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THE END OF

THE BRONZE AGE

C H A NGE S IN WARfAR E AND T HE

C A T A ST R O P HE C A . 12 0 0 B.C .

Robert Drews

""

PRI N C ET O N UN I VE RS I T Y P R E S S

PR I N C ET ON, N EW J ER S E Y

Co pyright {' 1993 by Pnn ceton University I'ress

Published by Princeton Universrrv Press. 41 \X'Jlham Stree t.

Princeton. New j ersev 0854 0

In the United Kingdom : Prince ton University Press, Chichester, West Sussex

All RIgh ts Reserved

Lib rary ol Congress Cataloging-in-Pnbiicatirm Dat u

Drews, Ra ben.

Th e end of [he Bro nze Age: Changes in \'(Iar fare and [he ca tastrophe

ca . 1200 B.C. i Ra ben Drews.

p. em .

Includes bibliograp hical referenc es an d index.

ISBN 0 ·69 1-04811 ·8

1. Bro nze age-c-M edir er r.mean Region. 2. \X'arfare. Prehisroric­

M editerranean Region. 3. Chariot warfare-c-- Med irerranean Region.

4. \V'e3pons. Prehistor ic-c-Medirerr .mean Region . 5 . Med uerrauean

Reg ion - Antiquities . l. Title .

G N 77 8.3.A ID 74 199 3 930 ' .09 822 -dc20 92 -465 1 1 CIP

T his book has been com posed in Saban

Prince ton University Press bo o ks arc printed on acid -free paper

and meet the guidelin es for perma nence and durab ility of the

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Prin ted in [he Uni ted Sta res o f America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 .J

CO N TEN TS

L IST O F lL LU STRA TlO N .' \' 11

A C KN O W LE D G M EN TS IX

ABB REVI A n O N S XI

PA RT O N E: INTROD UCTION

C H APT ER 01':E

The Catas tro phe an d Its Chronology 3

O L\P T ER TWO

Th e Catastrophe Surveyed 8

Anatolia 8Cyp rus 11Syria 13111e Sal/them l.euant 15Mesopotamia 17Egyp t 18Greece and the Aegean Islands 2 1Crete 26Su m m ary 29

PART rwo. ALTERNATIV E EXPLANATIO NS O FTH E CATAST RO PHE

C HA PTE R THREE

Earthquak es 33

CH APTER f OUR

M igrat ion s 4H

The Egyptian Evidence 48The O rigins of the Thesis 5.1Archaeological ,111.1 Historical Considerations 61

CHA PTE R FIVE

Ironwork ing 73

CH APT ER SIX

Dro ught 77

C II APT ER SEVEN

Systems Collapse S5

vi C O:-':T E ~T S

( HAPTER EIGHT

Ra iders 9 1

PART THREE: A MILITARY EXPLANATION O F

THE CATAST RO PH E

CHAPTER N INEPreface to a Military Explanatio n of the Catastrophe 97

CHA PTER TENThe Cha riot Warfare of th e Late Bronze Age 104

Th e Beginn ings of Char iot Warfare 104Chariotries: Numbers and Costs 106How Chariots Were Used in Battle 113Th e Battles at Megiddo and Kadesh 129

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Foorsoldiers in the Late Bronze Age 135

" Runners": Th e Role of lnfantryrnen in Chariot Warfare 141The Recruitment of Infantrymen ill the Late BrOllZe Age 147infantry Forces in the Catastrop he 157

CHA PTER 1WELVEInf antry a nd Horse Troops in th e Earl y Iron Age 164

CHAPTER THIRTEENCh anges in Armor a nd Weapons at th e End of the Bronze Age 174

Armor 174Javelins , Sp ears, and Lances 180Swords 192

CHA PTER FOURTEENThe End of C ha riot War fare in the C atast rophe 209

BIBLIOGRAPHY 227

INDEX 245

LIST O F ILLUSTRATIO NS

FIGURE I. M ap of Eastern Mediterranean, show ing ma jor sitesdestroyed in the Ca tastro phe

FIGUR!" 2. Tanged, ellip tica l weapon-heads of th e late secondmillenn ium :

a. RS 1l0/99, fro m Catast ro phe de struction level at Uga rit ;7 em. ; after Yon et aI., " O rganisatio n," figure 28

b. RS 80/270, fro m Catastrophe destruction level atUgarit; 8.5 crn. ; after Yon et a l., "Organisarion.," figure 27

c. J 1 3; from EI Khadr, Isr ael ; 9.2 em.; aft er Cross andMil ik, "Typological Study, n figure 2

d. Fro m Mycenae; 13 .7 cm.; after Avila, Lan zen spitzen,Tafel 28 , no. 769

e. Fro m Hazar; head , 8.5 em ., sho e, 4 crn.; after Yadin etaI., Ha zar , vols . 3-4, plate 347 , nos. 3 and 6

FIGURE 3 . Eastern Mediterranean swords of the LateBronze Age:

a. Sick le swo rd from tomb of Turankharnun; 40 em.; afterYadin, Art of Warfare, vol. 1, 207

b. LH II rapier from Plovdiv, Bulgaria; 76 crn.; afterSanda rs, " Later Aegean Bronze Swords, n plate 22 , no. 7

c. Anato lian rapier found near Boghazk6y; 79 em .including " killed " tang; aft er Unal et aI. , " H ittite Sword, n 47

FIGURE 4. Cur- and-thrust swo rds from the period ofthe Catast ro phe:

a. Naue Type II swo rd from Aranyos, Hungary;ca . 65 crn.; after Cowen, " Flange-Hilred Cutt ing Sword, n

fig. 2, no. 4b. " M ernepra h Swo rd" from Ugarit; 74 crn.; after

Schaeffer, " Bro nze Sword from Ugarit, n 227.c. Longest of the four swords from " Ia maison du

Grandprerre d'Ugarit" ; 73 crn. ; after Sch aeffer, Ugaritica, vol.3,fig.223

d. Naue Type II sword from M ycenae ; 60 crn.; a fterCowen, " Fla nge-H ilted Cutti ng Sword, n fig. 2, no . 6

PLATE 1. Sen I attacking the ch ariots of the Hittite king. Linedraw ing of relief from Amun temple at Ka rn ak . Plate 34 in The

9

188

197

202

123

162

141

ACK N OW U-:DG,'vlENTS

FO R PH OTO GR APHS and permission to publish th em in thi s book Iam gra teful ro the O rienta l lnsrirure of the University of Ch icago andto Princeton Universirv Press. Ar the O rient.rl Insrirure my req ues rs

were very kind ly expedi ted by John Lar son and Lisa Snide r. T he pho to ­gra ph of the reconstructed "Barrie Scene" fresco ar Pylos was mad e for meby Tucke r Blackburn, Resea rch Assoc iate in the Depa rtment of Classics arrhe Universirv of Cin cinnari. For rhe illust rat ions of "Sharda na warriors" Iam indebted to Vronwy Han key, who pro rnp rly and gracio usly respo ndedto my requ est for her ma tch less pho togr aph s of the Ab ydo s reliefs of rheBarrie of Kadcsh , The " \Varrio r Vase" illustr ation ca me from :>-!arbu rg!AnResour ce, of New York. For th e d rawing of ligures 2- 4 I rhank !\kg Coo deSha nnon .

Drs. Joanna Scurloc k and Richa rd Beal p rovided me wirh much co n­srruc rive criticism ar c1 crucial suge of rhis ma nuscr ipt . I rh.ink rhem forsav ing me fro m errors lar ge and sma ll and exonera te them enti re ly tr oruthose rhar remain . I am also inde bted, for vario us kindn esses and cornmu ­nicarion s, ro Professor s Leo na rd Albe rsrudr, Frank Cross, Stuart Piggorr,Anthony Snodgrass, and Sma rr Wh l.'eler. T he cdiror s ar Princeton Univer­siry Press have again been very help ful : fo r rheir good work and judgment Irhank Lauren Os bo rne, Co lin Barr, and especia lly Lauren Oppenhe im.

For bib lical passages, un less otherw ise , pecihed . I have used rhe RSVrranslar ion. T he rr.m slar iou s of occasio nal lines fro l1l Homer ancl o the rG reek a utho rs a re my own.

160

154

159

144

145

Bat tle Relie fs uf King Set) ' I. Courresv of rhe O rienta l lnsrirureof rhc University of Chicago

PLATE 2 . " Bartle Scene" fresco fro m Pylos, reconstruc ted byPier de jong, Fresco 22 H64 (pla re ,\1) in M abel La ng, ThePalace of Ne stor at Pylas . \ ' 0 1. 2 : The Frescoes (Princeton :Princeton University Press, 196 9). Reproduced by permission ofPrince ton University Press. Pho tograph obtai ned fro m rheUniversity of Cin cinnati

PLATE 3. A shardana skirmishe r slayin g a H irrire cha rioteer a rKade sh . Abyd os relief. Pho tograp h courtesy of Vronwy H ankey

PLATE 4. A shardana skirmishe r cutt ing off rhe ha nd of a slainH irrire cha r iotee r ar Kad esh. Ab ydos relief . Phorographcou rtesy of Vro nwy Hankey

PLATE 5. Sharda na bod yguar ds of Ram esses II, a r Kadesh.Abydos relief. Phorograph courtesy of Vro nw y Ha nkey

PLATE 6. Land barrie of Ramesses III, in Year Eighr , agai ns tPhilistine and other aggressor s. Line drawing of relief fromMcdin er H abu . Co urtesy of the Oriental lnsrirure of theUnivers ity of Chicago

PLATE 7. Sea bat tle of Rarnesscs III, in Year Eight, aga instPhilistine an d othe r aggressor s. Line d rawing of relief fromMediner H abu . Co urtesy of rhe O rient al Inst itute of th eUniversity of C hicago

PLATE 8 . "Warrio r Vase " fro m M ycen ae, side A. Ph ot og ra pho bra ine d from Marburg!An Resource, Ne w York

PLATE 9. Seri I arracking Shos hu Bedouin in Ca naa n. Linedrawing of relief from Arnun temp le ar Ka rna k. Plat e J in TheBattle Reliefs of King Sety 1. Co urtesy of rhe Oriental lnsrirureof rhe University of Chicago 183

PLATE JO. Bartle of Rarnesses III again st Libyans. Line drawingof relief from Medin cr H abu . Co urtesy of the O rienta l Instituteof the Univc rsiry of Chicago 200

A Hf3R F VI AT/O NS

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CPCQlEIlAOSIA/~ Cf

}Il L./EAtusINESISOT}SS,\f J)'-\ IOAt rr, A ,II.

I'1'Q1'1'.'1}'R lJ

}O:( ;

A II III/ ,7 } 0/ th e Briti sh Scbo i)! at .vtbcn«Allleric ,1II}0I/ TIl.I } 0/ Arch. reo/0R."

.J. B. Pr itchard, ed ., A II Ci,"lt N t'.tr-!·:.Istt'm Tex ts ReI.ltillg t ..th e O ld Test.nn ent, 3d ed. Prin ceton : Prince ton Univers ityPress, J969

A rcba eologic.i! ReportsArcb.iologischer AnzcigerAl/ata/i,lII Stl/die;Bulletin 0/ th e AIIIN ic,m S,:/wo!; 0/ Oriont,i l Resc.uchBul let»: 0/ th e lnstitute 0/A rdJ,1eoiogy (l .{//1/101I)RilJ/ic,rI Arcb.ieol ogistBulletin de Ca rresp o nd.m cc l lcllcn iqu »I.E.S. Edw ards, C. J. G'ldd , "J.G .L. Hammo nd, and E. Sol·

lbe rge r, eds , Th e Ca mb ridge Allt-ielll HIsto ry. _i d ed .Ca mb ridge: Cam h ridge Univers itv Press, 1970­

Cl.issic.tl PhilologyClas sical Q I/arterlyIsrael Explor.ttion lourn.iljournal 0/ the A meric'lII O ri"III.rI Societ y[ournal 0/ the Amcric.nt Rrsc.trc] ... Cen ter in F,:.:vptIOIlT/ r.1} 0/ Bih lica ! l .it cr.ttu rc[ournal 0/ f gypti,m A rc/Men/og)'kmrn.t! 0/ I lellenu: Studi es

[c ntrn.tl 0/ Nc.i r Eastern Stu di.»[ourual /0 1' t lu : Stu dv o{ t lu : ()}, I '}"st,IIII,'1I1'1011 m al 0/ Semitir Stndies.\ I;ttei}l/ngell d,'s Dvn tscb cn :l rd "'jnl,,gist!,,'11 lnstu ut s°11l1.<CIII.I/lth('lIi I.'1I5 i.1

OriC'I; Alll it]II IISPalestine I'x{ll" m tioll Q II.lrt" I!"J )fc } ( ~ ( l edillgs 0/ the l'rrln start« .\ OO·l·t.1'

C ha rles Viro llc.i ud, .k lll N n ug.I\' r<J I, e t .i l.. 1'<1-., I I' I'al.ti:ro vul JJ 'llg ,lIit pulilu : sou -: 1.1 dO ,', D(!!1 ,II' tLnulc F ·il .St! I>I,'/!;,r, vols. 2- 1> (P:lrIs : Lihr.ur u- C. Klimk vicck,19 'i5- 70)

:\ . " ,Ill lv, (; . \V i" I1\\·;!. .111,1 \V. 1'. 11 ,11 , u k . Rcul -lrtcv«], '1,:f,Ji,'

,1"1' k l"; S;5'-{','1/ .-I lt"r llllll.'/I ·/:,.,,'I/;,-lhl/ t 1~ 'i.l - I 'J c'S;!< {' l ' [{ {' des l: t/{( /{'~ ( ;rt'l Ot! 1tf' e-

XII \KKR l I · I .\ T10 :-'; ,

ReI '. Hi!> .ReI '. c-u.RFICUF1fTZ AZDMG

Rcuue Bibliqu eRevue Critique d 'H isto ire ct de Litt eratureRiuis ta iii Fi/"gi ,1 c dlstruznme ClassicaUg.irit-Forschungeu\ 'etus Testame ntumZeitscbr itt [iir AssyriologieZeitscbrift der Deutscbeu .\ fo rgcn l<ill disclw l Gesellscha]t P ART O NE

INTRODUCTI ON

Chapter One

TH E CATASTROPHE AND ITS CH RON O LOG Y

T H E EN D of the eastern Mediterran ean Bron ze Age, in the twel fthcent u ry B.C. , was o ne of history's mos t frightful turning poi nt s. Fo rthose who experienced it, it was a ca lamity. In lon g retr ospect ,

however, the episode marked a beginning rath er th an a n end, the "dawntim e" in which peopl e in Israel, G reece, a nd even Ro me so ugh t their ori­gins. In certain respect s th at assessment is still va lid, for th e Age of Ironsta nds mu ch closer to our own th an does the wo rld of th e Bronze Age. T hemetallurgical progress- fro m bronze to iron - was o nly th e most tan gibleof th e inn ovat ion s. M ore significa nt by far were th e developmen t andspread of alpha bet ic w riting, the growth of nati on alism , of repu blicanpolitical forms, of monotheism, and event ua lly of rati on ali sm . T hese an do the r histori c innovatio ns of th e Iron Age have been frequ ently not ed a ndcelebra ted .

Th e bleaker o bjective of th e present boo k will be a close look at th enegative side. In man y places an o ld and co mp lex society did, after a ll,co me to an end ca . 1200 B.C. In the Aegea n, th e palace-centered world th atwe ca ll M ycen aean G reece disap peared: altho ugh so me of it s glor ies wererem embered by the bards of the Da rk Age, it was othe rwise for go tten untila rchaeo log ists du g it up. Th e loss in Ana ro lia was even grea ter. The Hittiteem pire had given to the An atol ian plate au a measure of o rde r and prosper­ity th at it had never kn own before and would not see again for a thou sandyea rs. In the Levant recovery was mu ch faste r, and some imp ortant Bron zeAge institu tio ns su rvived with littl e cha nge; but othe rs did not , and ever y­wh ere urb an life was drasticall y set back. In Egypt the Twentieth Dynas tymar ked th e end of the N ew Kingdom and almost the end of ph araonicachievement , T hro ugho ut the eastern M editer ran ean the twelfth cen turyB.C. ush ered in a dark age, whi ch in Greece and Anaroli a was not to lift fo rmore tha n fo ur hundred years. Altogeth er the end of the Bronze Age wasa rgua bly th e wor st disast er in ancient history, even more ca lamito us th anthe co llapse of the western Roman Empire.!

Th e end o r transfo rm ation of Bro nze Age institution s is o bviously ato pic of eno rmo us d imension s. From the modern perspe ctive it is th e d isap­pea ra nce of ma ny of th ese centuries-old fo rms th at gives th e years ca . 1200

I For the co mparison see Fernand Brandel, " L'Aube," in Braudel, ed. , L I Mediterrdllee:l'espucc et l'histoire (Paris, 1977), 82- 86. In Braudel's words, "la Medi terrane e orienta le, ;H I

xii- siecle avant J'e., retourne au plan zero, ou presque, de l'h isto ire."

4 I N TR O D U CTI O N

B.C. th eir extraordinary importance. In this book , how ever, I shall dealwith th at topi c onl y in passing. M y subject here is much more limited an dconcrete: the physical destruction of cities an d palaces. O ne might objectth at althou gh the ph ysical destruction was tragic for th e occupa nts of th ecities and palaces in que stion , in itself it need not and should not haveent ailed the collapse and disappearance of Bron ze Age civiliza tion. Therazing of Athens in 480 B.C., after all, clear ed the gro und for th e templ es ofthe Periclean city, and the burning of Rome in 387 B.C. was followeddirectl y by an unprecedented burst of Rom an expa nsion. But a ltho ugh th esackin g of cities ca. 1200 B.C: was not a sufficient condi tion for the di sa p­pearance of Bronze Age civilization in G reece, Anatolia, and southernCa naa n, it was certainly a necessary condition. It is the destruction of sitesthat I sha ll therefore try to explain, and thi s topic is itself enormo us. Withina period of forty or fifty years at the end of the thirteenth and beginning ofthe rwelfth century almost every significant city or pa lace in the easternMediterranean world was destro yed, many of th em never to be occupiedagain.

This destruction-whi ch hereafter I shall refer to simply as " theCa tastro phe" - I shall review in so me detail in cha pter 2. Before doin gthat, however, it will be useful to thre ad our way chrono logically th roughthe period in which the Ca tastrophe took place. For a chronology we mustlook to Egypt , since the only narrat ive history we can wr ite for thi s peri odis Egyptian histo ry. Most scholars would agree that th ere survives at leastone documentary source on the Ca tastro phe, and th at is an inscriptio n th atRam esses III put upo n the wall of his mortuary templ e at Medin et Habu.This is th e famous text, accompa nied by pictorial reliefs, in whichRam esses III celebrates the victory that he won over the "Sea Peoples" inhis eighth year.! Since Ram esses declares that befor e attacking Egypt theenemy had already ravaged Hatt i, Alashia, and Amor, it is a reason ableassumption that the inscr iption furni shes a terminus ante quem for at leastsome of the destruction att ested in these places.

2 Wm. F. Edgerton and Joh n Wilson, Historical Records of R.Jmses II!: The Texts in"Medinet Habu, - Volumes I and 1I. Translated with Exp lanatory No tes (C hicago, 19.36),plate 46 ; Breast ed, AR, vol. 4, nos. 59-82. Leona rd H. Lesko, " Egyp t in the 12th Ce ntu ryB.C.," in W. A. Watd and M . S. [oukow sky, eds., The Crisis Ye.rrs: The 12th Century 8 .C.

(Dubuque, 1992 ), l SI - 56, has argued that this inscr iption was Cut for Memeprah' s mo rt uarytemple , that Rarnesses 111 appropriated it for h..s own templ e at Mediner Hahu , and thereforethat the events described in it occurred in the eighth year of Merneprah (1205 B.C. ) rather tha nof Rarnesses Ill . But the-swath of destruction through "Arnor " that the inscriptio n menrionsco uld hardly have take n place during M er neptah 's reign, since the Levanrin c cities were stillsta nding at the secession of Quee n Twosret, In addi tio n, the defen sive po stu re that thisinscripn on attributes to the Egyptia n pharaoh i~ not easily reconciled with the offensivecampaign that Mem eptah claimed to have conducted in the southern Levant .

THE C A T A ST R O P H E A N D I T S C H R O N O L O G Y 5

Dates for the reign of Rame sses III depend on the accession year cho senfor Rarnesses II , the illustrious predecessor whose nam e th e young kin gado pted ; and in th is study I shall follow the " low " chro no logy th at nowseems to be accepted by most Egyptologists. O n th is chro no logy, Ram essesthe Great ruled from 1279 to 12 12, accounting-all by himself-for mostof the Nin eteenth Dynasty. ' Wh en the old king finallydied, close to the ageof ninety, he was succeeded by his oldest surviving son, his thirteenth,Mern eprah . T he latt er was, a t his accession , "a po rtl y man already in hissixties." :' As king, Mernept ah lived anoth er ten or eleven years and was intu rn succeeded by one of his sons, either Sen II (who m Merneptah haddesignated as his successo r) or Amenm esse. At any rate, Seti gain ed th eth ron e not long after Mern ept ah 's death.

For the first tim e in decades, Egypt was not ruled by an old man . But themiddl e-aged Seti II had an un exp ectedl y sho rt reign. After rulin g only SLX

year s, Seti died , leaving the succession in some confusion." His principalwife had been Twosret, but th e pair had no surviving son. In th e event,Seti's nominal successor was Siptah, who was still a child or adolescent.Alth ough Siptah was evidently the son of Sed, his moth er was not Twosretbut Tio, one of his father 's secondary wives, and Sipta h must have owed hiselevation to the exertio ns of powerful ment or s. Twosrer survived the boy,and she herself rul ed as ph araoh for at least two years , being only th e fourt hwom an in almos t rwo millenn ia of Egyptian histo ry to reach the throne.During the reigns of Sipta h and Twosret (a period of at least eight years ), th epower behind th e thron e seems to have been Bay, a Syrian who had risen tobecome "Great Cha ncellor of the Entir e Realm." With the death ofTwosret(the circumstances in whi ch an y of th ese peopl e died are unkn own ), a manof uncertain origin, Setna khte, drove "the Syrian" from his pos ition asking-maker a nd esta blished him self as king. Thus ended the Nineteent hDynasty and began the Twenti eth . Although Setna khte ruled for only rwoyears, Egypt was fortuna te that the upstart had a son as capa ble as himself:thi s was th e young Rarnesses III , who faced the~Catastro phe and surv ivedto describ e it.

, On the high chrono logy Rame sses Ir s accession year was 1304 B.C. , on the middlechronology 1290. Th e high chro nolo gy has been generally aba ndon ed by specia lists. The lowchronology was effectively advocated by E. F.Went e and C. C. Van Siclen, "A Chronology ofthe New Kingdo m," in J. H . Johnso n and E. F. \'(\,nte, eds., Studies in Honor ofGwrge R.Hughes (Chicago , 1976), 2 17-6 1. For other argume nts see Paul Astt om , ed., Higl,. Middle.or Lou'?Acts of an ln ternational Colloquium 0" Absolute Chronology Held at the UniversityofGo thenbu rg 20 th -22d August 198 7 (Goreborg, 1987).

4 K. A. Kitchen, Pharaoh Trium phant . The Life and Times of Ramesses 1/ (Warminster.19&2), 207.

s The confusion, at once the bane and the de light of Egyptologists, was muc h clarified bvAlan Gardiner, " O nly O ne King Sipra h and Twosre Not His Wife." JEA H ( 1958i: 12-22.

1188-11 86 B. C.

1186-11 55 B. C.

IN T RO DUC T ION

.lthough the regnal dates for Ramesses III, his father, and theirreteenth-Dynasty predecessors cannot be pre cisely fixed, the foll owingn to be approximately correct:"

lineteenth DynastyRarnesses II 1279-12 12 B.C.

Merneprah 1212-1 203 B.C.

Amenmesse 1203-1202 B. C.

Seti 11 1202-11 96 B. C.

Siptah 1196-11 90 B.C.

Twosret 1190-1188 B.C.

lllent ieth Dynasty

SetnakhteRarnesses 11l

this reckoning, the terminus ante quem for mu ch of th e C atast ro phe­crucial eighth year of Ramesses III-will be 1179 B.C. That fits well

.ugh with a recently discovered tablet indicating that Emar (on theihrares, downstream from Carche mish) fell in the second yea r of Melik­oak, king of Bab ylon. 7 O n J. A. Brinkman's M esopotamian chronol ogy,ar must have been sa cked in the 11 80 s. S An even more recent disc over y,; time at Ras Shamra , shows that th e rule of H ammurapi, the last k ing ofirit, began wh en Merneptah was ruling Egypt and extended into the~n of Siptah and Queen Twosret.? The synchronism proves that Ugarit; st ill st and ing in 1196 B. C., and su ggests th at the city wa s not destroyedore 1190. 10

Since in so me cases o nly a terminus post qu em for a monarch's death is availab le, vario usmes have been prop osed, an d o n the low chro nology the accession of Rarnesses III ised a nyw here from 1188 to I 182 B.C. For severa l possibilities see Went e and Van Sid en,Chrono logy of the New Kingdo m," and K. A. Kitchen, "The Basics of Egypt ianen ology in Relat ion to the Bron ze Age," in Astro m, ed ., H igh, Midd/e, o r Lo w ? .37- 55 .Da niel Arn aud , "L es rex res d'Erna r et la chrono logie de la fin du Bro nze Recent ," Syria1975): 87-92. TIle ta blet dat ed to Melik-shipak's seco nd year is a sho rt- term co nt ract ;aud therefore co ncludes th at o nly a ver)' sho rt time ("quelq ues sema incs") elapsedveen the writing of the cont rac t and the destru ction of the city.Brinkma n, "Notes o n Mesopot amian Histor y in the Thirteenth Century B.C. ," Bib/i­

'ea O rienta/is 27 (1970): .306 -7; I am mu ch inde bted here to the explana tio ns furn ished,1. Bier br ier, "Th e Da te of the Dest ruc tio n of Ema r and Egyptian Chro no logy," JEA 64' 8) : 136-.37. At n. 2, Bierbri er not es th at " Professor Brinkman now info rms me that hisit dat e for year 2 is 1185:!o5 B.C. "

Jacque s Freu, " La tab le tte RS 86 .223 0 et la phase finale du royau me d 'Ugarit," Syria 65;ll): .395-98 . Tablets found at Ras Ibn Hani had a lread y established th at Harnrnurapi' s1 overlapped that of Me rnept.r h. an d the new tablet ind ica tes that Harn rnura pi was st ill o n.hro ne wh en Bay, the "G rund Chancello r" for Siprah and Q ueen Two sret, held his office." Ibid., _' 98.

T HE C AT AS T RO P H E A N D I T S C HRONO LO G Y 7

The relative chrono logy supplied by M ycen aean pottery must be fit intothe ab solute framework derived from Egypt. It now seem s probable thatthe transition from LH IIIB to IIIC pottery occurred no earlier th an thereign of Queen Twosret. On the low Egyptian chrono logy thi s would meanthat lIIB pottery was still bein g produced ca . 1190 B. C." Since th at is onlya terminus po st quem, and since it is likel y th at a few yea rs elap sed betweenthe last of the IIIB wares a nd the resumption of pottery making in theArgolid, the earli est mcpots probably were not made before ca . 118 5 . Thedestruction at Tiryns and Mycenae may have occurred sho rtly beforeRamesses Ill cam e to power. A few sites in th e Aegean, on the other hand,seem to have been destroyed several decades before the end of th e IIIBperiod, evidently while Ram esses th e G reat st ill reigned.

Alto gether, then , the Catas tro phe seems to have begun with spo rad icdestruct ion s in the last qu arter of the thirteenth century, ga thered momen­tum in the 1190s, and raged in full fur y in the 1180s. By about 1175 theworst was apparently over, a lthough dreadful things continued to happenthroughout the twelfth century. Let us now take a close look at the physicaldestructi on that the Catastrophe entailed.

11 Fo r a d iscussion of a ll the evide nce on the end of IlIB and the beginn ing of mc see PeterWarren and Vronwy Han key, Aegean Bronze Age Chronology (Bristo l, 1989), 158-62. Themost importa nt synchronism co mes fro m a faience vase with Twos rer's ca rto uche fou nd in ashrine at Dei r .Alia (ancient Succorh), alon g with a ran ge of LH lIlB pottery. Warren andHankey not e that the pots were not heirl oom s but fun ct ional vessels in the serv ice of thesanctu ar y. T he auth or s adopt Kitchen' s slightl y later dat es fo r the last rulers of the Ni neteenthDynasty and so conclude (p. 161) that "we may place the boun dary betw een lIlB and IIIC c.1185/80 BC, ~he time of Tewosret Or a few years later ."

Chapter Two

T HE CATAST ROPHE SURVEYED

A N ATOLIA

X.EVERY Anato lian site known to have been important in the LateBron ze Age the Catastro phe left a destruction level. I Figure 1show s a wide distr ibut ion of places in Asia M inor that ca. 1200

B.C. suffered what Kurt Bitt el described as a " Brandkatastrophe." Fou r ofthese sites are wi thin the arc of the Halys River, the heartl and of the G reatKingdo m of Hatt i, and perh aps th is region of Anar olia suffered mor e thanothers. In the centur ies following the Catastro phe the intra -Halys sitesseem to have been occupied only by squatters, and it is safe to say that fo r along time afrer 1200 there were no cities in the area .

Hatrusas itself was plundered and burned at the beginning of the twelfrhcentury (since no Mycenaean pottery was found in the destruction level,correlation with Aegean sites is pro blema tic). The excavators found ash,cha rred wood , mudb ricks, and slag form ed when mudh ricks melt ed fro mthe intense heat of the co nflagra tion. The nearby site of Alaca Hoyu k,twenty kilom eters to the northeast , suffered a similar fate : an ashy de struc ­tion level exte nds over the ent ire excavated surface. Southeast of H at tusas,the Hirtite city at Alishar-s-p rotected by a stout wall-was destroyed byfire.! A hundred kilom eters to the east, at Ma sar Hoyuk, a palace th at hadhel ped to a nchor the fro ntier aga inst the Kaska ns went up in flamesea rly in the twelfth century. Here some LH IIIB pottery supp lies a rou ghsynch ro nism ."

Between the Sanga rios and the H alys three sites have been excavated , butonly o ne seems to have been destroyed in the Ca tas tro phe. Gordio n andPo latli have yield ed no evidence of destruction, but Karaoglan met a fieryand violent end. Skele ta l remains of the victims were found on the site." O n

I Kurt Bind surveye d th e evide nce o n Anarol ia at the Zwett l symposiu m : d . his " Diearc h.iolog ische Sirua rio n in Kleinasien urn 1200 v. C hr. und wa hr end dec nach folgend en vierja h rhu nde rt e, " in Sigrid De ge r-jalko rzy, ed .• Griecbenland, ,iie AgJ ls und die Leconte tca h­rend der "D nri: Ages " (Vienna , 1983 ), 25-47.

z H . H . vo n der O sten, The Ahsh ar Hfiyii k : Seasons uf 1930- / 932 (Chica go , 193 7 ),189 .\ Bitt el, ..Kleina sien ," .34. suggests tha t beca use ~1aP[ is so d isran r from the Aegean we

should perhaps allow rhe porrery "eniges Nachlebens."If so , a dare even larer than 1190 willnur be exclu ded .

, Ib id. , 3 1.

F IG URE 1. The Eastern Mediterranean: Major sites destroyed in the Catastrophe

GREECE 16 . Tar sus 32. Kadesh

1. Tekhos Dymaion 17 . Fra krin 33. Q atna

2. Pylos 18. Ka raogl an 34 . Harnath

3 . Ni cho ria 19. Harru sas 35 . Alalakh

4. The Menelaio n 20 . Alaca Ho yuk 36 . Aleppo

5 . T iryns 2 1. M asar J 7. Carcbemisb

6. M idea 12 . Alisha r Hoyuk 38. Ernar

7. M ycenae 23 . No rsu nrepe

8. Th ebes 14. Tille Hoyuk SOUTHERN LEVANT

9. Lefkandi 25. Lidar Hoyiik 39 . Hazer

10 . lolk os 40. AkkoCYPRUS 41. Meg iddo

C RETF. 26. Palaeokastro 42 . Deir ' Alia

I I. Kydo nia 27. Kiri on 43 . Bethel

12. /\'10 550 5 18. Sinda ·H . Beth Shemesh

29 . Enko mi 45 . Lachish

ANATOllA 46. Ashdod

IJ .Tro y SYRIA 47. Ashkcl on

14. Milet"s 30 . Ugarir

15 . M ersin .11. Tell Suk as

~ At sites in italics destructi o n in the Ca ta strophe is probable bur not certain.

10 I :'-lT R O D U C Tl O :-;

rhe weste rn co ast of Ana ro lia a fa r more importa nt Late Bron ze Age cenre rW3S rhe ciry of Milerus (p ro bably Milaw ara, or Milawand a. in Hirriretext s), around whi ch a grear wa ll was built in the th irteenth century B. C.

M iletus roo seems to hav e been destroyed during the LH mc pe riod . Thesire m.ry have been de solate for some rime bur was apparentl y resettledbefore the beginning of th e Protogeorn erric peri od ..'

Ar rhe sire of Hi ssarlik rwo co nsec utive serrl em enrs-Troy Vlh a nd Tr oyVl la-s-were de stroyed at rhe end of rhe Bron ze Age, a nd in borh cas es rhecit ies seem ro have bu rne d . T he d ares for rhe destruct ion of rh e two levelsa re mu ch disputed , bur ir is now likel y th at Troy VI-an im press ivelyforrified citad el , which is likel y ro have been oc cu pied primarily by a royalfamil y, irs co urtiers, and warriors-fell so metime during the seco nd half ofth e thirteenth century B.C. In the afrermarh of rhar destructi on, a crowdof people-h umbler, bur sha ring th e same mat erial cu ltu re as th e lords ofTroy Vlh-moved inro the citade l. repairing rhe forrificarion wa lls a ndbuilding a wa rren of sma ll hou ses. This ciry, Troy Vil a, was pro ba b lyburned ca . 1190 or 1180,' bur th e su rvivo rs aga in rebuilr rhe wall s a ndocc up ied rhe sire (Vllb ) rh rou gh rhe twelfth ce ntu ry,

~ T he mo st lu cid dis cussio n o f the eviden ce o n M rleru s is st ill that p rovided by Vincent

Desborough. Tlw L"s t My'·CllJt'MfSand Their Successors: All Archaeological Survey c. 1200­c. 1000 D. C. (O x fo rd. 1964 ), 162 -63 . Alt hough fri tz Schu ch e rmeyr . M ykm e und dasHethiterreich (Vienna. 1 9~ (l) . discussed J t grea t length the Milawa ta of Hittite so urces, hesai d nothi ng about the fat e of Bron ze Age M ileru s.

.. H l ege~ 's a rgu ment that Tro y VI ,v.IS dest ro yed in th e m id dl e .m d Troy Vila towa rd th e end

of the IIIB pe riod i ~ sti ll Widely .rccepred, hut his JJ te's-C.1 . 12 75 and ca . I24 0- 3r e n OW3­

d ays ge nerally reg.nded as m uch to o high (B l e~ell 's da tes were based o n th e high Egyptian

ch ro nolo gy and o n th e assu m ptio n that LH Hie began ar th e end o f M emep rah '5 reign ). Th ep rese nt eXCJV3to r at Hisvarl ik, M an fred Ko rf rnann . suggests rh,ir Tro y VI was des troyed ca .

125 U, JnJ Vil a ca . II ~(). Sec Korfm an n. " Alres u nd N eues .I US Troia, " Du s Altertum 36(1 9<'/0) ; 232. As not ed in chapter I. it nuw JppeJ rs thar rhe tr au siti on to LH IIIC CJ II be pl acedno ea rlie r than th e reign of Q ueen Twosret. Even if o ne accept s Blegen 's analysis of the potter y,

b ut foll ows the Egyp to logist;' low chro no logy , o ne co uld da te the 1311 01Tro y VII. as la te ,l'

119il, J nd of Tro y VI .IS late JS 122.S. But even lower dJ te>a re proba b le. Stud ies 01the potteryhJ.ve (o nvi nce J severJ.1 \pecia lists that VII.1 was st ill stJ nJing in the lIIe period . For the

a rgu me nts , see ,\I ich ad Wood.ll/ S,>. lrc!Jof tl,,' Trojal/ War (N ew Yo rk, 198 5). 22 4; all d D .

b"on, " H JS the TroiJ n WJ r Been Found ?" Al/ liq/l 'ry 5 9 ( 1985); 189.lf mc she rd s were

inJct'J fo unJ in VII.I levd s, the' J estru ct ion &1tt' fo r VII;] wo u lJ be no 1.';.1tlie r th J n C l. 1180 ,:lnJ Tw y VI cou lJ h.we been J estroyed in th e b st q uarte r of th e th irteenth (c ntu ry. The m o e, t

rJ.J I c.: ~l l of the new s<.: ht:mes is that of C h rlst iJ.n PoJzuwelt, "Oic myk enischt: \X/e1t u nJ Tro13, "

in ll . Ha nsel . ed .• Siidostcllrnp,l ~I t'ischen 1600 WId 1000 t' . Chr. (M or eland . 19X2i. 65 - 88 .

Po dw weit reJIl J lyzed the pmter v fro m Troy Vl h and VII J nd w nd ud ed th at l<l tt' LH IIICpotlny wJ.s usc:J nut only in th e VIIJ ,e tt leOlcnt hut J iso in the Vlh (iry. If une Jl.·cepts

Pod zuw eit "s .:m .J l p:. i~ . one wou lJ ne~J ro J .Jh.' th e J est ru ction uf th e gre.Jt l:iry-Twy VI- to

the: 't'co nJ hJ.1to f tht' twelft h c(,~ nm ry. Po J zu weit (unduJc~ rhat th~ m uch humble r .-..ertl e'ment"I Trov VI IJ lell - in die er ,ten jJhrzente de, I I . ja hrl l<lltde rts " {poS3 ;.

THE CAT A STROP HE SU R V E Y E D II

In southeas tern An arolia tw o important sires-s- Mc rsin and Tarsus­were bu rned during the Ca tast ro p he , a nd here roo there was recovery.Twd frh-cen: u ry Ta rsus was in tact ,1 sizea ble ci ry, and ;1 few pieces of LH[IIC porr er y show rhar ir was in spo radic co ntact wirh th e Aegean. O n theheadwat ers of rhe Seyhu n River, rwo mile s fro m the ro ck reliefs at Fraktin,unknown aggressors destroyed a H itt ite rown " durch cine gros seBrandkarasrrophe," p ro ba b ly a fte r 11 90 B.C. (the dare dep ends on a sing leLH mc 1srirru p jar fo un d in rhe destruct io n de bris )." finall y. on the upp erEup hrates in eastern Ana ro lia othe r cenrers were burned in the Ca tasrro ­phe: th e excavat io ns a r Lid ar Hoyiik (150 kilo merers up stream fro m Ca r­chernish) a nd a r nearby Tille H oyu k, as well as rhose at Nors unrepe (o n theMurat Nehri, nea r Elazig ) show rhar th e Lare Bro nze Age structures therewere destroyed in sire-w ide confl agrations.H

C Y P RUS

Bron ze Age Cyp rus has become very int eresting, since a rchaeological workon th e isla nd has in rhe lasr rhirry yea rs moved at a faster pace than in eithe rSyri a or Anaro lia . The Ca tast ro phe in Cyprus divides l.are Cy prio te II fro mLC 1lI (LC [II is rhu s co ntemporary wirh LH lIlC in Gr eece). Recent excava ­rions hav e show n th at the LC II period was one of gene ra l prosperity,Ashlar masonry, which had been regarded as a n inn ovati on of the po st­Ca rasrro phe period in Cy p rus , now see ms ro have been emp loyed in civicnrch irecr u re fo r mu ch of th e th irt eenth centu ry."

Am on g the ma jor Cyp rio te cities rhar we re sacked and bu rned a t the endo f LC II were En komi, Kirion, a nd Sind a.! " In facr each o f rhe three siresma y-like Tro y-have been destroyed twi ce in the peri od of a few decad es.The old view wa s that there were two waves of destruct ion. the firsr ca.

7 Bitt el , " Klcin asien. " 3 1 and 3 4.

H H .,,~ld H a u ptm J nn, Arch. Arz. 1<,/ <,/ 1. 35 I , repo m th .lt L~dJ r Hiiyok wa , destroyed - in

d.Js 1. Vie rtel Jt: s 12. Jhs. " O n tltt' 1989 sJ l v;.lg~ exc.1 v3 tiol1s J t T ille' HiiYlik, whic h d iscoveredJ " b rge bu rn t build ing" destruyed ca . 1200 B.C., ;e e S. R. Bby luck, AS 4 ! ( 199 1); 4- 5. O nNo q unt epc:~e Bin d, ~K It'i n J.s i e'n , " 3].

~ Ash lJ.r b lth.:ks h ~1VC: bet' n fo und in LC II co ntex ts.n Ar ios Dh im i tr i o~ .Jnd P.Jb e'ukJ str u .

At \hu m es, n('J r l\.1Jroni, Ger a ld C JJog.ln nJ .sfo unJ I n J shb r bui lding thJ.t shou ld be dJted"'p ro bJ hly to me eJ.r1ier p:l rt of the 13th c.:ctJtu ry." See CJ.J o gJ.n, "l\.f3rollIJnJ the LJ te Bru lll('

Age 01C ypr us . " in V. KJr ageurghis and j . Muhly. CypTl IS dl the-Cln se nftl,, ' Lale BrOlI~" Age(N lCo , ia . 1984 ), X.

,,) James Muhly, " T he Role of th c Sea Peoples in Cyp rus d uring th e LC III Period ," in

KJr ageorghi, J nd Muh ly, Cyprus, 4 1. for J full >u rv<:y 01 the c..,.15trophe in Cvpru , see

Va...~(}.. K.lr J ge'f) rgh l ~, The Emf oftilt! L.lf(· Bruzl::" Ag(' ill C,rprlls ~ N i c.:o s i J . 1990 ;; J nJ the.:

sJ.n1e J u th() r '~ "The' Cri, is YC: J.rs : Cy p rus, " in \'Q.u J J nd Joukowsk y, Cr i::o; i!- fe'urs, 7':/ - .~h .

12 INTRODUCTION

1230 B.C. and the second ca. 1190 (those dates were predicated on theassumption that 1230 was the approximate date for the beginning of LHIIIC). Paul Astrom has revised and compressed all this, dating the first set ofconflagrations to ca. 1190 and the second to the eighth yearof Ramesses 1II(1179). A more radical solution, advanced by James Muhly and acceptedby Vassos Karageorghis, is to recognize only one wave of destructions inCyprus and to date it to the end of LC IICII Inany case, at all three sites­Sinda, in the interior, and Enkorni and Kition on the southern coast-therewas reconstruction after the Catastrophe, and a sizeable communitythrough the twelfth century.

Several smaller sites were not destroyed in the Catastrophe but aban­doned. In a Late Cypriote IIC city at Ayios Dhirnitrios (on the VasilikosRiver, a few kilometers downstream from Kalavasos and some three kilo­meters up from the south coast) there is some trace of burning, but "theevidence does not suggest a great conflagration or deliberately destructiveactivities." 12 Inaddition to much Cypriote pottery, the site yielded LH mBbut no mc imports. Another site abandoned during the Catastrophe wasKokkinokrernos, in southeastern Cyprus, recently excavated by Ka­rageorghis. This was a short-lived settlement, having been established notmuch earlier than ca. 1230. Karageorghis discovered that Kokkinokremos

was abandoned suddenly, obviously as a result of an impending menace. Thebronzesmith concealed his fragments of copper ingots and someof his tools andartefacts in a pit in the courtyard, the silversmithconcealed his two silver ingotsand some scrap metal between two stones of a bench, and the goldsmith care­fullyput away in a pit all the jewelleryand sheetsofgold which hehad. Theywereall hoping, as happens in such cases, that they would return and recover theirtreasures, but they never did."'

That none of the three smiths returned to retrieve the hidden valuablessuggests that they were killed or enslaved.

On the western coast of Cyprus, at Palaeokastro, Karageorghis un­earthed more evidence of the Catastrophe. Here the excavations produced"a layer of thick ashes and debris attesting a violent destruction." 14 Thecity was rebuilt soon after the disaster, and LH mc:1b pottery appeared inthe reoccupation level. The reoccuparion seems to have lasted about ageneration, after which the site was abandoned. IS

" Muhly, "Sea Peoples," 51; Karageorghis. "Crisis Years," 82.12 Alison K, Sourh. "Kaiavasos-Ayios Dhirmtrios and [he Late Bronze Age of Cyprus," in

Karageorghis and Muhly, Cyprus, 14.IJ Karageorghis, "New Light on Late Bronze Age Cyprus," in Karageorghis and Muhly,

Cyprus, 20." lbid., 21.IS Carling, AR (19&6-87j: 71.

THE CATASTROPHE SURVEYED 13

SYRIA

How terrible the Catastophe was in the Levant is attested both archae­ologically and in the Medinet Habu inscription. Because the Levantinesites were in relatively close contact with Egypt, several of the destructionlevels here have yielded artifacts dated by a royal Egyptian cartouche. Thesame sites produced a quantity of Aegean pottery, especially LH lIIB ware,and thus serve to tie together the ceramic chronology of the Aegean withthe dynastic chronology in Egypt.

The large city of Ugarit, which had been an important center in westernSyria since the Middle Bronze Age, was destroyed by fire at the end of theLate Bronze Age and was not reoccupicd.!e The destruction level con­tained LH mB but no mc ware, and a sword bearing the cartouche ofMerneptah. Because the sword was "in mint condition" it was for sometime taken as evidence that Ugarit was destroyed during Merneptah'sreign. As we shall see in chapter 13, however, the sword is likely to havebeen in mint condition primarily because it was unusable. At any rate, atablet discovered in 1986 establishes that the burning of Ugarit occurredwell after Merneptahs death and indeed after Bay became Great Chancel­lor (which he did, on the low chronology, in 1196 B.C.).17 The last king ofUgarit was Harnrnurapi, but although Harnrnurapi's reign certainly over­lapped that of Suppiluliumas II in Hattusas, a more exact Hittite synchro­nism is not to be had. H. Otten supposed that the fall of Hattusas openedthe way for the destructive assaults on the Cypriote cities and on Ugarit,while G. A. Lehmann concluded that Ugarit was destroyed before Hat­tusas.tf The eighth year of Ramesses 1IIis assumed by all to be the terminuspost quem non for the fall of Ugarit. On the chronology followed here, the'conflagration at Ugarit would have occurred sometime after 1196 butbefore 1179.- When Ugarit was destroyed some hundred tablets were being baked inthe oven, and so from this site we have documents written on the very eve ofits destruction. One of these tablets "from the oven"-a letter from acertain Ydn to "the king, his master"-mentions prm (hapiru), and re­quests that the king "equip 150 ships." 19 A tablet from the Rapanu Ar-

10 Marguerite Yon, "The End of the Kingdom of Ugarit," m Ward and ]oukowsky, TheCrisis Years, 111-22.

17 According to Freu, "Tablette," 398, "il faur done abaisser la dare de la destructiond'Ugarir apres 1195, sans doure pas avant 1190."

18 On [he relative sequence of [he destruction of Ugarir and Hartusas see H. Otten, "DieIernePhase desherhinschen Grossreiches nach denTexren," in Deger-jaikorzy, Griecbenland,21; and Lehmann's remarks in the discussion rharfollowed Orren's paper (Griecheniand, 22­23).

19 RS 18.14& = no. 62 (pp. &8-89) In l'RU, vol. S.

14 l l'-:T R O D U C TI O N

chive, an d so so mewha t ea rlier th an th e oven tablets, ind icates th e kind ofthreat that the last kin gs of Ugarit a nd Alashi a faced (the tablet is a letterfro m th e kin g of Ugari t to the kin g of Alashi a k -" " behold, the ene my'sships came (here); my cities (?) were burned, and they did evil things in mycountry. Doe s not my father kn ow th at all my troo ps and char iots (?) are inth e H itt ite co unt ry, and 311 my ships a re in the lan d of Lycia? . . Thus, thecount ry is abandoned to itself . May my father know it: the seven ships ofth e ene my tha t ca rne here inflicted mu ch dam age upon us.~ The king ofUgarir closes th e lett er with a plea th at th e king of Alashia sen d a warning,by a ny mean s possible, if he learn s of ot her enemy ships in the vicinity. Thisletter is o ne of three fro m the Rap 'anu Archive that were sent betweenAlashia and Ugarir, a ll concerned with "the ene my" wh o sud denly sail in ,wr eak havoc and raze cities, and then sail away.s !

Not far from Ugar it, th e coa stal sett lement at Ras Ibn Hani was de­stro yed a t the same time as the capito l. Here, however, there is evide nce thatth e site was re-used very soo n afte r the dcstruct ion .s- Tell Subs , ano the rcoasta l site , a lso shows a destruct ion level at th is tim e.2J The great inlandcities of western Syria were a lso burned. Going upst ream on the Oronresca . 1200 !I.e. o ne woul d have passed Alalakh, Harnarh , Q atna, and finallyKadesh (Tell Nebi Mind, on the up per Orontes): apparentl y all four weresackcd.>' In his excavat ion of Tell Archana, Leon ard Woolley immediatelycame down upon the massive destruction level th at effectively closed thelife of anc ient Ala lakh.25 "T he burnt ruin s of the topmost hou ses sho w thatthe city sha red the fate of its more powerfu l neighbours. t' Js

Ci ties in easte rn Syria may have bee n less affected by the Catas tro phe.Aleppo , lyin g midway between the Orontes and the Euphrates, was appa r­en tly sccked. F Bur Carchem ish, o n the Eup hra tes , may have escaped.Although included in Rarnesses Ill' s list of places dest royed by his o ppo­nents, th ere is reason to believe that Carcherni shsurvived. Archaeologicalwork don e th ere early in thi s cent ury did not ident ify a destruction levelth at co uld be ass igned to this period . Tablets fro rf! Ugarir show that Ta lmi-

! II RS 20 .238, fro m {he Ra p 'anu Archive . Tr ans lation from M ichael Asrour, " N ew Evi­d ence on [he L, S[ Days of lIg .Hi[ ," A]A 69 ( 1% 5), 255 .

11 The lette rs ore RS 20 . 1H,RS L1, and RS ~() .23R ; these are. resp ect ively, nos. 22, 23, and24 in Ugarit ica, voi. 5.

1 .! See th e su m mary hv Annie Caub et ... Reoc cu pario n of the Syria n COJsr a fter the De­srrucno n of the ' Crisis Ye ,Jrs~' " in Ward and ]o u kowsky, Crisis Years, 124-17.

2J R. D. Ba rne tt, "Th c Sea Peo p les. " CA H, vo i. 2. pa rr 2, p. 37 0 .! 4 See G . A. Leh ma nn , Die m yk eniuh·fnihgrit·chische \'(,'e!t and dcr ost liche Miu elm eer­

r~wm in de r Ze it de r -Seel,(i/kt..·r "· llll'J sionclI urn 1200 u. Ch r. (Oplxdcn. 1935), 14 ~ Astour,"New Evidence ," 254 ; Barnett , "The Se.t Peop les." 3 7lJ.

" Woo lk)", A Forgotten Kingdom [H arruundvwo rth. 19 .\3 ), 156-1>4.1_ IhiJ .. 1" 4 .

"' IhiJ.

T Ii E c x T.\ ST R o P H E SU R V E i E D 15

Teshub, king of Ca rchernish and vassa l of Suppiluliumas II, G reat King ofHart i, was co ntempo ra ry with Harnmurapi of Ugarir. Recentl y publishedtablets ind icate th at after the destructi on of Hattusa-, the kings of Ca r­chernish began to use the ti tle " Great King of Hart i. "2X

\X1h at ever the fortunes of Ca rchemish may have been , recent excavationshave show n th at Emar, downstream fro m Carchernish on the Eup hra tes ,was destro yed by fire during the Ca tas rrophc.>' And Ernar is that rare sit efo r which, as Annie Cauber has noted , we have "evi de nce for bo th thedestroyers and th e chro nolog y. "10 Two tabl ets foun d here repo rt that" ho rdes of enem ies" attacked th e city, the a ttack evidently occ urri ng in th eseco nd yea r of Mel ik-sh ipak, k ing of Baby lon (ca. 1185 B.e. ). T he datingformula employed on these two tablet s shows that at Erna r the yea r justconcluded was descr ibed as "I 'annee oil Ies taruu ont afflige la ville, " taruubeing tr an slated by D. Arn aud as " hordes," or as masses for wh om th escr ibes of Emar had no proper nam e or co nvent iona l design at ion .

THE SO UTHERN L EVA NT

Th e Catas tro phe took 3 heavy roll in Palestine and wha t in the Iron AgeW3Scalled Israel. At Deir 'Alb (ancient Succoth) 3 settlement was destroyedafter 1190 B. C. , since the destru ction level yielded, a long with much LHIIIB pottery, 3 vase bearing the ca rrouche of Q ueen Twosrer.! I Lachish m3Yhave been dest royed a t the sa me time or 3 few years later, LH IIIB potter ywas found th roughout Stra tum VI at Lachish , which underli es the destruc­tion level, bur th ere is some indi cation th at Stratum VI did not end unt il thereign of Rarnesses Ill. If th at is so. LH IIIB wares were still bein g producedin the lat e 11805, so me yea rs after they a re genera lly supposed to have beensuper seded by LH 1IIe. Trude Dotha n, however, has proposed that afterthe dest ru ction of Lachish a limited settlement , " pro ba bly an Egyptiangarr ison," W3S esta blished ab ove the rum s.t -' On thi s a rgume nt, the so l­diers o r squa tters were there in the reign of Ram esses III, bur the destruc­tion of th e city (and th e last impo rtatio n of LH IIIB pottery) had occur re dbefore Rarncsses' accessio n.

,. J. D. Haw kins, " Kuzi-Tesu b and the 'Crear Kings" of Karkamis." AS 3S (I QSS); 99-lOS.

.!'l See Arnaud, "Les rextes d 'Ernar, " 87- 92..0 Caubet, .... Rcoccupunon , .. 129.

II H. J. Fran ken , "Th e bC. V. [ ' OIl S .1I Deir ' Alb , jor dan ," VT 11 i 1% 1): 31> 1-72 . TrudeDorh.m , "So me Aspects of the Appear ance of th e Sea Peoples 3nJ Philistines in Canaan, " inDcger-jalkotzv, (;Tit?d't'n /~l1td. 10 I, notes that the Two vrer c.irrouche provides u-, with " theterm inu s ~IJ que m for Mvc. IIIB porrcrv."

'1 Do than, " Se. I'eopl<s .nJ Phlhsn nes, " III I ; d . her review of Lacbish, vo]. 4, in IE] 10{I% ll /: 5S-6.~ .

INTRODU CTION

I'he im po rtant centers a long the Via M aris of Palest ine, th e rou te th at ledm Egypt to Syria (and more pa rti cularly from Gaza to Jaffa ), wererual ly all dest royed in the Catastrophe. Megiddo seems to have held out: longest, St ra tum VII run ning witho ut inte rruption from the thi rteent hItury until ca . 1150 B. C.33 Among the earlier victims were Ashdod,hkelon, and Akko. For Ashdod no Egyptian synchro nism is ava ila ble,t th e cera mics indicate an early twelfth-century date: the predestructionarum XIV produced LH IIIB pottery, and in the postdesrrucrion StratumII some LH IIIC: 1b pottery was foun d. At any rate, Moshe Dothan.avated at Ashdo d a "des t ruc tio n layer (ca. 85 em), co ntai ning ashes,.ich indicate th at th is st ra tu m, in Area A- B, ended in a heavy co nflagra ­n. " 34 At Akko, th e destruction ca n be dated with so me pr ecision. Inrc lowest ash refuse layer" of th e destruction level was found a sca rabth the name of Queen Twosret , evidence th at places the destruction ofko no earlier th an 1190.35 The city was rebu ilt, and the excavatorsind that in the reoccuparion the residents used a mon och rom e pottery-sely related to M ycenaean IIIC ware .36

In addition to th e major cit ies alo ng the Via M ar is, all of whi ch wouldve been under Egypti an hegem on y in the earl y twelfth cent ury, sma llerrlernents were a lso dest royed in the Catas tro phe. These littl e towns-uldsurely have been vassa ls o r dependencies of the ma jor cities, and so-uld also have been protected , very ind irectly, by Egypt's im peria l rnaj-y. Among the smaller sites destroyed in the Catastrophe were the townsTel l jernrneh, Tell Sippor, and Tell Je rishe .J7In the interior, the early twelfth -century dest ruct ion at Lachish and Deirla has al ready been mentioned. O ther inlan d sites des troyed at th e sa meie were, from north to south, Tell el-Qeda h (H aza r), Beitin (Bethel ), Bet hernesh, Tell el-He si (Eglon ?), Tell Beit Mirsim (Debir or Eglo n), an dirbet Ra bud (possibly Debir).JH As everywhere else, these cities we rern ed , th e dest ruct ion bei ng either to tal or so extensive that archaeolo-

IJ William Dever, "The Late Bronze-Early Iron I Horizon in Syria-Palestine : Egyptians,iaa nires , 'Sea Peoples: a nd Proro- Israelires," in Ward and ]oukowsky, Crisis Years, 101.14 M. Dothan, "Ashdod at the End of the Lat e Bronze Age and the Beginn ing of the Iron:, ~ in Frank Cross, ed., Symposia Celebrating the Seventy-Fifth Amlit1ersary of the Found­of the American Schools of Oriental Research (1900-1975) (Cambridge, Mass., 1979),..15 Trude Dothan, "Sea Peoples and Philistines,~ 104. Dot han goes on to say that thetab "may provide a terminus ante quem for the destruction of the Late Bronze city." Burittermi nus post qu em that the scarab actua lly gives us.

10 lbid., 103.17 lb id ., 108; for a tabular presenta tion of Palest inian sites destroyed and spared see Dever,Ite Bronze, " 100.IS Paul Lapp, "Th e Co nquest of Palestine in the Light of Archaeology," Concordia Theo­iC<11Mont hly 38 (1967j : 283-300.

THE C A T A S T R O P H E S U R V E Y E D 17

gists assume that virt ua lly the entire city was dest royed . Afte r the destruc­tio n, most of th e sites in th e interio r were soon occupied by squatters : atH azar, Succorh, and Debir the re a re traces of post-Catastrophe huts o rsmall houses, storage silos, and crude ovens .>? Some cities near the coast,o n th e other hand, were subs ta ntially rebuilt . At Tell Ashdod and Tell Mo rth ere is evidence for conside ra ble occupa tion after the Catasrrophe.w

A few settlements, finally, were spared. There is evidence for continuousoccupation from th e thirteent h cenruryrhrough all or most of the twelfth ata number of majo r sites: Beth Shan, Taanach, Je rusalem, Shechem, Gezer,and Gi beon. Still other sites show no destruct ion in the late th irte enth o rea rly tw elfth cent ury because th ey were un occupied at that time: paradox­icall y, Jericho a nd Ai, two of the cities whose destruction is dramati call ydescribed for us (Jos hua 6-8 celebrates the slaughter of all the inh ab itantsof Jerich o a nd Ai, a nd the burning of th e two cities), were deserted tells atthe time of the Catas rro phe .v!

MESOPOTAMIA

The closest the Catas tro phe ca me to Mesopot ami a was the destruction ofNorsu ntepe, in eas te rn Ana to lia, and of the Syria n cities of Ernar and­possibl y-Carchem ish . Emar was dest royed by nam eless " hordes" andperh aps th e same can be ass ume d for Norsunrepe. T he Euphrates river andth e j ezirah ma y have furnished so mething of a ba rrier to protect th e Meso­po tamian cities from the devasta tion experienced in the Levant, but it isa lso likely tha t the kingdom of Assur served as a deterrent. Generally,Mesopotamian history in the late thirteenth and twelfth centuries followsthe pattern of earlier tirnes.v' Wars were common, but they were betweenperen niel rival s. It was primarily the pa laces at Babylon and Assur thatco mpeted for primacy, with the kingdom of Elarn playing a majo r role fromtime to time.

It is ins tructive to see wh at the kings of Assur were able to accomplishbefore, during, and after th e Catastrophe. Tukul ti-Ninu rra I (1244- 120 8B.C. ) was perh ap s the grea tes t of the Middle Assyri an kin gs. After subduingthe barbarian s wh o lived to the east, in the Zagros mounta ins, he marched

.19 Norma n Gottwa ld, The Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociology of the Religion of Liberatedisrael, 1250- 1050 B.C.E . (Maryknoll, N.Y., 1979), 195.

40 Moshe Dothan, "Ashdod, ~ 127-28.41 William Sricb ing. j r., Out of the Desert? Archaeologyand the Exodus tConquest Narra­

tives (Buffalo, 1989), 80-86.42 For the histo ry of Mesopotam ia see the relevant chapters by]. M. Munn-Rankin, D.].

Wiseman, and Rene' Laba r in CAH, vol. 2, part 2; for a summary directly perti nent to th epresent srudy see Richard L. Zettle r, "Twelfrh-Cenru ry B.C. Bab ylonia: Continuity andChange, " 174-81, in Ward and jouko wsk y, Crisis Years.

INTRODUCTION

ough the mountains of Kurdistan and reached the district of Lakes Van:lUrrnia. His greatest triumph may have come in 1235, when he defeatedKassite king of Babylon; soon thereafter he captured Babylon, and his

derlings governed there for perhaps seven years. When Tukulti-Ninurtas murdered by his son, Assyrian power was riven in faction and Assur'sninion rapidly receded, but Assur and the other cities of the Assyrianirtland came through the Catastrophe unscathed. Ashur-dan I defeatedoylon in 1160 and took from it several frontier cities. His successorsrarently had no difficulty maintaining their rule over the Assyrian heart­d in the second half of the twelfth century, but they did have to do battleiinst Akhlamu and Aramu warriors (both names probably refer toimaic-speaking tribesmen) who threatened on the north and west of.yria, Still more serious was an invasion by twenty thousand warriorsm Mushki, under five chieftains, who crossed the Taurus mountains andled the lands around the upper Tigris. But the Mushkians were beatenTiglath-Pileser I (1115-1077) in a great battle in the mountains ofrdistan,n southern Mesopotamia the Kassite line reestablished itself in Babylon-r its interruption by Tukulti-Ninurta and enjoyed another forty years ofninion, Apparently it was while Melik-shipak ruled at Babylon (1188­74) that so many cities in the Levant were destroyed, but neither Melik­oak nor his son seems to have experienced serious trouble. Trouble didne in 1157, when the city of Babylon was stormed and parts of it were'ned by the Elarnites. Although this incident might be reminiscent of the.astrophe, the "sacking" of Babylon III 1157 seems to have been rela­-lylimited and fits quite well within the normal expectations of Mesopo­iian history: three years after having been beaten and humiliated byiur-dan, a weak Kassite king was defeated by Shutruk-Nahhunte, theg of Elam, and his large army. The Elamite king allowed his troops tonder parts of the city-razing some sections in order to teach the occu­lts a lesson-and he then removed the statue of Marduk to Elam.hough Shutruk-Nahhunte put an end to the Kassite dynasty, he madeeffort to subjugate Babylon permanently and certainly did not destroycity. Soon after his departure a new Babylonian dynasty was estab­ed by a warlord from Isin. Babylon not only recovered its independencealso established some control over towns as far north as the Diyala

T.

YPT

e Mesopotamia, Egypt was spared the destruction of its centers duringCatastrophe. It was not, however, spared the fear of destruction, forween 1208 and 1176 the pharaohs had to battle repeatedly against

THE CATASTROPHE SURVEYED 19

invaders who threatened to do in Egypt what had already been done inAnatolia and the Levant. Because the kingdom of Egypt survived the Catas­trophe we have Egyptian inscriptions advertising what happened thereduring the years in which so many other lands lost their principal cities andpalaces.

In some respects, it is true, Egypt did not survive the Catastrophe. Al­though prosperous and secure during the long reign of Ramesses the Great,after the accession of Merneptah Egypt entered upon a time of troubles thateffectively ended its long history as the dominant power in the Near East.Merneptah and Ramesses III were able to repel the attacks upon Egypt andthen celebrate their accomplishments in a princely fashion, but they werevirtually the last of the great pharaohs. The successors of Ramesses III werehard-pressed to maintain any Egyptian presence in the Levant. UnderRamesses IV (1155-1149) there may still have been Egyptian garrisons atBeth Shan and a few other strategic posts in southern Canaan, but theymust soon have been overrun or withdrawn.t" The last evidence of Egyp­tian power so far north is the name of Ramesses VI (1141-1133) inscribedon a bronze statue base at Megiddo.v' At home, the last kings of theTwentieth Dynasty left few architectural or inscriptional monuments, andin the Twenty-First Dynasty royal power in Egypt reached a low ebb.

The victories of Merneptah and Ramesses III were thus the swan song ofthe Egyptian New Kingdom. Merneptah celebrated his triumphs in var­ious places, but especially in the Great Karnak Inscription and on theHymn of Victory Stele (sometimes referred to as the "Israel Stele "), foundacross the river, at Thebes. 45 For our purposes, however, the inscriptions ofMerneptah and Ramesses III are important not so much because they are afinal celebratIon of pharaonic power but because they illuminate the natureof the dangers that Egypt and many other kingdoms faced in the Catastro­phe. Merneptah's troubles began in his fifth year, 1208 B.C., when a Libyanking named Meryre attacked the western Delta. Meryre brought with himan enormous army, most of his men being from Libya itself but a fairnumber being auxiliaries from "the northern lands. " They are identified byMerneptah's scribe as Ekwesh, Lukka, Shardana, Shekelesh, and Tur­sha.46 The Libyan warlord also brought with him his wife, children, andeven his throne, obviously intending to set himself up as ruler of the west-

4\ James Weinstein, "The Collapse of the Egyptian Empire in the Southern Levant," inWard and Joukowsky, Crisis Years, 142-50.

•• Weinstein, "Collapse, n 144; Itarnar Singer, "Merneprah's Campaign to Canaan and theEgyptian Occupation of the Southern Coastal Plain of Palesrine in the Ramesside Period, n

BASOR 269 (1988): 6. .

45 For the Great Karnak Inscription see Breasted, AR, vol. 3, nos. 572-92; for the Hymnof Victory Stele, see nos. 602-17. Lesko, "Egypt," 153-55, has argued that the "year 5" and"year 8" inscriptions of Rarnesses III at Medinet Habu were originally cut for Merneptah'smortuary temple .

4" Breasted, AR 3, no. 574.

20 I N T ROD U C T IO N

ern Delta. Again st the invaders Merneptah mustered all his force s, and onthe th ird day of the third month of summer he defeated them at Periri, .theprecise locati on of which is disputed . It was undoubtedly a long and diffi­cult battle. According to th e inscr iptio n on the Arhribis stele, Merneprah 'sa rmy slew over 6000 Lib yan s, as well as 2201 Ekwesh , 722 Tursha, and200 Shehelesb (how man y Lukka and Shardana were killed cannot bedetermined )."? The Libyan king fled in disorder and disgrace.

The H ymn of Victo ry Stele, a ltho ugh pr imar ily celebrating the victo ryover the Libyans and their allies, shows that Merneptah also conducted amaj or campaign in Canaa n.f'' He claims here to have " plundered" and" pacified" various places, including several cities (Ashkelon and Gezer;Yanoam too wa s evidently a city). The land of Canaan and the peopl es ofIsrael and Hurru were cha stised.f? Unt il recentl y Merneptah 's claims tohave ca mpa igned in so uthern Ca na an were dismissed as mere propaganda ;but Frank Yurco discovered that wall reliefs, which were once attributed toRamesses II and in which the capture of Ashkelon is portrayed , wereactually commissioned by M erneptah.so It now seems th at Ashkel on andGe zer must ha ve declared thei r independence from Egypt at the outse t ofMerneptah 's reign and were bro ught to heel by thi s elderly but sur prising lyenerget ic ph araoh. v! The trouble presented by men of Israel must havebeen so mething new. Here Merneprah was dealin g not with the cities thathad traditionall y been Egypt's co nce rn but with unc ivilized tribesmen.Merneptah evid ently battled against them and inflict ed so me .casualties:"their seed is not ," he announced . Since the offense of. the tribesmen ofIsr ael was not the withholding of tribute or th e renunciation of a llegianceto M ern eptah, it is likely to have been something indirect, such as anassault agains t one or more of th e pharaoh 's vassal cities in so uthern

Canaan.From the reigns of Merneprah 's ephemeral successo rs we have no record

of foreign confl icts. That certainly does not mean that barbarians on both

4 7 Ibid., no. 60 1 (in the Karn ak Inscription the figures are slightly different).48 The text of th is stele has a lso been tra nslated by Wilson, ANET , 376-78.4. For a recent treatment of th is much-debated text see J.J. Bimson , " Merenpt ah's Israel

and Recent Theories of Israel ite O rigins," ]SOT 49 (1991): 3-29.so In 1977, while wo rk ing o n his doctor al dissertation, Yurco exam ined the reliefs that

flank the " Peace Treaty Text " and discovered that the original canouches (underlying those ofSeti II) belonged not to Rarnesses II, as had been assum ed, but to Me rneptah. See Yurco," Merenpr ah's Can aa nite Cam paign, " ]AR CE 23 (1986) : 189-2 I5 ; and the same autho r's"3 200 -Year-O ld Picture of Israelites found in Egypt," Bib . Arch . Rev. 16 (1 990): 20 ff. Seea lso Law rence Stager, " Merenpta h, Israel . a nd Sea Peoples: New Light on an Old Relief,"Eretz -ls rael 18 (1985 ): 6 1-62. For ob ject ion s to the identification see D. Redfor d, "Th eAshkel on Relief at Karna k and the Israel Stele," IE] 36 (1986): 188- 200 ; for Yurco's replysee "Once Aga in, Meren pt ah 's Batt le Reliefs at Karna k," IE] (forthcoming).

s I Singer, "Me rnep ta h's Campaign," 3.

1il

, ~

i! T HE C A T AS T R O P H E S U R V E Y E D 2 1

frontiers had ceased to ca use problem s or to insult Egyptian interests.Dreadful things were beginning to happen in the 1190s, and in Canaanespecially Egypt 's vassal s must have been cryin g for assista nce. But th e lastrepresentatives of the Ni neteenth Dynasty-Seti II, Siprah, and Two sret­had all to do to keep a feeble grasp on the throne.

With th e establishment of th e Twentieth Dynasty ou r documentationresum es.V and it is ob viou s th at th e situa tio n has become more parlousth an it had been under Merneptah. Rarne sses III faced no less th an threeattacks upon the Delta in his first eleven years. In his fifth year (1 182 B.C.) aLibyan force that mu st have been counted in the ten s of th ou sands(Rarnesses claimed to have slain 12,535 of th e invaders) att acked th e west­ern Delta. T hree years later, in 1179, a force consisting mostl y of Phi listinesand Tjekker, but assisted by men wh om his scribe identified as Sbeke lesbDenyen, Weshesh , and apparently Tursha, a ttacked from th e east :Rarnesses bested the invaders in a land battle at Djah i, somewhere in th esouthern Levant, and defeated an other contingent of th e same coalition ina sea batt l ~. Final.ly, in.his eleventh year (1 176) Ram esses had to face yetano the r Libyan invasion . T he insc riptions credit Ram esses with theslaug~ ter of 2.1 75 _~eshwesh tr ibesmen (and the capture of ano the r 1200 )on thi s occasio n.> Altogether, th e assaults upon Egypt in th e reign ofRam esses III seem to have co nstituted th e most serio us external threatthat Egypt had faced since the invasion of the byksos in the sevente enthcentury B.C .

GREECE AND TH E A EGEAN ISLANDS

None of the pa laces of Late Hell adi c Greece survived very far into th etw<:l fth cent ury B. c.

5 4 The nature of the Ca tastrophe here has been welldefined by Richard Hope Simpson and Oliver Dickinson: "By the end ofLH Ill B almost all the great mainland centres had been destroyed by fire,several being deserted thereafter. T he destruction s seem to concent rate atsites wh ere there were palaces or co mpa rable la rge bu ild ings o r fortifica-

. "55 S' ,nons. ince a great deal of a rchaeologica l work has been don e in

sz Breasted, AR , vol. 4, nos. 2 1-138.

q Edgerton and Wilson, H isto rical Records of Ram ses Ill: The Texts itt "Medittet Habu "Volll1~les I and II, Trans lated with Ex planatory N otes (Ch icago : University of Chicago Pres's,1936), plate 75.

~ 4 The standard survey of the Catastrophe in Greece is Vincent Desbo rough 's The LastAlyccn<ll'Jn s ,znd f heir Successors, An A rchaeological Surw)' c. 1200-c. 1000 B. C. (O xfo rd,1964). R. Hope Slln~,on and O.T.r .K. Dickinson, A Ga zet teer of Aegea n Cii-ilisation in theBrott~e Age, vol. I : The Af,' /tlLm d and Islands (Giitebnrg, 1979), provide an excellent site-bv-Site summary. .

IS Hop e Simpso n and Dickinson , Ca zct teer; 379.

22 I NT R OD U C T [ 0 N

G reece hundred s of Bronze Age sites fro m th e mainland and the islands a rekn own: The foll owing survey will foc us o n th e destruction of th e princip alIIIB sites . But because we are fort una te to have co ns ide ra ble material evi­den ce fo r G reece in the period immedi atel y following th e C atas trophe, wemay also note th e several places th at became important communities (someof them de serving to be ca lled cities) in the mc period.

In G reece the northernmost evide nce for the Catas tro p he (see figure I)co mes from th e settle me nt a nd " pa lace" at lolkos. Unfort una tely, th e sitehas not been well publish ed , a nd o ne ca nno t be sure what happened he re.The pal ace (fro m which fresco fragm ents a nd mu ch pottery was recovered )was evide n tly burned, p robably ea rly in the LH IIIC peri od. lolkos may,how ever, have co nti nue d to be occupied afte r the destructi on of th e palace,for a cons idera ble a mount of IIIC pottery was found at th e s ite . Althoughth ere is evide nce for a Proto geometric sett leme nt a t lolkos, it is not clearwhe the r habitation was co ntin uo us from IIIC to Protogeometric t im es.56

One of the first of the G reek pal aces to be sacke d was appare n tly theTheb an pal ace, well before th e end of LH IIIB. It may have been rebuilt,o n ly to be d est royed for a second time at th e end of IIIB. From the IIIeperiod ch amber tombs but no buildings have been f~und.57 It. is thereforedou bt fu l that T he bes was a signi ficant set tleme n t In th e middle of thetwelfth century.

O n th e Eubo ean coast a town at Lefkandi (or more precisel y at "Xero­pol is," a few hundred ya rds east of Lefkandi) was de stroyed at least o nceduring-the Ca tas t ro p he. No evid ence for destructi on at th e end of LH IIIBhas been found , but th at may be becau se ea rly in th e IIIC period th ere wasmu ch new building a t the site (w hatever the IIIB sett leme n t m ay have been ,the IIIC se ttle me nt was co ns ide ra bly lar ger and deserv es to be ca lled a ciry).This city was " des troyed in a grea t co nflagra tio n " durin g the IIIC per iod;but it wa s immediately rebuilt and co ntin ued to be occ upie d until ca . 1100 ,w he n it was finall y a ba ndo ned.tf

For Athen s, th e o n ly co nclus ion now possible is a 11011 liquet . Sinc e thereare no remain s of an LH IIIB pala ce, we ca nnot kn ow wh at may havehappen ed to it in th e ea rly twelfth cent ury. It is likely, however, th at th e ~lI C

sett leme nt a t Athe ns was much sma ller th an th e preceding sett lement, SIncethe IIIB houses o n th e north slo pe of th e Acropol is were un o ccup ied in thelat er period, and very few mc burial s have been found in th e Agora .>"

<, Desborough, LISI Myce" aeans, 128- 29; Hope Simp so n and Dicki nso n, Ga~etteer,

273.<7 Hope Simpson and Dicki nso n, Gazetteer, 244-45; see a lso Fritz Schache rmeyr,

Griechiscbc Fruhgcschich te (VIenna, 1984), 119-22 (" Palasrb tasrro phe in Theben " ). , _5 ' M . R. Popham, L. H. Sackett, er 'II., cds" l.e(ka" di I: The Dark Age (Lo ndo n, 1980), r.H Desborough, Last ,\.fycenae,m s, 113; Hope Simpso n and Dicki nso n, Gazette er, 198­

99.

THE C A T A S T R 0 P H E S U R V EY E D 23

Perhap s the largest co mm unity in Attica d uring th e IIIC period was o nAtt ica 's eas t coast. At Perat i, o n th e north side of the Porto Raft i bay, acem et er y of more th an tw o hundred chamber tombs fro m th e IIIC peri odhas been exc avated . T he town was undoubtedl y near the ce me tery but hasnot yet been found. T he Perar i tombs furnish mu ch of what is known aboutIIIC Arrica.v?

O n the Corinth ia n Isthmus attention focuses on a fo rti fica t ion wallbu i!r I ~te in the thirteenth cent ury B.C. Appa rently intende d to spa n theentire Isthm.us, th e ":a ll may never have been co m pleted. It is usu all y as­sume d th at It was bu ilt by Peloponnesian s wh o feared an attack fro m thenorrh .s! Almost nothing is known of Corin th in th is period, but at nearbKorakou-on the Corin th ia n G ulf- the re is eviden ce for a n LH IIIB sett l!­ment (the hou ses w~re e~cavat~d by Blegen). Although it was once thoughtth at Korakou su rvived Intact Into th e IIIC period, it is possib le th at thepla ce may have suffered so me damage and was br iefly a ba ndoned at theen~ of IIIB. At any rat e: it was certainly reo ccup ied in IIIC a nd enjoyed apenod of so me p ro spenty before a final destruction a nd a ba ndonment.62

In the northeast Peloponnese almost a hundred Bron ze Age sites have~een identified , a lthoug h man y of these are kn own o n ly from surfacefinds .

63At th ose Argo lid si tes th at have been exc ava ted the pattern is clear:

shortly aft~r 1200 t~e si te,was.eith er destroyed or a ba ndoned . Prosymnaand Berbatl-both In the Intenor-were evide ntly evacuated with out be­ing destroyed. e-t a nd the sa me was probably true of Lerna . T he little un­wall ed se t tlement a t Z ygouries, a lso in the interio r, was a ppa re ntly de­stroye~ at the e~d of LH IIIB and wa s not reoccu pied in me.65

In his ex cavati ons at M ycen ae, Wace found ~vidence for a d estruct ion atth~ end of LH IIIB, but o n ly in the houses o utside the cita del (" H ouse of theWin e M erch ant, " " House of th e O il M erchant, " erc .), Hi s exc avati on s alsosh.ov:

ed th a ~ at th e end of LH mc the ent ire site- incl udi ng everythingwithin the cltadel-:-was burned. On the basis of these find ings, th e scho l­a rly co nse nsus until th e 1960s was th at ene mies a ttacked M ycen ae ca.1230 s .c . (the o ld date for th e end of LH lIIE ) but were un able to penetrat ethe Citadel Itsel f; and th at the cita del was not sac ked until th e end of th e

, ." S~yridon la kovides~ " Peran , eine Nekr opole der Ausklingenden Bro nzezeit in Att ika "HI ~•. G. Buchh o lz, cd ., AgJische Bronzezcit (Darrnsrad r, 1987), 437- 77. '

Desborough, LIst Mycm aeans, HS.

«z For the ea rlier view See Desborough, Las t '\'fyce"aeans, 85-86. jerernv Rutter' di ' .ranon "Th L H II d' , I S sser

, e are e a rc IIIB and IlfC Periods at Korakou and Go nia" (University ofPennsylvan ia, 1974), poi nted Ol!r rhar a lth o ugh no evidence for desrruction a r Korakou was

found,. rhe. argumentum ex silentio has littl e significancc since the sire provides no strat i­graph IC record of rhe rransltlo n from IIIB ro We.

:; Hope Simp son and Dickinso n, GJ::etleer, 27- 74 (nos. A 1 through A 94'1).Desborough, Last Myce tlJeatls, 77.

OJ Jbid ., 84; bu r d. Podzuwei r, " Mykenische Weir," 70.

26 I N TR O D U C TI O N

Moving to th e islands of th e Aegean, we find th at evide nce for theCa tas trop he and its afte rma th is limited but occasion all y quite info rma­tive. Recent ex cavati on s on th e island of Paros have sho wn th at at a citadelnow known as Kouk ounar ies there was an exten sive LH lIIB complex,possibly de serving to be described as a "palace. " The complex was sackedand burned, and the excavato rs found not only a grea t deal of ash but alsoth e skeleto ns of so me of the victims . According to D. Schilardi, director ofth e excavati on s, " preliminary study indicates th at th e destruction of Ko­uk ounaries is slightly later th an the disasters wh ich afflicted the mainland.The pottery sho uld be classified in the transition of LH mB2 to LH m e."soAfter th is destruction in th e early twelfth century, the settle ment was re­built in m c and was protected by a fort ification wall .S! In genera l, how­ever, the Cyclades were not hard hit in the Catast rophe, at least in its earl ystages. The few major My cenaean sites on islands in the central and west­ern Aegean (Phylakopi on M elos, Ayia Irini on Kea, and G ro tt a on Naxos)seem to have survived until late in the mc period.V

For Rhodes and th e other islands of the southe ast Aegean evidencecomes almost exclusively from tombs, and it is therefore uncertain whatdid or did not happen to settlements ca. 1200 B.C. Th e co ntinuity of thecemeteries, however, suggests the essential cont inui ty of population fromIlIB to IlIe.83 O n the other hand, there is reason to believe th at ver y newsettlement patterns appeared in th e twelfth cent ury. The to mbs suggest th atthe city of Ialysos, o n th e northern co ast of Rhodes, enjoyed a fivefoldincrease in population, and co nsiderable prosperity, while so me sites in theso uthern part of th e island were abandoned .84 O n Kos, a settlement hasbeen excavated-the Serag lio site- and here th ere see ms to have beencontinuous occupat ion until well down into th e IlIC peri od .s>

C RET E

What happened o n C rete during th e Cata stro phe is a matter of vigo ro usdebate. There is reason to bel ieve that during the Ca tastro phe the islandsuffered as much as did th e G reek mainland, but how much evid ence there

80 From D. Schi lardi 's rep ort on Kou kounaries, inclu ded in H. Carling's " Archaeology in

Greece, 1980-81," in AR (1980- 8 1): 36 .HI See the summaries by H . Ca rling , AR (1988- 89): 90 ; and E. French , 68.&2 Hope Simp son and Dicki nson, Gazetteer, 305, 3 14, 325-26; to whi ch add Carling, AR

(198 6- 87): 47 . .&. H o pe Simpso n and Dickinson, Gazetteer, 348.&4 Colin Macdon ald, " Problems of the Twelfth Century Be in the Dodeca nese ," ABSA 81

( 1986): 149 - 50 .,; Desb o rou gh , Last Mycenaeans, 153 a nd 22 7; H ope Simpso n and Dick inson , Ga-

zetteer, 360 .

"! v v-"," :

T HE CATA STR OP HE S U R V E Y E D 27

is here for ph ysical destruction is di sputed . T he palace at Kno sso s, possiblythe mo st splendid and ex tensive palace of the Late Bronze Age, was at sometime destroyed, but the d ate of Kno ssos's destructio n has convent io na llybeen set in the ea rly fourteenth century B. C. rath er th an in th e ea rly twelfth .How credible the co nventio nal chro no logy is can best be judg ed after asurvey of the rest of the island in the LM lIIB and IlIC peri od s.

It has long been known , on the basis of evidence from sites other th anKnossos, th at econo mic and cultural activities on Crete did not declinedrastically after 1400. In Pendlebury's wo rds, a rchitecture and potter yfrom Cretan sites other than Knossos ind icate tha t in LM III " M inoa ncultu re continued unbroken but on a lower level. " 86 But the picture offourteenth- and thirteenth- century Crete has become mu ch ros ier th an itwas in Evan s's and Pendlebury's books. It is now clear that the Cretans ofboth the LM IlIA and IlIB periods were "prosperous and enterprising."8?In fact, thanks to Philip Betancourt's survey, we can now say that th ethirteenth century was the golden age of th e M inoan ceramic industry. f fThe pots- especially the kraters and the th ou sands of stirrup jars­suggest a lively expo rt of some liquid (wine, o live oi l, or possibly an oint ­ment or perfumed oil).89 Some of th e pots demon strate what had alway sbeen suspected anyway: Linear B cont inued in use on Crete until ca. 120 0B. C. In addit ion to inscrib ed LM IIIB pots found in Crete itself, st irru p jar sexported from Crete have been found at five mainl and sites, and o n the jar sare Linear B legend s th at were painted on before firing."?

- In western Crete there appears to have been an important thirteenth­cent ury center at Khan ia (classi cal Kydonia ), now being excavated by a~reek-Swedish team. A great deal of LM IlIB porter y was evidentlyshipped from this site. A number of vases found at Khani a bear inscription s

"' J.D.S. Pendlebury, The Archaeology of Crete (Lo ndon, 1939), 243 .8 7 A. Kama, The Late ,\-linoan HI Period in Crete: A Survey of Sites, Pottery, and Their

Distribution . Studies in Medi terr an ean Archaeology, vol. 58 (Go teborg, 1980 ), 313. Kama,wbo acce pts the orthodox dati ng (ca. 1380 ) of th e " final dest ruction" of the Knossos palace,fou nd litt le sign of decli ne the rea fte r in the isla nd as a whole. Cf. he r co nclusion at p. 326:"Art and life in Crete a re best summa rised as having continued at a reason ab ly high level afterLM 1IlA 2, and the relati ve mater ial well being of the average C reta n d id not det er iorate in th ewake of the destr uction of Knossos."

8& Philip Betan co urt , The History of Milloall Pottery (Princeto n, 1985 ). At p. 15 9 Betan ­court observes th at in terms of volume, "the third Late Minoa n per iod is a time of increasedproduction and expanded com mercial enterprise. My cenaean pott ery reaches both the NearEast and the West in increasing qua ntities, vivid test imon y to the thri ving Aegean economy.Crete, well WI th in the M ycenaean sphere, has a good share in this pro fita ble trade." TabletK700, which invent o ries over 1800 stirru p jars , "is a good exa mp le of the new 'performanceexpected from LM III potters." As for th e qual ity of the pots , " technica lly, LM lIIB is the highpomt of M inoan po tti ng and pyro rechno logy " (I" 17 1).

89 Ka n ta, Lute Minoan HI Period, 296 .9 <) Betan court, History of Milloa" Pottery, 173 .

28 I N T R O D U C TI 0 N

referring to a toanax, and perha ps we ma y assume th at the walla:" inquestion resided so mewhere on the island."! Whether there was a palace inKydonia itsel f is unclear, a ltho ugh Linear B tablet s of LM IIIB date haverecently been found there.n Ar an y rate, Kydon ia was dest ro yed ca. 1200B. C., presumably sha ring the sa me fate that overtook cities and palaces allover the eastern M edirerranean. v'

There is evidence th at at the beginning of LM IIIC numerous sites incentral and eastern C rete were abandoned. Amnisos, th e harbor town forKno ssos, seems to have been mostly unoccupied in LM mc, although afountain-house and a shrine did continue in use.94 At Mallia there mayhave been so me burning, but mo st of the site seems to have been simplyabandoned soon after 1200.95 On the eastern tip of the island, the evidencefrom Palaikastro indicates abandonment at the end of LM IIIB, with trans­fer to a site on Kastri hill in IIIC9 6 Finally, excavations in 1987 revealedthat from LM I to LM IIIB there was a large settleme nt at Aghios Pha­nourios, near Mirabello Bay, and that this city was a lso de serted early inthe twelfth century?"

The mo st noticeable feature of habitation shifts in Crete, however, wasthe sudd en preference, ca . 1180, for relatively large se ttlements in remoteand well-protected pla ces. A recent survey of the Late Bronze Age site s ineastern Crete concluded th at during LM IIIB th ere were a great man ysettlements , with man y people living either in hamlet s o r in isolatedhouses. In LM IlfC, on the other hand, such small sites are unattested: inthi s period people lived in larger villages o r in towns. The IIIC sites, contin­uing into the Iron Age , cover a pproxi mately o ne hect are.?"

T he mc towns were typicall y pla ced high in the rnounrain s. Three exca ­vated site s, all in east ern C rete, have co mmonly been referred to as " cities ofrefu ge," since th ey we re appa ren tly founded by people wh o so ught secur ity

9' Lo uis Godart, M La cad uca dei regni micenei a C reta e l'in vasion e dorica , M in DomenicoMusti, ed ., Le origine dei Greci: Dori e m ondo egeo (Rome, 1990), 174- 76.

92 Lou is Go darr and Yan nis Tzed ak is, "Les no uveaux rexres e ll Lineai re B de la Ca nee, "

RFl C 119 (199 1): 129-49.9.3 Go da rt , "La ca duca, M 185.9 4 VeicSturmer, "Das Ende dec Wohnsiedlungen in M alia und Amni sos," in T ho mas, ed .,

Forschungen, 33- 36. .95 Stur mer , " Ende ," 34 , says th at at rhe en d of LM IlIB all parts of the city "endgiilrig

verlassen werden ."96 Kanra, Late MinoJll III Period, 192.., Ca rling, AR (1988- 89 ): 107.9 . Don ald C Hagg is, "Su rvey a t Kavo usi, Crere : TIle Iron Age Sert lernenrs, " AlA 95

(199 1): 29 1: " Iro n Age sices are fewer in number, bur are la rge sett lements, certai nly villageso r sma ll towns, and o ccupy new locations.. . . O ne question is wheth er there is a sign ificanrpopula tion decrease at the end of LM II1Bor rar her , a nucleati on of serrlernenr in che Kavousihighlands in L\ I IlIC . .. The Iron Age settlements a re la rge in size, usuall y abouc 1 ha, andoccupy loc ations in close proximity CO a ra ble 50,1 and wat er supplies. M

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THE C AT A ST R 0 P HE SU R V EY E 0 29

from city-sackers. Karphi is a mountain aerie so me six airl ine mile s inlandfrom Mallia, on a peak thirteen hundred feet ab ove th e Lasithi plain (whichis itself twenty-eight hundred feer above sea level j.?" For understandabl ereason s nob ody lived th ere in the LM IIIB period, but in th e mc per iodthere was a sizea ble town at Karphi.t ?" A second "city of refuge " wasVrok astro, little more th an a mile from the western co rn er of MirabelloBay, but high o n a precipitous peak. Th e town on Vrokastro peak wasconstructed at the sa me time that the settle me nt at Agh ios Phanourios, inthe plain below Vrokastro, was ab andoned. wl The third of the LM IIICmountain sites in eastern Crete is Kavou si, whi ch is actuall y a double site(the " lower" set tleme nt near Kavo usi is Vronda, while Kastro is perchedstill higher on the mountainl.l v- Although excavations here are still contin­uing, it is once again very clear that these twin sites were esta blished at thebeginning of LM mc

For the building of towns in such appalling locations a powerful motiva ­tion must be imagined. This flight to the mountains early in the twelfthcentury was very likely precipitated by a particularly frightening instanceof the Catas tro phe nearby: whatever secur ity the Creta ns had relied uponin the IIIB peri od wa s now gone, and the population was left to defend itselfas best it could. One can hardl y avoid th e conclusion that the regime bywhich the eas tern half of the island had been rul ed a nd p rotected in th e LMIIIB period was ro ute d and annihilated sho rtly a fter 1200. If Evans wascorrect in dating th e final destruction of th e Kno ssos palace to ca. 1400,then one must ass ume th at in the fourteenth and thirteenth centu ries B. C.

central and eas te rn Crete had been adminis tered from so me palace yet to bediscovered; and th at when thi s o ther palace is d iscovered, with its stocks ofprovi sions and its Linear B tablets, it will prove to have been destroyed inthe early twelfth century.

SUMM ARY

Destruction by fire wa s the fate of the cities and palaces of the eas ternMediterranean during the Catas tro phe . Throughout the Aegean, Anarolia,Cyprus, and the Levant dozens of these pla ces were burned. Although

9" Pendlebury er .11. , "Excava tions in rhe Plain of Lasirhi . III," AB SA 38 (1938-39): 57­145.

. roo Desborou gh, LISt Mycetl,:eans, 175, co ncluded char Karp hi was founded in "themiddle Or lat rer pa rr of LH . IlfC." Cf., ho wever, Kan ra, Lute J\;! i>lUa n III Period, 12 1: "Ir isnow clea r that the town of Karphi was first inha bited during a relativelv ea rlv stage in LM 1IIC " . .

101 Carling , AR (198H- 89): 107 .

'''~ For the mosr recent report o n the se two sites see G. C Gesel l, L. P. Day, and W. D.Co ulsen. "The 1991 Seaso n ar Kavou si, Crete, " Al A 96 (199 2): 353 .

30 I N TR OD UC TI O N

man y small communities were not destr oyed, having been simply aba n­doned in the early twelfth cent ury B.C., the great centers went up in flames.In fact, in all the lands menti oned it is only in the interi or of the so uthernLevant that one can find at least a few significant centers that were notdestroyed by fire at least once du ring the Catastrophe.

In the aftermath of destru ction man y centers were rebuilt , and a surpris­ing number of them were on or within sight of the seacoast. Tiryns, Troy,lalysos, Tarsus, Enkorni, Kirion, Ashdo d, and Ashkelon are the best­known of these rwelfth-cent ury coas tal settlements, but there were manyothers. Another expedient, favored especially by the survivors of the Catas­troph e in eastern Crete, was ro locate new towns high in th e mountains.Small, unfortified settlements were far less commo n in the middl e of thetwelfth centu ry than they had been a cent ury earlier.

Egypt escaped the Catastro phe, inasmuch as no Egyptian cities o r pal­aces are known to have been dest royed, although after Ramesses III pha ­raon ic power and prest ige ent ered a sharp decline. And in Mesop otam iathe Catastrophe seems ro have don e little damage: the kings of Assurremained strong through the twelfth centu ry, and Babylonia 's t roubl eswere of a conventional kind. But in all other civilized lands, the Catastro ­phe was synonymous with the burning of rich palaces and famou s cities.

PART TWO

ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATIO NS

OF THE CATAST ROPHE

PART THREE

A MILITARY EXPLANATION

OF THE CATAST RO PHE

Chapter Nine

PREFACE TO A NHLlTARY EXPLANATIO N

OF THE CATAST ROPH E

T HE CATAST ROP HE can most eas ily be expl ained, I believe, as aresult of a radi cal innovatio n in warfa re, whi ch suddenl y gave to"b arbarian s" the milit ary advantage over the long esta blished and

civilized kingdom s of th e eas tern Mediterr an ean . We sha ll see that the LateBronze Age kingdo ms, both large and small, depended on armies in whichthe ma in compo nent was a cha riot co rps. A king's military might wasmeasure d in horses and cha riots: a kingdo m with a thous and chariots wasmany tim es st ro nger th an a kin gdom with only a hundred. By the begin­ning of the twelfth century, however, the size of a king's char iorry ceased tomake much difference, beca use by that time cha riotry everyw here hadbecome vulnera ble to a new kind of infantry.

The infantries th at evidently defeated even the greatest cha riot armiesduring the Catast ro phe used weapons and guerr illa tactics th at were char­acte rist ic of barbarian hill peopl e but had never been tried en masse in theplains and against the cente rs of the Late Bro nze Age king do ms. Th eMedinet Habu reliefs indi cate that the weapo ns of Rame sses' opponentswere javelins and lon g swords, whereas th e traditional weapon of th echariot corps was the bow. Neither the long swo rd nor th e javelin was aninventi on of the late th irte enth centu ry: a lon g slashing swo rd had beenavailabl e in temp erate Eu rope for centuries, and the javelin everywhere formillennia . Until sho rtly befo re 1200 B.C., however, it had never occurred to

an yone th at infant rymen with such weap on s coul d outrnatch cha riots.On ce that lesson had been learned, power sudd enly shifted from the GreatKingdom s to motl ey collect ions of infa nt ry warriors. The se warri ors hailedfrom barbarous, mountainou s, or otherwise less desirabl e land s, somenext door to the kingdo ms and some far away.

Before attempting to demo nstrate these generalizations, I must ma kesome ap ologies. Warfare in the preclassical world is a subject on which weevident ly will never know very much . We have some idea what warfa re waslike in fifth-century G reece, and a few Rom an battl es can be reconstru ctedin detail. Byextension , we can imagine at least the outl ines of batt les fough tby Archaic Greeks and Rom an s. But beyond ca . 700 quest ions begin tomultiply, and abo ut th e seco nd millennium we are gross ly ignoran t. Afte rsurvey ing what is known and can be know n abo ut war fare at Ugarit, Jean

98 A M i ll TAR Y E X r l A NAT ION

No ugayro l co ncluded th at " rna lhe urcuse me nt, nous nc savo ns pratiqu e­ment rien su r l'arrnee qu 'Ugarit pou vair alors rnettre sur pied. " I O n man yqu estion s o ne on onl y guess, and since gue ssing seems unprofess ion al,historians do as little of it as pos sible. T he result , however, is that for lack ofevidence on e of the most import ant things ab out the preclassical world islar gely ignor ed. There is goo d reason to think th at the evolut ion of warfaremade and unmade the world of the Late Bronze Age. Even thou gh weca nno t be certa in a bo ut th is evo lutio n , an d espe ciall y ab out its deta ils, it istim e th at we begin to guess .

The descri pti on of Bronz e Age and ea rly Iron Age warfare would o rd i­nar ily be the task of the military historian. For so me tim e, however, mil i­tar y history ha s been of little int erest to professional sch ol ar s. During itsgo lden age, in the late nin eteenth and early twentieth centuries, the sub jectwas utilitarian and pragmat ic, written by and for men wh o had consider­ab le military experience. O ne studie d it in order to wi n wa rs . The stu dy ofancient militar y history culmi na ted in Germa ny, with th e first volume ofH an s Delbni ck's Geschichte der Kriegskunst and th e magisterial worksof Johannes Kro mayer and Georg Veith. ? Since World Wa r II milita ryhistory has been-qu ite understandabl y-in bad odor in most academ iccircles.

Even if military history remained a vigoro us di scipline, it is doubtful th atrod ay's schol arl y officer s would find Bronze Age a nd early Iron Age wa rfar eint ell igibl e eno ugh to ex trac t from it lessons useful for cadets . Since the re isno Xeno pho n, Caesar, o r Vegetius to serve as a Wegweiser to th e Nea r East,the mil itar y h istory of thi s region is frus trating ly o pa q ue. Written recordsco nta in hundred s of references to wea po ns an d military personnel , butmore often than not the meaning of the wo rds is uncertain . Even in Hebrew,which is relativel y int elligible, it is not entirely cle ar wh en the word para­shim means " hor ses" and when it means "caval rymen. " In Egyptian, Hit­tit e, Hurri an , Ugar itic, Akkadian, and Mycen aean Greek th e situa tion isfar worse. H ere the study of milita ry history is stuck at th e lexicograph icalstage, since there are uncertainties abo ut even th e most basic and elem en­tary terms. Th e genera l plight of scho la rs attempting to illuminate a ll th isdarkness is described by Timo thy Kendall , co nde m ned to extract from th eN uzi tabl ets what they had to say a bo ut mil itary matters: "The Nuz i textsperta ining to military perso nnel and supplie s co nt ain a vast nomencla­ture.. . . As one begin s to read th ese texts, he immediately finds h imselfconfronted by th is stran ge new vocabulary and to his di scouragement he

I J. No ugay rol, " C uerrc et pJix;' Uga rir," Iraq 25 (1% .1): 117.1 Delbrii ck .. Gcscbichte der Kriegsknn st im Rahmen dcr politiscben Geschicbte , vol. 1:

Dus Altertnm I Ber lin, 1900); Kro mayer JnJ Veith, Antik » Scblochtfclder , 4 vols. (Berlin,190.3- 31 ); .m d HL'<->nl'(?St.'1I miff Kriegs ftOjhnut g der C riechen und Romer (M unich , 1928 ).The re \ V-J S nothing remc relv compa rable in English o r French .

PR E F A C E TO A Mil l TAR Y EX P l A NA T I ,) r-; 99

soon di scover s th at a fair number of these terms have been ina deq ua telytreated or littl e understood even by the ed ito rs of the most up- to-dateAk kad ia n lexi con s. " 3 Even wh en all the words a re under stood, problemsrem ain. Length y inscription s advertis e ph araohs' victo ries at Megiddo andKad esh, but the co ur se of th e battles can ba rely be recon structed ou t of thebomb ast . Perh ap s o ur most informative and least misleading so urces ofin formatio n o n milita ry matters are M ycenaean vase paintings a nd N earEastern royal reliefs , but [he latter tend to cluster in a few peri ods andpla ces (especially New Kin gdom Egypt and imp eri al Assyr ia}:'

Surprising ly littl e illumination has co me from in corpore evide nce . In theNear Eas t, first of all, archaeolog ists have found co nside ra bly fewerweapons and pieces of armor than have their counterparts at work in theAegean or in pr ehi storic Europ e (the d iscrepancy perhaps reflect s the dif ­ference between tells and tombs as so urces of the mater ial record). And forboth the Aegea n a nd the Nea r East, wh at ha s been found ha s recei ved lessatte ntion than it deserve s. Altho ugh spec ialists have ca ta loged the weapo nsof th e Bro nze and ea rly Iron Age, they have seldom vent ure d to spec ulate­o n th e basis of [he particul ars-about the evo lutio n of wa rfare during th isperiod. And few o ther scho lars have found the ca ta logs of an y inte res t atall. Unti l 1964, when Anthon y Snodgrass published his Early Greek Ar­mou r and Weapons, discussion of th ese o bjects was largely restricted toout-of-print d issertations written in Germa ny early in this century." Th esituation today is very much bette r. The Bron ze Age swords of the Aegeanwere ca ta loged by Nancy Sandars in the earl y 196 0s, and the spearheadsand arrowheads by Rob ert Avila in 1983.6 Th e swo rds of prehistoric Italyar e a lso now classified a nd pu bl ished , and A. F. Hard ing has ca ta logedth ose from Yugosla via ." Seriou s study of Ne ar Eastern we aponry peaked in1926, when two little books-Walthe r Wol f 's o n Egypt, and H an s Bon -

) Kenda ll, Warfare and Milita ry Matters in the Nu zi Tablets (Ph.D. dissertation , Brandei sUnivers ity, 1975), 74 .

• The Egyptian reliefs a re best seen in W. WteszinskI 's collecti on of phot ograp hs and in theline d raw ings bas ed on them . Although " pu blished " before World W, t II, th e pho togr a phswere quite inacces sible until th eir tece nr rep rinting , bySlarkine Reprints, in two bo xed sets.See now WJ:Iter Wrcszinsk i, Atlas ;;ur JltJ gy pt ischen Kultur geschichte (Geneva and Paris,1988).

< Sno J grass, Early Greek A rmour and Weapom: Fmm the F.",Iof the Bronze Age to 600B.C. (Edinburgh, 1964 ); for the dissert arion s see Snodgrass , Amts and Am"",r of th e Greeks(Itha ca N.Y., 196 7), 13 1. Snodgrass's Early Greek Armour and Weapo"s itsel f bega n 3S adissertation.

, Sunda rs, "The First Aegea n Swo rds and Their Ances try," AlA 65 (1961 ): 17- 29; "LaterAegea n Bronze Swo rds ." AlA 1>7 (1963): J 17-53. Avila, Bnmscne Lanzen- "",I Netls pitzender grieclnschen Spatbronzczeit, Pdhistotis che Bron zefunde, pan 5, vo l. 1 (M unich, 1983 ;.

.,. V. Bianco Peroni, Die Sclnoerter in ltalien:Le Spade nell 'Italia continentale, Prahis­ronsche Bronzefun de. part 4, vol. 1 {M unich. 19i Oj; on the publication of the Yugos lavianswo rds see Ha rding , M)'n-'nJeul1s and Europe. 163 .

100 A MI L I TAR Y E X r L A :-J A T l O S

net 's on the rest of th e Near East - sketched an elementar y typ ology,SDetailed typologies of Ne ar Easte rn ax es, daggers, swo rds, and spea rs havesince been publ ished but have been seldom used o r even ment ioned..

Ch ario rs have been of greater interest, and it is encouraging to note th atrecently th eir technical aspects have received exp ert attention . 10 An under­sta nding of th e milita ry applications of the chariot, on the other hand, lagsfar behind .! Seve ra l assumptions abo ut the role of the cha rio t on th eba tt lefield seem to be quite mista ken, and we have apparentl y ignor ed theextent to w hich warfar e in the Lite Bronze Age was "cha riot warfare. "

In additio n to the ar chaeological and rypological studies of weap on ryand armor, we now have det ailed ana lyses-severa l of them in doct orald issertation s at American universiries-c-of text s dealing with military mat­ters. Focusin g especially on the technical terminology used in the docu­ments of thi s o r that kingdom , the se studies provide kingd om -by-kingdomsurveys of things military at Mari, N uzi, Hatri , Ugarit, Israel, Egypt, Pylos,and Kno ssos.t -

• Hans Bon net , Die Waffeu der \6lker des alten O rien ts (Leipzig, 192 6); Walthe r Wolf ,Die B<?Iuuffntmg des altugyptische n Heeres (Leipzig, 192 6). Although bo th surveys rem ainusefu l tod ay, neither sheds any light on the changes in wa rfare that occ urred from the LateBro nze Age (Q the Irun Age o r even acknowl edges that changes occurred at tha t time . Wolf 'sform at is broadly chrono logica l, but stops with the Nin eteenth Dynasty. Bonnet 's presenta­t ion is wea pon -b y-weap on . Thus although he was co ncerned to show the differences betw eencha rio t lan ces and in fantr y spea rs, Bonnet now here discussed the role of the cha riot in battl e.How the natur e of anc ient wa rfare was chan ged With the ad vent of chariorry, a nd wh atcha nges were assoc iated with the obso lescence of chariorry, are thus que sti ons tha t could notbe a nswered o n thl.· bas is of his infor mation.

• M uch of thi s was do ne by Rache l Ma xwell -H yslo p, who began her typological resea rchin th e late 19305. See her "Daggers and Swo rds in Weste rn Asia ," Iraq & (1946): 1-65 ;"Western Asiatic Sha ft-Hole Axes," lraq II (1949): 90- 129; and " Bronze Lugge d Axe - o rAdze-Blade s fro m Asia, " Iraq 15 (1953): 69-87. On spears see Alessan dro de Maigrct, Lelance nellA sia anter ic re nell 'Eta del Bron zo (Rome, 1976 ),

10 Mary Lirtuuer and joosr Crouwel, W heeled Vehicles and Ridden An ima ls in the Anci en tN ear East (Leiden, 1979); C rouwel , Cha riots and Other Means of Lund Transport in Bron zeAge G reece (Ams te rda m, 1981); Stuart Piggo tt, The Earliest Wh eeled Transpo rt: from th eA tlan tic to the Caspian Sea (Ithaca, N .Y., 1983 ).

I I Good begin nings have bee n made by Elena Cas sin, " A propos du char de guer re enMesoporam ie, " in J. Vernant, ed ., Problemes dl! la guerre en G rece ancienne (Paris, 1968),297-308; by Lirta uer and C ro uwel, Wheeled Veh icles, 9 1-93 ; and by P. S. Moorey, "TheEme rgence of the Light, Ho rse-Dr awn Chario t in the Nea r East c. 2000 -1500 B.C.,· WorldArchaeology 18 (1986), 196- 2 15.

12 Alan Schu lma n, Milit ary Rank. Title and O rganizatic» in the Egyp tian New Kingdom(Berlin, 1964 ; Ph.D . dis sert ation , University of Pennsylva nia , 1962); Albert Gloc k, Warfare illMuri and F. /Try Israel (Ph.D. Disserta tion, University of Michigan, 1968); Michel Leje une,"La civi lis.men mycenien ne et la gue rre , " in Vemanr, Problemes de La guerre , 3 1-5 l ;J. Nou gayrol, " C ucrre er pai x :. Ugarir, " Iraq 25 ( 1969), II 0- 23; Jack Sasso n, The .\ l ilitaT)'Establishm en ts at Mari (Rome. 1969); Tim oth y Kende ll, Warfare and M ilitJ')' Mail ers in th eNuei Table ts ( Ph.D . disse rrario n, Bran deis University, 1975); Adele Francesche rri, "Arrni c

r REf A C E T 0 A .\ 1 ' LI TAR Y E X r L A N .... T I O N 10 I

Th e synthesis of these specialized stud ies, an d th eir conversion into adiachronic account of mil ita ry history, has hardy begun. While survey s ofclassical mil itar y history appear with so me frequency, the first and lastmilit ary history of the ancient Near East was Yigael Yadin 's. In the lon gtradit ion of a military practitioner writing military history, Gen eral Yadindid a signa l ser vice to the aca demic world in writing a colorful and lucidsto ry- a dia chronic account, that is-of warfare in the anci ent NearEasr. l' His Art ol Warfare in Biblical Lands was not only a rem arkablepion eering achi evem ent but remains funda menta l for anyone inte rested inth e subject. It is not annotated , howe ver, hav ing bee n written as much forthe genera l public as for professional historians; and, given its eno rmousran ge and the impenetrable nature of its subject, it has not su rprisinglyturned out to be wrong or misleading on many points. Israeli inte rest inmilit ar y history has produ ced a number of books, narrower in topic th anYadin 's but more popular in approach, recountin g th e victories of ancientkin gs in Israel and judah.!:' More recentl y, Nigel Stillma n and N igel Talli shave co llabo rated to produce a thoroughly expert survey of wh at is knownab out ancient Nea r Eastern weapons and milita ry o rga nization (their for ­mat, unlike Yadin 's, is not d iachronic out kingdom-by-kingdom , o r people­by-peoplej.t - Alth ough Stillman's and Tallis's book is not annot ated andhas the flavor of a military manual, th e qu ality of th eir scho la rship is high,and it is unfortunate that thei r survey has not been reviewed or acknowl­edged in scho la rly journals.

Since a general survey of preclassi cal milita ry history is so novel anddifficult an und ertak ing, it is not surp rising that th e subject is ignored evenin so me book s wh ose sub ject is ostensib ly " war in the ancient world. " ! h

Scholar s vent ureso me eno ugh to write o n Ne ar Easte rn milita ry historymust expect to be embarrassed by occ asional pratfall s. A case in po int is th efairly recently pu blished Warlare in the Ancient World, edited by General

gue rra in resti micenci," Rendiconti dc ll'Accad . di A rcheologia. Lett ere e Helle Ar ti di Napo li53 (1978 ), 67-90; M ichael Heiner. Th e Int ernal O rganiza tion of tire Kingd om of Ugari t(Wiesbaden, 19S2), esp. chap. 6 t't'TheM ilitary O rganization and the Arm y of Ugari r" ); PhiloHouw ink ten Care, "Th e Histo ry of Warfa re Accord ing to H itti te Sou rces : The Anna ls ofHarrusilis I,· parr J, Anatolica 10 (19SJ ): 9 1-1 10. a nd parr 2, Anat olica II (1984 ): 47-&3;and Richard Beal, The O rganization ofth e Hitt ite Military ( Ph .D. d isse rtatio n, Unive rsity ofChicago, 1986 ).

r., Yadin, The Ar t of WJrfare in Bib lical Lands; 2 vols. (New York, 1963 ).\4 See for exam ple Cha im Herzog and Mordecai Gichon, Battles of the Bibl e (New York,

1978).15 N . Stillma n and N . Tallis, Armies of the An cien t N ear East, 3000 BC to 539 BC (Wort h­

ing, Sussex . 1984).I t> Y. Ca rlan's, War in the Ancient ",( )T Id: A Social History {London, 1975) is limited to the

clasvica l wo rld. In J. HJ.rm.JnJ, I..J guerre ant iqu e. de Sumer J Rome (Paris, t 973 ) the re arereference') to the Nca r East, bu t no syscemanc treatment.

102 A ~II L I T A R Y E X P L .~ N A T I O N

Sir John Hac kert."? Each chapter of th is very useful book is written by ascho lar of high distincti on. The eight chapters beginn ing with Archai cG reece and endin g with the Later Roman Empire cover ground that hasbeen trod for centu ries and is now qu ite exqui sitely mapped, but the twocha pters on the pre-Persian Nea r East-by prehistor ian Trevor W;'ukinsand Assyriologist D. J Wiseman-e.xplore what to a great extent is still aterra incognita.! " Here one encounters, amid a variet y of archaeo logicalillumination s and Assyriological clarifications, a few impossible items:bows with a range up to 650 meters, Bronze Age chariots pulled by four­horse team s, and Assyrian chariots with iron und ercarriages. Nevertheless,the overviews furnish ed by pioneers such as Watkin s and Wiseman faroutweigh the occasiona l mistake on parti culars.

Having no credentials as a military histor ian , I shall undoubtedly fur­nish future scho lars with ample opportunity for mirt h and cor rection. Buta gene ra list of the rank est order, with no inh ibitions against guessing wheneviden ce fails, should be in as goo d a position as an yone to reconstru ct thegeneral evolut ion of warfare at the end of the Bronze Age and beginning ofthe Iron Age. Becau se the Catast rophe was followed by a dark age, produc­tive of neither written no r pictorial evidence, the militar y histo ry of th isperi od is especially obscure . In both the Aegean and the Nea r East, theperi od between the reign of Rarnesses III and Ashurnasirpalll is pictoriallyalmost a total blank, relieved only by the stelae of "Neo-Hi rtitc" kings innorthern Syria.!" Yet there is reason to believe that the decades around andaft er 1200 B.C. were among the very most important in the evolution ofwar fare in the ancient world.Th e nexr chapt ers will accord ingly atte mpt toske tch in at least its broad outlines how war fare changed at the end of thethirteenth century and the beginning of the twelfth .

Some innovations in weaponry at the end of the Bronze Age have beennoti ced , especia lly by scholars who work closely with the material record.Archaeologists have known for a lon g time that at the end of the lllB period

. 7 H ackert, ed., Warfare in the l IT/d ent World (l ondo n, 1989).• 8 Watkins, "The Beginn ings of Warfare," 15- 35; and Wiseman, "The Assyr ians," 36­

53 . Th e bibliography includ ed fo r WatkinS'> chapter (Wolrfare, 250 ) co nta ins three items:Yadi n 's Art of Warfare, Breasted 's Ancien t Records of Egypt, and Luckenbill's Ancient Re­cor ds of Assyri..zand Babyl onia . In co nt rast , ten works-all studies in military history meantfor th e' professional scho la r-c-are listed for Laz- nbv' s chap ter on the Greek ho pIire.

I <J On the absence ot ams nc evidence o n militJry matters i ll the Aegean during this periodsee Desb o ro ugh, The Greek D",k -Ages, 306: - lIetwccn the early rwelfrh centu ry and theeighth there exists no figure or figurine of J warrior. no r J Oy represenrarion ot such in VJ~

paint ing, with the' single exception oi the two confron ted archers J [ Lefkandi." Nor are thingsmuch better for me- Near Els e Th e lack of evsdence there almost per suaded Yrdin to "w riteoff" the Iro n I pC- ClUJ as ..J kind of transitional pcrioJ a buu e wh ich nothing on warfare couldbe' known" {Art o( Vi/ur(Jre, 1,'01. 2 ,l~ 1 ~ d. p. ..:!.4 7: "Our so le ..ou rce fO[ the first parr o f theperIOd is the ma ny reliefs of Rarneses HI.n"

PRE f A C E T 0 A _\ 1 III T .\ RYE X P l A N A T I O N 103

severa l items of defe nsive armor-greaves, certainly, .ind a smaller shield­prol iferate in the Aegean, as d id the Na ue Type II swo rd (on the NearEaste rn side, where the tr ansformat ion in warfare was radi cal, there hasbeen less attent ion to it). Jeremy Rutter has in fact noted th at in the post­palat ial Aegean "the cha nges in virt ually all forms of offensive and defen­sive wea ponry . . . are remark abl e for the comprehensiveness of their rangeand the rap idity with which they are effected. "20 But altho ugh these mate­rial changes have been recognized , their histor ical significance is too littleappreciated, apparently because the nature of warf are in the Late Bron zeAge is so imp erfectly und ersto od . Tentative suggest ions have occas iona llybeen mad e. Nancy Sanda rs, for exa mple, alluded to "a new for m of attackintrodu ced with the flange-hiked sword," ! 1 and Jam es Muhl y observedthat the appearance of greaves and slashing swords po ints to " the introduc­tion of a new style of fighting. T he tactics now were not just to thru st butalso to cut or slash, especially at the legs of your oppo nent. "22 If thecha nges in weapo nry and tactics a re fully explo red, and especially if theirimp act upon cha riot warfare is imaginatively assessed, I believe that theywill furni sh as goo d an exp lana t ion for the Catastrophe as we are likely tofind.

HI Rutter, " Cultu ra l Novelt ies in the Post-Palatial Aegea n World: Indices of Vitality orDecline?" in Wa rd and joukowcky, Crisis Year; , 67 .

I. Sund ars. Se, Peoples, 92 .12 M uh ly, "The Role of th e Sea Peoples," 42. Carling , with whom the idea o riginated,

ternpo ra n lv abandoned it w hen the Dend ra greaves {dating ca . 140 0 } were found; see Carling,"A New Bron ze Swor d from C yprus," Antiquity 35 ( I% I ): J22 .

Chapter Ten

THE CHARIOT WARFARE OF THE LAf E BRONZ E AGE

T HETHES[Sof the present study is that the Catastro phe carne aboutwhen men in "ba rbarian" lands awoke to a truth that ha d beenwith them for some time: the chariot-based force s on which th e

Grea t Kingdoms relied co uld be overwhelmed by swarming infa ntr ies, theinfant rymen being eq uipped wit h javelins, lon g swo rds, and a few essentialpieces of defensive armo r. Th e ba rbar ia ns-in Libya, Palestine, Israe l,Lycia, northern G reece, Italy, Sicily, Sa rdinia, and elsewh ere-thus foundit with in their mean s to assault, plunde r, and raze the richest palaces a ndcities on the hor izon , and th is they p roceeded to do .

In order to place this thesis in pe rspecti ve, it will be necessar y to recallso me familiar facts about cha riots on the battl efield and to br ing a fewothers our from ob scur ity. Altho ugh to the general public the cha riot hasalways seemed one of the more inte resting th ings about antiquity, fewhisto rians have devoted much time or thou ght to the subject. In the last fewyear s, however, Mary Lirrau er, Joost Cro uwcl, and Stuart Piggott havegiven us scholarship of th e first order on cha riots and chario rry, T he irwr it ings on the subject com bine a mastery of the ancient evidence with anequestrian's expert ise on horses, horn essing, and hor se-dr awn vehicles.! lthas thus become possible to glimpse at least the outlines of a pheno menonhith erto almos t unrecogniza ble-char iot wa rfare.

T H E B EG IN NINGS OF C HARIOT W ARFARE

Although "arts and wagons had been used in Mesopota mia from the be­ginning of the third millenn ium B. C. , these were ponderou s, solid -whee ledvehicles, an d were much more easily draw n by oxen than by eq uids, T hechariot was a techno logical tri umph of the early second millennium. Mad eof light hardwoods, with a leather-mesh platfo rm on which the dr ivercould stand, the ent ire vehicle weighed not much more than thirty kilo­gr'1I11S. The wheels were, shall we say, the revolut iona ry element : the heat­bent spo kes pro vided a stu rdy wheel that weighed only a tenth as much asthe disk wheels of the third millennium. With such a vehicle one co uld

I For their rrcarrne nrs of chariorrv in th is pe riod see Lirtau e-r and Crouwcl. W'ht.·cI('~1

veb iclcs. 74-98; Cro uwe- l, Cho riots-; f'1gg, O{[ \ Earliest \f/ht!~h'd Transport, 91- 104 .

T H E C H A R I O T W AR F A R E lOS

begin.to exploi t th e horse as a draft a nima l: whereas an ox ca rt traveledonly two miles in an hour, a team of cha riot horses co uld cover ten.

Th e recent schola rship on techn ical aspects of the cha riot perm its us toesta blish approxi ma tely when chariots became militar ily significant . Theera of the war cha riot, as [ have elsewhere a rgued in detail, began in theseventeenth cent ury B. C.! Befor e that tim e, cha riots seem to have been oflittle o r no importance on the battlefield, even tho ugh they had been usedfor rapid tran sportation , for amusement , and for royal display as early as1900. lr is likely that in Mesopotamia, at least, kings had all along riddento th e batt lefield-on stately, heavy wagon s in the th ird millenn ium and inchariots after the development of the spo ked whee l. T he cha rio t of the earlyseco nd millenn ium , however, was appa rently only a prestige vehicle andnot yet a military instrument. That is not to say that in the time of Ha m­rnurabi of Babylon a kin g did not occasionally shoo t an a rrow fro m hischa riot with hostil e intent. Perhaps there were even battl es in which a royalento urage of four or five char io ts may have made a tiny contribution to theou tco me. But in the Age of Harnm urahi, as ana lysis of the Mari docum entshas shown," battl e sti ll meant the clash of two infant ries. By the sta nda rdsof lat er antiquity these infantries of the M iddle Bronze Age were not veryformidab le. ln Twelfth-Dynasty Egypt, the army seems to have consisted ofAlternating for ma tions of arch ers and close-formation spearmen." Thearchers used the simple or self bow, wh ich must have had an effective ran geof only fifty or six ty meters, and their arrows ap pa rently helped only to

"soften up" the enemy 's formation of massed spearmen as it app roachedtheir own. After th is prelim ina ry phase, the battle prop er began, with theopp osing phalan xes attacking each ot her with axes and thr usting spea rs.

T hen came a revolu tion in ancient warfare. Since no docum ents describeit, we have no o the r recourse but to imagine it: a tradition al infantrymar ches out to do battle with an oppos ing infantry but instead finds itselfattac ked by several scor e of a rchers mou nted on chariots and a rmed wit hcompos ite bows, the-arche rs shoo ting arrows wit h impunity until the t ra­dit io na l infant ry forma tion is brok en a nd tour ed. Each cha riot carried twoyoung men with excellent reflexes: th e charioteer drove the hor ses wh ilethe chariot wa rrior shot arrow after arrow against the relatively stationaryenemy forma tions, the chariots keeping JUSt outs ide the range of the oppos­ing infantry's bow men. Essenti ally, th e cha riot beca me militarily signifi­cant when it was combined with anoth er intricate a rt ifact, the com positebow, which also had been known fo r a lon g time but had until then been a

1 Drews, The Coming c[ the Greeks: Indo -Eu ropean Conquests in the AegcJn aru! theNear East (Princeto n, (988), especia lly 74- J2lJ; see also Cassin, "Cha r de guerre," 298 :Lin au er and Crou wel, \t/heeled vehicles, 6J-hS; ;mJ Moo rey, " Emergence." 205 .

, G lock. Wur(urc In Mari and Ear!v IsrJC1. 144., Silliman and Tallis, Armies 54 . .

106 A .\1 I L IT A RYE X P LAS A T I () S

luxury reserved for kings or the very rich. Early in the seventeent h cent uryir must have occ ur red to so meo ne (who perh aps had himself enjoyed usinghis cha rie r and composire bow for hunt ing exploits ) that severa l sco re ofcha riots. each mann ed by an expert d river and a " hunte r" armed wit h acomposite bow, wo uld be ab le to overco me a conventional army ofinfa ntrymen.

TIle earliest cha riot warfare seems ro have occur red in Asia Min or. TroyVI may have been estab lished soo n after 1700 B.C. by chariot warrio rs, andthere is evide nce th at by ca. 1650 chari ots were used by the king of Hatti ,by Um man Mand a at Aleppo, and by the lryksos who too k over Egypt . 'Th e iJyksos,an asso rtment of Semit ic, Hurrian , an d Aryan adventure rs, setup at Avar is a regime known to Ma nerho as Egypt's Fifteenth Dynasty. Asa nothe r pion eer of the new wa rfare, Hatru silis I not o nly mad e himselfGrear King of all Hatti-e- a remar ka ble acco rnplishrnenr-c-bur a lso raidedas far as Aleppo and Alalakh. By 1600 chariot wa rriors were in contro l arM ycenae and elsew here in Greece , and nor lon g thereafter cha rioteers tookover no rthwestern India.

C H ARIOT R IE S : NUMBERS AN D C O ST S

Chariot forces in the middl e of the seventeenth century were relativelysma ll and possibl y numbered no more th an a hundred vehicles." At thistime, th e cha riots were presu mably used against infantries of the old sty le.As cha riot ries proliferated, the target of a chariot a rcher was increasinglythe hor ses a nd crewmen of the op posing cha riotry , a nd it becam e irnpo r­ram for a king ro have more cha riots than his opponent had . T hurmose Ill 'sacco unt of his victory at rhe Battl e of M egiddo shows th at by rhe middle of

S In Coming of the Greeks, 102-5 . I presented evidence for the use of war cha riots byH arrusilis I and b y the " Grear H yksos" rulers of Egy pt in the seco nd hal f of the sevenreenjhcenrur y, but ove rloo ked two ot her very ea rly instances of its use. First. it is certain rhu r cha riotswert' used by Yarim-lim III of Alep po . one of Harru silis's adversar ies. Yarim-lim's ch.i rio rs,evide nt ly o ne hu ndred in number, ar c ind ica ted by the:"Zuk rnxi text, n an O ld H ittite tablet:" Z uludi s, the co m ma nder of the M"nd, .t to op s, (a nd) Z uk r.u slsis. the co mm ande r of thehe.ivy-a rm ed (?) t roo ps. of the Rul er (?) of Alep po came dow n from Alepp o with hisfoot -soldie rs and his cha riorecrs ." For th is rr.m sl.irio n see Houwin k tell Care, " Histo ry of\"'J.rf.l re " 5g; fo r the num ber, see Bc.rl. Org(l tlI:;:at lll ll , 58 . Seco nd, it now seems pr o ba ble (as Iargue in "My th !'! o f Mida s") tha r rhe Tread was the first area to he taken uver b..· cha riotwarrior s {soon after 1700 R .C ~ .md rh.ir they built Troy VI. '-

... See: Be:JI. Cvrganizatinn. 343 . An epic text, "T he Siege of Ursh u. " mention s fo rces ofth irty a nd eighty cha riots in the c..rnpai gn of H artu silis I aga inst Ursh u : in the w ars betweenH arrusilis and Yanm- lim III of Aleppo two hundred ch .rriot fighters (im plyinl( .1 hundredchu riors ) ure mentio ned . At pp. 432-45. how ever, BCJ.I discu sses a tex t referring to a pair ofofficers w ho were called "' O verseers-ot.one, rho us3 nJ, c.:harior.figh ters. " In priva te co rrespo n­de nce B~J I infor ms me rha r the rexr Jares ro th e reign of either H arrus ilis I or .\1 u rsil i ~ l.

T HE C H A R I () TWA R FAR E 107

the fifteenth century B.C. a Great King could deploy at least a thousa ndcha riots. At the beginning of the next century the Great Kingdo m of Mit­anni seems to have had at its disposal a cha riotry numbering several thou ­sand, since the Nuzi tablets indicate that o ne of the minor vassals of theGreat King of Mirann i could all by himself have supplied his lord with overthr ee hundred cha riots.' At the same time, however, an Atta rissiyas (whosename has often been compa red with the Achaea n" Atre us" ) caused trou blein western Anato lia with only a hundred cha riots."

Chariotries in the thirteenth century likewise ra nged from a few hu ndr edto a few thousand . At Kadesh, the Hitt ite king is said to have deployedthirty-five hundred cha riots, twenty-five hundred of these being his owna nd one thousand being supplied by vassals." Since Rarnesses II emergedfrom the batt le with so me dignity, if not with victo ry, the Egypti an char io­try was prob ably about the same size. I II Ar the end of the century the kingsof Harri and Egypt a re likely to have been able to field chariotries of severa lthousand, since even a Hittite vassal-the king of Ugarit-seems to havehad close to one thousand chariots. I I

Perhaps a more typical pala ce at the end of the thirteenth century main­tained a cha riotry numbered in th e low o r middle hundreds. Thi s, at least ,seems to have been the situation at Pylos. Although the excavators at Pylosdid not turn up "chariot tablets" such as those found at Knossos, they didrecover approximately thirty "wheel tablets" detailing the disposition of atleast two hundred pairs of wheels. Ano ther text ment ions the pur chase ofwood for 150 ax les.!- Since these spare pa rts constituted the palace's

, Kendal l, W"T("Te, 67 . Since the " mayor " of Nuzi was an u nde rlin g of the kin g o f Ar­ra paha, who in rur n was the vassa l of the:Great King of Mir .tn ni, we may suppos e rh .ir theN uzi forces were 3 very small fraction of the ro r.il that the Grc:Jt King cou ld muster.

KOn the Madduwartas text and its dare see Hans Ciircrbo ck. "The Hitt ite, 3nJ theAegean Wor ld : Part l. The Ahhi yawa Pro blem Recon sider ed ." AlA 87 ( 1983): 13.1-34.

• For th e texts see Alan G ard iner. The K.,desh In script ions 0{ Rame sses JJ(O xfo rd, 1960).P 130-35 an d P150-55. Bcal, (lTg,m h"tioll , 702, acce pts the figu res as reason able for theH ittite a rmy at fu ll strength.

10 Ra rnesses does no t sta te how many ch ar iot s he hJJ at Kadesh , but his predecesso rs seemto have ma inta ined thou sa nds of chariots . Arnenh o rep II. wh o admittedl y W:J.S very fond ofho rse'S. brought back 730 chariots from o ne Asi.rtic ca mpaign and 10 9 2 from anothe r. SeeWilson 's tr an slati on o f his a nnul s in A.N F.T, 24 6 and 247 .

I I Twice in Uga rinc texts we find referen ces to f WO thousand horses. or at leasr to hn alpm(in lsrael.un 'eleph was-like J. Roman cenrury -c-so rneri mes merely a "div isio n" father thana precise num ber ]. Cf. Asto ur, " New Eviden ce," 257, and B. Cutle r and j. M acd on ald ." Identi fica tio n of the Iw'ar in the Ugarin c Texts, " Uf H i 1976): 255. A table t ana lyzed b yHd rzer./ntt:rnaI Or gmtizat ion, 194 ,lisrs reams of ( harlot ho rses, dod Hein er co ncludes that"at least 100 pairs of horses were cou nted origi na lly in this text . " Heltzerv estimat e is " rh.irthe chario rry of Ugarit num bered at least 700- 1000 chari ots ." This is .rlso the esrim.rre ofNoug.iy ro l, "Guerre er pai x J Uga rit . " 117n.47.

12 Lejeu ne, "1. 3 civilisatio n m vcen ienn e er 130 uu er rc. " 49 .

lOS A MI L I TAR Y E X P L A N A T I () r-;

reserve, we are probably justilied in imagi ning that the Pylos palace couldput several hundred char iots into the field.

The Knossos archi ve gives us o ur most derailed information about nurn ­bers of chariots in a Late Bronze Age kingdo m. Here the char iotry mayhave numbered as man v as a thousand . The relevant tablets at Knossos a reail from no more than 'eight scr ibal hands, and these scrib es seem to have"specialized" in keeping a full and meticulou s record of the char iots avail­abl e to the pa lace. I-' That all the relevant tablets have survived, however, isnot very likely, and on some surv iving but damaged tabl ets the num ericalnot ati on s o n the right -hand side a re illegible . Th e figures we have a retherefore only a minimum for the cha riot strength of the Knossos palace.According to Michel Lejeune's computatio n, 14 the Knossos tablets refer to

mor e th an 150 complete (*CURR ideogram ) war chariots that were al­read y distributed to individuals, and to ano ther 39 chari ots of the sa metype "e n magasin. " Most of these *CURR chariots appear in the 140 tab ­lets of the USc series," each tablet in this series being the record of a singlecha rioteer to whom an assignm ent of hor ses and equipment has beenmade. IS Other tablets indic ate the numbers of incomplete chariots, orcha riot parts, stored in the magazine. H ere, arranged in multipl es of four, 16

were approximately 550 chari ot boxes ("C APS ideogram), and at least asmany pairs of wheels (apparentl y an y set of wheels was immediately ada pt­able to any chariot box)."? With so man y replacements stored in the maga­zine, it would seem that the field strength of Knossos's chariotry must havebeen somewhere between live hundred and one thousand.

O the r information on the Knossos tabl ets, however, suggests th at thenumber of chariots that could take the field may have been far lower thanth e number "on paper. " Of the tablets in the Sc series, rwenry-eighr are

13 J. . P. Olivier, Les scribes de Cnossos (Ro me, 196 7), identi fied th e scribes and rheir placesof wo rk. Michel Lejeune, "Chars er roues .3C nossos : Structure d ' un invenraire," ;Winos 9(1 96 8): 9-61 , used O livier 's conclu sio ns as a poin r of departure for a rho roug h Analysis ofhow rh e scribal bureaucracv wo rked . Lejeun e described the responsibilitie s of th ree offices(" Bureaux I, II, III" ) in rhcmarter of chariots. Ar p. 15 Lejeu ne notes rhar rhe scribes w howo rked in these offices "p araissent avoir eu ChJ f S er roues co mme affectati on unique," Be­cause rh ese scribal ha nds sho w up in no urh er rabl ers, John Chad wick sug gested rh ar rh evwere app rentices and that the "c ha rio t tab lets" are merely scribal exer cises; see hi s "T heOrga nization of the M ycenaean Archives," in A. Ba rron ek, ed., Stud ia MyanaeJ. Proceed ­ings 0{ the Mycella.wl Sym posium , lim o, Aprtl1960 (Brn o : 1968), 1- 15 , Why A pal acewo uld have kept such srudenr exe rcises in an archiv e, wh ile preservi ng non e o f mecharierrecords kept by professio nal scribes, is difficult to imagine.

'4Lejeune, "Chars," 47; and "Civrlisa rion," 49 - 5 1.I s Lejeune, "Civilisa tion ,- 50.,- Jo hn T. Killen. " No tes un rhe Knossos Tablets," rn John T. Killen er .11.. Stlll liL'$ '/I

My,-en,u'.z,' arul C1J55 1cai Greek Present ed to John Chadwlck ~ J 19- 23.I: l .ejeune. "Civilisatio n," -4 9, says rha r rhe ma gazine held "plus de mille paires de ro ues:'

bu r rh e figur es he presents at "Chars. - 4 7, indicate a rural of 550 .

T H E C H .\ R IO TWA R FA R E 109

preserved well eno ugh that Mycenologists can confident ly inventory whatthese twent y-eight charioteers did and did not have. The pattern is not veryenco uraging: One charioteer has hor ses but no vehicle, another has avehicle but o nly one horse, and still ano ther has both hors es and a vehiclebut no defensive arm or. In fact, only six of the twent y-eight cha rioteers(that is, 21 percent ) had all of the equipment necessary to rake the field. I II Ifone believes, with Chadwick, that the " cha riot tablets " are merely scriba lexercises, o ne could suppo se that the actual condition of the Knossoscha riotry was much better than the tabl ets indicate. But comparison withrecords elsewhere suggests that the figures for the cha riotry at Knossos arereal , for they are no worse than those for Alalakh and Nuzi and somewhatbett er than those for Assur in Nco-Assyrian rimes.!? Another possibilitymay be that both at Knossos and elsewh ere the tablets indicate not what acha rioteer actually had but what the palace furni shed to him. A tabletitemizing the chariot and single hor se of a particular chari oteer would inthat case indicate only that the chariot eer received a chariot and one hor sefrom the palace , and we would presum e that he had another horse of hisown.s" But this solution is speculative, and it is certainly possible that atany given time only a fraction of a kingdom's chariotry would be in condi­tion to fight. If indeed a Great King could count on only some 20 percent ofhis cha riotry to be battle-ready, then we must suppose that wh enMuwarallis put twenty-five hundred of his own chariots into the field atKadesh the "paper strength" of his cha riotry was over ten thousand.

Whatever discrepancy there may have been between the size of a chari o­t ry on paper and that of one in the field, it must be observed that even thelar gest Late Bronze Age chariot ry was small, relative to the size of thepopulation it had to defend . Although a thou sand chariots at Knossosmight initially seem an impressive number, there must have been well overone hundred thou sand Cretans whose security depended on thcm.>' Th eproportions were no less steep at Pylos: if we assign the Pylos char iorry afield strength of five hundred vehicles (an optimistic number), there wasprobabl y not more than one cha riot for every two hundred souls in Mes-

" Alexa nder Uchirel, "Charioreers o f Knossos, " M inos 23 (1988): 48 - 50.,. lbid., 53-58.

"0 Alon g rhis sa me line. Uchirel. in ibid ., 48 , sugge sts rhar rhe "F.QU I e-hn 1" ofTabler Sc226 "ca n po ssihly mea n rhar he (i.e. the cha rioteer, ti~r"~io~qJ) "has' o ne ho rse of his own. andanother o ne is supplied by the stare."

z Pendleb ury, Archaeology 0{ Crere, 303 n.3 . o bse rved rhar ar irs heighr in borh Byzantinea nd mod em rimes rhe Isla nd's pop ulatio n was abo ur half a milli on . Evans csrirna red rharKnosvos itse lf ha d o ne hundred thou san d peop le. Kanra, LJt L' Mino,m III Period, refra insfrom esrim.ni ng huw many people lived in C rere during that period bur nores (p. .122) rh ar" finds . especially those belon ging to l .M 111 B. are rhick lv spread 311 liver rhe island , Ir isevident rhar the re WJ:S J: population explosio n in C rete ar this rime. "

110 A Mll.I TAR Y E XPLAN ATI ON

senia .! ! In Egypt, even if the ph ar aoh had as man y as forty -five hun dr edcha riots, the numbe r of his subjec ts was possibl y a thou sand tim esgreate r.>'

T he limitations on the size of a ch ariotry wer e imposed most of all by theeno rmo us expense of ma inta ining o ne . Solomo n is said (1 Kings 10 .2 9 ) to

have paid 150 she kels of silver for eac h of his cha riot ho rses, and 600shekels for eac h cha riot. T ha t was a co nside rab le o utlay, since it wa s a lsosaid (2 Samuel 24.24) that for fifty shekels of silver David bo ught a team ofoxen and a th resh ing floo r, and since Exodus 21.32 fixed lia bility da magesfor the deat h of a slave at th irty shekels of silver. T he Pap yrus An ast asiridicule s the youn g Egypt ian who mo rtgages his grand fathe r's p ro pe rty tob uy a chariot pol e for three deben, a nd a chariot for five. Composite bow swere also notoriously expensive. Such a bow was a very effective weapon,hav ing double o r tri ple the ran ge of a self bow, bu t its ma nufactu re wascostly and difficult (the layer ing and lamination of wood, hom, and sinewwas done at lo ng inte rva ls, and a pro perl y aged bow wou ld leave a bowyer 'ssho p five or ten yea rs after he had brought in the raw mater ials fro m whichit was madcl.>'

Defe nsive a rmo r for the chariot crew (and so me times even for thehor ses) was a major exp ense. As Yad in pointed o ut, the develo pment of th e.mail corslet resulted from the use of cha riots in bartl e.s> Until the Hi ttitesadded a shield-bea rer to the crew, co rs lets were th e on ly p rot ection that thedri ver a nd the wa rrio r had . In the Mahabharata both crewmen regul arl ywea r a co rslet. So Urtara, fo r ex ample, clowning for th e benefit of his sisterand her friend s, "put o n his co at of mail up sid e down, and the wide -eyedmaidens gigg led w hen they saw him.. . . Urtara him sel f tied the co stlya rmo r on Brha nnada. Himself wea ring a superb coat of mai l wh ich shonelike the sun, and rai sing his lion standard , he o rde red the othe r to ha ndlehis chario t. " 26 In the N ear East and th e Aegean co rs lets ar e attested fro mthe very beginning of the Late Bronze Age (scales found in th e Sha ft Gravesat My cenae may have co me from a co rs let), the time at whic h cha riot

22 Betancourt, "The End of [he Bronze Age, n 42, not es [hat popu lation estimates forMessenia ar rhe rime rhe pala ce was destroyed range betw een 50,000 and 120,000.

ss On rhe basis of dara in rhe Harris Papyru s, John Wilson, The Cultu re 0( An cielll Egypt(Chicago, 195 1), 27 1, gues sed th ar the populatio n of Egypr in th e twelfth centu ry was abo ur4.500,000.

,4 Wallace M cl.eod, "An Unpublished Egyptian Co mposite Bow In th e Brooklyn M u­seum, " AlA 62 ( 1958); 40 0.

2'; Art of \Vurlure. vol . 1. 84 . tor a co mp rehe nsive prcscnrario n on rhe Lare Bron ze Ageco rslet see Ca rling, "Pan zer," in H .·G . Buchholz and J. WIem er, Kriegsu-esen, Teil ! ; Archa e­ologi.i Homcrica I E (C orringen, IY77 j, 74- 118 .

2" MllhJbhilr.lt.z 4 f4 7) 35 . 1 ~-2 1. Th e rr.tn slario n co mes (rom j.A.B. van Buire nen, TheMol"olb"olroll" (Chicago, 1Y78).

T HE C H A R I O T WARF AR E 11 1

warfare began . The "c hariot tabl ets" fro m Knossos itemize th e d istribu­tion of 'I pa ir of knee- length co rslets to eac h cha riot crew.-? T he co rslet mayalso app ear in ceremo nial cha riot scenes o n LH lil A and lIlB pottery: menin o r alongside the chariots ca rry swords in tas sled scabba rds and wearlong and dot-covered "robes" that Carling has tentat ively identi fied asco rslet s.sf Much of wh at is know n abou t Late Bronze Age cors lets waslearned a t Nu zi, Copper sca les from co rsle ts were found there in grea tqua nti ty, an d the Nuz i tab lets make frequent reference to co rslers.t '' Thetyp ical Nuzi chariotee r's co rslet, o r sar iam (a Hurrian wo rd , bor rowed byH itt ite , Akka d ian, a nd Northwest Semitic speakers), was a lo ng, cumbe r­so me, and exp ensive affair. Its basis wa s a leat her (usua lly goa tski n) tunic,partially sleeved and reaching down to th e knees o r to midcalt. Approx­imately five hundred large co pper scales wer e sew n to the torso and skirt ofthe saria m, a nd another severa l hundred small sca les were sewn to thea rms. The head and neck of the ch ari ot crewma n was protec ted by agurpisu, a leather he lmet covered w ith lon g strips of bro nze or copper(since th e gurpisu extended to the co lla r, th e crew ma n wa s entire ly coveredexce pt for the face, the lower a rms , a nd the lower legs). Th e several Nuzico rs lets that can be reco nst ructed a re estima ted to have weighed betweenthirty-seven and fifty-eight pounds.!"

At Nu zi and occasio nally in other kin gdoms the ho rses also wore coatsof ma il.' ' A very few Egypti an cha riot hor ses ar e shown wearing suchthings, a nd an ivo ry ca rvi ng fro m Cyp rus shows- odd ly- a hunting scenein wh ich both the cha riot arche r and h is horses a re d raped with sca leco rslets..ll Possibl y the M ycen aean kingdom s regul arl y issued horse­a rmor: Ca tling has a rgued th at two of th e Linear B ideograms refer to

horse-coverings of so me so rt rather than to crewmen's corslers.e-' T hehorse-armor was und oubtedly very costl y, and how effective it was is diffi­cult to guess (ho rses wearing heavy clo aks were less vulnerable, but surelyalso mu ch slower ).

Apa rt fro m the expe nse of purchasi ng a ll these items, and of hiring a ll thenecessary specia lists (cha rio tee rs, chariot wa rrio rs, t rainers, groo ms, vete r­inar ian s, carpenters), there was the ma tte r of food: Stua rt Piggott hases tima ted th at eigh t to ten ac res of good g rai n-land wo uld have been re-

2" Ca rling, "Panzer." 107ff.; Fr.mceschern, " Arrni e gue rra, " 77 and 80." Carling, "Pa nzer, " 96.'" The fullest discussion of the Nuzi evidence IS in Kendall, Wolrfare, 263-86.'" Ibid., 278 ; d. Ca rling, " Panze r," 89- 90." Kendall, Warfare, 223 -25 and 242 - -15 .

J2 for the Enkorrn hro ry see H.·G. Buchhol z and V. Karageor ghis , Prehistoric Greece andCyprus (London, 1973), no. 1749.

II CJrling, " Panzer," lOR-I~ .

112 A M I LI TA R Y [XPLA ~ A TI O !'l

qui red to feed one team of cha riot ho rses.J" If Harnmurnpi of Uga rir d idindeed have more th an two thou sand horses, they must have represented asizea ble fractio n of that king 's weal th, and the cos t of mainrain ing themwo uld h ave been en or mou s: in addition to all the professional an d spe­cia lized personnel, they would have required-on Piggott's form ula­almost ten th ou san d acres of gra in-land .

Given the ex trao rdina ry expense of maint aining a chariorry, it is nosurprise to find th at the chariorry was a palace's ch ief co ncern . Keep ingtr ack of th e cha r iots and cha rio tee rs requ ired a small bureaucracy of clerksand q ua rtermasters . This is show n most clearl y at Knos sos, but in Egypttoo there are references to the "scribe of the stabl e, " "s cribe of horses, " and."sc ribeof the char io rry, " 35 Everywhere the charioteers have names, wh ilein fantrymen are merely numbered. In the Greek world , th e palace fur­nishe d every thing : each tablet in the Knossos Sc ser ies was devoted to onecha rio teer, bei ng a reco rd of the vehicle, team , ha rnes s, and corslet (o rco rs lets) allocated to him. In Egyp t and the Levant, the charioteer may have"owned' his own char iot , wi th the palace supplying arm s, armor, andhorses..l 6 Nougayro l thought tha t at Ugarir the maryamlll were "s ansdo ure proprierai res de leurs cha rs " but tha t other individu als may havebeen furn ished with vehicles by the palace..l7 In Egypt it likewise was ach arioteer 's responsib ility to pro vide his own ch ariot, while the ph ar aoh

.supp lied th e horses..l H

T hrough our the civilized wo rld in the th irteenth century chario teers andcha rio t warriors were thus a privileged elite. T he king and the men in hischariot corps were closely interd ependent, the king supplying mu ch or allof th e expe nsive equipment tha t the cha riot crews needed a nd th e cha rio tcrews provid ing for the kiug's and the kingdo m's security. Ofte n the men ofthe chario rry were given land by the king, to be held in fief. At Uga ri r landa llo tments were ma de to the maryannu, and ap parently a son inh eritedboth th e allo tment and his fath er's military oh liga tion.v" Ar range me nt s inth e Mycenaean wo rld were prob abl y muc h the same, but de tai ls are l ~ck.

J< Piggott, "Hor se a nd Cha riot : Th e Price 01Presti ge." Proceedi ngs ofthe Seven th lnterna ­ticmal Co ng ress of Cel tic Stu dies, Held at O xford from 10th to IS th july. 1983 (Oxford,\ 986 ),27.

J S Ala n Schu lman, "Egyp tian C hario rry : A Re-Exarninari on," jOltrn,,1 of th e AmericanResearch Center in Egypt 2 (196 31: 95. Lejeu ne, "Chars et roues," 14- 15, ide ntifie s in th eKnossos pal ace three sep arate "bur eaus " wh ose scribes spe cia lized in th e chario t invento riesa nd ar e not k now n (fro m the ir dist inct ive ha nds ) to have inscribed anything other th an

" cha riot tab lets. '"1('> At Nu zi, fo r exam ple, Kendall, V/ar fJre , 130, co nc lude d that many cha rioteers o wned

the ir own vehic les hut we n: suppl ied w ith hors es by th e pala ce.17 N ou gayro l, "Guerre et paix aUga rir," n. 47.,. Schu lman, "E gypt ia n C ha n o try, " 87, crnn g Papvru s Anasrav i III. Y>. 6, 7- 8.'" A. F. Rain ey, "The Military Perso nn el a t Uga rir," j N ES 24 ( \965 ): 19-21.

T H E C H A R I O T WA R tAR E 113

ing .!" At Nuz i there were " imper ial" chariotee rs wh ose livelihood wasapparently supplied by th e Grea t King of Miranni , and local charioteerswho depended direc tly o n the " mayor" of N uzi; bu r bo th gro up s were partof an a ristocracy closely connected to the pa lace.:' !

H ow C H ARIO TS WERE U SED IN BATTLE

H ow ma ny charioteers there were , how much they cos t to maintain, andwha t their social status was a re matters less co ntroversia l than how theyfou ght . T he strictly military aspects of Bron ze Age cha rio rry have beenaddressed piecemeal, and the general character of chario t wa rfare remainsun explored. This cha pter will co nclude tha t before the Catastro phe char­iots were in a ll kingdoms used as mobil e firing plat fo rms for archers armedwith co mposi te bow s, but that co nclusion is quite unorthodox.

M ycenaean chari o ts, first of all, are ofte n thought of as having had littl eut ility of any kind on the battl efield. This view is popul ar espec ia lly amo ngarchaeo logists . Th eir ind ifference to the cha riot is not ent ire ly surprising:while hu ndr ed s of Late Hellud ic swords a nd spearheads have been found,and even a nu mber of boar 's tusk helmets, no M ycen aean cha riot has yetbeen brought to light , nor are the chances very good th at future excavationswill produce one. Mos t archaeolog ica l stud ies of Mycenaean warfare havetherefore readily accepted Hom er 's assurance th at the My cenaea ns foughton foot and have assu med that wha tever was do ne wi th the chariots was oflittl e o r no con sequence.r- Myceno logisrs, on the ot her han d, have had toco nfron t the Linea r Bscribes' labor ious inventories of cha riots and have no

.-til C f. M . Detienne, ..Remarqnes sur Ie char en C rece, '" in Vern an r Probiemes de la guerre,3 14.

41 Cf. Kendall, W,Irf.Ire, 128 : "The local cha rioteers seem also to have been a pri vilegedlot. A very great many lived in or a ro und the palace, a nd thei r duties ofte n co nsisted of nomore th an standing gua rd JS wat chm en at the palace po r-tals. '"

of! Lor imer's H om er J mJ the A1onwnent5 devot ed pp . J05 - .2M to th e chariot (in cornpari­so n, her trea tm ent 01infantry wea po ns fills 173 pages ) and dea lt p rim ar ily w ith if' design an dconsr rucrion. Ab out its use in Mycenaea n war fare. she regrett ed (p. .lIt) tha t "we knowno rhing ar JII'" and J id not specu late abou t it. W hen Lorimer w ro te, of co u rse, Linear B W.lS

ent irely illegib tc• and the chariot ideograms o n the Knosso s rahl ers were seen by all scho la rs asda tin g ca. 1400 R.C. It was therefor e pos sib le to believe that a lthou gh chariots ma y have beenimportant in LH I and II, by the end of lIIB they were as incon seque ntia l as H omer ma kesthem . In recent schnlarship, it is not ewo rt hy th at in the exq uisitely derail ed A rcbneologia

Hom crica series th e two volumes devot ed to Kriegsu-esen do not even include J chap ter o n th ~

cha rio t, and Josef Wiesn er 's Iu bren lind Reiten treats the cha rio t as p rima rily .1 prest igevehicle. In HolrJ ing's ,\ f y l-entleans ..m d Europ e..th e chapter "Warbrc. Weapons and Armour'"(pp. ISI - S7) begins by noting " th e use of the ligh t chariot , proba bly• .1., in Ho mer , to

trJnsport the warrior to the scene of battl e rather th an for use as a genuine \'v.ir chariot" (p.15 I I, hut ..aY!ol norhing more ab out it.

114 A .\1 I LIT A R YE X P L A ~ A T I O N

doubt at a ll that the cha riot was used for military purposes.:'' Rut thetablets do not say how the cha riot was used in wa rfare, and Mycenol ogistshave not speculated o n this matter. A few histo rians have tried to fill the ga pleft by our ar chaeological and documenta ry evidence, but with vary ingresu lts. Occasiona lly the Mycenaean chariot is und erstood to have beenused to propel a thrusting spea r.:':' Mo st ofte n it is see n as noth ing mo reth an a ba ttle taxi : the Mycenaean Greeks fought on foot but we re tran s,ported to and from the ba tt lefield by chariots. Th e possibility th at theM ycenaean chariot was an archer's mobile platform has not, so far as Ikn ow, bee n seriously co nsidc red .r "

No r is it widely believed th at the Hi tt ite cha riots were so used . M ostscholar s wh o have expressed them selves on the role of the Hi ttite ch ariotryhav e sta ted th at in Harr i the offensive we:1pon of a cha riot warri or wa s thelance-the thrustin g spear-s-a nd not the bow. The Hittite cha riots, th at is,like medieva l knights a t a joust, made :1 fur ious rush at the o ppo nent 'svehicl es, the cha riot warri or at rernp ting to thrust a lance through one of theenemy crew men.v' Th is belief is fou nded on the Egyptian represent at ion sof the Battl e of Kadesh: in the reliefs, so me of the Hittite cha riot crew mencarry lan ces, but none ca rries a bow. Severa l scho la rs have in fact suggestedth at the Hittites carne up sho rt in the Batt le of Kadesh becau se their cha riotlancers were held at a distance by Ra rnesses' chariot archers ."?

4 .1 Le jeune, " La civilisa tion mycen ieun e er la gue rre," devot es mo st of h is discu ssion ro therablers' re fe ren ces to cha riors ; so also J ot's Fruncesche tt i, "A rmi e gu erra in resri rnice ne i."

.... G reenh.ilgh, Early G reek WJr fJ re. 7- 12, argues rhur " the long rhru sring-sp ea r was th e

m ain weapon of [he M ycenaean cha rio t -wa rrio rs :IS it was of [he H irtires, wit h w ho m th eAc hae ans appea r to have been in d o se to u ch " (p. I 1); d . also his "The Den d ra C ha rio tee r, "

Antiquitv 5~ ( 19MO): 20 1- 5.H Sch.rchcrrnevr, "Srreitw .rgen un d Srreirwagenb ild im Alren Orient und hei de n my ­

ke n isc he n C rieche n, " Authrop os 46 (195 1): 705- 53, ma y have ass ume d thatmeMyc en aean

cha riot war rio rs were bowmen bur d id nor argue the poin t and in fucr said nothing abour howM ycenaean cha riots m--:-lj' have been used "irn Streit."

-I f, For the Hi ttite cIiariot warrior 's dependence on J thrus ting spear see, for exampl e,y" d lO, WJr(Jre, vol. I, 80 and 108-9; Sch ache rrney r, "Srreirw agen ," 7 16; f. Srubbings ," Arms 'lOJ Armour," in Wace and Stubbings , ed s., A Cornpanion to Hom er (Lo n do n , 196 7),52 1. The in te rp reta tio n of Sti llm an and Talli s, AnlJies, 6 5, is slightly diffe ren t : " Aga inst

enemy ch a rior ry, the H itt ite ch .irio rry woul d charge in to dose combat . T he H irnres woul d

attempt [0 get close to th eir uppo nents ( 0 disc harge their spears o r thrust with them . "-17 O Ld He ckm ann, " Lanzen uno Spee ce de r aga ischen Bronzeze ir un J de s Ube rg.mgs :LUr

Eiscnzeir," in H. ~G . Buchholz . Agdische Bronzezeit, 340 , describes the Hit tite chariot WJ r~

rio rs .I S IJn cer s :.m J then conde mn s th is " J ussic:hrslosc TJ krik. ft Simibrly. ¥;JJi n (A rt of\Y/~"fJrr. Vt )1. I . 1(9) S;JW KJJesh ~,Jn EgYrri ~ln vicwry bel:3u~e chJ rlo t bnn rs wt' re a poor

..eco llJ to l:h.ulo t .uchers : "'T he we;Jkness of rht' Hirrirc ch;Jrio t W3S immediarely evidenr

wh t'n rh e Egypti,lO cha riots ~umeJ wirh rhe lo ng· r;Jngt' l:o mposite bow, \\"' ~nt O\:e r to rhe

cu un rer.l(tJck. " Ir is mo re likel y rh;Jr rh t' H ttr irt'\ knew 11llW to use ch J rio rs, J.nJ gor rh~ bt'tterof R;Jlllcs<;es ,l( K;JJ esh.

T HE C H A R I O T WAR FA R E 11.5

Even the Egyptia n char iot is not a lways seen as a mobile firing platfor m:accor ding to an a rticle publ ished by Alan Schulnun in 1980, both in Egyptand elsewhere the cha riot wa rrio r W ,1S indeed an archer, but o ne who shothis bow fro m the gro und .t " In thi s view, the cha riot dri ver d rove his horsesto a goo d vantage point, at whi ch th e archer would dismount from thechariot, shoot his a rrow, remount the cha riot, and ride off to anothe rlocat ion and another shot .- .Schulma n's view can be immediat ely re jected. It arose from two consid­erations, both of them tru e: firs t, in Hom eric bat tles the chariot functio nsonly as a ba ttle taxi;.9 and second , Egyp tian evide nce shows the chariotwa rrio r as an arche r. Instead of seeing the Homeric and the Egyptianevide nce as incompa tible, and choos ing betwe en them, Schulma n mergedthem , produ cing the taxied arche rs. But the practice he describes has nosupport wh atever in eithe r liter ar y o r a rchaeo logica l evidence, is un im­aginab lc in practice, and is co ngruent only with Schulma n's own recenta rgument that chariorry was too inefficient ever to have been of any mili­tar y imp orran cc.J''

Let us go on to conside r th e possibili ty th at for the thirteenth -centurycha riot war rior, especially in Hart i hut a lso in Greece (as Nestor claims atIliad 4.297-309), the offensive weap on was the thru sting spear. Here againwe may be catego rical: the noti on th at eithe r Hittite or Mycenaean cha riotwarrior s co uld have relied up on the lan ce as their primary offensivewea pon is for practical rea son s out of the question. Like the chari ots ofM ycenaean Greece, Nuzi, and Assyria, the Hi tt ite chariot certainly ca rrieda lan ce. This wea po n would have been esse ntia l agai nst enemy foot so ldiers

.. Schu lma n , " C ha riots, Ch a riorry, and th e H yk so s." Juurnal o( tlt,-Society for the Stud yof Egyp tiJIl An tiquities 10 (1980), 105- 5.1.

.. lbid., J25- 28.

.<;(1 Altho ug h his ea rlie r co nrrrhurions a re va luable, Schulm an 's 19XO article rejected nor

o nlv rhe co ns en sus bur a lso his own o rigin al concl usio ns about th e importa nce of chunorry in

Ne:' King dom Egypt. In " Cha riot s. Cha rior ry, an d th e H ykso s," Schu lma n a rgu es~thJt"o ut side o f ce rr .nn sirua rio ns where ir d id h JVC J limited tacti cal valu e ." rhe ch a rie r W.1S of

littl e sign ifica nce in an cient wa rfa re. The article igno res rhe b cr rha r from the beginni ng of

an riq uiry ro th e end the J.IT of warfar e wen r rh rough rJJ il."J I evolut iona ry and rcvolu rionary

ch ange s, In m aking th e a rgum en t ab out the Lir e Bron ze Age, the a rt icle relies up on class icalsou rces , suc h .n Am.in 's TactJcJ. wh ich claimed rh.ir ch .irior s wer e of litt le p rac tica l value on

rhe bnrrle ficld, Sch ulm an 's use of suc h lure so u rces i-,based on his su rp rising assu mpt ion rh ur

"li tt le of th e condit ions , practice. and weap on ry of WJ r ha d cha nged be tween th e rim e- oi rhe

H vk so s an d that of Arno n- (p. I 19). Schu lma n a rl',ue, th at if cha rio ts had littl e milita ry value

to rhe G reeks JnJ Ro mans. they wo uld hJve been iu ~r as ineffecrive in rhe Late Bron ze Age.since LJr c Bronze Age ;Jrmi~s were "J~ skilled in w.1rhre JS wt' re its p rJ criti oners in Cla"i(.11

.1nriq uiry " (p. 119). W hile looking to clJsslca l J.urho rs fo r ;In ;lSsessmen t of chJ.riot wJrfJre•

Sl:hu lm.m fo und L.ltt' Bro nze Agt' so urces sus pect : ..Altho ugh ir is tr ue thJt the K.lJ esh texrs\pl.'ci fy rh;l( 2500 Hitt ire ch a riots , each bt' ;Jring rhr eL' mc n \u rp riseJ rhe EgypriJn army. we

L':l n hJ.rdl y ;!cct'p r sUlh J figu rt' .15 orh er rhJIl ,l g,rus\ e.'lri JAAt'r:Irin n" [po 1.12;.

116 A M ILI T A R Y EXPLA:'-: ATIO;-';

or cha riot crewmen who had fallen to the gro und (a relief from the OldHittite period shows a warrio r in a chariot thrusting his spear toward aprOst r:He enemy)." ! But that a wa rrior on a speeding cha riot could havethrust 3 lan ce against an opposing cha rio t is quite simp ly impossi ble, asLirtau er and Cro uwel have clearly shown, dem on str atin g the phy sical factswith measurements and diagrarns.V A cha riot warrio r could not havethrust a spear over the head s of his own horses or out the back of themoving ca r. Th at a chariot warrior 's offensive assignment was to th rust aspea r later ally, as two chariots passe d, is also unim aginable.

Finally, we must co nfro nt the thesis that in Late Helladic G reece thechariot 's rnilitarv usc was confined to tran sporting in fantryman to andfro m a battl e.53 'As we shall see in chapter 11, some of the infantrymenkn own as "c ha riot runners" may have ridden with the char iotee r and thearcher until th e enemy came within ran ge, at whi ch poi nt the apoba taiwould have leaped to the gro und, .md th is practice may have been charac ­teristic of Late Helladic chariorries. Furt hermore, as Litrauer an d Cro uwelhave poi nted out.>' several recentl y discovered sherds of LH mc pott er ydo portray cha riots ca rrying a d river and an infantryman. It is possible,th erefo re, that in the middl e of the twelfth centn ry B.C. those cha rio ts sti llto be fo und in G reece were indeed little more than the personal co nvey­ances of warri or s who fought on foot and th at Homer reflects thi s pra ctice.But how cha rio ts were used afte r the Ca tastro phe a nd how they were usedbefore must be regarded as two very different questions. During the centuryand a hal f prior to the Catastro phe life in th e palace-st at es seems to havebeen so secure that Ca tling described the period as the pax My cenaica .55

Since it is unli kely that in thi s period military chariots were often put to thetes t, we may be dealing more with hypoth etical than with actua l use.

" Je anny Vorys Canby, " Hittite Art," Bib. Arch. (1989): 114.>2 M ary Lirrauer an d J. H . C rou wel, "Ch ari o ts in Lite Bron ze Age G reece. " Antiquity 57

(198 .1): 187-92.-"3 Th is view h J S p revailed fro m Homer to the presen t. For recen t argumen ts tha t H o rner' s

pictu re of M ycenaea n chariot warfare was essentially co rrect see Josef Wiesner, Fahren undReiten (Ar chaeo logia Hornerica I F [Go rtingen, I% 8J); M ary Lirra uer, "The Milita ry Use ofth e Chariot in the Aegean in the Late Bron ze Age: AlA 76 (1972): 145- 5 7; Littauer andC ro uwel, " Cha rio ts in Late Bron ze Age G reece ," 187-92 ; Cro uwel, Chariots, 126- 27.Wiesner , Litr auer , and Cro uwel su pposed rhar cha riot s functioned as barri e ta xis througho utthe LH III pe nod . j. K. Anderson ar gued <>niy that they were so used in the Da rk Age, af ter thegreat pe riod of cha rio t warfa re had ended . See Anderson 's " Homeric, British an d CyrenaicChari ot>," AlA 69 ( 1% 5): 349-52, a nd "G reek Chari ot-Bo rne and M ou nted Infa ntry ," AlA79 (1975): 175-87.

~ .. LiU.1U1:r, " l\ tiliury Use," 1 45-4h ~ l .irta uer and C ro u wel, "Chariots in LIte Bro nze AgeG reece. " I89-90; the signi fican ce of the sherds was tirsr noted by Ca rling, "A MycenaeanPuzzle from LdbnJ i In Euhoeu," AlA 72 ( I%8): 4 1-49.

es C arling , "A Myc enaea n Puzzle," 46, proposed tha t the pe riod of peac e lasted for " abo utJ century J nJ J h.ilf " and ende d with the disasters ca . 12.00 .

T Hf C H A R I O T W ARFARE 117

How, when the palaces were still standing, the M ycenaean palace lordsintended that their chariots should be used in 3 battl e, if :1 batt le were everto occur , is a ques tion that can not be answe red by reading Hom er. For theHome ric pictu re is misleadin g, as Hom er himself was the first to admit.When Nes tor gives his advice that the ch.iriors be drawn up in a line, so thatthey might char ge against the Trojans, each warr ior thrustin g with hisspea r aga inst the enemy, the old man justifies his adv ice with th e remin is­cence (WIld 4.308) th at th is is how the " rnen of ea rlier rimes" tproteroii didbattle. We have already seen that men of ea rlier times did not-and cou ldnot have done-battl e in the way Nestor here prescr ibes, but the reminis­cence is nevertheless important because it reveals Homer's own concessionth at his Achaean s at Troy were not using their cha riots in the way thatcha riots were supposed to be used. In the days when men rea lly did dependon chariots, Homer is here conceding, they did no t usc them merely fortr an sport to and from the battl efield. If we may translate th is into our term sperhaps we may propose, alon g the lines suggested by J. K. Anderson, thatthe way in which the Greeks of the IIIC per iod used their cha riots was nothow the chariot was used, or was meant to be used, in the 1118 period- thegeneratio ns before the Catas trophe.

The clai m that Homer did not know how M ycen aean cha riots weremeant to be used in battl e may be regarded by some as a rash calumny andneeds so me defen se. Altho ugh Hom er's Achaeans have most often beenidentified with the occu pants of the M ycenaean palaces, there is goodreason to believe- as I have argued elsewhere-tha t the saga originated inthe less civilized, mo re bellicose, and illite rate part s of Achaea (especia llythe mountainous coast of Th essaly and Phth ioris ); and th .-r the Achaeansor "Argives" wh o sacked Troy (and whose fath ers had sacked Thebes)spo ke North Greek rather than the South Greek of the Linear B tab lers.wNo one has yet refuted the argument, put forward by Paul Ca uer a hundredyears ago , that Homer's Achaeans came from the north, and since Venrri s'sdeciph er ment of the-Greek in the Linear Btablets the argument is in fact farstro nger than it was-in Ca uer's day. Evidence also co nti nues to mount thatbefore the Tro jan saga circulate d among Ioni c-speakers it was preserved inthe Aeo lic dial ect of their north ern neighb o rs.t ?

I would suggest, then, that Hom er was basically ignorant of cha riotwarfare because the heroic trad ition originated in a society of infantrymen,in which the cha riot was indeed nothing more than a prestige vehicle.

5. Drews, "A rgos and Argive>in the Wold," C1'7 4 ( 1979): 111- 3S. See now H . W. Singer," Ni ne ag ainst Troy," MnemOSY1le 44 (199 1): 58- 59.

.' 7 Richard Jan ko, Homer, Hesiod, and the Hymn s: Diachronic Development in EpicDictlcm (Cambridge, 1982;, S9-92; M. L. W"'t, "The Rise of the Greek EpIC: lliS 108(1988): 159-67; Pau l Wathd et, " Les darifs analog.q ues en -soo i dms la tradition <pique:REG 104 (199 1): 1-14.

118 A MILITARY EXPLANATION

Homer's Achaeans were not themselves charioteers or chariot archers butinstead were responsible for putting an end to chariot warfare and to thedomination of the horse-tamers. They were, that is to say, infantrymen ofthe new type-Heet of foot, skilled with the javelin or throwing spear, andalso carrying long swords-who spelled the doom of the great chariotforces of the Late Bronze Age. Integral to the thesis of this book is the tenetthat in Greece chariot warfare virtually disappeared during the Catastro­phe and that throughout the Dark Age it was nothing but a vague memory.The LH mc period seems in this respect to have been closer to the DarkAge than to the pre-Catastrophic Bronze Age: obviously there were still anumber of chariots in the Argolid, on Euboea, and elsewhere in LH mcGreece, but the day of chariot warfare was over, and the day of the infantry­man had arrived. That Homer knew very little about chariot warfare isprecisely, it seems to me, what one should expect of a bard who stands atthe end of a tradition that originated in a society of infantrymen.

The thesis that during the palace period Mycenaean chariots servedprimarily as battle taxis is untenable not because we have evidence to thecontrary (we do not) but because it makes no historical sense. The enor­mously expensive chariot and chariot horses, as Greenhalgh observed,would hardly have been risked by the palace in such a frivolous way, whenthe wounding of a horse "could easily put the whole apparatus out ofaction."5B The rulers of Pylos and Knossos devoted their resources to themaintenance of a chariotry of several hundred vehicles, keeping a largeinventory of spare wheels, axles, and boxes and assigning a small bureau­cracy to the supervision of the men, horses, and material. It is not reason­able to suppose that the rulers did all this merely to ensure that severalhundred of their infantrymen could ride in comfort or dignity to the battle­field. Chariots as status symbols or as convenient means of transportationwould have been a private concern: men with ample wealth may havechosen to spend some of it in purchasing a chariot and team and in raisingthe grain to keep the horses healthy. But a palace would hardly have-been sopreoccupied with its chariotry if the chariots were nothing more than thepersonal luxuries of a few hundred foot soldiers. The rulers must havebelieved that the chariorry they were so diligently maintaining would in acrisis provide the regime and its subjects with protection and security. Theymust have believed, that is, that the kind of chariot warfare that had oncebeen effective was still effective. In the event, of course, they were wrong.But if the pax Mycenaica provided few opportunities for putting' the oldwarfare into practice, the rulers of the Mycenaean palaces CJn hardly beblamed for imagining that the next war would be fought along the samelines as the last one.

SR Furly Greek WarfJrl!. 17.

THE CHARIOT WARFARE 119

There is, finJlly, a decisive argument that before the Catastrophe char­iots in Mycenaean Greece were not used, or meant to be used, merely asbattle taxis: prior to 1200, chariotry was not merely an adjunct to aMycenaean king's military forces but the very basis of his army. HereI must anticipate the conclusion of chapter II. That chapter will show thatin the centuries prior to the Catastrophe the armies of eastern Mediter­ranean kings included no offensive infantry formations: the only offen­sive foot soldiers in these armies were skirmishers or "runners" whofought in support of the chariot squadron to which they were attached .Our picture of heavily armed infantry units as the bulwark of the Myce­naean palace-states comes not from the archaeological evidence (and cer­tainly not from the Linear B tablets) but from the Iliad, and for the periodwhen the Pylos and Knossos palaces were still standing it is demonstrablywrong.

How, then, were war chariots used in the Late Bronze Age kingdoms ofthe eastern Mediterranean? The answer will be no surprise: as mobileplatforms for archers.>" Throughout this area, when artists depict chariotson the attack, the chariot warrior is regularly shooting his bow from a cartraveling at full speed. That is also how the war chariot was used elsewhere.Sanskrit scholars have known all along that the Aryan chariot warriors ofIndia were bowmen, and recently it has become clear that in China too thewar chariot carried an archer.v"

Closer to home, there is no doubt that in Babylonia the chariot warriorsof the Kassitcs depended on the how."! The Nuzi texts are unusually infor­mative, since they detail the issuing of equipment to chariot crews; alongwith helmets, corslets, a whip, and a sword, bows and a quiver of thirty orforty arrows were standard.e- From first-millennium Mesopotamia, As­syrian archers in war chariots are familiar from Ashurnasirpal II's Nirnrudorthostats, from the bronze doors at Balawat that commemorate Shal­maneser llI's victories and from the war reliefs from Sargon II's palace atChorsabad.v'

In the Levant, as in Mesopotamia, the war chariot carried an archer. Thefact that the bow was the weapon of the chariot warriors who opposedThutmose mat Megiddo is clear from that king's account, onrhe Gebel

59 Moorey, "Emergence," 208, likewise concludes that "from the outset archerv wasfundamental to the role of the light horse-drawn chariot as a war vehicle." '

Ml Jacques Gerner, .... Note sur le char en Chine," in Vernant, Problemes de laguerre,310; E.L. Shaughne-ssy, "Historical Perspectives on the Introduction of the Chariot into China,"Harvard journal of Asiatic Studies 48 (1988): 195 JnJ 199.1 thank Professo r Sruart Piggorrfor this reference.

(.\ Cassin, "Char de guerre," 304.02 KendJII, Warfare, 210-12; at p. 256 KenJJII CItesJ rabler referring to J lot of twenty

thousand arrows tqanatu).H YJJin, Warfare, vol. 2, 3B6-B7, 402-3, 416-17.

120 A MILI TAR Y EXPLAI'AT IO;-':

Barkal Stele, of the tribute that his defeated enemies brought him.>' " Allth eir horses whi ch were with th em , th eir grea t chario ts of gold and silver, aswell as th ose which were plain , all th eir co ats of mail , their bow s, th eira rro ws, and all their weapon s of warfar e. It wa s these with whi ch th ey hadco me from afar to fight against my ma jest y, and now they were bringin gthem as tr ibute to my m a jest y." In his Karnak annals, Thutmose specifiesth at he captured 924 cha rio ts and 502 bow s from the en emy. Uga ritic textsma ke freq ue nt mention of bo ws and arrows, and it will be recall ed th at theTale of Aq hat revolved abo ut an extraordinary co m pos ite bow. One Uga ri­tic tablet rep orts that tw o cha rio ts br ou ght in for repairs "are withoutquivers," a n o bv ious impl icati on , as BeJI notes, " that o ther chariot s didhave quivers."65 Another Uga ritic tabl et records the deli very of eithe rharnesses o r teams of ho rses, of a rmo r for men and horses, and of fortybow s a nd a thousand arrows.e- Alth ou gh we have few gra phic represe nta ­tions of the war chariot from th e Levant, an ivory plaque from M egiddo­dar ing from ca. 1200 B.c. - sh ow s ca ptives marching in fron t of a Cana ­a nite cha rio t, the cha rio t being equipped with quiver and bow case. Aninth -century orthostat from th e Neo -Hirtire palace at Carch ern ish sho wsa cha rio t archer in the act of shooting , whil e his chariot roll s over an enemyalr eady brought down by an a rrow.v?

It is well known that Egypti an cha rio ts carried archers. These chario tswer e outfitted with J bow case and occ asio na lly a quiver attached to thechario t box at a diagonal , th e mouth being at a level with the archer's righthand . An Egyptian papyru s not es th e departure of a chariot for Syri a, th e .

. ch ari ot having aquiversrockedwith eigh ty a rrows .s" Egyptian inscrip­tion s rarely go into sufficient detail to clari fy what happened in J battle(w hat happened in th e battl es a t M egiddo a nd Kadesh will he loo ked a t indetail in th e following sec tio n), but such refer en ces as there are indicat e th atcas ua lites werenormall y inflicted by cha rio t a rchers.jv lerneptah' s acco unt0'£ his victo ry over th e Lib yan s. in 1208, for example, claim s th at " thecha rio t wa rrio rs wh o wer e upon th e ch ari ot s of his ma jesty p laced th em ­.selvesin PlJ~slJ~ii-.2f__~he..m (i .e., the broken Libyan invaders), th ey_~~i !1g.Qvert h row n b y arrows, ca rried off, and slaugh tered . " 69 The ph ar aoh sth em selves to ok pride in th eir sk ill as cha r iot archers, Arnen hot ep IIbo ast ed of th e rapidity, ran ge, and acc ur acy of his shooting, claimin g th atfrom a speed ing chariot he had hit four ta rge ts, set thirty-four feet a pa rt,

. 4 Wil, on 's translati on, ANET . p. 2.JH.

..~ Be:J), Orga nizatio n, 57H.

..... Helrzer. lnternal Urganiza tion, 113.

., YJJIO. Warfare, vol. 1, 243; JnJ vol. 2, 366 .M!. Pap yrus Kulla 1.1-2; d . Schulman. "C hariots, Chariorry, and the Hyk sos ," 124n. 57.t>~ Mc ruep tah's Karn ak Inscr iption. J S tra nslated in Schulman. " Egyptia n Chario rrv, " p.

xS . For the full inscription . see Breasted, AR. vol. 3. 110 S. 569ft .

i

I.

T HE C HA R I O T W A RF A R E 12 1

with such force that the arrow s wen t clean through each target' s threeinch es o f co pper.?" Egyptian chariot a rche rs in battle appear not o nly inwall reliefs-c-as of Seri 1\ battles, of Rarncsses H's battle at Kadesh in 1275,!)r of Rarn esses Ill 's victo ry ove r th e Lib yan s in 118 2-bm also in reliefsetc hed on th e sides of the fiftee nth-ceu tury cha rio t found in th e tom b ofT hu trnose IV and on a painted pan el of a chest fro m 'Iutan kh amun 'stomb."!

The fact that H ittite ch ar iot warr iors we re bow men is not genera llyrecogni zed, but it is neverth eless de mo nstra ble. As noted ab ove, the beliefth at th e lan ce wa s the standa rd weap on of th e Hittite chariot warriorderi ves from Ramesscs the C rea r's rel iefs of the Battl e of Kadesh. i? In th osereliefs th e Egyptian chariot s ca rry a rche rs b ut non e of th e Hittite char iotsca rries a n arche r, and in fact o n ly the ch ari ot of th e Hittite king has a bowcase. In eac h of th e o the r Hittite cha r io ts is a crew of three. One of the threehol ds th e rein s, a second man regul arl y ca rr ies a sh ield, and the third manso metimes holds a lan ce. The Egyptian sculp to r, however, nowhere depi ctsth e Hittite cha rio ts in action (they a re eithe r heading toward or retreatingfro m th e battlefield). And as Richard Beal points out, as often JS not th ethird man in a Hittite chariot is sho w n without a weJpon of any kind. Sincein th e inscr iption Rarnesses does mention th e arche rs of the Hittite chari otcorps.i " Beal argues that the reliefs ar e "clearly a misrepresentation. " 7 4

The Egyptian sculpto rs have here chosen to portray the enemy armed onlywith defen sive weapons. In battle scenes th e ph araoh 's artists were car efulnever to depict In Egyptian co rpse o r ind eed a n Egyptian in danger, Asportrayed in Egyptian art, o nly Egyptian troop s tak e the offensive, th eo bliga tio n of th e artist bein g to propagate th e myth of the pharaoh's invin­cibility.f" Noting th at the relief of the Battle of Kades h sho ws on e Hittitecha r io t warrior apparently a bo ut to throw a n a rrow at the Egypti an s, Beal

7 0 See Wilson 's t ra nslation of Amenhotep 's Gizeh stele, ANET, 244.7 1 Th e [V. 'O vo lumes of 'rad in 's Wurfure provid e excellent illustrations of these and .other

scenes cited ; see Warfare, vol. 1, 104- 5; 192- 93,216-1 7; 240-41 ; and vol. 2, 3H -37.:-.: It also derives, as Moorey {"'Emergence ," 203) poi nt s out , [reun such an.ichronisric

so urces J S Xenophori 's Cyropued;u .rnd miscon ceived "analogies dra wn fro m tank warfare. "" In the inscri prion [Gard iner. Kadesb , 1'160- 65 Jl1J 1'200- 205 ) a demoral ized Hittite

p roc lai m s that " one is una ble to take Up;1 bow" when not." beh olds the glori ous Ramesses:

and RJmc, <;, es him self boasts that " w hoeve r ... hot in my di recti on , thei r arrows scattered as

they rea ched me ." See al so Breasted. AR. vo l. 3. nos. ] ] 7 .ind 343 . The latter is J cap tion fo r a

scene of .1 grollp of prrsoners: "Lis t of tho se co untr ies which his rnaresry ..lew. while alone byhimself: corpses, hor ses, and chario ts. bows. swords , all the weapo ns of warfa re."

'74 Beal, O rgtllli:;ut ;on. 575 .7 < lbid ., h 17. john Wilson , "Th e Royal M yth in Ancie nt Egypt," Pro, udin-", of the

Am.'n"f ull l'hilosnphical .\'{J,:'-efy 100 ( I~5 6): 4JlJ-42. Student s of anc ient wea ponry have alsoxuvpected th.ir th e Egypt iJ n ar t ists disto rTt"J th eir .lpp' l11ent ,," weaponry.Srillin .in and Tallis,

Arnncs , 57, note that in the Ne w KingJc1111 " rn In .IIl Y battle scen es only cncmic.. .rre eversho wn Jt:JJ o r WOII IIJI:J .lIlJ som et im es III1 ,lr l1lOUn.:d J ud withou t W':~lPOIl"" . "

:" ,

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- _.-._ ----_.:-:-....-...:~suggest s that for Rarnesses' art ists an enemy bow may have been " ideologi­cally unp ortrayable ,~ and concludes that " the evidence seems to sho w thatbows and arrows were the primary weap ons of the H ittite cha riotry. r r «

Th e battl e reliefs of Rarnesses' father, Seti I, confirm this co nclusio n.When Seri campa igned against the Hittites, he evidently was oppose d byHittite cha riot a rchers, for the Karnak reliefs that celebrate his victory (seeplate 1) depict Hittite cha riots equipped with bow cases, and in eachchariot is a Hittite warrior with a quiv er o n his hack and a bow in hishand.?? In short , Hittite chariot warriors fou ght exactly as did their coun­terparts in Egypt, the Levant, Mesopotamia, and India. In all the NearEastern kin gdom s of the Late Bron ze Age, th e chariot served as an archer'smobile firing platJgrll).

From M ycena ean Greece, unfortunately, we have no pictori al repre sen­tat ion s of a cha riot battl e. For that reason , and perh ap s becau se no com ­po site bow has ever been found in a M ycenaean tomb, Aegean archaeo lo­gists have traditionally and stubborn ly insisted that the bow had nomilitary importance in the Late Helladic period .78 That view, however, wasinvalidated forty yea rs ago . Before the Linear B tablets were read , a ndwhen Hom er was still taken as a reliable guide to th ings M ycen aean , it wasunderstandable that scho lars imagined the Myc enaeans as conte mptuousof the bow. H. L. Lorimer summed up and lent her great authority to theconsensu s: the composite bow was strictly O riental and Minoan, andalthough the M ycenaean s may now a nd then have seen such a weapon" there is no indi cation th at they learned how to use it." For Lor imer, thecomposite bows invento ried in Linear B tabl ets were of co urse ~ Minoan ~

rather than M ycenaean , since she wrote befor e Ventris's deciph erm ent. Onsimilar grounds she d ismissed the importan ce of the bow in th e Odyssey:the centra lity of Od ysseus's great compos ite bow in the story of his returnwas " natura l when we co nside r the strong Cretan tinge of mu ch of thepoem." ?"

7. Beal, Cnganization, 5 78 and 617.T: Reliefsand Inscriptions at Karnak, Volume 4: The Battle Reliefs of King Sety I, O riental

Institute Publicatio n no. !O7 (Ch icago, 1986), plat es 34 and 35.7' The Kriegsuesen fascicles of Archaeo /ogi" Hom erica thus far publi shed dea l wi th the

swo rd, spea r, dagger, a nd e-ven the club, but no t the bow. In their discuss ions of M ycena eanwarfare most J rCh~le(}log'iL.;tI surveys either dism iss the bow in J few sente nces or o mit italtoge ther. No t to multipl y exa mp le'S, I cite only Jan Bouzek, The Aegean, An atolia. andEurope: Cultural ln tcrreiations in the Second Millennium R.C. (Gorebo rg and Prague, 1985).In the very la't paragrapb 01his fifty·page survey of Late Hella.hc arm or and weapons, andafter a meti culous analysis of swo rds, spears, daggers, knives, and axes of the period, Bouzekfinally reaches (p. 142) the sub ject of bows and ar rows: • Arro wheads are mentioned o nly forthe sake of completeness. . . . In any case the how onl y played a ma rgina l part in warfareJuring the period in qu e..non."

"4 Lorimer, Hom •." and the Monuments, 280 and 1~9 .

122 A M J L J TAR Y E X r LAS A T JO N

124 A 1\11 LIT A RYE X I' L A;-.J ,\ T ION

We k no w now th at th e ta blet s from th e Knossos " Armoury " conta in aprimi tive form of Greek an d so must ack now ledge th at th e Mycen aeans noto n ly h ud learned how to use a co mposite bo w Out knew how to rn.ikc o ne,a nd did so by the hundreds. There is o the r evide nce th at the bow was th eprirn.rry we:lpo n of M ycen aea n cha rio t wa rrio rs. Knee- leng th corslets we reevide nt ly p rovided fo r cha rio t crew s, a nd these mu st have been mea nt fo rp rotection agai ns t ene my missiles (in 3 co rue sr of thrusti ng spea rs o r ra­pier s th e lon g co rslets woul d hav e offered littl e pro tec tion and wo uld havegr ea tly impede d th e wearer's mov ement). Alongside th e "cha rio t ta b lets"fo und at Knosso s were tablets recordin g la rge lot s of a rrows: 60 l Oin on ebat ch and 26 30 in ano ther, eno ugh fo r eac h of two hundre d chariot arche rsto rece ive forty. Nearby we re fo un d stores of bron ze a rrow heads, w hichwe re meant for d istri bu tion to M ycen aean rather than (as Evans th ou ght )Minoan warriors. Tablets also refer to bow making a nd to bowyers (to-ko-so­too-leo, which "h a un per fett o corrispo nde nte in greco in to~OFoQyol). ""0The di stribution of ill corpore a rrowheads from preh is tor ic Greece a lsosugges ts th at the bow was far more impo rta nt fro m 1600 to 1200 1J .e. th a nit had been in earl ier times o r wo uld eve r be again . Wh ereas no met ala r row heads have been found in EH o r MH co ntexts, bronze a r row heads ofvarious kind s appear sudde n ly wit h the Sha ft C raves and cont inu e th rou ghth e LH I1IBperiod; then th ey va nish agai n , w ith only 3 handful at resred forth e w hole of the Dark Age.HI

Th us there is 3 great deal of evide nce th at in the armies of M ycen aea nG reece - as of kin gdoms every w here dur ing the Late Bron ze Age-theco mposite bow wa s th e p rin cip al offensive weapo n. That H om er hud so mevery wrong ideas about how 3 co mpo site bow was made (d. especia lly th edescrip tion of Panda ros's bow at Iliad 4 .105ff. ) can no lo nger mean , as itdid fo r Lorimer , th at such a bow W3S " un-Mycenae a n." Rather, it showshow mu ch of M ycen aean warfare had been forgotten in the ep ic t radi tion.In a de ta iled ph ilological stud y De nys Page co nclude d th at H om er's lim­ited rep ertory of for m ulas fo r bows and a rrows is " the d isintegr at ing rel icof a m uch wider and stricter system," a nd th at " the evidence of fo rrn ula rusage is sufficient to carry th e bow and a rrows bac k to a remote past. ,, ~ !

Altho ugh th e M yccnaeans m ay once have s ung a bo ut the exploits ofcha r io t a rche rs, no wri t ten acco unt of cha rio t wa rfa re has been fo un d atUga rit, H attusns, o r th e M ycenaean pal aces. It is so me thing of 3 par ado x

I'l l ) Adele Fr.mcesch ern , " Arnu e guerra in resri micenei, ' S I ~ for a pe rcept ive arguruenr tha rthe bow wa s of much greater military impurtnnce in LH III G reece th an Home r imJ~ined•andtha n has gene ra lly been assu med. see Renate Ti)II(.~ . K J. ... rcnbein. Pfeil und Bogen im alt enC riechenland (Bochum, 19S0), 24- 26 .InJ 4 1-42.

1f1 SnoJgrJss , Arms .ttld t\rnwllr, 40. For J car.ilog and rypnlogy of the:" Lire Hell.id ic.irrowhe.rds see Avil.t, L.lfI U lI- und r /t·jlspi t:'I'fI.

"1 Page, Hivtu rv <111, / the Homeric Ilid41 {fic:rkd ey .1OJ Los Angeles : 195Y;, 27 S-7Y.

ru r C H A RIO T WA R FAR E 125

th at from the th ou sands of La te Bro nze Age tab lets from the Aegean andthe Near E3St, so ma ny of whi ch refe r 10 chariots, one lea rn s so littl e a bo uthow th ese vehicles we re used in battl e. •Mu ch more C3n be learned fro mIndi a . Th e hymn s of th e Rig Veda o rigi na ted in th e lat e cent u ries of th eseco nd millennium, when in Ind ia too cha riots dom in ated th e battlefield ;a nd here, unl ike in G reece, o ra l t rad itio n ke p t th e wo rld of the cha rio twa rrior a live far into th e first mill ennium, whe n fina lly th e hymns we rewri tten dow n. One hymn, recited over the chario t crew just before theywent int o ba u le, begi ns by invoking divine blessing up o n th e wa rrior'sar rnor.r-' " H is face is like a thunderclou d , w hen th e a rmoure d warrior goesint o th e lap o f ba t tles. Conq uer with an unwound ed bo dy; let th e power ofa rmo ur kee p you sa fe." The invo cati on focu ses in turn up on th e horses, thechario t, the reins. a nd th e whip but dwells especia lly up on th e bow:

With the bow let us win cows, wirh the bow let us win the contest and violentbatt les with the bow. The bow ruins the enemy's pleasure; with the bow let usconquer all the comers of rhe world.

She comes 3 11 the way up 10 your ear like a woman who wishes 10 say something,embracing her dear friend; humming like a woman, the bowstring stretchedtight on the bow carries you safely across in the battle.

These two who go forward like a woman going to an encounter hold thearrow intheir lap as a mother holds a son. Let the two bow-tips, working together, pierceour enemies and scatter our foes.

In the still lat er Mahabharat<l , ch a rio t a rchers a re 3gain co nspicuo us. Asth e Tngarta chario ts ro lled aga inst the Marsyas " the sun disappea redbehind a rrows shot back a nd fo rt h, but the co mpact sky was lit up asth ou gh by fireflies. The gold-back ed bows of th e a rche rs, wo rld famou she roes wh o shot right-handed a nd le ft, go t tangled w he n they fell. " H4

Virata , hero of th e fourth book of th e epic, wrough t havoc with th eTrigarr as:

Virara, having felled five-hundred warriors in the fight, hundreds of horses andfive great champions. made his way variously among the chariots, till he encoun­tered Susarrnan of Trigarra on his golden cha riot on the battlefield. The twogreat-spirited and powerful kings struck out at each other, roaring like two bullsin 3 cowpen. The chariot fighters circled each other on their chariots, loosingarrows as nimbly as clouds let go their water streams.v'

H l Rig Vt"J..1 h.75 ( j im li lasycl'a hhdU.111pr.:Jtikam }, t ran slated into English as '"10 Arm s, n

bv WenJl' Don iger O ' Fl.rherry; Th e Rig Ved,, : A n A,'IIJ,, /ogy (Ha rrno udswo rth, 1~ 81 \, 236­3 ~.

H M..zhJhhur,' lu 4 (4 :-; 31.6-7 (rr .ms. J .A.l\ . ','I n Buircnen :." lbid ., IS- 20.

126 A MI L IT A RY E X P LA N A T I () N

From Hittite, Aegean , and even Egyptian sources there is noth ing remotel yresembling these vivid picture s of chariot battles in Indian literature .

In summa ry, whatever evidence we have for cha riots in battle indi catesthat they were used as mobile platforms for archers. T his seems to havebeen tru e from the beginnin g of cha riot warfare in the seventeenth centuryuntil the Catastrophe. Homerdid not know how war chariots were used inthe LH lllB period, but that is not surp rising since neither d id he knowanything of the palace regimes that served and were served by the chario­tries. In the Near East chariots continued to carry arch ers, armed withcomp osite bows, down to the eighth century, although by th at time char­iots played only an ancillary role in battle.

We have onl y a little inform ation about the o rga nization of cha rio tr ies.The smallest tactic al un it seems to have been a group of ten cha riots (when­ever chariots are requ ested, they are requested in multiples of ten). Schul ­man assembled evidence that in Egypt, at least, fiveof these unit s-or fiftyvehicles- no rmally made up a squad ron. Th e autobiography of Merypta hdescrib es th at worthy' s service in squadro ns named " the Phoenix " and"Manifest injustice " (a mong Meryptah 's positions were "sta nda rd-bea rerof the cha riot warriors" a nd "first srablcrnaster" ).H6 Each squad ron had itsown co mmander, as shown by the Nuzi tablets , and several squadronstog eth er made up a " host of chariots. " It may be that th e color of thechariot boxes varied from squad ron to squ ad ron . Lejeune pointed out thatthe Linear B scribes consistently (except on one tablet ) noted the color ofthe cha riot box-vermillion , purple, red-and suggested that the colo rwas an "element de signalement. " 8 7 It may also be wo rthy of note thatth e Nu zi tablets (as well as occasional tablets from elsewhere) designatevehicles as being either of "the right" or of " the left. "88 The designation ispossibl y relat ed to the fact that on Egyptian and Assyrian reliefs we seeboth right-handed and left-handed chariot archers, with th e qu iver corre­spondingly mounted o n the right or the left side of th e cha riot box. Al­though we have no evidence o n the matter, we must suppose that all thearchers of a given squadron shot their arr ows from the same side of the boxand that a squadron itself could therefore be described as belon ging" to theright" or " to the left." In the Mahabharata one of the deadli est heroes is"the valiant Partha, the enemy-killing left-hand ed archer," who would nottum away even if faced by all the bands of th e Maruts.e"

Finally, we must try to visua lize the chariots in battl e. Th ose schola rswh o have-correctly-imagined chariots as mob ile firing plat forms(rather than as battle taxis or propellants of thru stin g spea rs) have gener-

,. On a ll thi s see Schu lm an , " Egyptian Chariotry," 75-84.107 Lejeune, "Chars et ro ues, " 29 ... Kenda ll, Warf.Jre, 130- .31."" M.,habharata 4 (47) .37, 10 (tr ans. J.A.B. van Buitenen).

TH E C H A R I O T WA RFA R E 127

ally pictur ed them as parti cipat ing in the preliminar ies and the con clusionto what was essentially an infantry encounter. In T.G.E. Powell's recon ­struc tion, at the outset of a battle chariots provide a thin screen for aninfantry form ation, the chariots moving laterally across the front of the irown infantry a nd the chariot a rchers shoot ing- at a right a nglc- theirarrows against the enemy's infant rymen. Th e cha riot s then remove them­selves whi le the infant ries engage, and after the battle is won the cha riotsreturn to pur sue the enem y fugitives.'?' Trevor Wat kins, on th e other hand,suggested that chariots were held in reserve until the infantry battl e hadreached a decisive stage. At that point the chari ot s would be com mitted, inorder to tip th e scales of the battl e."! Thes e recon structions, I am con­vinced , are qui te far from the mark ; as will be a rgued in the nex t chapter,the assumption that Late Bronze Age battles were essentia lly infantry con­tests is without foundation.

Leaving the infantr ies out of the picture, at least temp orarily, we mustapparently imagine that opp osing chariot for ces would hurtle towa rd eachother (chariot warr iors a re regularl y shown shooting over the head s of theirhorses), the squadrons mainta ining an assigned orde r and the a rchers

90 Po well, "So me Implica tio ns of Cha riot ry," in I. Foster and l.. Adcock . eds.• Culture andEnvironment , Essays in Honour o( Sir Cyril Fox (Londo n, 1% 3),165-66:

It is clear th at in the opening stages uf the battle exc hanges of arrows were made fromchariot s moving up and down th eir ow n fro nts, but pro ba bly at a ran ge wh ich did notseriously endange r the ho rses. Th is WJ S the phase for display and iu rim idario n, reco gniz ­able again in the Iliad, and in Irish epic. Later in til t"battle, if the o pposing side W3Srouted,chario ts were again employed fo r pursuit. To conceive of the:likeliho od ofmassed chariotscharging an enemy fo rm at ion , whether also in cha riots o r o n fo ot , is to igno re practicalcon siderations. Wounds easily to be infl icted o n ho rses wo uld ens ure chaos, and cerrainlyallow of no recovery. As wa s said ear lier, the chariot in its Egypti an and Asia tic roleprovid ed J mob ile vant age po int fo r archery, In the Egyp tian rel iefs o f cha riot s in actionthere is no head -on clas h, the scene is always that of pursuit, .md Egyp tian JrrOWS piercethe enemy and his ho rses from beh ind . . . . Chario ts were never so expendable rhur o nevio lent co llisio n co uld have been allow ed to risk .ib.mdon rnenr on th e field .

Pow ell's descnprion assum es tha r Late Bronze Age battles were esse ntially infa ntry en­count ers (I shall try to show in chap ter 11 that they were not ) .1IIdigno res th e fact thor in thesebattles chariot s and ho rses were ind eed lost, by the hundred s. Wh :lt conrribution could havebeen made by chariots that moved "up and down their ow n fronts, but proba bly at 3 rungew hich did nut se rious ly enda nger the ho rses," is di fficult to im agine since, in Powell 's view, thetwo in fantries were even brther apart than the two prom en ad ing ch.rriomes . It is tru e that inEgypt ian art "the re is no head ..tlll clash , the sce ne is always o f pursu it," but rhar is very likel ybecause in Egyp tia n ideology ene mies regular ly nee and Egypti an s pursue. Th e mad, asindicated above , cannot be used J-"i3 guide to the cha riot tactics used before the Carastrophe.

9' So Watkins, " Beginnings of War b re: 3 1: "Chariorry was a highly pre st igio us, hu gelyex pensive and very vulnerab le P30 rt of ;lny army, It would not he used in barth: unti l the:cri ticalmo ment hJJ a rrived, then its task was to b unch ;J drive which wou ld induce .1 brea k ing ofranks in the opposing infant ry li nes . O nce the ride of J tu tt le IIJd been rurued the ch.morrymigh t then also hurrv and hunt down the disper sed enem y,"

128 A MILITARY EXPLANATION

beginning to discharge their arrows as soon as the enemy came withinrange (perhaps at a distance of two hundred meters or more). The archersmust have shot ever more rapidly and vigorously as the opposing forcesclosed the distance between them. Of course many horses were killed orwounded: the whole point of the battle (as Egyptian reliefs show clearlyenough) was to bring down as many of the opponent's chariots as possible.

The typical chariot force was probably deployed in a formation broaderthan it was deep. On a flat plain, only the archers in a front rank of chariotscould have had an uninterrupted view of their opponents. And a charioteerdriving his horses at the gallop could not have followed too closely upon achariot in front of him, since he would need to be able to maneuver aroundany sudden casualry, lest his own team should pile onto a comrade's immo­bilized vehicle. Perhaps a host of chariots was typically deployed in three orfour ranks, ranged behind one another at intervals of twenty or thirtymeters, but it is not impossible that on occasion all the chariots weredeployed in a single rank. Since (as we shall see in the following section)Thutmose himself rode in the center of the frontline at Megiddo, we mustinfer that front-line chariots were not conspicuously at risk, and that inturn suggests that the chariot formation was wide and shallow. It probablywas important to extend one's line far enough that it could not be out­flanked by the enemies' vehicles.

What happened when the opposing chariot forces charged against eachother will be imagined in various ways. Horses, unlike men, cannot bedriven to charge directly into their opponents, and so we must imagine thatin a battle between two more or less equal chariotries the two lines slowedas they closed and then somehow slipped around or through each other(when a large chariotry met a small one, on the other hand, the small forcewould perhaps either have turned tail long before closing or would havebeen entirely enveloped, brought to a standstill, and thus destroyed). Per­haps a chariot force may have divided as it approached the enemy, thevehicles on the right pulling farther to the right in order to flank theiropponents, while the chariots on the left (all carrying, perhaps, left-handedarchers) pulled to the left. Contrarily, the objective may have been to drivewedges into the enemy line, a compact squadron splitting apart the en­emy's unbroken line, and the successive ranks funneling into and stretch­ing the gap. It is barely conceivable that all along the line the formation wasloose enough that the two opposing lines could completely intermesh andthus pass through each other, but in that case the casualties would havebeen enormous.

After the surviving teams had made their way past each other, the ar­chers may have faced the rear of their vehicles and fired once or twice attheir opponents as they receded. Then the two forces, if they were stillcohesive, must have wheeled around and begun their second charge. this

THE C H A RIO TWA R fAR E 129

time from the opposite direction. Finally, when one of the forces had beenheavily depleted or thrown into disorder, the survivors would have madeno more return charges but would have tried to esc3pe to a citadel or aguarded position.

THE BArrLES AT MECIDDO AND KADESH

There are two battles in the Late Bronze Age abour which at least a lirtle isknown. The Battle of Megiddo was commemorated by the victor, Thur­mose III, on the walls of the temple of Amon at Karnak.v- In his twenty­second year (ca. 1460 B.C.) Thutmose led a great army into the Levant inorder to establish his supremacy there and was opposed by a coalition ofCanaanite kingdoms under the leadership of the king of Kadesh. On theninth day after passing the Delta frontier fortress at Sile, Thutrnosc's armywas at Gaza, 150 miles distant; by the standards of antiquity and theMiddle Ages, he had moved very quickly,"! Learning that the Levanrineforces were massed at Megiddo, Thutmose's officers worried that if theEgyptian forces proceeded northward in a long column along the centralroad, the vanguard would be attacked and overwhelmed before the rearelements could catch up and be deployed. Thutrnose decided, however, tomaintain the single column, and to put himself at the head of it: "[Everyman] was made aware of his order of march, horse following horse, while[his majesty] was at the head of his army."

Arriving at the Qinavalley, Thurrnose spread his force in order to spanthe entire valley and in early afternoon came within sight of Megiddo andthe Canaanite forces. He decided to pitch a camp, however, and to delaythe battle until the following day: "Prepare ye! Make your weapons ready,since one will engage in combat with that wretched enemy in the morn­ing." After a night's sleep, Thutmose was advised that "the desert is well"and that all-was in readiness. At dawn Thurrnose rode forth in his gold­covered chariot. His battle line, according to the inscription, extendedfrom the Qina brook to a point notthwest of Megiddo, "while his majestywas in the center, Amon being the protection of his person (in) the melee."Since Thutrnose's chariotry must have included more than a thousandvehicles (it routed a Levanrine chariotry of at least that size), we maysuppose that his battle line was indeed a long one. If the chariots were

91 See Wilson's rransl.nion of the inscription. ANET. 234-8."' Willi3m Murnane. The Road to Kadcsh: A Historical lnterpretation o(the Battle Reliefs

o( King Sety I at Karnak !ChIC3g0. 19S5). 145-50 (appendix 2. "Movements of Armies .mdTimings of Travel in Egypt and the Levant"), notes rhar the armies of Assyrian kin~s <InO ofAlexander the Crear moved at a rate of between thirteen and tiftcen miles a day.

130 A MILITARY EXPLA~ATION

deployed in a single rank, the line would have extended for almost twomiles.

The battle then commenced. We have no details about the charge and aretold only about its outcome:

Thereupon his majesty prevailed over them at the head of his army. Then theysaw his majesty prevailingover them, and they tled headlong [to]Megiddo withbees of fear.They abandoned their horses and their chariots ofgold and silver,sothat someone might draw them (up) into this town by hoisting on their gar­ments. Now the people had shut this town against them, (but) they [let down]garments to hoist them up into this town.

Possibly the Canaanite chariotry did not complete even its initial chargeagainst the Egyptians, turning before the two lines neared each other andfleeing to the city. There the crews leaped from their chariots and beganclimbing the walls, undoubtedly protected by a covering barrage of arrowsshot by bowmen stationed on the walls, and assisted in their climb by ropesand garment-lines let down from the top of the walls. The inscriptionregrets the fact that at this point Thutmose's men began collecting theenemy's horses and chariots ("an easy prey") instead of pressing on withthe attack and killing the enemy as they were being hoisted up the walls ofthe city. Because of this shortsightedness, a siege of Megiddo was necessary.Thutmose ordered the construction of a fortress to the east of the city, toserve as the Egyptians' base during the siege, and divided the perimeter ofthe city into sectors, assigning a commander to each. The siege was success­ful, and the enemy princes eventually came out of the city "to kiss theground to the glory of his majesty and to beg breath for their nostrils." Thebooty that Thutmose brought away from the campaign included 1,929cows, 20,500 sheep, and many costly and beautiful things. More pertinentto our interests are the military personnel and material:

[List of the booty which his majesty's army carried off from the town of]Megiddo: 340 livingprisoners and 83 hands; 2041 horses, 191 f0~ls, 6 stallions,and ... colts; I chariot worked with gold, with a hodyof gold, belongingto thatenemy. [I] fine ch.inot worked with gold belonging to the Prince ofIMegiddoj . . . and 892 chariots of his wretched army-total: 924; 1 finebronzecoat of mail belonging to that enemy; [ll finebronze coat of mail belonging tothe Prince of Meg[iddo, and] 200 [leather] coats of mail belonging to hiswretched army; 502 bows; and 7 poles of meru-wood, worked with silver,of thetent of that enemy.

The second Late Bronze Age battle about which we know at least a littleis the battle that Rarncsses II fought against Muwatallis II of Hatti in 1275,when the young Ramesses was in the fifth of his sixty-seven years on thethrone. The battle was fought within sight of the city of Kadesh, in north­ern Syria, and we know about it because Rarnesses II assiduously adver-

[HE CHARIOT WARFARE 131

tised his version of it. He ordered it to be portrayed, with reliefs andinscriptions, not only on his mortuary temple at Thebes (the Ramesseurn)but also on temples at Luxor, Abydos, and Abu Sirnbel.":' More completetexts of the inscription have also been found on two papyri, one of whichruns to eleven pages. As Rarnesses recounted the battle, it was a victory andwas won almost entirely by his own skill and bravery, his army havingpanicked and fled. In fact, the battle seems to have been at best-for theEgyptians-a draw, and several units in Rarncsses' army made their pres­ence felt.">

Great battles were uncommon through most of the thirteenth centuryB.C. The kings of Assur and Hattusas may have fought in the 1230s, but thematter is quite unclear. % In the Aegean, there seems to have been very littlemilitary activity from ca. 1375 to ca. 1225. For Egypt, the Kadesh cam­paign was apparently extraordinary, since we know of nothing remotelysimilar for the rest of Rnrnesscs' long reign. In his twenty-first year (1259)he and the Hittite king arranged a peace treaty, after which the Levantseems to have been mostly quiet until Ramesses' death in 1212. The Battleof Kadesh may therefore have been by far the greatest battle fought any­where in the eastern Mediterranean during either the fourteenth or thethirteenth century, and we are fortunate to know something about it.

Rarnesses' army spent exactly one month in traveling more than fivehundred miles from Avaris, in the eastern Delta, to the vicinity of Kadesh,which was one of Muwatallis's most important vassal states in Syria. We donot know how many chariots and how many infantry Ramesses had as­sembled, since in describing his force Rarnesses' scribes say only that "HisMajesty had made ready his infantry and his chariotry, and the Sherden ofHis Majesty's capturing whom he had brought back by the victory of hisstrong arm; supplied with all their weapons, .ind the plan of fighting havingbeen given to them. "97 The army moved in four divisions, named after thegods Amon, Ptah, Re, and Seth, with Rarnesscs himself in the leadingdivision of Amon. Upon reaching the vicinity of Kadesh, and having beengiven the false information that the Hittite army was far to the north,

94 For thereliefs seeWreszinski, Atlas, vol. 2. plates 63ff. (Luxor), R2ff.(Ramesseurn), andI76ff. (AbuSimbel), Fortranslation ofthetextsseeAlan Gardiner, The Kadcsh Inscriptions ofRamesscs II (Oxford, 1960). Gardiner's translations supersede- those of Breasted. AR, vol. 3,nos.306-51.

9\ Forreconstructions of the battle seeBreasted, The Battle of Kadesh (Chicago, 1903):'radm. Warfare, vel. 1, 103-10; Kitchen, Pharaoh Triumphant, 53-62. These reconstruc­tions seem to me misleading only in the assumptions that the Hittites failed to achieve udear-cut victory because their chariot warriors were armed with lances instead of compositebows (Yad iu, naturally enough, founJ this to be the major "weakness" of the Hittitecha norr-y) and because Muwarallis failed, for one reason or another, to commit his immenseinfantry.

9h ltamar Singer, "The Bartle ot ?..[ih nyu andtheEnd oftheHittite Empire," ZA"S (I 98S,:100-123.

"17 Gardiner's translation, Kadcsh, P25-30.

132 A MILITARY EXPlAl'ATIO~

Amon division crossed the Orontes and proceeded north to a campsite.When the second division, Re, began fording the river, the Hittite kinglaunched his chariots upon it from a concealed position near the city wall:"Bur the wretched Chief of Kharti stood in the midst of his arrnv which waswith him and did not come our ro fight through fear of His Majesty. But hehad sent men and horses exceeding many and multitudinous like the sand,and they were three men on a chariot and they were equipped with allweapons of warfare."?"

In what follows we can deduce that the Re division, caught astride theOrontes, consisted of both chariotry and infantry, neither of which with­srood the onslaught. The Hittite chariots "came forth from the sourh sideof Kadesh and broke into (?) the army of Pre' in its midst as they weremarching and did not know nor were they prepared ro fight. Thereupon theinfantry and the chariotry of His Majesty were discomfited beforethem. n99 With the Hittite chariots in hot pursuit, many of the Re chariotsfled toward the Amon division, which was setting up camp under thesupervision of Ramesses himself. The enemy chariots "hemmed in thefollowers of His Majesty who were by his side," but Ramesses quickly"assumed the accoutrements of battle and girded himself with his cors­let. n 100 After ordering couriers ro rake a message ro the third division(Ptah), commanding it ro speed to assistance, Ramesses mounted his char­iot and entered the fray, perhaps with little more than his own chariotsquadron:

His Majesty went ro'look about him and he found 2,500 chariots hemming himin on his outer side, consisting of all the champions of the fallen ones ofKhatri..., they being three men on a chariot acting as a unit, whereas there wasno high officerwith me, no charioteer, no soldier of the army, no shield-bearer,my infantry and my chariotry scampering away before them, and not nne ofthem stood firm to fight with them.""

Rarncsscs claimed not only to have rushed into the thick of the Hittitesquadrons bur to have wheeled abour and charged no less than six times:

Then said His Majesty to his shield-bearer: "Stand firm, steady thy heart, myshield-bearer. ! will enter in among them like the pounce of a falcon, killing,slaughtering, and casting to the ground. What careth my heart for these effemi­nate ones at millions of whom! rake no pleasure?" Thereupon His Majestyst.rrted forth quickly and entered at a gallop into the midst of the battle for the

n lbid., PbS-70.

". lbid., P70- 75.100 lbid., BSO-B90. For reliefs of the camp scenes and the main chariot hattie see

Wreszinski, AII,Is, vol. 2, plates 6.\ 70, 82, 84, 88, In.101 Gardiner, Kadesb, )'80-90.

THE CHARIOT WARfARE 133

sixth time ofentering in amongst rhem.I wasafter them like B"'31 at rhe momentof his powcr.iv-

Whatever the truth may be about Rarnesse-,' personal heroics, he and hisfellow charioteers from Amon division and the fugitives from Re evidentlyheld the field long enough ro enable the Prah chariots ro arrive. At thatpoint the Hittite chariots too were reinforced, by a thousand chariots ofMuwatallis's allies.

While the battle had been raging, certain of the Hittite chariot crews haddismounted to begin plundering the Amon camp, which apparently hadbeen abandoned by its defenders. Bur as the Hittites were engaged inlooting, warriors whom Rarnesscs called "the nearim from Arnor" andwhom Yadin described as "Canaanite mercenaries serving in the army ofRarneses Il" came to save what was left of the camp and fell upon theHittite crews, killing them all.")]

How many casualties there were on either side, and whether either sidewas in fact victorious, we do not know. Rarnesscs claimed victory, bur theEgyptians apparently lost little rime in moving sourh, perhaps to avoidanother surprise attack.

The size of the Hittite army can be pieced together from several state­ments in the inscriptions. Rarnesses reports that the chariorry thatMuwatallis initially launched against the Re division and that followed upwith an attack upon the Amon camp, consisted of twenty-five hundredvehicles, each carrying three men. Late in the battle, perhaps after the Ptahdivision had arrived on the scene, Muwatallis launched another thousandchariots, these apparently being allied squadrons.'?"

We also have precise figures for the Hittite infantry. Ramesses' reliefs,and the accompanying legends, indicate that Muwarallis had one largebody of warriors before him and another behind him. Breasted read thetwo figures as eight thousand and nine thousand respectively, bur AlanGardiner corrected the reading to eighteen thousand and nineteen thou­sand.J''" Gardiner's readings are probably to be preferred, although there isnot yet a clear consensus among Egyprologisrs.t't«

Whether numbering seventeen thousand or thirty-seven thousand, the

1<" Ibid., P2IS-22S.I'" lbid., RII; d. Yadin, Arl o(War(are, vol. 2. 267.1(,4 Ibid., PI50-IS5.ros lbid., R43 and R44.llJ6 For discussion see Bell. Organization, 356-57. Beal consulted Murnane on the read­

ing and at n. 1116 quotes from Murnane's response: "'"I don't think Gardiner is necessurilvwrong (and he Seems to have hecn accepted in this by more recent scholars) but I would stillsay that there is some uncerr.unrv." Murnane's own The Road to Kadesb deals with eventsle;1ding up to Rarnesses' campaign, but not with the campaign itself. Kitchen, PharaohTriumpbont, 53. accepts Gardiner's readings.

134 A MILITARY EXPLANATIOl-:

Hittite infantry at Kadesh was substantial, and it is therefore all the morenoteworthy that it took no part in the battle itself, the Hittite king sendingonly his chariorry (approximately ten thousand, five hundred men) to theattack. Not only do the inscriptions say that Muwatallis sent his chariotsinto battle, while he stayed at Kadesh with the infantry, but the reliefs tellthe same story. The reliefs of the battle on the Ramesseum and the Luxorand Abu Simbel temples portray a massed infantry standing guard near thecity of Kadesh, toward which the routed Hittite chariots flee.107 It wouldtherefore appear that Muwatallis used his massed Infantry as a defensiveforce, forming a cordon around the city gates and the approaches toKadesh,

The size of Rarnesses' army is nowhere stated, but chariotry appears tohave been its offensive element. Except for the Amorite ne'arim, who prob­ably (as we shall see in chapter 11) were "runners" attached to the Amondivision, no footsoldiers under Ramesses' command arc known to haveengaged the enemy. When the king, with the Amon division, was informedthat the Re division had been routed, he seems to have counterattackedwith as many of the Amon chariots as could be got ready, charging andturning about to repeat the charge six times. Whatever infantry formationwas included in the Amon division was evidently not part of its offensiveforce and in fact was not even sufficient to defend the camp. One maysuppose that in Rarnesses' army, as in Muwatallis's army, the chariotry'scharge was not coordinated with the charge of an infantry formation.

107 For the three reliefs see Yadin, Art ofWarfare, vol. 1,238.

Chapter Eleven

FOOTSOLDIERS IN THE LATE BRONZE AGE

I T IS SURPRISING to discover how little information survives aboutLate Bronze Age inf~~tries. No infa?,tryman's archive ha,~ been foun~

to compare with the chariot tablets from Knossos, the horse textsfrom Ugarit and Hattusas, and the many Nuzi tablets dealing with thechariot corps. As a result, in each of the text-based studies that have beendone on things military at Nuzi, Hatrusas, Ugarit and Mycenaean Greece,the space devoted to infantry is only a small fraction of that devoted tochariotry.' A general study of Late Bronze Age infantry has yet to be made.

In lieu of information, it has been widely assumed that Late Bronze Ageinfantries were much the same as infantries in other periods of antiquity.More particularly, it has been supposed that in battles all through the LateBronze Age infantries played the primary role, with the chariotries insupport. These assumptions do not seem to be borne out by the meagerevidence that we have.

In better-documented periods of antiquity, the infantry was central to anarmy's attack, and horse troops were peripheral. Horse troops operatingindependently were useful for reconnaissance, for harassing an enemy lineof march (as the Syracusan cavalry harassed the Athenian hoplites on theirretreat in 413 B.C.),or for small-scale action, but in a pitched battle horsetroops regularly served to support the infantry', attack. Persian, Greek,and Roman battle tactics required that the movement of infantry and horsetroops be coordinated, the infantry normally forming the center of a battleformation and the horse troops being posted at the infantry's right and leftflanks or being held in reserve for commitment after the infantry battle hadbegun. Occasionally, as Hannibal did at the Trebia River, a commandermight order his cavalry to initiate the battle, in order to draw the enemyinfantry into a position of his choosing. But whatever role was assigned tothe horse troops was chosen with the infantry battle in mind, since inclassical antiquity an army's center of gravity was invariably its infantry.

This "normal" balance has also been assumed for the Late Bronze Age.The thesis that Mycenaean chariots hauled infantrymen to and from abattlefielcf is based on the assumption (common in archaeological circles)

1 Chapter III of Kendall's \Varfare is a lexicon of military terms from Nuzi; approximatelySOpercent of the terms refer to horses, chariots, and the chariot corps. In Bears Orgattizationthere are 36 p3ges {58-9J} on the chariotry JnJ only two (103-4) on the infantry. Lejeune'sand Franccscherti's text-based studies of Mvcenae.m warfare deal primarily with two topics:chariots .mcl the o-lea tablets.

iJ6 A .\ 1 \ LI TAR Y E X I' L. A N A T \ II N

th at th e My ce naeans fough t on foot . So me scho la rs have in fact su pposedth at in the N ear East as well char io ts we re mi lita rily usefu l only as infantrytr an sp orts. T h us Jacques G erner. co mpa ri ng the m ilitary ch ario ts of Ch inaw ith th o se of ules civilisations oc cid enrales," fou nd it noteworthy th at inC hina the cha riot was acr ua lIy used i ll batt le: he assn rued th at in the Wes t itse rved o n ly as a ta xi fo r footso ld iers, especia lly th ose needi ng a fas t ge ta ­wa y fro m the buttlcfield.v Even Egyptol ogi sts have been inclined to see th einfa n try as basic to New Kingdom warfare. As noted in chap te r 10, Schul­ma n recently propo sed tha t in New Ki ngd om Egyp t th e cha riotry played am arginal ro le while th e infa nt ry bore th e brunt of th e fighting (he assumedtha t th ere were fifry infa ntryme n for each cha rio t). In R. O. Faulkner'sreconstru ct ion of Ne w Kin gd om wa rfa re, cha riots a re more impo rt a nt butnevertheless funct ion p r ima rily as a screen fo r a massed infa ntry: " In a fieldac t io n it seem s to h ave bee n th e ch ariotry wh o to ok th e firs t shock of battle ,th e infantry advancing behind th em to ex p loi t a tacti cal su ccess o r tostem th e ene m y's adva nce if m atters went awry, so mewhat as in modernwarfa re the infantry o perat e behind a screen of a rmoured vehicles."] Sim­ilarly, the th esis th at H ittite cha rio t wa rr iors fo ught wi th the thrustings pe a r gene ra lly presupp oses th at th e primary ob jec tive aga ins t w h ich th eHittite cha r io ts delivered th eir fro nta l charge wa s a n enem y infantryform ati on .

The co nclusions reach ed in chapter 10 a bo ut the natu re of cha r io t war­fare leave little room fo r th e cla sh of clo se-order infantry formatio ns . Bat­tles betwee n east ern Medite rra nea n ki ngdo ms of th e Lat e Bronze Age, liketh o se desc ribed in th e /'..uihabharata, must have consis ted p rimarily of tw ocha riot fo rces cha rg ing ag a ins t and past each othe r and th en ci rcl ing backto cha rge each o the r a gain, the a rche rs all th e while shooting agai nst th eo ppo sing squadrons. H o w a m ass for ma tio n of offensive infa ntry co uldhave co ntributed so mething to such a battl e (o r even have kept abreas t of it )is no t sel f-evident, a nd tha t it d id ca n no t be taken for gra n ted .

We have seen th a t at Kad esh th ere was no enco unte r between opposingin fantries, nor does th ere seem to ha ve bee n o ne at M egiddo , the only o the rLat e Bronze Age bat tle about which so m e details are known. In describinghi s army 's march to M egiddo, Thutmo se III noted th e pres ence of aninfa ntry," but he doe s not me ntio n it in co n nect io n with th e b attle itself,a nd h is boory list impli es that th er e was no infa ntry engagement (theEgy p t ian s, it w ill be recall ed , slew fewer th an a hundred men an d captured

.1 Ge rner, " No te sur le cha r en Chine, " J 10 : " Les indications qu 'on possede pour lcscivilisations occidentale, laissenr pcnser qu e le char sert norrnalement J U trans port descomba rta nts ;}pied d 'oeuvre et leur permet !Oi besom est de prendre 1.1 Iui te. Cc n'es t p J.S encha r que sc der oulenr ordiua irernent les com b.irs , l.e combat en cha r est J U conrraire de reglcen Clune."

• Faul kner, "Egvpn.m "l ilitary O rganizano n," ./1-: 04 39 (19S3 ;: 4.L, AN t:T. 2.15 (trans . John Wi!>on ).

r o o r S O L. DI E R S 137

on ly 340 , w h ile seizi ng 92 4 cha riot s a nd 2041 horses). Appa rently Thut­mose 's in fantry was not put to wo rk until th e seven-m o nt h siege ofMegiddo began . O n th e Ca naan ite side th ere sur ely a lso were in fant rymen ,but d ur ing th e ba tt le th ey may ha ve been stat io ned at Mcgiddo itsel f,serving as defensive bowme n at op the walls and-u nti l th ey p ani cked a ndclosed th em -before th e ga tes of th e city.

Refe rence s to less famo us ba tt les al so co nsp icuous ly ign ore infantryenco unte rs. In th e Nuzi text s ar e such reminiscen ces as "when th e ch ario tsof Hanigal b ut ga ve battle at th e to WII of Lub ti" o r " when th e chariots gavebattle in Silliawa.I" Possibl y infa nt rymen als o gave battle a t these timesand places ; but if they did , thei r co nt rib ution was appa rently to o sma ll tohave bee n ap p rec iated o r mentioned . lf one is loo kin g for th e kin d of ba tt lefam iliar fro m classical an tiqu ity-e- heavy in fantries fight ing hand- to-handin th e center, w ith horse t roo ps en gaged o n the w ings-one w ill search invain th e documents a nd picto rial representations th at h ave come dow n tous fro m th e Lat e Bronze Age king do ms prio r to th e C atast ro phe . T h enotion tha t Late Bronze Age cha rio t rics fought in su pport of massed infan ­try fo rma tio ns is a misappreh ension a nd a n a nac hronis m.

T he re is no doubt th at so me N ear Easte rn kin gs raised substa nt ia l in fan­tries wh en th ey went to wa r. Although we h ave no figures fo r New King­dom Egypt, it is probably sa fe to assume th at o n a major campa ign thepharaoh too k a lo ng severa l th ousand in fantrym en. Egyptian footso ld ierswere eith er " shooters " (bowmen) o r nahhtu -aa, a term that liter all y mean s"s trong-a rm boys" a nd deno tes hand-to -h an d fighters.6 The "sho o ters,"perhaps a ll na tive Egypti an s, were grouped in co m pa nies of 20 0 o r 25 0men , th e co mp anies bearing na mes suc h as " Aten App ea rs fo r Him " o r" Pacifier of Gods.? "

The G rea t King of Hatti w as ofte n accompan ied o n ca m pa ign by man ymo re men o n foot th an in cha rio ts. Hi s vassa l, the king of Kizzuwatna ,brought to his lord a force of o ne thousand in fant rymen a nd o ne hundredcha riots ; even if each of th e cha riots h ad a three-m an crew, the in fant rywould h ave out numbered th e men of th e cha r iot ry by more than three toone. A sim ila r ratio is attested in the forces of tw o kingdoms that fough tagainst th e Hi t tires." And at Kadesh, as we have seen, M uwaralli s wasaccompan ied by a n infantry formation of a t leas t sevent ee n th ousand andpro ba bly th ir ty-seven thousan d me n. T he Hittite vassals of ea stern Syriamu st h ave brough t th ou san d s of troops to th eir confrontati on w ithTu ku lti-Nin urta I of Assu r, since he claims to have ca ptu red twen ty-eightth ousa nd of th em ."

, Kendall . W" rf" re. 114 and 132 .,. Sti llma n .1nJ Tallis, Armies, S.

7 IbiJ. See also f aul kner. " Egy ptian :>.l ilita l)· O rga n izatio n. " 45.II Beal, () rg iJm =J t im l , 70 2. .q D. D. Luckenbill. Ancien t RIt( nrds of A..>syrJil and H.llry/oHid. ve l . I. nov. 164 Jn J 17 1.

138 A M IL ITARY EXPLANAT ION

The crucial quest ion is not how man y footsold iers there were in Egypt orin Hatri but what they did. Hirtirologists have recognized that despite its

II size the infa ntry seems not to have counted for much in the typical Hitt ite1I,'tI,'{...L .~ batt le. Oliver Gurney concluded that in most battles the Hitt ite infantry

be.I: .~ played on ly "a subordinate part ," and Beal found that " the key part of thej ! to. ' ~"( ,,, Hittite armed forces was the cha riotry." 10 Th e reason why the tabl ets say1; /)"'-'Yof! so little abo ur the infantry, I believe, is that in the typical battl e there was noi! c~'''f. engage ment of massed infant ries.~ ' We have evidence for infantries going o n the attack in the Late Bron zeI Age prior to the Ca tastrophe but not in conjunction with a chariotry. Al i, , cont ras t emerges, it seems, between warfare against civilized enemies and:I warfare aga inst men from the hinterland , whom I sha ll call barb ar ians.

I:'.;,',' Th e kingdom s, and cities genera lly,were sited in fert ile plains, which co uld

be dom inated and defended by cha rio ts. When o ne king attacked ano the rthe confro ntatio n was therefore a cha riot battle. Similarly, a kingdo m

!i cou ld depend o n its cha riots against bar bar ians who raided its perim eter.II Thch

u~ Egyptia n reliefs.illusrrabte battl es ihn w.hichdRdamhesskies thde Great leddhis• I a rrorry against vanous tri esmen w 0 inva e t e ing om or its e-!I: pende ncies. Reliefs on a temp le at Beit-el-Weli show Ramesses in his cha r-U"J:' J' W~7 iot , shooting his arrows a t a crowd of Nu bian infantry bowmen.II NotI ,e. lei"'> • Egyptian infantry men are shown in the reliefs or menti oned in the inscrip-

t J.. .s tion s, and the relief depicts only Ramesses and two oth er Egyptian chariot, Ii h c.e./l¢.S archers, shooting into the crowd of retreat ing Nubian s. A seco nd relief attJc ...vt. "'7 Beit-el-Weli portray~ Rarnesses' victo ry over Shos hu, o r Bedouin, trib es­

ijo e « {;:>'It*'..J1 men. Th e Shoshu warrior typically carries a single spea r (evidently ali et,.,:at.s thrusti ng spea r) a nd a sho rt weapon whose function has not been ident i-

1

'1 tied} ZLike the Nubia ns, the Shoshu warrio rs carry no shield and wea r no! ' metal armor. Here too, it may be that Ramesses depended in part o n!I offensive infantrymen ,. but they arc not show n or mentione.d.I',' , On the othe r hand , 11\ order to carry the batt le to mountamou s o r rough11' terrain , where chariots could not go . a king necessar ily depended on aniI ,: infantry. '[here is o ne clear case of an Egyptia n infantry force co nfronti ng aiI barb ar ian infantry pr ior to the Catas trophe, alth ough .it is hypothetical: I rath er than real. Our source here IS th e Papyrus Anastasi, one of the mostil illumina ting pieces of evidence we have for the milita ry Situatio n on the eve

of the Carastrophe. t ' Thi s papyrus, dated to the end of the NineteenthDyna sty, is a letter written by a royal official named Hori to an ambi tio us

10 Gurney. The Hittites (Harmondsworth: 1961 ), 106; Beal, Orgolniz,;ztio11, 698.II Yadin. Art ofIVolr{olre, vol, 1, 234- 35.IL For rhe « lief see ibid., 232-33; YaJin suggests that the second wea pon of rhe Shoshu

tribes me n may be a sidle sword . One Sh03U warrior carries two short spears. presum ab lyjavelins .

11 See Wils«m\ rr.rnslntion of rhe papynl~ in AN ET, 475-7~ .

FOOT SOLD I ER S 139

but inexp erien ced and untu tored young man . IIIthe co urse of ridiculing hiscorrespondent's ignorance of pra ctical affairs, Hori purs before him a hy­poth et ical military situa tio n, aski ng him what sort of food sup plies hewould need were he quarterm aster for an army of five thou sand men sentto crush a rising of the nc'arim in Djahan (the significance of this casusbelli we sha ll exa mine in cha pte r 14). Hor i details what this hypoth eticalexpedition ary force would co nsist of: "Th e bowmen of the army which isbefore thee amount to 1900, the Sherden 520 , the Qeheq 1600, the Mesh­wesh (100), and the N ubians 880- TOTAL 5000 in all, not count ing theirofficers." Since food for the horses is not part of the problem, we mayassume th at the nineteen hundred bowm en are on foot rath er than incha riots. And since the other th irty-one hundred troops-all ba rba rian-are di fferent iated from the bowmen, they are presum abl y hand -to -handwarriors.

Th e Papyrus Anastasi docs suggest that at the end of the thirt eenthcentury B.C . the Egypti ans could field an infant ry force of five thou sandmen, most of these being profession al skirmishers. Th e papyrus does no t,however, suggest a close-o rde r formatio n (each of the nat ional contingentsa pparently has its ow n officers, and the type of battle en visaged must be aguerrilla since it will be fought against disor ga nized tribe smen ). And sinceno cha rio ts accompany the five thou sand infant rymen the papyrus cer­tainl y does not contradict our thesis that prior to the Catastroph e chariotswere not used to suppo rt mass formations of offensive infantry. In battles 6 .../y I!: ~r '

fou ght close to hom e, o r agai nst another kingdo m, a palace could rely <4 t'r,'k"/ ;;;entirely upon its cha riot force. Onl y o n th ose occas ions whe n a kingdom Wolillj,'! R. 1- ";fo ugh t aga inst barb arian tr ibesmen in the tribesmen's own hab itat would be / 4 "" 1'>­footsold iers bear most or all of the burden . CD",,£ (,,;.......

Alth ough we may generalize that in the Late Bron ze Age men of the citiesand kingdo ms normally relied on cha riotry, an exception may-be inferredfor the kingdom of Assur, on the northeastern frontie r of the civilizedworld. In the thirteenth cent ury, as was noted in cha pter 2, the kings ofAssur freque ntly fought aga inst barbarous enemies o n their northern andeastern borders, and here the mo untainous terr ain must have required theempl oyment of a sizeabl e Assyrian infantry. When Gutians, from Guri inthe Zagros Mountains, came down into the plain to raid Assyr ian depen­denc ies, Sha lmaneser I (1274- 1245) left his infantry behind and swiftlyrode out- with o nly a third of his chariots-to ro ut the Gutians, "wh osenumbers arc count less as the sta rs of heaven , a nd who know how to

plu nder." 14 Bur when Tukulti-N inurta I (1244- 1208) boasts of invadingGuti itself and of slaughtering " the armies of the Kuri (in their ) mountai n

J.4 Luckenbill, An cia'll Records of Assyr i,;l Jnd Babyl onia, vol. I, no. 117.

140 A MIL I T A R Y E X r LA NAT I ON

fastnesses," 15 we mu st ass ume th at th is was done by a n in fantry capab le o fhan d-to- hand figh tin g. Perhaps th e Assyr ian s' long ex pe rience in in fa ntrywarfar e wa s not unrelated to th e fan th at th e kingdo m of Assur was o ne o fth e few to survive th e C ata strop he .

In ki ngdo ms o ther th an Assur depende nce o n an offensive infa ntry mu sthave been unusu al. In the Aegea n, the pa laces in th e pl ains may have be eno ccasio na lly rai ded by mo unt ai neers ea rly in th e Lat e Hell ad ic per iod ;a ltho ug h th e pla ins co u ld be defen ded by cha r iot s, ret ali ati on wou ld havebeen und ertak en by infantr ies. T he famous " Ca p tain of the Black s " frescofrom Kno sso s seems to have show n a troo p of black spe ar men , led b y a" M ino a n ~ cap ta in . I '; W ha t rema ins of th e Pylos "B attle Scene~ (see pl at e2) shows the pal ace's wa rri or s overco ming a gro up of savages clad ina nima l skins. I ? T his is no t a barrle between in fan tr y fo rmat io ns but aguerrilla in which each of th e pa lace 's men duels w ith an oppo ne nt. Sinc ethe Pylian s wea r bo ar's-rusk helmet s, th ey a re o bv io usly wa rrio rs of highsta tus (the tu sk s of mo re than sevent y bo a rs we re required to make a sing lehelmet ). But wh eth er the Pylos fresco reflec ts co ntemporary life o r recall s alegendar y event, we do not know-and at a ny rat e it is d oubtful th a t in thepax My cenaica th e palaces were ofte n threa te ned by bar barous o ppo ne nts.T he Hittite kin gs ha d more oppo rt unit ies to use an inf ant ry. From tim e totime they campaign ed ag ains t ba rba r ia ns who fled into h illy o r moun ­ta ino us country, and on such occas io ns the Hittite king boasts of havi ngpursued the fugitives o n fool. It may be th at the first phase of such a warfea tu re d the Hittite chari o t ry, a nd the seco nd phase-in ro ugh ter rain­the infantry. Even for t he H ittites, howev er, inf antry figh tin g wa s unusu al.In his stu dy Richar d Beal ident ified th e Sumerogram ERIN. MES Gi R. tJ L A asthe st rict eq uivalent of o ur word "infant ry" (as in th e express io n " thecha riotry and th e infa ntry " ) but fou nd o nly seven inst an ces of th e term inth e Hittite texts.! " Referen ces to infa nt ry in docu ments from o the r Lat eBro nze Age kin gdoms see m to be eq ua lly sc a rce.

In a ny case, w ha t evidence we have sugg es ts that pr io r to the Ca tas t ro­p he infa nt ry ba tt les occur red only in pl aces tha t char io ts co uld no t go . Inthe pl a ins a nd in "norm al " ter ra in, w here the ch ariot fo rces were a t home,

,\ lbid., no . 152-I f> On th i-,fresco see Arthur EV.lJl"~ The ['oJ lole/? ofA1illo :;at !\.JIUSSO:;;. ve l. 2., pa rt 2 (Londo n,

1Y2Xl. 7S5 - 57 and the acco mpanying co lo r plate (p late xiii ]. T he black sold ier ru nning,beh ind the AL"~t.·3n " captain " seems to ca rr y 3. single spear. T he da te of the fresco ca nno t beascertained (ir W .IS founJ near-s-but not in- thc House of the Frescoes). Evans noted that thefn gl11t:nl s " diner in chn ructer " from those In the fresco crock and " seem ro have helou ged to J

so mewh.n la ter dare. ,.17 For th e fLTr,mellts in th eir o ri ~in ;l l st.ire J OlI fo r Pier de jong's reconstru ctio n see ~bhel

L ing, Th e [><11.,,--(' of Nestor at P)'/o j 111 \X!{'stern ,\ ft' 5>senioJ. vol. 2: The irescnes (Pr inceron .1%9), pl.u c \ 1 '12 H 04,: for Lon):\ comment , sec pp. 42-47.

t x BeJ.!. OrgJlIl ~oJtinl1 . 103 - 4.

H JOTSOL DI E R S 141

."f/~ -....

..y...:~~~~:-:-:-:-:••-:.:.:.:-:.:.:-:-:-;«-:-"'.«.:-:-:-:-:-:-:«-;--.-;.,;-;.:- -: .r LATE 2. Reconstructed " Battle Scene" fresco from Pylos

th e cha rio tries th em selves did the fighting. In the Late Bronze Age char io tsdid net serve- w hether as a scree n in the fro nt or as pincers o n th e fla nks­to suppo rt mass infa nt ry formatio ns.

" R UNNERS" : THE ROLE OF IN FANT RYM EN IN

C H ARIOT WA RFA RE

O n di e cont ra ry, before the Ca tas t ro phe foor so ldie rs see m to have sup­po rted the cha rio try, O n th e ma rch , foo tso ldiers ca n be assumed to haveserved as an esco rt for th e cha rio ts movin g in co lumn a nd as a gua rd for thenightl y encamp ment (in w hich a cha rio t army, its horses a ll un yo ked a ndtethe red , wo uld have been exceptio na lly vulnerable), In th e afterma th of 01

vict ory, in fantrymen wo u ld pro bably have pur sued fug it ives who tled to

144 A .\11 L I T A RYE X P LA S A T l O S

P LA T E 3. A sliardann skirmisher slaying ,1 Hittite charioteer at Kadesh . Abydosrelief

fortification ). Possibl y o n so me occasions ski rm ishers rode into battl e o ntheir co m rades' cha r iots (the G reek apobates comes to mind here) a nddism ounted when their vehicles began to clo se with the en em y. Alt er­natively, skirmishers may ha ve moved as a troop. In reliefs, sq uad s of fourEgyptian infantrymen are so me times show n m ar ching alon gsid e a cha rio tas it proceeds toward battl e, th e four ca rryi ng sh ields and eithe r spears o rsick le swo rds. The Arnorite ne'arim wh o sav ed the Amon ca mp in 1275s .c, see m to ha ve reached the ca mp as a co mp any.

The unusu all y real isti c Abydos reliefs of the Kad csh battl e show th atEgyptian runners mu st h ave worked closely with their chario t sq uadro n,their fun ct ion being to deal w ith th ose of th e enemy who were on fo ot. In acha r iot battle, the enemy on foot wo uld have included not only the o ppos­ing runners but also cas ua lt ies from th e cha rio ts themselves: skirmishe rsmu st thus have been resp on sibl e for " fin ish ing off" an enemy cha rio t creww hose vehicl e had been immobilized . We ca n assume rh.rr in a ny cha riotbarrlea r.ipidlv moving char io t ho st would leave its casualties in its wak e.Th ese migh t be indi vidual men , wounded o r sim p ly fallen from th eir cha r-

FOOT SO L D I ERS 145

iots ; o r th e cas ualty might be an ent ire cha r iot .md its crew, on e of th ehorses having been killed o r wounded, o r perh ap s the vehicle itself havin gbeen immo bilized by a broken wheel o r ax le. The disp at ching of theses tra nde d cas ua lt ies , it is clear from Egypti an picto rial evidence (see plates Jand 4 ), was left to foor soldiers. Armed w ith a sho rr spea r and dirk . th eskirmishe r wa s indeed indispensabl e for " II ph ases of a chariot battle. W,might say th at w hereas in G reek and Ro ma n tim es horse troops suppo rtedth e infa ntry fo rma tion, in cha riot wnrta rc in fant rymen as indi vidu a ls or insma ll squ ads supported the horse troop to which th ey were attached .

Alt hough very lit tle ca n be learned a bo ut the se runners, we ca n hardlyavoid supposing th at ever y cha rio t co rps held th em . Although detected inEgypt by Schu lma n, the y ha ve not yet been spo tt ed in the lexicographicalfog th at enve lo ps mil ita ry matter s a t Knossos, Pyle s, and orh er sites wi thlimited pictorial evidence on war fare . It is nevertheless possible that th eahu in fourteenth-century N uz i was a cha rio t runner. Literally, the ahu wa sa " b ro the r," but the designation was in fact used for a certain kind ofwarrior a nd most likel y for a certa in kind of foorsoldier attached to th e

PLAT E 4 . A shurd.m.i skirmisher cut t ing off the hand of a slain Hittit e ch a riotee r atKadesh, Ahydos relief

146 A M I L I TAR Y EX P LAN A T I O N

chariorry. Kendall 's anal ysis shows th at these warriors were neith er char­iot eer s nor cha riot wa rrio rs but were attached to chariot units, and th atthere were two such brothers for every cha norcer.>

It is certain that the Hitt ite kings used cha rio t runners, but little can besaid abo ut them . Beal 's su rvey turned up several referen ces to troops whowere to " run before" the Hittite king.27 No Hittite term tor "c ha riotrunner " emerged from the texts, although the piran huyatalla (" forerun­ne r" ) may in severa l passages have some such rneanin g.> It is a lso possibleth at the shariluuoa troop s, who seem to have been a tertium quid alongside" infa nt ry " and cha riotry, were skirrnishers.?" The importance of runnersin Hitt ite cha riot wa rfa re was after all grea t enou gh th at Rarnesses IIment ion ed them immedia tely afte r the cha riots themselves. T he "poetic"acco unt of the Battle of Kad esh declar es that Rarnesses ..fou nd twenty-fivehundred cha rio t-teams sur ro unding him in his road, togeth er with a ll therunn ers belo nging to the foes of Hatti and the numerous count ries whichwere with him ." 30 Th ese Hittite runn ers must be cont ras ted wi th the sto lidranks of infantry that sta nd mot ionl ess, in the reliefs, around the fortress ofKadesh.

In Linear B tablets no term has yet been interpreted as the equ ivalent ofski rmisher o r runner. Th e profession al warri or s employed by the Pylos andKnossos palaces, however, may very well have been intended to serve inthat capaci ty. There may be a bit of pictorial evidence for Mycen aeanrunners (or, more accurately, walkers). O n a late thirteenth- or ea rlytwelfth- century krater from Tir yns two warri or s, each armed with a sho rtspea r and a sma ll, round shield, pro ceed on foot in front of a chari ot. 3 I It is

~ h Kendal l, \VtITfarc. 73. finds that " the ' brothers' and r11~ cha rioteers h.r..'e the sameco rmna nding o fficers, and that the form er are genera lly tw ice .1S" num erous .l~ the: lar rer. "

!' B<., I. O rganization. 23 4- 35. 1.37. 23811.723. and 555 .I N For references see ibid.. 554- 59; Ik:tl's own preference is to translate the ter m J S

" lea der " o r " vanguurdsma n." -~ .... Bea t. ibid.. 125- 27, cires a number of texts rh.rr refer to "rile infant ry, the ho rse rroopv,

.ind rhe sha rik llwd ." but no text sU~e' s. rs the basis for rhe d ifferent iation. Cf. Beal's su m­ma ry: ..If the sarikuusa- we re neit her infantry no r ho rse troops, w hat wert: they? . . . O n th ebasis (.I f presenr evide nce ir is impossib le to SJy wh at so rt o f rroop s rhey were ," In privateco rrespo ndence Beul wel com es the idenrificatio n of the sharik uu -a tro ops >IS cha rio t runnersbur regr t.' rs th ar "ir canner be proven o ne way o r another. "

h' Kadcsh poem. lilies 84-85. " tr anslated by Schu lma n, " Egyp tia n Chariotry," 90 n. 111(d. p. 89 n. 106 ); the Egypt ian term used he re is pbrr, accompanied by an ideog ra m of :I

running man armed with shield and spe.u . In Gardi uer 's rranslan on (KJdt!5h, P85) the wo rd isrr.msl.ued no r AS "runners " but .1S " cha mpion s. " In his nore o n th e line G.lf uiner explains :"PI,TT means hrera lly 'runner,' but \'It''' , i 54 1. 14-I X shows that ir WJs A gener a l term fordoughry warrio rs," O n the Hitti te runn ers see .11500 Stillman a nd Talli s, Annie's , 41.

n Vcrm eu!e and K.lrJ.geo rghi\ . M y t-t'l hll'u H r ;t.'/ ()rt~11 \~ISt! PJill tillg, 108- 9, with plate X , I .Althou gh the .m isr did not show th e warrio rs wi th ;lny o ther weapo ns, he mJy have intendedrhe .:; p e; l r\ .I S rhmw ing-vpea r-, o r i ~I \'d i n s ; the sha ft is~ri p p(' J with the fingerrip s of .1 coc kedlu nd, The .tut horv J;He the vase [0 the tr.rnvirio n between LH JUB .1I1d me.

F OOTS O L D I E RS 147

also poss ible that the apobates known from first-m illennium athletic con­tests was the distant descendant of a seco nd- millenn ium chariot runner.V

Let us summarize what can be dedu ced abo ut the role of infa nt rymen inthe Late Bronze Age kingdoms of the eastern Mediterranean. Infant rybattl es of a guerrilla type were evidently fou ght in ba rba ria , or in localesimpas sab le for cha riots. Kings a lso requ ired an infantry for such sta tionaryassignment s as the siege or defense of a city. When the cha rio try was on themarch, foorsoldiers would have prov ided an esco rt an d guarded the en­campment . During the battle itself footso ldiers were appa rently employedin one of two ways. Man y of them seem to have served as a cordon, a havento which worsted chariots could flee. O thers served as hand-to -handskirmishers-or runners-who fought in immedia te support of the cha r­iot squa dro n to which they were attac hed . Th ese vario us responsibilitieswere all impo rta nt , but they were neverth eless ancillary: infantrymen sup­plement ed the cha riotry, rath er th an the other way a roun d. Prior to theCatastrophe there is no evidence for a clash of close-o rde r infantry form a­tions o r to r chario t warriors suppo rt ing their comrades on foot.

THE R ECR UITMENT OF INFANTRYM EN IN THE LATE BRONZE A GE

Th e recruitment of footsoldiers by the eastern Mediterranean kingdoms isconsis tent with the secondary role that infant ry played in the Late BronzeAge. Th ere is, first of all, no evidenc e for a genera l ca ll-up of adult males inthese kingdom s: nothing, that is, to parallel the citizen militias of Archai cGreece and Italy o r the tribal militi as of Israel and Ju dah in the early IronAge. Before the Ca tastrophe, kings depended upo n professional s ratherthan upon mobilized civilians, and man y infantrymen were appa rent ly justas professional (even though of relat ively low status) as were the chariot .crews. Assyria, agai n, may have been exceptional. Since Assyr ia was afront ie-r kingdom , the tradition of a tri bal milit ia may have prevailed therein the secon d millennium, as it app arentl y did in the first (although th epract ice cannot be demonstrated from the few Mid dle Assyrian document sthat survive). At any rate, in those kingdom s for wh ich there is substantia levidence the genera l popu lation was never mobili zed.

Some kings ordered a conscription on occasion, but the num ber of mencalled up was sma ll. Levies in Egypt trad ition ally took o ne of every tentempleservitor s for military service, but Rarnesses III pr ided himself on

II N. B. Crowther, "Th e Apob arcs Reco nsidered tDemosrhencs Ixi 23-9)." j ll S III! 1991 ): 174- 76 . bri ngs rogerher J II th e Greek tex ts referring 10 rbis obscure athlete, wh oleapt fro m J. cha riot ro acco mplish several feJrs of ru nning .tud wa rfare . Crowrher (p. 174jnotes that fo urth -centur y Atheni an s irn.rgmed rh.rr rht' u/)011£lt,11 wh om they were watchi ngwere replica ti ng rhe WJy that "Greeks :1110 burbn ri.mv In Homer made wa r Jg Jinst eachot her ."

t~d'1ll. j'>

",,/t.X- AOJ--

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148 A MIL I T A R Y EX r L A N A T I () N

having fo rgo ne even this mod est exacnon.P For his toorsoldi ers he willhave relied upon rhe professiona ls whom he hired . T hese included both"picked men " of Egypt and bar bari an s. The Egyptia ns were apparen tly noremployed as runners, since a Mediner Habu inscription differentiarcs rhetwo grou ps.>'

Th e Hittite kings depended pr imar ily up o n their regular a rmy, the pro­fessiona l infant rymen known as UK U.US a nd sba rileutoa . When a serio uscampaign was plann..d, this "standin g arrny ' W:lS routinely supplementedby troop s sent, under treaty, by pacified dis tricts on the front ier, especiallyto the north of Harti (where thousan ds of Kasknns, renowned for theirvalo r, were to be found).3) Onl y in emerge ncies was it necessary for theG reat King to levy troop s from th e civilian population of Harri itself; andwhen such levies were held, the recru its were discha rged as soon :ISpossiblc.v'

In Uga rit, Helrzer found so me eviden ce for conscripnon.F indi vidu alsfro m various villages being issued bow s by the palace o r being assigned asrowers on the king's ships. But agai n, th eir role W:lSmar ginal, and fo r themost part the king of Uga rir relied up on his professionals-the mdrglm ­guards and the tn nm (the latter seems to have meant so mething like "ha nd­to-h an d w:lrri or s" ).·lHThe entire milita ry force at Ugarir, acco rding toHclrzer 's calcularion , was only 20 77 men , with o ne-twe lfth- or about 175men-serving in :lny given month. Although this figure may be much toolow (He lrzcr him self not es that the king of Ugarir may have had a thousandcha riots), Hclr zer 's winnowing of the tabl ets has at least shown that there isno evidence for any massed infantry in that city. Th e single lar gest conti n­gent in his list a re the mdrg!m-gua rds, who acco unt fo r over half (1050men) of his roral.! "

In the Mycenaean kingdoms there may have been no conscription at all.At Pyla s, where there were severa l hundred chariots, the cha riot crewsmust have been al most as num erou s as the infant ry. As indicated above, theestima tes fo r the pop ulat ion ruled by the Pylos palace-range fro m 50 ,0 00to 120 ,000 people, bur nowhere do we hea r of thou san ds of Messcnians

H Brea sted. AR. vo l. 4 , no . 354 ; d. Gar din er. Egypt, 293.\4 Ed gerto n an d Wilson, H isto rical Records of Ramscs III , p lat e 29 : "The ar my is nssem -

b led . an d rhey ar c the bu lls of rbe lan d : every picked ma n [of J a il [Egypt\ a nd the runne rs."\,:: Be.il, O rgJ 1I iZJtio 1l, 220-40.In O n H itt it e levies see ibid .• Ll3- 46.r- Helrzer, In ternal O rg<1"i: JtlO" . 108- 11.h i !\-1. Die tr ich and O. Lo retz, " Die Schard an a in d en Tex ren vo n Ugarir, " in R. St ieh l an d

G . A. Leb m.m n. cds .. Annls c und Unioersalgescb ichte : Festschr ift Hans Erich St ier (M unst er.19 7 2), .; J, sugges t "Nah kimpfer " as a rra nsla rion of tnnrn, a te rm rhar ar Uga rit is a lmostinterc ha ng eab le wi th sharda n« .

, .... Hclrze r, Int ernal () rg.mi~Jtion , 105 - 8 .

f 0 0 T S() L l) I L R S 149

being called to th e colors. Th e five o-lea rablets enumerate 77 0 pediieue, awo rd thor is probabl y to be eq uated with classical G reek pedieis andsho uld ther efo re mean " foorsoldiers" (although it mu st be said that someMycenologisrs have recentl y deni..d that the o-ka tablets have anything to

do with milita ry matt ers).'!" At :lny rare, the 770 men listed in these tabletswould be by far the largest number of men arresrcd for militar y pur posesat Pylos, and the etbnica designati ng them suggest th at they were notMesscninn nat ives."! That there were no militias in the palace-star..s ofrhirrcenrh- cenru ry Greece may seem a her etical view, since the M ycenaean!awagetas is usually thought of as being a Hom eric "shepherd of the host"and so as mar shal of a vast a rray of infantry format ions . But in all of thetablets the only reference to the Iau/agetas in a contex t that might conceiv­ably be milita ry is an ent ry menti on ing " the cha rioteer of the latoagetas."42

At Knossos, cente r of a ki ngdom rulin g well over 100 ,00 0 people, thelargest num bers of men recor ded in the Linear B tablets a re 900 and 428.Here roo, as Jan Driessen has arg ued, what few infa nt rymen are attestedare very likely professional and non-Crera n.O

O ne must suspect that in those Near Eastern kingdo ms in which con­scriptio n was practiced the ca libe r of the levied troo ps was not very high.Even in battl e the conscript may have been mor e a civilian than a soldier. InEgypt, as noted, one our of ten temple servit or s might be con scripted formilitary du ty, and persons so infrequently levied are not likely ro have hadprior milit a ry experience. Hi ttite records indi cate that the men collected ina royal levy might be assigned ro a variety of menial tasks: serving as atoo rsoldie r was one, but alte rna tively the dr aftee migh t be ass igned to carryice o r har vest a vineya rd.":' At Nuzi, the typic al sab shepi (" footso ldier")was ap pa rently a conscript: in one of the few references to such a troop, the

'UO n the pcd iieu e in the o-ira ta blets see Lejeu ne , " Ci vilisat ion." 31. Alexand er Ucbi rel," On the 'M ilitary' Cha racte r of th e O · KA Tab lets ." Kadmos 23 (19X4 ): 136-63. argues rharthe o-lea tablets have nothing to do with military matters and instead refer to "so me sort ofagr icu ltur al wo rk. pro bably plou gh ing" (p. 163). Uchirel 's a rgume n t has been str ongl y en­do rsed by james T. Hooker. "Titles and Functi o ns in th e Pylian State." in Killen . Stud ies inM ycen ocJn and Classical G reek Present ed to John Chadw ick, 264- 65. If the o-i:a men we re" foreigne rs, " ho wever, as they seem to have been , it is likely tha t their occupano n was"o mething mo re spec ial ized th an wor king in the field s.

<I J. M . Driesse n and C. Macdon ald , " Seine Mil itary Aspects of the Aegean in th e LateFifteen th and Early Fourteenth Centu ries e.c .," AIJSA 79 ( 19X4): 49.

-I ': Lejeun e, "Civilisation," J 1 and 49 ." \ Driessen . ..~1 il i r;]ry Aspecrv," 5 1- 52 and 55 - 56 . lind ... no evide nce for " native " infan­

trymen in th e serv ice of the Knc ...sos pa lace . If th e design at ion s of the severa l groups ofinfantryrneu mentio ned in the ta blets a re indeed eth nic, th e men we re ver y likely of fo reigno rigin , "since these design.mons ca nno t he co nnected wit h C retan place-names menti on ed inthe Kno vsr.m archi ve O f late r " (p. 52 j.

-l4 Beat, O rg J tI;:,u I '-Oll . 140- 4 1.

150 A M I LI T ARY E XP LA N A TI O r-; F O O T S OL D I E RS 15 1

from their ga rb, hair, and weapo ns one wou ld suppos e th e men to be nat iveEgyprians.w

Among fore ign professionals, the lowest level seems to have been th at ofthe hapiru (o r 'prw ), free-lancers who were hired merely for a season orcampaign. Egypti an , Uga ritic, and Hittite text s all make menti on of hap­iru, both as hired tro op s a nd 3S troublesom e elements agai nst whom actio nhad to be tak en . Th e " Hebrew " tr adition s in ea rly Isr ael ind ica te th atman y of the hapiru who fou gh t for the phar aoh were hired fro m th e lesssett led population s in the so uthern Levant. Etymo logically, the word hap ­iru seems to have had no specifically military connotation, meaning some­thin g like "vagrants ~ or "those who have crossed boundaries," and clearlynot a ll bapi ru were warrio rs.4~ But in the Late Bronze Age many hapiruwere associated with mercenary military service, and app arentl y th ey werehired for han d- to-hand rather th an for long-ran ge co mbat. T he Sumeria nideo gra m that is ofte n used alongside or in place of the word hapiru isSft GAZ, which seems originally to have meant " he who commits aggres­sion," or "one who knocks down," or even " killer. "50 T he bapiru , orSA.GAZ, seem to have fo ught in conjunction with cha riots but were notthemselves chariotee rs or char iot a rchers.\ )

A preferable sour ce of seaso ned infa nt rymen fo r tem por ary servi ce was avassa l state or a province on the front ier. As indicated above, the Hitti tekings (who rarely hir ed hapiru) seem to have assembl ed th e co nsid erableinfantry need ed for a major campaign by requiring every subject distri ct tosend to the Great King a certa in number of troop s. If one were to believeRarnesses the Great's acco unt of the Bartle of Kadesh, the ki ngs ofHa rt i depended very mu ch up on mercenar ies. Accor ding to Rarnesses,Mu watall is st ripped his treasury bare in or der to hire manpower for theshowdo wn at Kad esh . Altho ugh Rarnes ses provid es us with a grea t list ofplaces th at sup plied troop s to M uwatallis, it is not clea r which of th ese wereHittite vassa ls and which were simply areas from which volunteers ormercenari es may have come. At any rate, few of M uwarallrs's th irty-seventhou sand infantryme n were conscripts fro m Hatt i: Ra rnesses refers to bo thgrou ps of M uwarall is's infa nt rymen as " tb r warrior s," a wo rd th a t maymean "champions" or "valiant men" bur that more objectively seems to

G Jr co lor illustration set:' Yad in, Ar' o( W~rfiJr{,~ vol. 1. 11 6- 17 .4'" Of J sco re of stud ies on the lrapiru the:rnosr recenr is hy NJJJ VNa 'aman, " H ap iru and

H eb rews: The Tran sfe r of 3 Socia l Term ro the Lite ra ry Scene, " ]N l S 45 (1986): 271-88 ; seealso H , Cazelles, "The H ebr ews," in D. WisemJ n, ed .. People> 0{ O ld -Testament Times(Oxfor d, 1973 ), 1- 28,

' " M 3ry G r3y, "The Ij j boru·Hebr ew Prob lern in the Lighr of rhe Source ,..,131er;31Avarl.iblea t Preven t," Hebreur Unio n College Annual 29 (1958 ): LJ7fi'.

'>I W. H eick. Die Bt.'ziehtmga t Agvpten» :.u vorderasien im J. urrd2. [abrt.nc end P. Chr.(Wiesb.IUl"l1, 19611. 521- .11, pro posed rhat th e rcrrns marva un u J nJ 'pr u -stood resp ecnve lvto r chan orr y .mJ mt~nt ry r roft's (,i on~k

tabl et specifies th at of seven foot soldiers one was a fuller, two were smiths ,and one was a templ e official.4 \

How such recruitment might have been co nducted in th e Late Bro nzeAge is not indi cated, so far as I know, in any of our records. In the MiddleBron ze Age, we catch a glimpse of how things might have proceeded atMar i. TIle officer in charge of recruitment there decided, as Watki ns ob­served.v' th at so mething must be don e " pour -enco urager les autres ~ and sosent to King Zimri-Lim a mod est proposal: " If my lord wi ll agree, let meexecute a cr iminal in the priso n, cut off his head and par ad e it all aro undthe tow n. . .to mak e the men afraid so that th ey will assemble qui ckly."How conscripts were used in Lat e Bron ze Age warfar e is uncl ear. At Uga rit,as mentioned, they were so metimes issued bows, and perhaps we mayimagine th em employed in either assa ulting or defend ing a fixed positi on.Possibl y some of the th ir ty-seven thou sand infant rym en who sto od wi thM uwata llis at the gat es of Kadesh were conscr ipts , a ltho ugh Rarnesses'inscri ption does say th at the se men were all thrwarrior s, a term th at mean ssom eth ing like "valiant " and was applied to exp eri enced troops. No textmention s the tra inin g of co nsc rip ts, and we may suppose th at th ey wereassigned du ties of a routi ne nature. Th ere is no reason to th ink th at co n­scripts were expected- o r able- to engage in hand-to-h and comba t .

We may turn, the n, to the profession al foorso ldier s, who appear und er avariety of designation s. In th e first cent uries of th e Late Bron ze Age mos tprofessional foorsoldiers may have been natives of the kin gdom in whichthey fou ght. In late fifteenth-centu ry Nu zi there is littl e eviden ce for fo reigninfa ntry me n. In Eighreenth-Dynasry Egypt th e infant rym en wh o sup­ported the chariotry were pro babl y Egyptian ntnu, which literally mayhave meant "young men " but which Schulm an tran slate s as "elite troop s."On the Konosso stele, Thutmose IV described his force s as he attacked aNubi an prince who had rebelled : "The chariot ry was in ba ttl e-lines bes id ehim, his infantry was with him, the strong-of-a rm co nsis ting of the nfru/who were (usually) beside him o n both tlan ks."47

"Even at th e end of th e Eightee nth Dynasty the phar aoh 's chariot runnerswere proba bly still nat ive Egyptians. On a ches t from the to mb ofTut ankhamun, fro m the middl e of the fourtee nth cent ury, is a painting of abattle in the Levant . TIle pharaoh, acting as both chariot eer and chariotwarri o r, dominate s the scene, shooting the enemy's chariot horses. But thewor k of dispatchin g th e crews of those chariots th at have been imm o bilizedis Perfo rmed by foo tso ldiers who attack with short thrustin g spears; and

I

I.i 'IIrIIL!i, §Vf'I.·q"$ ",At" II /I' h....c..btl-Itii ~~r..s J:/I!:efl l o (. I gt4I '

l ' Dvn ' , ' h cl ire di ' 'N" ' fi . ,1 4 ,~ Ken d all , V'/aTfare, 148 ; It IS syrnp tornanc t at ie entire rscussson ot Ull S in anrry ( I n

. ' I _ u ~ 'j be co ntained on rhis one page.l-~ra"CoMt r 4f, \'<'atk ins, ..Begm nings ," 27; fo r rhe rext see Archives Royaies de Mar;, vol, 2, no . 4 8.

J • 47 Trnndario n fro m Schu lma n. "E gyptian Cha rio rry," 76,

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152 A MILITARY EXPLANATION

distinguish seasoned veterans from conscript troops. 52 Egyptian kings alsodepended on frontier vassals for auxiliary troops. The Amorite ne'arimwho fought for Ramesses 11 in 1275 B.C. may have been furnished by hisvassals in the Levant.

In the thirteenth century, however, many kings preferred to secure theservices of valiant barbarians on a permanent basis. In return for a plot ofland, and for some other compensation, the warrior would be available forannual campaigns and might perform guard or sentinel duty at other timesof the year. The advantages of having such men 111 one's service were, for aNear Eastern king, considerable. For natives of Egypt and other kingdomsof the Near East life was normally pacific, and consequently they were notsuch keen hand-to-hand warriors as were men from less settled lands. Inthe royal reliefs, the native Egyptians engaged in hand-to-hand warfarefight in squads of four, the four standing shoulder to shoulder and sopresenting a solid wall of oblong shields. The barbarian skirmisher, on theother hand, fights on his own; with no comrade to right or left, he dependson his own round shield. Mobility rather than solidarity was essential. Foroffense, the native Egyptian skirmishers wielded either thrusting spearsor long metal staves, with which they beat their opponent to the ground.Such weapons were suitable for the compact squad, since a man was notlikely to injure his fellows if his weapon was parried or misdirected. Thebarbarian was a far more efficient skirmisher: ferocious in his horned orfeathered helmet, he used his long sword to threaten opponents in a wideperimeter.

Although the Egyptian pharaohs procured many of their professionalsfrom Nubia and Libya, some of the best (and perhaps the most pictur­esque) skirmishers evidently came from Sardinia. Both in Egypt and atUgarit a term sometimes applied to foreign professionals skilled at hand­to-hand combat is shardana.t> As I have argued in chapter 4, the wordoriginally must have meant "a man from Sardinia." That phrase, however,although entirely meaningful when spoken by a Sardinian native living inEgypt, would have meant little or nothing to a native Egyptian, who hadnever seen a sea, an island, or a map. The proper noun therefore maysometimes have been used as a common noun denoting a man's function insociety and his physical type. In Egyptian inscriptions the phonetic render­ing of the word shardana is occasionally illustrated by a determinative: awarrior wearing a horned helmet (between the horns is a small disk) andusually carrying a small round shield and either a sword or a spenr.v' AsHeick concluded, whenever we see warriors in horned helmets depicted in

S2 On the thr warriors see Heick; Bcsiehungen, 531-32; Heick translures the term ,1.')

"Garde" or "Held."q Dietrich and Lorera, "Die Schardana in den "lexren VOIl Ugant," 39-42; (;, A.

Lehmann, ,"lykclltsdJe Welt, 33-34.)4 Heick. "Die Seevoiker," 9.

FOOTSOLDIERS 153

Egyptian reliefs we may reasonably "sic als Sardin identifizicrcn.t"> How­ever, we must also suppose that for a thirteenth-century Egyptian scribe theword shardana had a semantic field quite different from that of our wordSardinian. So far as the provenance of such warriors was concerned, theEgyptian scribe perhaps knew only that they came from a barbarous place"in the midst of the sea."

The first Sardinians attested in Egypt were raiders who ravaged the Deltain 1279 and were defeated and captured by Ramesses the Great. They hadcome "in their warships from the midst of the sea, and none were able tostand before them."56 Once impressed into Ramesses' service, the Sardi­nians evidently served him very well. They were an important and conspic­uous part of the army he took to Kadesh in 1275 B.C.: in the Abydos reliefs(see plates 3, 4, and 5), some Sardinian runners-warriors wearing hornedhelmets and carrying dirks or short swords-are slaying the fallen Hittitechariot crewmen and cutting off their hands, while others serve as personalbodyguards for Ramesses. By the end of the thirteenth century, as thePapyrus Anastasi suggests, a great many Sardinians (there are 520 in Hori'simaginary force) were employed by the pharaoh. As noted above, in theMedinet Habu reliefs we see warriors in horned helmets doing yeomanservice for Rarnesses III against the Philistines, and the accompanyinginscription divides the pharaoh's army into "the infantry, the chariotry, thetroops, the Sherden, and the Nubians." 57 At the same time, some warriorsin horned helmets had been recruited by the Philistine side. At least some ofthese, too, were shardana in the narrower rather than the generic sense,since one of the Medinet Hahu reliefs identifies as a shardana a capturedchief who wears a horned helmer.V At.er the eventful battles of his earlyyears, Ramesses III still employed many shardana and other barbarians(especially from Libya), since in the Papyrus Harris the dead king addresses"the princes, and leaders of the land, the infantry and chariorry, the Sher-

55 Heick, "Die Seevolker," 9.56 From the Tanis stele, as translated by Gardiner, Egypt, 259.57 Edgerton and Wilson, Historical Records of Ramses III, plate 29.S8 Sandars, Sea Peoples, figs. 68 and 79. There is no reason, however, to suppose that all

warriors in horned helmets came from Sardinian stock. Sand.irs pointed out (ibid., 106-7)that the homed helmet has an ancient pedigree in the Near East, going back to Naram-Sin ofAkkad. Perhaps it would be safest ro think of me horned helmer as appealing to a variety atEuropean, Mediterranean, and Near Eastern warriors: 3 professional warrior who wished to

look and feel formidable could hardly do better man strapping on his head the horns at a bull.Most if not all Sardinian warriors serving in the eastern Mediterranean may have worn thehorned helmet. But Sicilians may also have worn it, since in the Medinet Habu relief of thenaval battle in 1179 B.C. the enemy wear horned helmets, and the accompanying inscriptionidentifies Shekelesh hut not Shard.ina among the enemy. We need not identify 3S Sardiniansthe soldiers on the Mycenaean "'Warrior Vase," simply bee.ruse they wear horned helmets, northe sirml.irly accoutred Ingot God at Cyprus.

154 A MILI TARY EXPLA :-:AT IO :,/

P LA T E 5. Sbardana bodyguards 01 Rarnesses1I, ;1t Kadesh. Abydos relief

den , th e num ero us a rchers, and a ll th e citizens of the land of Egypt."Further on in th e papyru s he boa sts th at he had "Shcrden and Kehekwitho ut nu mber" in his service and that con di tio ns in his king do m were sopeaceful th at "the Sherden and th e Kehek in their villages . . . lie at n ightfull len gth witho ut any dread." .19 And in th e reign of Ramesses V (1149­45 ) th e Wil bour Papyru s identi fies sha rdana as prop rietors of lan d gra ntedto them by the king .60

In th e Levant, Sardi nians apparently serve d as mercenaries a lread y in theAma rna perio d. In co rresponde nce denouncing Rib-Addi of Byblos, shar­dana arc mentioned three times, and they a re quite clearl y so ldiers." ! In theUga rit t ablets th ere are severa l references to shardana, although by ca .1200 B. G. the ter m may here too have denot ed functi on rather th an prove­nance. Helrzer regards the shardana as " foreigners in the royal service of

' " Breasted , AP., vol. 4, nos. 39 7, 402, and (;ISrransl.ired in Ga rdi ner, Egypt. 293) 4 10.h I) Ga rd iner, Egypt. 2.96- '17 . ... I He lck, "Secvo lker." S. concludes " dass sit'So lda ren sind , Ob sic im Dienst d e'S Ribadd i

srchen odc r zu eine r j~yp t io;;~h en Einh eir geboreu. ist n ichr erkennbar."

F O O TSO LD I E R S 155

Uga rit.s-' and in so me sense th ey und ou btedly were fore igners. Yerone ofthe few sbardana menti on ed by nam e is " Arna r-Add u, son of M urbaal. "T he names of fat he r a nd son arc bo th Semiric . Anothe r shan /ana seems rohave inheri ted fields at Uga rit.s-' the normal pract ice being th at th e shard­ana received land fro m th e king in return for militar y ser vice, It thusappea rs that at Ugarit some of the shardana may have been fairly wellass imilate d int o th e genera l population. At Ugarit some shardana served asmdrglm -guards and as tnnm; th e latt er te rm, ,is noted above, evidentlymeans " ha nd- to -ha nd wa rrio rs. "".. ~ .

T he king ~:>f H arti seems to have recru ited much of his sta nding army- J ~~" Ith e UKU.US and the sharikutoa-s- ircnn men living near o r beyond th e ~/ k..fron tier and especially alon g th e Pont ic ran ge in the north. Here lived th e k-barbar ou s Kaskans, a so urce of danger as well as manpow er. After sub-jug atin g some of th e Kaskan lands, Hattusilis III b rou ght back warriors to

serve w ith his UKU.U.s.65 T he king of Ugari t may also have kept a t roop ofKaskan s, Liveran i at a ny rare suggested th at what seems to be a reference ,in a Ugari tic tex t, to the "capo dei K3Ska" ca n best be explained on th eass umpt io n th at " si tr atta d i un gruppo di so ldat i merccna ri, 'w,

Fo r th e Aegea n wo rld, th ere is lirtle evidence on our topic. Wh :lt there is,however, sugge sts th at pri or to the C atast rophe th e Myc enaea n pa lacesmight have dep end ed alm ost ent irely on "for eign " professionals for thei rinfant ry forces. The "Captain of the Blacks " fresco at Knoss os may haveportrayed an Aegea n cap tain leading a co mpany of black troops (onethin ks of th e N ub ians who fou ght for the Egyptian pha rao hs). T he " BarrieScene" fresco fro m Pylos (see plate 2) show s thr ee pa lace wa rrio rs who aresurely pro fessiona l bu t who seem to fight in th e same style-and with thesa me weapons-as th eir " wi ld" opponents. TIle six groups of men namedin the o-ka tablets from Pylos a rc likely to be six et hnic designat ion s.v?Alth ou gh non e of th e design ation s sugges ts a proven an ce from outside th eAegean, there is so me reas on to see th ese men-if th ey are indeed soldiers,as th ey are usually tho ught to be-as " foreign " professionals, Dr iessen hasar gued that at Knossos the design ation lccsenuu/ ija is an cestr al to th ecla ssical Greek xenoi, a wo rd that literally mean s "strange rs" but mu stofte n be tr an slated as " mercena ries." Since three o r poss ibly four of th ePylos o-ha gro up s show up in the Knoss os a rchi ve, Drie ssen concl udes th atth e Greek rule rs of Knos so s brough t in "foreigne rs" o r mercenari es to

62 .... Helrzer, Internal O rganiza tion , i27.oJ On bo th rhese individuals see Helrzer, lnternul O rganization, 126.M Dietrich and Lo retz , "Scha rdana ," 41 .h i Beal , Organiza tion, 121- 13 ,235. an d 2..1 7 ; see al ..o E. La ro che , " Lerrr c d 'u n prefer au

rOJhirrire," Ret-ue bittitr et asian ique 07 (l9()O): S I- St> .nh Liverani , Stor ia di Ugant , 154.,.- Driessen . ...\ 1ilitary A Spt-'CfS, " ~ q .

156 A MI I.I T A R Y E XP L A !'l A T ION

maintain the kingdom's secu riry.r" Th e place-n am es th at can he got out of(o r read into ) the terms sugges t that the xcnoi C H ill' fro m backw ard areas ofthe Aegean." Since the foreigners show up o n tabl ets registering landullotmenrs, it may be " tha t small gro up' of foreigners were admitted to thePylian kingdom and were allotted sma ll fiefs of land for cultivation. Inreturn, they had to contribute ,1 certa in amount of flax and ren der milit ar yserv ice in the Pylian army." ~,, At Knossos there is no dir ect evidenc e for th ispract ice, hut Driessen thinks it likely th at there too the palace brought inforeigners "who rendered military serv ice in return for fiefs of land."

So far as our limited evide nce goes, then , we may supp ose th at M y­cen aean infantrymen were normally professionals an d came from the lesspacific part s of the Aegea n. Elsewhere I have argued th at in th e Late Hell ­ad ic period the lower classes in the palace sta tes of Boeot ia, the Pelopon ­ncse and Crete still spo ke the pre-Greek lan guage th at had been currentthroughout the a rea in Early and Middle Hellad ic times: most subjects ofthe palaces, that is, would at best have had only a limit ed acquaintancewith the Greek language spoken by the lords of the palaces and theirchariot eers. I would therefore here sugges t that when the Pylian king, forexample, hired professional infant rymen, he hired North-Greek speakersfrom the mountains beyond Boeotia. It is likely th at the mount aineers weremore warlik e th an the Messenian natives, wh ose relation ship to the palaceseem s to have anti cipated that of the helots to their Dor ian masters in theIron Age.

Such indication s as we have of numbers sugges t th at the typical foreigncontingent was composed of several hundred (and not severa l thousand)men. In the Papyru s Anasta si army, the lar gest forei gn cont ingent we are toimagine is tha t of the Qeheq , a Libyan tri be, wh o would account for six teenhundred of the five thou sand-man force. When Uga ritic texts make refer­ence to sbardana, the references are not to hundreds but to gro ups of fourand five, a nd Helt zer calculates their total as about sixry.?' The Linear Btabl ets are unu sually informati ve on th is point. T he o-ka tablet s from Pyla s

- show th at two hundred okara men for med the largest conti nge nt, thesma llest being a group of seventy urup iiaio. t ? T he Pylos pa lace did not ,however, have ;I II two hundred okara se rving togethe r but bro ke them up

,,' Ibid.• 50- Sli.t.'" Driessen. ibid ., 50, sugg ests that the JUJJsn were troops who carne fro m Iaso s, that the

Unfpiic.J;fl were tTOOpS from Olymp ia. 3nJ rhar J.II the troop 'i "were origina llynon -M csscni .m~ lin n. 5 Driessen passes on the suggesno n rhar two of the o ther conti ngent...ma y hovc (o rne from Cc rcyra .rnd Skyros ). I wo uld suggest o nly rhar Urupijdjo is more likelyto poinr to Mr. Olympus than to Pclo porm esian O lympia; rhe la tter na me seems to be derivedfrom rhe fo rmer, JnJ there i"i no reaso n to suppo se rhar ir is muc h o lder than the sanctua rv.

-o Ihid . '

" ' Hdrzer.I,ltem~1 Org~nh~l ion. 106- 7 and 126.7 2 Le jeu ne, " Crvrlis.mo n, " J4- -HJ.

HlOTSOI. D I ERS 157

into sma ller groups and pos ted them in severa l locati ons. In the Knossosarchive, ta blet B164 refers to a t least 368 men , appa rently all of them"foreigner s. "7 '

When Meryre of Libya -s-a bo ur to .u rack Egypt in 1208 B.C.­

supp lemente d his Libyan force by recru itin g warriors from "all the north­ern lands," he was foll owing a tr aditi onal pra ctice. Wh.lt W;IS not tradi ­tional is th at the runner s who m he secu red were not cast in ,1 suppo rtingro le to cha riotry, since Mcryre ha d no cha riotry of ;lny significance. In­stead, the skirmishe rs we re them selves assigned the task of destroying theEgyptian chario t a rmy. T ha t ha tt ie belon gs to the Catastrophe and we shallrerum to it in our fina l chap ter, but Meryrc's scheme and the Catas tro phecan only be und ersto od aga inst the background of wh at infantry forceswere availabl e to the Lat e Bron ze Age kingdoms.

To summa rize: Insofar ;IS our evide nce illumin at es such thin gs, it ap ­pears that pr ior to the Ca tas tro phe an easte rn Medit err anean king mightsend infantrymen into the mountainous hint erland to punish barbarianswho had misbeh aved . Such co mba t was probably a melee rath er than aconflict' of d ose-order format ion s. When two civilized kingdo ms went towar, the hand -to -hand fight ing was subo rd inated to and integrated withthe chariot battl e. In chariot warfare there was no engagement of massformations of infantry, and wh at hand-to-hand fighting was required wasthe responsibility of professional chariot runners, o r skirmishe rs. In thethirteenth centu ry these men were rarely native s of th e kingdom s in whichthey fought and tend ed to come from barbarian lands such iIS Nubia,Libya, and Sardinia or from the more backward parts of G reece and theLevant. Their se rvice as skirm ishers was und oubtedly hazardou s and de­manding and mu st have req uired a great deal more stamina, skill, reckless­ness, and perh ap s ferocity th an could be found in the typical resident ofUgarit, Messeni a, o r Memphis.

IN FA NTR Y FO RCES IN THE CATASTROP H E

During the Catastro phe, some rul ers trying to defend their cities and pal­aces app arentl y mad e significant cha nges in their armed forces. As we shallsee in detail in chap ter 14, the agg resso rs were runn ers and skirmishers,and they therefore had to be co nta ined and countered by infant rymen. Forthe first time in four centuries, at least a fcw ba ttles in the plains and indefen se of the palaces themselves seem to have been primaril y infantryclash es.

158 A MILITAR Y EXPLA NATION

Ro.mVVl-!iue.0.J-ro.~ ejj?

I '7 In 1208 B.C. Merneptah seems to have relied greatly on his cha riotry to

e..v:<! e-sce. : def eat the Libyans, but he a lso celebrated !iIS hand-to -hand warrior s and"a"rn iliria " (ml lfy t ) of Egypri an s.?" When Rarnesscs III fights aga inst thePhili stin es in 1179 not o nly a rc his hor ses like falcons but his infantry a re" like bull s read y on the field of battle." And to counter the Libyan in fant ryin 1176 Ramesses leads forth not only his chariot ry but a lso " the migh ry

. men [who m he had ] tr ain ed [to ] fight." 75 In bo th batt les Ram esses him selfT4,~ v-!iAS was of cou rse a peerle ss a rcher in his royal cha riot , as New King dom(' ! ph ar aoh s had always been . But he is also, sur p risingly, a footso ld ier wh o

"f?..,'1' y c ", ,z ltfO>1 tigh ts hand-to-hand. O ne relief sho ws Ramesses d ism ounted from hisJ , / ' cha riot and overp owering th e ene my, and th e accompanying text lauds hiser' c. 'O~ - prowess "on his two feet."76".k"J~,..t-Se.f. 7 In th e land battle aga ins t th e Phil ist ines, Rarne sscs' foo tso ld iers a re

'/ , co ns picuo us, some of th em in tr ad ition al Egypti an headdress and othe rswearing th e shardana helmet (sec plat e 6). The latter, as they a lways had ,tend to fight on their own, as indi vidu als, each slrardan a auxi lia ry takingon one o r more of the enemy with his swo rd or thrusting spea r. Th eEgyptians, on the other hand, fight in th eir tradition al squa ds . The a rtis tsho ws them in groups of four, a ll four men mo ving and striking in co nce rt .Although the divine Ram esses and other ch ariot warriors a re sho wn on th eright-hand side of the Land Battle Relief, each of the five registers of th erelief is primarily a depicti on of th e valor of Ramcsses ' hand -t o-h and war­riors. Egypt probably owed its surv ival to Ramesses' recruitment o r train­ing of thousands of foot soldier s who could take the offensive aga inst theraiders. Although his barbari an profession als could fight in guerrilla fash ­ion , the Egyptians need ed to be placed in or ganized units, eac h man beingthus suppo rted and assisted by his co mra des in a close-ord er format ion .

In the sea battl e (see plat e 7) th e main burden fell on nat ive Egyptia ninfantrymen. In o rde r to catc h his o ppo nents before they landed, Ram essesassembled a grea t many bo ats and manned them with Egypti an arc hers(so me of the se, of co urse, co uld have been chariot ar chers) an d hand-to­hand warrior s. The latter we re Egyptia ns, a rmed with the usual sh ields an dstaves, and were respons ible for dealin g w ith th ose of th e enemy wh o tri edto board the Egyptian boat s. In Rarnesses' vaunt , his boat s were filled frombow to ste rn with warrior s: "The milit ia (m ll f }'!) , con sisting of every pickedman of Egypt, were like lion s roaring up on the mounta in tops." ? H ow he

7 .. Breasted . A R. vol. 3. no . 578 .' i Ed~erroll .md Wil, ,,n . i i isnmcal Recurd s0"Rumscs III . plates 3 1 and 80-83 (pp. 77­

7S ~.

' . Edgerton Jnd WIlson , ibrd.. plate 6S ; d . Breasted . A R. vol. 4 , no. \Il6 .':'- Edger ton and \Vil..on. Historic.tl Recor d» n( Ramses 1/1 , plate 46. pp. 54- 5'5. ln a nore

nn [heir rransl.iriou of Iw ,l yt ,J s " rtuliri.i" rhc authn rs observe [hat "l11n fyt -eern s ro be In

cu nrrJ ' [ Cil tbv:"

.:=

f OOT S , l L D I E R S 161

recru ited these " picked men of Egypt" we can no t kn ow, but it is importantto nore the unu su al cffort to augment the profession al infant ry.

In Greece tOO, it ap pears, the co mmunities th at ca rne thro ugh the ea rlyhorrors of the Catast rophe began in the IIIC period to crea te forces ofloorsoldiers. Since we have no w ritt en document s from the pe riod, we musthe re dep end entirely o n picto rial evidence. Professional skirmishers, first ofa ll, seem to have en joyed an unwonted status in IIIC communities. Individ­ual war riors, relati vely well a rmored, appea r on krarers of LH lll C dat e atT iryns and on pots at Na uplia and Letkandi . Lirta uer and C rouwel havepointed out that these warr ior s, ca rried in chariots , a re foorso ldie rs, appa r­ently en route to a barrle.> As suggested in cha pter 10, the Hom ericdescr iption of chario ts as battle tax is may be a reminiscence of thi s twe lfth­century development. Possibly in IllC G reece the hor ses and vehicles th atsurvived from the pre-Catastrophe cha riot fo rces becam e nothing moretha n pr estige vehicles fo r the profession al warriors w ho unt il then had beenrunners in the chario t co rps. Th e chariot o n these lIIC vases, at any rate,suggests that its passenger is a toorsoldier of unusu al status, and we maysup pose that he was an individual ski rmishe r, capa ble of ho lding his own ina man -to -man encounter with any barb arian ra ider.

But in addition to the indi vidu al skirmishers, who may have been re­garded as the promuchoi o r "champions" of their communities, the IIICtowns may also have fielded forces of non p rofessio nal foo tso ldiers. Ino rder to sta nd their gro und in han d-to-hand combat against the barbar ianraiders, these men would necessar ily have been put into a close-o rderco mpany. Lines of foot so ld ie rs app ea r on the Warrio r Vase and the Warrio rStele fro m Mycenae, both of which date either to the lll C pe riod or to thevery end of lIIB.79 O n the krarcr, the " front " pan el (see plate 8) shows sixbea rded so ld iers wea ring horned helmets, a sleeved co rslet th at reaches tothe wa ist, a fringed leath er skirt, and greaves (whether these are to beunderstood as being made of bron ze o r of lea ther cannot be determined).Each of th e sold iers ca rries a six-foot spe:l r and a round shield. Th e fivesold iers of the rear pan el brandish sho rter spears and wear " hedgehog"helmets but ot he rw ise resembl e their co unterparts on the front. O n theW3rrio r Stele there are again five infant rymen, almos t identical to th ose onthe reverse of the vase, bra nd ish ing spe3 rs. In both repr esent at ions theinfantrymen are in close order, ma rching with spears o n their shoulde rs, o r

::"k Lirrau er. " Military Use, " 145- 46; Lit ruuer arid Crouwel, "Chari o ts in Late Bronze AgeGreece," 189- 90 ; for the representations sec Vermeule .ind Kar.igeorghis, M ycenaean Picto ­rial Vase Painting , nos. Xl. Ia - b. X1.1 6. Xl. iX, XI.2X.

:-'i T he represenr ancns a ft' USU.1l1y dared ro the ~~l r1y IIIC per iod. Verrneule and Kara­georghrs. rbid., 130- 34. with plates XI.42 .1110 XI.-H , .1 s~i ~' 1 th em to thei r " tran sit ional"period . N' r an argument rhar rhe rcprcscnrarions dar t' to rhe end of the IIIII peri od see john)~"Jun~a. "T he EnJ of M ycen.ie.m An ." II I Thomas. Fnrschungcn, ,-,]- 7:".

162 A M I LI T A R Y EX P L AN A TI 0 N

P I.ATE 8. :'Warrior Vase" from Mycenae, Side A

F OOTSOLIJ I E RS 163

present the scenes on the Warrior Vase and Warrior Stele as examples of"rypical " M ycenaean pra ct ices of the Late Bronze Age. Similarly. the Me­dinet Habu reliefs of Ramesses Ill's battle aga inst the Philistines and theLibyans sho uld surely not be used as a guide to Egypti an milit ar y pr act icesin the reigns of his Eighteenth- and Ninereenrh-Dynasry predecessors.These represent ati on s were made after the Catastrophe had run much ifnot most of its har rowing course, and th ey must not be to rn from th atchro no logical co ntex t. The Mycenae vase and stele, whether dated to th eend of IIIB or to HIC, were at any rat e made severa l decades afte r Troy VIand Th ebes had been de stroyed , and afte r M ycen ae and Tir yns we re fort i­fied and th e Isthmus wall was begun. The Medinet Habu reliefs show whatthe Egyptia n army look ed like in 1179 B.C., by whic h tim e palaces andcities had been destroyed a ll through G reece, Anarolia, Cyp rus, and theLevant , and Egypt seemed ab out to becom e the next vict im. The represen ­tations therefore do not show us the militar y cha racter of the easternkingdo ms at their zenith but instead reveal how so me kingdoms that hadthu s far survived the Ca tas trophe were responding to their dire situation.Professional skirmishers were never more valued and perhaps providedmu ch of the defense against their predatory kin smen . ln add ition, forma­tions of native infant rymen-e-sc difficult to find in our pre-Catastrophedocument ation-were now being armed and train ed , as the few centersstill flourishing so ught to escape the fate th at had by th at time overtaken somuch of the eas te rn Me diterranean world .

about to throw their spears in a "ceremo nia l volley" (the stele is certai nlyand the vase is probabl y funera ry). It is perhap s possible that th e a rt ist

- inte nded one of the groups to represent foreigners, since the horned hel ­met s are an exot ic element, whereas th e " hedge hog" helmet appears o n

- man y LH [IIC sherds. But it is more likely th at bot h gro ups are intended to- represent nati ve troops: the wa rrio rs in horned helm et s pa ss in fro nt of a

wom an wh o is either bidding the m farewell o r mourning, and eithe r afarewell o r a funer al sugges ts that these a re men fro m the locality in wh ichth e vase was cherished.

Th e scenes sugges t that the a rtist an d his patrons were familiar withinfantry forma tions and more particul arl y with formations of spearmen ,all th e so ldiers being uniformly accoutred and armed and all havin g a nassigned position within the relati vely dense formation . These Mycen aeaninfantrymen were not about to do battl e with chario ts: the y had beeno rga nized and equipped- with a hand-to-h and weapo n, a shie ld, andbod y armo r- in o rder to confront infantrymen in close combat.

Alth ou gh it has often been co mmitted, it is a methodological sin to

of es~bh

je~;.5Q.?

Chapter Twelve

INFANTRY AND HORSE TROOPS

IN THE EA RLY IRON AGE

TH E LAST two cha pters have a rgued th at , fro m th e late sevent eenthto the la te thirteenth century, for the eas tern M ed ite rranean king ­do ms wa rfar e was a contest be tween o ppos ing cha riot fo rces, a nd

th e o n ly o ffensive infa nt rymen who participated in batt le we re the" runners " - the skirmis hers who ran amo ng the cha riots. Th e presentcha pter will review wh at we know ab o ut wa rfa re in the ea rly Iro n Age.Alt hou gh ther e is dist ressing ly little in format ion fo r the centu ries followingth e Ca tast rophe, wha t th ere is suggests th at a ll ove r the easte rn Mediterr a ­nean the princ ipa l ro le in batt le wa s now borne by offensive infa nt rym en .T hus cha riot warfa re, which in th e Late Bronze Age had d istingu ish edcities a nd kingdo ms fro m the ba rba rou s hint erl ands (where horses and acha rio t wer e a lux ur y that few, if any, co u ld affo rd ), did not su rvive in to th eIro n Age, a nd even the wealthie st kin gs had now to de pe nd primarily up onfoot so ldi er s,

It is gene ra lly recogni zed th at th e chario t was less im po rta nt in th e Iro nAge th an in the Late Bron ze Age. By the reign of Ti glath -Pileser III (745­27) th e light , tw o -horse chariot ra rely a ppea red o n the batt lefield, I since byth at ti me the tasks hith ert o assigned to cha riots were no rmall y ca rried o utby ca valry. As a result, the Neo- Assyria n cha rio t beca me a n eno rmo us a ndcumberso me veh icle, ca rry ing a va riety o f passen gers a nd dr awn by th reeo r fo u r ho rses. Such vehicles had littl e in co mmo n wi th the war cha riot ofth e Bronze Age a nd seem to have served as prest ige co nveyances fo r theking a nd lesser dign itari es." In cla ssical tim es (if we except the d readf ul Outineffec tive "scyt hed " cha riot s of the Per sian s) the cha rio t was associ ateda lmos t ent irely wi th status, pa rades, a nd recreat io n, We may thu s sav thatin th e Iron Age cavalry " replaced " cha rio rry as an effective militar; a rm.

Prior to the Catastro phe the re wer e, so far as ou r evidence ind ica tes, not roops of cava lry o r ca mcl ry. Th e Egypriun relie fs, however , do includeoccasio na l ind ividu al s o n ho rseback. a nd so me of these figures a re depi ct edas ca rr ying a bow and q uiver. Witoout sadd le or stirrups rid ing a ho rse was

I Litraue r and Crou wel, WhedcJ vehicles, 130- 31 .2 In rd i~ (s from rhl' lasr ccnru rv or Asvyri.m hisror)· these huge' chariots are frequently

sr.mdi ng \ f1I1~ servi ng J.:lo lofty .md wen prote cted rbut hJ\ i(,.JHy vrarionarv] plarfo rrnv i rom

w hu..h J ( ('W p nv ileged ar(hC' r'i co uld shoo t their bo wv. Sec l.irt auc r a nd Crou wel, ibid.. 13 1­32.

I x F A N T R Y A 1':0 110 R S f T I( o 0 I' S 165

difficult eno ugh, and the Bro nze Age rider was not yet a ble to cont ro l hismo unt and shoot a bow at the sa me time, Perhap s, therefo re, the bowcar ried by a Bron ze Age rider was meant for self-defense , a nd the few meno n horseback were sco uts o r messen ger s rather than moun ted a rche rs.>

Th e ea rliest representation s of archers shooting fro m the backs of gal­lo ping hor ses a re ninth -century Assyrian reliefs. T hese reliefs show thecavalry a rchers o pe rati ng in pai rs: o ne cava lryma n holds the re ins of bothhis own and his pa rtner's hor se, a llow ing the pa rtn er to usc his han ds forthe bow and bowstring. T he ea rly cavalry team s thu s par all el exac tly thechario tee r and cha riot a rcher.:' T he cava lry ar che r was und oubtedl y lessaccura te than his cou nterpart o n a cha riot (bou ncing o n a horse 's back wasless co nducive to a good sho t th an sta ndi ng-knees bent-on the leat he r­stra p plat form of a cha riot ). But in o the r respects the cava lry team s wer esurely supe rio r. T hey were ab le, first of a ll, to operate in terra in too ro ughfor wheeled veh icles. And their cha nces fo r flight, when things went wrong,were mu ch bett e r: wh en a cha riot horse was in jured, bo th crew men were inimm ed iate dan ger, but if a cava lryma n's hor se was killed o r in jured thecava lryma n could imm ediately leap o n the back of his pa rt ner's horse a ndso ride Out of ha rm 's way. Yet a not he r advan tage o f cavalry over cha rio trywas eco no mic, since the cost of purchasing and maint a in ing a vehicle wasco nsiderab le. T he Chronicler claims (2 Chro nicles 1.17 ) th at in the tenthcentur y the cha riot itself cos t twice as much as the team th at pulled it.

How ea rly in the Iro n Age kin gs began to use cavalries in place of ora longside cha rio rries ca nno t be determined , since the re is so little docu ­men ta ry a nd picto rial evidence for th e period 1150-900 B.C. By the mid ­dle of the ninth cent ur y cavalries w-.re obvio usly well esta b lished, since atthe Battl e of Qarqar Shalrnaneser III faced man y men o n ho rseback (a ndso me o n the backs o f camels) a nd since he himself cla imed to have 2,002chariots and 5,542 cava lrymen.> For ea rlier cen turi es a ll we have ar eHebrew tr ad it ion s, and a lthoug h they a rc hard ly tru stworthy it must beno ted that they rout inely associa te cava lries with the kings of the pe riod.Solomo n was sa id to have main ta ined twel ve tho usand parashim; Davidwas bel ieved to have defeat ed eno rmous ho rse troop s co nsisting of bothcha riots and cavalrymen; and Saul was repo rted to have been slain on Mr .Gilboa by Philistine parashim .

More rel ia ble Hebrew trad itio ns in fact imp ly that the substitutio n of

.1 &3 1. Org.J1t i~:tinn . 94: Stephanie Da lley, "Foreign Ch.m o rry and CJ\-"J1 f!' in the Armiesof Tigl .irh-Pdese r III and Sargon II." lraq 47 {I 'JRS j: .17- H .

..I l.irtaucr ;JnJC rouwel. \t'heelcJ Vehicles. 1.15: "The ch.arior complement- warrior anddriver- i~ ... imply rrunsferr ed to the back of its ream. the men 's respect ive functio ns rem ai ningthe same. "

\ ,\\. Hit. "111< Campaign' 01Shalm.mescr III ag.lln, . Aram and Israel," IE] 25 (1'175):27.

166 A ~II LI T A R )' E X P L A N A T I O N

cava lry teams for cha riots began in the Ca tastrophe itself. Poetic referencesin Ge nesis and Exodus to "the horse and his rider" am on g Israel 's enemiesindi cat e that at least a few king s began to put some of their archers onhor seback as ea rly as the twelfth century, In the "Son g of the Sea ~ the poetex ults th at not o nly " Pha raoh's chari ot s a nd his host " but also " the hor sea nd his rider ~ have been thrown into the sea (Exodus 15.1 and 2 1). In the" Blessing of Jacob " the patriarch promises (Genesis 49.17-18 ) th at thetribe of Dan "shall be a serpent in the way, :I viper by the pa th, that bitesth e horse's heel s so that his rider falls backward." >

It appears, th en , that the use of cavalry began in the twelfth century, thatby the tenth century some kings emp loyed thousands of cava lrymen, a ndthat the ninth -century Assyrian kings had at least as man y horses in theircava lry as in their cha rio rry, Th e final o bso lescence of cha riorry cam e withth e disco ver y, in the eighth century, of new techniques for reining a riddenhorse. The new meth od. apparent in the reliefs of Ti glarh-Pileser III, a l­lowed cavalrymen to opera te independentl y rather th an in pairs, each ridernow co nt ro lling his own mount." With every rider an archer, the " fire­pow er" o n the backs of a hundred cavalry horses was doubl e the firepowerdr awn by a hundred chariot horses. Thus by ca . 750 B.C. the replacementof chariots by cavalry was more or less complete.

But horse tro ops of any kind, wh ether chariotry or cavalry, were of muchless importance in the Iron Age than had been their pred ecessors in the LateBro nze Age. Wh ereas before the Catastrophe warfar e was the swirl ofchario t squadro ns, with drivers charg ing, wheeling, and then chargingagai n while the ar chers sent vo lleys of a rrows against the o nco ming enem ycha riots, in the Iron Age the focu s of the action was com bat betweenoppos ing infantries. Here a horse troop's initi al mission was to deal withth e oppo nent 's horse tro op . but the ultimate mission was to assist in de­stroy ing the enemy infantry,by encircling, flan king, o r dividing it. Assyri anreliefs show that cavalr ymen were also used for pursuin g and dispat ch ingindividual fugiti ves after the enem y infantry-had been routed, and for thisass ignment th e lan ce ra ther than th e bow was the appro priate weap on .

Fro m the twelfth centu ry to the end of antiquity hor se troops did notesta blish the battle but played a supporting role. On occasion, as at Issus o r

f, It is so me times said th at th e lines refe r to cha riorry, the assumption being rhat caval ry was

still unk nown when the poems were written. See, fur exam ple. Corrwa ld, Tribes olYahweh .540: "The hor se .md i t~ rider which Dan attacks . .. refers almost cer ta inly to horse -drawn( harlots . . . . It is now well docum ented that cavalry units wen: o nly int rod uced effect ivelyinto the: Nea r East by rhe Assynans in the eighth -ninth centu ries." Th a t cavalry was inrro­duced int o th e Ne ur E.ht hj" AssyriJns in the'ninth centu ry is not documented at all ;.we kn ow

o nly that in the middle of the: ninth century the: Assyria ns had a n en ormous cava lry."7 Lirra ue r an d Crou w t:t.V/ ht'e/t!d vehicles, US;..: f. Dalle-y. " Foreign Cha riorrv," 37 -JH,

who refer s to J. Spruyne , "LJ condu ire du ch eval chez Parche r assyrien," Plaisirs Equestres129 tI 'lS J) : 66- 71.

I :-I F A :-.i T R )' A:-':O H O R S E T ROO P S 167

Ad ria no ple, that supporting role might be decisive, and we even hear ofarmies (the Parthians at Ca rrhae) th at co ns isted almos t ent irely ofcava lry.But the normal expec tatio n of Cha ldaea ns. Persians, Carthaginians,Greek s, and Rom an s was th at a battle was in essence a clash of infantries.Thus cha riorry, and th en caval ry, made imp ortant contributi on s in IronAge warfare, but wh at we see in the Iron Age sho uld not be ca lled "chariotwarfare."

Th e cent ra lity of an offens ive infantry is clea r when our documentationresumes in th e ninth century, with the inscriptions and reliefs of Ashur­nasirpal Il and Shalmaneser III. Although Shnlmanesers horse troops wereimpressive, they were evident ly seconda ry to his infantry, whi ch in a majorcampaign numbered more than 100,00 0 men. Another inscr ipt ion of th eearl y ninth cent ury describ es an Assyri an army of 1,3S1 cha riots and50,000 foorsoldiers." Th ese eno rmous infantries were of co urse leviedfrom the gene ral population in Assyria , where the tradition of militiaservice seems to have been still flour ishing in th e ninth century." Altho ughneith er reliefs nor inscription s and liter a ry acco unts give us a clear pictureof a ninth-century battle, wh at ca n be pieced to gether indi cates that in thearmi es of Assyria, Israel, a nd Judah an adva ncing infant ry formed thecent er of a battle line, and horse troops o pe rated on the wings "for pincermovement s and efforts to overw helm and turn the enemy fla nk ." 10 In theninth centu ry, in other words, infantry units no longer serve d merely to

escort chariotries on th e mar ch and. in battle, to provide a haven forchariot s in trouble but were now at the cente r of the offensive action. TheAssyrian in fantry included co mpa nies of a rchers (pro tected by defensivearmor and armed with co mpos ite bows) and of spea rmen, and all carried astra ight swo rd as a seco nda ry weapon.

But if we have reason abl e documentation for ninth-century war fare , th ethree centuries from th e Catastro phe to Ashurnasirpal 's reign are a darkage. Nevertheless, we have just enou gh evide nce to conclude that in thisperiod roo, in the immedi ate aftermath of the Ca tastro phe , infantries al­read y played the primary offensive role . Egypt, whi ch tells us so muchabout Late Bro nze Age warfare, has alm ost nothing to offer for the earlyIron Age. But although we have no advertisements of victories by the laterRarn essids and the weak kin gs of the Twenty-First Dynasty, pap yri from the

!l Elnt, "Ca mpaigns of Sha lrnanese r," 27 ; Luck en bill, Ancient Records of Assyria andBabylonia, vol, I , no . 65H; Stillman and Tallis, Antr ics, J 1.

., W.lltha Manitius, "Das stehende Hecr der A!'t~y r(" rkon ige und seine Or gan isation, " ZA24 ( 19 10}: 104-5, emphasized thar the militia was th e:nor mal fo rce fur ninth-cen tu ry As·syn a n kings an d th at 3. sta nding. profess ional a r rnv was not introduced un til the eight h

centu ry.10 Stillm:tn an d T;,1 l1i" An nies. ~O ; see als o the ir ex...ellen t presentatio n on Ass~ run m ili­

tar y o rgani za tion. p p_ !6-J I.

168 A ,\ llL1TARY EXP L A:--< ATIO N

reign of Ramesses IX ( 1137-11 20 ) refer to grea t numbers of barbar ian s­especia lly Libya ns and M eshwesh - wh o we re crea ting dis tur ba nce s a tTheb es.J! Since Libya ns and Meshwcsh in Egyp t were traditionall y offe n­sive infa ntrymen, perh ap s we are just ified in assum ing that the t ro ub le­ma kers a t Th ebes were a lso profession al in fan rry me n. whom the ph ar aohh ad sen led in Upper Egyp t as a militar y reserve. Ult imately a Libya n, o rmo re precisely a "c hief of th e Me shwe sh,~ seized roya l power and in au gu ­rat ed th e Twenty-Second Dynasty (ca . 940 B.C. ).

Assy ria was the one Late Bronze Age kingdom in w hich an offen siveinfa nt ry was im po rta nt, and so it is no t su rprising to find here a reli an ce oninfan try in th e ea rly Iron Age. T he o nly we ll-documented reign in th etwelft h a nd eleventh cent ur ies is that o f Tiglarh-Pileser I ( 1115- 10 77).W he n thi s king march ed north into th e Elazig region o f eastern Anarolia hedefeated 20 ,000 M us hkian tribesmen on "Moun t Kashi ari , a difficult re­g io n, " Il and for that battle he mu st have had a formidable infantry, St illfurth er no rth , he suppressed th e Kaskans w ho had taken over the cities ofHart i, and he ca ptu red 4 ,000 of their men and 120 cha r iots. 13 To th e eas t ,Tig lath-P ileser had to con fro lit th e C urians, a tr ad itional sco urge from th eZagros:

The sons of the [mo u n ra ins r ] devised warfare in their hearts.T hey prepared fur battle, they sharp ened their weapons.Th e enemies iniriured their war.All the highland(ers) were assembled clan by clan. . ..ihe Guriun seethed. .i flam« with terri fying splendo r.All the armies of the mo unr ui ns, the Confederation of the Habhu landscame to e.u h other's a id in strength. H

Since Tiglarh-Pileser ca rr ied the b attl e into th e mountaineer s' homeland,we must agai n im agin e him rel yin g primaril y upon Ioorsoldiers.

Anato lian warfare a fte r th e fa ll of th e H itt ite kingdom is quite unknown .Virt ua lly a ll th at we ha ve a re th e Assyri an insc ri pt ions cited a bove, wh ichindicate th at at the end of the twelfth centur y the M ushkians a nd Kas k ans,a t least , had very few cha riots a nd a great man y me n on fo ot. This is ofco u rse w ha t o ne wo uld ex pec t from barbar ous tr ibesmen, and in Ana ro liaa fte r th e Catas tro phe there evidentl y W3S no G reat Kingdom (the kings ofCa rchcmish, as a lready noted , usurped th e title "G reat King of Harri" afterth e fa ll of Hattusas)-and perha ps no kingd o ms at a ll.

" Ga rdmer, Egypt, 299 .11 Lucken bill, A,, ( io lt Records ofA s.~yri.:1 ,lid HJh)'lo1l1.:1, vol. 1, no . 221.11 lbid., no . 22t1 .1-1 Victor Hurowirz .md Joan \X'('~tt'nhf} I :I , "'I.KA h 3 : A He roic Poe m in Celebration of

Tigl .ith -Prlcser 1'.> Mus ru-Qumanu Camp aign, " }ounlJI ({ CUI1r.:ifn rm Studies 42 ( t 9YOj: 5 .

IN FA N TRY AND Ii 0 R SE T ROO P S 169

For Dark Age G reece we ha ve the ill corpore weapons found in Proto ­geometric and Geo me tric graves, a few figured vases de p icting co mba t, andof co u rse the p rob lema tica l battl e descripti on s provided by Horner. Allthree types of evidence would sugges t that th e Da rk Age G ree ks commonl yfought o n foo t (arrow heads, for example, h ardl y appca r at :111 in Dark Agegrave s). But th at fai rly o bvious gene raliza tion was for a lon g tim e obscu redby th e a ut ho rity of Aristotle . Accordi ng to Aristotle,

Among the Greeks, g.lVernment from the beginning (after th e end of kingship;depended on those who did the fighting in war. The earli est of the polities was

based on the hippcis, since in war rhe decisive and overwhelming force was thatof the hippeis: for without organized formations a hopli re force is useless, andamong the ancients there was no experience in tactical matt ers. It W .1S for thatreason that the real strength was in the hippeis.' >

C lassicis ts u nd ers to o d Aristotle to mean th at until th e perfection of thehoplite phalanx (usua lly thought to have be en a tta ine d in the ea rly sevent hcent ury ) the typica l G reek battle featured th e clash of a few noble caval ry­men. Since it wa s a lso understood th at G ree ks d id not ordina r ily use thebow, it was imagined th at these earl y "knights" fo ught with thrustingspears. T his picture, of armored and spear-thrus ting knights dominatingthe barrleficld in ea rly G reece, was until th e 1970s widely accepted .16 But itdoes not stand up und er careful scrutiny, P.A.L. G ree nha lgh showed thatalthough th e Geometr ic "knights" may have ow ned horses, they did notfight fro m horseb ack ; atte nded by a squire , th e bippeus would ride to thebattlefield and th ere dismount to fight as an infa ntryma n. 17

\Vith th e mo unted lan cers out of the way, we can now begin to see whatwa rfa re in Da rk Age G reece may have looked like. Recent a na lyses ofHomer's battle descri pti on s sug ges t th at d ur ing the Da rk Age the typicalbattle between G ree k pol eis featured ma ssed infantries th at we re drawn upin a line , o r phalanx , of spea rmen (a mass, o r a co m pany seve ra l phalangesdee p, W3S call ed a stix). Duel ing nobles are essential fo r th e poet 's story, butin rea lity th e promachoi were mu ch less impor ta nt th an the anonymousmultitu de in wh ose front ran k they sto od . I" T he evidenc e fro m graves

" Ar istot le. Politics 129 7b ; cf. 1289b, 1306a.10 See. fo r exa mple, V. Ehrenbe rg. Th e C rc, k Sta te (Oxford. 196 01: 2 1: "Single combat

which-almost exclu sivd y- ruled (he tac tics of the .l g.t". . . ..urvived in the name of the'knighrs.' the hippeis ." cr. A. Alfiild" "Die Hcrrsch.rtr de r Reiterei in G nec henlund und Romrmch de m Sturz de r Kijni ge,· Gestalt lind C cschich tc : F..-, t;chr i/ t K. Sche{old (Berne. 1967):13- 47; J. Bury and R. Mei ggs. A History ofCreecc, 4t h ed. (London. 1975) 94.

,7 Greenhalgh, Early Gree k War(aTt', 40 - h l.

I N For th e o rganired, massed infantries of Homeric warfa re see J. Laracz, K.unp{piJr:inese.

KJmp/~J.Jrslelhm..~ un si K.Jmp(w irklidJkcit in dcr 1Ii.J5. bci Kulluto s und 1) 'TtJ i0 5 (Munich.1977}; .md Hans van \~ces, " Leaders of Men? i\ l llirary Or garuzati on in the lli,rd," CQ 36

170 A Mill TAR Y E X P LA NAT ION

suggests that a very small proportion of the adult males in a Dark Agecommunity were able to afford both a sword and a spear, and defensivearmor is conspicuously lacking.!" In the Ionian poleis a relatively wellarmed basileus might therefore have had a sword, a spear, and a leathershield, and perhaps wore a helmet, corslet, and greaves all made of leather.The men under his command would have had no more than spears andshields. The Dori.ms were perhaps better armed: whether or not theirname was derived from the dOrtl,20 these were "spearmen" par excellenceand In the Geometric period formed a privileged military caste in Crete,Laconia, the Argolid, and other places where a non-Dorian population wasprotected and exploited by a Dorian elite. Among the Dorians there was notradition of either chariotry or cavalry, nor even of wealthy hippeis ridingto the battlefield.

Greek infantries in the Dark Age were hardly impressive by later stan­dards, but the important point here is that an infantry was a community'sprincipal-and, in most cases, its only-defense. We have seen that thenoble cavalrymen, described from Aristotle's time to our own as the bul­wark of the nascent polis, are imaginary. Nor was chariorry revived afterthe Catastrophe. Although a few wealthy individuals must have continuedto use chariots for pleasure or prestige in the Dark Age, chariots were nolonger used on the battlefield. This is indicated not only by Homer's igno­rance of the subject bur also by the complete lack of archaeological evi­dence for chariots in Greece berween the twelfth century B.C., when theywere represented on LH mc pots, and the eighth century, when the chariotreappears both on Geometric pottery and in bronze and terracotta figu-

(1986): 2H5-303, for criticism see Singor, "Nine against Troy," 17-62. On the role of thebusilcis as pramachov see Van Wees. "Kings in Combat: Rattles and Heroes in the /liad," CQ38 (1988): 1-24.

1'1 Snodgrass, Arms and Anllour, 38.10 Classical Greeks derived the name of the Dorians from an eponymous Doros, son of

Hellen. Moderns have often supposed that the Donans got their name from tiny Doris, but theborrowing seems to have been reversed: the Spartans created Doris Metropolis as a counter­weight to Atheru.m influence in the late fifth century. On Doris see now D. Reusser. "LesDonens de la Metropole, I," BCH J 13 (1989): 199-239. The derivation of "'''''ltC,,; frombOQll was accepted by Meyer in the second edition of Ceschichte des Altertums, vol. 2, 570­71: "Die Dorer. .. sind ein knegensche Stamm, dessert Name als 'Lanzenk.impfer' zu be­zcichncn scheint." Hermann Bengtson, Grieclnschc Gesrhichte; 4th ed. (Munich, 1969): 52,stared Without further ado that Dorieis is indeed a "Ku rzform " of dorimachoi. P. Ramat, "Sulnome dei Don," l'urnla .lcl Passato 16 (] 961): 62-65, argued that doru was indeed the baseof the name, but the dum Ram at had in mind was J tree ruther than a spear (the tree beingsomething of a totem for the "Dorrans "). Singer. "Nine against Troy," 30, has most recentlygiven the etvrnolonv lukewarm endorsement.

IN FAN TRY AND H 0 R SET ROO P S 171

rincs.>' Thus the infantry militias of Dark Age Greece offer a sharp contrastto the chariot-based armies attested for the Late Helladic kingdoms.

Finally, we must look at the Levant and the dubious evidence that theOld Testament provides on post-Catastrophe warfare. For the first centuryand a half after the Catastrophe the various tribes of Israel and Judah werescarcely urbanized and had no centralized state. But late in the eleventhcentury the tribes of Israel appointed Saul as their king, with a residence atCibeah. and soon thereafter the men of Judah made D;wid kingat Hebron.The fusion of these two kingdoms by David resulted in a highly centralizedand remarkably wealthy regime, and the rr.ippings of monarchy soonappeared. Along with splendid buildings (palace and temple) in Jerusalemcame a magnificent display of horses and chariots. Solomon was known forhis horses, and is reputed to have maintained four thousand chariot teamsand twelve thousand cavalrymen (parashim).22 If these fabulous figures are

21 See Crouwel, Chariots, 143-44; Snodgrass, Farlv Greel: Ar11lour ami Weapons, pp.160-63; Greenhalgh, Early Greek Warfare, 38. The scenes of chariot combat oneighrh-cenrury Geometric kruters in Attica are not reflections of J<.luJI chariot warfare. AsSnodgrass and Greenh;ll~h argue, the eighth-cenrurv artist was inspired by SJ~J, by reports ofchariots in use in the Ncar East. and by surviving Mvcenaenn representations of chariots.

L! 2 Chronicles 9.25. At 1 Kings 4.26 Solomon is SJiJ to have had not tour thousand burfony thousand 'l1no<'d horses and chariots, and twelve thousand par.tshnn, in this case theChronicler's figure is more likely to be "correct" (which is to S,lythat the textual tradition of 2Chronicles 9.2.5is sounder than the textual rradinon of 1 Kings 4.26). The meaning of 'urworhas been well explained by G. I. Davies. "'Urulf5t in I Kings 5:6 (Evv. 4 :26) and the AssyrianHorse Lists," [ournsl o(Semitic Studies 34 (1989): 25-38. Davies calls attention to Assvrianparallels suggesting thar "urwot does not me-in "stalls." ot "stables," JS most tr.mslators huvethought, but "reams." Whether Solomon in truth h'IJ four thousand teams of chariot horsesand twelve thousand parashim is another question; if the figures are not grossly ex.lggerateJ,they might account for the resentment rhar Solomon's subjects harbored against him and hisgrandeur.

A less persuasive part of Davies's argument does away with Solomon's cavalry, leaving onlythe chariots. Davies concluded that the original meaning of 1 Kings 4.26 was as follows:"Solomon hJJ 4000 teams of horses for his chariotrv, namely 12,000 horses." The figure offour thousand, instead of forty thousand, is justified by the Septuagint reading and by thepar.rllel accounr at 2 Chronicles 9.25. But that the Chronicler intenJeJp,fr,Tshim JS ""horses"or "chariot horses v-c-saying, in effect, that the four thousand teams consisted of twelvethousand horses, three to each team-is most unlikely. According to Davies's argument theChronicler, using so unfamiliar J term as "urwot , accommodated his re-aders by spelling outfor them what this obscure term meant (Jt p. 36n.35, Davies suggests that the conjunction beunderstood as In "explic.mve W(IW" JnJ be translated not .15 "JnJ" but as ..namely"). But if awriter wanted to cl.mfv for his readers that these four thousand 'urwot of horses were-inplain Hebrew-s-twelve thousand horses, he would surely have used the word S14Si111. The veryworst way to clarify the exotic term 'urwor woulJ be to write rh.ir Solomon hJJ "fourthousand 'utwor of hor ses and twelve thousand p.vr.ishim." The l.irrer word must here mean"cavalrvruen," as It does in other passages and ,IS the' Septuagint translators assumed it doeshere.

172 A ~11 LIT A R Y E X P L A :-; A T l O S

close to the mar k, So lomo n acquired the great est horse trOOP that thean cient world had ever seen. But Solomo n never went to war, and so it isdifficult to say how these hor semen might have been deployed in :1 battle.Certainly there was no enemy in sight against whom such a ga rgantu anhorse troop might have been used.

David, unlike his son , had been a warrior and in the early tenth centuryhad established a kingdom that was perhaps the most powerful in thewo rld . Renowned as a "slayer of myriad s,- David won his victo ries withfoo tso ld iers.A' We are told th at when he captured a thou sand ch ariot s fro mH ad adezer of Zoba h he "h oughed" all but a hundred of the chario ttearns.>' The tr aditi ons ab out him quite co nsistently present him as ma k­ing no use of cha riots in battle and as fightin g under the aegis of theinfantryman's god, the Lord of Hosts.

David's infantry consisted of both pro fessional " mighry men " and alevied mil itia .25 The former group was relatively small (six hundred Git­rites , the same number of judahires, and the mysteri ous " Pelcthire andKerethite guards" ) and co nstituted his regular arm y. David's militi a wassa id by the Chronicler to have numbered 288,00 0 men, but its actualstreng th is usually es timated a t onl y a half or a third of that figure. 26111e"mighty men " were evid entl y well armed , whereas the militi amen mayhave had spears and shields but nothing else.

The farther back one goes in the history of the Isr aelite monarchy, thegreater the role that one finds for the militiamen of the infantrv, Saul seemsto have had no regular army of profe ssion als, and no hor se troops, Tradi­tion s ab out his great victo ry over th e Ammonites, as well as abo ut hisdefeat at the han ds of the Philistines , speak onl y of infantrym en (the Phi­listines, on the o ther hand, surely had horse tro op s, since Saul was hunteddown on Mr . Gilb o a by Philistine ch ariot s and parashim i: Finally, beforethe creation of the Israelite monarchy the-people of Israel, as of Judah ,

2.l Yadi n, AI1of War{.ue. vel. 2. 285; Stillman an d.Ta llis, Armies, 37.!4 2 Samu el 8 .3 -4 (d. I Chronicles 18.3-4).H This has been well treated by A. van Selms, "The Arm ed Forces of Israel under Sau l and

David. ' in Studie s on the Book , of Sam uel: Paper, Read at the 3rd Meeting of Die O. T.Werkg,'meen, kap in Suid ·Afrika (1960): 55 - 66.

, . Yadin, Art of War{.lTe, vol . 2, 279-82, argued that the figures from the C hro nicle r (JChronicles 2 7 . 1- r5) in th is instance wert'de rived from an accurate Source. The mili tia figuresfor th e ea rly mon archy in Israel were scaled down dr astically by Geo rge Men denh all , "TheCen su s Lists of Num bers 1 and 26: ]BL 77 (1968) : 52-66. Whe reas Num bers 1.32. forex am ple, says that th e uu rnber of those." men in Ephraim wh o were "a ble to go fo rth to war"was 40,500, Mend enhall red uced the figure to J mere 500 men, o rganized in 40 un its . ButM endenh al l's argument re-s ts o n JnJlugics fro m M ar i: like most o ther ...ch ola rs, of cou rse,M end en hall JiJ not reckon With the revo lutio nary changes in the Jrt ofwa r that occurredbetween the seventeenth century .InJ the tenth. In fact, the co ncept of.l militia W J .c, unknownin seventeenth-century M ari.

I N F A N TR Y AND H ORSE TR OOP S 173

de pended for secur ity ent irely o n a militia .17 It is true th at by the lat eelevent h cent ury thi s sty le of fighting was no lon ger very effective: theleague of Philistine cities, with a small er but well-armed and regular force,soundly defeated the tribal militias rallied by the priests of Yah weh andadded insult to injury by seizing the Ar k of the Covenant. But in the twelfthcentu ry the trib esmen were evidently quite formid able .

Sheer numbers were essent ia l to thi s early Israelite renown: "The fort yth ousand of Israel " (J udge s 5.8 ) was prob abl y an optimistic figure, but itsugges ts th at a general mobilizati on of the tri bes living in Isr ael could anddid furn ish tens of th ousands of warri or s. Alth ough untra ined and hardlywell a rmed , trib esmen so numerou s- especially when stirred to furor byoracles from the Lord of Hosts-must have been a force with which neith erthe coastal cities of Canaan nor the later Ram essids in Egypt cared to dobattl e. An index of how dr astically warfare had chan ged in the Catastropheis that thereafter the militiam en of Israel , witho ut an y horse troops at a ll,were able to maintain co mplete ind ependence from the last Rarnessids andthe Twenty-First Dyna sty kings of Egypt. Prior to the Catas t rophe, the landof Israel had for a lmos t four hundred years cha fed under Egyptia n hegem­ony, a co ndition so unthin kable in post- Catastrophe circum stances th attradition seems eventually to have tran sformed it into fou r hundred year sof Israelite " bo ndage" in th e land of Egypt.

1 7 Yadin, Art of Warfare. vol, 2 , 28 4.

Chapter Thirteen

CHANGES IN ARM OR AND WEAPON S

AT THE END OF THE BRONZE AGE

I N A FEW DECADES before and after 1200 B.C. the eastern Mediterra­nean world underwent a transform ation in the too ls of war. Aegeana rchaeologists, as noted in cha pter 9, have long been aware that new

typ es of weap ons and arm or came int o use at the end of the LH IIIBperiod,and so me arch aeologists have recently emphasized the range and compre­hen siveness of the innovations. As Jeremy Rutter pointed out at the BrownConference , the rap idit y with wh ich "virtu ally all forms of offensive anddefensive weaponry" change ca. 1200 sta nds in sharp cont rast to "theconserv atism of developments in milit ary gear during the palatial period ."1

But the findings of archaeologists have not yet been translated int o his­tory. Although there has been some suspicion that the innovations appar­ent from the material record must reflect the ad vent of a new sty le ofwarfare, historians have barely begun to explore what this new style and itssignificance might have been.! In particular, it has not yet been proposedth at the new types of arm or and weaponry reflect a historic shift fromchariot warfare to infant ry warfare . Th at the new ar ms and armor be­lon ged to footsoldiers has of course been clear all along, but the signifi­cance of this fact has been obscured by the assumption that infantri es hadplayed the prim ar y role in warfare all thr ou gh the Late Bronze Age. Ha vingseen, in chapters 10-12, that before the Catastrophe chariot warfare wasthe norm for the eastern Mediterranean kingdoms and that offensive infan ­trie s ca me to the fore in the early Iron Age, we are now in a position toappreciate the historical significance of the military innovations that ar ­chaeologists have documented for the decades of the Catastrophe.

ARM OR

It was, first of all, during the Catastrophe that the infantryman's corsletmade its appearance. Prior to ca. 1200, corslets were design ed for thechariot crew. The mail-covered, leather sariam, a robe reaching to the calfo r even the ankle , provided reason able protection for a man in a chariot,

I Rutt er, " Cultural Novelt ies," 67 ., for the suggestions of ~fuh ly and Sanders see p. \In .

CH .\~C;ES I N ARM OR A~D WEAPO~S 175

and for him the fact th at it was difficult to run in such a robe W.1S nor aserious liabili ty. App arently so me infantrymen in the Late Bronze Agewore a simpli fied , much less expensive version of the charioteer's corslet :the Luxor relief of the Battl e of Kadesh porrrays aline ot Hittite au xiliar iesin full stride, and most of them wear wide -skirred and ankle-length"robes." .' Possibly the robes were made of leath er rather than of linen, butobvio usly they were nor covered with metal scales.

Alternatively, some l.are Bronze Age skirmishers went into battle wear­ing only a helmet and a kilt. A parallel here would be the primitive tribes­men of a century or two ago, who were as na ked in battle as in everyday life.Th e sha rdana in service to the phar aohs are sho wn with no defensivea rmor other than a helmet , and the sa me is tru e for the Pylian warri ors inthe " Batt le Scene" fresco (they wear boar's tusk helmets, and kilts ).

There is no documentary or pictorial evidence at all for " heavily ar­mored" infantrymen in the Late Bron ze Age. T ha t foot soldiers in My­cenaean Greece wore bronze armo r is sometimes asserted on the basis of anill corpo re find: a plate-bronze corslet found in 1960, in a cha mber tomb atDendra." Th e Dendra Co rslet, which dates from late in the fifteenth cen­tu ry B.C ., has been identifi ed by several scho lars as an infantry~an 's corsleta nd as an example of the kind of a rmor that M ycenaean infantrymenwould generally have worn in the LH II and LH lilA period ." Such aninterpretation, however, cannot be correct. Th e Dendra Co rslet encases thebod y from the neck alm ost to the knees, and the girdle of bron ze aroundthe thigh s must have prevented the wearer not only from ru.nmng but fromeven walk ing at a normal pace. It must therefore have been worn b~ a manwh o in battle would be requir ed to step only occasiona lly,and then in half­strides, and such conditions point necessaril y to a char iot crewman. It isalso relevant that the Dendra Co rslet bears some resemblance to one of thecorslets that a Linear B ideogram records as being distributed to chari ot

crews."In the Catastrophe, on the other hand, we have pictorial evidence for

infant rymen's cors lets. Th e Medinet Habu relief of the sea battle in 1179shows that not only the Philistine and Shekelesb aggressors but also theEgyptian defenders were protected with waist-length corslets and leath erski rts. Th e corslets were appa rent ly strengthened Withstrips of metal sewn

1 Wreszmski, Atlas, vol. 2, plate 87; cf. Sanda rs. Sed Peoples, fig. 13.• for descript ion see Carling, "Panzer." 96-98. On the tomb see Paul Amom, The Cuirass

Tomb and Other Finds at Dendra (Gorebo rg, 1977)..5 Hard ing, A,1 ycetruea1f5and Europe, 151 and 174 (sec p. 175 for reco nstru ct ion ~rawing~

b)" K. Mcb.trron , of Dend ra warr ior as an infan try ma n, wit h swo rd and spea r), Crouwel,

Chariots, 127.• Bouzck, Aegeal1. 11)8 .

176 A M I LI T A R Y EX r LA~A T ION

to the leather,' In the Aegean , roo, corslets for infantrymen Jp pea r only atthe end of the IllB or beginning of the lll C period , The M ycen aean in fan­trymen depi cted on the Warrior Vase and Warrior Stele wear corslets , Inplace of metal st rips, these corslets seem to have copper or bronz e sca les."And like their Philist ine and Egypt ian contempo raries, the Mycenaeanwarrior s wea r leath er skirrs that reach to midthigh. But it is not just atM ycenae, and not only at the transitio n fro m lll B to lIlC t11Jt the infa nt ry­man 's corslet ap pears in post-Catastrophe Gre ece. Figur ed IllC sherdsfro m severa l other sites show footsold iers (although so me rid ing in cha r­iots) wearing hedgehog helmets, waist-length corslets, and leather skirts ."

Ever y read er of Hom er knows th at the Achaeans who sacked Troy were" well greaved, ~ and specia lists are q uite awa re tha t metal greaves camesuddenly into vogu e ca. 1200.10 Again, however, we must emph asize theobvious: the wa rriors who used th e new armor were in fant rymen . Th isinnovati on was mostly limired to the Greek world , perhaps beca use allthrou gh the Lite Bronze Age men in G reece pro tected their lower legs withleath er " spa ts~ when at wo rk (so, for example, old I.aert es wea rs k nem idesas he digs around his fru it trees at O dyssey 24.22 8-29) or at war (in thePyla s "Bartle Scene" fresco [see plate 2], the Pylian wa rrior s a re nakedabove rhe waist but wear leath er spa ts). And Late Helladic smiths hadoccas ionally mad e metal greaves: ca. 1400, th e Dend ra wa rrio r w hosecorslet we have just discussed wore bro nze greaves. I I With his plat e cor sletprote cting him from collar to knee, an d with greaves protecting at least thefro nts of his lower legs, the cha riot crewma n buried at Dendra was a r­mo red as completely, altho ugh not as comfor tably, as a Nuzi cha rioteerwh ose sariam reached from colla r to midcalf. Thus metal greaves may inM ycen aean G reece have been worn now and then by charior crewrne n wh ofor som e reason preferred plate arm or to scale arm or. But it is u nlikely thatinfa ntry men before ca . 1200 wo re metal greaves.

Thereafter it is quite a different sto ry. In Cyprus, two bur ials dating ftomca. 1200 have pro duced bronze greaves. Anoth er pair has bee n fou nd in achamber to mb at Kallirhea in Achaea, datin g from the early twelfth cen-

7 For diSCUSSIOn and color illustr anon see Yachn, Ar' o( W.Jr(.1rc, vo l. 2.25 1 and .140- 4 1;fo r J. d et ailed discussion of these co rslets see l.or imer . Hom er an d the .\1on>J m en!s , 199- 200 ;cr. Carling, " Pan zer." lIB.

• Cal ling, ibid .. IUS; Snod grass. Arms and Arm ol/r, .11.o Calling, ibid .. 105 .10 N. K. Sa nda rs, "North a nd South at the End of the Mycenaean Age: Aspects of an Old

Probl em," Ox (nrd [ouma l 0{ Archaeology 2 (1983): 43- 68: Ha rding. M yren """" s andEuro pe, J 78- 8U.

t t O n the grea ves see Carling, -Ikin\ \:hienen, " in Buchho lz and Wiesn er. Kr iegsu -csen , vol.I. 15.1.

C H A N G E S I N A R " lO R A S u W E A I' 0 N S 177

rury (the same tomb yielded a Naue Type II sword ). I ! Finally, yer anotherpair, fo und in 1960 on the southern slope of the Athe nian acropo lis, seemalso to date fro m the twe lfth century B.C. U All these twelfth-century Greekand Cyp riote greaves were evident ly locally made and were pe rhaps extem­porized by local bronzesmiths. Although Go liath was said to have wo rnbro nze greaves, they were never popular in the Nea r East . No r do they seemto have been worn in temp erate Europe before they appea r in Greece.Harding notes that the ear liest greaves thus far found in Italy belon g to thetenth century, whi le those from centr al Euro pe a nd the Balkans " appear to

sta rr at the same tim e as the late M ycenaean exa mp les." H 61"After the middl e of the twelft h century, greaves disappear fro m the ar- ~vls

chaeological record in G reece and do not reappea r unt il the end of the cI:~eighth cent ury. Carling assumes that in the Dark Age lea ther leggings came I-;/j 0~ rback into use. 15 Various scho lars have note d that Homer knew little about " ".greaves, ot her than the fact that the Achaean s had them, and his vagueness Cfil'1l-

may indicate that in his time bro nze greaves were o nly a mem ory. It thusseems that the use of metal greaves in the ea rly twelfth cen tury was a short-lived experiment , restri cted mostl y to Gr eece and Cyprus. Th e obsoles-cence of the bro nze greave after ca. 1150 can most easily be explained as aresult of the general poverty, and especially the sca rcity of bronze , thatSnodgrass has documented in The Darl: Age at Greece. Th is would be allthe more und erstandable if, in an age when bronze was very dea r, thebro nze greave was regard ed as not very "cost-effect ive." Th e bronzegreaves from the early rwelfrh century arc not impressive pieces. The Ka-llirhea specimens were simply hammered our of shee t bro nze, an d Carlingnoted that the smith made (1(' effort to mod el the greaves to th e musculatu reof the leg. And all these ea rly greaves are relat ively th in: those fro m Enko miare two millim eters thi ck, but modern experiments have shown th at even athickness of three mill imeters can be ent irely cut throu gh by a slashingsword.16

Perha ps the most important item of defensive armo r th at comes into useat the end of the th irteenth centu ry is the round shield , with its conica lsur face runn ing back from the bos s to th e rirn.t ? Hel d with a center-grip,

rz lbid., 152- 53; for .1 full descriptio n of the Kallithea to mb and its contents see N.Yalnuris. " Mvk eni sche Bronzeschurzwatfeu. " l\ IDAI 75 ( 1 l.) hO ~: 4 2- 67 .

I.l 'The find was originally assigned to rhe Geometric period but has been redaredby Penelope Mo un tjoy, "The Bron ze (jreuvev from Athens: A Case for a LH IIIC Dare,"O puscula Atbeniensia 15 ( 1984): 135- 41> .

14 Hard ing, A'fyct·t1de..tn s and Europe, 17'J ." Carling. " Beinschienen," ISS.1( . lhid.. 156 - 57.,- O n shields see Heide Borchhardr, " Fruhe gnc chischc Schi ldfo rmc n. " ill Buchholz an d

Wiesner, Kriegsu vs en , vul. 1. I- 56 .

178 A .\11 LI T A RYE X r LA N A T I 0 :-.I

thi s symmetrica l shield (" balanced all-a round" is a commo n Hom ericepithe t for the aspis) mad e up for irs relatively sma ll size by a supe rio rdesign. Unt il rhe int rod uctio n of the round shield, toorsoldiers of the east ­ern Mediterranean kingdom s carried large shields of various shapes. TheM ycenaeans in the LH 1and II pe riods (and possib ly also in LH ili A and B,although evide nce is lacki ng) favored the huge " figure eight" shield, whichenveloped the warrio r on thr ee sides from neck ro ankles, wh ile providingso me freedom of movement for the arms at the indentations. An alterna tivefor the M ycenaeans, in use also in Egypt, was the slightly smaller "half­cylinder" shield, with sides arc hing back . Although such a shield protecteda man from neck ro shins, rhe ab sence of a rm inde ntati on s must haveseverely restr icted his wield ing of an offensive weapon . The Hirrire shieldseems to have been rectangular and relatively flat but had scalloped sides or"cu routs" for the arms. The sta nda rd Egyptian shield was ob long with aro unded top, thu s offering so me pro tection for the neck. III All these LateBronze Age shie lds, if held fronta lly and at the pro per height, wou ld havecovered most of a foo tso ldier's bod y, far more in fact than did a roundshield. T he Hom eric sa kos- the great shield- was evident ly used with along lan ce (the encboss, both items ind icati ng an intention to keep o ne'sdist ance in dispatchin g a n oppo nent. Th e size and design of these pre-

('0-" J.sL:~IJ Ca tas tro phe shields are qu ite understandable if they were intend ed fordefen se primarily again st missiles, a nd onl y occa sionall y again st hand-to-

. ;5 ~ r hand weapons. .-I ' i Th e round shield, on the other hand, was certainly meant for a hand-to -

. ~. I Y- 01, hand fighter. For him, ag ility and ~obi~ity counted for much, and he:;C~ . l f' l sacnfi ced the secu rJ~ of a fu~l-body shield Ir1 o rde r to be fast on.his.feet and, ~ e.. I" r""" ...s. ro have free use of hIS offensive a rm. The round shields vaned 111size from

less than rwo ro mor e than thr ee feet in diameter, but even the larg est didnot cover a man below midthi gh. But because it was per fectly balanced, therou nd shield was un usuall y maneuverable. Th at qua lity, toge the r with itsunifor mly slo ping surfaces, gave the warr ior good protection at the Spotthat he needed ir.

With one except ion , there are no round shields attested anywhere in theeaste rn Mediterranea n kingdoms before th e late th irteenth cenrury.l? Th e .exception-from ca. 1270-appea rs in a Luxor relief of the sto rming ofDepu r, a Hitt ite st rongho ld in the Levant, by t roops of Ramesses rhe G reat.Round shields are carried by severa I of Rarnesscs' skirmishers in horned

IX On these Late Bronze Ag~ type s see Bor chhardr, ·Schildfo rrnen, - 6- 17 and H -27. andth e fold o ut fullowin~ p. 56 .

I'" lbid ., 30 : "1m gescmt en ag.iischcn Bereich w it" im Vortlt:rt.'n Orient ist der runde Schilderst mit dem Ende des 1J. j ah rhundert s cindeung nach zu v..-eisen, nach dern [eweiligenZe~ti) ru ngshu rt lOnt . der eben mit der Seevo lkerbewegung in Z usa mrnenh. mg geb rachrworden kann. "

C H A N G E S I ~ A RM 0 RAN 0 WE A r o :-.I S 179

helmets, and the likelih ood is fairly strong rhar the Egyp tia n a rt ist intendedthese figures to represent Sardinian auxilia ries.!" T hus there is reason to

believe that the ro und shield was introdu ced to the eastern Mediterr aneanbv bar bar ian skirmishers fro m the west. Its ult imate pr ovenan ce is un ­known . Altho ugh round shields were co mmon in temper ate Europe afte r1000, Hard ing found rhar only one has been assigned (by at least somescho lars) a dare earlier than the twelfth century.I!

Alth ough Sardinian runners were using the round shield o n Nea r East ­ern battlefields in the early rhirree nth century, it eviden tly remained aspecialty of the ba rba rian sk irmis her for another sixty or seventy years.From late in the thirteenth cent ury or earl y in the twelfth come severalrepresent ation s of the ro und shield, found at Megiddo : one o n a sherd a ndtwo more on ivory plaqu es.s-'Th e possibilit y that ca. 120 0 the round shieldwas becom ing fami lia r in the southern Levant is strengthened by the factrhar all the agg resso rs who attacked Rarnesses II I in 1179 had roundshields. In the Mediner Habu reliefs (see plates 6 and 7) it is carried notonly by the western Medit erranean warri ors in horned helm ets-both theshardana fighting for Rarnesses a nd the Shekelesh fightin g against him­but also by the Philistin es and Tiekker. Ram esses' Egyptian infa nt ryme n,however, carry the tradition al Egyptian shield (oblong, with rounded to p).

In the Aegean the round shie ld - the aspis - scems to have come into userather suddenly soon after 120 0 and then quickly become standa rd. Theea rliest evidence for it in Greece may be the Tiryn s Shield-Bearers Krater,dating to the tran siti on from LH IIIB to 1I1 C.!J O n the Warri or Vase (seeplate 8) and Warrior Stele the spea rmen of all three lines carry shields thatare round excep t for a sca llop o n the bo trorn.>' These shields , carried bymen in close-order form ation s, a re not iceabl y larger than those carried bythe skirmishers. The ro und shield also appea rs o n LH IIIC sherd s fro mTiryns and Nauplia, on a vase fro m Mycenae, on two mir ror -handl es fro mCyprus, and in the ha nds of the " Ingot God" from Enkorni.s>

The innovatio n of the infan tryman's cors let , greaves, and the roundshield in the armies of the eas te rn Medit err anean reflect s the imp ort an cethat was sudde nly attac hed, during the Catastrophe, ro hand -to -handfighring. Th e ro und shie ld had long been favored by Sardinian skirmishersbur was now in general demand . The infa nt ryman's co rslet was perh aps

lll lbiJ ., 28.1 1 H ar din g, A'fyccnJeatJs and Europe 17 7. The single earl y spec imen W;J S found in west

Bohemia ." ):'din, An of \fIu'f" rc, vo l. 2. 24 2, da res them to ca. 12t1lJ. Cf. Borchhar dt. "Schrldfcr-

men," 30.~ I Verm eu le and K.JrJgt.-orghi:o. , M yt:t'n JeilH I'ictona! \ Jst' HJmti"b, J OX -'-JJ IIJ p la te X. I.l' rbi.L, plate X1.42.,. lh rd ., p lates XI.I, and l b, and XI.2X:Borchhardt , "Schild fo rmen, " 2'1 and 3 1.

180 A ~II LIT A RYE X P LAN A T I o N

improvised by the defenders of the eastern kingdoms, in order to steelthemselves for a type of combat that was unfamiliar and unnerving. Theuse of gre:lves may have begun :lmong either the sackers or the defenders ofthe Aegean palaces (Homer associates gre:lves with the marauders at Troy,while the in corpore evidence shows them in use by defenders of the mccommunities). Altogether, the armored infantryman W:lS in large part acreation of the Catastrophe.

JAVELINS, SPEARS, AND LANCES

In weapons, as in armor, there were major innovations at the end of theBronze Age. Although the advent of a new type of sword is perhaps themost conspicuous and dramatic of these innovations, there seems to havebeen another that was equally important but has hardly been noticed. Irefer to the proliferation of a small, long-range weapon that we may call ajavelin, although it could also be called a large dart. This was not the javelinfamiliar from modem track-and-field events but a much smaller missile.The weapon that seems to have played an important role in the Catastro­phe W3S perhaps only half or a third the size of to day's sporting javelin,which is almost nine feet long and weighs almost two pounds (eight hun­dred grams). A closer parallel to the Bronze Age weapon would be theRoman iaculum, which Polybius (6.22) describes as two cubits long andthick as a finger.

The Medinet Habu relief shows that in 1179 the typical Philistine orTjekker warrior carried two spearlike weapons, slightly over a meter inlength and with diameters small enough that two could be rightly graspedin the palm of the hand. In discussing the relief, Yadin reasonably con­cluded that these weapons were javelins.>: He did not, however, see theirpresence as remarkable, and in most subsequent discussions of the arms of"the Sea Peoples" the javelin has not appeared ar all. 27 Even highly spe­cialized studies have overlooked the popularity of the javelin in the latesecond millennium. De Maigret's classification of Near Eastern spearsrecognized two types of javelin but noted no increase in their use toward theend of the Bronze Age. On the Aegean side, Lorimer made no mention ofjavelins, and in Avila's Lanzenspitzcn there is no category for javelins (as aresult, in this otherwise very useful typological study javelin heads must besought among either the spearheads or the arrowheads). In discussing theimportance of javelins in thirteenth- and twelfth-century warfare, then, wecannot simply summarize expert opinion but shall have to look at theprimary evidence in some derail.

'" Yadin, Art o(War(are, vol. 2, 251-52.r r Neither Sanders's Sea Peoples nor Strobel's Sceuollcersturrn (both of which JiSLU'sS rhe

aggressors' weaponry at some length) mentions the javelin.

CHANGES IN ARMOR AND WEAPONS 181

It is generally recognized that in the Late Bronze Age [avelins were usedby hunters.v" One fresco at Tiryns shows a young man who is presumed tobe a hunter shouldering two javelins grasped in the left hand; anothershows two hunters, each with a pair of javelins in the right hand.!" A thirdfresco, at Pylos, shows a hunter about to throw a javelin ar :l runningstag.") Since the Homeric word aiganee apparently means, etymologically,something like "glnt spe:lr, n that we3pon m3Y originally have been usedfor hunting wild g03tS. 11 The javelin 3S:l hunter's we:lpon W3S common inantiquity and among primitive tribes down to our own time.'! Strabo(4.4.3) described the Cauls' skill in hunting birds with javelins, declaringthat the Gallic hunters were able to throw their javelins farther (and appar­ently with no less 3CCUr:lCY) than they could shoot an arrow,

In classical times the javelin was of little importance on the battlefield:whether hop lites threw javelins ar each other before closing is debated, butit is agreed that in either case the "real" fighting did not begin until thethrusting spears were brought into play. In Rome, the uelites threw theiriacula, but it W:lS the legionary's pilum (a much heavier missile) and swordthat determined the outcome of the battle. In primitive societies, on theother hand, the hunter's javelin was also the primary weapon when a tribewas involved in a guerrilla with its neighbors. In Herodotus's catalog(7.71-79) of Xerxes' army the javelin is the main weapon of the Libyan,Paphlagonian, Thracian, Mysian, and Marian contingents, and in stillanother group of auxiliaries each man carried two "wolf-destroying"spears. Thucydidcs (3.97-98) gives us a vivid picture of the Aetolian jav­elineers, whom the Athenians suspected of eating raw meat, picking off"the best men of Athens" when Demosthenes led 3 force of hoplires intothe Aetolian mountains. In Arrians history of Alexander's campaign, someof the most memorable chapters feature the heroics of the thousand Agri­anes, javelin men from the mountains of Paconia. But these exploits of thejavelineer were exceptions to the rule that in classical antiquity javelinswere of limited military v3Iue.3 .1

Toward the end of the second millennium, however, this humble weaponseems to have enjoyed a brief prominence. For the "hunting" of chariothorses the javelin must have been ideal: although it would seldom have

21\ See Olaf Heckmann. "Lauze und Speer," in Buchholz, Kriegswesen, vol. 1, 289-90.24 Hackmann, "Lauze und Speer," fibS, 74:1and h. The frescoes belong to the earlier and

later Tiryns palace respectively..10 lang, Palace ot Nestor, plare 12 (no. 16 H 43).~I Hockrn.mn.r'Lmze und Speer," 315 ..12 E. Norman Gardiner, "Throwing the javelin." ]HS 27 (1907): 257, noted that the

thonged javelin "is essentially the weapon of less highly civilized peoples. It IS a weapon of thechase, :1 weapon of the Lammon people, but it plays hrrle parr in the heavily equipped citizenarmies of Greece and Rome."

n On the lightly .irmed [avelineers of classical Greece see SnoJgr3sc;, Arm.' ,md Armour,67 and n-so.

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182 A MILITARY EXPLANATION

killed the horse that it hit, the javelin would surely have brought it to a stop,thus immobilizing the other horse, the vehicle, and the crew. Compositebows were appropriate for the chariot warrior, but for a runner a farpreferable long-range weapon would have been the javelin. Javelins arethrown on the run, whereas an infantry bowman would have to shoot fromeither a crouching position or a flat-footed stance (in either case offeringchariot archers a stationary target). In addition, the javelincer could carry asmall shield, whereas the archer had to use both hands to work his bow.That javelins were in fact used against chariots in the Late Bronze Age isclear from Rarncsses the Great's account of his valor at Kadesh: in the"poetic" inscription Ramcsses boasts that the Hittites were unable eitherto shoot their bows or to hurl their javelins at him as he charged againstthem in his chariot. 34

b 1- 4'sb .cJ The Agrianes mentioned above show the efficiency of javelineers againstr-.. ' f"> a chariot force. When he learned that Darius had a hundred scythed char-Q..x~N'lflt, - iots in the middle of his line atGaugamela, Alexander responded by plac-

AI ing his Agrianes (as well as Balakros's javelineers) as a screen for his heavyfe{MJ4rl'"'s 4.:~ infantry. The mountain men were deadly marksmen, and not one Persian

chariot got through the screen.V An argument can be made, despite thefact that the evidence is exiguous, that something similar must have hap­pened time and again during the Catastrophe, and that the javelin played akey role in bringing the era of chariot warfare to an end. A horde ofjavelineers swarming through a chariot host would have destroyed it: atforty or fifty meters a team of horses would even at the gallop have made afar easier target for a javclincer than he-small, running, and protected byhis shield-would have made for the chariot archer.

From the centuries before the Catastrophe there are occasional illustra­tions of what seem to be javelins carried by warriors, although these aresomewhat larger than those carried by the Philistines in 1179. A few of theShoshu tribesmen whom Seti I defeated early in the thirteenth century mayhave brought javelins to the contest with the Egyptian chariots, since in arelief (see plate 9) one tribesman is depicted grasping two thin spears ofmoderate length in his right hand.w The same was true when Seti's son,Rarncsses the Great, campaigned against the tribesrnen.J" In the Aegean,javelins seem to be carried by the captain (but not by his men, who evi­dently carry thrusting spears) in the "Captain of the Blacks" fresco: lyingacross his shoulder are two long and thin lines, which may represent the

\4 Gardiner, Kadesh, P135-40 and PI60-65..II Arrian, Anab, 3.13.5." Battle Reliefs of King Sety I, plate 3.P For relief showing J Shoshu warrior grasping two thin and fairly short "spears" in his

right hand see Yadin, Art o{ Warfare, vol. 1,233.

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184 A MIll TAR Y EX P LAN A T ION

slender shafts of javelins.t" If the fresco depicts a squad of skirmishers ontheir way to a battle, perhaps the captain intended to engage the enemy atlong range while his Nubian troops closed in hand-to-hand combat withtheir thrusting spears. Finally, a few short javelins are portrayed inthirteenth-century warfare: these are tassel-stabilized darts, hardly a meterin length, carried on Egyptian chariots (see plate 1). Bonnet observed thatthis "Wurfpfeil" first appears on Nineteenth-Dynasty chariots, the crewsapparently keeping several of these missiles available for use at a range tooclose for a bow.!"

In the twelfth century military javelins are portrayed in greater numbers.There is, first of all, no doubt that the javelin was the weapon that thePhilistines and Tjekker brought to Djahi in 1179. The Medinet Habu reliefportrays many of the enemy holding two small (three- or four-foot)"spears" but never using one for a thrust. Since the fighting is hand-to­hand, the javelins appear to be a useless encumbrance. But it was not onlythe enemies of Egypt who used javelins in the twelfth century. Anotherrelief shows them in the hands of Rarncsses III's own barbarian skir­mishers.v' evidently for use against enemy infantrymen (this king is notknown to have fought against a chariot army). In Greece too we can see theimportance of the short javelin as a military weapon in the twelfth century.An LH mc sherd from Tiryns shows a warrior armed with javelins."! Sincethe warrior is riding in a chariot, we may identify him as a skirmisher on hisway to the battle zone rather than as an infantryman who fought in a close­order company. Another LH mc skirmisher is represented on a kratersherd recently found in the Unterburg at Tiryns: the warrior in this scenerides on a chariot and carries two javelins in addition to his round shie'd.f-'Yet another mc sherd, this one from Lefkandi, seems to show (the scene istoo poorly drawn for us to be certain) an armored warrior holding twojavclins.f' It thus appears that by the early twelfth century javelineers wereto be found in the kings' armies as well as among their barbarian oppo­nents. The kingdoms' employment of javelin men probably began before

18 See, for example, Hockmunn. "Lanze und Speer," 288-90. Snodgrass, Early GreekAnnour and Weapons, 11S~ suggested that the rwo lines (almost as long as the captainhimself) may be outlines of a single spe ar ; but the captain's body is visible between the lines,and if the lines do outline a single spear. it is massive, with :1 diameter almost as great as thecaptain's arm. The black man who follows rhe captain seems to carry a single spear of normaldiameter (see Evans, Palace of Minos, vol. 2, 2, plate xiii).

W Bonnet, Waffen, 105-6. For this~ thirteenth-century innovation see also 'radin, Art of

Warfare, voL I. 88, and his illustration at pp. 240-41"..J)) See Sandars, Sca Peoples, fig. 14,41 Vermeule and Karageorghis, MYL"eu.leJn Pictorial VasL' Painting, no. XL UL41 Ibid.. no. XL28.4' Vcrmeule and Karageorghu, in ibid.. no. Xl.61 (p. 136), suggest that the sherd portrays

"a sharp-fared soldier in a crested helmet with rwo light ravelin-, and an oval shield."

CHANGES IN ARMOR AND WEAPONS 185

the Catastrophe, with runners using javelins to assist in bringing downenemy chariot teams, but the twelfth-century javelineers of Tiryns andLefkandi presumably threw most often at a human target.

There is a bit of literary evidence that late in the second millennium thejavelin was used against tootsoldiers. In the Iliad there are occasionalreferences to akontes, and when Pandaros shoots Menelaus with the bowMenelaus's life is saved by the waistband that he wore as "a barrier againstakontes" (Iliad 4.137). A more surprising source is the story of David andGoliath. Yadin presented an ingenious argument that the story was origi­nally about an Israelite who killed a famous Philistine warrior whoseweapon was a javelin.v' Weall know that Goliath carried a spear "like untoa weaver's beam," but that does not help much in a world even less familiarwith looms than with spears. Yadin explored the term 0''"'1\ 'UI.J andfound that it has nothing to do with size: it was, instead, a shaft of veryslender proportions. What was distinctive about it, however, were the 7h,O!,J' 11loops that it carried. Yadin concluded that the original Hebrew story de- /I I~ rt.oy)scribed a Philistine warrior who carried a spear equipped with a throwing- "" 4. I. JI -..:thong (the ankyle ofthe classical Greeks, and the amentum of the Romans). 7 -eo G ~

With a thong spiraled around the shaft, a warrior could rifle a javelin as he ~.... I-: rthrew it, thus adding to its accuracy and its range. Although the story of .., "'to} 'IJ?Goliath and his spear "like unto a weaver's beam" was eventually attached 1\1);to King David, it was also told of Benaiah of Kabzeel (1 Chronicles 11.22-23) and Elhanan of Bethlehem (2 Samuel 21.19) and may well have origi-nated in a real event."; It would appear that the use of the thonged javelinwas exceptional in Canaan late in the second millennium and was perhapslimited to a few warriors in Philistia. In Greece the thonged javelin mayhave been especially distinctive of the north and of Thessaly in particular. 46

How much in corpore evidence we have for the javelin in the secondmillennium is difficult to say. Many bronze weapon-heads from the periodhave been found, but in the absence of the shafts one cannot be certainwhether the heads were attached to spears, javelins, or arrows. Because themilitary use of a short, dartlike javelin has scarcely been recognized, how­ever, I believe it likely that many javelin heads ftom the late second millen­nium have been erroneously identified as arrowheads.

De Maigrer's classification does assign one type of socketed " lance­head" to a javelin, and on this type there should be no argument. Tipo B 7("giavellotti a lama rriangolare acuta ") is large enough-most specimens

44 Yadin, "Goliath's Javelin and the O'~"K "ruzi," I'EQ ( 1955), 58-69.45 On the conflarions and contradictions in the story as told in the Masoretic text see

Emanuel Tov. "The David and Goliath Saga," Bible Review (1986): 34-41.46 Euripides' reference tBaccbae, 1205) to "Thessalian ankylomata.... indicates that his

audience associated the rhonged [avelin with Thescaly and assumed its use there in the heroicpenod.

Pfeilspit;:.en have no shaft attachment: the v-base of the blade was simply pressed into the endof the shaft. Looking at all of these Klasse I speCImens Inos. 163 to 687G), I find that the vastmajority are less than 3 cm. long. For example, of the 318 arrowheads from twelfth-centuryPvlos. the longest is 2.58 em. and the median 1.?4 em. All ranged he-rds (nos. 688 through773) Avila classifies as Klasse 2 arrowheads. These are considerably larger, the median beingapproximately 4.5 ern. But if my contention is correct that heads over 7 cm. ca.ne fromjavelins, the typical ranged arrowhead would measure a bit less than 4 em. Thesole arrowheadfound in Troy Vila. barbed and ranged, measured 3.9 em. (a similar specimen from Troy VImeasured 3.8 cm.): see Blegen er al, Troy. vot. 3: Settlements VIla. VIlb. and Vlll (Princeton,1958): fig. 219. Supporting evidence may be available from a much later date: MordechaiGichon and Michaela Vitale, "Arrow-Heads from Horvat 'Eqed," IE] 41 (1991): 242-57,report that at this Hellenistic-Roman site forty-three ranged military arrowheads are wellenough preserved to be measured ....The median length is 3.6 cm., and none of these rangedheads measures over 6.1 cm.

S4 In reference to his Tiro A 7 ii, de Maigrer, Lance, 90, notes that these javelin heads hadmorphological parallels to Levanrine arrowheads of the l.are Bronze Age. The eleven heads inthis group come from Hazor (no. I, undated); Ugarit (nos. 2-4, fourteenth and thirteenthcenturies); Alalakh (no. 5, thirteenth or twelfth centuries]; Tarsus (no. 6, 700-520 B.C.);

Boghazkdy (no. 7, fourteenth or thirteenth centuries); and Assur (nos. 8-1 I, Old or MiddleAssyrian). Although no. 2 measuresJn em. in lengrh, the others range between I I and 18 em.

ss Compare de Maigret's Tipo A 7 ii Javelin heads (at Lance, 89-91, with fig. 20) andAvila's Klassc 2f arrowheads tl.aneenspitzen, 112-13, with plate 28).

Sf"> Heckmann. "Lanze und Speer," 290: "die Spitzen offenba r mirrles cines Schaftdorns inden vorn knaufamg vcrdickren Holzschafr gesreckr sind."

57 Mane-jose Chavane, "Instruments de bronze," in M, Yon er al., Ras Shnrnra-:-: Of/garitIll. Le Centre de la ville: 38<-44< Cnntragncs (1978-1984).357. Chav.me, I am happy tonote, does not rule out javelins ("'tteire po.rucs de HecheS ou de raveline").

CHANGES IN ARMOR AND WEAPONS 187

heads simply because typologists have no classification for a small, dartlikejavelin. On the Near Eastern side, de Maigret arbitrarily established 3

length of 11 centimeters 3S the minimum for the head of a giauellotto; deMaigret duly recognized as javelins the eleven elliprical ranged heads tharmet this qualification, but he excluded the scores that fell below 11 centi­meters, leaving them to be dealt with by an eventual rypologist of NearEastern arrowheads. \4

More than a dozen heads of the same rype have been found in Greece,but these Greek specimens have been classified by Avila 3S Pteilspitzen.v:Although these heads would have met de Maigret's length requirement(they average 11 centimeters in length), Avila assumed that "spearheads"must be socketed and that a ranged head could only have come from anarrow. That assumption, which is certainly untenable for the Near East, isprobably invalid for Greece too, since a Tiryns fresco seems to portrayjavelins whose heads are tanged rather than socketed.w

What makes the matter especially pertinent for us is that weapons withsuch a head were clearly instrumental in the Catastrophe. In the destruc­tion level of the central city at Ugarit thirteen such weapon-heads werefound, not in a hoard but scattered in the debris. '7 They must therefore

A MILITARY EXPLANATION186

47 De Maigrer, Lance. 154-67.4H In Avila's Lanzenspitzen, nos. 143-60 are all "aus Epeiros," and all measure between

I0 and 20 em. in length. including blade and sacker. The dateable specimens come from theLH IIIB or IIIC period. 0. Snodgrass's Types Band C (F.arlyGreek Armollr and Weapolls,119-20).

44 Avila, ibid., 67; Snodgrass, Early Greek Annour and U/eapons1

119, calls his Type B(found especially in Epirus and Kephallenia) "a well-known Danubian type."

5U J. M. Coles and A. F. Harding, The Bronze Age ill Europe (New York, 1979): 179-80.Coles and Harding date these javelin heads from Cascina Ranza, ncar Milan, to the "earlierBronze Age" (shortly before 1300).

SI More than thirty were recovered from the fourteenth-century shipwreck offUlu Burun;see Cemal Pulak, "The Bronze Age Shipwreck at Ulu Burun, Turkey: 1985 Campaign," A]A92 (1 n8): 23-24.

51 The skeleton was found in Grave 75 at Ras Shamra, with pottery from late LH lilA orearly LH IIlB. See Avila, Lanzenstntzen, I 12-13.

H Since we have no catalog of Near Eastern arrowheads, I base my generalization onAvila's findings for rhe Aegean. Most of the Late Bronze Age arrowheads in his Lanzen- und

are about 10 or 12 centimeters long-that it can hardly have come from anarrow; but since the sockets of this type are barely wider than .0Im, neithercould it have been attached to a thrusting spear. The forty -three specimensofTipo B 7 heads are almosr without exception from the Levant (especiallyMegiddo) and date from the Middle and the Late Bronze Age.47 Thus itappears that socketed javelins, with thin (and, on e would suppose, short)shafts, were in use in the Levant all through the second millennium.

In the Aegean we also find a number of socketed weapon-heads, mostdating from late in the LH 1II period, which are reasonably identified asjavelin heads. Many of these, it is worth pointing out, were found in north­west Greece, just beyond the frontier of the Mycenaean world.:" Becausethe "Epirote" specimens have faceted, solid-ring sockets, rather than thesplit-ring sockets characteristic of Mycenaean spearheads, Avila proposesthat they are the southernmost extension of types that originated in theBalkans."? Wemay note that socketed javelin heads have also been found inItaly in contexts dating to the rhird quarter of the second millenniurn.c?

Despite opinion to the contrary, it is also very likely that a somewhat! I I r smaller head, this one tanged rather than socketed, came from a javelin.

.!JUfU".i~ Heads of this type (see figure 2) have an elliptical blade and vary in length, 1 .J.' from ca. 7 to 13 centimet~.llJincluding both tang and blade). They were in

.:II. C'" JD..II. use all through the Late Bronze Age>! but enjoyed their greatest voguehe.c..J.s during the twelfth and eleventh centuries B.C. Although found primarily in

the Near East, they were also used in Greece. These heads were certainlyused in hunting, but there is no doubt that they were also used in battle: oneof them was found embedded in the dorsal vertebrae of a man buried atUgarit.V Most often they have been identified as arrowheads, despite thefact that even the shortest is approximately twice the size of the averagemilitary arrowhead.>! In part, I suspect, they have been identified as arrow-

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Illll A MI L I TARY E X P LA I-: AT IO N C H A:-': G E S I N AR M 0 R A i'i 0 W E A I' 0 i'i S 189

~B M . Yo n, Pier re Lombard, and M argo Rerrisio. "L' o rga nis.rrion de l'h abira t: les rnaiso nsA, B er E. " in Yon, l.e centre de fa uille, 46-48, with figs. 27 an d 2X (o bjects nos. 80 /2 70 ,80 /99 , JnJ 80 /7 0). Ch.i van e, " Lcs instr um ents de bro nze ," 357. announces rhar pu blica tio nof the thi rteen head s, along with other bro nze pieces, is forthcoming.

5 '" Cross, "On Darin g Phoeni cian lnscripri o ns in Sard inia and [he rvted ircrran can." AlA 94(1990): .l40.

eo See. ruos r recen tly; Benjamin Sass. " Inscribed Babylon i.m Arrow heads of [he 'fum of theSeco nd Millennium an d Their l'hocm cia n Co unrerp.irt v." Uf' 2 1 ( 19S9): l4 9- 5'; ; .ind j .·M.de Tarr agon . ..La po inte de tlcche inscrit c des Peres BLInc.::;Je jer us.ilcm," Rt'V. Bib, YH ( l 99 1) :

244 - 51. T hese " arrowheads ,. are undoubredly fro m sho rt jJ,vd ills (ehe je rusa lem specime nmeasures 8.1 crn.).

"' J.T. Mi lik and Frank C ross, " Inscribed jav elin -H eads from th e Period of th e j udges: ARecent Discovery in Palestine ," RASOR 134 ( 19 H ;: 5- 15. Two mo re hea ds from the sa mehoa rd , d.it ed paleogr aphically co ': <1. 1100. have since ...ur faced: see C ross. "Newly foundlnscripriou -, ill O ld Ca na.n urc and Earlv Phoen ici.ur Snipes, " HASOR 238 i 1 t.J ~ () ) : 4- 7.Unfo rtu na tely, bet ween 195 4 .m d 19HO e ro" dowu gr .rded the EI Khadr he ads Iroin javelinhe.id-, [0 .rrrow he.ids.

have been used by eithe r the agg ressors or the defen ders in th e city 's lasthours. The three head s from Ugarit th us far pu blished a re 7. S.5 .m d 8.7centimete rs in len gth .;x

If on e o bjects to iden tify ing these and othe r elliptica l, ran ged heads ofthe late second millen nium as coming from small javelin s, one's only alter­native is to argue tha t at th is time ar chers for on e reason or ano therdevelop ed a preferenc e for eno rmo us arrow s. But va riou s co nsideratio nsident ify these elliptica l, ran ged heads ;IS corning from javelins, Ma ny of thespecimens tha t have been found , first of a ll, are inscribed. T his prac tice,which Fronk Cross has ca lled "J fad of the II th cent ury," >" was especia llyco mmo n in the southern Leva nt bu t is a lso a ttes ted for Me sopotamia.':" Ahoa rd of tonged heads ca me to light at EI Khadr, nea r Beth lehem, in 1953,and five (measur ing between 9.2 and 10.5 em.) are inscri bed I!~ ' bdlbt;whi ch Cross prudentl y translated as "dar t of 'Abd-Labi'r. " 61 Th e Heb rewI!~ is no rma lly an arrow, but because th ese heads seemed too lar ge for ana rrow, C ross supposed tha t the word (auld a lso have been used for a smallmissile that was hurled rat her th an shot. Since 1953, another eigh teenhead s hove been found bearing wha t seem to be th e na mes of th eir ow ner s;still ot he rs, fro m Mesopota mia. a re in scr ibed with royal nam es. It is lesslikely tha t an ar che r wo uld inscr ibe a ll thirt y or forty of his a rrow hea dsthan that a javelinee r m ight inscribe his few javelin heads.

Not only the size bu t also the shape of the hea ds suggest s javelins ra therthan a rrows. A military a rrowh ead was nor mally barbed, so tha t the victimco uld not retract it witho ut tear ing his flesh; but these heads a re elliptical,designed for easy retr act ion. The po ssibi liry tha t an a rcher could or wou ldwish to retri eve a spent a rro w is unlikel y, bu t a wa rrio r wi th on ly two orth ree javelins wo uld pe rha ps have retrieved each of the m several tim esduring a skirmish.

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FICURE 2. Tanged, elliptical weapon-heads of the late second millennium. Scaleapprox. 5:6

a and b. From Catastrophe destruction level at Ugarirc. From El Khadr, Israel (ca. 1100 B.C.)d. From Mycenae (no dated context)e. From Haza r (eleventh century B.C.)

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190 A M I L I T A RYE X l' LA :-; A T I O N

Fina lly, there is the evide nce from a votive jar fou nd in St ra tum XI (la teeleventh cent ury ) at Ha zer. The ja r co nt ained (see figure 2e) not onlyranged bronze heads very similar to th ose from El Khadr, but also shaftbu tts (the diam eter s of these butts are 1.6 cm. and 2 cm. ).b! Since it isvirt ua lly certain tha t the shaft butts and weap on head s came from the sa mewea po ns, the Hazer weap on s mu st be ident ified as javelins and not asarrows. Ne ithe r of the two Hazer head s exceeds 10 centi mete rs in length. b .l

To say that all ran ged heads less than 11 centi meters lon g are arrowheads istherefo re to ignore the only sure evide nce we have fo r the size of rangedjavelin head s at the end of the second millenn ium.

And these small javelins were used in G reece as well as in the Near East .Since th e Aegean heads th at Avila classified as Klasse 2 Pfeilspitzen aremo rph ologicall y ide ntica l to (and, ind eed, slightly larger than ) the fiveinscribed El Khadr head s, we mu st suppose th at these too a re javelinheads.v' The one securely dated specimen comes from a LH IIIB cha mbertom b near Thebes.e> Th at a single such head would be inte rred with awarrior again ind icates that we are deal ing here with a javelin rath er th anan arrow. There is lit tle doubt that toward the end of the Lat e Bron ze Agesho rt javelins of a Levanti nc type were used as military weapon s inG reece.se

Both th e pictorial and the in corpore evidence show s tha t Lat e BronzeAge javel ins had slender shafts and small heads, and undo ubtedly thesejavelins would have inflicted mu ch less tr auma than six- or seven-footspea rs. But as missiles fo r wounding cha riot ho rses or lightly armored men,these hum ble weap on s were perhaps as important as any in the arsena l ofthe barbaria n ra iders. In the conventio na l view th at 1 ate Bronze Age wa r­fare was characterized by den se formati ons of heavy infant ry, the uti lityand the importance of the barbar ians' javelins would be difficult to see. But

., C i. Y. Yadin; Y. Aharo ui et aI., Hazor: An Accoltnt of the TI",d and Fourth Season s or£ u aI'lltion,. 195 7- 1958 {j erusalem, 196 1): plate COl, nos . 6. 7. 10. and II fo r d rawing;for a phorograph 1 ro app ro ximately 1: I sca le) see pl.ire CC CX LVII. Fur illust rarion oi theH azor votive deposit see Yadin, W,Jr!Jre, vo l. 2, 352, and not e his com ment the re: " Th e Facrtha r the butts were fo und in the vessel strengt hen.. the theo ry tha r the:heads were to r javelinsand not for arrows."

., Th e bla de of no, 10 is bent ; if stra igh tened, the length of the piece would revert iro m itsc urrent g.5 em. to 10 em. The orher head (no. I I) i ~ bro ken ; irs preserved len gth (7 .5 cm .) canbe assu med to represent at leasr three-fourrhs of me o riginal.

"'.. I refe r to the fo ur he.ids in A"IIJ's KI.\Sse 2f (nos. 766- 69) : wh ich a vera ge I I em . inlen gth . O f the fourreen speci mens Avila ca ralogs as Pf('ll,pil~en ; 70 A-770 M and des cribe>as"nich r ndhc r bcsrimmbare Pferlspirzen der G runJ to rm :!. ." at leasr ten wou ld be reasonab lvide nti fied .IS javelin heads on the h:his ot borh size ,JnJ form. .

,... Avila, Lanzrn spuz en, no . 767 (p. 112).... ,. Ihid ., II!, unequivocally asvigns th i ~ type of head a Near F....astern origin: " Srielspirzen

de r Klasse .!f smd uicht gric(hi'ichen Ursprungs: rhr Hauprverh reiru ngsgeb ier liegr irn Vor­

dcren O rienr unJ erst reckt sh.:h von Anaroli en und Zypern his zum heut igen Gaza srrei fen."

C H A N C E.S 1N A R .\ \ 0 R AN 0 W P. A P0 N S 19 1

if it is co nceded that pr ior to the Ca tastrophe the easte rn kings depe ndedfor offense on thei r chariotries, one can imagine how much the javelin mayhave co nt ributed to the ra ider s' success . And on th is matter, as on so man yothers in a ncient militar y histo ry, imagi nation is our o nly reso urce, sincewe have no relief, painting. o r text that presents the raid ers throw ing

javelins at chariot horses.Offensive weap ons other tha n the javelin have been the subjects of spe­

cialized study, a nd so we may more briefly review the ir development at th eend of the Bron ze Age. Not sur p risingly, the spear ( ~ s pea r~ here representsa wea pon wielded with one hand , and " lance" repr esent s a weapon so largethat it was normally thrust with both ha nd s) in twelfth- cent ury representa ­tions is roughly what it had always been: a sharpe ned head att ached to asha ft approxima tely as lon g as its wield er is tall. b7 Th e ill corpore evide nceind icates one cha nge in the ma nufactu re of Aegean spea rs: the twelfth­century spea rheads had solid- ring sockets, whereas earlier sockets hadsplit rings. Th at d ifference resulted from a cha nge in the tech nology ofbronze working: ins tead of forging the spea rheads in sm ith ies, twelfth­cent ury bronzeworke rs cast them in fou ndri es. T he so lid-ring socket seemsto have had no military significance , altho ugh the development of fou n­dries does suggest that mass productio n of b ro nze artifac ts was suddenlyimportant in the Aegea n. In the elevent h an d tenth cent uries, iron spear­head s ap pea red alongside bronze, both in the Near Eas t and in the Aegea n,and th at cha nge too may have resulted in part from the need to producemore spearheads th an co uld be had from the limi ted supply of bronze.

O n the Warrio r Vase a spear is the o nly offensive weap on the warrio rscarry and so mus t have been used only for ,1 thrust. Hom er called the spea ran CliXll~ or a bOQu, and since uiXll'lT~£ was for him a virtua l synonym for" warrior" we mu st suppose th at in the Dark Age the Gree ks depend edpr imar ily up on the ir spears in combat. Before the Catastrophe, the spea rhad been less impo rtant. T he word bOQu does not a ppea r in the Linea r Btablets. Of course the Myc en aean s had spears, but the y seem to have had asingle word-enchos-for both the la nce a nd th e spear.r " It is possiblethat the wo rd &oQu was popularized by North-Gr eek spea kers who cameso ut h in the Iron Age (in chap ter 4 it was sugges ted that a ~(JlQlEUC; was,etymo logica lly, a " spearman"). 69 Hom eric warrio rs occasi ona lly carrytwo dourata, throwing o ne and thrusting the ot her, but wh ether that prac-

to:' For J d iscuss ion of thirt eenth- JnJ rwelfrh -cenru ry spea rs in G reece see HOl.:krflJnn ,"Lanzen unJ Spee re." For ind ividu al type..vee SooJ g.r :l. s~ , Earlv G rt'ek Arm nllr and Wt!up'm s.115- ] 9, and Avila, Lanzcnspitzcn . At pp. I ::!R-::!9 Avtla nores the popu larity of "J ie man­

nesl.mge Lmze" irom LH II th ro ugh lll'C.hlo;" Heckmann, "Lmzen unJ Speere. " 3.\4-.\5 .hQFor ;lgenr noun... tennm.rnn g in ..n l;sct'EJuJrJ Schwyze r. C n echiscbe Crammaue , \ '( )1.

I. (M unich, 1 ~39 l : -1 76- 77.

192 A M I L I T A R Y EXPL AS ATION

tice obtained in th e real wo rld we do not know.?" In Israel the spear seemsto have been the militiaman's prima ry weapon du rin g the period of "theJudges." What the ro le of the spea r was in twelfth -centu ry Asvyria isunknown, but in the ninth cent ury a n Assyr ian infant ryman carried eithera bow o r a single spear as his prima ry weapon.

It is und ou btedly safe to say tha t in the early Iron Age hand-to-handfighting througho ut the eastern Mediterranean was a contes t of thrustin gspea rs. Th is weapon was appropriate especia lly for infantrymen in closeo rder formatio ns, whethe r in Hom eric phalanges and stiches, in Do ricplrylai and phr atri es,"! o r in th e "tens, hundreds, and thousands" of theNea r East. A spea r not only had a much greater ran ge tha n a swo rd but wasless apt to injure comrades immediately to one's right and left.

In co nt rast to the spear, the lance seems to have become a rar ity afterthe Bronze Age, at least in G reece. T he lance- the enchos of both Hom era nd the Linear B tablets- must have been used especially fo r defense ofthe cha riot aga inst runners (as noted in chapter 10, it is so depicted o n aHitt ite stele)72 and in Greece may have lost its utility when the cha riotbecame a prest ige vehicle. How lon g these lances were is difficul t to say,since the head s (and they are enormo us), but not the shafts, have beenpreserved. At Iliad 6.3 1Hand 8.4 94 , however, the poet describes Hector'senchos as eleven ells (5 .08 meters) lon g. Philologists have noted th at inHom er the enchos is usually paired with the great shield, the sak os, andseems to reflect an older usage; the yo unger pair is the doru and theaspis.i ?

SWO RDS

We come fina lly to the sword, in wh ich the changes ca. 1200- th rou ghoutthe eastern M editerranea n- are nothing less tha n revolu tion ary. Both a r­chaeologists and typologists of weapons have noted th at it is at th is timethat a new type of sword , the Na ue Type II, arrived in the eastern Mediter­ran ean , and it has also been pointed o ut that th is is the first t rue slashing

" 0 O ne would su ppos e rhar a warr io r who wished to rhr ow a rnissile ar an o ppo nent , befo rehav ing (O engage him with .l th rustin g spe ar, woulJ brmg ro the ha tt ie rwo quire di fferen rweJ.pon~ . At £.trly C reek Arm ou r and V/a rfJ Tl', 1Jtl-37. Snodg ras s n o el'S th.rr a few gravesfrom (he." Da rk Age yie lded o ne l..lcge and o ne ("mJ.J1 ...pcarh ead••! I1J makes rhl' gO()J :,u~c:~tiul1

rhar rhe smaller head was h om a missile."71 S. R. l( )JJ~ "Citizenry Divisio ns in Ancient Greek Poleis : ~1 i lirJ ry Asp ects or T heir

Origin anJ Development " (Ph.D. di ssert arion, VanJerbilt University, Iq'lll, p resent s anJ rgunleO[ rhar pJry/'l ; begau J;S the primary division s-s-a nd ph r3t ries .is subdiv·is io ns- t ,f .1

rruliria , and rhar rhe milita ry orgaruzario n prefer red b)' rhc Dor ia ns WJ~ mp art ire," Canby. - Hirrire An ." I 14 .:"1 Fo r diKU~\IOn .1OJ h ,h liogr.lphy see HocklO.WII. "Lanzen und Speere. " J.!.9-3J .

.~,

.. .-:

C H A;o; C E S I ~ A 1\ .\ 1 0 It A N D 11.' E A I' U S ~ 193

sword th at the area knew. But the revolut io n in swo rds and swordsmanshipin the eastern Medi te rranea n actua lly goes deeper than th at. Although notliterally co rrect, there is mu ch to be sai d for Trevor Watkins's generaliza­tion th at the swo rd as such was fo reign to men of the eastern Med iterra­nean until " the Peopl es of the Sea " brou ght it forcefully to their atren­tion .?" Before 1200 B.C., wh at swor ds manship there was in the easternkingdoms was a mo nopo ly o f sk irmishers whom the kings had brought illfrom harb aria .

In a useful essay o n ancient swo rdsma nship Col. D. H. Go rdon provideda techni cal terminology th at ca n clarify discussion of the weapons of thethirteenth and twelfth ceutu ries.?" Stabbing weapo ns sho rte r than four­teen inches (35 cm.) are knives a nd daggers. A "s wo rd" between fourtee nand twenty inches long (35 to 50 cm.) is more co rrect ly called a dirk, a"s ho rt swo rd " fa lls between twenty and twent y-eight inches (50 to 70 cm.),and a long swo rd has a length of at least twent y-eight inches. Although in apinch a dirk o r even a dagger cou ld be used with a slashing (cun ing)mot ion , these weapon s were of co urse designed primarily fo r thrustin g.Proper swo rds could be serv icea b le for either function , and the shape of thehlade is the best indication of how one was in fact used. Blades that taperedconti nuo usly from hil t to tip were genera lly meant to be thrust. Cont rarily,a blade whose edges ran ro ughly pa ra llel- and that was at least an inch (26em.) wide-for most of its len gth was und ou btedly designed to keep fro mhendi ng even when bro ugh t dow n in a hard slash.?" Thus "a cut-and­thrust sword is o ne that ca n be used as effectively as its form permi ts bothfor cutt ing and thrusting. " 77'

Ca . 1200 B.C. there appea red in the eastern Med iterranean the thor­oughly efficient cur-and-th rust swo rd known to specialists as the Na ueType lI,7s o r the Grill::' zm genseh wert. Let us take a close look at it (seefigures 4a and d) to see wha t a truly "good sword was, and wh at it coulddo.?? Th e Na ue Type II was a long (most of them ca. 70 cm. from pommelto tip) bronze weapon. The blade's edges were virtually para llel for muchof its length , or even swelling very sligh tly to a maxim um at ap prox imatelytwent y centimeters fro m the tip, before taper ing to a sharp point (such ablad e is therefor e called " leaf-sha ped" ). Th e blade and hilt were cast as asingle piece of metal. Th e hilt was a lIat tang, a little over half as wide as the

:"4 'Wr;ltki n \~ " Be:Jtinnin&- or \'(.f.uf.:I rc~ " 25.7< D. H. Go rdo n, "Swo rds, Rap iers and Hor se-riders." Antiquity 27 (1953 ): 67-7R.

Ch IbiJ ., 70 .7; IbiJ ., 7 1.:"J( 'TIle (bs~ i fi(d t ion der ives [rom Julius Naue , D ie l'Om )nJischen Scbu-er ter JU S Kupfer,

Bron:e und f.js~n {M unich, 19(3 ),; .. Fo r a derailed rypo log ic.rl sru dv sec Carling, " Bro nze Cur-and-Th rust Swo rds in the­

Eastern Medir et r.m e.m," I'I'S 22 ( 1956): 102-25 .

194 A ,\ 1 I I I TAR i' F.X P l A NAT I ON

blade, from the edges of which curled four flanges. Hilt-pieces of bon e o rwood were seat ed within the flanges and attached th rou gh the tan g byrivets. With suc h <1 hilt the warrior could be confident that his blad e wouldnot be nd from the ran g, nor his hilt-pieces loosen , no ma tter how jarrin g aslas h he st ruck . Th e Na ue Type II could be used as <1 th rustin g weap on,since the extremity of the blad e was tap ered and on both sides two shallow"bloo d cha nnels" ran the ent ire length of the blad e. But o bvio usly th isswor d was designed pr imaril y for cutt ing (slashing). In swords whose pri ­mary design was for thrusting, the cente r of gravity was just below the hilt .O n the Naue Type II the center of grav ity was much farth er down the blad e(this was especi ally so for the leaf-shap ed blade). In a thru sting sword thatwo uld have been a serious drawback, but it added grea tly to the forc e an dvelocity of a slashin g swo rd. With suc h a slashing swo rd a warrior co uldcut off an opponent 's head , leg or arm, or cut him in two: so Diornedes(Iliad 5.144) severs Hy peirori's sho ulde r fro m his neck and back. Th e Na ueType II co uld also, of course, be used with a thrust, and a warr ior who hada lready severed an oppo nent's limb with a slash would thereup on pro ceedto run him thr ou gh with a thrust .

After its introduction ca. 1200, the Na ue Type II qui ckly est abli sheditself. By the eleventh century it was virtu ally the only sword in use in theAegean, and excavated specimens show that it was also the stand ard swordin th e Near East in the early Iron Age. The only imp rovement required inthe half-mill ennium that followed its int roduct ion was the subst itu tion ofiron for bronze, after ironwo rk ing had been develop ed to the degree thatiron co uld provide a sharper, stronger, and more durabl e blade. By ca. 900B.C. swords were regularl y made of iron , but the design remained that ofthe thirteenth-century bronze Griffzungenschwe rt.v' T he geogra phicaland temporal extent of this weapon's popularit y attests to its efficiency. lnthe Near East, the Aegean , and Euro pe from lraly and the Balkans to

Brita in and Scandinavia, the Naue Type II remained the standa rd swo rduntil a t least the sevent h centu ry,

Tod ay it is generally agreed that the Nau e Type II swor d had been in usein cent ral and no rthern Europ e well before it appeared in the easternM editer ranean. "! ln northeast Italy too, as Stefan Folt iny pointed out, it is

su O n Greece. (or the entire period 1200- 600. see Snodgrass . Fur l)' Greek Armou r an .i

WCu/, OIlS, 10 6: "It is rem.rrk.rhlc rh.ir the pe riod should be so thoroughly dom inated , frombeginn ing to end, by o ne typ e." Th e C riffzungenschwerr W.lS virruall y the:on ly ki nd of swo rdkn own in the Prorogeom erric period and remained sta ndard un til the seventh ce ntury, whenhoplirc tact ics nude J. sho rt "wo rd more servicea ble. See al so Snodg rass. Arm ,.; •.tn d Armour,30- .37,58, and 97.

H I Widely be lieved since the turn of rhe century, hu t J.r~ued exh .1tIsrively ;J nd , for the mos rp.rrr , co nv im:ingly) hy j. D. Co wen, " Einc Ein fi'thrung in d ie Ces, hit"hre dc r b ro nzenen(; ri rtl unge n...chwerrer in Siiddeursch land unJ Je Tang rcnzcnden C cb ieren." Bericht JeT Rij·mist h ( Jc'Tm .m iSLh l.'n Komm;'qlnn 36 { 1955 }: 52- n. Set.' ;.llso (:0 \\'\.'11.... "The Fla nge -Hil rt"J

C H .~ :-; , ; E S I '" A R .\I 0 R A:-; D WE A l' 0 :-; S 195

quite well represent ed at an early date . x ~ lr seems to have ori ginated in thearea from the eastern Alps to the Ca rpa thia ns : in Austria and Hunga ryspecimens belo nging to the subtype know n as Sprock hoff la have beenfound dat ing at least as ea rly as 1450.'" Like all northern swo rds, thesewere not forged in smithies (fo rging was an eas tern Mediterranea n art ) butcast in foundries, a technique rhar encouraged proliferat ion : with a 1I10lddoing most of his work for him , a founder was able to produce a finishedsword in a relatively sho rt time. From the eastern Alps and Carpathians useof the Naue Type II spread northward '1I1d westward over most of temper­ate Europe, and by the fourteenth century swords of this type were in usefrom the Rhone to Scandinavia (in fact, the Sprock hoff [a is att ested espe­cially in Denm ar kl.v' Quite rem arkabl y, however, nothing comparable wasat that tim e to be found in G reece and the Nea r East . By the thirteenthcentu ry, the Sprockhoff la had evolved into the fully mature Na ue Type II,the evolut ion again having taken place ent irely in bar bar ia.

For cont rast, let us now review the ar senal of the easte rn Mediterr aneankingdoms befo re the arri val of the Naue Type [I. There were "swo rds" inthese kin gdom s during all of the Late Bron ze Age, but acco rding to thestandards of a Rom an legion ar y they wo uld have left much to be dcsircd. t >On e Egypt ian weapo n that in reliefs may at first glance ap pear to be aslashin g sword was in fact a bronze rod and would have been more app ro­priate for a Roman lictor than for a legion ar y. With one of these weapons

Curr ing Swo rd of Bro nze: \XT..1S Ir First Developed in Cent ral Euro pe, o r in th e Aegean Area ?"Bericbt fiber den V. lntcrnationalen Kongress {iir \b r· lind fr iihgeschifhu (Berlin , 19'6 1}:107- 14. Carling. who in I~5 6 .irgued in LIV~ ) r of .J n Aegean o rigin, five yea rs later ag reed wi thCowe.i th at rhc evide nce po inted to tem pera te Europe: see Ca rling. ..A New Bron ze Swo rdfro m C yprus," A'lf iq uity .J5 ( 1% I ): 115- 22.. For the conclusions of Nancy S" nJ"", ex perton the weapons of bo th the eastern M editerra nean and temperate Europe, see her S~•.zPeo ples,9 1- 94.

J<! The lr.ilian specimens of the Na ue Type II were lar gely igno red u n n l as sem bled and

publi shed by Foltin y, "Fla nge-Hilred Cutt ing Swo rds of Bron ze in Cent ral Europe, No rrheasrlralv, a nd Gre ece," /IJA 68 ( 1964 ): 247-5R . Th e definiti ve cata log of prehi stor ic Ita lianswo rds i... now V. Bianco Peroni . Die Scbu.erter! Le Spude; thi s catalog doe s nor include Sicilyand Sardini a.

"' Co wen , " Fl.mge-Hilred Cutt ing Swor d ," 20 8- 09.R4 Ibid., 212, fig. 5.KS This hJ~ nor been sta red clea rly enough by ou r standa rd autho rities . In hi s chapter on

the We"p"'1S of the Nea r East d uri ng the Late Bronze Age. Yadin (Art ofW~rf" Tt', vol. I. 76 ­114} descr ibed very well what wa s the re hur did not call atte ntio n tv what W.J~ no t ; hetherefo re did nor mention the absence at the srraigh r slashing swo rd (o r its a rriva l at rhe end ofth e Bron ze Age). Rachel Ma xwe ll-H yslop, - Daggers and Swor ds ," provide d " full "t"log ofrhe wcap o ns from the Nea r EJ~ r bur d id nor place [hem in a la rger co ntext. Of rhe fifty-s ixrvpes III he r cata log, the overw helming ma jor ity (fifry-rwo o r fitrv-rhrcc of rht" fifr;.-··..ix) aredagg er... i)r dirk-,{wea po n" rhar Co l. Co rdon defined .1' d irk... are in Maxwcll-H yvlop 'v ram i­no logy <:irher J Jggers o r sho rr ...wo rds ;. In .Jddltl on to 'lype 3 4 (the Sickle swo rd Lon ly Types-HI. 49, .lnd 52 a re 'loworth • .lnJ lton eof these .Jppe.lr h('I~)r~ the i.lst dec;l JC"s ~ ) ( the Bro nle Ag.e.

196 A MILITARY EXPLANATION

(which Yadin describes as "a long metal scourge or a long baton")S6 awarrior neither cut nor stabbed his opponent but broke his bones and beathim to death. The rod was evidently more than a meter in length and had adiameter of two or three centirneters.F" Although a standard weapon ofnative Egyptian infantrymen, it apparently found no favor elsewhere in theeastern Mediterranean. The Egyptian infantryman used the rod with asmiting or clubbing motion, beating his opponent while protecting himselfwith an oblong shield held in his left hand. The motion required in wield­ing the rod was therefore somewhat similar to that required with theslashing sword. But whereas the slashing sword could cut an opponent inhalf, the rod could only knock him to the ground.

Before the arrival of the Naue Type II sword, the only slashing weaponused by men of the eastern kingdoms was the "sickle sword" (see figure 3a),found all over the Near East but not in the Aegean.s" This "sword," whichbears some resemblance to an American farmer's corn knife, evolved froman axel ike weapon of the Middle Bronze Age whose edge seldom exceeded25 centimeters in length. In the Late Bronze Age the sickle sword sparred asomewhat longer edge but still provided a slash within a very narrowrange. The entire weapon was seldom more than half a meter long, with thehandle accounting for almost half of that length. One must imagine itslicing into an opponent's flesh rather than breaking or cleaving his bones.Although it undoubtedly served very well for cutting off an opponent'spenis or hand during the collection of trophies, it was evidently too small tocut off his limbs while the battle still raged. Nor did the sickle sword havemuch else to recommend ·it. Because of its shape it could not be used at allas a thrusting weapon, nor could it be sheathed: a soldier carrying it wouldnever have both hands free. Despite its ubiquity ftom Hartusas to Egypt, itwas not an impressive weapon.

Thrusting, or stabbing, weapons of the Late Bronze Age come closer toour notion of what an ancient sword "should" have been. In many of theeastern Mediterranean kingdoms a warrior might wear a dagger, dirk,short sword, or occasionally even a long rapier in a scabbard, as a personalweapon or a weapon of last resort. The in corpore finds indicate thatdaggers, dirks, and a very few shott stabbing swords were the only sword­like weapons in use in thirteenth-century Creecc.s? Sir Arthur Evansthought that the Linear B tablets from Knossos inventoried Naue Type IIswords, but that idea has long been abandoned, and Boardman suggests

'6 Art of Warfare. vol. 2. 249.87 According to Wolf. Bewaffnung. 79. the single specimen preserved intact measures 1.26

meters."' On the sickle sword see Ibid.• 66-68; Maxwell-Hyslop, "Daggers and Swords." 41­

44; and Yrdin, Art ofWarfare. vol. 1.206-7. and. vol. 2.475.'~ Sandars, "LIter Aegean Bronze Swords." !30.

CHANGES IN ARMOR AND WEAPONS 197

bc

FIGURE 3. Eastern Mediterranean swords of the Late Bronze Agea. Sickle sword from tomb of Tutankhamunb. LH II rapier from Plovdiv, Bulgariac. Anatolian rapier found near Boghazkoy (ca. 1400 B.C.)

1911 A ~1 1 L IT .\ RYE X P L .\ KA T I (l ~

th at th e ph usgana (pa-k,1-I1J) we re in fact daggers." In the Pylos " Bart leScene " fresco , whi le o nc of the palace's men thru sts his spear into a savage,two other Pylian s att ack wit h da ggers o r sho rt dirks .

A mu ch longer thru stin g weap on (see figure 3 b) W3Sevident ly ca rr ied forse lf-defense by early Mycenaean cha rioteers. In the sixteenth an d fifteenthcenturies B_C. many rapi ers (so me over 3 meter in length ) were elegantlymade, bur the cost ly hilt ing W3Sso precariou s that it is doubtful t hey weremeant for serio us fight ing.4 1 From the LH Ili A a nd IIIB peti od s in corpo rerapiers have nor been found in G reece , bur vases continu e to portray ch ar­ioteers car rying such weap om in ta sseled sca bba rds sus pended fro m theshoulder. For t he Near East we have less evidence for th e lo ng rapi er inthe Lat e Bronze Age.92 A fine specimen, however, was found in 1991 bytoad work ers near Boghazkoy.91 Measur ing 79 centimeters in length, theBoghazkoy rapier (sec figure 3c ) has a na rrow blad e th at rap ers shar plyfrom 7.5 centi meters at the hilt to 3 centi meters at a quarter's length a nd 2centi meters at the midpo int . An Akkad ian inscription proclai ms that KingTudhaliyas (Tudhaliyas II, ca . 1400 B.C. ) dedi cat ed " these swor ds " to theSto rm God afte r conque ring the land of Assuwa (pro bably " Asia, " inwestern Asia Min or ). Th e dedication suggests th at these rapiers roo werecos tly pieces as well as usefu l weap ons .

T he tt ad irional weapons of th e east ern Mediterranean kingdoms co nt in­ued in use until the twelfth centu ry. A relief of Ra rnesses ili on the northwall at Med inet H abu shows twenty native Egyptia ns, a ll ha nd-to-handwa rrio rs, guard ing a line of captives. Each Egyptian ca rries a spear in histight ha nd and ano the r weapon in his left . Of the weapon s in the left hand ,six ar c d irk s, six a re rod s, and seven ate sickle swords ."! Nor on e of th eEgypt ian in fa ntr ymen carries a lo ng sword.

A few men did use a long sword in Lare Bronze Age battles in the easte rnMediter ran ean, but th ese were shardana sk irmishe rs in th e Egypti an cha t­io r corps. Many of the shardana ca rried (often in a scabbard across the

»n John Boa rd man, The Date ol the Knossos Tablet s (O xfo rd , 1% 3 j: 78-X O.'1'1 Sa ndars, " Later Aegean Bronze Swo rds." 117; Sand ers argues persuas ively (127 - 29)

that even in th e lata fifteen th cen tury, by w hich time the hi Iring pro ble ms had been ove rco me,the elaborate thru sti ng swo rds from the Warrit)f GrJ....es J [ Knosso s were essentially status

sym bo ls .• , Und er her Type 4 H, Ma xwell-Hyslo p (" O.lggers JnJ Swo rds" 54 -55 ) inc lud ed on ly

rwo enrr ies J arillg from be fore 1200 . both [rom As!;) t\. fiI10T.'1.1 I th an k Richa rd BeJ I for call ing to my att ention th e p relim inary p ub licatio n by Ahmet

Un31et a l., "The Hittite Swor d fro m BogJ zk';y-Hattu , a, n .\fiize (M usell m) 4 ( 1990- 9 1): 50 ­52 . Th e ...-ommentarv on the sword mivle.ids on ly in su ring (p. 52) rhur "'a... d cur-and-thrustweap on the sword is evidently imp ortant as the basic weapo n of the Hittite a rmy." TheBogha zkov swo rd has roo narrow .1 hbJe to ha ve served J S J cut-and- thrust weapon ; andthere is no eY' i J en ("c:': for It",USC.' in the H itti tt: J rm y.

"'-I Y3. Ji n. Art of \V,JT!J,t? \"0 1. 2. 252 - 5.3; SanJ Jrs, St'lJ j1cople.s. 1:: 7, fig. ~O .

C H A N G E S 1:-; A R ~t 0 It .\:.J D W E A r o N S 199

brea st ) a dir k or sho rt thrustin g swo rd . Th e Ahydo s reliefs (see pla te 5 )sho w wa rrio rs wi th horned helmets, quite certa inly Sard inians, serv ing asbod yguard s fnr Ram esscs the Great befor e the Batt le of Kadcsh in 1275,and each of them ho lds a di rk o r sho rt sword in his hand.:" Another reliefof Rarucss es the Great, however, this on e dep ict ing the sto rming of .i city inSyri a, depi cts shardana br andishing long swords.?> In the followin g cen ­tury, some of Ram esses Ill 's barbar ian skirmishers (see plates 6 and 10) a relikewise arm ed wit h the lo ng swor d, some of them almos t a meter inlen gth . The Egyptian reliefs suggcst th at these long swords of the skir­mish ers were rap iers rather than slashing swor ds. Th e art ists portray anoccasional skirmisher running his sword through an oppo nent, but nosk irmisher slashing off an o ppo nent's head or a rm. Although it is poss ib lethat the reliefs a rc misleading and that the long swords of the skirmisherswere indeed used for cu tt ing JS well as for th rusting, it is safer to supposethat the sbardana nor mally used their wcapons-i-whcthcr dirks o r lon gswords-with a thr ust. Th ere is no ind ependent evidence o n Sard inianlon g swo rds of the seco nd millennium, a ltho ugh a series of statue-menhi tsfrom Corsica indi cat es tha t the long swo rds then in use on the latt er islandwere cur-a nd-thrust swo rds rather tha n rapi ers."?

A preserved lon g sword with a conti nuou s tape r was found at Bet Dagin,neat G3Z3, in 1910, and is now in the Brit ish Mu seum. Altho ugh originallythought to be a great spearhead, it was identified as "a bro ad sword," an dmore particula rly as "a Philisti ne swo rd of 'Sh ardanu' type" by H. R.Ha ll."X Subseque ntly jt has come to be called simply "the Sha rda naswo rd," and on the basis of th is association has co nventiona lly been datedto ca . 1200 or the early tw elfth cenrury, Th at darin g, however, is apparentlyincorrect. A spo kesman for the Brit ish Mu seum not ifies me th at "recentana lytica l work undertaken on thi s piece ha s demonstr ated that it is in factto be dar ed to the thi rd millenniu m Be."99 We therefor e have no ill corporespecimen of the kind of sword tha t Egyptian att ists portray in the han ds ofSardi nian skirmishers in th e th irteent h century.

Th ere is one representat ion of J native Egyptian wielding a lon g sword inthe Late Bronz e Age, and it dat es to the eve of the Ca tastrophe. A relief atKa rn ak , depictin g th e siege of Ashkelon , shows an Egyptian so ld ier (in

'H Sanda rv, ihid ., fi ~ . 66 .'J, IbIJ ., fig. 12.

" Trump, Prehisto ry of tl»: Med Iterranea n , 20 1, 2 19, 3nJ fig. 45." H'III, Aegeun A rchaco loey (London, 19 15 ): 24 7ll .1. M axw ell -H yslop, " Duggcrs JnJ

Swo rds," 59. lisrs rhc G.lL:.I sword .I S the first ex.unple of her Type 52. for a good illusrranon ofrhe swo rd sec Y;JJiH. Ar t of \VurfJ rc. \ '01. 2, 34 4. O n ;m .llo gy with the- EgYPoJn reliefs,

:-'h, well-Hyvlop J Jte J the Gal> ,,'",,<! to 1200- 1150 ...... Per...o n al (orre:lopon Jen( t; : 10 J uly 92) (ro m ~1 r. Jon.lth:lll 'N. lilhb. in th~ Bn ti')h .\ t ll ·

St:lIm \ rk p.lrtm t.·nt o f \'(;e:",rero AsiJric..: Antiqui tle ... .

200 A ~I I l. I TAR Y EX P L A !'JA T I 0 ~

PLATE 10 . Bartl e of Rame sses !II agai nst Libyan s. Line drawing of rel ief fromMedinet H abu

tradition al Egypti an headdress, he is apparently a profession al infant ry­man but not of barba rian extraction) climbing a lad der, and he is armedwith a long swo rd, broad at the base and tap erin g st raight to the point.J?"Since it flanks the text of Rarnesses II's pea ce treaty with me Hitt ites, th erelief has regularly been assigned to Rarncsses II. Tha t attribution wouldsuggest that as ea rly as ca. 1270 the use of lon g swo rds had been exte ndedfro m the barb ar ian auxili ari es to professional infantrymen of the nativeEgyp tian population. Now, however. it appears th at the convent ion al datefor this relief is too high . As was noted in chapter 2, Frank Ym ca 's inspec­tion of the monument revealed that the Karnak relief was cut not forRarne sses II but for his so n, Mern eprah , wh ose sto rmi ng of Ash kelon isrecor ded on his famou s " Israel Stele." W I That Mern ept ah did make an

'"'' Yadin. Art of Warf,}" . vel. I. 228.")\ See p. 20 .

C HA N G E SIN AR M 0 RAN Il W E A rON 5 20 1

effort to secu re lon g swo rds for his hand-to-h and fighters is a lso indicated ,we shall see, by the "Mcrnept ah swo rd " discovered at Ugarir.

A lon g swo rd, evident ly once again ' I rapier rath er th an a slashing swo rd ,was the weapon upon whi ch many of the aggressors in the Catastropherelied in their hand-to-h and fighting. In the Mediner H abu relief (s.:e plat e6) of the land battl e in 1179 most of the Philistine warr iors are show n withdirk s or sho rr thrustin g swo rds. Th e relief of the naval battle , however ,shows the aggre ssor s with lon g swo rds. Although in this relief the Phi­listin e and Shek elesh oppo nent s ar e in utter disarray, many still haveweap on s in their right hands. One has a spear whil e, acco rding to mycount , seventeen have lon g swo rds. T hese are huge weapon s. The blad e,wh ich tapers conrinously, is considera bly wider at th e base th an the handthat clenches the hilt . The hilt and blad e togeth er are longer than a man'sarm. Similarly, when th e Libyans attacked Rarnesses III in 1182 and 1176th ey dep end ed on th e long swo rd. Another Medinet H abu relief (see plat e10) shows a few Libyan s using the how, while the ma jority are armed withlon g swo rds- longer in fact than those shown in the rel ief of th e sea batt leagainst the Philistine s. 102

As in the last yea rs of the Catast rophe, so in its first yea rs the hand-to ­hand weap on preferred by the aggressor s was evidentl y th e sword. Whenth e Libyans attacked Mer neptah in 1208, that kin g reponed seizing asbooty only twelve cha riots but 9111 swords.!"! Since that figure almostmatches the number (9724) of peni ses and hands that Mern eptah's mengathered as trophies, we must suppose that for the overwhelm ing majori tyof the Libyan king 's warrior s (whether coming from Libya o r from one of" the northern land s" ) the sword was the prin cip al wea pon.

It was apparentl y to trump the raiders' thrustin g swords th at some menin the easte rn Medit err an ean began , ca. 1200, to acquire cut -and-thrustswo rds, and ab ove all the superb Na ue Type II. A fair num ber of later ironspecimens of the Nau e Type II have been found in th e Near East,"!' butvery few in bronze (it must of course be sa id th at becau se few to mb dep ositsfrom the period have been found, few twelfth -century swo rds of 3ny kindhave been found in the Near East ). Carling counted five in Cyp rus (to th isrelatively high figure from Cyprus mu st be added four more, found at

'02 I'or drawing 01 pa rt " I rhe reid see 'radin. Art ofW."jar". vol. 1, 334-35. In rhe reliefthe art ists depi Ll seventee n long swo rds In a boory pile. Jn J others in the hands uf Libyan orMesh wesh warriors . For a sketch 0f rhe swo rds in the pile see l .o rna G . Haywa rd. "lot:' O rigin01Raw Elepha nt Ivory in Late Bronz e Age Greece and the Aegean, " Antiquit y 64 (1990): 106,fig. I.

l h ' Breasted , AR , vel. J, no. 589.10 4 Carling. "Bronze Cur-and-Thrust Sword s," Ii i . notes that at Ham a ""J subvranrial

number of Naue JIswo rds was found wirh rhe cremations of which the major ity is of iron. "None of these iron swords is earlie r than ca . 1100.

202 A :-'1 1 l i T A R Y E X P l A ~ ,~ T 10 K C H A N G E S I N A R MO R A:-':D WE ,~P O!' S 203

3 b

1

c d

Enkom i in 1967), 105 but only eight in th e rest of the Near Easr. !'> Of theseeight, four are undated and three date from the period 1100- 900. Th eeighth, and ea rliest, is said to have been found in the Egyptian Delta andbears the ca rtouche of Seti 1I. l ll7111 e six-yea r reign of thi s pha raoh is dated1202- 1196 on the low chro no logy.

From th e Greek world, on the ot her hand, the number of in corpo reNaue Type II swo rds is impressive. As Sno dgrass has shown, in the Pro to ­geo metric pe riod the Na ue Type II was the only kind of swo rd used in theAegean. lOS T he Pro togeometric and Geome tric specimens, how ever, we reof iron . Th e bronze specime ns are ea rlier and fewer in nu mber, but thenum ber is nevertheless ext rao rd ina ry when we remember that fro m th etw o hundred year s pr ior to the a rriva l of the Naue Type II virt ua lly noAegean lon g swo rds have been fou nd. In his 1968 survey Ca rling countedtwenty-seven bro nze N aue Type II sword s in Greece and the islands of theAegea n (includ ing Crete)."!" Subseq uen tly an o ther specime n, very wellpreserved , was found in an LH IlfC Arcad ia n tom b, and still ano ther in a nLM IIIC tom b in the Nort h Ce mete ry at Knossos.U " To these twe nty-ninewe may also add the nine found in Cy pru s, fo r a qu ite rem arka ble to tal o fthi rty-eigh t fro m what can vaguely be ca lled the "Greek wo rld ." Perha ps itis not su rprising that sc ho la rs ea rly in th is cent ur y referred to the Na ue

II!1\\

It!

F IGURE 4 . Cut-and-thrust swords from the period of the Catastrophea. Naue Type II from Aranyos, Hungaryb. " Merncprah Sword" from Ugarirc. Sword from " 13 maison du Grand-pretre d'Uga rit "d. Naue Type II from Mycenae

10 .) J. Laga rce, " Q uaere epees de bro nze p rovenanr d'une cacherre d'arrnu rier J. Enk o rni­Al.isia (C hypre)," UgJ'; t;C,' VI (paris, 196 9): .149- 68. T he four wer e fou nd , a lo ng w ith th ehea d of a javelin, ill a pit d epo sit dari ng fro m the ea rl y twelfth centu ry. In C arling, "B ro nzeC ur-and -Thrust Swo rds ," nos. 16 through 19 co me from Cypru s, 20 th rou gh 26 from the res fof the N ear East. Carling's lat er su rvey, " LJ,(e Mi noa n V;}S~S and Bronzes 111 O xford. " ARSA63 (196 8) : 101 - (H , inclu des o ne addi tio n fro m Cyp rus an d anot her from the Levan t.

to.. In Car ling, "Bronz e Cu r-and -Th rust Swo rds," nos. 16- 19 come from C yp rus, 2.0- 2.6from the rest of the Nea r East. C arling's la ter su rvey... Lat e M ino an 'vases ::I nJ Bronzes inOxford," A HSA 6} (196 8): 10 1- 4, includes one addi tio n fro m C yprus and another from theLevan t.

I '" Carlmg, "Bronze Cur-and -Th rust Swords," 116 . Cf. Wolf , B<!!vaffnllng , 103. Evide ntlyth is Naue Typ e Il was so mew hat sho rter th an mo st of the Aegean specimens, since its o rigin al1e000'th (bo th the h ilr .ind the tip of the b lade are missi ng) is estirnured a t La . lil) em.

I Hll Arm s and Armour, 37; d . Early Greek Armour and Weapofls, 106 .10· At p. 103 of " Late M inoan Vases," Carling ', chart shows fifty b ro nze Naue Type II

swo rd s. Of these. ten come from " north G reece" [lllyria, Epirus, and Macedonia ), an d fo rryfrom " rest of Greek wo rld:" However , as his cat ego ries o n p. 102 indicate , the ru b ric "res t ofG reek world " includes not o n ly C yp ru s hu t ..Iso Egyp t and the Levant. If we exclude histhir teen Cy p riote and Near Eastern specimens ( il S well .IS the ten from "n o rth Greece " ), wenarrow his list to 27 specimens from the Aegean. Note that to his Cypriote speciin ens mu st bead ded the four fou nd at Enk o mi in I % 7: Jacques l.ag arce , " Q uaere epe es," .349 ff,

t t ·) On the Arcad ian swo rd see K. De m ak op o ulo u , Arcbaiologika Analekta Athenon( 1 ~ /i9 ): 22611. ; see a lso H .-G . Buchho lz. "S ch lussbernerk unge n," \0 H .·G . Buchh ol z, ed .,AgJi sdft! Broni cirit , 501- ] , .md .ibb . 123. For the Knosvos swo rd sec C.1(li n~, " Knossc v.1'i 7R ," AR ( 1978 - 7'1): 4/i.

204 A MIt I TAR Y EX P LAN A T ION

Type II as the" Mycenaean sword. n But of course the Mycenaeans wererelatively late in adopting it, and it is much better attested to the north andthe west. Over 100 bronze swords of this type are known from Italy (themajority from the Po Valley), and over 130 from Yugoslavia. I II

What is most noteworthy for the present argument is the suddennesswith which the Naue Type II established itself in the Aegean. Of the morethan thirty bronze swords in the Greek world a few are late, dating fromafter 1100. All the others "belong exclusively to the late thirteenth andtwelfth centuries B.C. n 112 Carling's first survey concluded that the earliestswords which come from reliably dateable contexts "can be put with someconfidence at c. 1200 B.C." 113 Sanders's conclusion was the same: theappearance of the Naue Type II in the Aegean can be dated "at the end ofthe thirteenth century (probably very little if at all before 1200)." 114 Thesedates, calculated on the basis of the middle chronology for the Egyptiankings, can on our low chronology be brought down to the first decades ofthe twelfth century. They therefore arrive in the Aegean during the darkestyears of the Catastrophe.

Let US state this baldly and succinctly: for the thirteenth century we haveno long swords at all from the Greek world, whereas for the twelfth wehave at least thirty of a single type. The archaeological evidence indicates asclearly as one could ask that ca. 1200 warfare in the Greek world changeddrastically. The sword, and the ability to use it, had suddenly becomeimmensely important in the Aegean and in Cyprus. That a similar revolu­tion occurred in Egypt and the rest of the Near East is not so clear, sincelittle has there been learned from tombs in this period. We have alreadynoticed, however, the Naue Type II sword with the cartouche of Scti II.Andas will be shown below, the French excavations at Ugarit have produced fivemore long swords-none of them quite Naue Type II, but all designed forboth cutting and thrusting-that were made shortly before Ugarir's de­struction. These specimens suggest very strongly that between the acces­sion of Merneptah and 1185 the sword had become a weapon of para­mount importance in the Near East also.

Since most of the Naue Type II swords from the Aegean were found in"Greek n tombs it is likely that "Greeks n had acqu ired them. That theswords were made in Greece is less likely, and at any rate they owed muchto non-Greek swordsmiths. Harding has pointed out the striking sim­ilarities between the earliest Aegean swords of this type and those from

III Cf. Harding, Mycenaeans and Europe, 163; for the Italian swords set': Bianco Peroni,SchwerterlSpdde, nos. 89-189 (nos. 194-271 dare from the firsr millennium).

III Carling, "Late Minoan Vases," 101.II.; "Bronze Cur-and-Thrusr Swords." 106.

114 "Larer Aegean Bronze Swords," 142.

C H A ~ C E 5 INA R M 0 RAN D WE A P () N 5 205

notthern Italy, and he concluded that "Italy seems to have played an impor­tant parr in the production and diffusion of the Greek weapons." 115

Nevertheless, hronzesmiths of the eastern Mediterranean can also beseen at work in the weaponry revolution. The five swords from Ugarit,along with several made in Greece, show that at the end of the thirteenthand beginning of the twelfth century eastern smiths suddenly foundthcmelvcs obliged to begin producing a weapon with which they were notvery familiar. For their models they certainly turned to the Naue Type II,perhaps-as Harding's analysis suggests-especially the specimensbrought from northern Italy. The results did not quite match the Naue TypeII, but in themselves they are eloquent testimony to the urgency of thedemands placed upon the swordsmiths.

Exhibit A on this matter is the so-called Merneptah sword (see figure4b), which Schaeffer found at Ugarit in 1953. The sword and several otherbronze objects, along with a clay figurine of a goddess, were found "buriedin a corner of the inner court" of a house to the east of the royal palace.U>The sword was "in mint condition, n with its edges unsharpened. Schaefferspeculated that perhaps Merneptah "had ordered from Ugarir swords ofthis type, marked with his cartouche, to arm the auxiliary troops. n 117 TheMerneptah sword was almost certainly meant to serve not only for thrust­ing but also for slashing. As such, it may be the earliest preserved NearEastern sword intended for slashing. Measuring 74 centimeters, and with awide blade (5 em. at the hilt and 4 cm. at midpoint) whose edges are almostparallel for most of its length, the Merneptah sword has been likened to theNaue Type II. Its hilting, however, consisted of a very long and slender tang,so wispy in fact that it is bent vertically and horizor.tally."!" The bending ofthe tang probably occurred during or soon after the sword's manufactureand may well be the reason why the sword's blades were never sharpened.Although In) good as a weapon, it was a handsome artifact, especially since

115 Harding, Mycenac<.1lls and Europe, 165; for the distribution of rhe Italian specimenssee Bianco Peroni, ScbioertertSpade, tables 69 and 70A.

116 Schaeffer, "A Bronze Sword from Ugarit with Carrouche of Minepruh (Ras Shamra,Syria)," Antiquity 29 (1955): 226-29; for essentially the same presentation, with a fewadditions, see Schaeffer's report in Ugaritica III (Mission de Ras Shamra, vol. 8. Paris, 1956):169-77.

117 Schaeffer, "A Bronze Sword," 227. 0. 3150 p. 226: "The sword is not of a n Egyptianrype. It is known that these big swords did not form part of the armament of Egyptian soldierstill rhe 13th century when Rarnses II and especially his thirteenth son and successor, Mineprah, began enlisting quire important bands of foreign mercenaries. '"

118 Schaeffer gives the length of the tang as 15 crn.. bur does nor indicate Its width. Thewidth of the blade ar the hilt end is 5 cm., and the phorographs suggest thar the widrh of thetang is less than a centimeter. The extent of the:bending is clear from the photographs anddrawings and does not resemble the deliberate bend m "killed" swords ceremoniallydeposited.

206 A MILITARY EXPLANATION

it bore a royal Egyptian cartouche, I assume that because it was one of hismost treasured possessions the householder buried it in his courtyardalong with the idol and the other bronze objects, in expectations of recover­ing the hoard after the danger had passed. At any rate, the Merneptahsword has aspirations to be a Griffzungenschwert bur has nothing like theGriffzung of the Naue Type II.

In the Aegean too we find that early in the twelfth century the firstattempts were made to produce a slashing sword. From the very end of theLH IlIB and from the mc period come four of Sandars's Class F and Gweapons that were intended as slashing, or cut-and-thrust, swords. Theseare clumsy specimens and show only that ca. 1200 a few Greek sword­smiths began trying to forge a new kind of weapon. A twelfth-centuryClass G sword from Perati, in Attica, is reminiscent of a butcher's cleaver:"the blade is unique, being truly leaf-shaped with the greatest width in itslower third. "119Two Class F specimens (one complete, the other fragmen­tary), found at Mouliana in Crete and dating to the twelfth century, are alsoslashing swords. A fourth slashing sword, dating from ca. 1200 and com­ing from Mycenae, is 62 centimeters long bur is also badly designed.Sandars observes that it is "most unwieldy and eccentric, more so than thePerati sword, and may be grouped with it and with the Mouliana F swordas examples of inexpert experimentation." l20

How eastern Mediterranean smiths worked to produce slashing swordsduring the Catastrophe is most vividly illustrated by a group of four suchswords found at Ugarit in 1929 (although not finally published until 1956,by which time, unfortunately, the man who dug them up-GeorgesChenet-had died).121 The four are superior to the "Merneptah sword"from the same city, since their tangs are suitably broad and strong (seefigure 4c). Because their tangs are not flanged, the Ugarit swords are nottrue Griffzungenschwerter, bur in other respects theyare on a par with theNaue Type II. In length they range from 63 to 73 centimeters. Their tangsare flat but extend through to a pommel spike, and are all more than 2centimeters wide (that is, two or three times the width of the Merneptahsword). The blades have parallel edges for most of their length, ending in ataper. The four blades vary considerably in width: measured at the mid­point, they are respectively 2.5, 3, 3.3, and 4 centimeters wide. There is nodoubt that these are cut-and-thrust swords.I '?

119 Sandars, "Later Aegean Bronze Swords," 139.WI lbid., 140.III These swords are described by Schaeffer in Ugaritica /II, 256-59. For their initial

announcement, see Schaeffer, "Lcs fouilles de Minet-el-Berda er de Ras Sharnra (campagne duprinrernps 1929)," Svria to (1929): 295 and plate LX, fig. 3.

IE Cf. Carling, "Bronze Cut-and-Thrust Swords," 121; Snodgrass, Early Greek Armourand Weapons, 207.

C HAN (; E SIN ARM 0 RAN D W E A PO N S 207

They were never used, however. Cast rather than forged, they are freshfrom their molds and are unfinished in that their points and blades werenever sharpened, and their tangs are without rivet holes. They are part of acollection of seventy-four bronze objects found underneath "Ia maison duGrand-pretre dUgarit." Specifically, the excavators found the deposit in ahollow directly beneath the spot once occupied by the threshold of aninterior doorway (by 1929 the threshold itself had disappeared, perhapsbecause it was made of wood). 123

The swords are usually dated to the fourteenth century. That was ClaudeSchaeffer's interpretation, based on the sherds found in the fill into whichthe pit was dug.J-:' Schaeffer's assumption was that the bronze objects werea foundation deposit, dedicated when the high-priest's house was built.There is, however, a much better possibility: the objects constitute a hoardburied during the final emergency of Ugarit, ca. 1185, in hopes that afterthe attackers were gone the objects could be retrieved from their hidingplace.

The fourteenth-century sherds in the surrounding fill can be dismissed asa criterion for dating the deposit, since on any reconstruction the pit musthave been dug into a preexisting stratum. The question is, When was the pitdug? Schaeffer proposed that it was dug at the time of the house's construc­tion, for a foundation deposit, but this is unlikely. Although foundationdeposits under thresholds are known, they tend to contain a sacrificialvictim along with a few vases and figurines (a "lamp and bowl" combina­tion was common in the Late Bronze Age).125 That seventy-four bronzeartifacts were buried as a foundation deposit defies belief. In 1929 theubiquity of hoards at Ugarit was not yet recognized; but in the course of hisforty years at the site Schaeffer himself was to find that almost all of thebronze articles discovered there had been squirreled away by the occupantsin wall cavities or in hollows under the tloors.i-e

A typological argument puts the hoard at least a century later than thedate proposed by Schaeffer. Among the seventy-four artifacts is a tripodwith pomegranate pendants. Carling noted that the tripod correspondsclosely to many such specimens found on Cyprus, all in contexts dateableto the period after 1250. Himself an expert on Cypriote bronzework of theperiod, Carling concluded that the Ugarit tripod represents an advanced

11.l Schaeffer, Ugaritica III, 253.124 Lagarce , "Quarre epees," 364n.17, reveals that in private conversation Schaeffer even­

tually conceded that his original dare was J. bit too early, and that the foundation deposit mayhave been made .... au debut du xiii'' siecie."

125 Some thirty-five of these are characterized by Shlomo Bunirrtovirz and Ornn Zimhoni,"'L3mp and Bowl' Foundation Deposits from the End of the Late Bronze Age-Beginning ofthe Iron Age in Ererz-Israel," Fret; Israel 21 (1990); J02.

Ill> Schaeffer, "Commenr.nres," 76.3: "rres nombreuses cachetres d'objets precieux eta­blies par des par ticuiier s dms des murs au sous les planchers de leurs hcbitanons."

208 A ,\ 11L IT A RYE X P LA N A T 10 :-;

stage of the type and could hardly have been made much earlier than theend of the thirteenth cenru ry.t -'?

Finally, the swor ds themselves argue for a date during the Catas trophe.All four are excellent pieces. From all of the Near East the onl y knownsword that marches these is the Na ue Type II, bearing the carrouch e of SeriII a nd so dating no earlier th an 1202 . Eno ugh is now known about swordsat Ugarit, and throughout the eastern Medit err anean , for us to sta te cate­gorically that in the fourteenth century swords rniths at Ugarit were not yetcasting cut- and-thrust swords of any kind , much less swords so typolog­ically advanced as these. We may conclude that the four Ugarit swords, likethe four recentl y found at Enkorni, were hoarded in the earl y twelfthcentury "d ans I'espoir d 'un retou r prochein . n I ! S

It was the misdating of the four Ugarit swords that for a long timeo bscured how deficient Late Bron ze Age swords in the eastern Mediterr a­nean were in comparison with those of temp erate Europe. Until Carlingob jected, scholars interested in ancient weapon ry accepted Schaeffer's in­terpretati on as fact. To Lorimer the four swords demonstrated the presencein fourteenth -century Ugarit of Mycenaean immigrants, some of whomhad evidently set up a sword factory. I ! " For V. Gordon Childe , C. F.C.Hawk es, Col. Gordon, and oth ers, the Ugarir swords suggested that cut­and-thru st swords were pioneered in the eastern Mediterranean and not intemperate Europe. U" Even Snodgrass, who found Carling's argumenttempting, still presented the four swo rds as evidence for "a parallel andcontemporary evolution " of cut-and -thrust swo rds in the eastern Medit er­ranean and in cen tral Europe . 13 I

Once the hoard swords from Ugarit ::: re co rrectly dat ed, it is plain to seethat changes in eastern Mediterranean swo rds at the end of the Bronze Agewere revolutiona ry rather than evolutionary. The first Naue Type II speci­mens (in Greece, Cyprus, and Egypt) appea r almos t simultaneously ca .1200, and a variety of local experiment s atte mpted to produce a slashingsword of similar efficiency. Some of the experiments resulted in un usableswords, but by ca. 1185 swordsmirhs at Ugarit had all but perfected theirproduct. Unfort unately for Ugarit, the time for producing th ese swor ds,and for tr aining men to wield them, had run out.

117 Carling, " Bronze Cu t-and-Th rust Swords ," 12 1: "T he Ras Sharura sta nd is rypo log ­ical ly very advanced in the series an d . in isola rio n, would almos t c.:crr,a inly be dared a goo ddeal larer than 1250."• I!H Laga rce, " Q u.it re epees," 36 7-68.

11 .,. Lorimer. Hom er and the A1mruments . 2 1 and JJ.1\,) C hilde, "Th e Final Bronz e Age in rhc Nea r East and Tempe rate Euro pe," PPS 14

( J94 8): 18.,1f.; Ha wkes, "From Bron ze Al(e 10 Iron Age: Middle Euro pe, Italy, and the No rrhand W~t, " ibid.. t 9Stt.; JmJGo rdon, " Swords, Rapier s and Ho rse-Rid ers," 72 .

I H J:..uly Greek Armuur .md \Ve..zpon .s. 207.

Chapter Fourteen

THE END OF CHARIOT WARFARE

IN THE CATAST RO PHE

CHAPT ERS 10-12 present ed an argument that warfare in the LateBronze Age was very different from what it was in the early IronAge (o r, for that matter, in an y other period of antiqui ty). Before

the Catastro phe, a king might send infantrymen aga inst barbarians in thehills; but combat between two kingd oms was chariot warfare, in which theo nly infantrymen who played an offensive role were the chariot runners orskirmishers. In the Iron Age, on the othe r hand , warfare was syno nymouswith infant ry enco unters: if horse troops rook part in the battle, they wereancillary to the foorsoldiers,

Th e archaeological evidence for armor and weapons, reviewed in chap­ter 13, locates the period of transition from chariot to infantry warfareprecisely in the decades of the Catastrophe. This was evidenrly the timewhen, after cha riot armies had been supreme for more than four hundredyears, infanr rymen once again rook back the field . Although the forms ofsom e weapons-bows, lances, spears, and javelins-are not known tohave chan ged much in the late thirteenth and ea rly twelfth centuries, theirrelative impo rta nce evident ly did. Bows and lances, the weapons of thechariot crew, were far more numerous before the Catastrophe than after .Javelins, on the other hand, thrown on the run by skirmishers, seem to haveproliferated at the end of the Bronze Age, and in the Near East remainedimportant th rou gh the twelfth and eleventh centu ries. The spear, theweapon par excellence of the d ose-order infanr rym an. j s well arrested forthe early Iron Age. In Dark Age Greece a single spear normally accom­panied a dead man to the afterlife .

Other items of infantrymen 's equipment are even more telling. Cor sletsand greaves for infantrymen were app arentl y an innovation in the Catas­trophe. Round shields had been used by barb ar ian runn ers in the thir­teenth centu ry but came into general use earl y in the twelfth. TIle evidencefor swor ds is most dr amatic: the materi al record shows that a revolution inswo rdsma nship began in the Aegean, in Egypt, and at Ugarit ca. 1200 B.C.

There was suddenly a demand for long slashing swords, whether for theNaue Type 11 swords brought from northern Italy or the Balkans or formore experimenta l specimens produced in the eastern kingd oms them ­selves. In sho rt, the archaeological record of cha nges in armor and

21 0 A M I L I T A R Y EXrL A :-:A TI O~

weaponry presents 3 decisive a rgumen t that it was in th e decades irnm e­diate ly befo re and afte r 1200 th at there bega n the infantry dom inance thatwas to co nti nue to the end of an tiq ui ty.

O n the basis of the circumsta ntia l evide nce we m3Ytherefore concludetha t cha riot war fare ende d in th e Catast rophe, th e rai ders and city -sacke rshaving found a W3Yto defeat the grea rcsr cha riot a rmies of the time. But ofco urse there is a lso direct evidence that this is wha r the Ca tas rrophe wa sab o ut . T he reliefs at M edinet Hahu sho w clea rly enoug h that th e aggr es­su rs against Rarnesses Ill- the Libyan s, the Philis tines and Tickk er, andthe northerners wh o joined in the arrack-were infant rymen, suppo rtedby a very few cha riots . They also sho w that Rarn esses was able to win hisvicto ries over th e marau ders by assembling a grea t number of foot so ldie rs,drawn both fro m barbari a and from Egypt irsel f. Tha t the aggressors wereinfan tryme n ha s ge nera lly go ne unrem ark ed becau se it has been assumedrhar a ncient land battles had altuays been foug ht prima rily by footso ld iers.O nly whe n one recognizes th at in the Late Bronze Age th at was not the casecan one appreciate the significa nce of wha t is shown in th e Mediner H aburel iefs.

f rom the reliefs we can a lso infer that the Libyan s a nd Philist ines fou ghtas skirm ishe rs, perhaps as they had tradition ally don e in th eir tr ibal guer·rillas, rath er th un as dis ciplined troop s in o rga nized formations. The M ed i­net H abu relief suggests that the Phil ist ines and Tiekher swarmed, as indi ovid ua ls o r in sma ll groups, over th e field. Wirh a lon g sword as his primaryweap on fo r han d oro-hand war far e, the raider requ ired an "open ~ space, inw hich his agi lity and fleetn ess co uld be exploited , Bur befor e th e han d -to ­hand lighring bega n, th e cha riots had to be overco me, and it was surely fo rth is purpose th at the rai ders brought th eir javelins. Aga in, th e javelinssugges t a swarming tact ic, th e [avelinccr ru nning forwa rd and rh en hurl inghis weap on a t a team of cha riot hor ses. At Djah i in 1179 Ramesses w isel ykept his cha rio ts in the back ground and relied on th e foot soldi er s he re ­c rui ted . Bur in ot he r battl es the raid ers musr have used javelins to goodeffect, dest roying th e char iot a rm ies and end ing the era of chariot wa rfa re.

Th e fact that the marauders were " runners," and therefo re dangerousfor a cha riotry, ca n be infer red from the reliefs ou t is explicit in the insc rip ­tion s. The Great Karnak Inscript ion, afte r enumerating the va riou s landsfro m whic h Meryrc's auxi lia ries had co me fo r the arrack in 1208, staresth at the w retched Libyan chief had " taken th e bes t of every wa rrio r andevery phrr of his co untry," , Th irt y yea rs larer, Rarnesses likewise referredto both his Libyan and his Phil ist ine enemies as " ru nners. " Afte r beat ingback th e assault by the Libyan s he boasted , " I have cas t down th e vio latorsof my frontier, prostrate in their places, th eir ru nners pin ioned a nd sla in in

I Bre.rvred, AR. vol. 3. Ill) . 57~ .

T H E E:--J O OF C H A R I O T W A RFAR E 2 11

my grasp ." And of the Philistines and their asso cia tes who a tta cked in 1179he sa id , " 1have ca rried away th eir runners, pinioned in my grasp, to prese ntthem to th y b ." l

Alth ou gh the barbar ian s were able to defea t the cha riotries of the easte rnkin gdom s becau se th eir weapon s and tactics were suited exactly to th etask, the documents a lso show rhar they owed their success to overwhe lm­ing numbers. When th e Libya ns and thei r northern auxilia ries att ackedMcr neptah in 12011, heboa sted of having sla in a lmos t ten thou sand ofthem. A genera tion la te r, Ra rncsscs claimed to have killed no fewer than12,235 Libyans. Even afte r allowing for pharaon ic exaggera tion, onewould suppose that on each occasion the attacki ng a rmy mu st have co n ­sisred of at least twenty thousa nd men, a ll of them skirmishe rs a rmed wirheither javelins o r lon g swords, o r bo th. In legend, " the forty thousand ofIsrael" con fronted the kings of Canaan a nd at least that man y Ach aean sdescen ded upon Troy. As th e Ca tastrophe spread and mu sh roomed, and asthe limitat ion s of th e cha riot armi es were everyw here revealed , barbar iansall over the Mediterra nean worl d mu st have been attracred by th e prospecrsof an e3SY victory and rich booty, Sma ll successes bega r great successes,unt il even M ycenae a nd H artusas fell. Against th ron gs of ra iders no kin g­dom (with the possibl e exception of Assyria ) co uld have felt secure. Eventh e G reat Kingdoms had traditionally empl oyed only a few thousand skir­mishers, and in a sma ll k ingdom, such 3S Pyle s or Ugarit, hand-to -handfight ers were co unte d in the hundreds. When the scribes of Hattusas andEma r speak of these d ries being anacked by "h ordes" we can und erstandrhe ir peril o nly when we recall that for defen se the kingd o ms had trad i­tion ally relied o n a sma ll number of professiona l milit ar y me n.

finally, we have a few pieces of litera ry evide nce that the Catastropheresult ed fro m th e victo ry of barb ar ian foo tso ldiers over the cha rio tries ofrhe eastern Med irerran e'an kingdom s. In the Iliad the Tro jan War is obv i­ously not desc ribed as a co nflict between Achaean infantry skirmishers andTrojan cha rioteers, bur vest iges of such 3 contlicr may survive in the tr adi ­tion " Stori es abou t th e Amazons a nd the Phrygia ns wi th their fast horses,abo ut Par is slaying Achilles wi th a bow sho t, and even abo ut the captu re ofTro y th rough the ru se of a wooden horse (this sto ry, port rayed on aneighth-century vase from M ykon os, was evide nt ly cur rent long befo re ourOdyssey was co mpos ed ).' may have a risen when rhe hor ses and cha riot s ofTro y were still rem em bered . Th e descript ion of Achilles as " fleet-foo ted " isespecia lly ap propriate fo r the arcte of 3 runner. And the ad jective " ho rse ­taming," the co nvent io na l epithet bot h for Hector and for 311 th e Tro jan s,

! Edgerton sud Wil~()n4 Historical Rl-'fO, J S 01" R4m,s,·s 1/1. pl.1tC''t 2h JnJ 44 .

J OJ)'55t')'_ 4.271-N tJ JnJ X.-tQ.:! - .520 acvume th ar the: .nrd iencc kne w th e ~(or ~·. tor rhe

vase vee \thoJ. T'01•.m U~r . XO.

2 12 A MI LI TARY EXPLA :-iAT I O/,;

presum abl y derive s from a real renown of the Tro jan charioteers a nd char­iot warr ior s.

A far more expl icit tradition of infant rymen besting cha riot armies waspreser ved in Israel. Much had been lost and o the r things added by the tenthcent ury, when the tradition s were first written down, but there was nev­ert heless a persistent recollection that " the Co nq uest of Canaa n" had beeneffected by Israelite foorsoldiers agai nst the chariots of the Canaa nite cities.In our text s of Joshua and Ju dges, the hill-dwellers of Ma nasseh arc for atime unabl e to take over the plain s of Beth-Sha n and Esd raelon becau se theCanaanites have " cha rio ts of iro n"; an d in Ju dah too the hill men aretemp orar ily prevent ed by "c hariots of iro n" fro m seizing the plains. Al­though the expression seems to be the miscon cept ion of a w rite r in thePersian period ," the imagery does reflect the tradition th at the conquest ofthe most fert ile pla ins in Ca naa n was cos tly beca use of the cha riot armiesthat gua rded them.

Two of the oldest pieces of Hebr ew poet ry that have come down to uscom memorate victori es of Yahweh over grea t chariot armies.Th e "So ng ofthe Sea" (Exodus 15), attr ibuted vari ou sly to Moses or his siste r M iriam, 'celebrates Yahweh's drownin g of an Egyptian chario t host :

I wi ll sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed glo r ious ly;

the ho rse and his rider he has thr own into th e sea....

Pha rao h 's chariots and his host he cast into the sea;

and his picked officers are sunk in the yam suph,Th e Hoods cover rhem ;

they went down into the depth s like a stone.

Th y right hand, 0 Lord, glo rious in pow er,

thy right hand , 0 Lord , shatters th e enemy. . ..

Th ou didsr blow with thy wind, the sea covered them ;

rhey sank as lead in rhe mighty wate rs.

In the prose account that eventua lly gave the so ng .;] setting, six hundredEgyptian chariots pur sue five mill ion Israelites "fleeing" from Egypt.When the Israelites reach the Red Sea (yam SUph ),6 Yahweh divides thewaters-allowing his people to ma rch th rou gh on dry land- and thenro lls the water back to cover the purs uing Egyptian chariots. O n the ot her

• Drews, "The 'Chariots of Iron' of joshua and Judges: j SOT 45 ~ 1 989 ) : 15- 23 ., Frank Cross and David Freedm an, "The Song of M iriam," jNES 14 (1955): 23 7- 50." The yam suph was tran sla ted in the Septuagint as Erythra Thalassa, and in the Vulgate as

M ,lfe Rubrurn, burthe trans ianon seems to have heen deduced from the P writer's routing of"t he Exodu s" through the Red Sea. Man y biblical scholars , noting that in several O.T.passages suph mean s " p.rpyru, reed ." believe rh,ir the name yam 5uph originally was appliedto J .. Reed St.".J " 'Somewhere in the eastern Delta. Difficul ries with this view are pointed o ut byB. 1'. Barto, "Th< Reed Sea : Req" ;"SCiJI in Pace, " fBL 102 (19 83): 27-.35 . Barto's ownco nclusion IS that yam slIph uriginJlly meant "Sea of End /Extinctio n. "

T H E END O r C H A R I O T WARrAR E 2 13

hand, the song itself, which must cornrncrno rarea real rather than a rnvth i­cal event, spea ks repeatedl y of Yah weh th row ing the hor se and rider ' intothe sea, the hor ses a nd chariots sinking into the water like a stone or alead en weight. Thus the song seems to exul t in the capsizing of ships in astor m, perha ps hor se transports making their way towa rd Ca naa n th roughcoasta l waters. The only period in which " Israel" may have been the objec­tive of chariot ar mies disp atched from Egyp t woul d be the decades fromM crnep ruh to Rarncsses IV, afte r whose reign the Egyp tians seem to haveabando ned their claims to hegemo ny in Canaa n.

Th e second poem is the "So ng of Deborah" (J udges 5 ), which commem­ora tes a great vietory over the chariots of jabin, king of Haze r. The songanno unces itself as a favori te of those

who ride on tawny asses ,

who sir on rich ca rpets

and you who wa lk by the way.

To the so und of mu sic ian s at the wa tering places,

there they repeat the triumphs of the Lord .

Since the poem itself is celebratory and excla ma tory, the narrative is pro­vided in a prose prologue (Judges 4) that includes some details that are notfound in the poem but that are con sistent with it. According to the pro­logue, jabin, king of Hazor, had for twenty years sorely oppressed theIsraelites. The instrument of his oppression was his commander, Sisera,who had nine hundred chariots of iron . At last, the men of Zebulon andNa phta li, north of the valley of Esd raelon and in the immediate hinterlandof Hazar, threw off the yoke. Led by Barak, so n of Abinoa rn, and on thestrength of a n oracle by the prophetess Debor ah , ten thou sand Zeb uloniresand Naphta lites occ upied Mt. Tabor (some th irty miles to the so uthwest ofHazor ), When Sisera learn ed of this, he ca me with his nine hundred char­iots to the Valley of jezreel, a part of Esdrae lon below Mr. Tabor. Un­da unted, Debo rah prophesied to Barak th at Yahweh would that day (o rpossibly th at night , since the so ng suggests a night attack ) give him a greatvicto ry. "So Barak came charging down from M t. Tabo r wi th ten thousandmen at his back. T he Lor d put Sisera to rout with all his chariot s and hisarmy before Barak's onslaught." ? All Sisera's men perished ; not a man wasleft alive. Sisera himself fled on foot and sought shelter in the tent of Heberthe Kenite. There he was killed as he lay under a rug, hiding from hispurs uers; it was jael, Heber's wife, who killed him, driving a tent pegth rou gh his templ es.

T he prose acco unt is followed by the so ng itself, whi ch hails as Bara k'swarri ors men of lssach ar and severa l o ther no rth ern districts alon gside

, J "J~c s 4.14- 15 iN' " rransla tron).

214 A MILI TA RY E X P L AN AT I ON

th o se fro m Z eb ulon a nd Na phta li. All of th ese swe pt down, fo llow ing th eirmar sh als clan by clan , into th e valley : Yahweh' s peasant ry (lJllpshu )agai ns t " the migh ty" of Ca naa n:

Kings came, they fought;then fought the kings of Cana an,

at Taanach by the waters of Megiddo;no plunder of silver did they take.

The stars fought from heaven,the stars in their courses fought against Sisera.

The Torrent of Kishon swept him away,the Torrent barred his flight; the Torre nt of Kishon;march on in might, my soul!

The n hamm ered the hooves of his horses,his chargers galloped, galloped away,"

T he poem th en lauds ja el, w ho "st retc hed o ut her han d fo r th e tent peg, herright hand to hammer rhe wear y," and rejoices a t th e death of Sise ra a nd atth e a nx ie ty of his mother, w ho peer s th rou gh th e latt ice looking fo r th echa r io ts th at never re turned . " So peri sh a ll thine enemies, 0 Lord! "

Joshua 11.1-1 1 pr esents a so uthe rn (Ep hra irnite o r Bcnjarninitc) ver­sion of the same event." Here th e battl e is fought not a lon g the Kish on butat " the waters of M erom." It is not just th e tribes north of Esdraclon. but a llof Isr ael that defeats Jab in of H azar. It is not Barak but th e so ut he rn hero,Jo shua, wh o is the victorio us co mma nde r, a nd Debora h is no t mentionedat a ll. Aft er defea ting jabin's a rmy, Jo shua hamstrings a ll th e horses a ndbu rns the cha riots . He then pr oceeds to H a zar, massac res a ll th e inha bi­ta nts, a nd bums th e city to th e gro un d . O n thi s point th e oral t radit ion was

-ap pa rently co rrec t, since 'ra d in 's excavat ions dem onstrated th at H azar wasindeed dest royed ca . 1200.

T he few a nd precious poem s th at su rvive from th e ea rly Iron Age th ere­fo re sup port th e co ncl us io n in ferred from the a rchaeological evid en ce a ndfrom Egyptian reliefs a nd inscr ipti ons : in the Ca tas tro phe, thousan ds ofbarbarian skirmisher s descended up on the plains th at they had hithertoesc hewed , dest ro yed th e chariot a rmies on which the d efense of th e pl ai nsdepend ed, a nd the n sacked and burned th e cit ies. "rom o ur vantage po int

.we Can see th at a ll through th e Late Bro nze Age th e eas te rn Mediterran eankingd oms had been vu lne rab le to a co nce rted at tac k by barbari an neigh­bors. But for mos t of th e period this arcanum im perii Was not p er ceived ,eithe r by th e ki ngs at risk or by th e barba ria ns th emselves. O nly to war d th e

, Ibid. , 5.19-22-.. O n the rwo accounts set" Cot rwald. Tubes of Yahu-eh , 153-54 .

T HE E S D O F C H A R I O T W ,\RFA RF 2 15

end of th e thirteenth ce ntu ry d id th e lat ter begin to sense th eir o ppo rt uni tya nd to seize it.

We may dose by specula t ing o n th e course of history in th e easternM ed iterranean in th e lat e th irt eenth an d ea rly twel fth centur ies B. C. Forfifty or six ty yea rs a fte r the Batt le of Kade sh (1275) th e eas te rn M ed ite rra­nean see ms to have been a relati vely peaceful pla ce, In th e Aegea n theseve ra l pal aces, necessaril y including o ne o n C rete, sup er vised their popu­lati o ns with little fear for th e future. Nei ther Knossos nor Pvlos was forti ­fied, thei r rulers evid entl y trusting in th e habit of peace th at ba s a ptly beencall ed th e pax Mycenaica. In Anato lia a nd th e Levant the G rea t Kingdo msof H att i a nd Egy pt p rov ided st a bility, eac h G rea t King su ppo rti ng andsup po rte d by networks of vassal kin gd oms. Afte r his pe ace tr eaty w it hH artusilis Ill, Rarnesses the G reat's hegem ony perhap s extended as far asth e mountain s o f Leban on . More of an in novati on was Rarn esses' init iat ivetowar d Libya: appa ren tly he es tab lishe d Egyptia n strongho lds along th eM editerranean co ast we ll beyond EI Alarnein .!" The wes tw ard ex pa nsionof Egy ptia n a ut ho rity wo u ld have repercu ssions, a lt ho ug h not inRarn esses' ow n long reign .

The C atas trophe of th e easte rn M editerran ean kingdoms see ms to havebegu n a long the north west fro nt ier (see figu re 1). H ere a centu ry a nd a halfof peace mu st have ended dramaticall y wh en Boeotian Thebes and thegreat city kn own as Tro y VI were captured a nd sac ked . In G ree k legend, theSeven wh o first tried to take Thebes fail ed to do so , and it was th eir sons,th e epigoni, w ho succeeded: wha t th e genera t ion of Tydeus attempted th egenerat ion of Diomed es ach ieved . From t he legends we may extract thepro ba bilit y th at "Acha ea n" wa rrio rs (who th ese " Ach aea ns" were I sha llsugg est pr esently) made an ea rly a nd un successfu l assau lt up on T hebesa nd th at so me yea rs lat er o the r Achaea ns returned, thi s ti me ta king th e city.The sa me gene ratio n of warriors sacked Troy. The LH IHB pott er y found atth e two sites permits th e co nclusion tha t th e destructi on of bo th Thebesa nd Troy VI occur red to wa rd th e end of the long reign of Rarn esses theG reat. In th e event, the fate o f the se two kin gdoms was ah ar bin ger of wha tcould an d would happen eve ry w here in th e eas te rn Mediterran ean.

The Catas t ro phe burst up on Egypt in 1208, th e fifth year of M crneptah'sreign, wh en a Libyan chie ftai n, Meryre, so n of Did, ventured to invade thewest ern De lta. We do no t kn ow wh at motivat ed Me ryre"s pr esumptuousact. Rarn esses' enc roac hme nt o n Libya m;lYhave provoked him , o r perh ap sa drought inspired M eryre to seize some of th e irriga ted lan ds of th e Delt a ,

,I) Gardiner. Egypt , 270. noted rhar stelae of RJ,mt"~ses II have been found west of EIAlam ein . H ayward, "Elep han t Ivo ry. " 105 . reports rha r ".1 fo n ress was built at Za wiya r Urnrna r Rak harn, a bout 2.0 km to the west (of B.n e,\ lvl.md, near .\ 1J r~ a ~1.Hruh i Ju ring the reignof Raru csscs I I." O n the p roh .rble rol e of Bares's Island in R J fil t'V\ CS' frontier po li l.·~· d . DonaldWhite, "The Third Season at :>'1 .1t", Mnrruh.- AJA ~4 ; 1490); lJO .

21 6 A .\11L1 T AR Y EXP L A N ATI O N

o r Meryre may simply have calculated that Merneptah was too weak a kin gto resist a determined aggressor. But whatever his motivation, it is verylikel y that Meryre was enco ura ged in his undertaking by reports of whathad happened in th e Aegean. For we see in the descr ipti on of the battl e an dits results that M eryre did not field mu ch of a chariotry but made up for hisdefi cien cies in that area by assembling ten s of th ou san ds of infantrym en .Most of these men came from Libya itself, but his recruitment effo rt sex tended through out " the northern lands ~ as well. T ha t a Lib yan kin gco uld communicat e with much of th e Mediterranean is no longer su rpris­ing, since the recent excavations on Bates's Island, ncar Marsa Matruh,have produced M ycenaean and Levantine pottery and suggest that th eisland was som ething of an exch ange center for the eastern Libyans.

According to the Gre at Karn ak Inscription , M eryre sought out runner sfrom all the northern lands, men wh o co uld fight as skirmishers in hand-to­hand co mba t. Evide ntly his appea l fo r mercenari es fell on fertile gro und inSard inia , Sicily, sout he rn or western Italy, Lycia, and especially northernG reece. All th ese lands were in co nt act with the civilized kingdom s of th eeas te rn Mediterran ean but were not them selves civilized. Inst ead , th eywere barbarous places, in which oppo rtunities for the better th ings in lifewere severely limited . In Parnph ylia , Lycaonia, and Lycia, the rugged tractof mountains along Anatolia 's so uthe rn coast, th ere seems to have beennothing resembling a city in the Lat e Bronze Age. Whil e Mycenaean pot ­tery, and the per fumed oil contain ed in the pots, was shipped in greatqu antities to the cities of the Levant and the Cilici an plain, the only shipsth at sto pped a lo ng the Lycian coast we re th ose that sa nk. 1 1 It is hardlysurp rising th at as ea rly as the Amarna Age men from the Lycian mountainstried their han d at piracy, raid ing the compara tively wea lthy coa sts ofCy pru s.

The Achaeans who joined M eryre's ca mp aig n a rc likely to have beenNorth -Greek speake rs. 12 The mountain s west and north of Boeotia wer e

11 See figure 53 in Ha rd ing, M ycen,umls and Europe, for th e conr ras t between Mycenaeanpo ttery find s in the Levant a nd in so uthern Asia Min or (aside fro m the Cilician plain ).

11 Hirrirologists a re generally conv inced th .rt the place-nam e ...Ahhiya " (or, la ter," Ahhiyawa") 01 the tablets refers to the G reek mainland. See Han s Gii te rbock, "The H itt itesa nd the Aegean Worl d , I : T he Ahhiyawa Problem Recon sidered," AlA g7 (1983 ): 13 3- 38 ;a nd Trevo r Bryce. ..Ahhiyaw.ins and M ycenaeans-e- An Anatol ian View point." O xford jOljr·nal of Archaeology g (1989 ): 297- 3 10. But since the "Greek mainland " was no t concep­rualized until modern t imes, the Hi tt ite term must have den oted so meth ing ~I i ghtly d iffere nt.It WJ.S, I wou ld sugge st, the na me used in Asia Mi nor fo r the nor th -so uth land mJSS rha r Asiansa ilo rs enc ountered when sa iling west fro m the Da rd anelles . Afte r coa sti ng alo ng Th race fo rtwo da ys, a nd rounding rhe Chalcidicc, o ne reaches rhc Varda r (Axios) River, where theco astl ine turn s ...h Jr p ly and decisively southward . T his IS perhaps wh en: Abhrya began , JnJ itrun to th e tip of rhe Pclopo nnese. In ho ok 2 of the Iliad , the land CJ, t of the Axios IS notAch.rca : rhe Paioru .ins, who co rne "f rom the wiJ e river Axi os , the Ax ios, whose water is

T H E E I" D OF C H.~ R I O T WA RFAR E 217

far more primitive than the pala ce-Slates. Wh ere :ls the Iatr er we re civilizedand Minoani zed (So uth Greek may in tact have di fferenti ated itself fromNorth Greek because of " Minoan" influences). mOSI of th e norrh was anilliterate hinterland, in wh ich the dialect of the Greek-speakers was rheco nservative No rth Greek. Troy, lolkos, Th ebes. and O rcho menos wereOUlpOSIS on the norrh wesrern front ier of the civilized world , and beyondthese centers there was little discernible prosperi ty in th e LH IIIB period .Th e 1\V 0 d ialccrs-s-Sourh Greek and No rth Greek-thus seem to reflecrtwo rathe r d istinct cultura l zones, and wh en reference is made to "theAchaean s" we must specify which of the two zones is meant. As I haveprotested betimes;" ! the evidence is conside ra ble th at the particularAchaean s wh o sack ed Troy came from th e north .

We may imagine , then, that late in the reign of Ramesses II hordes ofthese northern Ach aean footso ldiers had attacked both Troy VI a ndTh ebes and succeeded in takin g and sacking bo th places." :' T he Achaean sattacked Thebe s, according to He siod, 15 " for the flock s of O ed ipus.~ Priorto their attac ks on th ese kingdo ms, the northern Achaea ns a re likely tohave served the kingdom s as skirmishe rs, and we ma y imagin e that it wasduring that service that the northerners began to perceive how vulnerablethe roya l cha riotries were. Toward the end of the th irte enth century therulers of the Argolid began building a fortificati on wall at th e Corint hianisthmus (having already encircled their palaces with stout walls), indicatingsom e alarm about wh at was happening in th e north. It was perhaps amongthese northern Acha eans that Mcryre of Libya wa s mo st successful in hisso licita tion of skirmishe rs. In the casualty lists, a fter the Libyans them ­selves it was the Ek ioesh who lost the most men (over two thou sand),

Ever since M aspero tr an smogri fied th em into migra tor y nations, theShekelesh , Sbardana, and Tursba w ho joi ned Me ryre's ente rprise havereceived the most att ent ion from schola rs inte rested in the Ca tastrophe.N ume rically, however, they were not very imp ortant , since Meryre rc­cruired from Sicily, Tyrsenia, and Sa rd inia togeth er fewer men than Achaea

fairest 01 J II" (Iliad 2..849- 50), are the Trojan s' wester nmost allie s, while the Acha ean s allcom e fro m beyond the Ax ios.

Hi tt ite tablets refer to a Grea t Kingdo m in Ahh iya, a nd this was prob abl y centered atMy cen ae. w ith vassal kin gdom s as far north as Atti ca <1I1 J Boeo tia, if no t lo lkos. But the mor epr imitive peop le who lived hetwee n the kingdo ms Jn J the Axios were also" Achaea ns." Th ereis good reaso n to believe th.u these northern Achaea ns were the:perp err.iror s of the Carast ro ­phe, whil e the Achaeans of th e kingdo ms were its vict ims.

11 " Argos and Argives," Il l ·- 15; CominK"l th,· Greeb . 22l-24; see Jbove, pp. 117-1 8.Il As I have argu ed at • Argos and Argives," 1.l2-.1l, the "Argives" led by the Seven

agai nsr Th ebes ca me from the Pelasgic Argo s and no r from the Pelop o nnesc. Iliad 4.370-99and 6.223 reca ll th at Thebes was sacked by ..Ach aeans" but rhar rhe king dom of M ycenae d idnot par ti cipat e in the ad venture.

I< \l/orks ,md J)Jy>, 161-6.1.

2 18 A MILI TAR Y EX P L A ~ AT I O :-J

supp lied to h im all by itself (it is not impo ssible th at even the Lycia nsout numbered the westerne rs in Meryre's a rmy ). But prospectors for me rce ­naries would undoubtedly have found the lands o f the centra l Mediterra ­nean a promisin g vein. Sicily was almost ent irely barbarous, but for a fewSicil ian s o f the so utheast coast a wind ow o n the wider world had beeno pened : o n the promontory of Thap sos, jutting o ut from the shore a fewkilometers north of the Syracusan ba y, tr aders from the easte rn M edite rra ­nean, a nd perhaps specifica lly from Cypru s, had bu ilt a tow n for th em ­selves by 1300, a nd the town continued th rough the th irteenth cen tury.H ere wer e spac ious a nd rect ilinea r buildings, a nd the residents of the townlived the good life, wi th eas te rn a rt ifacts a nd luxu ry items. 16 O n th e coastsof Ital y, w hic h was eq ually primit ive, M ycenaeans ha d esta blished emporiaat Scogl io del Torino, o n the Gulf of Taranto, and at Luni suI M ignone, inEt ruria. Fo r th ose "Tyrsenians" wh o lived nea rby, th ese emporia must haveadv ertised th e possibilities that the lands to the eas t had to offer. Theco ntac t between the eastern Mediterranean and Sardinia, an d the east ­e rne rs' exploitati on o f Sardinian co pper, has o nly recently been appreci­at ed . But it now seems likely that in the thirteenth centu ry mos t Sardinianswh o lived wi thin a day's walk of the Go lfo di Caglia ri would have seen thevisitors' ships, if not the visitors them selves, an d would have been wellaware of th e di screp ancy betw een their own condi tio n an d that of th esepeopl e from th e cas t. 17

To be a wa rri o r, then , was in these barba rou s lands no bad thing. sincesk ill as a skirmis he r might transp ort a man to a be tter life in a bett er pl ace.M en fro m so ut hern Sa rd in ia wen t off to Byb los and Uga rit, and event ua llyto Egypt, a nd it is unl ikely th at many 01th em ret u rned home or wished todo so. In t he eastern kingdoms they co uld enjoy th e p leasu res of ur ban lifeand at th e same time be men of sta tus and property, with lands assign edthem by th eir kin g; in return, th ey were o bliged o nly to guard the palaced uring peacetime and to run in suppo rt o f the fabled cha riot force s on th ose

I" Ho lloway, frilly and the Aegean. 8 7: "It required men and ideas to rransform a Sicil ianvillage into an em por ium with some urban configuration, and this appears to have been thewor k of Cyprio te residents in the 14th and l J rh cen tu ries." See also H olloway, "Italy and th eCen tra1 Medirerr anean in the Cri sis Years," in W"d and ]ou kowsk y, Crisis Yeurs,41 .

" In the twelft h century Cypriotes wer e prob ably wo rkin g met al on the so uthern co ast ofSa rd in ia (see D. Ridgway, " Arc haeo logy in Sardin ia an d Sou th Italy, 198 3-88." p. 114 ). Butthe discovery of LH IIiB ware near Cagl ia n now shows jhar alre ady in the thi rt eent h ce nturyeasremers wert"resident there , pe rha ps " casting copper tor expo rt in the' ingot shape lon g used

in the east." See Ho llow ay. " It, ly an d the Ce nt ra l Med irerr .mean ," 4 1. Co ntac t wit h theinterior is difficult to estima te. For a much later period Ferrucio B JCTCC;l . "The Phoenician andPun ic Civilizario n in Sardi n ia, " in M iriam Batm uth. ed.• Studies in S;.lT.llni.m Arcboeology,vol . 1.145 . has shown that from Nor~ a nd other sires o n the Cagliari bay "se rrlemenrs bega nto sprea d towards the S.HJ ini.m hinterla nd with I n average penerrano n of about rwenrvkilometers trorn the coa..ts ." '

THE E~ D O F C H A R IO T WA RFARE 219

rare occasi o ns w he n the cha riots gave hatt ie. It is not surp rising th .it yo ungmen in Sa rd inia a nd elsewhere aspired to serve as sk irmishers in the cha riotcorps o f a wealthy king. All that o ne needed was co urage , speed , strength ,and an initial investment in th e necessary eq uipment : a swo rd or spea r, ash ield, and a n intimidating helmet.

When Meryre ad vert ised for sk irmishers in M erneprah's early year s,those wh o responded had undoubtedly lon g hoped to be professi onalwarriors, wheth er in Egypt itself o r in o ne of the o the r kingdoms thattr ad it io na lly hired mercenaries. What was new in 1208 was th e mer cen­a ries' en listment in a n a rmy in which th ey were not to play seco nd fidd le to

a cha riot co rps. As not ed above. M er yre had very few chario ts- a defi­ciency that a decad e or two ea rl ier wou ld have prevented him fro m evenconside ring a war with M ernept ah . But by 120 8 M eryre th ought it possi­ble that wi th a huge for ce of sk irmishers he co u ld defeat th e lar gest chariotarmy in the world. Fo r the hand-to -hand fighting his men were certainlya rmed with long swo rds , since the Karnak Inscriptio n reco rds that ove rnine th ou sand of these bronze swo rds were retri eved as booty. For useagainst the Egyptian cha riots Meryre mu st have had men ex pe rt with long­ra nge weapons of so me so rt , and there is goo d reason to th in k that thesewere javeli ns rath er than bows. In the p rim itive lands fro m whic h hisau x iliari es ca me there wo uld have been man y men who were sk illed withthe hu nt ing javel in but who had never imagined th at th eir ski ll might on eday be in dem and.

M eryr e's infa ntry was defeated, and it was another gene ra tio n beforean oth er Libya n fo rce attacked th e Delta. But Mery re 's fai lu re, like th eAchaeans' successes at Troy and Th ebes, see ms to have publ icized th epossib ilit ies of t he new kind of warfare. On the easte rn side of the Delta,there was trouble in Ca naa n at about the sa me tim e that the Libyan sattacked o n the western side. Ho ri, the author o f the Pap yru s Ana stasi , askshis yo uth ful co rrespo nde nt to imagine him self in charge of supplies for anarm y sent to Djahan (o r, possibly, Djahi) " to crush th ose rebel s calledNearin," I ' The ne'arim of Ca naan were han d -to -hand warriors a nd hadd istinguished themselves at the Battle of Kade sh in th e se rvice of Ra messesth e G rea t. Now, however, at the end of the Ni netee nt h Dynasty, th ey haveeviden tly becom e a pro blem, a nd in th e scena rio d raw n by Ho ri an armyco nsisting entirely of infant rymen, mo st of whom are barbarian sk ir­mishe rs, is sent OUt to dea l with t hem . In this co nnect io n we mu st note th erecent ly di scovered evid ence that Merneptah did in fact campaign in theLevant and that among his oppo nents were warriors from Is rael. The menof Israel will ce rta in ly have fought on foot ,

The " rebelliou s ne'arim " of the southern Levant did not yet pose a threat

" Trans. Wilson, ANET, 470.

220 A MIL I TAR Y E X P LAN A T ION

to Egypt itself. There was no king here who organized the tribesmen ofCanaan for a campaign on the scale that Meryre managed in Libya. InHori's imaginary army there are only five thousand men, suggesting thatthe Levantinc warriors against whom they are sent also number in the lowthousands. But although not yet a danger to Egypt, the warriors of Philistiaand Israel were certainly capable of defeating the vassal cities that wereallied with Egypt. Although Merneptah may have maintained Egypt's tra­ditional hegemony over the southern Levant, it is doubtful that his feeblesuccessors were able to do so. Seri II had trouble enough asserting himselfin Egypt, having apparently to deal with a usurpation by Arnenmesse. AtSeti's death, the throne devolved first upon his son Siptah-still a child­and then upon Twosret, Sen's widow. Neither could have intervened inCanaan, and it was evidently in Twosret's reign that the sacking of the greatcities of southern Canaan began.

Although we cannot be certain who sacked the cities on the Via Maris­Ashkelon, Ashdod, Akko, and others-there is no reason to look for theculprits in some distant place when there are obvious suspects close by.Undoubtedly the sackers were "Philistines," but that term ought to standfor the population that had traditionally lived in the hinterland of thepenrapolis. Armed with the javelins and long swords shown in the MedinetHabu reliefs, the Palestinian tribesmen must have made short work of thechariot armies by which the pentapolis was defended. Further north alongthe coast, the Tjekker must have closed in on and eventually taken the cityof Dor, And the warriors of Dan seem to have made a name for themselvesby their success, probably with long swords, against both chariots andcavalry.

In the interior, centers such as Deir 'Alia (Succoth), Lachish, and Hazarwere most likely sacked by "Israelites," seminomadic tribesmen who forgenerations had scraped out an existence in the hill country flanking thevalleys of the Jordan and its tributaries, and in the desert fringe to the east.Until the Catastrophe, the best that either Philistines or Israelites couldhope for was service as ne'arim or hapiru in the employ of a petty king. Butnow they were in a position to kill the king, loot his palace and his city, andbum them to the ground. Not all the Canaanite cities between the Jordanand the Mediterranean were razed. Shechem was spared by the Israelitetribesmen, the Israelites foreswearing hostilities against the city, and theShechemites granting to those Israelites who submitted to circumcision therights of connubium and of participation in the venerable cult on Mt.Gerizim. Gibeon was also spared, having come to terms with the invaders:in return for their lives, the Gibeonites were said to have pledged them­selves and their descendants to serve their conquerors as hewers of woodand drawers of water. According to Israelite legend, when the other Cana­anite kings took umbrage at the Gibeonires' accommodation and attacked

THE END 0 F C H A RIO TWA R FAR E 221

the city, Gibeon's Israelite champions came to its rescue and slaughteredthe Canaanite force, while the sun stood still over Gibeon and the moonhalted in the vale of Aijalon. It must have been a long and terrible day inCanaan.

The successes that skirmishers armed with swords and javelins achievedover chariot armies, and the consequent sacking of famous cities, musthave generated excitement wherever service as a mercenary footsoldier hadonce seemed attractive. The motivation for the sacking of a city is not likelyto have been anything so rarefied as religious fanaticism, ethnic hatred, or aclass struggle. The perpetrators of the Catastrophe had more materialobjectives: cattle, gold, women, and whatever else caught the eye. Theprecious objects squirreled away in pits or wall-caches at Ugarit, Mycenae,Kokkinokremos, and other places testify that what the residents of theseplaces feared was an attack by looters. And since at none of the razed citieshave archaeologists found "in the open" anything of material value, wemav conclude that what the residents feared would happen did happen.

just as the cities of southern Canaan are likely to have been plunderedand razed by warriors from the countryside of Philistia and Israel, so it islikely that some cities in other regions were sacked by raiders who camefrom a hinterland not too far away. In eastern Syria Emar, possibly alongwith Carchemish, was sacked by "hordes," and in that part of the world inthe early twelfth century such nameless hordes must have been Aramaic­speaking tribesmen. In Boeotia, as suggested above, Thebes had beensacked by raiders from its hinterland. On the Anatolian plateau, Hattusasevidently fell to Kaskans from the Pontic mountains:

In some areas there was no warlike population of barbarians withinstriking distance. In western Syria, so far as the tablets from Alalakh andUgarit indicate, there were only peaceful and unarmed villagers. The dan­ger here was posed by raiders who came from the sea, among whom mayhave been freebooters from Lycia, the northern Aegean, Italy, Sicily, Sar­dinia, and other maritime regions of barbaria. The tablets from Ugaritwarn of the peril posed by marauders who came in ships, and the tablets"from the oven" suggest that Ugarit itself fell to raiders who appeared withlittle warning. A force of several thousand skirmishers, possibly crammedinto no more than thirty or forty boats, would have been sufficient to defeatwhatever chariot force sallied out against them from the gates of Ugarit. Atany rate, Ugarit, along with all the great cities on the Oronres-i-Alalakh,Hamath, Qarna, and Kadesh-was sacked and burned.

In the civilized regions of southern Greece there likewise was little to fearfrom people who lived close by. Within the large palace states administeredfrom Pylos or Knossos there were no warrior populations, the subjectsthere being pacific and helotized descendants of the pre-Greek inhabitants.Although the palaces in Boeotia may have fallen to raiders from Locris,

222 A !vi I LIT A RYE X P L A ~ A T ION

Phocis, and inland Thessaly, who came on foot, more sites in the Aegeanare likely to have been attacked by raiders who came by sea, many of themundoubtedly from coastal Thessaly and Achaea Phthiotis. From the citadelof Koukounaries, on Paros, one looks down a steep decline to Naoussa Bav.Fifteen minutes after wading ashore, veteran sackers of cities would havebeen atop the citadel. The huddled skeletons found there in recent excava­tions indicate that the population had little warning and no chance toescape. Pylas and Knossos, without walls, were entirely vulnerable, and wemay imagine that the inhabitants fled at the first alarm. At Troy,Tiryns andother places some sort of siege may have been conducted, but in the end thecitadels were taken. Mycenae is not likely to have been surprised, since thecitadel is a two-hour walk from Argos Bay, but against several thousandraiders there would have been no real protection. Even if the attack came inbroad daylight, and even if the rulers of Mycenae were able to mobilizeseveral hundred chariots, the swarming javelineers would have been elusivetargets and deadly marksmen against the chariot horses. After storming acity or a citadel, killing or enslaving those inhabitants who had not beenable to flee, and ransacking the buildings for every bit of precious metal,elegant cloth, and usable artifacts, the raiders would have prepared theplace for burning and then set fire to it. Such must have been the fate ofdozens of the wealthiest cities and palaces in the eastern Mediterranean.

After most of the great palaces had fallen, attempts were made onceagain upon Egypt. Ramesses III had to face incursions by Libyans, nowgrown persistent, in 1182 and 1176. These were certainly massive assaults,since Ramesses claims that in the first of these two wars his troops killed12,535 of the invaders. And by this time the Philistine and Tjekker war­riors, even without a king to mastermind and finance the venture, posed athreat to Egypt itself. In his eighth year (1179) Ramesses dealt with thisthreat on his eastern border. His inscription would have us believe that theenemies whom he defeated in that campaign were a vast coalition, a can­spiracy of all lands, that had been responsible for devastating the entireNear East from Hatti to Canaan and from Cyprus to Carchemish. Suchclaims greatly enhanced his own victory and need not be taken literally:from their letters we know that the rulers of Hattusas, Emar, and Ugaritwere themselves uncertain about the identity of the hordes intent on sack­ing their cities, and it is unlikely that Ramesses had any better informationon the subject. What Ramesses undoubtedly did know is that the kind ofdestruction that the Philistines and Tjekker had wrought in the southernLevant, and the kind of warfare that these tribesmen practiced, had alreadycome to most of the great cities and palaces farther north.

The Levantine aggressors in 1179 were armed with javelins and longswords, wore helmets and corslets, and carried round shields. In order codefeat them Rarnesses had to improvise, and his battle plans seem co have

THE E ~ D 0 F C H A RIO TWA R FAR E 223

relegated his chariotry to a subordinate role. Ramesses assembled a consid­erable number of hand-to-hand fighters, both barbarian skirmishers(shardana) and native Egyptians. The latter stood shoulder-co-shoulder indose-order formations, carried oblong shields, were armed with the tradi­tional rods or sickle swords, and were hardly :IS effective as their foreignauxiliaries who fought :IS free-lancers. But infantrymen of both kinds,helped out by the archers in the chariot corps, were sufficient co win thebattle at Djahi.

Whether on that same occasion or soon thereafter, Rarnesscs destroyed agreat force of Philistine, Tjekker, and Sicilian skirmishers who were caughton their boats a short distance offshore. The skirmishers had not expected abattle while still in their ships and were virtually annihilated. With remark­able foresight Rarnesses had assembled a fleet and assigned to each ship adetachment of archers (most likely the archers who in other circumstancesand other times would have shot from chariots) and hand-co-hand war­riors. The Egyptian ships were able to cur off the enemy, who had no usablelong-range weapons. The Philistine and Sicilian warriors would have hadjavelins, but javelins on these crowded ships were of no value at all, since ajavelin must be thrown on the run. The Egyptian archers, on the contrary,were able to shoot their bows far more effectively from the deck of a shipthan from the platform of a bouncing chariot. Even worse for the aggres­sors, while the Egyptian archers could leave the rowing co the oarsmenwhom Ramesscs had impressed into service, the Philistine and Sicilianwarriors had to do their own rowing. Perhaps the Medinet Habu relief doesnot exaggerate the extent of Ramesses' victory at sea in 1179.

Even Rarncsses' victories, however, illustrated how drastically warfarehad changed in the three or four decades of the Catastrophe. The Egyp­tians' salvation owed little to their chariotry. Most important were thehand-to-hand warriors, whether Egyptian or barbarian, that Ramesseshad assembled at Djahi. The archers who had been positioned on the decksof Ramesses' ships had also taken their coli, but the "naval battle" mayhave been something of a fluke, contingent on timing and luck. The futurebelonged to men who could stand their ground in hand-co-hand combat.

Those who survived the Catastrophe resorted to new strategies againstthe probability that the raiders would return. On Crete the small and low­lying settlements were abandoned for "cities of refuge" in the mountains.The Arcade-Cypriote dialect suggests that many South-Greek speakersfrom the Peloponnese and central Greece fled in two directions, some to themountains of Arcadia and others to the island of Cyprus. The flight toIonia, on the other hand, seems co have occurred several generations afterthe Catastrophe ended.

If towns built in the twelfth century were nor in the mountains, they wereon the seacoast. On Cyprus, as well as in Phoenicia and Greece, large

224 AMI L IT A RYE X P LAN ATI 0 N

coastal towns were built and fortified, and the coastal cities of the ViaMaris were rebuilt and strengthened (with refugees from Crete probablyseeking asylum there). The size of the twelfth-century towns indicates abelief that there was safety in numbers. The coastal location may have beenpreferred for several reasons. It provided, first of all, the optimum vantagepoint for spotting hostile ships long before they reached the shore. A city onthe coast, even if it housed few hand-to-hand fighters, was also able to takesome effective offensive measures against raiders who came by sea. AsRarnesscs' sea victory had shown, one very good way to confront a sea­borne horde of hand-to-hand skirmishers was to keep them from reachingland . On board their ships the skirmishers were vulnerable, since they hadno bows (the man fortunate enough to own a composite bow would havefound it warped and deteriorated after several days in an open boat). It istherefore possible that a few of the coastal towns continued to count onarchers, now shooting from coast-guard ships instead of from chariots. It ismore likely, however, that coastal locations were chosen for defensive rea­sons: a city on the coast might be able to withstand a siege, while a city inthe interior could be entirely cut off.

But no civilized society could defend itself without putting into the fieldinfantrymen equipped for hand-to-hand combat. Against the new perilnew weapons were required, and new pieces of armor. InGreece especiallywe can see that the Catastrophe created the armored footsoldier, protectedby a helmet, corslet, greaves, and a round shield. A short thrusting spearwas most important as the weapon of men who took their position in close­order infantry formations. For professional skirmishers, who might con­front the enemy in man-to-man combat, a long sword was required againstthe long swords of the predators. The manufacture of cut-and-thrustswords began in Merneptah's time, as the unusable "Merneptah sword"from Ugarit shows. The Aegean productions found at Mouliana, Mycenae,and Perati are clumsy experiments, but better designs were soon found.Had there been time to hilt them and edge their blades, the four unfinishedswords from the high-priest's house in Ugarit would have been formidableweapons. In the mc Aegean, however, what those who could afford itwanted was the terrible Griffzungenschwert that had long been traditionalin northeast Italy and the Balkans. The carrouche of Seti II on a specimenfound in Egypt shows that there too some of the pharaoh's warriors ac­quired the very best slashing sword that could be found.

Although weapons and armor were important, even more importantwere men who could use them, and on this matter the Catastrophe intro­duced profound changes. In the Late Bronze Age kingdoms warfare hadbeen a specialist's concern. Civilian conscripts were apparently used onlyfor defense, and massed offensive infantries were conspicuously absentwhen Late Bronze Age kingdoms (except, perhaps, for Assyria) went to

THE E l' D 0 F C H A RIO TWA R FAR E 225

war. After the Catastrophe, political power belonged to those societies inwhich warfare was every man's concern, the adult males of a communityserving as its militia. The Warrior Vase from Mycenae suggests that in thetwelfth century at least some men of Mycenae were learning how to marchand fight in close-order formations, depending on the thrusting spear andon the new elements of defensive armor. But neither at Mycenae nor inmost other civilized communities could a "warrior ethos" have developedin the immediate aftermath of the Catastrophe, and military prowess ten ­ded to be associated with the less civilized frontier societies. It is likely thatthe "Dorians" were North-Greek speakers who became proficient as dose­order spearmen. In the Iron Age Levant, communities such as Philistia,Israel, Moab, Ammon, and Aram (in eastern Syria) depended on massinfantries. We need not believe, with the biblical author, that in David'skingdom there were 1,300,000 "able-bodied men, capable of bearingarms." But the militia was apparently counted in six figures, and we canperhaps take the author's word for it that when David wished to cursejoab, the best he could think of was "may the house of Joab never be freefrom running sore or foul disease, or lack a son fit only to ply the distaff." 19

Typically these frontier societies coalesced into "nations," the nation beinga coalition cohesive enough and large enough to defend itself against anyforeseeable aggression.>"

The solidarity of an Iron Age community, whether of a polis or of anation, stemmed from the recognition that in war the fortunes of thecommunity would depend on every man playing his part. Against massformations of close-order infantry, the formations being controlled by anefficient chain of command, disorganized hordes of running skirmisherswould have been outmatched. The kind of solidarity required in the IronAge was, with rare exceptions, unnecessary and therefore unknown in theLate Bronze Age, since prior to the Catastrophe a king's subjects wereamply protected by the king's chariots and chariot runners. The militaryrevolution that occurred in the Catastrophe was thus a prerequisite for thesocial and political changes that made the world of the Iron Age so differentfrom that of the Late Bronze Age.

19 2 Samuel 24.9; 2 Samuel 3.29.10 On nationalism in the early IronAge see Liveraru's diSCUSSIon of ""il fartore gennlizio e to

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