10-08-2012, 05:52 AM
Macedon basically has it...unfortunately the Homeric corpus has been severely mistreated by enthusiastic members of the public and bronze age archaeologists a like, well beyond either cultural context or logical tenability.
It's interesting that you bring up the Homer/Macedon parallels and I'm glad you point out some of the problems with it, this is one of those overly facile and flawed observations that has sort of stuck with us over the years but there is a pretty good article in the "Alternatives to Athens" books which summarises the problems with such interpretations, not in a military sense of course, but you might still enjoy it.
The long spear thing in the Iliad is that which Aias uses to smack up the Trojans in book 16, I always remember that scene actually it starts with Aias not pleased in his great heart and ranging up and down, I won't bother quoting the Greek since it would be verbatim and the text in my head is not 100% metrical and therefore flawed. Besides, Macedon gave the reference. I remember the spear being specifically described as being ναὐμαχον actually.
Pakana? Right, I think you mean /phasganon/ which would have been written as pa-ka-na (plrl) due to the orthographical constraints of Lin B. Just a common Greek word and can mean anything from dagger to sword, still does in modern Greek actually (Cretan dialect). So saying they have swords/knives doesn't mean much.
Matching epigraphic evidence to physical realien is harder than one would imagine, though there has been some serious work done in the last 40 years discussing the date of the texts contra various find spots and possible production records. Molloy's article in AJA either 2010 or 2011 is the easiest up to date, if basic, summary.
To be fair, looking and trying to reconstruct the Mycenaean military method (which in itself is flawed) and focusing on the weapons rather than what we can tell of the economic and socio-cultural evidence is utterly fallacious.
You should talk to Dan Howard here, he's put a lot of ground work in on this sort of stuff and doesn't come out with the usual Osprey crap and has some well thought out opinions on the weapons and stuff.
It's interesting that you bring up the Homer/Macedon parallels and I'm glad you point out some of the problems with it, this is one of those overly facile and flawed observations that has sort of stuck with us over the years but there is a pretty good article in the "Alternatives to Athens" books which summarises the problems with such interpretations, not in a military sense of course, but you might still enjoy it.
The long spear thing in the Iliad is that which Aias uses to smack up the Trojans in book 16, I always remember that scene actually it starts with Aias not pleased in his great heart and ranging up and down, I won't bother quoting the Greek since it would be verbatim and the text in my head is not 100% metrical and therefore flawed. Besides, Macedon gave the reference. I remember the spear being specifically described as being ναὐμαχον actually.
Pakana? Right, I think you mean /phasganon/ which would have been written as pa-ka-na (plrl) due to the orthographical constraints of Lin B. Just a common Greek word and can mean anything from dagger to sword, still does in modern Greek actually (Cretan dialect). So saying they have swords/knives doesn't mean much.
Matching epigraphic evidence to physical realien is harder than one would imagine, though there has been some serious work done in the last 40 years discussing the date of the texts contra various find spots and possible production records. Molloy's article in AJA either 2010 or 2011 is the easiest up to date, if basic, summary.
To be fair, looking and trying to reconstruct the Mycenaean military method (which in itself is flawed) and focusing on the weapons rather than what we can tell of the economic and socio-cultural evidence is utterly fallacious.
You should talk to Dan Howard here, he's put a lot of ground work in on this sort of stuff and doesn't come out with the usual Osprey crap and has some well thought out opinions on the weapons and stuff.
Jass
