Ancient Weapons and Warfare, 1300-600 BC

Archaeological evidence suggests that warfare during the period 1300-600 BC consisted of combat between individual or small numbers of men rather than the manoeuvres of massed armies.

Rock carvings found in the Alps give a vivid reconstruction of the life of these far of times. Some of the most detailed have been found at the two Alpine sites of Val Comonica, situated north of Brescia, and that of Mount Bego on the French-Italian border near Brescia. Southern Scandinavia, especially Sweden also has many examples of rock art. These pictures give an intriguing insight into those days, they are very detailed and depict figures of men and animals, boats, and various details of how these people lived. Boats are the most common motif in these drawings, but many animals are also depicted with oxen and deer being very common. What is interesting is the scenes depicting daily life in those early days. Scenes of ploughing are there and many scenes of ritual, with men in ritual dances, with arms raised often holding axes or lures, which were trumpets with long, carved tubes, used in Scandinavia for calling cattle home..

What these pictures show are warriors and weapons. Engraved stelae, which are grave markers, in Spain show warriors depicted as stick men in full battle dress of sword, spear, shield and horned helmet. But the interesting thing about all these pictures are that warriors are shown individually, not as part of armies.

Swords appeared to been mainly developed in the east Alpine area in the Middle Bronze Age. These swords had hilts made of organic materials such as bone and were capped by a bronze pommel. Some of these swords hilts were elaborately decorated and were made in bronze cast over the blade heel. But whether those latter swords could have been used in battle or as ceremonial instruments, as I doubt that they would have been so effective in warfare with the blades being made from bronze.

Armour of the Bronze Ages consisted of shield, helmet, cuirass, and greaves. A cuirass was a piece of armour consisting of a breast-plate and a back- plate strapped together thus protecting the front and back of the warrior and was common to this period. A greave was armour that covered the legs, protecting them from injury. Interestingly recent experiments have shown that sheets of bronze can be cut by slashes of a sword whereas armour made from leather is much tougher and is not penetrated by the sword so easily. Of course bronze is a soft alloy but it is fascinating that leather was found to be stronger. There is the added disadvantage to metal armour of restricted movement. This suggests that the bronze metal armour that has been found was more likely to be used in a ceremonial role, with perhaps leather used for battle.

That metal armour would be mainly to impress and impressive I imagine it was. It would also have been lengthy to produce, the smiths would have had to spend many hours to produce a suit of armour. It would also I imagine be quite heavy and uncomfortable to wear.

Leather would be a lot more practical. I wonder if the leather would have been boiled. Boiling strengthens and thickens leather. It would emerge after this process as a very hard material about double the thickness. This would give the warrior better protection against the enemy. They would have had the means to boil the leather, large clay cooking pots or later cauldrons could have been used. Boiled leather armour was common in later periods. It is difficult when you are talking about prehistoric peoples, leather is perishable, and unlike metal not much of it has survived. After all we are talking about nearly 3000 years ago.

Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin. Later in the Bronze Age lead was added totally altering the properties of the metal. Lead is heavier than copper. Presumably when first added to copper, the new form of lead bronze rather than tin bronze would have produced stronger weapons. When lead was added to the bronze alloy the melting point of the metal was lowered. This enabled superior casting techniques which produced things like, hollow bladed spearhead and the sword chape which I described earlier. By 700 BC this new alloy of lead bronze had spread throughout the British Isles. Many items were now able to be produced; different forms of socketed axes, socketed knives and sickles, gouges, saws and chisels for the woodworker, hammers and punches for the metal smiths and for the warrior, new forms of spears and swords, and on a practical side cauldrons and buckets. I think that it must have revolutionised the life of Bronze Age man.

Now when it went wrong. The armour I would imagine was used for ceremonial purposes rather than battle. I would think that it looked very impressive, it would also have been very expensive, as it would have had to be hand made. Leather armour not only being stronger, would be easier to make.

Now to axes. By 700 BC the high lead in bronze axes did render then ineffectual as tools. It is interesting to speculate what their use was. Perhaps they became a Bronze Age status symbol, you know, people had to have more axes than the Jones next door. Perhaps they were used in rituals of the time. Perhaps the smiths themselves were adding more and more lead to make the more expensive copper go further and selling these dud axes abroad or to people they would not see again. Who knows, its interesting.

Of course bronze was superseded by iron. By 600 BC iron was the standard material for tools and weapons, although the highest quality art products were still made in the softer metal of bronze.

It is interesting to ponder on the problems of the upkeep of the armour to stop the disintegration of the metal and thus ruin the protective effect of the armour. Of course different metals tarnish and disintegrate. Bronze would go a greeny black colour whereas copper goes a brighter green, iron of course goes black. There are different shades of verdigris according to the properties of the metal.

It is interesting to surmise how these ancient metal armour was cleaned. Of course nowadays this is not a problem, you would just use a modern cleaner like duraglit. Things were different in the Bronze and Iron ages. The only thing that I can think of is perhaps they used very fine sand and a grease like chicken fat. This could be mixed together to produce a sand paste which would work like modern sandpaper. But that's only a theory.

Now the disintegration of the various metals and alloys that were in use in those far off days. Here I am not too sure. Iron disintegrates faster than bronze. I'm not sure about copper. Gold is better preserved. When you look at archaeological finds, the iron implements seem badly decayed, the bronze in better condition and gold in an almost perfect state. But of course these artefacts are nearly 3000 years old. I don't know whether the addition of tin and later lead to copper producing the alloy of bronze would alter the destructive properties of the metal.

Finally I must not forget the importance of the horse during the Bronze and Iron Ages, especially in the field of warfare.

The horse was adopted in large parts of Europe after 2000 BC to pull chariots. It was later that it was found that horses could be used for riding. The first bridle fittings were made from bone and antler. Later bridle bits and the cheekpieces to which the bit and the rest of the bridle were attached were made from metal. Horses began to be used for ceremonial purposes and for warfare. After about 800 BC graves containing riding equipment appeared over a wide area of eastern and central Europe, indicating that the age of the horse had arrived.