A 3,500-year-old suit of Mycenaean bronze armor from the Greek village of Dendra may have been used in battle, not just for ceremonial purposes as previously thought.
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A volunteer marine soldier in simulated combat wearing the Dendra armor replica during the empirical study. Image credit: Andreas Flouris / Marija Marković.
One of the oldest known suits of European armor is a 3,500-year-old suit found near the village of Dendra, a few km away from ancient Mycenae, in Southern Greece.
Since its discovery by a team of Greek and Swedish archaeologists in 1960, it has been unclear if this was a ceremonial suit or if it was suitable for battle.
This question has important implications for understanding warfare in the Late Bronze Age Europe, but no historical accounts describe the use of this style of armor.
In a new study, University of Thessaly’s Professor Andreas Flouris and colleagues combined historical and experimental evidence to investigate the combat suitability of the Dendra armor.
The researchers recruited a group of 13 volunteers from the Marines of the Hellenic Armed Forces, equipped them with replicas of the Dendra armor and Bronze Age weapons, and ran them through an 11-hour simulated Bronze Age combat protocol.
This combat simulation was developed based on historical accounts from Homer’s Iliad along with additional physiological and environmental evidence to create an approximation of typical diet, activities, and maneuvers of the Mycenaean military.
The experiment found that the replicated Dendra armor did not limit a warrior’s fighting ability or cause severe strain on the wearer.
These results suggest that the Dendra armor was battle-worthy, implying that the Mycenaean’s powerful impact in Mediterranean history was due partly to their armor technology.
To supplement these results, the authors developed a freely-available software which enables simulation of combat conditions to test the hypothetical efficacy of the armor in more varied scenarios.
“The armor that our volunteers wore was the same dimensions and similar weight to the Bronze Age original,” Professor Flouris said.
“We also monitored calorie intake based on a ‘Homeric diet’ (about 4,443 calories) derived from relevant descriptions found in the Iliad, and calorie expenditure together with the stresses placed on the volunteers’ bodies under temperatures typical for a Greek summer of 30-36 degrees Celsius.”
“When the 11-hour battle protocol began we measured heart rate, oxygen consumption, core temperature, fluid loss, and muscular function.”
“We found that the armor allowed full flexibility of movement and did not exert excessive physiological stress on the body.”
“This means that despite earlier views which classified it as only a ceremonial outfit, the armor could be worn for extended periods by fit individuals in battle.”
“Sixty years on from the discovery of the Dendra armor we now understand, despite its cumbersome appearance at first sight, that it is not only flexible enough to permit almost every movement of a warrior on foot but also resilient enough to protect the wearer from most blows.”
The results were publshied online in the journal PLoS ONE.
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A.D. Flouris et al. 2024. Analysis of Greek prehistoric combat in full body armour based on physiological principles: A series of studies using thematic analysis, human experiments, and numerical simulations. PLoS ONE 19 (5): e0301494; doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0301494
