> 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.<p>This is science at its best.<p>> 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).
From the article:<p>> <i>People suspected the Dendra armor was ceremonial</i><p>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:<p><a href="https://www.ancientworldmagazine.com/articles/encased-bronze-panoply-mycenaean-tomb-dendra/" rel="nofollow">https://www.ancientworldmagazine.com/articles/encased-bronze...</a><p>What's more, people have been making and sparring in reproduction pieces for years:<p><a href="https://mindhost.tumblr.com/post/141243954157/dendra-panoply-mycenaean-armour-recreation" rel="nofollow">https://mindhost.tumblr.com/post/141243954157/dendra-panoply...</a><p>And especially:<p><a href="https://www.salimbeti.com/micenei/armour1.htm" rel="nofollow">https://www.salimbeti.com/micenei/armour1.htm</a><p>> <i>"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."</i>
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.<p>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.
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.
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.<p>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.
> 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<p>A <i>decade</i> of research and mathematical models to determine that an ancient civilization wasn’t just making useless armor for fun?
> fed roughly 4,500 calories worth of goat cheese, roasted meat, olives, bread, water, wine, and other Bronze Age culinary delicacies<p>Where do I sign up?
Here’s a short video of this armor in action: <a href="https://youtu.be/rm2ZR25xU8M?si=6HdtRO8cFxB5HO8l" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/rm2ZR25xU8M?si=6HdtRO8cFxB5HO8l</a>
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.
> 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.<p>I love the idea of people 2000 years from now doing statistical analysis of Rambo movies to deduce how wars were fought in 20th century.
The 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.
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".<p>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.<p>It reminds me somewhat of the benevolent aliens in Fifth Element.
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?
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.
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.
A full suit of bronze armor back in 1200 BCE must have been absurdly expensive.<p>To make bronze, you need to alloy copper with tin which is rather rare<p>The alternative to tin was arsenic which is incredibly toxic to work with.
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?"
submission linking to actual paper: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40527844">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40527844</a>
> “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.<p>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.