#ahhiyawa

[historyfiles]

Ekwesh: some scholars see the Ekwesh as possible elements from Ahhiyawa, or even mainland Mycenaean Achaea, while Homer and Odysseus mention an Achaean attack upon the Nile delta.

[avelera]

thesis about the sea peoples you say? may i request an infodump about the sea peoples?

Heya!

So, basically in college (undergraduate) I got really obsessed with the questions around the Collapse of the Aegean Bronze Age, mostly because I wanted to set my big Magnum Opus historical fiction novel in that time, and the deeper I dug into the rabbit hole the more it appeared that no one, absolutely no one, actually knows why the civilizations around the Mediterranean all fell from a state of pretty sophisticated internationally-trading civilizations to literal Dark Ages (all except for Egypt which was substantially weakened and never really recovered), all at once around 1200-1100 BCE.

The Sea Peoples are the names of the only contemporary (Egyptian) account we have that names who might have been responsible if this collapse was due to an invasion. It's a popular theory because a viking-style invasion is a much sexier reason for a civilization to collapse so we all gather around it like moths to flame. But the thing is, there's a lot of contradictory evidence for and against and shading that hypothesis.

Suffice to say, literally no actually knows what happened and almost every answer comes up, "Some combination of these things, probably?"

But what makes the Collapse even more interesting from a modern perspective is that if there was a historical Trojan War (and I think there was) as fictionalized in the Iliad and the Odyssey (and Song of Achilles, for the Tumbrlistas), then it would have taken place within a generation of the entire civilization that launched the Trojan War crumbling to dust.

So like, if you're Telemachus, your dad Odysseus fights in the Trojan War, some even manage to get home, and then like... everything goes to shit. Catastrophically. And doesn't recover for 400 years.

Seriously, they lost the written word, like how to actually write things down and read them and it took 400 years to get it back. That's how fucked shit got during the Collapse of the Bronze Age.

So my thesis was asking: what if these two things were related? What if the Trojan War either led to the Collapse or it was part of the Collapse or it was a result of the Collapse? Because the timeline is so unknown and muddled that it really could be any of those and again, that's if the Trojan War isn't entirely fictional (which I don't think it is, but many academics disagree, it used to be a whole thing up until Schliemann dug it up, and many doubted it was ever a historical event even after that.)

Ok, so at the risk of writing 75 pages on this again, let me just say:

My conclusion (more of a hypothesis proposal ultimately since there are so many gaps in our knowledge) was that the Trojan War took place before the Collapse of the Bronze Age. But, it might have been launched in response to a wider breakdown in trades routes and resources, causing the Greeks to launch the campaign basically as a bid to replenish their own coffers because they were getting squeezed by what they didn't know was the first rumblings of a global domino effect.

Therefore, since taking out Troy didn't solve those larger trends and forces, they all went home and then got slammed by the REAL problem, which was all the people who had been displaced from further away by this rolling drought or invasion or whatever that was disrupting these delicate international trade routes.

But the Greeks might have been part of the Sea Peoples too! Our only record of the Sea Peoples is from the Egyptians in a highly propagandistic text which makes them sound like this big fearsome foe but that might have been because saying, "We slaughtered a bunch of desperate refugees at our border who were looking for shelter," didn't sound as cool. If the Greeks (or Achaeans or Ahhiyawa) got swept up in this slow-rolling collapse/displacement of people, then they absolutely could have been among those refugees who crashed against the shores of Egypt.

A lot of my evidence was based on looking at how Troy was sacked (it was stripped literally down the nails and there was a lot of evidence of a long-term siege, like what we read about in the Iliad) vs. how Mycenae (Agamemnon's city) or Pylos (King Nestor's city) was sacked, where they were burned and stuff was stolen but they weren't stripped, it looks more like a standard looting hit-and-run type thing. Which led me to believe that it was different turmoil that rocked Mycenae and Pylos than what led to the sacking of Troy, despite the fact these things happened within about 20 years of each other. (Helen being a made-up reason for a resource-driven war would only be the oldest trick in the book, as far as propaganda goes, after all.)

But really, the craziest detail I'll leave you with is: we just don't know! And then it gets weirder. Because the Hittites fell at the same time so the Hittites scholars say, "Nah, the Sea Peoples weren't Hittites, they were probably Greeks." And the GREEK scholars say, "It wasn't us, it was probably the Hittites or someone else. " and the EGYPTIAN scholars say, "Yeah it was someone north of Egypt, maybe the Hittites or the Greeks." and the LEVANT scholars say, "It wasn't from the Levant, we know what was going on there, it has to be from somewhere else."

Literally every single possible source of the Sea Peoples has the scholars who specialize in that location saying it's not them and it must be the guy next door.

It's maddening!

And then there's a big ol' gap around Bulgaria and the Black Sea because, oh yeah, the Soviet Union forbade archaeology in those areas to quash any local pride so those places that were behind the Iron Curtain are decades behind on scholarship that would allow them to say, "Oh hey, it was actually us! Yeah, the invaders came from Bulgaria and got pushed down by a famine." or something to that effect.

We also have some histories from the time saying that the Sons of Heracles returned not long after the Trojan War to lay Greece to waste! And it's really evocative and sounds like it fits what we've got of all these burned cities that happened right after Troy fell! Except that's in doubt now too!

The latest theory is that it was climate change that led to a massive drought. You can read about it in the latest and most popular book on the subject, 1177 BCE which I highly recommend because if it had existed when I wrote my thesis, I wouldn't have had to write it.

But I disagree with the conclusion! Or rather, I'm skeptical. Because very decade, the problems of the day have been hypothesized as being the cause of the Collapse. Like, in the 60s, there was a theory that maybe it was internal strife around a labor strike, like the French Revolution. And y'know when there's a world war, they think it's an invasion. And there was a theory that it was 'cuz of an earthquake (I think that one is nonsense, Mediterranean civilizations famously bounce back quickly from earthquakes.) And now that climate change is on our mind, I'm a little weary to see that it's the new theory because it feels way too much like we're just projecting our problems onto this giant question mark.

Was climate an aspect! I think so! I think it might have contributed to the break down in trade routes that made everyone in the Mediterranean really stressed out and hostile and warlike and led to a lot of displacement. I'm not sure if it's the only reason though and I think the book just kinda reiterates everyone else saying, "I think it was this but in the end, we just don't know, and it was probably a lot of things." which we've known for ages so it's just repeating all the same conclusions. *sigh*

... Like I said, I wrote my thesis on this so yeah, I could go on for a while lol.

[allthathistory]

Our only sources for the legendary Trojan War come from the Greek oral tradition: fading memories handed down for centuries. But a close study of Hittite documents may just help us find the truth of this great conflict in the historic record.

[littlesparklight]

I remember quite a while back you discussed something about the use of words like Ahhiyawā and Wiluša and used them in your writing. (The hittie language?) I was wondering if you had links to anything of the sorts from your own blog or from the internet.

The Hittite language*, yes! (Also, anon, if I misunderstood what it was you were looking for, please come back ahah.)

I don't really have anything on my blog aside from what posts I've done talking about it in general. Wikipedia is an easy starting point if you just want to pick up some terms, going from the pages on the Hittites and their gods, say, to looking at the countries/areas extant in Anatolia in the Bronze Age and their names. It gives a good idea of what the Trojans might call the surrounding areas themselves, like with calling the Greek/Achaean sphere of influence Ahhiyawa.

Aside from having the Trojan characters call Apollo "Apaliunas" in speech, I haven't mapped any other Greek gods onto the Luwian or Hittite ones. (It hasn't really come up in my fics, but background/worldbuilding-wise I've added a couple Luwian gods to the ones the Trojans worship aside from the Olympian ones.) It doesn't feel right, and really, it's unnecessary. The closest is having Ganymede use one of Tarhunz's epithets for Zeus.

For books (which /cough can be found on the Internet with some searching), I've read a couple of Trevor Bryce's. He does talk about the identification of the site that has been called Troy with Bronze Age Anatolian Wilusa/(and possibly Taruwisa) ; The Trojans and their Neighbours, The Kingdom of the Hittites, and Life and Society in the Hittite World. That last one is especially good if you want to pick up some social/cultural ideas to apply to the Trojans! The first one is also definitely useful for the Troy connection. (Joachim Latacz's Troy and Homer : Towards a Solution of an Old Mystery might be another choice, the first half of his book lays out the development of the knowledge about if myth-Troy should really also be actual Anatolian/Hittite Troy/Wilusa, and he's systematic about it, but doesn't really talk about Hittite society or such.)

(*Language-wise, there's no certain proof what might have been the main/native language of the (real world) Trojans, but a Luwic dialect is probable. Luwian is related to Hittite.)

[gemsofgreece]

It should also be noted that Troy was most likely an independent multiethnic city state. It was in fact not exactly Hittite and it had both peasants and royalty that could lean to one or the other culture more, including Hittite, Luwian and, you guessed it, Greek. In fact, Paris’ actual name being Alexander might be a reference to the Trojan king Alaksandu (as called in Hittite texts), a name which according to linguists and historians can not be derived linguistically from the ancient Anatolian languages and is believed to be the Ancient Greek name Alexander. Furthermore, Troy’s independence is also indicated in the fact that Troy had conflicts with the Hittite empire too and in the Hittite texts it is written that such conflicts were supported by the Ahhiyawa (the Achaeans - the Greeks), which means that Troy would shift towards one power or another depending on what strategy suited it better at any given time or what the ancestry / culture of the royalty was, and also that Greeks already had some significant influence or activity in the general area. Besides, Ionians were arriving at Anatolia since 1900 BC. Therefore, some Trojans were of Greek ancestry.

In any case, Troy was almost certainly multiethnic and multilingual and Homer could have used that even more to his advantage while making the story relevant to Greek listeners. Everything foreign described in Ancient Greek literature is always considerably Hellenized or Hellenocentric. This in addition to emphasised similarities that Greeks and Trojans might have actually shared (certain deities, cultural practices, names, some level of lingual intelligibility, some ancestry from Greek settlers too) make them look almost indistinguishable in Homer’s texts.

Hey! I've seen all your posts about how Greek gods and characters in mythology should be depicted more like, you know, Greek people, and l just wanted to ask if you think the Trojans would look Greek too :) love your posts btw

Hello! 💙It's important to remember that the large majority of ancient Greeks didn't have a good idea of how people from far regions looked. The further back in history you go, the less they are exposed to other peoples. This is to preface that Greeks' references for foreigners were limited. And if someone was to be very different from the average Greek, they got their own special description in the narrative. (Like the warrior Memnon.)

Of course, Troy/Ilion was very close to Greek areas in terms of latitude. There is almost no difference in geographical latitude, and the people of this area looked like Greeks anyway. It's the distance from the equator that makes people lighter or darker. But when they are the same distance from the equator they evolve similarly in skin tone over thousands of years because they have the same needs for sunlight. Trojans were so close to Greeks that the mixing with other peoples would have been similar. More Eastern peoples might have found their way easier to Ilion than to Greek areas, so there would a difference lie. But due to traveling distances, it wouldn't be very notable, I think, more so if these eastern areas were at the same latitude

But still, the Greeks didn't have much exposure to foreigners, and traveling to Ilion was a feat. From Argos to Ilion it's almost 1.000 kms and it would take 10 months to arrive there by land. Traveling by ship is faster but still not exactly easy, considering the travel to Ilion with the Greek ships was still a daring expedition for their time.

So it's logical to assume that the Greeks drew inspiration from their own people when making these foreign characters. In the text the Trojans are not differentiated in looks and some even have descriptions that show they were fair (whatever our ancients considered fair anyways). They share the customs and pantheon of the Greeks, albeit not being Greeks. Trojans and Greeks understand each other without translators, although their tribes would speak different languages historically. Paris' name is "Alexandros" ffs 😂This shows that the Greeks didn't have a good picture of Trojan (probably Hittite) culture and they didn't wish to delve that deep. It was just a story about a war with "the foreign peoples over there".

Drawing from native culture and appearances when depicting foreigners of other lands has been the go-to for people of old times. It's shown in the text and also in the ancient/medieval art of the native culture. The Persians and the Chinese making tales come to mind but I also imagine that if an ancient Yoruba tribe were to tell a tale of "a very beautiful prince from a faraway northern land" they would depict him as one of their own, and not like a north Egyptian or like an "white" Italian. It comes down to what nations the natives have been exposed the most. If this figure had been established through millennia looking like a native, I'd go by that when depicting them.

[bacchilles]

forever going 2 be haunted by mycenaean basket vase

[barbariankingdom]

The first recorded instance of what would today be called paramilitary covert action: In the mid 13th century BC Tawagalawa Letter, Hittite King Hattusili III wrote to the king of Ahhiyawa (Mycenaean Greece) saying he knew he was supporting rebels in Hittite territory.

[dapurinthos]

okay it took longer than 45 minutes because i got detoured into a bunch of other places.

and, because it is long, i'm putting it behind a cut so long post does not get any longer.

terminology i: regarding palaces. new world archaeology says that a palace is both a residence and a seat of political power, and has a wider public role. new world archaeology would hold that what most refer to as the minoan palaces are not palaces, during the major period of the minoan civilization. as to how the ‘monopalatial’ knossos worked during the latest of the late minoan periods (ib is around where i stop, but i can scurry my way through some of the linear b-administrated eras. precisely when that is is up for debate because we don’t know if the tablets we have are from one conflagration event or many), that’s also up for debate.

terminology, ii: regarding megaron. see heinrich schliemann and wilhelm döpfeld deciding that the great halls of the acropoleis of hisarlik/troy/wiluša and tiryns, despite being over a millennia apart in building date, are, in fact: temples! they are then joined by christos tsountas with a similar structure at mycenae, causing döpfeld to go whole-scale capital-r romantic and dubbing them ‘megaron’ instead.

okay! the thing is that minoan and mycenean centres were very different things. minoan ones are more like super luxe community centres and built out from a central gathering place with buildings set around it that evolved into the court-central complexes we know and love well (r i p floors of the 'residential quarter' you were trod upon by too many people), so it's a bunch of different buildings/rooms for administration, production, possibly residential, def. cultic activities stuck together by adding hallways—heterarchical instead of hierarchical. the central court is a unifier, the surroundings are ancillary (which, i know, sounds ridiculous and, honestly, to me: hysterical).

(any notion of hierarchy at knossos can trace back to the influence of james frazer, my mortal enemy, on evans, which resulted in the belief that knossos had some sort of priest-king.)

interestingly enough, evans’s decision to classify these complexes as palace-temples draws on the then-current research of religious centres in anatolia, such as hattuša, where the great temple, as we know it today, was initially thought to be the ‘lower palace’ given its placement below büyükkale hill, where we now know the palace actually was, in a very similar way to how the palace of mycenae is built upon the acropolis.

mycenaean centres were built to enforce hierarchy, and it can be seen in how they direct you to the megaron, to the throne room.

as for homer ‘greeking’ the trojans: he would have been most familiar with level 8, which was a city populated by a majority of greek immigrants by c. 700bce, who reused the citadel’s walls and probably destroyed the rest of the bronze age remains to put a new sanctuary of athena there and then schliemann did what schliemann did best: he fucked it up. he went ‘oh this doesn’t look old enough! can’t be from the bronze age!’ and kept digging, badly, until he ended up in level 2, which was built c. 2550bce.

his bad.

his extreme bad.

we know of contact between ahhiyawa and the hittites, involving wiluša, which is where we get the alaksandu treaty/milawata & al. letters from (c. 1280bce & 1240bce), and there’s definitely a case for the architectural similarities of anatolia and the aegean, along with with techniques and tools used to construct the lion gate of mycenae having their closest parallel in anatolia. much of the masonry at hattuša shows use of the same type of drill that is limited, in the mycenaean world, to the lion gate relief. actual artefacts themselves are far and few between, but we know that there had previously been minoan interest in miletos/millawanda and that interest was later taken over by the mycenaeans, and we can follow the claims of the tawagalawa letter that ahhiyawa was raiding western anatolia for slaves, and can see in linear b tablets names indicated origins in the troad.

now, ‘homeric’ troy wasn’t just hittite. troy was very likely luwian, the term used by the hittites for the people of western anatolia. problem with the luwians: what do we know about them, in the bronze age?

very little.

the layers that are called troy 6h and troy 7a (even though it seems they're actually all continuations of level 6 but popular terminology, alas) seem to be the ones concurrent with the mycenaean era and both of these layers were destroyed, c. 1300bce and 1180bce, respectively. and, despite there being pretty much a century and a half of excavations, only the citadel area has been excavated apart from what looks like some ruins slightly to the south that i don’t know the date of. but they were pretty

the outer terrace structures can provide some insight into how the buildings likely looked: two-storey houses for the most part, pillared megarons, yes. priam’s many-roomed house? no, despite there appearing to be a very sharp division in wealth between those who lived on the upper citadel versus those outside of its walls. i find it interesting that he’s given a courtyard as the central part of his palace rather than the typical mycenaean megaron. even the description of ‘chambers of polished stone’ puts me in mind of monumental minoan building, given the profusion of ashlar masonry within that style.

in fact, the way it’s described has me thinking specifically of the ‘little palace’ of knossos, if you ignore the 'unexplored mansion', which is neither unexplored nor, probably, actually a mansion.

Source-ry

Blackwell, Nicholas G. (2014). “Making the Lion Gate Relief at Mycenae: Tool Marks and Foreign Influence.” American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 118, no. 3, 2014, doi:10.3764/aja.118.3.0451

Bryce, Trevor. The Trojans and Their Neighbours. Taylor & Francis, 2006.

Driessen, Jan. “The Central Court of the Palace at Knossos.” Vol 12: Knossos: Palace, City, State, British School at Athens Studies, 2004, pp. 75–82, www.jstor.org/stable/40960768.

McEnroe, John C. Architecture of Minoan Crete. University of Texas Press, 2010.

Schoep, Ilse. “The Minoan “Palace-Temple” Reconsidered: A Critical Assessment of the Spatial Concentration of Political, Religious and Economic Power in Bronze Age Crete.” Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, vol. 23, no. 2, 20 Jan. 2011, https://doi.org/10.1558/jmea.v23i2.219.

I'm trying to figure out exactly the planimetry of Troy royal palace (and generally housing system). It doesn't help the various translations sometimes use "house" and sometimes "room" (I guess because in the basic Ancient Greek house there was only one room, so "room" and "house" are indeed the same thing) Anyway, from what Homer says I think there is an inner courtyard with 62 rooms (50 for the sons, 12 for the daughter, on either side of the courtyard). As Homer uses the verb "sleep", they are more bedrooms. Given that the daily activities, included eating, would be communal in the megaron, it's easy to assume the private spaces would be only the ones for sleeping and night activities.

The word used is θαλαμος, meaning specifically "bedroom"

Later, however, both when Aphrodite brings Helen to Paris and when Hector orders Paris back to war, the translation says the "splendid house of Alexandros". The term used is δομος, house, home.

And later

Meaning Paris' house is that, a house, not merely a bedroom, given the mention of a courtyard and a hall (I guess the megaron).

So by my understanding, the sons (at least some) have their own houses, while also having bedrooms in the royal palace (I guess they act as guest rooms). Unless they are the same thing and Homer uses different words based on what the metric requires in that specific verse Please, enlighten me

[sisterofiris]

Hi there! I’m fascinated by the Hittites and know a bit about them, but would like to know more. Are there any books you recommend? Thanks!

YES JOIN ME

Some of my favourite books are:

The Kingdom of the Hittites by Trevor Bryce

Life and Society in the Hittite World by Trevor Bryce

basically anything by Trevor Bryce, he’s great

marry me Trevor

1177 BC: The Year Civilisation Collapsed by Eric Cline

The Hittites and their World by Billie Jean Collins

I met Billie Jean Collins actually, she’s great too

well I didn’t exactly meet her, I sat next to her at a conference but it’s basically the same thing right?

The Hittites and their Contemporaries in Asia Minor by J. G. Macqueen (good but a bit outdated)

From Hittite to Homer by Mary Bachvarova

I actually did meet Mary Bachvarova properly and she’s amazing

we talked about tattoos, celiac disease and ancient conspiracy theories

anyway

Hittite Prayers by Itamar Singer

The Ahhiyawa Texts by Gary Beckman, Trevor Bryce and Eric Cline

Letters from the Hittite Kingdom by Harry Hoffner

Lastly, here are a few non-academic resources to get you into the mood:

I the Sun by Janet Morris

The Troy trilogy by David Gemmel

The 2003 documentary The Hittites

I hope that helps feed your interest!

[private-tours-in-israel]

In the photo are Portraits of captured Philistines, referred to in Egyptian as Peleset, cover the walls of the Medinet Habu temple. One of the most famed people who lived in Canaan were the Philistines, or Palashtu. The Philistines were particularly famed for being enemies with the Israelites, however, they were much more than this. The Philistines themselves were not from Canaan originally. They appear to have come from somewhere west of Canaan, possibly Kaphtor (Crete) which is mentioned as the traditional first home of the Philistines. Disaster in Crete forced the Philistines and several other groups- including the Shekelesh, the Tjeker, the Lukka, the Ekwesh, the Deyen, the Weshesh, the Teresh, and the Sherden- out of their former homeland and across the sea in search of new land. These peoples together were referred to as the Sea Peoples, and it is they who destroyed several Canaanite cities in the north, including Alashiya in Kittim (Cyprus) and Ugarit in northern Canaan. They began to move south into Egypt, where the Philistines are known as attempting to establish colonies in the north. However, the Sea Peoples were driven out of Egypt and defeated by Pharaoh Ramses III. The Sea Peoples continued to search for their home elsewhere. The Sherden ended up in Cyprus and eventually in Sardinia. The Teresh ended up in the Anatolian city of Tarusha, as it was called by the Hittites, and known by the Greeks as Troy. They may also be ancestors of the Etruscans. The Lukka became the Lycians. The Shekelesh became the Sikils of Sicily, the Ekwesh became the Ahhiyawa Greeks. The Philistines though, settled in southern Canaan. The area that became known as Pelest was bordered in the south by desert, in the west by sea, in the north by the Yarqon River, but with no fixed border in the east.

[kallistcs]

A little shiver stole down his spine for that laugh, soft as it was, yet resonant. It almost distracted him enough to simply accept the name given, for having a name to put to Tallaios' face was indeed nice, and made things far simpler. At leats that meant he didn't have to keep thinking of him as their guest, or the Thracian-looking guest, or any other roundabout appellation that wasn't actually a name.

But - was called. What a curious way to put it. It certainly wasn't how King Minos had introduced himself when he visited, though he, too, like Tallaios, wasn't just a man from Ahhiyawa, but Crete, even, as well.

Maybe he was just getting stuck on nothing, but that was just such a convoluted way to say my name is Tallaios. And they while they were speaking Luwian, Ganymede wasn't sure he could chalk the strange phrasing to the man not speaking his own native language. He still spoke it smoothly, with no hint of hesitation.

"Partly," he said, flashing a little grin up over his shoulder before they stepped in under the shadow of the doorway, and he sighed, half-pleased. It was a little cooler, in here. "Does that mean you have other names, now?"

Another little glance over his shoulder, curls in his eyes, before he turned to quickly exchange a few words with a servant before he led the way into the hall itself.

Such a pointed question, after the first one.

Briefly, he worried, but a second look revealed nothing but the same as what he'd already seen; a man. If, well. Definitely an attractive one. Worrying his lip, Ganymede arched his brows.

"Ask your name before you've even had something to drink, or you've offered your name and where you're from, willingly and by your own accord, sir? Father would have my head." Smiling wryly, he shook his head. "I have to admit I am curious, though."

Another look, thoughtlessly given from under thick, slightly lowered lashes, as if he could hide it. It was pushing it, a little, after all. You didn't badger guests until they felt like talking.

"You look similar to the men my father's meeting with, right now. A delegation from one of the cities in Thrace."

Similar, but not exactly so. The pale hair and eyes was the greatest similarity, and even that didn't seem quite right. And anyway, Ganymede knew this man hadn't been among the group they'd welcomed yesterday evening. He also didn't seem like a straggler - in that case, surely he would've asked about them.

But, he'd been asked his name and as Ganymede turned to lead their guest to the hall, he tipped his head.

"I'm Ganymede. Son of Kallirrhoe, daughter of the Scamander river, and Tros, grandson of Dardanus, son of Zeus."

[littlesparklight]

I cannot stop thinking about this letter a Hittite king sent to the king of Ahhiyawa (whoever they thought of as "the" king in this case), complaining to him about the 7000 inhabitants from Lukka (Lycia) that had been taken to Ahhiyawa. (Pre...sumably over a longer period?) Some of them willingly (migration) most of them enslaved in raids/attacks, and just.

I'm imagining Atreus (partially because it's the funniest, partially because if you keep the classical dating of the Trojan War it would most probably be Atreus, but if not, rule of funny) sitting there on his throne like:

Atreus: Well, that's certainly unfortunate. Sucks to be him. >:)))

Unfortunate scribe, ready with clay tablet: My lord Atreus, I can't write that down to be sent to the king of Hattusa!

[alatismeni-theitsa]

Hii,

I was wondering if you could tell me (if you know, of course) what the ancient Greeks of the Mycenaean times called themselves.

I was trying to look it up myself for a project but all the info I got was so inconclusive and one article went against the other and I'm honestly so confused.

I really wanted to answer this because I remember we talked about it in A' class in Gymnasio!! (Our History book also wrote a bit about that). We are almost sure, as we have very strong historical elements for speculation.

If you've read the Iliad and Odyssey in English, the Greeks (who came from the Mycenean culture at the time) are called "Achaeans" (Αχαιοί) and the region "Achaea" (Αχαΐα). So, that's probably how they called themselves as well.

The Hettites called the Myceneans "Ahiyawa" (Acheans) and wrote that they were a strong seafaring power. The Egyptians called them "Aqwavasa" or "Eqwesh". You might read the Indoeuropean "aqw-" sound/root hidden somewhere there, which means "water" (see the latin "aqua", the greek "acheron" etc). It is possible that the name "Achaeans" meant "those who come from the sea places". I don't have the time to research more on that but you can do some more reading on that if you want to see if it checks out.

In the Epics other collective names were also used, the most common being Danaans ("Δαναοί" is the Greek term) and Argeans / Argites / Argives / Argeioi. ("Αργείοι" is the Greek term).

Danaans were an earlier, different tribe than Achaeans, and when Achaeans came to the Peloponnese circa 2.000 BCE, they mixed. Danaans came to the region - possible Argos on the mainland the islands - after the "Pelasgoi" (Πελασγοί) the first inhabitants of the region. "Pelasgos" means "one from the open sea" so it's possible the Danaans had mostly gathered in the islands and other places near the sea. Danaans built Argos. But after their mix, Danaans and Achaeans were mostly the same, so the identifications came to be synonyms and used interchangeably by foreigners.

Egyptians called the Danaans "Denyen" and "Tanaju". Moreover, a list of the cities and regions of the Tanaju is also mentioned in this inscription; among the cities listed are Mycenae, Nauplion, Kythera, Messenia, and the Thebaid (region of Thebes).

Argos was a great power at the time and that's why you also see the Argeioi in the ancient texts. Before the Trojan war, they all gathered in Argos and sailed from there. It's possible the city was so powerful back then that it also became representative of the Greeks sometimes in the eyes of foreigners.

For the names of Achaeans these are two prominent sources: 1) Beckman Gary Michael, Cline Eric H., Bryce, R Trevor. (2012). «The Ahhiyawa Texts». Writings from the ancient world / Society of Biblical Literature, (28): 5. ISSN 1570-7008. 2) Jorrit Kelder. Ahhiyawa and the World of the Great Kings. A Re-evaluation of Mycenaean Political Structures, Talanta XLVI, 2012, X-X, σελ. 1.

Of course not all Achaeans lived in Argos, so they didn't have to self-identify as Argeioi. They could remember their Danaan origin and identify with that + the name of their town. Or they were just living in a smaller town and they self-identified with their Achaean origin + the name of their town. And it's possible that many Danaans lived in Argos. I don't recall any ancient texts talking about tensions between Danaans and Achaeans, or any discrimination like "Their family is Danaan and we are Achaeans so our children shouldn't marry." I think they just co-existed and merged without much fuss :P

For the origin story of Danaans in the region, you can read more by seeing the myth of Danaos. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danaus

Greek "nations" and genera across the ages, the origins of the Danaans

This entry in wikipedia has very well concentrated all the genealogies and how the Greeks saw the creation of nations and lines across the ages.

**"Ethne" ("Ethnoi") are what I call in English "tribes" for better understanding. ("Ethnos" is singular.) It could also be translated as "ethnicities" (yes "ethnicity" comes from Greek) but in English this shows a bigger difference in cultural backgrounds than a "tribe". The ancient "ethnos" between the Greeks is more akin to the relationship different tribes of the same nation and ethnicity have. In modern times we call them "phylles" lit. "leaves" from different branches of the same tree or "genoi" (you'll know the English word genealogy from Greek). We rarely use the "ethnoi" word today but the ancients saw more differences between them than we see in them today so they kept a wider distinction.

In Greek mythology, the perceived cultural divisions among the Hellenes were represented as legendary lines of descent that identified kinship groups, with each line being derived from an eponymous ancestor. Each of the Greek ethne were said to be named in honor of their respective ancestors: Achaeus of the Achaeans, Danaus of the Danaans, Cadmus of the Cadmeans (the Thebans), Hellen of the Hellenes (not to be confused with Helen of Troy), Aeolus of the Aeolians, Ion of the Ionians, and Dorus of the Dorians.

Cadmus from Phoenicia, Danaus from Egypt, and Pelops from Anatolia each gained a foothold in mainland Greece and were assimilated and Hellenized. Hellen, Graikos, Magnes, and Macedon were sons of Deucalion and Pyrrha, the only people who survived the Great Flood; the ethne were said to have originally been named Graikoi after the elder son but later renamed Hellenes after Hellen who was proved to be the strongest. Sons of Hellen and the nymph Orseis were Dorus, Xuthos, and Aeolus. Sons of Xuthos and Kreousa, daughter of Erechthea, were Ion and Achaeus.

Obviously, one nation cannot come just from one man, and we don't have evidence that Danaans came from Egypt (only some vague linguistic traces because of their name). But it's not impossible. It's very likely that other ethne came from different regions (Egypt, Phoenicia, Anatolia) and slowly mixed with each other to create a more homogenized identity, as people settled more and more in agricultural environments. This early Hellenic identity of "Achaeans" we see for the first time in the Iliad when people from all these kingdoms with similar cultures united under a common cause.

It's important to not call "Danaans" Egyptians, though. At the point we see the peoples called "Danaans", they have developed the early Hellenized culture, distinct from the Egyptian culture of the time. They could potentially have been "Egyptians" a hundred generations back (if we believe their mythological origin story) but when we see them they are interchangeable with Achaeans. They didn't consider themselves Egyptians, and other locals didn't consider them Egyptians (or foreigners) either.

Egyptians don't "claim" the "Danaans" either. I think I should comment on that before any Americans go "Greeks came from Egypt, actually!" In fact, as I mentioned above, Egyptians named them "Denyen" or "Tanaju", like separate peoples from them, and mentioned the Greek cities they lived in.

Achaeans themselves were said to come from the north in 2.000 BCE, Dorians came from the North as well. (We don't know what North™ exactly 😂) Peloponnesians were Dorians but Macedonians were partly Dorians, too.

Achaea (Ἀχαΐα) still exists, btw! I mean... most of our ancient regions and cities still exist but it's nice to see the region kept such an old, really old name! Locator map of Achaia prefecture (Νομός Αχαΐας) in Hellas:

[autodidact-adventures]

Ancient Greece (Part 12): The Late Mycenaeans (c.1400 - 1200 BC)

With the construction of their new palaces, the Mycenaeans entered the final stage of their wealth & power.

The architecture & decoration of the palaces was very similar to the Minoan style, but there were some differences.  The Mycenaean centres were much smaller, usually built on a commanding hill, and had high, thick walls as fortifications.  The Minoan palaces had had little defensive function, but the Mycenaeans had defense as the most important feature of theirs.  The fortification walls of Mycenae and Tiryns were made of huge stone blocks, and are still impressive today despite being in ruins.  The later Greeks called them Cyclopean walls, believing that they were so enormous that only the giant Cyclopes could have built them.  The fortifications were well-engineered, taking advantage of natural slopes.  There were refinements that allowed defenders to fire down on two sides at attackers at the gates.

Building, maintaining and repairing these fortifications would have required a huge amount of manual labour, and cost a great deal.  It is true that this walled citadel provided protection for the ordinary people as well, as the town below was unfortified.  But that wasn't the only reason for this extravagance – the walls were over 6m thick in places, far more than was necessary.  So part of their purpose would have been to show off the king's wealth & military power.

City walls built in later periods were on a far smaller scale, but were impregnable until workable siege machinery was invented in the 300's BC.

Lion Gate (Mycenae, c.1200 BC).

Another difference between the Mycenaeans & Minoans was how they used the space inside the palace.  Instead of an open paved courtyard, the palace's focus was the megaron – a large rectangular hall with a small antechamber.  The antechamber had a portico in the front, opening out into a courtyard outside.

In the middle of the great hall was a large, raised circular hearth.  It was surrounded by 4 columns, which held up a balcony.  An oculus (plural oculi – a circular opening in the centre of a dome/wall) in the roof above drew away the smoke.

Megaron diagram.  1) Anteroom 2) Main Hall 3) Columns (porch & hall).

The megaron was the main ceremonial centre of the palace, and they used it for councils, visitor receptions and feasts.  In the following Dark Age, the megaron would survive in the form of the chieftain's house.  From the 700's onwards, it would be the main plan of a Greek temple.

The Mycenaean palaces gave the elite a life of luxury & beauty almost as great as the Minoans'.  There were fewer rooms, and didn't have all of the Cretan architectural embellishments, but these palaces had Minoan features such as indoor plumbing and wall paintings.

The frescoes were in the Minoan style (although in a more formalized manner), and focused more on martial scenes, such as personal combat, sieges, and hunting scenes.  Women and men are depicted wearing traditional Minoan dress, but other depictions (such as on vases) show that mainland Mycenaean men usually wore a loose woollen/linen tunic, cinched with a belt; the women wore a longer version of the same tunic.

Politics

It used to be believed that there was a united Mycenaean Greek kingdom, ruled by the king of Mycenae, but this is now known to be untrue.  The highest level of political/military expansion was the formation of small, regional kingdoms under single centres.  One example is the kingdom of Pylos (in Messenia).

In regions where major centres were very close to each other, the situation isn't as clear.  The region of Argolis, for example, had 10 major centres, including Mycenae and Tiryns, only a few miles apart.  Perhaps the king of Mycenae was the sole ruler of Argolis, and thus the palace of Tiryns was an outpost of Mycenae.  Or perhaps Tiryns (and other major centres) were semi-independent settlements, with their leaders acknowledging the king of Mycenae as their superior, and pledging loyalty to him.

Whichever it was for Argolis, not all Mycenaean kingdoms were necessary alike in structure.  The palace-towns of Athens & Thebes may have had similar dominant positions as Mycenae, in the regions of Attica and Boeotia respectively.

From 1600-1200 BC, relations between & within regions were pretty stable, with few example of all-out warfare.  Thebes was burned in the early 1200's [i.e. near 1300], perhaps by a neighbouring centre.  One possibility is Orchomenus, a rich & populous site, which would be Thebes' rival during the Classical period later on.

In the Mediterranean

At their peak (around 1300 BC), the Mycenaean kingdoms were trading all across the Mediterranean – from Sardinia (southern Italy) and Sicily in the west, to Troy & down to Egypt in the east, to Macedonia in the north.  There were Mycenaean settlements & trading posts along the Asian coastline, and throughout the islands (including Rhodes and Cyprus).

The Mycenaean culture was remarkably uniform across this whole region.  Even experts find it difficult to say where an object was made.

The elite's wealth wasn't just from trade, but also from international piracy – they could easily afford to mount large seaborne invasions to plunder. Even though the overall Mycenaean Greek population was small compared to the East, they were the 3rd-highest power in the Mediterranean, after the Hittite Empire (covering Anatolia and Syria) and the New Kingdom of Egypt.

Hittite archives from the 1300's & 1200's mention a people called the Ahhiyawan, which may be the cuneiform version of the Mycenaean word Akhaiwoi – i.e. the “Achaeans”, which was an inclusive word for “Greeks” in the 700's epic poems.  In one letter, the Hittite king addresses his “brother, the king of Ahhiyawa (Achaea”.  Another record mention an exchange of gifts between the kings of Hatti & Ahhiyawa; another mentions Ahhiyawans being sent to Hatti to learn chariot warfare; another mentions an Ahhiyawan god being summoned to cure a Hittite king.

However, relations between the Hittites and Mycenaeans were not always peaceful.  In the 1200's, “a man from Ahhiyawa” was invading Hittite territory in western Anatolia.  These forces probably came not from mainland Greece, but from one/more of the nearer Mycenaean kingdoms (from the islands or on the Asian coast).

Administration

According to the Iliad and Odyssey, one of the most important leaders of the Trojan War was Nestor, who lived in a magnificent house with many rooms in the town of Pylos, from where he ruled over a large kingdom in Messenia.  In 1939, Carl Blegen discovered the “palace of Nestos”.  This was not just a confirmation that it had really existed, but also showed that a centre far away from the great palaces of east & central Greece could be just as rich and important.

Messenia is a region in the south-western Peloponnese.  It is fertile and well-watered, and during the Mycenaean Age, it was one of the most heavily-populated areas.  In the Early Helladic, there were about 4000 people living there; by the Middle Helladic, it was 10,000; by the Late Helladic, it was over 50,000 (perhaps as high as 100,000).

Pylos became a regional power centre at about the same time as Mycenae and other centres.  Its peak was during the Late Helladic IIIA & IIIB (about 1400-1200 BC).  The palace was built aroudn 1300 BC on a hill 8km from the sea, on the ruins of an earlier, small complex of buildings.  “Pylos” is written as Pu-ro in Linear B.

The site had been undisturbed since 1200 BC.  That, and the many Linear B tablets in the archive rooms, give us the best picture of the administration & workings of a Mycenaean-Age kingdom.  The Pylos and Mycenaean Knossos tablets show much of the day-to-day administrative details of the Mycenaean Palaces.

These tablets were sun-dried, and intended as temporary records, until their information was transferred onto larger, permanent records.  This information was recorded by palace scribes, and focuses on personnel & production.  The ones we have survived only because they were baked hard by the fires that destroyed the palaces.  Therefore, they refer only to a small part of the last year before the fire (for each palace), but they are still representative of the palace administration throughout the later palace period.

From the tablets, we have some information on the Mycenaean ruling hierarchy.  The wanax was at the top – this may mean “lord” or “master”. Below him was the lawagetas, which appears to be a combination of the words for “people” and “leader”.  He is believed to be the army commander.

A high-ranking group called telestai received the same allotment of land as the lawagetas, but their function is unknown.  They may have been priests.

Other people have the title hequetas, which possibly means “follower”, and they may have been high-ranking military officials.

The above people were in the top tier.  Below them were lesser officials, who seem to have been in charge of the outlying areas.  The kingdom of Pylos was about 3625 square km, with over 200 villages & towns.  It was divided into 2 provinces, and each province was divided into several districts, which were named after the principal town in each one. The titles of korete & prokorete may have been for a district governor & his deputy.

Finally, a large group of officials with the title pasireu were in charge of things at the town/village level.

The officials & military officiers named in the tablets would have been only the tip of a large bureaucracy.  Many lower-level officials were subordinate to them, and dependent on them.  The higher officials received land from the wanax in exchange for their service to the palace, and also a share of their crops.  Probably a similar relationship existed between them and these lower-level officials.

The highest officials (and maybe some of the lower-ranking ones) lived in substantial private houses.  Some of them were quite large.  These private houses were in the citadels, lower towns, and also small country towns.

Only the highest-ranking families were buried in the tholoi (perhaps because of cost, or perhaps only they were allowed to).  The lesser elite were buried in “chamber tombs” – rectangular crypts cut into the soft rock.  Some of them were grander than others, and had more grave goods (and more expensive ones).  Perhaps some of the inhabitants of the private houses & chamber tombs were private merchants & traders who acted as agents of the palace.

The majority of people lived in small, modestly-furnished houses with few amenities. They were buried in simple graves with only a few small items.  Their standard of living was the same as their ancestors', and they worked as farmers, herders & artisans.  This would stay pretty much the same in the later history of Greece.  Most of the farmers & herders lived in rural villages, and most of the craft specialists lived in regional centres & larger settlements.

Many farming families were tenants on land belonging to the nobles (some of the nobles had very large holdings).  Others owned plots in their own names (craftsmen & herders are listed as “owners” of private land).  50-75 families made up the typical Mycenaean village, either having shares in the village's land, or renting land that was allocated to high-level officials.

Palace supervision over the people was very thorough.  Officials were regularly sent into the countryside to carry out inspections.  Produce & animal taxes levied on individuals & villages were recorded exactly, including deficiencies in the assessments.  For example, a Knossos tablet states: “Men of Lyktos 246.7 units of wheat; men of Tylisos 261 units of wheat; men of Lato 30.5 units of wheat.”  We don't know how much a “unit” was, but it seems as though the farmers weren't too heavily taxed.

Village men farmed their plots and tended to their trees, vines and livestock.  They paid their taxes, contributed labour to the palace, and served in the army.  The women would have helped with the farm chores, and done the domestic chores of spinning & weaving, food preparation, and childcare.  Some village women were textile workers for the palace, and received rations of wool & flax for this.

Slaves were at the bottom of society.  The tablets make reference to “captives” and “bought”, showing that the warrior-aristocrats of Mycenaean Greece were very active in the slavery business.  There were many slaves, many of whom were female – Pylos tablets record over 600 slave women, and about the same number of children.

The women named on the tablets had jobs such as bath attendants, flax-workers, grain-grinders, and weavers.  Most of them were attached to the palace, but some lived in other towns and received rations of food from the palace.

High-ranking people also owned slaves, thought not as many as the wanax did.  Slaves were valuable possessions, both for what they produced and as commodities to sell for a profit.  Some were also domestic slaves, so that their owners didn't have to do any work at all.

Slavery was very much the norm throughout all of Ancient Greek history, and its morality was unquestioned (with few exceptions).  It was practised everywhere and during all time periods.  However, large-scale slavery wasn't practised until about the 500's BC.

It's possible that not all the lowest-status workers listed on the tablets were true slaves (i.e. captured/bought foreigners) – some may have been native individuals & families that had been reduced to a state of permanent dependence on the palace.  If this was the case, then their condition would have been not much different from the slaves', but they would have been recognized as individuals, not as chattel. These “semi-slaves” weren't uncommon in Greek history; the most famous were the “helots” of Laconia & Messenia, owned by the state of Sparta.

Commerce & Manufacturing

Many types of specialists are listed on the Linear B tablets, both for the palace and other locations.  Men worked as masons, carpenters, goldsmiths, bronzesmiths, armorers, bow-makers, leather-workers, perfume-makers, and many other positions.  A physician is mentioned on one tablet. Women worked mostly in the textile sector – spinners, carders, weavers and embroiderers.

The wanax kept a close eye on the workshops.  His scribes recorded how much raw material was provided to the workers, the objects they produced, and the rations of food they received in return.  One entry says: “one ebony footstool inlaid with figures of men and lion in ivory”.

Most labour-intensive objects (such as the footstool, made of expensive imported material) have crumbed away over time, but the inventories of what was made were fully comprehensive.  Individual chariot wheels were listed, along with their condition (“serviceable” & “unfit for use”).  Even damaged bronze cauldrons were listed in the inventories.

About 1/3 of the Knossos tablets are about sheep & wool – this was a major industry.  From one district alone, 19,000 sheep are recorded.  Many women worked at Knossos & the surrounding towns, spinning wool and weaving & decorating the cloth.

The Pylos wanax also controlled a large textile induxtry (wool & linen).  Another important Pylos industry was metal-working.  There were perhaps 400 bronzesmiths, and the quantities of bronze they received shows that the production of bronze objects (including weapons) was far greater than local consumption.

The size of these manufacturing objects shows that textiles & metalwork would have been the two leading exports of the palace economy.  Other exports were olive oil (plain & perfumed), wine, hides, leather, and leather products.

High-quality items, such as painted ceramics, jewellery, and the footstool mentioned above, also sold well internationally.  Ceramics are very durable, so it’s those which have mostly survived in distant locations. Their presence there shows that other, more perishable goods had also been sold there.

The palaces imported items that Greece lacked, including gold, copper, tin, ivory, amber, dyes and spices.  They also imported foreign varieties of things they already had, such as wine, textiles, ceramics, jewellery, and other exotic luxury goods.

Ceramics at the Pylos palace.

Religion

The Bronze-Age peoples of the Greece mainland, Crete, and the islands followed the same religious themes as other agrarian cultures.  Their religion was tied up with agriculture.  They honoured the gods with processions, music and dance; they gave them gifts and sacrifices.  The most solemn ritual was the butchering of animals on outside altars.  The early Minoans may have practised human sacrifice as well.

The main deity in Minoan art is a goddess, depicted as a woman dressed in the Minoan style, in an outdoor setting with trees, other plants, and animals. These types of worship scenes were also depicted in Mycenaean frescoes, and on gold & silver rings.

Minoan religious symbols were also used in Mycenaean (mainland & island) art – birds, snakes, bulls, stylized bull-horns, and double-headed axes. However, the meaning of these symbols is not well understood.

Minoan goddess (c.1600 BC, Knossos).

Minoan goddess on a gold ring (?).  A double-headed axe is also depicted.

There were quite significant differences between Minoan & Mycenaean rituals & religious practices.  A lot of Minoan worship was done in caves & mountain-peak sanctuaries, but the mainland Mycenaeans didn't build shrines outside of the centres.  The Minoan palaces had more shrines than the Mycenaean palaces did, and they were more elaborate.  For the Mycenaeans, the megaron was the main place for religious ceremony.

The goddess that appears constantly in Minoan-Mycenaean art was originally believed to be a single, pan-Aegean mother goddess who ruled over all nature.  It is now thought these representations were actually of various goddesses, some of them local deities.  They might have had specific fertility functions within the community, or presided over aspects of life besides fertility.

The tablets call these female deities potnia (“lady/mistress”), and also reveal that there were as many male gods, who were just as important as goddesses.  It is unknown why they were seldom depicted in art, though.

Names of about 30 gods & goddesses have been recognized (some firmly, some tentatively) on the Knossos & Pylos tablets.  Many of these deities were unknown in later times, but some are familiar from the later Greek religion – Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Hermes, Athena, Artemis, and possibly Apollo, Ares & Dionysus.  There are also some of the later minor divinities.

Zeus was originally the Indo-European “sky-father”, and was brought in by the earliest Greek-speakers.  Zeus pāter (“Zeus the father”) is the same god as the Indic Dyaus pitar, Roman Iuppiter, and Germanic Tiew (which is where we get the word “Tuesday”).  Hera, Poseidon and Ares' names also come from Indo-European roots.

Some of the Mycenaean deities (particularly the goddesses) were probably pre-Greek (i.e. pre-Indo-European).  The Mycenaean deities, beliefs & rituals would have been a combination of the pre-Greek, Aegean fertility-mother religions, and the Indo-European worship of sky-weather gods.  Some elements may also be from the Near East.  But because the Mycenaean religious traditions had evolved over 700yrs, it's impossible to figure out much of what came from where.

In Mycenaean Greece, the palace controlled the kingdom's religious organization. The Linear B tablets list the gifts from the palace to the gods, of land, animals, precious objects & human labour, to be used for the maintenance of the sanctuaries and the priests & priestesses.

The king exercised tight economic & political control over the sanctuaries & priesthoods, which shows that he was probably able to claim divine right of rule as the sole, undisputed sovereign.  When he officiated at religious ceremonies, he did so as the special representative of the community to the gods.  However, there isn't any evidence to suggest that the wanax was divine himself (during life or in death), or that he functioned as a priest-king over a theocratic state.

Warfare

The Mycenaean kings were definitely the commanders-in-chief of their military forces.  In most other small warrior-states, the king (wanax) and his military commander (lawagetas) both fought in major battles alongside their subordinate commanders, and this was probably the case in Mycenaean Greek kingdoms, too.

The military was socially stratified – the officers were nobles, and the ranks were levied from among the farmers, herders & artisans.  The palace directed all military operations.  The Linear B tablets record troop movements of “rowers” and “[coastal] watchers”, as well as the weapons & rations given to the troops.  We don't know how the military was actually organized, but it was made up of units from all over the kingdom.

The ordinary soldier wore a leather helmet with bronze strips sewn on, and body armour made of leather or padded linen.  His shield was a wooden frame with ox hide stretched over it.

Officers had more elaborate body armour.  Their helmets were made of bronze or boars' tusks; they wore bronze-plate armour over their torso, and bronze greaves for their knees & shins.

Weapons were bronze swords & daggers; heavy, bronze-tipped thrusting spears, and lighter, shorter throwing spears; and bows & arrows.

We don't know much about tactics or how the weapons were combined in battle.  The most confusing issue of Mycenaean warfare is how they used the chariot.

Chariots

The chariot was invented in the early 1000's BC [i.e. near 2000 BC], and it quickly became very popular in Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Syria and Egypt, because of its speed.  It consisted of a small platform, on top of two high spoked wheels, and was pulled by two horses.  Horses couldn't pull the heavy 4-wheeled carts (which had been around for centuries) because the harnesses constricted their necks & chests, and this problem wasn't solved until the invention of the horse collar in the Middle Ages.  But because the chariot was so light (a man could easily lift it by himself), a pair of horses could pull two passengers for a long way.  A horse & rider could go faster than a chariot, but only for a short distance.

The nobility originally used chariots for fast communication, hunting, ceremony, and racing.  In the 1600's BC, the chariot began to be used in the army, and eventually the chariot corps became the main military arm in the Near East.  Their primary manouevre was the massed chariot charge, carried out against the enemy's chariots, with one man driving and the other firing arrows.  Cavalry (mounted warriors fighting in formation) wasn't used in the Bronze Age.

Chariots appeared in Greece around 1600 BC, after the Hittites & other major states had perfect the art of chariotry.  The Mycenaeans used it in battle right from the start, as well as for peaceful purposes.

However, it's believed that the chariot's main use was to take heavily-armed elite warriors to & from the fighting, as this is the only function that Homer's epics give it.  The broken terrain of Greece would have made the usage of mass chariot formations almost impossible, unlike in the East's vast plains.

But it's possible that mini-versions of Eastern chariot warfare did take place on the plains below the Mycenaean fortresses.  The Knossos wanax had a chariot corps of perhaps 200 chaeriots, and Pylos may have had nearly this many.  It's true that these chariot corps were very small compared to the Eastern ones, but they would fit the scale of the small Mycenaean kingdoms.

The chariot's significance in Greece was not in battle, but for its high prestige value.  Like the grand palaces, and the tholoi with their rich burial offerings, the Mycenaean adoption of chariotry was a statement that the warrior-chiefs were at the same cultural level as the great kings of Asia & Egypt.  The chariot was the most expensive & intricate item of manufacture known to the Mycenaeans, and it would keep its purpose as a prestige symbol long after its military use had ceased.

[tarantula-hawk-wasp]

It may not be DH, I was quoting my professor from class and did not read the source I linked beyond finding an academic source for the line and translation.

My professor likely meant more that it was metered in a way that calls to mind dactylic hexameter while alluding to his stance on the oral poetic tradition influence from the East discussion.

It was in a Bronze Age archaeology class rather than a language class so nuance about meters was not his agenda in bringing it up, rather it was part of a lecture on what written records we have about Wilusa and the Ahhiyawa

Obsessed with how one of the oldest lines we have about Troy is from Hittite and in dactylic hexameter and just the sound and mouth feel of it

Ah-ha-ta-ta a-la-ti a-u-i-en-ta u-i-lu-sha-ti

When they came to [steep?] Wilusa…

Wilusa was the Hittite name for Troy that evolved into Ilium as in the Iliad  [source p.58]

[hermangard]

1. Sea people

When Hittite documents quited to mention the Great King of Ahhiyawa(Ahhiya) as the equal status to their own King, already the Mycenaean(that is, Ahhiyawa) civilisation would have fallen into desolation or more precisely been fragmented. Indeed, bit more later when the sea people prevailed to entire Aegean - East Mediterranean coasts, their fragmented political and military statues hardly made them appropriate to overcome the surging wave of immigration. And that very horde of serried immigrants made other bronze age kingdoms, such as Hittite, Ugarit, Egypt Middle kingdom, devastated. For, as one might expect, before the inventing of proper furnace for forging the iron, there would have been a few elites who could have armed as hoplite, which means that the war tactics of Bronze age was not that good for those clogged swarm of humans, for, unlike modern days, in that case, there would be very small difference between army men and peasants. In fact, as I wrote before, at first stage army was merely a bandit - like crowd of youth living around brink of civilisation. So that was happened that those swarm of immigrants defeated Kingdoms.