[HN Gopher] Armor from Mycenaean Greece turns out to have been e...
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Armor from Mycenaean Greece turns out to have been effective
Author : thepuppet33r
Score : 221 points
Date : 2024-05-30 12:34 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| submission linking to actual paper:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40527844
| rrr_oh_man wrote:
| 170 fucking ad partners.
|
| Jesus fucking Christ.
| HeckFeck wrote:
| Like the loaves and the fishes, they multiply.
| legitster wrote:
| > "Such suits of armor were recorded in palace archives--in the
| equipment lists of those complete or needing repair. This
| indicates they were supplied at the expense of palatial centers,"
| says Flouris. They were bloody expensive and thus financed,
| maintained, stored, and issued during emergencies by the state.
| Mycenaean palatial centers disappeared around 1200 BCE, and the
| supplies of Dendra-type armor disappeared with them.
|
| So... it sounds like the armor was kind of ceremonial in a way.
| Even if it was functional it didn't sound very practical - it
| only existed as a projection of force and wealth in defensive
| situations.
| travisjungroth wrote:
| You could say the same thing about intercepter aircraft and
| it's a real stretch to call those ceremonial.
| peterarmstrong wrote:
| Hey, in Canada the newest model will be! Next year we'll
| have, what, four F-35s? We'd almost be better off making a
| bunch of that bronze armour and the cool hats...
| zknow wrote:
| As a fellow Canadian I gotta agree on this one.
| Bayart wrote:
| Working out as a projection of force assumes its usefulness at
| impressing force.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| One glance at the pictures tells me there's no way this design
| is for ceremonial use. This armor looks like a prime example of
| function over form.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| >> His team assumed the Trojan War happened
|
| Stop there and try to prove that, first.
| cannonpr wrote:
| So literally ? Hard to, however there are many records of
| continuous invasions of Persia by Greeks of the era that are
| well substantiated and many torched cities that were rebuilt
| frequently. It might be more pertinent to say which events of
| over 20-30 major campaigns inspired the texts of the Iliad.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > there are many records of continuous invasions of Persia by
| Greeks of the era that are well substantiated
|
| Persia won't come into existence for at least 600 years if
| "the era" is Mycenaean Greece.
|
| If you're talking about the region of the Persian homeland,
| there are zero records of invasions by Greeks of the era.
| It's on the other side of Mesopotamia from them. Troy is
| located in Anatolia both according to classical tradition and
| modern belief.
|
| The best currently known evidence for the Trojan War is stuff
| like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tawagalawa_letter
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| I suspect OP is thinking of the Sea Peoples, some of whom
| are conjectured to have been Greeks (e.g. Acheans).
| wwtrv wrote:
| Do we know anything at all about any contact between the
| "Sea People" and Persia?
|
| e.g. the distance between ancient Persia and Egypt
| significantly (~50%) larger than between Egypt and the
| Greek mainland and sea travel was much faster in the
| first place.
| wwtrv wrote:
| Persia? What about China? I don't think there is any evidence
| of any contact between bronze age Greece and Persia.
| Archelaos wrote:
| From the actual paper:
|
| "Our hypothetical date for the Trojan War (1300-1200 BC) was
| needed to enable estimates of the environmental conditions
| (temperature, day-night cycle, etc.) but should not be
| considered as a contribution to the continuing discussions
| about the date of the War. Moreover, the Trojan War cannot be
| taken as a historical event, at least in the form described in
| the Homeric epics [...]. There is no way to know whether it
| reflects a single event or a period of turmoil that was
| triggered during an alleged migration from Greece to the
| eastern Aegean, a narrative that has been also put into
| question [...]"
|
| Source:
| https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| That should be put to the attention of the author of the
| article above, then (on Ars Technica).
| smegger001 wrote:
| well we did find the city.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy
|
| also there are burned remain, anti-chariot defensive works, and
| bronze arrow heads radio carbon dated to the right era.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy#Korfmann
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| To be precise, what "we" (Heinrich Schliemann) found were the
| ruins of multiple cities, in multiple archeological layers,
| in a region that is rife with such things. We... well, he,
| then proceeded to declare one of those cities "Troy" and even
| took pictures of his wife with some jewels he found which he
| proclaimed to be "the jewels of Helen of Troy" [1].
|
| That should suffice to underline the uncertainty, from a
| purely scientific point of view, of what, exactly, was found
| by Schliemann. My opinion is that this man has caused no end
| of damage to any attempt to find the historical truth, if
| any, of the Homeric epic. I've had a few fights with fellow
| Greeks who were convinced that Schliemann really-really found
| Troy, the actual city from the Iliad, which was a true story
| then. A friend once told me that not only Troy was found, but
| that it was "seven cities", as Troy is described in the
| Iliad; most likely a reference to the multiple layers of
| ruins at the place excavated by Schliemann. Some of whom were
| indeed destroyed by fire, suggesting war, if memory swerves,
| but not all and in any case there have been so many wars in
| the thousand years since the first city was built there that
| we might as well assume it was aliens who first destroyed it.
|
| ... which some people inevitably will.
|
| ___________
|
| [1] Some of the history of those excavations is on wikipedia:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy#Excavation_history
|
| The rest I know by dint of being born Greek and having read
| my fair share of ancient history (extracurricularly,
| obviously) as a child. I might misremember some things.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| > The 13 marines who volunteered were trained in historical
| combat, fitted with sensors that monitored their performance, and
| fed roughly 4,500 calories worth of goat cheese, roasted meat,
| olives, bread, water, wine, and other Bronze Age culinary
| delicacies. And then they had a go at it.
|
| This is science at its best.
|
| > During those 11 hours, a typical warrior in Homeric tales would
| go through 31 one-versus-one duels, 10 encounters with the enemy
| on a chariot, two chariot-versus-chariot engagements, and one
| chariot-versus-warrior-on-ship encounter (a ranged battle where
| the warrior defended beached ships from charging chariots).
| HeatrayEnjoyer wrote:
| They should have done more stabby stabby on camera
| jonathankoren wrote:
| The parallels with "European plate armor was too bulky to be used
| and knights couldn't stand up when they fell", shouldn't be lost
| on anyone. It's a common belief handed down over the years, but
| it's complete bollocks. We know it is, because back in the 60s or
| 70s someone had the idea of actually putting the armor on, run
| around in it, and even get knocked down and stand up in it. There
| is like a BBC film showing this or something.
|
| It's kinda weird that people keep dismissing the armor of the
| past as completely impractical, even though the people in the
| past keep saying or implying that this is exact what they wore
| into battle.
| surfingdino wrote:
| It was difficult to mount a horse while wearing heavy armour
| though and I think that's how the rumour originated.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| There are quite a few YouTube videos showing how full plate is
| worn and how much range of motion you'd have.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| There are more recently made videos, I believe, demonstrating
| the same thing:
|
| - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzTwBQniLSc
|
| - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-bnM5SuQkI
| stanford_labrat wrote:
| imagine being a medieval peasant conscript and seeing that
| guy from the first few seconds of the first video charging at
| you, knowing full well he's from the warrior class and
| trained his entire life for the job of fighting.
|
| terrifying...
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| I remember reading somewhere that peasants who killed an
| enemy night would effectively be treated as war criminals.
| So you'd be fucked no matter what you do.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| The modern equivalent would be seeing an MRAP or an APC
| rolling down the street.
|
| The sci-fi version would be seeing a space marine.
| strix_varius wrote:
| I thought it was a clip from power rangers for a minute.
| xarope wrote:
| 1st video about halfway through, that's where the turkish get
| up is useful!
| cwmma wrote:
| Some of this has to do with jousting armor being some of the
| best preserved sets and those were extremely impractical.
| jonathankoren wrote:
| Codpieces with erect penises are a tactical.
|
| https://youtu.be/C6XqBsosHwM
| max-ibel wrote:
| "The Court Jester" movie didn't help dispel that myth ... ;)
| kromem wrote:
| People in modernity have a habit of dismissing what people in
| the past said as a "heuristic that almost always works."
|
| But it doesn't always work, and there's some pretty glaring
| holes in modern perspectives as a result of its overuse.
| YurgenJurgensen wrote:
| This is one of those 'myths' that I only ever see mentioned
| when it's someone informing everyone that it's a myth. I've
| seen it 'busted' so many times I wonder if the real myth is
| that anyone ever believed it in the first place.
| Jensson wrote:
| You see it a lot in movies, and that belief from movies gets
| in the popular conscience. Plate armor in most movies gets
| penetrated by light slashes and masses of plate wearing
| soldiers are easily beaten by the lightly armored hero. My
| friend who often wore armor on subways always had drunk
| people come up to him and try to play pranks like pushing him
| etc thinking he would fall due to impractical armor etc, but
| armor makes it easier to stand your ground.
|
| So it is like physics, there is widespread belief in
| Aristotelean physics but you wont see anyone talk about
| believing it online, even though we know from surveys that
| there is a significant fraction who do.
| ertian wrote:
| Well, because it was thoroughly debunked decades ago.
|
| I remember reading this 'fact' in books as a kid in the 80s.
| o11c wrote:
| It's probably leakage from the well-known Battle of Agincourt,
| which showed it _could_ be a concern, but the mud is an
| important detail.
| lumb63 wrote:
| > It took over a decade of research, elaborate numerical models,
| and 13 Greek marines fighting in it from dawn till dusk to prove
| it was surprisingly good at its job
|
| A _decade_ of research and mathematical models to determine that
| an ancient civilization wasn't just making useless armor for fun?
| jerf wrote:
| The idea that we and we alone discovered being smart, or
| _maybe_ , at best, the people in the 19th and 20th centuries
| were on to something although they are still nowhere near as
| smart as us, and everyone else in history were nasty drooling
| superstitious cretins in every way is ingrained surprisingly
| deeply into our culture, in multiple places, for multiple
| distinct reasons.
| aredox wrote:
| Ceremonial armors aren't made for fun. Should our descendents
| of the year 3000 look at the British bearskin (the tall furry
| hat of the Royal Guard) and think "of course, this was standard
| combat attire".
| adolph wrote:
| Presumably something like the mitznefet?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitznefet_(Israeli_military)
|
| https://www.twz.com/israeli-troops-chefs-hat-helmet-
| covers-e...
| aredox wrote:
| Exactly. Archeologist from the future working from
| fragmentary sources won't be easily able to determine if
| the mitznefet is battle gear or ceremonial parure. In fact,
| they could reach the wrong conclusion by noting the
| bearskin is more widespread than the mitznefet ("if it is
| efficient battle hat, why isn't it more widely in use?").
| ysavir wrote:
| > A decade of research and mathematical models to determine
| that an ancient civilization wasn't just making useless armor
| for fun?
|
| To be fair, making armor for fun is a decent industry/hobby in
| modern times, for stuff like LARPing, movie props, etc. Who's
| to say that the armor wasn't an example of something similar in
| ancient times? Taking the time to actually put it to the test,
| in its original context, is a good effort to prove or disprove
| that.
| kadoban wrote:
| To also be fair: can't imagine these researchers weren't also
| just having a good time. Sounds a lot like they were just
| doing fancy LARPing themselves.
| ysavir wrote:
| I'm sure they had fun, but that's no reason to downplay the
| role of that aspect of the research.
| YurgenJurgensen wrote:
| Those techniques almost certainly took considerably more than a
| decade to develop originally, and it's not like the battle-
| ready bronze armour business has been booming for the last
| couple of millennia, so there's been a bit of a brain drain in
| that sector.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| The article claims this is the sole armor we have ever found,
| and that there are also no depictions of armor, while there are
| numerous depictions of weapons, helmets, etc. So the thought
| wasn't "Mycaeneans smithed bronze armor for ceremonial
| purposes", it was "this one guy had a ceremonial suit of armor
| smithed for him". Turns out this is likely wrong as well, but
| it's not absurd on the face of it.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| A suit of this armor would have been expensive as hell.
| Combined with the standard palace economy I would image it
| was rarely seen in combat even if it was used there.
| ertian wrote:
| But you might expect to see many depictions of it, since it
| would be high-prestige. The people painting vases weren't
| doing live battlefield reporting, there's no reason to
| expect their depictions to be accurate to real battles.
| Tao3300 wrote:
| That probably wasn't the only thing they were doing!
| lupusreal wrote:
| I love to see experimental archaeology making fools out of
| bookish academics too weak and lazy to get up from their chairs.
| A_D_E_P_T wrote:
| From the article:
|
| > _People suspected the Dendra armor was ceremonial_
|
| That's not true. I don't think that there was ever anything
| approaching a consensus that the Mycenean Greek armor in
| question, the Dendra Panopoly, was entirely ceremonial. In fact,
| I've never even seen that view expressed. Many people believed
| that it would prove practical enough for infantry fighting. The
| old counter-argument -- which even then was speculative -- was
| that the armor was intended for charioteers. See:
|
| https://www.ancientworldmagazine.com/articles/encased-bronze...
|
| What's more, people have been making and sparring in reproduction
| pieces for years:
|
| https://mindhost.tumblr.com/post/141243954157/dendra-panoply...
|
| And especially:
|
| https://www.salimbeti.com/micenei/armour1.htm
|
| > _" Some high fidelity reconstructions have demonstrate how this
| panoply, despite the huge aspect, was enough flexible and
| comfortable to be used also during fights on foot and not, as
| sometimes argued, exclusively by warriors fighting from the
| chariots."_
| hinkley wrote:
| I wonder if this was intraoffice politics.
|
| You work with two loud, tenured professors who both believe a
| certain thing that your advisor thinks is bullshit, and your
| dissertation or post doc publications become about how Steve
| and Mark are wrong. Suck it, Steve.
| A_D_E_P_T wrote:
| That may be the case.
|
| There's also, assuredly, an element of that very recent
| controversy: "If it's not published in a peer review journal,
| it doesn't exist."
|
| Now that somebody has written up a report of people sparring
| in modern recreations of the Dendra Panopoly, and has had it
| published in a decent journal, the matter is settled. Before,
| despite dozens of people and groups doing the same exact
| thing, I suppose it wasn't!
|
| Goes to show.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Reminds me of how I just saw a paper where scientists
| proved it was safe to eat double-yolk eggs, which I do all
| the time.
| UberFly wrote:
| Probably backed by a $50,000 grant.
| ertian wrote:
| Whew! Dodged a bullet there...
| Archelaos wrote:
| The original paper does not state that there was a consensus
| that the armor was ceremonial, but lists it as one of several
| possibilities.
|
| From the introduction: "Earlier experiments with replicas
| demonstrated its flexibility for use in combat but not its
| suitability for use in extended battle contexts [...]. Was it
| purely ceremonial [...]?"
|
| From the conclusion: "The discovery of the Dendra panoply in
| 1960 immediately raised the issue of its function. Could it
| have been worn in battle [...]-as repeatedly demonstrated by
| the exploits of the warriors in the Iliad? Was its use
| restricted to those who rode to battle in chariots?
| [...]-again, a regular practice in the epic and indicated in
| the Linear B archives by the association of armour and
| chariots. Or was it too cumbersome to be worn except on
| ceremonial occasions [...], as stated, for example, in the
| caption to the pieces of armour from Thebes on display in the
| Archaeological Museum of Thebes?"
|
| The paper lists several references for the the positions
| mentioned (which I have not cross-checked). Among them is also
| the study that is provided as reference for the sentence you
| quoted. The author's of the paper summaris the result of this
| predecessor study as follows: "Sixty years on we now
| understand, despite its cumbersome appearance at first sight,
| that it is not only flexible enough to permit almost every
| movement of a warrior on foot but also resilient enough to
| protect the wearer from most blows", and explain what their own
| study has added to this insight: "In addition, our experiments
| have now demonstrated, we hope convincingly, that the armour is
| also of a weight and structure to permit extended use in
| combat, day after day, for up to 11 hours, without detriment to
| a fit warrior (although, apart from the Iliad, we have no
| accounts of battles of such duration)."
|
| Source:
| https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
| A_D_E_P_T wrote:
| The first paragraph from the article linked in OP is:
|
| > _" The Dendra armor, one of the oldest suits of bronze
| armor ever found, had been considered a purely ceremonial
| piece. It seemed impossible to use in battle due to its
| cumbersome design."_
|
| Of course, this is completely false. It's more of a
| journalism problem than an issue with the study they're
| reporting on, of course.
|
| > _" Earlier experiments with replicas demonstrated its
| flexibility for use in combat but not its suitability for use
| in extended battle contexts [...]. Was it purely ceremonial
| [...]?"_
|
| This is a remarkably thin justification. If a set of armor
| can be used in combat, then its suitability for extended use
| hinges only on its weight and weight distribution. (Assuming
| the set doesn't include a closed helmet, as those can be
| troublesome in other respects; they can make it hard to
| breathe and hard to see.) A simple _in silico_ ergonomics
| study, the kind that can be run in a single afternoon, could
| have answered their question. Though, admittedly, that would
| be less fun.
| hoobastank_fan wrote:
| It's interesting that you pillory journalism here as if a
| crime has been committed, while simultaneously reading the
| least charitable interpretation of the words possible, then
| concluding absolutes like "completely false," which is
| itself your interpretation and most charitable to you being
| the arbiter of truth here. And you're on this horse
| regarding imagining what ancient armor was used for. You
| don't know. The people quoted don't know. Nobody knows.
|
| If the journalist talked to one guy who said you know, I
| think that's ceremonial, blah blah, the quote is fair. One
| person thought it. One person told the reporter as much.
| You disagree. Journalism is working as intended.
|
| Tip for the future: "journalism is broken" is usually a
| synonym for "I've taken a position that differs, and I
| therefore overfeel that the world is doing things wrong".
| tsimionescu wrote:
| A journalist is never supposed to report something they
| got from a single source with words like "it was
| considered". They're generally not supposed to report
| soemthing they got from a single source _at all_. But if
| they do, it should be "so-and-so believed it was purely
| ceremonial" or "we've spoken with one professor who
| believed it was purely ceremonial".
|
| But the job of journalists is to do the research. That's
| the whole purpose of good journalism: ask around, build
| some context on a story, _then_ report it. Don 't just
| tell me what one guy believed, I can find that out on my
| own. Tell me if others with context also believe the
| same: that's the part I don't have time for.
| dumpsterdiver wrote:
| Agreed. Applying the views of few to many displays a lack
| of journalistic integrity. It's a distasteful pattern
| that has become pervasive, but even more disturbing is
| the fact that so many people seem to be comfortable with
| it.
| smallnamespace wrote:
| Anyone can make stuff up. I'll happily make up 19
| different things and tell it to you with a straight face,
| all before lunch.
|
| It seems like the whole point of elevating a field of
| activity and dignifying it with a fancy term like
| _journalism_ is that it has some sort of standards.
| Otherwise, what good is it to anyone?
|
| If it doesn't have standards, then we should just call it
| "people making up random stuff" instead. Then at least
| we'd be describing things with a bit more accuracy.
| EdwardDiego wrote:
| It looks imposing enough, reminds me of Stargate's aliens.
| bitwize wrote:
| There's something vaguely Doom-like about dressing modern marines
| in ancient armor and letting them fight, and I am totally here
| for it.
| enhancer wrote:
| And the armor looks like it fits in Dark Souls
| doctorwho42 wrote:
| Looking at that armor, it makes WAY more sense why Homer/Greeks
| would make Achilles' weak point his heel... Dude is literally a
| bronze tank in that armor. Only way to really stop him is to take
| out a leg, and his feet are like the least armored thing about
| him.
| Tao3300 wrote:
| That's a great observation. The very tendon we named after him
| is just hanging out there.
| INTPenis wrote:
| The person carrying such an expensive suit probably had a very
| specific role on the battlefield. Which is a source of endless
| speculation. Presumably they had to be protected to perform a
| task while exposed to arrows or spears.
| LarsDu88 wrote:
| A full suit of bronze armor back in 1200 BCE must have been
| absurdly expensive.
|
| To make bronze, you need to alloy copper with tin which is rather
| rare
|
| The alternative to tin was arsenic which is incredibly toxic to
| work with.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| The huge collar is a really interesting feature. That's sure
| going to make it hard to attack the soldiers neck, with not that
| much cost to mobility or even visibility. I think the neck is one
| of the trickier articulation points in European plate armor and
| space suits, for similar reasons. The giant collar seems like a
| gordian knot type of solution. But if anyone gets as far as
| deploying hooks to the battlefield, perhaps as part of a halberd-
| like weapon, those collars will be trouble.
| YurgenJurgensen wrote:
| From what I've seen, gorgets were generally more common than
| articulated visors. so the collar is a fairly standard feature,
| it's just more obvious than on later plate. Obviously the
| drawback of that design is that more standoff means more
| surface area to armour, which means more weight for the same
| protection.
| gridspy wrote:
| More standoff means that the armor can spread a blow over a
| larger deflection without injuring the wearer. Also, a blow
| is going to contact a larger area of metal during the
| deflection. So you could use lighter or more flexible
| material - heavier perhaps but superior protection.
| Tao3300 wrote:
| When Achilles defeats Hector, he's able to do so because he
| exploits the gap in his armor that leaves the neck exposed.
| Achilles knows about this because the armor had previously
| belonged to him, and he's now fighting in new armor gifted to
| him by a different goddess.
|
| Replace "divine gift" with "innovation" and now we have a story
| about how exactly this sort of armor was a hot new technology.
| estreeper wrote:
| Here's a short video of this armor in action:
| https://youtu.be/rm2ZR25xU8M?si=6HdtRO8cFxB5HO8l
| jeremiahbuckley wrote:
| Thank you! I particularly like the brief clip of an armored guy
| standing on a chariot strapped to a treadmill. It appears he is
| able to stand stoically while machines work underneath him. I
| have to assume it's some sort of wind tunnel test and there's a
| fan or something off camera left?
| Tao3300 wrote:
| Ok, warmups are over. Send in the retiarius and let's see what
| happens!
| jakderrida wrote:
| I recall watching a lecture on Youtube where the lecturer pulled
| up a picture of the same armor as an example of archaeologists
| misinterpreting the purpose of what they find. The lecture hall,
| filled with professionals, started laughing as if it were some
| obvious well-known mistake of the archaeologist misidentifying it
| as armor. Still not sure what they all thought it was.
| WalterBright wrote:
| In WW2, the Japanese Zero did not have armor on the theory that
| the lighter weight would make the Zero more maneuverable and that
| was the best defense a pilot could have.
|
| The Zero's first adversary was the P40 Warhawk. The P40 was
| inferior in every way but one - it had forward armor. The pilots
| figured out that the way to beat the Zero was a head on attack,
| with both pilots blasting away. With no armor the Zero would get
| shredded. The Zero pilots had a pretty hard time of it during the
| war.
| cynusx wrote:
| They were just ahead of the times.
|
| Modern fighting jets don't have armour either because missiles
| blast straight through it anyway.
| fifilura wrote:
| Being ahead didn't help much?
|
| I would not say ahead, rather out of step with the times.
| Jensson wrote:
| > The pilots figured out that the way to beat the Zero was a
| head on attack, with both pilots blasting away. With no armor
| the Zero would get shredded. The Zero pilots had a pretty hard
| time of it during the war.
|
| Sounds like that lack of armor wasn't an advantage.
| Tao3300 wrote:
| Arms race. It was an advantage until the enemy adapted.
| FpUser wrote:
| >"fed roughly 4,500 calories worth of goat cheese, roasted meat,
| olives, bread, water, wine ..."
|
| Where do I sign up ...
| jessepasley wrote:
| I initially read 'Dendra Armor' as 'Daedra Armor'
| xarope wrote:
| For the marines, I think wearing a kevlar helmet, LBV (or
| whatever they are using nowadays) with water, ammo etc, would
| already be 30+lbs (not including plate), so I suspect the marines
| would be like "45lbs, is that it?"
| swiftcoder wrote:
| > fed roughly 4,500 calories worth of goat cheese, roasted meat,
| olives, bread, water, wine, and other Bronze Age culinary
| delicacies
|
| Where do I sign up?
| petesergeant wrote:
| Keep an eye out for signs that say taberna
| keiferski wrote:
| The most interesting thing about these old forms of armor to me
| is how they were developed in the first place. Did craftsmen work
| with warriors to test and fine-tune which designs worked and
| which didn't? Or maybe it was more of an evolutionary process,
| whereby the winners of a conflict (which they won by having
| better armor) became the rulers, and therefore their designs were
| considered the best and copied?
| asadotzler wrote:
| Dudes get back from a war and say "hey, this one guy that
| killed most of us had a neat-o neck piece, can we have those
| and see if they help?"
| Ekaros wrote:
| Ceremonial armour feels so strange concept. For something to
| become ceremonial it must first have real use case. You don't
| just go around inventing things from zero. Maybe you will scale
| it up and make it more impressive, but to have meaning it must
| first at some point had some real use.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| That's a good explanation of their origin. Ceremonial objects
| could be preserved and their progenitors lost, due to material
| reuse, ceremonial objects being well preserved through
| different storage methods, or something else.
|
| However, usually objects of ceremonial use are also functional,
| just too expensive for everyone to use. E.g. we would tend to
| find an especially engraved bowl in ruins of a religious
| building---it could still hold soup or beer in a pinch.
| ajuc wrote:
| > The composition of this ordeal was inferred from statistical
| analysis of fights in The Iliad. Each of those scenarios included
| a fair share of spear throws, sword strikes, shooting arrows, and
| spear strikes, all performed in full body armor. Overall, the
| whole day was effectively a long, high-intensity interval
| exercise.
|
| I love the idea of people 2000 years from now doing statistical
| analysis of Rambo movies to deduce how wars were fought in 20th
| century.
| btbuildem wrote:
| It looks so silly! But there's an equally silly chestnut among
| archeologists, that when an artifact is found and the boffins
| can't divine it's purpose, the go-to answer is "religious use" or
| "ceremonial".
|
| The neck part of the armour is actually quite clever on closer
| inspection -- no complex moving part, doesn't restrict the
| wearer's head movements (well, other than looking at your own
| feet I guess) and seems to offer robust protection.
|
| It reminds me somewhat of the benevolent aliens in Fifth Element.
| iambateman wrote:
| In 3000 years, what of our culture will be wrongly associated
| with usage in a religious ceremony?
|
| My money is on the cybertruck
| ertian wrote:
| I mean it is largely ceremonial... (along with all those F-250s
| in the middle of a crowded city)
| doublepg23 wrote:
| The bathroom mirror.
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