think the question of whether any of it transmitted accurately or it's possible to tell that any one part is accurate over another.
Quote from: PDH on April 10, 2012, 08:38:57 AM
Quote from: Razgovory on April 09, 2012, 09:59:34 PM
Have your read about the work that Milman Parry did with Serbian oral poets?
To argue the other side, Raz...have you read the studies done on oral poets in Central Africa or the Northwest Coast? There, many thousands of details are passes with great accuracy about heritage, actions, and events. The point I am making is that one oral tradition might well be story influenced (with changing details) or detail oriented (with long lists using mnemonics) - they are for different purposes.
Do not hit on one or the other as all inclusive of "oral tradition" as that category is quite broad.
No, who did these studies? It would seem to me very hard to prove the accuracy of oral tradition with out a corresponding written records. I should point out that Milman's work was explicitly European and was consistent with the way Homer is read. That narrows it down quite a bit.
Quote from: Razgovory on April 10, 2012, 09:04:11 AM
Quote from: PDH on April 10, 2012, 08:38:57 AM
Quote from: Razgovory on April 09, 2012, 09:59:34 PM
Have your read about the work that Milman Parry did with Serbian oral poets?
To argue the other side, Raz...have you read the studies done on oral poets in Central Africa or the Northwest Coast? There, many thousands of details are passes with great accuracy about heritage, actions, and events. The point I am making is that one oral tradition might well be story influenced (with changing details) or detail oriented (with long lists using mnemonics) - they are for different purposes.
Do not hit on one or the other as all inclusive of "oral tradition" as that category is quite broad.
No, who did these studies? It would seem to me very hard to prove the accuracy of oral tradition with out a corresponding written records. I should point out that Milman's work was explicitly European and was consistent with the way Homer is read. That narrows it down quite a bit.
I would have to dig through old resources to find this. My point was that oral traditions covers quite a bit of room. I would be leery of drawing too close of parallels.
Quote from: PDH on April 10, 2012, 08:38:57 AM
Quote from: Razgovory on April 09, 2012, 09:59:34 PM
Have your read about the work that Milman Parry did with Serbian oral poets?
To argue the other side, Raz...have you read the studies done on oral poets in Central Africa or the Northwest Coast? There, many thousands of details are passes with great accuracy about heritage, actions, and events. The point I am making is that one oral tradition might well be story influenced (with changing details) or detail oriented (with long lists using mnemonics) - they are for different purposes.
Do not hit on one or the other as all inclusive of "oral tradition" as that category is quite broad.
I think my point would be that oral tradition can be quite accurate - about events and issues that are readily comprehensible to the persons transmitting them. In times of great social and cultural change, as in the fall of a "dark age", the oral tradition may not be a very reliable guide. For example, one would not want to rely too uncritically on (say) oral accounts of the fall of the Roman Empire in Britain - the stories of King Arthur, while they may have some germs of accuracy, tell you more about the people making the stories than they do about the fading Roman presence in Britian.
The problem is that it is very difficult for people at one level of social and political organization to really understand the actions and motivations of people at another. Hence, stories about people at another level get recast into a form more comprehensible to those making the stories. The
names and events may be the same, but the
stories - the guts of the stuff that people find interesting - are quite different.
The Iliad is a perfect example of this. The conflict over Troy would make perfect sense to a great power on the rampage - control over the trade through the hellespont has happened again and again in history. But that's not what the Iliad is about. If you read it, the setting of the Iliad is a story about revenge, a retaliatory raid conducted because of a woman-stealing and breach of the duties of hospitality. The specifics of the story - how it opens - is that Achillies, the most prominent individual hero on the side of the Greeks, is sulking in his tent and refusing to fight because his overlord has taken away a slave-woman - a bit of booty he was particularly fond of.
This story makes prefect sense in the setting of a small-scale society in which raiding is a way of life. It does not make sense in the setting of major empires battling over long distance for control of trade-routes.
Similarly with the fighting. The bulk of the Iliad is an account of hand-to-hand battles between individual warriors, which follows a somewhat stereotypical pattern:
(1) The warriors recite their lineage and accomplishments;
(2) They work themselves up into a frenzy, taunting each other;
(3) They battle it out, mano-a-mano; and
(4) The winner strips the loser of his arms and either honours the fallen or dishonours the corpse (as Achilles does to Hector).
This "heroic" mode of warfare is worlds away from masses of light cavalry (or chariots) raining anonymous death from composite bows. The whole point of "Homeric" war is that the heroes show their individual mettle, and thus their worth, before everyone in hand-to-hand combat.
Quote from: Razgovory on April 09, 2012, 09:59:34 PM
Have your read about the work that Milman Parry did with Serbian oral poets? They don't memorize a story but thousands or formalistic expressions that fit the meter. The poet has a general idea of the story he wants to tell and combines two or three of these expressions together to get the line. In this way the poem sort of writes itself and the poet can think about the next line before he finishes uttering the expression of the previous line. It's thought that Homer worked the same way. These expressions may be in the catalog of poets for hundreds of years. So an expression from several hundred years ago my be combined with one the poet made up himself or has only been in the poetic community for fifty years. The result is that the poems are very flexible, and change quite a bit. For instance a poem was told an incident in WWII (which wasn't very long ago when it was recorded), but didn't resemble much the actual incident. The poet filled it mostly with standard stock characters. This is probably how most pre-literate oral poetry was conceived. For example the Song of Roland which was composed in a much shorter period of time after the actual battle it lionizes and misidentifies one of the sides. Christian Basques are replaced by idol worshiping Muslims.
Since serbia is a literate society there is probably a lot less need for oral tradition to record anything accurately.
I'm generally aware that the studies done on first nation and inuit oral histories have shown quite a bit of accuracy.
The rural Yugoslavia when the study was done not very literate. I'm interested in how you would know Inuit oral history would be accurate.
Quote from: Malthus on April 10, 2012, 09:35:08 AM
I think my point would be that oral tradition can be quite accurate - about events and issues that are readily comprehensible to the persons transmitting them. In times of great social and cultural change, as in the fall of a "dark age", the oral tradition may not be a very reliable guide. For example, one would not want to rely too uncritically on (say) oral accounts of the fall of the Roman Empire in Britain - the stories of King Arthur, while they may have some germs of accuracy, tell you more about the people making the stories than they do about the fading Roman presence in Britian.
The problem is that it is very difficult for people at one level of social and political organization to really understand the actions and motivations of people at another. Hence, stories about people at another level get recast into a form more comprehensible to those making the stories. The names and events may be the same, but the stories - the guts of the stuff that people find interesting - are quite different.
The Iliad is a perfect example of this. The conflict over Troy would make perfect sense to a great power on the rampage - control over the trade through the hellespont has happened again and again in history. But that's not what the Iliad is about. If you read it, the setting of the Iliad is a story about revenge, a retaliatory raid conducted because of a woman-stealing and breach of the duties of hospitality. The specifics of the story - how it opens - is that Achillies, the most prominent individual hero on the side of the Greeks, is sulking in his tent and refusing to fight because his overlord has taken away a slave-woman - a bit of booty he was particularly fond of.
This story makes prefect sense in the setting of a small-scale society in which raiding is a way of life. It does not make sense in the setting of major empires battling over long distance for control of trade-routes.
Similarly with the fighting. The bulk of the Iliad is an account of hand-to-hand battles between individual warriors, which follows a somewhat stereotypical pattern:
(1) The warriors recite their lineage and accomplishments;
(2) They work themselves up into a frenzy, taunting each other;
(3) They battle it out, mano-a-mano; and
(4) The winner strips the loser of his arms and either honours the fallen or dishonours the corpse (as Achilles does to Hector).
This "heroic" mode of warfare is worlds away from masses of light cavalry (or chariots) raining anonymous death from composite bows. The whole point of "Homeric" war is that the heroes show their individual mettle, and thus their worth, before everyone in hand-to-hand combat.
The thing is, there is no way to know if the "big things" are even accurate. It's entirely possible that the story of Troy was an older story of a war in Greece that was transplanted to Western Anatolia to appeal to the "local market". Or perhaps it started as a story about a raid on the steppes of Eurasia. Or the city of Troy being sacked by someone else entirely or a mythical war of gods. There is no real way to tell. The Song of Roland is a good example since it gets the big things wrong. There was a Battle of Roncevaux but Muslims weren't even there.
Quote from: Malthus on April 10, 2012, 09:35:08 AM
The Iliad is a perfect example of this. The conflict over Troy would make perfect sense to a great power on the rampage - control over the trade through the hellespont has happened again and again in history. But that's not what the Iliad is about. If you read it, the setting of the Iliad is a story about revenge, a retaliatory raid conducted because of a woman-stealing and breach of the duties of hospitality.
This story makes prefect sense in the setting of a small-scale society in which raiding is a way of life. It does not make sense in the setting of major empires battling over long distance for control of trade-routes.
It's hardly unknown, though, for wars to be triggered by some "small" event, even if the real reasons for the conflict are long-term clashes of strategic interests.
Quote from: dps on April 10, 2012, 10:11:22 AM
Quote from: Malthus on April 10, 2012, 09:35:08 AM
The Iliad is a perfect example of this. The conflict over Troy would make perfect sense to a great power on the rampage - control over the trade through the hellespont has happened again and again in history. But that's not what the Iliad is about. If you read it, the setting of the Iliad is a story about revenge, a retaliatory raid conducted because of a woman-stealing and breach of the duties of hospitality.
This story makes prefect sense in the setting of a small-scale society in which raiding is a way of life. It does not make sense in the setting of major empires battling over long distance for control of trade-routes.
It's hardly unknown, though, for wars to be triggered by some "small" event, even if the real reasons for the conflict are long-term clashes of strategic interests.
Certainly. The disconnect comes in what the poet has chosen to emphasize.
One could imagine a war "started" over woman-stealing but having multiple underlying reasons, like WW1 "started" over an assasination.
However, in reading the poem, *all* that the poet appears concerned about is the "heroic" issues - the personal honour and glory of the participants, Achillies sulking in his tent, his rage at the death of Patroclius, etc.
These are all the sorts of stories that would appeal to (for want of a better expression) a "barbarian" audience. It is difficult to imagine the army of (say) the Hittites or Assyrians operating in this manner. It indicates levels of military subordination and cohesion that are much lower than that of a truly organized kingdom or empire.
The point here is not that the war did not happen, or that the Iliad does not refer to the war. Rather, the point is that,
even assuming the war against Troy happened and the Iliad is an account of it, the account we get of the war is viewed through the "lens" of a dark ages Greek audience.
This means that, although we can glean nuggets of truth from the account, we cannot take the actual actions of the participants in the Iliad - or their style of fighting - at face value.
Quote from: Razgovory on April 09, 2012, 09:37:39 PM
My guess is he's going on about the Triparte division theory. Worker, Priest, Warrior.
Humm, awesome idea.
Quote from: Malthus on April 10, 2012, 09:35:08 AM
I think my point would be that oral tradition can be quite accurate - about events and issues that are readily comprehensible to the persons transmitting them.
The scholars who argue the opposite side make the point that some of what is contained within the oral tradition was not readily comprehensible to the people who transmitted it and certainly not by the time of homer. For example, they argue that place names that no longer existed, archaic phrases and words that no longer had meaning not to mention the detailed fleet lists are all examples of the oral tradition faithfully transmitting facts down through the ages although they no longer had meaning (or at least were not readily understood - your word "comprehensible) in the age they were reduced to writing.
Quote from: Malthus on April 10, 2012, 10:32:47 AM
The point here is not that the war did not happen, or that the Iliad does not refer to the war. Rather, the point is that, even assuming the war against Troy happened and the Iliad is an account of it, the account we get of the war is viewed through the "lens" of a dark ages Greek audience.
More accurately the accuracy of the oral tradition is being attacked through the lens of someone who is unfamiliar with how accurate an oral tradition can be. ;)
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 10, 2012, 11:05:27 AM
Quote from: Malthus on April 10, 2012, 10:32:47 AM
The point here is not that the war did not happen, or that the Iliad does not refer to the war. Rather, the point is that, even assuming the war against Troy happened and the Iliad is an account of it, the account we get of the war is viewed through the "lens" of a dark ages Greek audience.
More accurately the accuracy of the oral tradition is being attacked through the lens of someone who is unfamiliar with how accurate an oral tradition can be. ;)
plus, you know, the crazy lense part. never underestimate the crazy.
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 10, 2012, 11:02:23 AM
Quote from: Malthus on April 10, 2012, 09:35:08 AM
I think my point would be that oral tradition can be quite accurate - about events and issues that are readily comprehensible to the persons transmitting them.
The scholars who argue the opposite side make the point that some of what is contained within the oral tradition was not readily comprehensible to the people who transmitted it and certainly not by the time of homer. For example, they argue that place names that no longer existed, archaic phrases and words that no longer had meaning not to mention the detailed fleet lists are all examples of the oral tradition faithfully transmitting facts down through the ages although they no longer had meaning (or at least were not readily understood - your word "comprehensible) in the age they were reduced to writing.
Reciting names and places does not affect the guts of the story, which has to do with the
action. Again, refer to such "histories" as those of King Arthur. For all we know, guys like Arthur and Vortigen may have been real Romano-British names, and Mount Badonicus a real place.
A Celtic Bard may well sing a ballad of how Julius Caeser defeated Pompey Magnus in hand-to-hand combat, and then stole all his cattle and returned to Rome, because Pompey insulted Caeser in a boasting competition during a feast ... but we don't have to believe that this is an accurate account of the motives and action in the Civil War just because the names are accurate, do we? ;)
Quote from: Malthus on April 10, 2012, 11:13:52 AM
Reciting names and places does not affect the guts of the story, which has to do with the action. Again, refer to such "histories" as those of King Arthur. For all we know, guys like Arthur and Vortigen may have been real Romano-British names, and Mount Badonicus a real place.
A Celtic Bard may well sing a ballad of how Julius Caeser defeated Pompey Magnus in hand-to-hand combat, and then stole all his cattle and returned to Rome, because Pompey insulted Caeser in a boasting competition during a feast ... but we don't have to believe that this is an accurate account of the motives and action in the Civil War just because the names are accurate, do we? ;)
You are ignoring the fact that the type of heavy bronze armour described by Homer has been confirmed through archeology. There is only one way a person could have been transported to the fight while wearing that kind of cumbersome weight - on the back of a chariot. This is not Homer or Homers making things up out of whole cloth to conform to their own age.
I wonder how accurate the oral tradition of "a man from nantucket" is? :unsure:
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 10, 2012, 11:38:52 AM
You are ignoring the fact that the type of heavy bronze armour described by Homer has been confirmed through archeology. There is only one way a person could have been transported to the fight while wearing that kind of cumbersome weight - on the back of a chariot. This is not Homer or Homers making things up out of whole cloth to conform to their own age.
Heh are you seriously contending infantrymen cannot have worn heavy bronze armour? :D
I'd love to see a source for this claim. As far as I know, later Greek infantry didn't have a problem wearing heavy bronze armour. Is the "archaic" armour so much heavier than later Greek bronze armour?
http://www.amazon.com/Archaiologia-Archaic-Armour-Archaeologica-Septentrionalia/dp/9529888031
QuoteThe subject of this book is Archaic Greek body armour with the primary aim to present the typological range appearing among the finds of bronze armour and representations in art. The author raises also the question concerning the identification of Archaic armour in the extant literary sources and sees signs for both bronze plate cuirasses and complete corslets being reflected in the Homeric Iliad. In the discussion of armour for limbs the author introduced a new method for dating arm guards, greaves, etc. on the basis of the perforation-holes round the edges. The secondary aim of this book is to discuss some questions 'beyond' the typology. This aspect raises from the relative rarity of the armour discussed in this book among the originals discovered at Olympia in comparison with the quantities of helmets and shields. It is suggested that the panoply of Archaic Greek soldiers was quit often not full, especially the use of the bronze cuirass being fairly limited, and the author maintains that there were different tactical and social reasons for this, e.g. that certain pieces of bronze armour were carriee by officers only. In this connection the author makes also an attempt to reconstruct the weight of the panoply, concluding that the burden of most soldiers was less than 20 kg, while some of their comrades carried only 12 to 13 kg. The weight also helps in reconstructing the costs of Archaic Greek panoply , regarding which the author finds support for the Aristotelian definition that the hoplites were rich.
Damn, I'm pretty sure *I* could walk around carrying 20kg, and I'm hardly a 20 year old Homeric warrior.
And check this out:
http://www.salimbeti.com/micenei/armour1.htm
Note the plentiful depictions in art of figures in armour on foot. The one example given of a chariot clearly shows a chariot *archer*. The description is as follows:
QuoteOn an Achaean-Cypriote seal from Cyprus dated XV-XIV century BC two warriors on chariot are represented. The one handling the bow seems to wear a defence with shoulder protections and belt. One shoulder protection is also identifiable on the chariot driver.
This is of course consistent with "chariot as mounted archery" theory, but not with "chariot as battle taxi" theory.
From the same site you quoted there appears to be a strong argument that warriors wearing Dendric armour were indeed moved to the field by chariot. This site appears to be attempting to rebut that widely held view.
QuoteSome 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.
They are arguing form their reconstructions but even they admit there is no evidence that the other view is necessarily wrong.
QuoteOn pottery the most clear representation of a warrior equipped with a "Dendra" style armour comes from a fragment from Mycenae dated LH IIIA or LH IIIB (1350-1300 BC). In this image an embossed or decorated cuirass with a large neck protection is recognizable. The four horizontal trips could be explain both as decorations or segmental plates (see bellow mentioned findings). The pottery is likely representing a fighting scene being a falling sword visible in front of the warrior. Unfortunately from this fragment it is not possible to identify whether the warrior is fighting on foot or from a chariot.Indeed this is a clear evidence that the "Dendra" style armour were used for active fights and not only by chariot's driver.
They also appear to be arguing a different point then the one you are making. They make the point that the warrior didnt fight from the Chariot exclusively but also fought on the ground, which is entirely consistent with the view that a warrior wearing Dendra style armour was taking to and from the battle by chariot which would significantly increase his mobility.
LOl, Malthus, you should have read the site more carefully before posting in defence of the position that the oral history was inaccurate in detail. You recall I said the description of the armour was confirmed by archealogy. The site based there reconstruction on the descriptions given by Homer....
QuoteIn the Iliad the Achaeans are described as wearing bronze(*1). Even if their armour is generically indicated as "Thorek" (*2) in some cases further details are given. Based on these elements an hypothetical recontruction of some of the defence described in the Iliad can be made.
The Iliad's hexameter analysis, and some elements and places described in it, have demonstrated how the poem had its origins in the Mycenaean time (*3) (see also the page dedicated to the Trojan war) thus for all the reconstructions on this page, archaeological elements coming from the Late Helladic period have been reasonably used
:P
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 10, 2012, 12:55:47 PM
From the same site you quoted there appears to be a strong argument that warriors wearing Dendric armour were indeed moved to the field by chariot. This site appears to be attempting to rebut that widely held view.
QuoteSome 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.
They are arguing form their reconstructions but even they admit there is no evidence that the other view is necessarily wrong.
QuoteOn pottery the most clear representation of a warrior equipped with a "Dendra" style armour comes from a fragment from Mycenae dated LH IIIA or LH IIIB (1350-1300 BC). In this image an embossed or decorated cuirass with a large neck protection is recognizable. The four horizontal trips could be explain both as decorations or segmental plates (see bellow mentioned findings). The pottery is likely representing a fighting scene being a falling sword visible in front of the warrior. Unfortunately from this fragment it is not possible to identify whether the warrior is fighting on foot or from a chariot.Indeed this is a clear evidence that the "Dendra" style armour were used for active fights and not only by chariot's driver.
They also appear to be arguing a different point then the one you are making. They make the point that the warrior didnt fight from the Chariot exclusively but also fought on the ground, which is entirely consistent with the view that a warrior wearing Dendra style armour was taking to and from the battle by chariot which would significantly increase his mobility.
I was rebutting the point you were making, which was that archaic armour was too heavy to use unless the warrior was transported about by chariot!
What the site is saying, is that you could use the armour *either* fighting in a chariot (which you say *wasn't* done), or on foot.
Here's another interesting and relevant source to consider:
http://books.google.ca/books/about/Early_Greek_Warfare.html?id=Bd9UD6GYTMcC&redir_esc=y
QuoteFirst published in 1973, this is a study of the literary and archaeological developments in the warfare of early Greece. Dr Greenhalgh considers in particular the military history of the chariot and mounted horse, both as they were represented in poetry and art and as they were used in reality from about 1100 to 500BC. He finds the picture superficially presented by the sources incoherent and often incredible, and attempts a reconstruction which does justice to both tactical and technical possibilities and to the social and economic facts of life in the period. He shoes how the Homeric poems, for example, can be systematically misleading - in part misconceiving the character of the Mycenaean age, and in part conflating with this misconception the conditions of their own time. This illustrated study will be of value to archaeologists, historians of warfare and Homeric specialists; its wider implications will interest social and political historians.
The main point is this: we *know* from inscriptions that Mycenaen kingdoms that Mycenaen kings spent large sums on the upkeep of specialist chariot forces (the Palace records disclose large stores of chariots). Simple logic would demonstrate that a sizable chariot force would be extremely expensive. We also know, beyond a doubt, that in cultures of which Mycenae would have been aware (the Hittites, Assyrians and Egyptians) specialized chariot forces were an effective and battle-winning arm, fought in a particular manner - to shower the enemy with missiles and then to skewer them with spears as they ran away.
Are we then to believe, based on a poet writing 400 years later, when chariots weren't used at all - a poet who had no concept of the basic organization of the Mycenaen state, demonstrated by numerous errors in the text (see the appendix to the above volume, part of which is available online) - that chariots were merely used as transport, never for fighting?
Lawyers arguing history. This can only end in tears...
Quote from: Jacob on April 10, 2012, 01:15:57 PM
Lawyers arguing history. This can only end in tears...
Agreed, we will never find a client willing to pay us for this.
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 10, 2012, 01:01:06 PM
LOl, Malthus, you should have read the site more carefully before posting in defence of the position that the oral history was inaccurate in detail. You recall I said the description of the armour was confirmed by archealogy. The site based there reconstruction on the descriptions given by Homer....
QuoteIn the Iliad the Achaeans are described as wearing bronze(*1). Even if their armour is generically indicated as "Thorek" (*2) in some cases further details are given. Based on these elements an hypothetical recontruction of some of the defence described in the Iliad can be made.
The Iliad's hexameter analysis, and some elements and places described in it, have demonstrated how the poem had its origins in the Mycenaean time (*3) (see also the page dedicated to the Trojan war) thus for all the reconstructions on this page, archaeological elements coming from the Late Helladic period have been reasonably used
:P
Except, as you well know, I was not citing it for that point, but to make nonsense of your claims about archaic armour. :D
I take it you are not still advancing that point?
There is nothing you posted on that site which rebuts the claim that chariots were not used to transport warriors in that heavy armour to the battlefield. Indeed, as already noting they were attempting to establish that such warriors fought both from chariots and on the ground. A point I readily concede as it is no way inconsistent with the notion of chariots being used to move warriors around the battlefield.
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 10, 2012, 01:21:31 PM
There is nothing you posted on that site which rebuts the claim that chariots were not used to transport warriors in that heavy armour to the battlefield. Indeed, as already noting they were attempting to establish that such warriors fought both from chariots and on the ground. A point I readily concede as it is no way inconsistent with the notion of chariots being used to move warriors around the battlefield.
Again, are you still advancing the point that battle transport was necessary because archaic armour was too heavy to use otherwise?
The fact that armour could have been used in a chariot *or* on the ground hardly proves your point.
I also direct your attention to the other source I have cited above, from Cambridge University Press: "Early Greek Warfare: Horsemen and Chariots in the Homeric and Archaic Ages". It has the benefit of being directly on point.
Quote from: Malthus on April 10, 2012, 01:27:53 PM
Again, are you still advancing the point that battle transport was necessary because archaic armour was too heavy to use otherwise?
I have advanced the position taken by, its seems, the bulk of scholars, that the Iliad got a lot of the details about the weapons, people, ships, armour etc. right. Given that he got the details correct there is little evidence that the description of warriors in full armour being transported to battle is incorrect.
The source that you rely on for the weight of the armour is a reconstruction and putting all the difficulties of someone attempting to accurately recreate armour from that period aside they do not claim that warriors were not transported by chariot - as you do. The claim they make is that they suspect that given the weight those warriors fought both on Chariots and on the ground.
You want to make the argument that chariots were not used for the purpose of moving warriors around but you have not cited any source consistent with that view.
Btw, I note you started arguing that the oral tradition only got the vague parts right - like there was a battle at some point. The site you gave my supports the alternative view that oral traditions also get the details right - after all they themselves informed their reconstructions on the details provided in the Iliad. I assume you have abandoned your first line of argument?
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 10, 2012, 02:31:52 PM
Quote from: Malthus on April 10, 2012, 01:27:53 PM
Again, are you still advancing the point that battle transport was necessary because archaic armour was too heavy to use otherwise?
I have advanced the position taken by, its seems, the bulk of scholars, that the Iliad got a lot of the details about the weapons, people, ships, armour etc. right. Given that he got the details correct there is little evidence that the description of warriors in full armour being transported to battle is incorrect.
The source that you rely on for the weight of the armour is a reconstruction and putting all the difficulties of someone attempting to accurately recreate armour from that period aside they do not claim that warriors were not transported by chariot - as you do. The claim they make is that they suspect that given the weight those warriors fought both on Chariots and on the ground.
You want to make the argument that chariots were not used for the purpose of moving warriors around but you have not cited any source consistent with that view.
Btw, I note you started arguing that the oral tradition only got the vague parts right - like there was a battle at some point. The site you gave my supports the alternative view that oral traditions also get the details right - after all they themselves informed their reconstructions on the details provided in the Iliad. I assume you have abandoned your first line of argument?
Well, first, for all your talk about "the bulk of the scholars", I'm the only one posting sources. And the source I have found most directly on point - entitled conveniently enough "Early Greek Warfare: Horsemen and Chariots in the Homeric and Archaic Ages" - makes pretty much the exact same argument I've been advancing.
The notion that archaic armour is too heavy to use on foot without chariot transport I assume you have abandoned, though you won't say as much. Again, I'll point to the sources - that state that
such armour weighs at most 20 kg. That says it all, I'd think.
The issue is how those ancient warriors actually fought with chariots. You claim I have not cited any source consistent with my view. Again, I refer to the scholarly source I have found and noted above - it is unequivocal: the account in the Iliad makes no sense, is not consistent with how chariots are used elsewhere at the same time, and derives from a source hundreds of years after the action. I dunno if you have missed it or something. If so, here's the link again:
http://books.google.ca/books/about/Early_Greek_Warfare.html?id=Bd9UD6GYTMcC&redir_esc=y
There are obviously bits of the Iliad which are not accurate accounts of the battle. Unless, of course, you secretly believe in the Greek gods. ;)
Yes Malthus, there is no evidence supporting the existence of Olympian Gods. You must be right about everything else too.
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 10, 2012, 02:47:56 PM
You must be right about everything else too.
Finally. :showoff:
Malthus, I don't think the era we are dealing with is the what we might call the "Classical Bronze Age." It's an era of stagnation, and ultimately of defeat at the hands of the Sea Peoples. Hittite authority has declined markedly in the West. Pyama-Radu ('Priam'), a dispossessed Hittite noble, took control over Troy and a good chunk of the west coast, a traditional area of Hittite influence. It's not the end, but you could see it from there. I would not be surprised if warfare was already changing substantially-compare it with the decline of the Cataphracts in the West as the Barbarians started moving in.
Quote from: Queequeg on April 10, 2012, 03:20:48 PM
Malthus, I don't think the era we are dealing with is the what we might call the "Classical Bronze Age." It's an era of stagnation, and ultimately of defeat at the hands of the Sea Peoples. Hittite authority has declined markedly in the West. Pyama-Radu ('Priam'), a dispossessed Hittite noble, took control over Troy and a good chunk of the west coast, a traditional area of Hittite influence. It's not the end, but you could see it from there. I would not be surprised if warfare was already changing substantially-compare it with the decline of the Cataphracts in the West as the Barbarians started moving in.
It would make more sense to abandon chariotry altogether in an era of decline, than to retain it en mass but completely change how this weapon system was used.
The problem here is that Bronze Age chariot forces were not cheap. They were the Bronze Age equivalent of fighter jets - the sort of weapon system that only major powers could really wield, due to their cost and complexity, particularly in large numbers.
When you examine what happened to chariots in Greece and other places, what you see is that as they cease to be a viable weapon, they are used in a purely ceremonial manner. You see the same thing again and again with weapons - think of maces and swords used in a symbolic manner long after people have stopped relying on them to actually crack skulls in battle. That is because of the association of the (now obsolete) weapon with power and authority.
It is easy to imagine some dark ages chief having himself weeled about in his chariot in full armor to parade his wealth and status. Indeed, later Greeks and Romans did just that. No Roman Triumph was complete without a Roman general wheeled in front in a chariot.
Poets, familiar with this "transport" use, could very easily have assumed that the chariot forces of the Hittites and Mycenaens did much the same, only in battle.
Are there specific references to mass usage?
Quote from: Queequeg on April 10, 2012, 05:44:17 PM
Are there specific references to mass usage?
I doubt it, there just werent that many warriors to carry around. :D
Regarding heavy armor, there are two things that make me believe its use on foot was unlikely. First, it is depicted as used with two-handed spears instead of shields. Second, while it is true that hoplites used bronze cuirasses, those were lighter and more comfortable than heavy mycenean armor. And even then, Classical Age warriors preferred linothorax: it is one thing to carry armor around, it is entirely another to do so in Greece during the summer, at 35º C.
On the accuracy of the transmission of the poem itself, an interesting thing I've read is that many verses mismatch due to phonological changes ocurred between the War and Homer's time. If the aim of the poet was to simply tell a story, it would be logical to alter said verses that don't fit the metric anymore, but they were still there centuries later.
Quote from: Queequeg on April 10, 2012, 05:44:17 PM
Are there specific references to mass usage?
There are no references whatsoever to their use in any form in Mycenae, for the simple reason that the Mycenaen written language - Linear B - was more a system of accounting and short bueraucratic reports than it was a "living" language.
There are specific references to mass *storage* and *upkeep* of chariots in the scattered bits of Mycenaen archives that have survived.
In fact, Linear B - which was partly phonetic and partly ideographic, with ideograms used only for the most common language itesms has no less than
four ideograms that refer specifically to chariots, or parts of chariots:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_B
Chariots
U+100CC 240 Sc BIG
biga WHEELED CHARIOT
U+100CD 241 Sd Se CUR
currus WHEEL-LESS CHARIOT
U+100CE 242 Sf Sg CAPS
capsus CHARIOT FRAME
U+100CF 243 Sa So ROTA
rota WHEEL
This alone indicates that the chariot was a significant weapon system for the Mycenaens (you don't create an extensive, specialist nomiculture for a weapon system you don't actuall use).
In fact, Linear B tablets from Mycenaean palaces record large inventories of chariots, sometimes with specific details as to how many chariots were assembled or not (i.e. stored in modular form). Again, while actual written evidence of use of chariots is lacking (again, Linear B was a writing system used mostly for accounting purposes), having an *inventory* of large numbers of chariots, with details as to their "readiness" for battle, surely indicates that they were a significant weapons system - and not, say, simply for ceremonial use.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chariot
And for more information, check out this source:
"The End of the Bronze Age:
Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe ca. 1200 B.C.
Robert Drews"
http://books.google.ca/books?id=bFpK6aXEWN8C&pg=PA113&lpg=PA113&dq=linear+b+chariot+inventory&source=bl&ots=YVl6hT287R&sig=LfPvxwaYU6oYve5yOAR5PGjjemQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=lYSFT63OLYnkggeuq7H6Ag&ved=0CEsQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=linear%20b%20chariot%20inventory&f=false
See p. 119:
"How, then, were war chariots used in Late Bronze Age kingdoms of the Eastern Mediterranian? The answer will be no surprise: as mounted platforms for archers".
His reasons? First, because the ubiquity of references to chariots in the Mycenaen archives makes nonsense of the notion that they were mere battle transport. Second, because what contemporary evidence exists of the use of the chariot among peoples with a more developed writing system demonstrates it was used this way, over a vast geographic arc stretching from Egypt to India.
I imagine there were more then four words describing the parts of military saddles and related horse furnishings in 1920's American military manuals despite being obsolete from a military perspective. Nor does large numbers of said equipment indicate that it was used in a certain way. The Saxons had lots of mounted warriors, they however they tended to fight dismounted. This was not uncommon in dark age Europe.
Quote from: Razgovory on April 11, 2012, 08:48:39 AM
I imagine there were more then four words describing the parts of military saddles and related horse furnishings in 1920's American military manuals despite being obsolete from a military perspective. Nor does large numbers of said equipment indicate that it was used in a certain way. The Saxons had lots of mounted warriors, they however they tended to fight dismounted. This was not uncommon in dark age Europe.
You are not getting the difference between "words" and "ideograms".
Think of it this way: it is as if English had special letters that only referred to tanks. There was A,B,C, D and "Tank".
Then assume that whole halls in the Pentagon were filled with records relating to these "Tanks".
Moreover, from contemporary Russia - whose records survived - we knew that "tanks" were used a certain way in battle.
Would it not then be reasonable to assume that "Tanks" were a significant weapons system, rather than (say) as ceremonial conveyances?
The example of the US military proves my point. I'm saying that Homer was reporting on chariots 400 years after they had, in fact, become obsolete. It is as if a modern-day person assumed that the only role "cavalry" played in battles in the past was in military parades, because that is how they are used *now*. Thus, in (say) Napoleonic battles, the cavalry was there only to take part in the expected victory parade. Absurd, no?
All of which is besides the point - as you can see from the sources above, the notion of chariots as "battle taxis" is one which scholars believed in the past, but which, with advances in archaology and decipherment of Linear B, has become more or less obsolete.
Makes sense. :thumbsup:
Quote from: Malthus on April 11, 2012, 08:31:33 AM
This alone indicates that the chariot was a significant weapon system for the Mycenaens (you don't create an extensive, specialist nomiculture for a weapon system you don't actuall use).
The evidence is suggestive, but not conclusive. The inventory could be consistent with the use of the chariot as a prestige commodity. The Mycenean shaft graves are suggestive of a relatively wealthy society, and probably a stratified one in which there was significant production of luxury and prestige goods for elite consumption that otherwise had limited practical utility. So it isn't inconceivable that they would have dedicated signficant resources to producing an item whose actual military usefulness was limited.
Quote"See p. 119:
"How, then, were war chariots used in Late Bronze Age kingdoms of the Eastern Mediterranian? The answer will be no surprise: as mounted platforms for archers".
His reasons? . . . . Second, because what contemporary evidence exists of the use of the chariot among peoples with a more developed writing system demonstrates it was used this way, over a vast geographic arc stretching from Egypt to India.
The evidence cited for this point is:
+ Egyptian reliefs of the Battle of Kadesh showing the Egyptian charioteers shooting arrows and Hittite charioteers using thrusting spears.
+ texts from the Kassite period in Babylonia that indicate that bows, arrows and swords were issued as standard equipment to charioteers.
+ Iconography showing archers in chariots from the Neo-Assyrian empire - i.e. well after the fall of Mycenae
+ Various New Kingdom Egyptian reports of captures bows and arrows from enemy chariots
+ Fittings on New Kingdom -era Egyptian chariots to carry arrows, quivers, etc.
The conclusion the author draws from this is eminently reasonable but not ironclad. Clearly Egyptian chariots of the New Kingdom period were set up to carry archers, and this may also have been true elsewhere in the Middle East. How exactly they were employed in battle cannot be established from the equipment. The "mobile archery platform" concept relies heavily on the Kadesh relief but that puts a lot of weight on assuming that ancient iconography is attempting to record accurately how the chariots were actually used, as opposed to some idealized representation. The Kadesh reliefs also pose a second problem: they show that the Hittites did NOT use the chariots as mobile archery platforms but as proto-lancers. Given the proximity of the Hittite empire to Mycenae, doesn't that raise the question of whether the Mycenaeans might have used the chariots in accordance with the Hittite pattern?
Quote from: Malthus on April 11, 2012, 09:34:35 AM
Quote from: Razgovory on April 11, 2012, 08:48:39 AM
I imagine there were more then four words describing the parts of military saddles and related horse furnishings in 1920's American military manuals despite being obsolete from a military perspective. Nor does large numbers of said equipment indicate that it was used in a certain way. The Saxons had lots of mounted warriors, they however they tended to fight dismounted. This was not uncommon in dark age Europe.
You are not getting the difference between "words" and "ideograms".
Think of it this way: it is as if English had special letters that only referred to tanks. There was A,B,C, D and "Tank".
Then assume that whole halls in the Pentagon were filled with records relating to these "Tanks".
Moreover, from contemporary Russia - whose records survived - we knew that "tanks" were used a certain way in battle.
Would it not then be reasonable to assume that "Tanks" were a significant weapons system, rather than (say) as ceremonial conveyances?
The example of the US military proves my point. I'm saying that Homer was reporting on chariots 400 years after they had, in fact, become obsolete. It is as if a modern-day person assumed that the only role "cavalry" played in battles in the past was in military parades, because that is how they are used *now*. Thus, in (say) Napoleonic battles, the cavalry was there only to take part in the expected victory parade. Absurd, no?
All of which is besides the point - as you can see from the sources above, the notion of chariots as "battle taxis" is one which scholars believed in the past, but which, with advances in archaology and decipherment of Linear B, has become more or less obsolete.
'
I know what an ideogram is. You are missing the point. What you posted are the components of a chariot. So imagine instead of seperate letters that correspond to the parts of a tank. You would have a lot of them. Just as you would have separate ideas for the different parts of a saddle (or any other manufactured good.) This is not indicative of their usefulness. In the 1920's the US still had horse cavalry despite being obsolete. Some people still envisioned a combat role for them. Horses continued to be used by the Soviets in a combat role up until the 1950's I believe. That doesn't mean that horse cavalry wasn't obsolete though.
I should point out that in your source the authors mention that their conclusions are somewhat unorthodox indicating that this theory isn't necessarily obsolete.
It's not unimaginable for someone to purchase or make military equipment for prestige rather then practical uses. Think of an African warlord who purchases outdated tanks. These tanks are no longer modern, and while he may use them in battle he doesn't use them the same way the US does. For the most part they are prestige pieces, symbolic of his importance.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 11, 2012, 10:15:07 AM
The evidence is suggestive, but not conclusive. The inventory could be consistent with the use of the chariot as a prestige commodity. The Mycenean shaft graves are suggestive of a relatively wealthy society, and probably a stratified one in which there was significant production of luxury and prestige goods for elite consumption that otherwise had limited practical utility. So it isn't inconceivable that they would have dedicated signficant resources to producing an item whose actual military usefulness was limited.
It is possible but highly unlikely. It is easy to imagine a ruler having a few "prestige" chariots for personal use, but it becomes less likely when, as alleged by the author cited, the *majority* of references to the armed forces of Mycenaen kingdoms refer to chariots, and the inventory lists chariots in large numbers.
Such indulgence in luxury over military practicality would appear to be self-defeating. Chariots are everywhere an expensive thing to upkeep, requiring grooms, horses, etc. Having lots of them would have been very expensive and the more logical explaination is that they were useful, rather than ornamental.
QuoteThe evidence cited for this point is:
+ Egyptian reliefs of the Battle of Kadesh showing the Egyptian charioteers shooting arrows and Hittite charioteers using thrusting spears.
+ texts from the Kassite period in Babylonia that indicate that bows, arrows and swords were issued as standard equipment to charioteers.
+ Iconography showing archers in chariots from the Neo-Assyrian empire - i.e. well after the fall of Mycenae
+ Various New Kingdom Egyptian reports of captures bows and arrows from enemy chariots
+ Fittings on New Kingdom -era Egyptian chariots to carry arrows, quivers, etc.
Do not forget as well the following:
+ Sanskrit writings clearly establish that Indian chariots were used as mobile archery platforms; and
+ It has recently been determined that in China as well, the chariot was used as a platform for archery.
This establishes a certain commonality of military use, strongly suggesting it was used similarly elsewhere wherte evidence lacks one way or the other.
Quote
The conclusion the author draws from this is eminently reasonable but not ironclad. Clearly Egyptian chariots of the New Kingdom period were set up to carry archers, and this may also have been true elsewhere in the Middle East. How exactly they were employed in battle cannot be established from the equipment. The "mobile archery platform" concept relies heavily on the Kadesh relief but that puts a lot of weight on assuming that ancient iconography is attempting to record accurately how the chariots were actually used, as opposed to some idealized representation. The Kadesh reliefs also pose a second problem: they show that the Hittites did NOT use the chariots as mobile archery platforms but as proto-lancers. Given the proximity of the Hittite empire to Mycenae, doesn't that raise the question of whether the Mycenaeans might have used the chariots in accordance with the Hittite pattern?
The author dismisses the idea that Hittites used chariots as proto-lancers based on the likely physical impossibility of using lances in this manner from a chariot, because the shock would toss the user out of the chariot. OTOH, he points out that, while using lances "at the charge" against each other is unlikely due to shock, they could well have been used to spear fleeing infantry - indeed, possibly as a secondary weapon system (use the bow to break up infantry formations, then spear them when they are fleeing). Jabbing spears into fleeing backs would not create as great a shock problem.
However this debate is decided, one thing is clear - in both cases, the chariot was used as a mobile weapons platform, not as a "taxi".
Quote from: Razgovory on April 11, 2012, 11:39:15 AM
I know what an ideogram is. You are missing the point. What you posted are the components of a chariot. So imagine instead of seperate letters that correspond to the parts of a tank. You would have a lot of them. Just as you would have separate ideas for the different parts of a saddle (or any other manufactured good.) This is not indicative of their usefulness. In the 1920's the US still had horse cavalry despite being obsolete. Some people still envisioned a combat role for them. Horses continued to be used by the Soviets in a combat role up until the 1950's I believe. That doesn't mean that horse cavalry wasn't obsolete though.
The issue is how the things were used when they were *not* obsolete.
Obviously, by the time Homer was writing, chariots were no longer actually used in battle much or at all.
QuoteI should point out that in your source the authors mention that their conclusions are somewhat unorthodox indicating that this theory isn't necessarily obsolete.
That's simply the author's way of saying 'people used to uncritically accept the Iliad'. Note that I've posted
two seperate scholarly works making the same point. It appears to be the modern 'trend'.
QuoteIt's not unimaginable for someone to purchase or make military equipment for prestige rather then practical uses. Think of an African warlord who purchases outdated tanks. These tanks are no longer modern, and while he may use them in battle he doesn't use them the same way the US does. For the most part they are prestige pieces, symbolic of his importance.
Again, I could accept a few chariots for prestige. It is much more difficult to accept whole armies of the things for prestige.
Quote from: Malthus on April 11, 2012, 12:01:08 PM
The author dismisses the idea that Hittites used chariots as proto-lancers based on the likely physical impossibility of using lances in this manner from a chariot, because the shock would toss the user out of the chariot. OTOH, he points out that, while using lances "at the charge" against each other is unlikely due to shock, they could well have been used to spear fleeing infantry - indeed, possibly as a secondary weapon system (use the bow to break up infantry formations, then spear them when they are fleeing). Jabbing spears into fleeing backs would not create as great a shock problem.
It has also been theorized that spears were used to keep infantry away from the chariot rather then using the spears agains other chariots. Chariots are bulky and hard to manuver. Not an ideal platform to attack other chariots or even infantry.
Quote from: Malthus on April 11, 2012, 12:15:13 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on April 11, 2012, 11:39:15 AM
I know what an ideogram is. You are missing the point. What you posted are the components of a chariot. So imagine instead of seperate letters that correspond to the parts of a tank. You would have a lot of them. Just as you would have separate ideas for the different parts of a saddle (or any other manufactured good.) This is not indicative of their usefulness. In the 1920's the US still had horse cavalry despite being obsolete. Some people still envisioned a combat role for them. Horses continued to be used by the Soviets in a combat role up until the 1950's I believe. That doesn't mean that horse cavalry wasn't obsolete though.
The issue is how the things were used when they were *not* obsolete.
Obviously, by the time Homer was writing, chariots were no longer actually used in battle much or at all.
QuoteI should point out that in your source the authors mention that their conclusions are somewhat unorthodox indicating that this theory isn't necessarily obsolete.
That's simply the author's way of saying 'people used to uncritically accept the Iliad'. Note that I've posted two seperate scholarly works making the same point. It appears to be the modern 'trend'.
QuoteIt's not unimaginable for someone to purchase or make military equipment for prestige rather then practical uses. Think of an African warlord who purchases outdated tanks. These tanks are no longer modern, and while he may use them in battle he doesn't use them the same way the US does. For the most part they are prestige pieces, symbolic of his importance.
Again, I could accept a few chariots for prestige. It is much more difficult to accept whole armies of the things for prestige.
Europeans had whole regiments of horsey soldiers through out the 19th century and into the early 20th. These guys were armed with swords and lances. Hell, some had
armor. This was long obsolete. Just because a military doctrine or bit of equipment is in widespread use doesn't mean it's very good. I think I pointed out before that many Saxon warrior (and early Caroigian warriors) rode horses to battle, but actually fought on foot. These are both major military expenditures, but of limited value. They are for the most part prestige. They do have some practical use of course, just as warrior riding a chariot.
Quote from: HVC on April 11, 2012, 12:25:21 PM
Quote from: Malthus on April 11, 2012, 12:01:08 PM
The author dismisses the idea that Hittites used chariots as proto-lancers based on the likely physical impossibility of using lances in this manner from a chariot, because the shock would toss the user out of the chariot. OTOH, he points out that, while using lances "at the charge" against each other is unlikely due to shock, they could well have been used to spear fleeing infantry - indeed, possibly as a secondary weapon system (use the bow to break up infantry formations, then spear them when they are fleeing). Jabbing spears into fleeing backs would not create as great a shock problem.
It has also been theorized that spears were used to keep infantry away from the chariot rather then using the spears agains other chariots. Chariots are bulky and hard to manuver. Not an ideal platform to attack other chariots or even infantry.
I wonder if infantry would break up before the chariots actually hit. Like they did with cavalry or other infantry charges.
Quote from: HVC on April 11, 2012, 12:25:21 PM
Quote from: Malthus on April 11, 2012, 12:01:08 PM
The author dismisses the idea that Hittites used chariots as proto-lancers based on the likely physical impossibility of using lances in this manner from a chariot, because the shock would toss the user out of the chariot. OTOH, he points out that, while using lances "at the charge" against each other is unlikely due to shock, they could well have been used to spear fleeing infantry - indeed, possibly as a secondary weapon system (use the bow to break up infantry formations, then spear them when they are fleeing). Jabbing spears into fleeing backs would not create as great a shock problem.
It has also been theorized that spears were used to keep infantry away from the chariot rather then using the spears agains other chariots. Chariots are bulky and hard to manuver. Not an ideal platform to attack other chariots or even infantry.
But ideal for transporting warriors in heavy armour.
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 11, 2012, 12:42:44 PM
Quote from: HVC on April 11, 2012, 12:25:21 PM
Quote from: Malthus on April 11, 2012, 12:01:08 PM
The author dismisses the idea that Hittites used chariots as proto-lancers based on the likely physical impossibility of using lances in this manner from a chariot, because the shock would toss the user out of the chariot. OTOH, he points out that, while using lances "at the charge" against each other is unlikely due to shock, they could well have been used to spear fleeing infantry - indeed, possibly as a secondary weapon system (use the bow to break up infantry formations, then spear them when they are fleeing). Jabbing spears into fleeing backs would not create as great a shock problem.
It has also been theorized that spears were used to keep infantry away from the chariot rather then using the spears agains other chariots. Chariots are bulky and hard to manuver. Not an ideal platform to attack other chariots or even infantry.
But ideal for transporting warriors in heavy armour.
ideal yes, but if you're transporting you're by definition behind the lines. why have spears and bows at all?
Quote from: HVC on April 11, 2012, 01:07:20 PM
Quote from: crazy canuck on April 11, 2012, 12:42:44 PM
Quote from: HVC on April 11, 2012, 12:25:21 PM
Quote from: Malthus on April 11, 2012, 12:01:08 PM
The author dismisses the idea that Hittites used chariots as proto-lancers based on the likely physical impossibility of using lances in this manner from a chariot, because the shock would toss the user out of the chariot. OTOH, he points out that, while using lances "at the charge" against each other is unlikely due to shock, they could well have been used to spear fleeing infantry - indeed, possibly as a secondary weapon system (use the bow to break up infantry formations, then spear them when they are fleeing). Jabbing spears into fleeing backs would not create as great a shock problem.
It has also been theorized that spears were used to keep infantry away from the chariot rather then using the spears agains other chariots. Chariots are bulky and hard to manuver. Not an ideal platform to attack other chariots or even infantry.
But ideal for transporting warriors in heavy armour.
deal yes, but if you're transporting you're by definition behind the lines. why have spears and bows at all?
Because you are droping off and picking up near the fighting. There is no point if all you are doing is droping off behind the lines.
but you'd still be at the back of the lines. Or at least i'd assume. The bad maneuverability i mentioned would make it cumbersome to move through your own lines to drop off guys at the front, and then go back through the lines once more. Not saying it was never done, but to my eyes it seems odd. You'd also need basically one chariot for each warrior. That can tie into malthus' numbers, but for such a large investment it'd make more sense to have chariots as an active part of battle and have the heavy armor soldiers (who did not make up the bulk of the army) suit up near the battle site and keeping the lightly armored skirmishes nearby to keep attackers at bay while the heavy guys prepare.
Quote from: PDH on April 10, 2012, 09:16:51 AM
Quote from: Razgovory on April 10, 2012, 09:04:11 AM
Quote from: PDH on April 10, 2012, 08:38:57 AM
Quote from: Razgovory on April 09, 2012, 09:59:34 PM
Have your read about the work that Milman Parry did with Serbian oral poets?
To argue the other side, Raz...have you read the studies done on oral poets in Central Africa or the Northwest Coast? There, many thousands of details are passes with great accuracy about heritage, actions, and events. The point I am making is that one oral tradition might well be story influenced (with changing details) or detail oriented (with long lists using mnemonics) - they are for different purposes.
Do not hit on one or the other as all inclusive of "oral tradition" as that category is quite broad.
No, who did these studies? It would seem to me very hard to prove the accuracy of oral tradition with out a corresponding written records. I should point out that Milman's work was explicitly European and was consistent with the way Homer is read. That narrows it down quite a bit.
I would have to dig through old resources to find this. My point was that oral traditions covers quite a bit of room. I would be leery of drawing too close of parallels.
Heard that too.
Iirc several of these tribes had non-oral mnemotechnic tools though. I remember a number of tribes having what looked like a board with knobs on, which represented stuff depending on their position, number, colour(? stupib black-white pictures).
that said: it's not because certain african oral traditions are very accurate that those from Homeros' time were. Or maybe they were when they were dealing with lineages and all that but far less so when reciting poems.
Quote from: Razgovory on April 11, 2012, 12:38:35 PM
Europeans had whole regiments of horsey soldiers through out the 19th century and into the early 20th. These guys were armed with swords and lances. Hell, some had armor. This was long obsolete. Just because a military doctrine or bit of equipment is in widespread use doesn't mean it's very good. I think I pointed out before that many Saxon warrior (and early Caroigian warriors) rode horses to battle, but actually fought on foot. These are both major military expenditures, but of limited value. They are for the most part prestige. They do have some practical use of course, just as warrior riding a chariot.
Again, what you have there is an example of the military clinging to a weapon system after its time has past. That isn't what is being argued about here. What is being argued about here is how a weapon system was used when it was
current.
Certainly, Euro armies had whole regiments of useless cavalry eventually. But cavalry was not always useless, right? There was a time when it fought exactly as advertised. Euros would not have *adopted* cavalry in the first place if it was *never* useful.
Quote from: HVC on April 11, 2012, 01:25:32 PM
but you'd still be at the back of the lines. Or at least i'd assume. The bad maneuverability i mentioned would make it cumbersome to move through your own lines to drop off guys at the front, and then go back through the lines once more. Not saying it was never done, but to my eyes it seems odd. You'd also need basically one chariot for each warrior. That can tie into malthus' numbers, but for such a large investment it'd make more sense to have chariots as an active part of battle and have the heavy armor soldiers (who did not make up the bulk of the army) suit up near the battle site and keeping the lightly armored skirmishes nearby to keep attackers at bay while the heavy guys prepare.
That goes back to the question of how many chariots we are talking about. Were they numerous as Malthus suggests or were they more of a specialty item. If it is the former then Malthus is probably correct that they were used in a number ways. Mind you that still does not rule out the possibility that the Iliad was correct that some high status warriors used them to be transported directly to the front of the fighting and then picked up when they grew tired.
Quote from: Malthus on April 11, 2012, 12:01:08 PM
It is easy to imagine a ruler having a few "prestige" chariots for personal use, but it becomes less likely when, as alleged by the author cited, the *majority* of references to the armed forces of Mycenaen kingdoms refer to chariots
Yeah that's the argument set forth in another chapter. I do have the book so at some point I can look and see what the basis for that claim is.
QuoteDo not forget as well the following:
+ Sanskrit writings clearly establish that Indian chariots were used as mobile archery platforms; and
+ It has recently been determined that in China as well, the chariot was used as a platform for archery.
I saw that but didn't give it much weight because: (a) the Sanskrit reference is unsupported by a footnote, (b) it isn't clear from the notes what the evidence backing the China claim is, and (c) it's not so convincing to rely on evidence from such distant cultural spheres in any case.
QuoteThe author dismisses the idea that Hittites used chariots as proto-lancers based on the likely physical impossibility of using lances in this manner from a chariot, because the shock would toss the user out of the chariot.
OK he would probably know better than me. But that raises a serious problem because it would then mean the Kadesh frescoes are displaying Hittite use of the chariots in a grossly inaccurate manner, which then raises legitimate question about their accuracy with respect to the representations of how the Egyptian chariots are used. And if those frescoes are not entirely reliable sources, that leaves the anachronistic neo-Assyrian iconography, and the equipment lists.
The frescos can be explained, I think, by looking at the prospective of the average Egyptian. They'd know how their chariots are used, but would only see enemy chariots up close when the main battle is over and the the Assyrians are sweeping up straglers with spears.
Or more then likely I'm talking out of my ass :lol:
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 11, 2012, 03:57:51 PM
I saw that but didn't give it much weight because: (a) the Sanskrit reference is unsupported by a footnote, (b) it isn't clear from the notes what the evidence backing the China claim is, and (c) it's not so convincing to rely on evidence from such distant cultural spheres in any case.
As to the last point, I don't see why not: there is a theory extant that chariot-borne archery originated somewhere on the steppe borderlands and then radiated outwards in all directions, ending up in europe, china and india (I believe Keegan references this in his
History of Warfare). If so, if it had a common origin, one would expect a common method of use, and evidence from India and China would be relevant.
QuoteOK he would probably know better than me. But that raises a serious problem because it would then mean the Kadesh frescoes are displaying Hittite use of the chariots in a grossly inaccurate manner, which then raises legitimate question about their accuracy with respect to the representations of how the Egyptian chariots are used. And if those frescoes are not entirely reliable sources, that leaves the anachronistic neo-Assyrian iconography, and the equipment lists.
Not necessarily. One could, as stated, use spears to skewer infantry, rather than in chariot-to-chariot battles.
In addition, the Hittites appear in Egyptian and Anatolian art to be chariot archers, as well. See for example this fresco:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ramses_IIs_seger_%C3%B6ver_Chetafolket_och_stormningen_av_Dapur,_Nordisk_familjebok.png
As can be seen, the Pharoh is shown in typical pose, and the guys being filled with arrows (the Hittite enemy) are
also chariot-archers. There is a good example right in front of the pharoh's horses' feet.
This image from the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations appears to show Hittite Charioteers as archers:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/becklectic/84984812/
another:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fotogezi/3124102819/?q=hittite charioteers
more:
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.ancientanatolia.com/Pictures/Images01/PICT0039.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.ancientanatolia.com/Pictures/Gallery01/image37.htm&usg=__c6kihW7B6dn7vj-xzB2pdoWFjxk=&h=480&w=640&sz=48&hl=en&start=13&sig2=_GmxC_CLdNolxvTFkAfrQg&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=tM30eR91FEVKhM:&tbnh=103&tbnw=137&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dhittite%2Bchariot%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Den%26tbs%3Disch:1&ei=jAD4S9znCYLaMeHUpZwF
Now admittedly I do not know the dates of some of these, but the first one is an Egyptian fresco depicting the siege of Dapur and is thus contemporary with the battle of Kadesh.
I am not seeing any lack of evidence that these peoples used chariots as archery platforms ...
I don't think those are frescos. :nerd: More like reliefs.
Quote from: Razgovory on April 11, 2012, 05:23:34 PM
I don't think those are frescos. :nerd: More like reliefs.
The first one is a fresco ...
Quote from: Malthus on April 11, 2012, 05:03:51 PM
As to the last point, I don't see why not: there is a theory extant that chariot-borne archery originated somewhere on the steppe borderlands and then radiated outwards in all directions, ending up in europe, china and india (I believe Keegan references this in his History of Warfare). If so, if it had a common origin, one would expect a common method of use, and evidence from India and China would be relevant.
That is using the existence of a theory as evidence of a fact to support another theory. There are a lot of contestable presuppositions that have to made, including that chariot use in warfare originated and had a common origin in the steppes, that the steppe peoples used chariots primarily as mobile archery platforms, and that as chariot use spread to completely different cultures and geographies, the method of use stayed substantially the same.
The last two assumptions are particularly problematic. There is very little tangible evidence about how the ancient proto-Indo European steppe peoples used chariots in warfare, and IIRC from the book Queequeg cited (which I read) the theory was that they actually did use them more like "battle taxis" to carry out lightning raids by carrying raiders to the target site. Assumption 3 also is not very convincing as technology can be employed in very different ways in different milieus.
QuoteNot necessarily. One could, as stated, use spears to skewer infantry, rather than in chariot-to-chariot battles.
Still wouldn't be archery platforms.
QuoteNow admittedly I do not know the dates of some of these, but the first one is an Egyptian fresco depicting the siege of Dapur and is thus contemporary with the battle of Kadesh.
I am not seeing any lack of evidence that these peoples used chariots as archery platforms ...
In the Dapur one - there does appear to be at least one enemy chariot with a bow in there; whether that is supposed to represent Hittites or some subject or allied state I don't know. There are another two turned over enemy chariots and I don't see the bows. They do have containers which could be quivers, or alternatively a place to put extra spears.
I can do the image search as well and see many of the hits do show "Hittite" archers on chariots but some do not.
The bigger issue is how reliable is that even where contemporary, how reliable is the iconographic representation in terms of representing actual use in battle? It's not unreasonable to make that inference, but IMO there is really no way to be sure.
Quote from: Malthus on April 11, 2012, 05:26:51 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on April 11, 2012, 05:23:34 PM
I don't think those are frescos. :nerd: More like reliefs.
The first one is a fresco ...
You sure about that? I think it's a reconstruction of a damaged relief.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ramesseum_siege_of_Dapur.jpg
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 11, 2012, 05:28:37 PM
That is using the existence of a theory as evidence of a fact to support another theory. There are a lot of contestable presuppositions that have to made, including that chariot use in warfare originated and had a common origin in the steppes, that the steppe peoples used chariots primarily as mobile archery platforms, and that as chariot use spread to completely different cultures and geographies, the method of use stayed substantially the same.
No, it is merely noting that a set of
facts (common usage over a very wide geographic area) supports two theories (1: common origin; 2: that in areas where direct evidence is not available, similar useage is a reasonable supposition).
QuoteThe last two assumptions are particularly problematic. There is very little tangible evidence about how the ancient proto-Indo European steppe peoples used chariots in warfare, and IIRC from the book Queequeg cited (which I read) the theory was that they actually did use them more like "battle taxis" to carry out lightning raids by carrying raiders to the target site. Assumption 3 also is not very convincing as technology can be employed in very different ways in different milieus.
Technology could, but in this case there is lots of evidence it was not - namely, depictions in art from widely seperated times and places.
Quote
Still wouldn't be archery platforms.
They could be - the two weapons are not exclusive. Moreover, the debate is about use as "battle taxis" versus use as weapons in and of themselves.
Quote
In the Dapur one - there does appear to be at least one enemy chariot with a bow in there; whether that is supposed to represent Hittites or some subject or allied state I don't know. There are another two turned over enemy chariots and I don't see the bows. They do have containers which could be quivers, or alternatively a place to put extra spears.
I can do the image search as well and see many of the hits do show "Hittite" archers on chariots but some do not.
The bigger issue is how reliable is that even where contemporary, how reliable is the iconographic representation in terms of representing actual use in battle? It's not unreasonable to make that inference, but IMO there is really no way to be sure.
It is a question of the accumulation of evidence. What we have is
multiple depictions of the use of chariotry as archery platforms from
various places (earlier in the thread I posted some that were contemporary with Mycenae - though Cretian) - from Anatolian *as well* as Egyptian sources.
What makes more sense - that the chariot was used as an archery platform, or that *all* of these various sources are mistaken? And why would they all depict chariot archery if it *didn't* happen?
At some point, the weight of the evidence tips the scales. Sure, one could imagine some scenario in which all of these multiple sources were mistaken, but with each additional source that becomes increasingly unlikely.
Yes, we cannot be absolutely certain, but we can be pretty sure. If one had to give odds, I'd put my money on it ...
Quote from: Razgovory on April 11, 2012, 05:46:46 PM
Quote from: Malthus on April 11, 2012, 05:26:51 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on April 11, 2012, 05:23:34 PM
I don't think those are frescos. :nerd: More like reliefs.
The first one is a fresco ...
You sure about that? I think it's a reconstruction of a damaged relief.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ramesseum_siege_of_Dapur.jpg
I have no idea. All the description says is "Ramesses II's victory over the Cheta people and the Siege of Dapur. Made after a mural in Ramesses II's temple in Tebes".
If Malthus can be wrong about frescoes, how can we trust him the chariots?
Quote from: Razgovory on April 11, 2012, 08:09:55 PM
If Malthus can be wrong about frescoes, how can we trust him the chariots?
"Malthus hasn't lost much cred; he lost all that he had, but he didn't lose much."
Quote from: Capetan Mihali on April 11, 2012, 10:02:54 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on April 11, 2012, 08:09:55 PM
If Malthus can be wrong about frescoes, how can we trust him the chariots?
"Malthus hasn't lost much cred; he lost all that he had, but he didn't lose much."
Grumbler has a new account? :huh:
:P
All I know, from my study of film, is that the British apparantly used burning horse-drawn wheeled vehicles as late as the early 20th century
Quote from: Malthus on April 11, 2012, 06:02:46 PM
No, it is merely noting that a set of facts (common usage over a very wide geographic area) supports two theories (1: common origin; 2: that in areas where direct evidence is not available, similar useage is a reasonable supposition).
Except that the only fact that is being used to support these theories is the presence of similar physical artifacts in different locations at different times. That is a very slender reed to support the weight of these theories. It's speculative.
QuoteThey could be - the two weapons are not exclusive. Moreover, the debate is about use as "battle taxis" versus use as weapons in and of themselves.
. . . It is a question of the accumulation of evidence. . . . At some point, the weight of the evidence tips the scales. Sure, one could imagine some scenario in which all of these multiple sources were mistaken, but with each additional source that becomes increasingly unlikely.
Yes, we cannot be absolutely certain, but we can be pretty sure. If one had to give odds, I'd put my money on it ...
Oh I agree with all that. Given the amount of evidence of issuance of archery equipment and the corroboration of the iconography, I would agree that mobile archery platform theory is -- at least for the time period we are talking about -- not only plausible, but the most convincing of the competing explanations. I am just inserting some caution about the strength of the conclusion. At the end of the day, we can't really know for sure, and the next major find could completely upend what we thought we knew.
Quote from: Razgovory on April 11, 2012, 08:09:55 PM
If Malthus can be wrong about frescoes, how can we trust him the chariots?
Let's ask Guller. He's the vehicle expert. ;) :D
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 12, 2012, 09:19:12 AM
Except that the only fact that is being used to support these theories is the presence of similar physical artifacts in different locations at different times. That is a very slender reed to support the weight of these theories. It's speculative.
Certainly, I haven't actually reviewed the Chinese evidence. Though there is more to it than that.
There is also the circumstantial evidece as to the military impact of various technologies. We know that the steppe later produced light cavalry of a similar pattern over some thousands of years, and we know that such light cavalry tactics - a mobile archery platform (in later ages, the horse alone) often proved very, very effective against more static armies.
Therefore, it is reasonably plausible, or plausibly reasonable, to project what we know backwards in time - to when people rode chariots rather than horses.
Naturally such projection alone isn't very convincing. But when added to that we have iconographic evidence, and physical evidence (what little that exists), and linguistic evidence (for example, of the spread of indo-european languages), a case can be made that the development of this military technology - mobile archery platforms in their first incarnation as chariots - had a big impact on the old world.
Quote
Oh I agree with all that. Given the amount of evidence of issuance of archery equipment and the corroboration of the iconography, I would agree that mobile archery platform theory is -- at least for the time period we are talking about -- not only plausible, but the most convincing of the competing explanations. I am just inserting some caution about the strength of the conclusion. At the end of the day, we can't really know for sure, and the next major find could completely upend what we thought we knew.
Fair enough. My own caution was that we can't take the Iliad at face value as a source on such specifics, where it is contradicted by the weight of *contemporary* evidence as to how these things were actually used.
The Iliad is an interesting study in the relevance of written and oral evidence - it has gone from being considered as solid history in antiquity, to being considered nothing more than mythology in the 19th century, to be considered more or less as history again following Schleman's (sp?) discovery of Troy and similar discoveries of Mycenaen import, to today - where I think a more nuanced view is emerging: it is a highly mythologized account referencing, but not necessarily literally, events happening in an actual existing civilization.
Sort of similar to certain bits of the OT, really, such as whether an actual "King David" existed. The twist is that the poets composing the Iliad existed at a
lower level of social organization than the people they were writing about, while the reverse was the case for those writing the OT - thus the actors in the Iliad appear more "barbaric" than their real-life counterparts probably were, while the actors in the OT appear *less* "barbaric" than they probably were - for example, the alleged civilized glories and splendors of Solomonic Israel.
Quote
Sort of similar to certain bits of the OT, really, such as whether an actual "King David" existed. The twist is that the poets composing the Iliad existed at a lower level of social organization than the people they were writing about, while the reverse was the case for those writing the OT - thus the actors in the Iliad appear more "barbaric" than their real-life counterparts probably were, while the actors in the OT appear *less* "barbaric" than they probably were - for example, the alleged civilized glories and splendors of Solomonic Israel.
So basically this. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DxvEAWKGq0)
I also think you are not necessarily being fair arguing that Dark Age Greece, particularly around the time of Homer, would be so much less civilized than the world of The Iliad. The alphabet was developing around this time, iron was being used a lot more, the chariot was being abandoned in favor of cavalry, Greece was increasingly integrated in to a revived Mediterranean civilization, etc...
Quote from: Queequeg on April 12, 2012, 11:42:43 AM
I also think you are not necessarily being fair arguing that Dark Age Greece, particularly around the time of Homer, would be so much less civilized than the world of The Iliad. The alphabet was developing around this time, iron was being used a lot more, the chariot was being abandoned in favor of cavalry, Greece was increasingly integrated in to a revived Mediterranean civilization, etc...
The level of material culture and trade activity does seem to haven been significantly reduced.
The "Dark Ages" metaphor seems appropriate here in that it is analagous to the later Dark Ages after the fall of the Western Empire. In both cases, a sophisticated literate, bureaucratic polity engaging in extensive long-range trade and accumulating luxury goods for a stratified elite collapses and is replaced by localized units with a more simplified political and economic structure. In both cases, technology - narrowly defined in terms of physical artifacts - does not really regress and in fact augments in some areas, but in the broader sense of the ability to apply technology through organization, human capital and accumulated technical "know how" there is significant regress. But I agree there is a tendency to admire the more sophisticated polities more than may be deserved. The Later Roman Empire and Late Mycenae may have had impressive bureaucracies, but life for most ordinary peasants was probably not very pleasant.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 12, 2012, 09:20:51 AM
Quote from: Razgovory on April 11, 2012, 08:09:55 PM
If Malthus can be wrong about frescoes, how can we trust him the chariots?
Let's ask Guller. He's the vehicle expert. ;) :D
Well, Malthus was a pottery guy once upon a time and what are frescoes but giant flat wall mounted pots?
Quote from: Queequeg on April 12, 2012, 11:42:43 AM
Quote
Sort of similar to certain bits of the OT, really, such as whether an actual "King David" existed. The twist is that the poets composing the Iliad existed at a lower level of social organization than the people they were writing about, while the reverse was the case for those writing the OT - thus the actors in the Iliad appear more "barbaric" than their real-life counterparts probably were, while the actors in the OT appear *less* "barbaric" than they probably were - for example, the alleged civilized glories and splendors of Solomonic Israel.
So basically this. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DxvEAWKGq0)
I also think you are not necessarily being fair arguing that Dark Age Greece, particularly around the time of Homer, would be so much less civilized than the world of The Iliad. The alphabet was developing around this time, iron was being used a lot more, the chariot was being abandoned in favor of cavalry, Greece was increasingly integrated in to a revived Mediterranean civilization, etc...
I'm using the term "barbaric" in scare quotes deliberately. Certainly, "dark ages" (more scare quotes) Greece had a lower level of social organization, of a type that later ages would describe as more "barbaric". I make no judgments on the relative
worth of highly organized, bureaucratic kingdoms versus perhaps more egalitarian chiefdomships/kingdoms.
The Greek 'dark ages' is remarkable for being one of the few occasions that I know of where an entire system of writing fell completely out of use, and was not replaced for centuries (and when it was, it was by another completely different type of writing).
In particular, for the purposes of this thread, organized, stratified societies tend on average to *fight* differently than more "barbarian", less stratified societies do - and this difference, I would contend, is fully displayed by the account of fighting in the Iliad.
I want a biga wheeled chariot.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 12, 2012, 12:17:45 PM
Quote from: Queequeg on April 12, 2012, 11:42:43 AM
I also think you are not necessarily being fair arguing that Dark Age Greece, particularly around the time of Homer, would be so much less civilized than the world of The Iliad. The alphabet was developing around this time, iron was being used a lot more, the chariot was being abandoned in favor of cavalry, Greece was increasingly integrated in to a revived Mediterranean civilization, etc...
The level of material culture and trade activity does seem to haven been significantly reduced.
The "Dark Ages" metaphor seems appropriate here in that it is analagous to the later Dark Ages after the fall of the Western Empire. In both cases, a sophisticated literate, bureaucratic polity engaging in extensive long-range trade and accumulating luxury goods for a stratified elite collapses and is replaced by localized units with a more simplified political and economic structure. In both cases, technology - narrowly defined in terms of physical artifacts - does not really regress and in fact augments in some areas, but in the broader sense of the ability to apply technology through organization, human capital and accumulated technical "know how" there is significant regress. But I agree there is a tendency to admire the more sophisticated polities more than may be deserved. The Later Roman Empire and Late Mycenae may have had impressive bureaucracies, but life for most ordinary peasants was probably not very pleasant.
I don't think either the Hittites or the Myceneans even represent civilization in the way we think of it. Almost all wealth and knowledge is concentrated around palaces or temples. The vast majority of the population lives a far more marginal existence than the 'primitive' farmers in less hierarchical societies. The written language was phenomenally difficult in part because mass literacy would have been dangerous. I think the "Dark Age" invention of the phonetic, vowel-inclusive Greek Alphabet was one of the great moments in all of civilization. It's a very innovative period in some respects, particularly as it progresses towards the early Classical period.
Otherwise agree.
Quote
The Greek 'dark ages' is remarkable for being one of the few occasions that I know of where an entire system of writing fell completely out of use, and was not replaced for centuries (and when it was, it was by another completely different type of writing).
Cuneiform would basically die out at some point during the Sassanids. Hieroglyphs.
Quote
In particular, for the purposes of this thread, organized, stratified societies tend on average to *fight* differently than more "barbarian", less stratified societies do - and this difference, I would contend, is fully displayed by the account of fighting in the Iliad.
Where do the Mongols fit in to this? The "sea peoples?" Just because the Chatti fought naked with clubs doesn't mean that all "barbarian" groups did.
Quote from: Queequeg on April 12, 2012, 02:00:00 PM
Cuneiform would basically die out at some point during the Sassanids. Hieroglyphs.
In both of those cases, there existed other writing systems which basically took over. There was no time-interval between the dying-out of Egyptian Hieroglyphs and the adoption of alphabetic writing - as the Rosetta Stone attests.
QuoteWhere do the Mongols fit in to this? The "sea peoples?" Just because the Chatti fought naked with clubs doesn't mean that all "barbarian" groups did.
It isn't a question of fighting "naked with clubs", but rather of fighting in a typically "heroic" manner - of which the Iliad gives such a notable example.
"Heroic" fighting retains elements of "primitive" (again, scare quotes indicates I'm not making a value judgment) - namely, fighting as a form of individual self-expression. The hero shouts his lineage, then selects an opponent of equal status and performs great feats of arms (or not), by which he displays his worth and character. This is a mark of a society with low levels of social organization - like the medieval knight, who is carrying the products of a material culture far in advance of (say) the Assyrians but whose noble ideals of fighting (however rarely they are practiced in actual fact) are closer to those of the Iliad, while the Assyrians are more "like us" in military terms.
In contrast, more highly organized societies tend to fight in a more cold-blooded manner, where winning is more important than individial self-expression. The Mongols are an example of this. For all their "barbarism" (here used as a value-judgment) the Mongols were a very highly organized society indeed - albeit one with a great structural weakness in terms of leadership (leading to its collapse). Mongol armies fought "to win" and cared little or nothing for 'heroic display' of the Iliad sort in fighting.
You see exactly the same development in Greece itself. Later Greek city-states did not fight like in the Iliad, but with phalanxes - organized formations in which "individual heroic effort" was not the point, but rather organized effort (hence part of the hilarity in watching the movie "300").
It is not mirth that grips him. Merely a heightened sense of things.
Quote from: Malthus on April 12, 2012, 03:11:49 PM
"Heroic" fighting retains elements of "primitive" (again, scare quotes indicates I'm not making a value judgment) - namely, fighting as a form of individual self-expression. The hero shouts his lineage, then selects an opponent of equal status and performs great feats of arms (or not), by which he displays his worth and character. This is a mark of a society with low levels of social organization - like the medieval knight, who is carrying the products of a material culture far in advance of (say) the Assyrians but whose noble ideals of fighting (however rarely they are practiced in actual fact) are closer to those of the Iliad, while the Assyrians are more "like us" in military terms.
That's how the chansons may have represented knightly combat, but I would question that they actually fought that way.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 12, 2012, 05:47:13 PM
Quote from: Malthus on April 12, 2012, 03:11:49 PM
"Heroic" fighting retains elements of "primitive" (again, scare quotes indicates I'm not making a value judgment) - namely, fighting as a form of individual self-expression. The hero shouts his lineage, then selects an opponent of equal status and performs great feats of arms (or not), by which he displays his worth and character. This is a mark of a society with low levels of social organization - like the medieval knight, who is carrying the products of a material culture far in advance of (say) the Assyrians but whose noble ideals of fighting (however rarely they are practiced in actual fact) are closer to those of the Iliad, while the Assyrians are more "like us" in military terms.
That's how the chansons may have represented knightly combat, but I would question that they actually fought that way.
Exactly. Hence, "however rarely they are practiced in actual fact" in my post.
Quote from: Queequeg on April 09, 2012, 08:43:47 PM
Quote from: alfred russel on April 09, 2012, 10:34:19 AM
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."
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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.
I wanted to respond earlier, but I didn't have the time (and still don't to do so properly). But I disagree, for many reasons. Just tossing a few out, language changes are much more complex than conquest. It doesn't make sense (to me at least) that the Indo European language range was conquered by a PIE speaking peoples into an empire spanning much of the PIE range, that then imposed its language. And if that didn't happen in a short period of time, then why would a PIE speaking people be able to expand so quickly militarily? If the chariot gave a major competitive advantage in wartime, then it would have been learned by the people the PIE speakers were conquering if they were spreading over generations.
Also, in the historical era language changes have not always followed conquest. For example, my understanding is that the Neo Assyrians, speaking Akkadian, conquered Aramaic speaking peoples, but ended up assuming their language after transporting them around the empire as captives/slaves. Maybe the PIE speakers were not great conquerers but easily enslaved (a much earlier version of "harvesting the steppe" which gave us the word "slave" from "slav").
What I love about this forum is that while it turns cruel and nasty about the most mundane topics, toss out a hardcore nerd concept and the forum becomes serious and informative.
Well noone knows why there was a language shift, but we are fairly certain certain it happened. It's more then just a few words were transmitted across the world. There is a similarity in the whole structure in language. Nobody is suggesting a unified empire conquering the world, but waves of immigrants and conquerors expanding. The very first Indo-European language to be recorded in writings is Hittite. They certainly fit the bill of guys riding around on chariots conquering stuff.
Quote from: Razgovory on April 14, 2012, 04:21:54 PM
Well noone knows why there was a language shift, but we are fairly certain certain it happened. It's more then just a few words were transmitted across the world. There is a similarity in the whole structure in language. Nobody is suggesting a unified empire conquering the world, but waves of immigrants and conquerors expanding. The very first Indo-European language to be recorded in writings is Hittite. They certainly fit the bill of guys riding around on chariots conquering stuff.
The Hittites were something like 2000 years after the indo european languages began to expand. I don't think you can derive anything from the behavior of them.
Quote from: alfred russel on April 14, 2012, 04:03:16 PM
If the chariot gave a major competitive advantage in wartime, then it would have been learned by the people the PIE speakers were conquering if they were spreading over generations.
I'm not sure this is true. Certain styles of warfare are not easily acquired - for example, the settled agricultural-based enemies of the Mongols rid not easily acquire Mongol-style light cavalry tactics, because those skills went along with the Mongol lifestyle.
Certainly settled peoples *can* adopt light cavalry, and the empires of Egypt, Hittites and Mycenaens *did* - but at great expense and bother.
Quote from: alfred russel on April 14, 2012, 04:31:43 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on April 14, 2012, 04:21:54 PM
Well noone knows why there was a language shift, but we are fairly certain certain it happened. It's more then just a few words were transmitted across the world. There is a similarity in the whole structure in language. Nobody is suggesting a unified empire conquering the world, but waves of immigrants and conquerors expanding. The very first Indo-European language to be recorded in writings is Hittite. They certainly fit the bill of guys riding around on chariots conquering stuff.
The Hittites were something like 2000 years after the indo european languages began to expand. I don't think you can derive anything from the behavior of them.
They may have been around longer without knowing how to write, I should point out that the language group was expanding before chariots and that they didn't expand all at once. This was a process that took several thousand years. It seems unlikely that these people were simply taken as slaves to places as far away as France to India and then manage to replace the language of their ruling classes and everyone else in the their society.
Quote from: alfred russel on April 14, 2012, 04:05:32 PM
What I love about this forum is that while it turns cruel and nasty about the most mundane topics, toss out a hardcore nerd concept and the forum becomes serious and informative.
Fuck you.
Quote from: Malthus on April 14, 2012, 05:42:46 PM
I'm not sure this is true. Certain styles of warfare are not easily acquired - for example, the settled agricultural-based enemies of the Mongols rid not easily acquire Mongol-style light cavalry tactics, because those skills went along with the Mongol lifestyle.
Certainly settled peoples *can* adopt light cavalry, and the empires of Egypt, Hittites and Mycenaens *did* - but at great expense and bother.
The Mongols are in some ways a case in point: they conquered an enormous territory very quickly, but today the range of Mongolian speakers is roughly Mongolia. They didn't have the manpower or the staying power to leave such an imprint. That contrasts with the Romans, or the Spanish in the new world. But those cultures stayed around in their conquered territories for centuries, and it is difficult to imagine a pre literate political entity surviving for such a time. The Native Americans of the plains are somewhat fascinating: they did not have horses before the Spanish arrived, but by the time europeans began significant encounters with them a couple of centuries later, horses and expert horsemanship were defining parts of their cultures. Cultures can adopt quickly.
I actually wouldn't disagree with you regarding horsemanship: probably there was a catalyst for much of eurasia speaking indo european languages, and that seems a reasonable one. I just am suspicious about the influence of chariots and wagons that spellus was talking about and the certainty of knowing anything during this time period. If all historical records were lost, someone might notice that indo european languages are the predominant language of North and South America, Australia, and Europe as well as much of Africa and Asia. Maybe this would then be attributed to highly effective amphibious chariots from 3000 BC.
Quote from: Razgovory on April 14, 2012, 08:39:22 PM
They may have been around longer without knowing how to write, I should point out that the language group was expanding before chariots and that they didn't expand all at once. This was a process that took several thousand years. It seems unlikely that these people were simply taken as slaves to places as far away as France to India and then manage to replace the language of their ruling classes and everyone else in the their society.
Raz, I wasn't making a serious proposal that is how the language spread.
Quote from: alfred russel on April 14, 2012, 10:50:21 PM
Quote from: Malthus on April 14, 2012, 05:42:46 PM
I'm not sure this is true. Certain styles of warfare are not easily acquired - for example, the settled agricultural-based enemies of the Mongols rid not easily acquire Mongol-style light cavalry tactics, because those skills went along with the Mongol lifestyle.
Certainly settled peoples *can* adopt light cavalry, and the empires of Egypt, Hittites and Mycenaens *did* - but at great expense and bother.
The Mongols are in some ways a case in point: they conquered an enormous territory very quickly, but today the range of Mongolian speakers is roughly Mongolia. They didn't have the manpower or the staying power to leave such an imprint. That contrasts with the Romans, or the Spanish in the new world. But those cultures stayed around in their conquered territories for centuries, and it is difficult to imagine a pre literate political entity surviving for such a time. The Native Americans of the plains are somewhat fascinating: they did not have horses before the Spanish arrived, but by the time europeans began significant encounters with them a couple of centuries later, horses and expert horsemanship were defining parts of their cultures. Cultures can adopt quickly.
I actually wouldn't disagree with you regarding horsemanship: probably there was a catalyst for much of eurasia speaking indo european languages, and that seems a reasonable one. I just am suspicious about the influence of chariots and wagons that spellus was talking about and the certainty of knowing anything during this time period. If all historical records were lost, someone might notice that indo european languages are the predominant language of North and South America, Australia, and Europe as well as much of Africa and Asia. Maybe this would then be attributed to highly effective amphibious chariots from 3000 BC.
The thing is, we have very good evidence that horses were domesticated in Caspian-Pontic steppes. In fact, we have evidence that this was probably the very first place where horses were domesticated. This is also where it is theorized that this hypothetical people also lived. We do know the PIE people had horses and horses would be a great ace in the hole for expansion. Can it be proven? No. But it's a good bet. It fits the evidence and gives us reason for the extraordinary spread of Indo-European peoples.
Nothing at this time can said for sure. In fact, a great deal can't be said for sure in much later periods. Even things that a written down are sometimes suspect. As I pointed out with the Battle of Kadesh, both sides claimed victory. Sometimes I think that people take ancient writings with out enough criticism. Take for example the Sea Peoples. Who the Sea People were is unknown. The Egyptians were somewhat vague and contradictory. They combined formulaic expressions to describe a new enemy. It's likely they misidentified some of them or just didn't know who some of them were. Ramesses III's boasts of defeating the Sea People is taken at face value despite the fact the Sea People didn't seem to have left. They stayed around and settled in Egypt. That doesn't sound like the cataclysmic defeat of a civilization destroying horde of barbarians. The Kings of Egypt had a bad habit of just making shit up. I imagine there are entire campaigns and wars that were simply omitted because the Pharaoh lost.
Quote from: alfred russel on April 14, 2012, 10:55:12 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on April 14, 2012, 08:39:22 PM
They may have been around longer without knowing how to write, I should point out that the language group was expanding before chariots and that they didn't expand all at once. This was a process that took several thousand years. It seems unlikely that these people were simply taken as slaves to places as far away as France to India and then manage to replace the language of their ruling classes and everyone else in the their society.
Raz, I wasn't making a serious proposal that is how the language spread.
Oh. Damn you and your lawyer trickery.
Quote from: Razgovory on April 14, 2012, 11:31:41 PM
The thing is, we have very good evidence that horses were domesticated in Caspian-Pontic steppes. In fact, we have evidence that this was probably the very first place where horses were domesticated. This is also where it is theorized that this hypothetical people also lived. We do know the PIE people had horses and horses would be a great ace in the hole for expansion. Can it be proven? No. But it's a good bet. It fits the evidence and gives us reason for the extraordinary spread of Indo-European peoples.
Peoples aren't the same as a language.
I would guess that there are a few factors taking place. First, the horse idea probably has merit and is a plausible catalyst for the language spreading over an initial large territory. Second, highly localized languages are more likely to be assimilated. For example, in the 19th century European communities with minor languages recognized them as a disadvantage and in cases actively worked to join other language groups. It isn't implausible that once PIE became spoken over a large area, the border regions were prone to assimilate on their own. Third, the cohesion of a large area speaking a common language could have been a catalyst for it to continue to expand aggresively over centuries. There are theories that in the low countries there were non Indo European speakers when the Romans arrived. If that is the case, 3 or so millenia after the initial expansion, the Indo European languages were still working their way across Europe. Fourth, the lack of documentation in the period means that our Indo European language tree may be overstated. For example, English is a germanic language, but is heavily influenced by the Romance languages. If we did not have evidence of germanic languages, and early forms of English were unattested, one could understand that it would be lumped in with the Romance languages.
As always on this sort of topic, I'm talking out of my ass.
Alfred, I think what you wrote above is actually a lot closer to what I was arguing in the first place. The chariot and wagon were crucially important in the expansion of the Indo-European peoples; but just as important was a "package" of customs, social configuration and other technologies. Some of these were adopted by people who were not linguistically assimilated-for instance, some of the Uralic and Altaic peoples began to resemble Indo-European peoples, and eventually replaced them across the entirety of their area of origin. Similarly, the Kassites, Urartians, certain Caucasian groups and other groups appear to have undergone large scale "Kurganization" without total language replacement. In other areas, there appears to have been very substantial admixture-Armenian displays an inordinate amount of influence form neighboring Caucasian languages, and there is a theory that the similarly divergent Germanic languages at some point mixed heavily with another language.
What I am talking about resembles expansion of a corporate franchise rather than Alexander the Great marching in to Tajikistan-David W. Anthony makes this exact comparison, actually.
Bands of Indo-Europeans would have a number of reasons to expand. There was a bride-price, making rape, abduction and conquest more attractive. A hardened warrior caste had developed, who wielded bronze or copper maces. A priest caste gave a reason for war-making; to convert others to the correct sacrifices to the various Gods. Just as important as the wagon or the chariot was the fact that these proto-Indo-Europeans had every reason to expand aggressively, and came with a cultural package that was, if anything, attractive,;Anthony makes the argument that the Priest case was responsible for some fairly advanced methods of story-telling, an attractive form of entertainment. Defeat the tribe, murder some of the men, then bring in the survivors with religion and ritualistic storytelling- a reasonable assimilation model. So, the PIE people would have motive (bride price), means (warrior caste, chariot, wagon) and opportunity (relatively peaceable agricultural peoples of Old Europe who had no idea what the shit hit them)-and the material, linguistic and genetic evidence back most of this up. We can't know the specific details, obviously, but we've been able to reasonably reconstruct a fair bit.
I also think that you likely are not as familiar with more contemporary migrations or linguistic expansions. The Mongol example actually backs me up-you should look at the expansion of Tatar and Chagatai (the language of most of the horde) across huge chunks of the Mongol Empire, and the adoption of Mongol terms of leadership by most of the post-Mongol sphere. And that was when the world was already densely populated-the Turks went from iron-working slave caste (supposedly) in the Altai mountain range (possibly) to (likely) Indo-European masters to ruling over the entirety of the Steppe in a century and a half, with a resutling massive wave of dozens of different Indo-European and non-Indo-European peoples going out of the steppe in exodus. This was one of the largest events of the Late Antique, and ultimately destroyed half a dozen Empires. I would also compare with the expansion of the Bantu peoples in Sub-Saharan Africa, or the modern expansion of the Pashtun in to historical Baluchi areas.
I think I should point out that Proto-Indo-European was probably not one language as it spread. It was likely a series of related languages. There were certainly non-Indo-European languages that existed in historical time (Basque still does). Etruscan was probably one and there is others across Europe.
I disagree with Psellus on emphasis on class and being propelled by sacrifices. I don't think there is much evidence of that. I also disagree with his concept of "Old Europe". I don't think there was a single "Old Europe". There was likely lots of different language groups with all their different customs. I also doubt that it could be said to be "relatively" peaceful.
QuoteI think I should point out that Proto-Indo-European was probably not one language as it spread. It was likely a series of related languages. There were certainly non-Indo-European languages that existed in historical time (Basque still does). Etruscan was probably one and there is others across Europe.
If I gave the impression I thought otherwise, it was my fault.
Quote
I disagree with Psellus on emphasis on class and being propelled by sacrifices. I don't think there is much evidence of that.
Kurgans? It's the most obvious sine of Indo-European penetration in to a region-they start burying clan leaders with bronze or copper maces and other indications that the deceased was primarily a warrior. The practice continued in to the historical period in many different areas. A lot of our evidence of the Indo-European religion similarly comes from Aryan sources, including the importance of horse sacrifice, a practice maintained by the nomadic Indo-European peoples until the Turkic migration.
Quote
I also disagree with his concept of "Old Europe". I don't think there was a single "Old Europe". There was likely lots of different language groups with all their different customs. I also doubt that it could be said to be "relatively" peaceful.
There is some linguistic evidence that there was a fairly widespread, shared culture across most of what would eventually become Celtic Europe, particularly from hydronyms. This is associated with the Beaker culture, who filled burial sites with beakers rather than bronze maces, chariots and horses as was typical of the later Tummulus (another word for Kurgan) culture. This period of transition is associated with the development of numerous hill forts and other types of fortified settlement. I think the evidence is reasonably strong that the Urnfield culture replaced a less martial culture.
Quote from: Queequeg on April 16, 2012, 01:26:51 PM
Kurgans? It's the most obvious sine of Indo-European penetration in to a region-they start burying clan leaders with bronze or copper maces and other indications that the deceased was primarily a warrior. The practice continued in to the historical period in many different areas. .
it is very, very dangerous to draw conclusions about culture from common burial practice.
QuoteThis is associated with the Beaker culture, who filled burial sites with beakers rather than bronze maces, chariots and horses as was typical of the later Tummulus (another word for Kurgan) culture.
See this is an example. The use of the word "culture" here has to be taken with full scare quotes. The degree of commonality here is based on finding a certain shape of pottery in graves. Unlikely we are dealing with a unified shared culture here; as opposed to spread of certain bundles of knowledge and associated technology.
Quote from: Queequeg on April 15, 2012, 11:10:57 PM
Alfred, I think what you wrote above is actually a lot closer to what I was arguing in the first place. The chariot and wagon were crucially important in the expansion of the Indo-European peoples; but just as important was a "package" of customs, social configuration and other technologies. Some of these were adopted by people who were not linguistically assimilated-for instance, some of the Uralic and Altaic peoples began to resemble Indo-European peoples, and eventually replaced them across the entirety of their area of origin. Similarly, the Kassites, Urartians, certain Caucasian groups and other groups appear to have undergone large scale "Kurganization" without total language replacement. In other areas, there appears to have been very substantial admixture-Armenian displays an inordinate amount of influence form neighboring Caucasian languages, and there is a theory that the similarly divergent Germanic languages at some point mixed heavily with another language.
What I am talking about resembles expansion of a corporate franchise rather than Alexander the Great marching in to Tajikistan-David W. Anthony makes this exact comparison, actually.
Bands of Indo-Europeans would have a number of reasons to expand. There was a bride-price, making rape, abduction and conquest more attractive. A hardened warrior caste had developed, who wielded bronze or copper maces. A priest caste gave a reason for war-making; to convert others to the correct sacrifices to the various Gods. Just as important as the wagon or the chariot was the fact that these proto-Indo-Europeans had every reason to expand aggressively, and came with a cultural package that was, if anything, attractive,;Anthony makes the argument that the Priest case was responsible for some fairly advanced methods of story-telling, an attractive form of entertainment. Defeat the tribe, murder some of the men, then bring in the survivors with religion and ritualistic storytelling- a reasonable assimilation model. So, the PIE people would have motive (bride price), means (warrior caste, chariot, wagon) and opportunity (relatively peaceable agricultural peoples of Old Europe who had no idea what the shit hit them)-and the material, linguistic and genetic evidence back most of this up. We can't know the specific details, obviously, but we've been able to reasonably reconstruct a fair bit.
I also think that you likely are not as familiar with more contemporary migrations or linguistic expansions. The Mongol example actually backs me up-you should look at the expansion of Tatar and Chagatai (the language of most of the horde) across huge chunks of the Mongol Empire, and the adoption of Mongol terms of leadership by most of the post-Mongol sphere. And that was when the world was already densely populated-the Turks went from iron-working slave caste (supposedly) in the Altai mountain range (possibly) to (likely) Indo-European masters to ruling over the entirety of the Steppe in a century and a half, with a resutling massive wave of dozens of different Indo-European and non-Indo-European peoples going out of the steppe in exodus. This was one of the largest events of the Late Antique, and ultimately destroyed half a dozen Empires. I would also compare with the expansion of the Bantu peoples in Sub-Saharan Africa, or the modern expansion of the Pashtun in to historical Baluchi areas.
Psellus, the problem is that your definition of the culture is so vague it sounds to me more like a stage of human society rather than an identifiable culture. A priest caste, a warrior caste, and story telling could define almost any pre modern society after the passage of the hunter gatherer phase. Weaponry and tools such as wagons are quite possibly commonplace because those are the technology of the era rather than as a cultural marker. You are also identifying indo european cultural traits in societies distanced from the initial indo european expansion by more than a millenia.
There is a lot that I don't know, I don't pretend to be an expert on this, but even after googling I don't see how the Mongolian invasions support your case. First, they were separated from us by just 800 years or so and had the benefit of writing and other transportation technology, major advantages when seeking to exert control. Second, they did not have the population density to supplant the native languages with their own. They did cause massive change in the territories they conquered, but where they stayed they adopted a local language. Third, it doesn't seem as though the languages they adopted really underwent a major expansion anyway. I just have a hard time seeing how a group from a sparsely populated portion of the world could conquer and then impose its language on such a large territory before writing and before significant road networks. And if the process was gradual, I don't see how they could mantain a consistent culture through centuries.
Quote
See this is an example. The use of the word "culture" here has to be taken with full scare quotes. The degree of commonality here is based on finding a certain shape of pottery in graves. Unlikely we are dealing with a unified shared culture here; as opposed to spread of certain bundles of knowledge and associated technology.
And river names.
There's a lot more evidence of a relatively shared Indo-European culture than there is of previous cultures. The most conclusive evidence is the fact that the Beaker culture is gone, and replaced, with an intervening period of hill forts.
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You are also identifying indo european cultural traits in societies distanced from the initial indo european expansion by more than a millenia.
This is a continuous process. If you want to get technical, the Spanish conquest of the Americas or the expansion of the Russian Empire was an extension of it. Heck, American and English global dominance are.
The Proto-Indo-European peoples might never have been a totally coherent people, but rather a loose confederation of tribes with some displaying different degrees of influence from various other sources, as well as some natural diversity. And, naturally, as they spread out, they diverged. Where have I argued that they were a singular, coherent people who spread out over three
millenia?
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. Second, they did not have the population density to supplant the native languages with their own.
Mongol was the language of the upper echelon of the Horde, but something resembling Tatar was the language of the entirety of the Horde, and it had a huge impact upon all of Central Asia, most of the languages impacted by the Mongol invasion, including Turkish, Russian, the Indo-Iranian languages, all of which both borrow a large amount of complex vocabulary from the language of the Horde. And this was with a hugely higher population density than was possible in the Bronze Age.
Keep in mind how chaotic the Mongol invasion was, too, with various non-subjugated Turkic peoples fleeing the steppe in the hundreds of thousands to try to escape the main horde. The Mongol invasion let loose a chain effect, whereby many different peoples ended up in completely different areas. The Huns are a far better example of this, though, obviously.
If you want the closest parallel to the expansion of the Indo-Europeans, look at the fate of the various peoples after the collapse of the central authority of the Khazar Khaganate, of diverse background (Hungarians, Alans, Bolgars, Avars, ancestors of the Seljuks ) who, freed from the central control of the Khazars, spread out in a huge wave across most of Central Europe and Western Asia, ultimately changing the entirety of the region. This is in the exact same area, over a reasonably similar time frame, and began in the Pontic-Caspian Steppe. The main difference here is that the Khazars did not have the time or influence to establish a coherent linguistic or religious union , though the legacy of Khazar influence on all of these peoples is still discernible.
Or better yet, read a book on the subject. I am by no means an expert on the subject-my proclivity towards hyperbole and frequent assertions of certainty where it is not truly deserved appear responsible for most of this argument.
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I just have a hard time seeing how a group from a sparsely populated portion of the world could conquer and then impose its language on such a large territory before writing and before significant road networks. And if the process was gradual, I don't see how they could mantain a consistent culture through centuries.
:frusty:
AR, you are a phenomenally bright poster, so at this point I am just frustrated at how poorly I am making my case.
I think the 'franchise' model here is closest to what I am arguing. Starbucks starts out as a little shop in the Pacific Northwest that only sells coffee beans in bags. Now, eventually, they become a coffee shop. The mid-level managers eventually decide they want to manage their own store, so they get into business with regional management to set up a new Starbucks, with a combination of local hires and employees from other stores. Now, what's interesting is that all of these skills change a bit from store to store. And, in some places, they change the menu to better accommodate local tastes and changes in technology. Eventually, some of the other coffee shops start to look at Starbucks as a model, and eventually, without corporate headquarters in Seattle, the name Starbucks might even be largely forgotten as all of the local shops change with time and local conditions.
We are not discussing ethnicity as you or I understand the term, or in some respects as the city states of Mesopatamia understood it. You can be a Mexican-American farmer or a Mexican-American lawyer.
Now, here, what would happen is that as the new group of warriors and priests move in to town, if you become a warrior or want to become a priest, you just become one of them. You pick up the language and change the way you live This is the way it worked on the Steppe even in to the historical period-think of the Cossacks. Ethnicity is rather a combination of occupation, religion, language and class, or even something else-all of these can change, though. This changes both people along the way, and there are always huge linguistic and material shifts caused by this. The world of the expansion of some of the Indo-Europeans
might have resembled our own more than that of the 19th or 20th Century; a man might be born in sight of the Kuban river, but die in Xinjiang Province China, with an Asian wife and a combined skill set and linguistic elements from both cultures. We have evidence of stuff like that happening all the time. Now, the language and culture of most people will change due to the prestige of the invading language and culture, but it will still obviously reflect local influence and change over time.
To further illustrate, here's an example close to my heart. Take what the word "Turk" meant in Anatolia at various times:
1090: Raiding religious warriors striking deep in to the area, murdering hundreds of thousands, destroying whole cities, and causing general havoc. It would also include a number of local converts and hangers-on. The nomadic raider concept is central, more important than the religious identification.
1120: It would include the settled descendants of those initial warriors, new colonizers and warriors, as well as an increasingly large circle of local converts and people who have joined the ruling culture. This has changed the new Turkic culture dramatically.
1350: Most of the population of Anatolia has now self-designated as Turk. Turkish buildings are almost indistinguishable from Byzantine buildings. Ditto Turkish food, agricultural techniques, etc. The genetic contribution of the invading Turks is noticeable, but not anywhere near the major influence. The Turk ethnonymn and language is triumphant, but it is a new hybrid.
This is a pretty similar process. Indo-European studies is a bit like trying to recreate the hot-headed nomadic ghazis who fucked Anatolia up from the complex, hybridized Beyliks of the immediate pre-Ottoman period. Only it was two thousand years before this. And without Byzantine or Arab historians. And a lot shittier material and linguistic record.
Given this, you don't maintain a consistent culture-what makes PIE studies so fascinating to me is the glimpses we receive of something
resembling a Bronze Age Indo-European core from a wonderful diversity of hundreds of different cultures over multiple continents. The central questions-of original diversity of the peoples, or origin, of degree of population replacement-are an integral part of Indo-European studies, and one of the reasons I am interested in the subject.
EDIT: I think the Starbucks example is flawed, because I remember an Atlantic article on the company about a decade back that made it sound much more top-down. I think my point is still reasonably clear though.
Quote from: Queequeg on April 16, 2012, 10:03:49 PM
And river names.
Which proves what, exactly?
QuoteThere's a lot more evidence of a relatively shared Indo-European culture than there is of previous cultures. The most conclusive evidence is the fact that the Beaker culture is gone, and replaced, with an intervening period of hill forts.
Seems like the conclusion is being assumed here.
For example, what do mean by saying the Beaker culture is gone? Is it anything more than saying that that at a certain point, beaker shaped pots of a certain type cease to be common in the physical record. It's a very big leap from that fact to talk about a shared culture that is being replaced. Similarly, there is nothing about building of hill forts that suggests a shared culture other than the technological capacity to build hill forts, an incentive to do so, and social organization to build them. Lots of cultural forms are consistent with those things.
What we are talking about is the gradual disappearance of one kind of physical artifact and the appearance of another . Beyond that is speculation.
Given the lack of linguisic or historical evidence, you are probably right. Tnere are so many theories on this that the theories are all based upon speculation in regards to this particular transition in Western Europe.
Lets see if I can summarize your general point of view (to distill any points of misunderstanding, and focus the discussion a bit more). Just before 3000 BC, there were a proto Indo European speaking peoples (PIE) on the steppes north of the Black Sea who were responsible for domesticating the horse. After domesticating the horse, they developed chariot and wagon technology, and a culture with warrior and priestly castes. With the technology and culture they developed, they were able to relatively easily conquer their neighbors so that by the dawn of the common era indo European languages were the predominant language from western Europe to the Indian subcontinent.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 16, 2012, 02:07:49 PM
Quote from: Queequeg on April 16, 2012, 01:26:51 PM
Kurgans? It's the most obvious sine of Indo-European penetration in to a region-they start burying clan leaders with bronze or copper maces and other indications that the deceased was primarily a warrior. The practice continued in to the historical period in many different areas. .
it is very, very dangerous to draw conclusions about culture from common burial practice.
QuoteThis is associated with the Beaker culture, who filled burial sites with beakers rather than bronze maces, chariots and horses as was typical of the later Tummulus (another word for Kurgan) culture.
See this is an example. The use of the word "culture" here has to be taken with full scare quotes. The degree of commonality here is based on finding a certain shape of pottery in graves. Unlikely we are dealing with a unified shared culture here; as opposed to spread of certain bundles of knowledge and associated technology.
:huh: Even today the kind of pottery you choose defines you as a person.
Quote from: Queequeg on April 16, 2012, 01:26:51 PM
Kurgans? It's the most obvious sine of Indo-European penetration in to a region-they start burying clan leaders with bronze or copper maces and other indications that the deceased was primarily a warrior. The practice continued in to the historical period in many different areas. A lot of our evidence of the Indo-European religion similarly comes from Aryan sources, including the importance of horse sacrifice, a practice maintained by the nomadic Indo-European peoples until the Turkic migration.
They were not the first people to in Europe to do so. The Funnelbeaker culture buried people with weapons. I don't see how horse sacrifices indicate a complex priestly caste. Nor are horse sacrifices particularly unique. The mongol did it as well. Probably because on the steppe horses were very valuable.
Quote from: Queequeg on April 16, 2012, 01:26:51 PM
There is some linguistic evidence that there was a fairly widespread, shared culture across most of what would eventually become Celtic Europe, particularly from hydronyms. This is associated with the Beaker culture, who filled burial sites with beakers rather than bronze maces, chariots and horses as was typical of the later Tummulus (another word for Kurgan) culture. This period of transition is associated with the development of numerous hill forts and other types of fortified settlement. I think the evidence is reasonably strong that the Urnfield culture replaced a less martial culture.
Most of the these hydronyms are rather iffy. A collection of names possibly based on languages that nobody knows. The only pre-Indo-Europan languages that we actually know with much certainty are Etruscan and Basque. These languages are not related. I think you are drawing to many conclusions from to little evidence.
Quote from: The Brain on April 17, 2012, 12:21:35 PM
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 16, 2012, 02:07:49 PM
Quote from: Queequeg on April 16, 2012, 01:26:51 PM
Kurgans? It's the most obvious sine of Indo-European penetration in to a region-they start burying clan leaders with bronze or copper maces and other indications that the deceased was primarily a warrior. The practice continued in to the historical period in many different areas. .
it is very, very dangerous to draw conclusions about culture from common burial practice.
QuoteThis is associated with the Beaker culture, who filled burial sites with beakers rather than bronze maces, chariots and horses as was typical of the later Tummulus (another word for Kurgan) culture.
See this is an example. The use of the word "culture" here has to be taken with full scare quotes. The degree of commonality here is based on finding a certain shape of pottery in graves. Unlikely we are dealing with a unified shared culture here; as opposed to spread of certain bundles of knowledge and associated technology.
:huh: Even today the kind of pottery you choose defines you as a person.
Hence the generally low esteem archaeologists hold for the "Hummel People".
Quote from: alfred russel on April 17, 2012, 12:15:33 PM
Lets see if I can summarize your general point of view (to distill any points of misunderstanding, and focus the discussion a bit more). Just before 3000 BC, there were a proto Indo European speaking peoples (PIE) on the steppes north of the Black Sea who were responsible for domesticating the horse. After domesticating the horse, they developed chariot and wagon technology, and a culture with warrior and priestly castes. With the technology and culture they developed, they were able to relatively easily conquer their neighbors so that by the dawn of the common era indo European languages were the predominant language from western Europe to the Indian subcontinent.
On the understanding that this is a continuous process, without majority population replacement in most areas, and a continuous infusion of conquered cultures along the way.
Actually, I think it would be a good idea for all of us to reiterate what our points are. I broadly agree with Spellus (I think). Indo-European people spread out across Eurasia from the area Pontic-Caspian steppes. Horse were important to these people and they domesticated them. They were likely the first people to domesticate horses. These people conquered, settled, or colonized Europe, West Asia and parts of South Asia. Why and how they did it is unknown. Horses were probably a factor though other factors such as farming techniques are also possible.
I disagree with Spellus on the idea of "Old Europe", which conjures up the silly ideas of Gimbutas's Proto-socialist Matriarchy. I doubt there was much in the way of unified culture or language in Europe before the Indo Europeans. I don't discount the possibility of genocide as part of the Indo-European expansion (especially in Europe). I imagine that warfare was like that of the Eastern woodland Indians were whole tribes were forceably relocated by stronger tribes and villages were destroyed completely. I also suspect colonization where Indo-Europeans settled in areas that could better be exploited due to being more technologically advanced. I'm also unconvinced about the tripartite division of society particularly the need for a priestly caste to engage in complex sacrifices and rituals. I don't think these can be deduced through a reconstructed language and some grave goods.
I admit I don't know much about India so most of my statements are about Europe.
IIRC Anthony took the position that a significant contibutor to the spread of PIE culture was acculturation - the PIE horse-centered culture came to be perceived as associated with high status and thus elites or young ambitious types in neighboring settlements were attracted to adopt PIE cultural attributes, up to and including language.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 18, 2012, 09:08:37 AM
IIRC Anthony took the position that a significant contibutor to the spread of PIE culture was acculturation - the PIE horse-centered culture came to be perceived as associated with high status and thus elites or young ambitious types in neighboring settlements were attracted to adopt PIE cultural attributes, up to and including language.
Quote
Now, here, what would happen is that as the new group of warriors and priests move in to town, if you become a warrior or want to become a priest, you just become one of them. You pick up the language and change the way you live This is the way it worked on the Steppe even in to the historical period-think of the Cossacks.
That's what I was trying to get at here. Just as "Goth" and "Hun" were as much occupations as members of a tribal confederation, it seems likely that most of the spread of the Indo-European languages was a process of acculturation. How much, I don't really know. It's hard to tell from archaeogenetics, because there were multiple waves.
Quote
I disagree with Spellus on the idea of "Old Europe", which conjures up the silly ideas of Gimbutas's Proto-socialist Matriarchy. I doubt there was much in the way of unified culture or language in Europe before the Indo Europeans. I don't discount the possibility of genocide as part of the Indo-European expansion (especially in Europe). I imagine that warfare was like that of the Eastern woodland Indians were whole tribes were forceably relocated by stronger tribes and villages were destroyed completely. I also suspect colonization where Indo-Europeans settled in areas that could better be exploited due to being more technologically advanced. I'm also unconvinced about the tripartite division of society particularly the need for a priestly caste to engage in complex sacrifices and rituals. I don't think these can be deduced through a reconstructed language and some grave goods.
I am using the phrase Old Europe only to the extent that it means pre-Indo-European peoples of the continent, or even some unknown Indo-European peoples as well. I don't buy in to any of Gimbutas' proto-Wiccan crap.
You guys are on the same page - to my mind what is firing the argument is the leftover remnants of the early 20th century notion that this chariot-riding class was some sort of homogenous racial group (leading to all sorts of silly racial superiority notions) which as far as I can see nobody here actually believes.
Quote from: Queequeg on April 18, 2012, 08:12:22 AM
Quote from: alfred russel on April 17, 2012, 12:15:33 PM
Lets see if I can summarize your general point of view (to distill any points of misunderstanding, and focus the discussion a bit more). Just before 3000 BC, there were a proto Indo European speaking peoples (PIE) on the steppes north of the Black Sea who were responsible for domesticating the horse. After domesticating the horse, they developed chariot and wagon technology, and a culture with warrior and priestly castes. With the technology and culture they developed, they were able to relatively easily conquer their neighbors so that by the dawn of the common era indo European languages were the predominant language from western Europe to the Indian subcontinent.
On the understanding that this is a continuous process, without majority population replacement in most areas, and a continuous infusion of conquered cultures along the way.
I think the places that I disagree are the attribution of culture as driving a long process. I've read a decent amount about the ancient middle east, and the emergence of writing in sumeria is roughly contemporaneous with the expansion of the indo europeans. The indo european social structure (warriors with a priestly caste), would apply to them (as well as pre columbian civilizations, and others). I also think there is a distinction between technology and culture. I expect effective technology will disperse across cultural boundaries reasonably quickly in the premodern world.
To focus on Europe, which I know the most about, I don't see why we should assume the original indo europeans expanded further than central europe. That seems to have been the core territory of the celtics, which then expanded through southern europe two millenia later. After that period of time, any indo european culture would have radically altered, and any effective technology would have diffused across europe. It would seem chance played a big role in the expansion (with the caveat I posted earlier that the legacy of a large indo european territory could have carved out a significant common language area that persisted to the celtics and gave them a competitive advantage in expansion).
Quote from: Malthus on April 17, 2012, 01:15:14 PM
Quote from: The Brain on April 17, 2012, 12:21:35 PM
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 16, 2012, 02:07:49 PM
Quote from: Queequeg on April 16, 2012, 01:26:51 PM
Kurgans? It's the most obvious sine of Indo-European penetration in to a region-they start burying clan leaders with bronze or copper maces and other indications that the deceased was primarily a warrior. The practice continued in to the historical period in many different areas. .
it is very, very dangerous to draw conclusions about culture from common burial practice.
QuoteThis is associated with the Beaker culture, who filled burial sites with beakers rather than bronze maces, chariots and horses as was typical of the later Tummulus (another word for Kurgan) culture.
See this is an example. The use of the word "culture" here has to be taken with full scare quotes. The degree of commonality here is based on finding a certain shape of pottery in graves. Unlikely we are dealing with a unified shared culture here; as opposed to spread of certain bundles of knowledge and associated technology.
:huh: Even today the kind of pottery you choose defines you as a person.
Hence the generally low esteem archaeologists hold for the "Hummel People".
:lmfao: