Focus on Arms and Armor: “The Early Metal Ages: How Bronze Transformed Near Eastern and European Warfare” 

Modern historians identify the Bronze Age in the Near East with the Ancient Period of Western Civilization history (c.3100 to c.1000 BCE), a period that begins in Egypt around 3100 BCE and in Mesopotamia around 3000 BCE. With the rise of civilization and organized violence came experimentation with metal alloys in a search for harder, more lethal materials to make weapons. As early as 6000 BCE in Anatolia, Neolithic man experimented with copper tools and weapons. But it was not until the fourth…

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Focus on Fortifications: “Bronze Age Mycenaean Fortified Palace Complexes”

In Greece, the invasion of the Mycenaeans in the seventeenth century BCE brought a chariot-borne aristocracy to southeastern Europe. The Mycenaean Greeks were part of the larger Indo-European migrations who spread from their original location in the steppe region north of the Black Sea to India, Persia, and Europe. The Mycenaeans entered Greece from the north and successfully challenged the Minoans, a seaborn civilization based on Crete, for mastery of the Aegean. By 1400 BCE, the Mycenaeans…

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Focus on the Literature of War: “Homer’s Iliad as a Primary Source for Understanding Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Greek Warfare”

In Greece, the invasion of the Mycenaeans in the seventeenth century BCE brought a chariot-borne aristocracy to southeastern Europe. The Mycenaean Greeks were part of the larger Indo-European migrations who spread from their original location in the steppe region north of the Black Sea to India, Iran, and Europe. The Mycenaeans entered Greece from the north and successfully challenged the Minoans, a civilization based on Crete, for mastery of the Aegean. By 1400 BCE, the Mycenaeans established…

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Focus on Fortifications: “Bronze and Early Iron Age Near Eastern Fortifications, c.3100-c.500 BCE"

  The art and science of fortification is older than the invention of writing, dating back to the Neolithic era.  When humans began to live in larger communities, they began to safeguard their loved ones and material wealth through the means  of rudimentary fortifications like earthen ramparts, wooden palisades, and ditches usually located in defensible positions on hills are next to ravines. With the rise of civilization came the rise of cities,and the introduction of urban fortifications in…

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Focus Military Technology: “The Rise and Fall of the War Chariot in the Near East and Europe”

Perhaps no other single military invention is as closely associated with warfare during Ancient period in the Near East as the war chariot. Beginning as a four wheeled war wagon during the Mesopotamian Bronze Age, this war machine would eventually evolve into the more familiar two wheeled variety seen on temple bas-reliefs in Ancient Egypt during the Middle Kingdom (c.2055-c.1650 BCE) and New Kingdom (c.1550-c.1070 BCE) eras manned by warrior-pharaohs as important elements in their combined…

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Focus on Command: “Ramses II and Active Command at the Battle of Qadesh, 1275 BCE”

The battle of Qadesh (sometimes Kadesh) is one of the oldest battles in world history where scholars have enough information to reconstruct the strategy, tactics, and equipment used by the belligerents, specifically the New Kingdom Egyptians and their northern rivals, the Hittites from the Anatolian peninsula (modern Türkiye). Most of this information comes from two sources, the bas relief inscriptions at Abu Simbel, and the Poem of Pentaur inscribed at the temple of Karnak celebrating this…

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Focus on Tactics: “The World’s First Detailed Battle Plan: Megiddo, 1457 BCE”

The battle of Megiddo in 1457 BCE is the first battle in world history where modern scholars have an accurate depiction of the strategy, tactics, and logistics used by the ancient Egyptians against their northern neighbors for control of the strategically key area. In what is today northern Israel, the hilltop fortress of Megiddo and its immediate surroundings would be the location of numerous battles throughout history, from biblical times to the First World War. It is also the site prophesied…

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Focus on the “Art” of War: “The Rise of Warfare in the Ancient Near East: Military Imagery of Egypt and Mesopotamia”

The origin of organized violence in world history is usually associated with the region of the ancient Near East, a location that encompasses Egypt, the Levant, and Mesopotamia.  There is little archaeological evidence of arms or armor that survived from this early era, but scholars do have some interesting pictorial evidence from grave finds that provide important primary source material for our understanding of the origins of warfare in world history. Here, the earliest example of the…

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