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Description

Commissioned artwork-published 2014 in Focus Wars magazine (Milan, Italy)

The Homeric term for a Bronze Age chariot warrior is “Hippotes” or “Knight” in plane English (“Hippotes” is derived from Greek word “Hippos” which means “Horse”, therefore “Hippotes” is the “Horse warrior” or “Chariot warrior”). In the second millennium BC. chariots had become an essential shock weapon in the battlefields of “fertile crescent” Mesopotamia and North Africa, and many experts of chariot warfare and chariot horse trainers were known to have recognizably Indo-European names.

According to historian Robert Drews, the Bronze Age Greece was invaded around 1600 BC by a Indo-European chariot warrior population who was capable to perform organized landing and transport chariots and horses with ships from Asia Minor to the western Aegean sores. These chariot warfare experts (according his theory always) were the “Hellenes" or “Greeks” who established themselves as the ruling elite in the land of “Pelasgians” or “Aegeans” (as are known the pre Indo-European habitants of the mainland and islands respectively). I simply record this theory (first published in 1988) without rejecting it or accepting it.

According to another scholar (expert of Mycenaean chariots), Joust H. Crouwel, the development of chariot warfare in Bronze age Greece was indigenous and not a result of Indo-European invasion from the east or anywhere else. The allegedly Greek speaking Indo-Europeans were native to Greece many centuries before the adaptation of chariot warfare. His conclusions about Mycenaean warrior elite aristocracy were published in 1981. Other scholars (especially A.W. Person and Fritz Schachermeyr) concluded that Mycenaean adventurers recruited from Egyptians as mercenaries in the war against “Yksos” invaders and there they learned the secrets and art of chariot warfare.

Whatever the truth might be, my illustration depicts the well known Dendra warrior from Argolis, wearing the full body plate armor known as the “Dendra panoply” (made from smooth surface bronze metal parts, the first one of this kind at least in Europe) testing his balance and the stability of his powerful “Ehos” spear as the chariot driver stimulates the horses with harness to increase speed. If the chariot was at full speed in battle conditions the chariot driver’s body would be in a leaning position of much more tension. The chariot depicted here is the two men crew “Dual” chariot with four spoke wheels and projecting curvilinear “wings” in the rear sides of the box proper, widely used in Bronze Age Greece from 16th to late 15th century at least. This vehicle was of a more robust and solid construction than the Middle Eastern or Egyptian chariots, with massive wheels and braced double drought pole, because it had to be adjusted to hard ground terrain of Greek countryside. It seems that red dye was favored in war chariot boxes in the Greek Bronze Age.

It is important to have in mind that in a true war chariot the wheels are placed in the rear of the box proper and so to enable the crew to perform various maneuvers in battle.

Description

Commissioned artwork-published 2014 in Focus Wars magazine (Milan, Italy)

The Homeric term for a Bronze Age chariot warrior is “Hippotes” or “Knight” in plane English (“Hippotes” is derived from Greek word “Hippos” which means “Horse”, therefore “Hippotes” is the “Horse warrior” or “Chariot warrior”). In the second millennium BC. chariots had become an essential shock weapon in the battlefields of “fertile crescent” Mesopotamia and North Africa, and many experts of chariot warfare and chariot horse trainers were known to have recognizably Indo-European names.

According to historian Robert Drews, the Bronze Age Greece was invaded around 1600 BC by a Indo-European chariot warrior population who was capable to perform organized landing and transport chariots and horses with ships from Asia Minor to the western Aegean sores. These chariot warfare experts (according his theory always) were the “Hellenes" or “Greeks” who established themselves as the ruling elite in the land of “Pelasgians” or “Aegeans” (as are known the pre Indo-European habitants of the mainland and islands respectively). I simply record this theory (first published in 1988) without rejecting it or accepting it.

According to another scholar (expert of Mycenaean chariots), Joust H. Crouwel, the development of chariot warfare in Bronze age Greece was indigenous and not a result of Indo-European invasion from the east or anywhere else. The allegedly Greek speaking Indo-Europeans were native to Greece many centuries before the adaptation of chariot warfare. His conclusions about Mycenaean warrior elite aristocracy were published in 1981. Other scholars (especially A.W. Person and Fritz Schachermeyr) concluded that Mycenaean adventurers recruited from Egyptians as mercenaries in the war against “Yksos” invaders and there they learned the secrets and art of chariot warfare.

Whatever the truth might be, my illustration depicts the well known Dendra warrior from Argolis, wearing the full body plate armor known as the “Dendra panoply” (made from smooth surface bronze metal parts, the first one of this kind at least in Europe) testing his balance and the stability of his powerful “Ehos” spear as the chariot driver stimulates the horses with harness to increase speed. If the chariot was at full speed in battle conditions the chariot driver’s body would be in a leaning position of much more tension. The chariot depicted here is the two men crew “Dual” chariot with four spoke wheels and projecting curvilinear “wings” in the rear sides of the box proper, widely used in Bronze Age Greece from 16th to late 15th century at least. This vehicle was of a more robust and solid construction than the Middle Eastern or Egyptian chariots, with massive wheels and braced double drought pole, because it had to be adjusted to hard ground terrain of Greek countryside. It seems that red dye was favored in war chariot boxes in the Greek Bronze Age.

It is important to have in mind that in a true war chariot the wheels are placed in the rear of the box proper and so to enable the crew to perform various maneuvers in battle.