If you'd like to support us, please visit our Patreon page. It's the best way to chime in. Even with as little as $1! The money goes into the artwork that you see in the videos. Link: www.patreon.com/sandrhomanhistory Checkout Total War: PHARAOH here: play.totalwar.com/SandRhomanHistory Are you interested in reading more on military history? Do you like the artwork in our videos? Then have a look Here: www.zinnfigur.com/en/Books-Media/Book-series/Military-history/Heere-Waffen/Schertler-O-text-Lunyakov-S-illustrations-Die-Heere-im-Alten-Orient.html The Publisher Zeughaus allows us to use some of their artwork in our videos. They have an abundance of other books that might interest you.
Damn your videos put most documentaries to shame. No modern politicized agenda or patriotic hoopla just the events from what sources you have obviously surveyed given in a neutral entertaining manner. Of all the all those cashing in on total wars long arm yours at least isn't over reaching which I appreciate.
Tangentially, I just think it's interesting that Sumerian survived long after being supplanted by Akkadian as a sacred language, and Akkadian became a sacred language after being replaced by Aramaic, which is now mostly a liturgical language for Arabic-speaking Christians. To quote an earlier Total War game, "the world turns. What once was, may come again."
This Summerian culture is fascinating, not only for their art of war but for the founding of the first cities (or among the first of which traces remain), the invention of writing and therefore the most important literary work. ancient that we know "the epic of Gilgamesh"
Re: Historians used to think that Egypt wasn't very militarized. I rember beeing a young histroy nerd, and beeing VERY confused, by the apparent split in popular history books of the time. The text were talking about how Egypt was a peaceful socierty with out much military, and the pictures depicted Pharaos executing prisoners, the count on the heads of killed enemies, miniatures of archers in march formation etc. It felt almost shizophrenic, but probably was just the new expert position on the militarization of early seeping into pop-science.
Those leftist historians of the fifties to seventies just loved the idea of peaceful aborigine societies with only a few aggressive ones, mainly of the European stock (and possibly Mongols). Only after the archaeologists accumulated enough proof that it was not so, was that idea partly dropped. But up today some "historians" lament on bad British colonization of India between the 18th - 19th century AD but at the same time omit six centuries of Muslim raids from the northwest which led to the establishment of all those sultanates.
There seems to be a bias in assuming civilisations are peaceful until we read them boasting about stringing up the bodies of their enemies on their walls. I mean the lack of walls is seen as evidence that the Minoans where peaceful yet it is assumed that the walls or the Harrapans and of Jerico were just for floods and not for protection.
@@morriganmhor5078 is it now? It sounds to me like you’re trying to distract from the very real atrocities the British Empire committed. “Look, these people did bad stuff too, so stfu! You have no right to criticize Britannia Who Rules the Waves!” Whataboutism at its finest. How sad to see.
While the Battle of Tollense seems to be the first evidence of organized large scale warfare in Europe, the Mesopotamians and Egyptians were marching armies of several thousand men. Pretty incredible.
@@mladenmatosevic4591 I get the feeling that perhaps the mostly settled but non-agricultural people could have formed large armies for a campaign, but if they lost, their entire able bodied male population would be in ruin. The book Dawn of Everything kind of details how sedentary but non agricultural people lived, and how they and even semi-nomadic people could mobilize large labor forces for megastructures. On that same thinking, they could probably occasionally field large armies, but only once. And they probably wouldn’t be going on campaigns or anything, just fighting in one location.
@@Eodbatman Was it ever settled population of exclusive hunter-gatherers and what would be population density, both in terms of single settlement size and ability to form coalitions? And my comment addressed early large states with division of labour and their ability to project power on larger distance.
Topics I would love to see you cover in future videos: 1. The use of bronze armor in late Migration Period by the Western and Eastern Romans 2. The extent of iron armor and weapons in late Egypt, right before they were conquered by the Achaemenids
This 5000 men of Sargon is very reminiscent of the description of Mieszko I's 1000 personal warriors team. Especially since both of them had an advantage thanks to a permanent professional army and created countries by conquest.
It's a shame Pharoah will be a shallow flop of half finished game. The period is so fascinating and I really want to wargame the period. Great video as always
I was really hoping this wasn't sponsored by that game. Your work is amazing, which can't be said for what CA is pushing. Glad you got paid for it at least!
They'd probably be open to you paying them just as much instead. Until then, I'm hoping all their videos are sponsored by something as innocuous, or maybe as pleasant and even relevant to their material, as a game like that.
I love how your channel depicts much less discussed periods of history. I love watching videos about the Roman Empire as crusaders as much as the next guy, but this is the only channel I see talk about early modern history, like the 30 years war, and now war in the copper age. I love it
this is an excellent video! it really does explain the current understanding of the bonze age near east military situation amazingly well. concise and understandable while still informative. Really good at painting a picture. good work!
The ancient Egyptian version of the Battle of Kadesh, written under Ramses the 2nd and translated in the late 1800's, was the only source of information until recently. Much more recent, at the end of the 1900's, in the former capital of the Hittite Empire, high in the mountains that today are in Turkey, the royal / government's library was discovered. In the beginning, researchers only knew that the letters were Babylonian cuneiforms. Then, the Hittite language could be translated (it was an Indo-European language). After that, among many other things, the Hittite version of the Battle of Kadesh was discovered. According to the Hittites, not only that they defeated the Egyptians, but in the aftermath, they hunted and pursued the withdrawing Egyptians for hundreds of kilometers. They stopped their pursuit only when they reached the border of Egypt. If this is true, the Egyptian texts written under Ramses the 2nd are the oldest propaganda / misinformation known in history.
Hey anyone who can say otherwise is long dead, and most records are lost to time so that’s some great propaganda! Man maybe I should burry a big stone slab describing how I was the king of the world, maybe that’s a project for another time lol
My theories: 1. Early warfare consisted of only raids and counter raids by small forces numbering in the dozens on foot. This was much like hunting in the stone age, and required all the same cunning, except the game was more dangerous, because the prey was man. This lead to innovations in this sort of "infiltration" type of warfare, and warriors gained reputations as raid leaders. I'm not so sure if champion warfare grew out of this period, but it might have done. 2. Sumerians brought in their war carts, because the carts gave them a bit more speed than travel by foot (even if only pulled by donkeys and mules). The wagons could also carry extra supplies. The sumerians would set up war camps to deal with raiders on the outskirts. Most of their soldiers were archers, but there were also lines of men with shields who would help them occupy hills and vantage points, as well as protect the war camp. The war camps could also serve as a safe house for raiders. These sumerian war camps could number in the hundreds of warriors, so they were quite effective at dominating a region. The wagons made them mobile, and often they would retire back to their cities at the end of a "campaign" or war season. This was also an easier way to give new warriors experience in battle. Battles were still not massive affairs, but (hypothetically), flanking might be useful, even in battles where armies number in only the hundreds. This is because mobs hate to be entrapped, and tend to panic after awhile. 3. Lugal Zagisi (sp?) figured out early siege warfare. That's why he conquered so many cities. Champion duels probably emerged in this period, because cities wanted to resolve disputes quickly, and often times, a siege against a city was not viable, nor was attritional raiding. Cities also may have had mutual foes from beyond, so they had no reason to want to seek out the ruin of another city that they could not exploit in the immediate, because they feared the power vacuum would advantage the outside foreigners. 4. Sargon was all like "You have 500 warriors? I have 5000 warriors at a moment's notice!". He also applied Lugal's lessons and carved out an empire. I think archers first emerged as the counter to light infantry. Light infantry, may have been quite skilled, but were out ranged by archers, and even a talented slinger who'd trained for years to be accurate could not survive a cheesing of arrows from 10 archers who had trained for just three months (bows always required training in strength and control, but a 70 lbs. draw is nothing like a longbow... chatgpt actually suggests the bows for foot archers could be as light as 30-50 pounds, suggesting even less need for training). Archers oriented around a (probably) smaller group of heavy infantry with big shields and spears, even if the heavy infantry were not very well drilled (though at least a good portion of the archers were to a degree), became a dominating force for a long time. Supply wagons would travel with the army, to resupply the archers as well as provide provisions, and groups of mixed infantry would march with the supply column. Sargon adopted an offensive strategy of overwhelming the enemy war camp with a larger detachment of his own forces. This encouraged the enemy to meet his force enmasse in the field ahead of the supply column, which would have in turn either resulted in a duel of champions, or an audacious massive battle. In turn, if the enemy attacked Sargon's supply, he would bring his whole army to bear against that attack. Of course, Sun Tsu says this would have put him on the back foot, but I don't think Sargon engaged in enough battles to have been challenged in that way at the time - in terms of probability, a two phase battle of that sort was not in the cards; especially when you consider that armies fought on foot, and so lacked the mobility to make engaging in that way easy. Some of the cities Sargon marched past may have even surrendered without a fight. 5. Because archery was the best thing ever, the egyptians adopted composite bow usage to make their archers even better - and included a defensive strategy oriented around large scale geography (ie. the cataracts). 6. True chariots first adopted. They served a similar role to war chariots, but were even more flexible. Serving as archer platforms, they could engage on the front line (but this is nothing like the scale of horse archers in the age of cavalry). They could transport troops to enemy flanks in those mass battles, as well as cart them away if they were wounded, or were needed elsewhere. They could resupply archers during an ongoing battle as well. They were quite useful, so their employment evolved beyond just the war camps - though sumerian war carts could have been used in a similar way; just not as effectively, due to lack of speed. A new tactic sometimes arises only because the technology makes it effective enough to properly market itself. This partly has to do with the tactic not being the sort of thing that would necessarily revolutionize warfare - yet chariots none the less drew enough attention to become popular from britain all the way to china. 7. The first field battles emerge when a large force deploys to strike out an enemy supply camp, probably beginning in the period of Lugal Zagisi (sp?). The enemy in turn deploys a force to meet this force. Champion duels would break out, but some generals were audacious enough to command their whole force to attempt a massacre of the enemy. The enemy responding in kind, resulted in the emergence of proper field battles. Battle of Khadesh is the first recorded that survives, but there were likely some earlier ones.
Love the video but for our friends of CA the thing why their game is flopping and it's gonna flop is not the setting, the setting is amazing, is the playability the way the game behaves and the lack of ambition as to an amazing project as the bronze age collapse. There are so many things wrong with this game and all is because they refuse to listen the community.
haha, well summarized. Interestingly enough, that was also how chariots are used in the Iliad (even if that is an entirely other thing because it's epic literature). There was also "drive me close so I can shot them with my bow" I guess.
Hello, first I really enjoy your videos! Thanks a lot for your work. I would like to point out something. I studied archaeology, and specialised in the Neolithic, Bronze and Iron age. I don't know if you covered this, but it's a very common misconception that bronze of antiquity is stronger or sturdier than copper, unlike iron and steel. The fact that, as you hinted, "bronze" in the period is any copper alloy (usually with tin or arsenic). If bronze is really better at something over copper is resistance to corrosion (which is curent for an alloy). But the materials in those days were never quite pure, and proportions of copper varied in bronze alloys. What is a really big difference is that by adding tin you lower the temperature needed to work the metal (it was really difficult to bring copper to the melting point, and impossible for iron until the invention of the high furnace... and requires exponentially more fuel). So it is probably mostly ease of fabrication that made bronze more used than copper.
Military grade is actually just the stuff that meets the bare minimum of requirements, I say this because I’m guess bronze was worse then copper, but because it was easier to manipulate then copper, and it still worked for what it was needed for it was used, so that’s kind of funny.
It's funny that you would consider the Battle of Agincourt to be the most famous. We in France know the battles of Bouvines, Patay or Castillon much better as medieval battles. This shows that the reputation is far from universal depending on the country where you live.😉
@@SandRhomanHistorygreat point. Never thought of it that way but if your culture is Anglican in nature than you would be subject to its stories of great victories. Btw love your channel brother. Keep it up
more likely that it depends for each side. You frenchies probably just want to ignore the most embarrassing disasters. Same as the English@@olivierpuyou3621
You won't regret it, the channel is honestly one of the best out there for describing the intracity and dynamics of troops and tactics across the span of human history in a manner that is accurate (and informs the viewer when the issue is up for debate), succinct and, most impressively, easily digested even for those who don't have any background knowledge on military history.
@@WeWillAlwaysHaveVALISI learned how to siege a castle, defend a star fortress, ease a medieval army, and more tactics here, same I’m never going to get to use them because of the whole modern thing but you know. Nice to have.
That wall painting at 24:09 is a martial arts training manual. It seems weird that no one has ever mentioned it. Look up some medieval martial arts training manuals. They look amazingly similar.
Well, I mean, the body mechanics of humans hasn't really changed, so yes, wrestling still works the way it does. That's why cultural fighting methods usually only have slight variations. And also why every character with a "secret technique" you see in anime tends to just be fantastical, because writers think real life is boring, because hey, martial arts is broadly similar among different culutres. HOWEVER, properly realistic fighting would still be interesting to see in fiction
That's not really my point, @@Usammityduzntafraidofanythin. My point is that I've never heard _anyone_ mentioning that the ancient Egyptians had fighting manuals. I didn't say anything at all about fiction writing or different fighting styles which, really, are pretty different across the world. Yes, there are similarities, but there are also very significant differences.
About the bronze swords, yes many were not very practical (and probably mostly to display status), but they were usable and, as far as we know, used in battle. The main reason axes and spears were predominant in the bronze age might just be that a sword requires a LOT more metal to make. And also, it is more difficult to make because of its size. That can explain why swords became increasingly more frequent in later periods and particularly in the Iron Age : you can find decent iron almost anywhere (at least decent enough to give to foot soldiers). But to make bronze you need copper, which is more rare, and tin which is even less frequent. And this is one of the reason why the people in the Mediterranian traded with people as far as northen Europe (in particular the British isles). My point is, you can make a lot more axes and spears with the same amount of bronze, which is really expensive because of rather limited supply (in comparison with the quantity available once iron will be used).
@@Jesse_IDG well, in fact there is no "iron sword", it has always been steel (maybe not by design, the added carbon came from the burning of the wood or coal). But yes of course, a good quality steel sword would have been more expensive. It was not my point. I never said all iron/steel swords were cheaper, just that the fact that usable iron is less rare (so cheaper) would mean more people could afford it, or the riches/state could make more to equip their soldiers.
@@Weptak No, steel didn't exist for quite some time. Some steel was always produced when smelting iron but most of it would just be iron. It is for this reason the state of the Qin maintained using bronze despite rest of China using iron. Because bronze is way more resistant to corrosion, Qin bronze swords remain sharp after 2000 years for example. While the later Han only switched over to steel because of the invention of cast furnaces.
@@lolasdm6959 No, you can't make a usable weapon with only iron. First carbon gets mixed with the iron during the heating process and second, if you manage to make an iron weapon (by isolating your iron well enough during the process, good luck considering the technology of the period) pure iron is not resistant enough, your weapon will get badly damaged with each strike and will break after a few. I'm not saying the metal workers were making steel knowingly, and definitely not always in good proportions to make what today we actually call steel, but it was a form of steel. Like any alloy made with copper is bronze (as far as archaeology is concerned). The "iron" weapons always had a external layer of steel due to the fabrication process. There could be "purer" iron at the core of the weapon (depending on the technique used to make it), but the surface had to be steel to be of any use. The quality of an "iron" weapon in those days would be tightly linked to the proportion of carbon and balance between external steel and core iron. But keep in mind that there were still a lot of impurities in the iron used, so it would still be a form of iron alloy. Today, we have a lot of words for those alloys (steel, cast iron, ...) depending on the quantity of carbon (or other) but you could not measure it precisely in ancient times. So, in fact, they were trying to make steel. Too much carbon, you'd get what we call "cast iron" (which is just steel with too much carbon in it), not enough (almost impossible in ancient times) you'd get impure iron, and that is even worse for a weapon. To qualify as steel (in today's terms), an alloy has to have between 0.02% and 2% of carbon. I don't know how you could get less than 0.02% of carbon in any iron alloy in ancient or medieval times considering the fabrication process... I'm not an expert on ancient china, but my guess would be that the Qin sticked to bronze because (a) they had the means to it (access to the needed resources) that the others might have lacked to some extent and (b) the rest of China might in fact have made weapons with too much carbon (or other impurities) in it. And then, yes, bronze weapons are superior (and more expansive). The apparition of better furnaces allowes to better remove impurities in the raw iron used and improved heating means less 'fuel' needed, so less carbon mixing with the iron.
@@Weptak Early iron weapons had steel, but very impure with many random stuff in it and unbalanced distribution of carbon. There might be lots of carbon on one side and not enough on the other side. We know this because early iron weapons are as strong as Bronze, while steel weapons are much stronger. As described in Ancient China: Cut through iron like through dirt. The difference between iron and steel was immense. Yes iron made with primative methods always had carbon, but then you are just arguing sementics. Steel isn't steel just because it's impure and has carbon. Steel is steel because it's got a clear method of production, and is distinguishable enough from iron to be considered a different material. Also pure iron were made, the very early iron are distilled from iron oxidizing bacteria found commonly in bogs and swamps. Those rust pretty fast but they are better than stone, which is why I imagine anyone would bother make iron tools at fist. Those existed since late neolithic era or something I think.
-Egyptian Charioteer: "Man, those things are wonky looking, how did you guys make due?" -Sumerian Charioteer: "You might say we kind of _Half-Assed it..."_
Bronze swords are actually fine weapons, the edge is hardened by hammering and they bend rather than break so can be bent back. They can cut into steel as well as many other swords. They might have been logistically intensive to create and softer than iron but they were still very capable for their purpose. Lots of youtubers have made videos with reproductions, it sounds like your information is coming from the assumptions of historians without practical experience or specific knowledge of the subject. Maces and spears predominated due to cost of manufacture. This is a long period however and later on there was a shift towards more resource intensive warfare, which included a lot of bronze.
Bronze swords were fine but probably not early on. I think the argument is thay the tin / arsenic content in the bronze was not high enough for the earliest bronze sworsd, so the weapons would not be very hard.
@@vorynrosethorn903 This is true, but since flint knapping reached its peak when the first copper tools appeared. These perfect weapons were already out of fashion by materials that were easier to find locally rather than bringing them from a distant country.
@@olivierpuyou3621 That's why I mentioned logistics, it wasn't a matter of quality as much as cost. The adoption of Iron by the Assyrians was likely so significant because it allowed for mass deployment of heavy troops. Though of course the Assyrians were revolutionary in many other aspects of warfare as well, such as organisation and tactics.
Imagine 3,000 years from now, all they have to go off of to figure out how we wage now is a few dozen incomplete war memorial statues and the tattered fragments of a call of duty modern warfare advertisement poster. Thats what archeologists have to deal with.
Imagien when they resconstuct our history from bits and pieces and figure out that a mythical hero named Hulk Hogan once protected the entire country from evil foreign powers of some sort
Are you imagining a world where the remnants of the past have so failed to be preserved? I mean, maybe if digital memory just stops being archived all at once, and every hard drive with textual data is poorly maintained and never backed up, so that an entire century of history gets essentially whiped out. AAAAAND also you'd have to burn all the physical items that have been mass produced and are currently occupying land fills, and simply not decaying for multiple centuries. I can see the "imagine future archaeologists at least thinking about us, I'm lonely" being a meme, just saying. It's fine though, I'm autistic too
@@Usammityduzntafraidofanythin Its okay. I genuineley like long winded rants about stuff literally nobody cares about. I'm a compsci major. If I handed you a floppy disk from 1995 and told you to find whats on it, you'd have trouble. It would probably take you a few days to locate a floppy disk reader. A data-cassette from the 80's? A few weeks. A binary punch card ribbon from 1950? The machine that was made to read it may no longer even exist, and neither do the code books to properly compile whats on it. You now face the task of having to not only reverse-engineer the machine that reads it, but construct the entire operating system for it from scratch. Reverse-engineering is a BITCH. And thats for systems whose inventors are even still alive. 3,000 years of technological drift? forget it. Whatever is on those disks is inaccessible. Its also a moot point because even a perfectly preserved drive miraculously sealed away somewhere in still operating condition will not have any readable data left on it in 3,000 years. Drives start facing the issue of data decay after sitting unattended for about 20 years. After 3,000 there'd be nothing left. Functionally, the way we record our data now is going to be totally gone.
Only with agriculture it became possible to wage real war. You could carry grain and bring livestock with army and easily bring more from home base. At contrast, hunting could not feed large army and relying solely on foraging dispersed fighting power. Consider you would need 0.5-1kg of food for each man per day, and was bulkiest part of supply till at least 1500s. Only with rise of artillery, ammunition and other supplies started to outweight food.
@@mladenmatosevic4591 Pigs are about the toughest livestock the Spanish had, they eat just about everything, they are very compact and they reproduce quickly. The best livestock to bring on long sea voyages.
@@adriancampos8640 I know that British released them on many South Pacific islands, including New Zealand. So you can go there and shoot wild pigs for free. But, in Panonian plane soil freezes so it is old custom to kill most of the stock in late autumn and make sausages, hams and other smoked / cured meat. But real wild pigs survive there without too much problems.
Every history youtuber in existence pumps out bronze-age/Egypt themed videos, like no tomorrow. CA marketing department really has a deep pocket. Nice video regardless.
that's one of the worst history channels. don't compare that to sandrhoman. extra history does not have a clue about history. they just reiterate what movies says. @@MaHuD_
Haha, thanks. They are really nice to work with and have consistently let UA-camrs use their footage in the past, so I'd say most history UA-camrs are more than happy to work with them. For us it's a nice opporunity to cover another era of history. Because of this collaboration we also made the Origins of War video. It would have felt weird to have just the one video about the Bronze Age without more context.
Great video, as always! Just one thing. At 2:15 in the lower right corner. The Battle of New Orleans was fought between the US and the British, not the French.
Cloak doubling as blanket would be indispensable for infantry since it can be cold during night in desert. If solder can carry all his gear including reserve food for couple of days, it will reduce baggage train and reduce losses if unit gets temporarily dispersed. As for weapons, combination of large shield and spear is relatively cheap and easy to use for untrained militia even against volleys of arrows, while well trained warriors with axe or sword and smaller shield could be used to break enemy line. War chartiots could play role of modern tanks in open field, and required building obstacles or very disciplinned phalanx with long spears to stop. Army would be completed with missile units, archers, slingers and javeliners.
At some point, yeah sure but not within the next couple of uploads. There will be some stuff about the 18th century though, also a pretty neglected time period. I think we covered many of the better known events of that period and we struggled to get people to watch the more niche stuff. Even our Thirty Years' War videos have struggled to get over 60k which almost ruined us this summer, to be honest. So, we're hesitant to cover 15th and 16th century history too often, I'm afraid.
Sometimes when performing exeptional deeds of valor, like capturing enemies as prisoners or slaying a certain number of enemies the pharaoh would reward their soldiers with necklaces of golden flies. This was as much a form of payment as a symbol of status. Some of these soldiers recorded these rewards in their tombs.
😮 The top two thirds the painting from Beni Hasan is a wrestling manual!!! I need to find more about it. This is can be the oldest example of depiction of wrestling techniques and they are I sequences!!!
Regarding Bronze Age fiction, I recommend Dawn of Empire by Sam Barone. Basically it's the story of how a barbarian Eskkar rose to the defence of the first big village, Orak, and trained its people and built a wall to resist the nomadic Alur Meriki for the first time in history. Later he became father to Sargon of Akkad. It's a really good read.
Do we have any information about units of heavy crack infantry from Mycenian Greece in Egypt? They were not competing directly and shared common foe in Hittites
@SandRhomanHistory. At 2:16 your graphic and the dialogue says “New Orleans 1815: 5,000 Americans vs 9,000 French”. The Americans fought the British at the Battle of New Orleans. Not the French.
6:05 Cloak would be great armor..?!?! .. heavy leather cloak could close distance! loose heavy tough material is perfect for stopping ranged attack.... then drop it or use it in the charge.... Not saying they did but they could have....🤷♂️
Much of the information I have read says the Hittites had around 30K, the Egyptians 20K. After an battle with only the chariots, the Hittites retreated across the river. However, neither regular army troops were involved. Despite the Pharaoh claiming victory in great monuments, the city remained in Hittite hands. The tablets found in Hittite sources barely mention the battle as they kept Kadesh and conquered further south to Amurru.
According to the Hittites, not only that they defeated the Egyptians, but in the aftermath, they hunted and pursued the withdrawing Egyptians for hundreds of kilometers. They stopped their pursuit only when they reached the border of Egypt. If this is true, the Egyptian texts written under Ramses the 2nd are the oldest propaganda / misinformation known in history.
one of the recurring complaints among us military-historians, is "the ones who did the fighting are not the ones who did the writing" (and vice versa): until the advent of state-sponsored literacy programs around the start of the industrial revolution, the common soldier was illiterate and did not record his experiences; his officers, if literate, were 'gentlemen' and would not lower themselves to write descriptions of tactics, logistics, etc; and the vast majority of literate persons were employed to write, did not participate in combat, and were as unfamiliar with war-related things as most non-combatants today. it's no wonder that we have to fall back on archeology and stylized artistic representations to understand how they did things. one of the hazards of doing so is the conservatism of 'official' artistic motifs (the pharaoh must be shown like this, etc) - Sumer and Akkadia were going concerns for almost 4000 years, and it stretches credibility to assume that there was no innovation in the warlike arts: even if their weapons were limited to the technologies available (stone & bronze), someone SURELY at some point would have said to his squad, "guys, this time, try to stand close to your neighbor & take cover behind his shield" (or whatever).
I want to be an art collector like the ones Napoleon brought to Egypt. In fact, it's actually in my blood. My grandfather had a great time collecting art in central and Western Europe in the late 1930s till mid 1940s. It sounds like a blast. Plus he made a killing
The Sintashta culture first emerged in the Urals at around 2,200 BC with multiple technological innovations, such as the earliest known spoke 2 wheeled chariots and training horses.
The Sintashta chariots weren’t just Middle Eastern imports. Like the more plodding wagons that have been found to the west, near the Black Sea, the Sintashta chariots were wide enough for just one person, whereas Middle Eastern chariots could hold two or three. Moreover, the Sintashta wheels had between 8 and 12 spokes, where as Middle Eastern chariot wheels had only 4. It doesn’t look like something that’s being copied from the Middle East.
It's kind of mind blowing how long the chariot was the king of the battlefield and then just suddenly went out of fashion. Then there was no equivalent until the 20th century.
Horses were being ridden before the chariot was invented. The reason the chariot went out of style is because they were easily defeated by various Infantry tactics.
The doge of the Nahue II bronze swordmithing guild wants to have a word with the Belgian barbarian who claimed that bronze swords were useless. The guilds of Iberian bronze longswordsmiths support him.
He said early bronze swords were not very effective. They got better as time went on, and more advanced smithing techniques and bronze alloys were discovered.
@@addisonwelsh - Hmm... I may have misinterpreted? Surprisingly the oldest known bronze alloys, which are 1000 years before anywhere else in the Balcans (Karanovo-Gumelnita and nearby cultures), were quite perfect copper-tin alloys (they had not invented the sword concept however). AFAIK it was only later, probably because of tin scarcity, that worse alloys evolved, incluiding the infamously poisonous arsenic bronze one.
After Bronze Age, we have Iron Age. -Persian Empire -Greeks and Macedonians -Phoenicians and Carthagians -European Barbarians -Sythians -Italians and Romans
It wasn't called Palestine back in the bronze age really wish he would stop saying such a basic thing wrong I mean he could have said the area around modern Palestine I guess if you really wanted to but yeah just drives me a little mad getting something so basic wrong 😂
Рік тому+2
Thanks, people, this was awesome. As, after all, are all of your videos
Yeah we could have explained this better. We're aware that whenever archaeologists don't know something it's ritualistic but who are we to dispute it? It could be that there is more to it in this specific case and unfortunately we can't check it every time. We are kinda forced to trust the literature and hope that the major publication get these things right. Once thing, however, seems clear: early bronze weapon did lack tin / arsenic making them less effective for use in war. I think that's where the "ritual"-argument comes from in this case.
Why would they have had bronze swords if they were unusable? Have you tried the effectiveness of a bronze age sword in combat? From 2000 BC onwards in Central Europe a warrior was difficult to imagine without his bronze sword.
@@squidmanfedsfeds5301 well yeah swords where never the primary weapon, and also swords are really uneconomical as a weapon of war. You need so much good metal to make a sword that doesn't dull or bend after a few strikes. A spear point is enormously more economical and in addition a stronger weapon for armies. Both spear points and blunt weapons likes maces and axes would have more concentrated mass that could take more punishment and remain usable, regardless of metal quality.
@@megalonoobiacinc4863 Spears and shields were the most common weapons even in the Iron Age and up to the Middle Ages. But I must insist that swords were ubiquitous in Central and northern Europe in the Bronze Age and they have many traces of use so they were used a lot in war or in duels, so maybe they were not as ineffective. Some were really long and narrow, called "rapiers" in reference to the Renaissance rapiers (they were not as long thought), so the metal they used must have not been so bad.
@@petrapetrakoliou8979 yeah i downplayed them a bit much, being a spear fan myself, but they seem to have had more function as a backup or secondary weapon, sort of like the pistol in modern armies (overall, however i'm not denying that certain armies in certain periods primarily used blade like weapons).
I do believe that arsenic bronze was toxic - not good for drinking or eating off of - not that led wasn't used plenty for such uses, or that the people at the time could figure out what the problem was... And yet you could make bronze out of arsenic, providing 2 comparatively rare metals rather than the single one of tin.
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Damn your videos put most documentaries to shame.
No modern politicized agenda or patriotic hoopla just the events from what sources you have obviously surveyed given in a neutral entertaining manner.
Of all the all those cashing in on total wars long arm yours at least isn't over reaching which I appreciate.
the books look nice
I'm afraid of what that statistic post-it note on the 1815 Battle of New Orleans suggested...
...A brave new Napoleonic world lmao
Nah
OBJECTION! The Americans didn't fight the French at New Orleans - they fought the British...
Fun fact: Ramesses' sister Tia married a man also named Tia. They are buried in a grave known as Tia and Tia.
History will forever be stranger then fiction always lol. 😂😂
Or maybe she was just really narcissistic... (Just joking)
Wasn't that the names of the twins from the show "Sister Sister"?... actually it was Tia and Tamara
It would be cooler if she married a guy named Tamara.
@@jtzoltanthis guy beat me to itz
Tangentially, I just think it's interesting that Sumerian survived long after being supplanted by Akkadian as a sacred language, and Akkadian became a sacred language after being replaced by Aramaic, which is now mostly a liturgical language for Arabic-speaking Christians.
To quote an earlier Total War game, "the world turns. What once was, may come again."
This Summerian culture is fascinating, not only for their art of war but for the founding of the first cities (or among the first of which traces remain), the invention of writing and therefore the most important literary work. ancient that we know "the epic of Gilgamesh"
Chad Ramesses destroying 1500 chariots all on his own.
Propaganda at its best!
i mean he is much bigger than the chariots in the image, so maybe they sent toy chariots against him...
@@uelibinde we cannot disprove this theory
@@SandRhomanHistory 2:15 you had Battle of New Orleans 1815 as US vs French, it was US vs UK.
Don't forget Moses also humiliated that guy😂😂
Re: Historians used to think that Egypt wasn't very militarized. I rember beeing a young histroy nerd, and beeing VERY confused, by the apparent split in popular history books of the time. The text were talking about how Egypt was a peaceful socierty with out much military, and the pictures depicted Pharaos executing prisoners, the count on the heads of killed enemies, miniatures of archers in march formation etc. It felt almost shizophrenic, but probably was just the new expert position on the militarization of early seeping into pop-science.
Those leftist historians of the fifties to seventies just loved the idea of peaceful aborigine societies with only a few aggressive ones, mainly of the European stock (and possibly Mongols). Only after the archaeologists accumulated enough proof that it was not so, was that idea partly dropped. But up today some "historians" lament on bad British colonization of India between the 18th - 19th century AD but at the same time omit six centuries of Muslim raids from the northwest which led to the establishment of all those sultanates.
There seems to be a bias in assuming civilisations are peaceful until we read them boasting about stringing up the bodies of their enemies on their walls.
I mean the lack of walls is seen as evidence that the Minoans where peaceful yet it is assumed that the walls or the Harrapans and of Jerico were just for floods and not for protection.
@@morriganmhor5078that’s an awful lot of apologist distractions from British colonialism
@@jordinagel1184 No, its reality.
@@morriganmhor5078 is it now? It sounds to me like you’re trying to distract from the very real atrocities the British Empire committed. “Look, these people did bad stuff too, so stfu! You have no right to criticize Britannia Who Rules the Waves!”
Whataboutism at its finest. How sad to see.
Love the diversification of topics lately
we're very happy to hear that!!! we weren't sure whether people would be interested if we covered ancient history.
@@SandRhomanHistory I think people are very interested in that topic, as quality videos dealing with it are quite rare.
very very interested in your coverage of ancient history@@SandRhomanHistory
While the Battle of Tollense seems to be the first evidence of organized large scale warfare in Europe, the Mesopotamians and Egyptians were marching armies of several thousand men. Pretty incredible.
yeah, ex oriente lux, as they say. seems to be the same for war, i guess.
As a Guy who lives in the Tollensetal it‘s incredible to know, that only a few miles away of my House one of the first battles ever was fought
Keep in mind that standing armies were at maximum 1% of population and well equipped part-time army made perhaps 5%.
@@mladenmatosevic4591 I get the feeling that perhaps the mostly settled but non-agricultural people could have formed large armies for a campaign, but if they lost, their entire able bodied male population would be in ruin. The book Dawn of Everything kind of details how sedentary but non agricultural people lived, and how they and even semi-nomadic people could mobilize large labor forces for megastructures. On that same thinking, they could probably occasionally field large armies, but only once. And they probably wouldn’t be going on campaigns or anything, just fighting in one location.
@@Eodbatman Was it ever settled population of exclusive hunter-gatherers and what would be population density, both in terms of single settlement size and ability to form coalitions? And my comment addressed early large states with division of labour and their ability to project power on larger distance.
Topics I would love to see you cover in future videos:
1. The use of bronze armor in late Migration Period by the Western and Eastern Romans
2. The extent of iron armor and weapons in late Egypt, right before they were conquered by the Achaemenids
This 5000 men of Sargon is very reminiscent of the description of Mieszko I's 1000 personal warriors team. Especially since both of them had an advantage thanks to a permanent professional army and created countries by conquest.
Another fantastic historical coverage video about bronze age shared by an amazing channel 👏🏻
Glad you enjoyed it
Once again, this is such a fantastic video. Thank you!
Thanks again!
It's a shame Pharoah will be a shallow flop of half finished game. The period is so fascinating and I really want to wargame the period. Great video as always
yep! TW Pharaoh isnt a bad game!!! its pretty good!
@@edelweiss- Did you even read his comment lol? He said the opposite. Or am I missing sarcasm
Well you are in luck because CA just released a huge update for the game and it’s actually pretty good now, so definitely give it a try
I was really hoping this wasn't sponsored by that game. Your work is amazing, which can't be said for what CA is pushing. Glad you got paid for it at least!
They'd probably be open to you paying them just as much instead. Until then, I'm hoping all their videos are sponsored by something as innocuous, or maybe as pleasant and even relevant to their material, as a game like that.
I love how your channel depicts much less discussed periods of history. I love watching videos about the Roman Empire as crusaders as much as the next guy, but this is the only channel I see talk about early modern history, like the 30 years war, and now war in the copper age. I love it
this is an excellent video! it really does explain the current understanding of the bonze age near east military situation amazingly well. concise and understandable while still informative. Really good at painting a picture.
good work!
Another 30 minutes of great content!
The ancient Egyptian version of the Battle of Kadesh, written under Ramses the 2nd and translated in the late 1800's, was the only source of information until recently. Much more recent, at the end of the 1900's, in the former capital of the Hittite Empire, high in the mountains that today are in Turkey, the royal / government's library was discovered. In the beginning, researchers only knew that the letters were Babylonian cuneiforms. Then, the Hittite language could be translated (it was an Indo-European language). After that, among many other things, the Hittite version of the Battle of Kadesh was discovered. According to the Hittites, not only that they defeated the Egyptians, but in the aftermath, they hunted and pursued the withdrawing Egyptians for hundreds of kilometers. They stopped their pursuit only when they reached the border of Egypt.
If this is true, the Egyptian texts written under Ramses the 2nd are the oldest propaganda / misinformation known in history.
Hey anyone who can say otherwise is long dead, and most records are lost to time so that’s some great propaganda! Man maybe I should burry a big stone slab describing how I was the king of the world, maybe that’s a project for another time lol
Babe wake up, SandRhoman just posted
Damn nice presentation. Never fails to show information from the past in a manner that I’d sit down and listen to
I loved this bronze age series. I'm looking forward to the Iron Age and to learning more about the rise of the Achaemenid and Assyrians
My theories:
1. Early warfare consisted of only raids and counter raids by small forces numbering in the dozens on foot. This was much like hunting in the stone age, and required all the same cunning, except the game was more dangerous, because the prey was man. This lead to innovations in this sort of "infiltration" type of warfare, and warriors gained reputations as raid leaders. I'm not so sure if champion warfare grew out of this period, but it might have done.
2. Sumerians brought in their war carts, because the carts gave them a bit more speed than travel by foot (even if only pulled by donkeys and mules). The wagons could also carry extra supplies. The sumerians would set up war camps to deal with raiders on the outskirts. Most of their soldiers were archers, but there were also lines of men with shields who would help them occupy hills and vantage points, as well as protect the war camp. The war camps could also serve as a safe house for raiders. These sumerian war camps could number in the hundreds of warriors, so they were quite effective at dominating a region. The wagons made them mobile, and often they would retire back to their cities at the end of a "campaign" or war season. This was also an easier way to give new warriors experience in battle.
Battles were still not massive affairs, but (hypothetically), flanking might be useful, even in battles where armies number in only the hundreds. This is because mobs hate to be entrapped, and tend to panic after awhile.
3. Lugal Zagisi (sp?) figured out early siege warfare. That's why he conquered so many cities. Champion duels probably emerged in this period, because cities wanted to resolve disputes quickly, and often times, a siege against a city was not viable, nor was attritional raiding. Cities also may have had mutual foes from beyond, so they had no reason to want to seek out the ruin of another city that they could not exploit in the immediate, because they feared the power vacuum would advantage the outside foreigners.
4. Sargon was all like "You have 500 warriors? I have 5000 warriors at a moment's notice!". He also applied Lugal's lessons and carved out an empire. I think archers first emerged as the counter to light infantry. Light infantry, may have been quite skilled, but were out ranged by archers, and even a talented slinger who'd trained for years to be accurate could not survive a cheesing of arrows from 10 archers who had trained for just three months (bows always required training in strength and control, but a 70 lbs. draw is nothing like a longbow... chatgpt actually suggests the bows for foot archers could be as light as 30-50 pounds, suggesting even less need for training). Archers oriented around a (probably) smaller group of heavy infantry with big shields and spears, even if the heavy infantry were not very well drilled (though at least a good portion of the archers were to a degree), became a dominating force for a long time. Supply wagons would travel with the army, to resupply the archers as well as provide provisions, and groups of mixed infantry would march with the supply column. Sargon adopted an offensive strategy of overwhelming the enemy war camp with a larger detachment of his own forces. This encouraged the enemy to meet his force enmasse in the field ahead of the supply column, which would have in turn either resulted in a duel of champions, or an audacious massive battle.
In turn, if the enemy attacked Sargon's supply, he would bring his whole army to bear against that attack. Of course, Sun Tsu says this would have put him on the back foot, but I don't think Sargon engaged in enough battles to have been challenged in that way at the time - in terms of probability, a two phase battle of that sort was not in the cards; especially when you consider that armies fought on foot, and so lacked the mobility to make engaging in that way easy. Some of the cities Sargon marched past may have even surrendered without a fight.
5. Because archery was the best thing ever, the egyptians adopted composite bow usage to make their archers even better - and included a defensive strategy oriented around large scale geography (ie. the cataracts).
6. True chariots first adopted. They served a similar role to war chariots, but were even more flexible. Serving as archer platforms, they could engage on the front line (but this is nothing like the scale of horse archers in the age of cavalry). They could transport troops to enemy flanks in those mass battles, as well as cart them away if they were wounded, or were needed elsewhere. They could resupply archers during an ongoing battle as well. They were quite useful, so their employment evolved beyond just the war camps - though sumerian war carts could have been used in a similar way; just not as effectively, due to lack of speed. A new tactic sometimes arises only because the technology makes it effective enough to properly market itself. This partly has to do with the tactic not being the sort of thing that would necessarily revolutionize warfare - yet chariots none the less drew enough attention to become popular from britain all the way to china.
7. The first field battles emerge when a large force deploys to strike out an enemy supply camp, probably beginning in the period of Lugal Zagisi (sp?). The enemy in turn deploys a force to meet this force. Champion duels would break out, but some generals were audacious enough to command their whole force to attempt a massacre of the enemy. The enemy responding in kind, resulted in the emergence of proper field battles. Battle of Khadesh is the first recorded that survives, but there were likely some earlier ones.
Outstanding! As a lover of the Bronze/Iron ages, thank you so much for this upload. Bravo!
Love the video but for our friends of CA the thing why their game is flopping and it's gonna flop is not the setting, the setting is amazing, is the playability the way the game behaves and the lack of ambition as to an amazing project as the bronze age collapse. There are so many things wrong with this game and all is because they refuse to listen the community.
Outstanding presentation of such a great period in history.
Excellent presentation and narrative.
Thank you.
Have just subscribed now..😊
Before there was "Drive me closer so I can hit them with my sword!" There was "Drive me closer so I can get out and poke them with my spear!"
haha, well summarized. Interestingly enough, that was also how chariots are used in the Iliad (even if that is an entirely other thing because it's epic literature). There was also "drive me close so I can shot them with my bow" I guess.
Fantastic video, consistently one of the best history channels on YT, in all aspects.
Outstanding video. The approach of analyzing grand strategies is one that makes a lot of sense to me. Cheers!
glad to hear that! we appreciate the nice comment a lot!
Hello, first I really enjoy your videos! Thanks a lot for your work.
I would like to point out something. I studied archaeology, and specialised in the Neolithic, Bronze and Iron age. I don't know if you covered this, but it's a very common misconception that bronze of antiquity is stronger or sturdier than copper, unlike iron and steel. The fact that, as you hinted, "bronze" in the period is any copper alloy (usually with tin or arsenic). If bronze is really better at something over copper is resistance to corrosion (which is curent for an alloy). But the materials in those days were never quite pure, and proportions of copper varied in bronze alloys.
What is a really big difference is that by adding tin you lower the temperature needed to work the metal (it was really difficult to bring copper to the melting point, and impossible for iron until the invention of the high furnace... and requires exponentially more fuel).
So it is probably mostly ease of fabrication that made bronze more used than copper.
Military grade is actually just the stuff that meets the bare minimum of requirements, I say this because I’m guess bronze was worse then copper, but because it was easier to manipulate then copper, and it still worked for what it was needed for it was used, so that’s kind of funny.
I've time traveled to tell you the video is amazing.
which year you come from?
Another great video. Lots of great illustrations too I have not seen before. More Bronze Age please 😀
I love Egypt but could you please pleaseeeee do a video on bronze age Greece?
at some point we will. probably next year though!
@@SandRhomanHistory 😮
Will definitely look forward to that!
It's funny that you would consider the Battle of Agincourt to be the most famous.
We in France know the battles of Bouvines, Patay or Castillon much better as medieval battles.
This shows that the reputation is far from universal depending on the country where you live.😉
Definitely true. I think Agincourt is well known internationally because we're heavily influenced by English / Britsh culture.
@@SandRhomanHistorygreat point. Never thought of it that way but if your culture is Anglican in nature than you would be subject to its stories of great victories. Btw love your channel brother. Keep it up
@@SandRhomanHistory Yes, this battle is very well known in the Anglo-Saxon sphere, perhaps to console oneself for having lost the 100 Years' War.🤔
more likely that it depends for each side. You frenchies probably just want to ignore the most embarrassing disasters. Same as the English@@olivierpuyou3621
@@thattotalwarguy7911 Surely, but isn't the important thing to have won the war?
When u call urself. "The legitimate king" u aren't even fooling people 4k yrs later lol 😂
Lovely and interesting documentary. Love images/film/ photography ect. Narration great too👍
Many thanks!
I gotta admit, with such a general topic of a title I didnt expect such an IN-DEPTH Video!! Thank you! I sub and share!
You won't regret it, the channel is honestly one of the best out there for describing the intracity and dynamics of troops and tactics across the span of human history in a manner that is accurate (and informs the viewer when the issue is up for debate), succinct and, most impressively, easily digested even for those who don't have any background knowledge on military history.
@@WeWillAlwaysHaveVALISI learned how to siege a castle, defend a star fortress, ease a medieval army, and more tactics here, same I’m never going to get to use them because of the whole modern thing but you know. Nice to have.
Great vídeo!
I cannot say the same about the sponsor. TW Pharaoh is another CA missed opportunity.
That wall painting at 24:09 is a martial arts training manual. It seems weird that no one has ever mentioned it. Look up some medieval martial arts training manuals. They look amazingly similar.
Well, I mean, the body mechanics of humans hasn't really changed, so yes, wrestling still works the way it does. That's why cultural fighting methods usually only have slight variations. And also why every character with a "secret technique" you see in anime tends to just be fantastical, because writers think real life is boring, because hey, martial arts is broadly similar among different culutres.
HOWEVER, properly realistic fighting would still be interesting to see in fiction
That's not really my point, @@Usammityduzntafraidofanythin.
My point is that I've never heard _anyone_ mentioning that the ancient Egyptians had fighting manuals. I didn't say anything at all about fiction writing or different fighting styles which, really, are pretty different across the world. Yes, there are similarities, but there are also very significant differences.
Fantastic work,love everything you do! Info is in depth and the presentation is entertaining.
I'm enjoying your videos. FYI, I found this channel after it was recommended over at Alternate History Hub.
About the bronze swords, yes many were not very practical (and probably mostly to display status), but they were usable and, as far as we know, used in battle.
The main reason axes and spears were predominant in the bronze age might just be that a sword requires a LOT more metal to make. And also, it is more difficult to make because of its size.
That can explain why swords became increasingly more frequent in later periods and particularly in the Iron Age : you can find decent iron almost anywhere (at least decent enough to give to foot soldiers). But to make bronze you need copper, which is more rare, and tin which is even less frequent. And this is one of the reason why the people in the Mediterranian traded with people as far as northen Europe (in particular the British isles).
My point is, you can make a lot more axes and spears with the same amount of bronze, which is really expensive because of rather limited supply (in comparison with the quantity available once iron will be used).
@@Jesse_IDG well, in fact there is no "iron sword", it has always been steel (maybe not by design, the added carbon came from the burning of the wood or coal). But yes of course, a good quality steel sword would have been more expensive. It was not my point. I never said all iron/steel swords were cheaper, just that the fact that usable iron is less rare (so cheaper) would mean more people could afford it, or the riches/state could make more to equip their soldiers.
@@Weptak No, steel didn't exist for quite some time. Some steel was always produced when smelting iron but most of it would just be iron. It is for this reason the state of the Qin maintained using bronze despite rest of China using iron. Because bronze is way more resistant to corrosion, Qin bronze swords remain sharp after 2000 years for example. While the later Han only switched over to steel because of the invention of cast furnaces.
@@lolasdm6959 No, you can't make a usable weapon with only iron.
First carbon gets mixed with the iron during the heating process and second, if you manage to make an iron weapon (by isolating your iron well enough during the process, good luck considering the technology of the period) pure iron is not resistant enough, your weapon will get badly damaged with each strike and will break after a few.
I'm not saying the metal workers were making steel knowingly, and definitely not always in good proportions to make what today we actually call steel, but it was a form of steel. Like any alloy made with copper is bronze (as far as archaeology is concerned).
The "iron" weapons always had a external layer of steel due to the fabrication process. There could be "purer" iron at the core of the weapon (depending on the technique used to make it), but the surface had to be steel to be of any use. The quality of an "iron" weapon in those days would be tightly linked to the proportion of carbon and balance between external steel and core iron. But keep in mind that there were still a lot of impurities in the iron used, so it would still be a form of iron alloy.
Today, we have a lot of words for those alloys (steel, cast iron, ...) depending on the quantity of carbon (or other) but you could not measure it precisely in ancient times.
So, in fact, they were trying to make steel. Too much carbon, you'd get what we call "cast iron" (which is just steel with too much carbon in it), not enough (almost impossible in ancient times) you'd get impure iron, and that is even worse for a weapon.
To qualify as steel (in today's terms), an alloy has to have between 0.02% and 2% of carbon. I don't know how you could get less than 0.02% of carbon in any iron alloy in ancient or medieval times considering the fabrication process...
I'm not an expert on ancient china, but my guess would be that the Qin sticked to bronze because (a) they had the means to it (access to the needed resources) that the others might have lacked to some extent and (b) the rest of China might in fact have made weapons with too much carbon (or other impurities) in it. And then, yes, bronze weapons are superior (and more expansive). The apparition of better furnaces allowes to better remove impurities in the raw iron used and improved heating means less 'fuel' needed, so less carbon mixing with the iron.
@@Weptak Early iron weapons had steel, but very impure with many random stuff in it and unbalanced distribution of carbon. There might be lots of carbon on one side and not enough on the other side. We know this because early iron weapons are as strong as Bronze, while steel weapons are much stronger. As described in Ancient China: Cut through iron like through dirt. The difference between iron and steel was immense.
Yes iron made with primative methods always had carbon, but then you are just arguing sementics. Steel isn't steel just because it's impure and has carbon. Steel is steel because it's got a clear method of production, and is distinguishable enough from iron to be considered a different material.
Also pure iron were made, the very early iron are distilled from iron oxidizing bacteria found commonly in bogs and swamps. Those rust pretty fast but they are better than stone, which is why I imagine anyone would bother make iron tools at fist. Those existed since late neolithic era or something I think.
thank you for your work!!!!
My pleasure!
-Egyptian Charioteer: "Man, those things are wonky looking, how did you guys make due?"
-Sumerian Charioteer: "You might say we kind of _Half-Assed it..."_
10:24
Bro literally campaigned into Sus
Bronze swords are actually fine weapons, the edge is hardened by hammering and they bend rather than break so can be bent back. They can cut into steel as well as many other swords. They might have been logistically intensive to create and softer than iron but they were still very capable for their purpose.
Lots of youtubers have made videos with reproductions, it sounds like your information is coming from the assumptions of historians without practical experience or specific knowledge of the subject. Maces and spears predominated due to cost of manufacture. This is a long period however and later on there was a shift towards more resource intensive warfare, which included a lot of bronze.
Bronze swords were fine but probably not early on. I think the argument is thay the tin / arsenic content in the bronze was not high enough for the earliest bronze sworsd, so the weapons would not be very hard.
@@SandRhomanHistory But this is a long period, that changed in time and they were certainly well made by the period Iron started replacing them.
@@vorynrosethorn903 This is true, but since flint knapping reached its peak when the first copper tools appeared.
These perfect weapons were already out of fashion by materials that were easier to find locally rather than bringing them from a distant country.
@@olivierpuyou3621 That's why I mentioned logistics, it wasn't a matter of quality as much as cost. The adoption of Iron by the Assyrians was likely so significant because it allowed for mass deployment of heavy troops. Though of course the Assyrians were revolutionary in many other aspects of warfare as well, such as organisation and tactics.
I wished you cover China.
There is so much to talk about
will do. Roman is writing the script right now. video will only be released in a couple of months though.
Imagine 3,000 years from now, all they have to go off of to figure out how we wage now is a few dozen incomplete war memorial statues and the tattered fragments of a call of duty modern warfare advertisement poster. Thats what archeologists have to deal with.
Imagien when they resconstuct our history from bits and pieces and figure out that a mythical hero named Hulk Hogan once protected the entire country from evil foreign powers of some sort
Are you imagining a world where the remnants of the past have so failed to be preserved? I mean, maybe if digital memory just stops being archived all at once, and every hard drive with textual data is poorly maintained and never backed up, so that an entire century of history gets essentially whiped out.
AAAAAND also you'd have to burn all the physical items that have been mass produced and are currently occupying land fills, and simply not decaying for multiple centuries.
I can see the "imagine future archaeologists at least thinking about us, I'm lonely" being a meme, just saying. It's fine though, I'm autistic too
@@Usammityduzntafraidofanythin Its okay. I genuineley like long winded rants about stuff literally nobody cares about. I'm a compsci major. If I handed you a floppy disk from 1995 and told you to find whats on it, you'd have trouble. It would probably take you a few days to locate a floppy disk reader. A data-cassette from the 80's? A few weeks. A binary punch card ribbon from 1950? The machine that was made to read it may no longer even exist, and neither do the code books to properly compile whats on it. You now face the task of having to not only reverse-engineer the machine that reads it, but construct the entire operating system for it from scratch. Reverse-engineering is a BITCH.
And thats for systems whose inventors are even still alive. 3,000 years of technological drift? forget it. Whatever is on those disks is inaccessible.
Its also a moot point because even a perfectly preserved drive miraculously sealed away somewhere in still operating condition will not have any readable data left on it in 3,000 years. Drives start facing the issue of data decay after sitting unattended for about 20 years. After 3,000 there'd be nothing left. Functionally, the way we record our data now is going to be totally gone.
@@TrollCapAmericathe great hero Hulk Hogan cast down the mighty giant, Andre, who came to America to pillage and destroy.
Biggest battle of medieval ages (in europe) was battle of grunwald, where almost 60k off soldiers from poland and teutonic order meet on battlefield.
Very informative I love military history and have learned a lot. Subscribed...
Only with agriculture it became possible to wage real war. You could carry grain and bring livestock with army and easily bring more from home base. At contrast, hunting could not feed large army and relying solely on foraging dispersed fighting power. Consider you would need 0.5-1kg of food for each man per day, and was bulkiest part of supply till at least 1500s. Only with rise of artillery, ammunition and other supplies started to outweight food.
You could also go the Spanish in the Americas route and herd hundreds of pigs on the march to feed your troops.
@@adriancampos8640 That goes into "bring livestock with army". But pigs are interesting choice.
@@mladenmatosevic4591 Pigs are about the toughest livestock the Spanish had, they eat just about everything, they are very compact and they reproduce quickly. The best livestock to bring on long sea voyages.
@@adriancampos8640 I know that British released them on many South Pacific islands, including New Zealand. So you can go there and shoot wild pigs for free. But, in Panonian plane soil freezes so it is old custom to kill most of the stock in late autumn and make sausages, hams and other smoked / cured meat. But real wild pigs survive there without too much problems.
Love the channel keep up the great work
Glad you enjoy it!
Every history youtuber in existence pumps out bronze-age/Egypt themed videos, like no tomorrow. CA marketing department really has a deep pocket.
Nice video regardless.
Which UA-camrs for example?
@@lucasvanderhoeven3760extra history for example.
that's one of the worst history channels. don't compare that to sandrhoman. extra history does not have a clue about history. they just reiterate what movies says. @@MaHuD_
@@clintmoor422agree one of the worst history channels out there
Haha, thanks. They are really nice to work with and have consistently let UA-camrs use their footage in the past, so I'd say most history UA-camrs are more than happy to work with them. For us it's a nice opporunity to cover another era of history. Because of this collaboration we also made the Origins of War video. It would have felt weird to have just the one video about the Bronze Age without more context.
Awsome! can you make a similar video relating to the myceneans or minoans?
Or let's go back to the early modern era where there's much more evidence and research. This channel specializes in proper history.
I think snow didn't occur in lower Mesopotamia since the last Ice Age, but perhaps we shouldn't take your pictures that accurately.
it's just stock footage that makes clear that we talk about seasons. hard to find a similar time lapse.
This Is my favorite video in a long Time. Interesting AND fun to watch. Congratz ❤
Great video, as always!
Just one thing. At 2:15 in the lower right corner. The Battle of New Orleans was fought between the US and the British, not the French.
I saw that right away since I'm from New Orleans.
30 minutes? Your spoiling us
In his later years Sargon of Akkad became a famous you tuber.
Yeah, I just subscribed 2 days ago.
Just found this channel from alternate history hub. RIP my free time.
Cloak doubling as blanket would be indispensable for infantry since it can be cold during night in desert. If solder can carry all his gear including reserve food for couple of days, it will reduce baggage train and reduce losses if unit gets temporarily dispersed. As for weapons, combination of large shield and spear is relatively cheap and easy to use for untrained militia even against volleys of arrows, while well trained warriors with axe or sword and smaller shield could be used to break enemy line. War chartiots could play role of modern tanks in open field, and required building obstacles or very disciplinned phalanx with long spears to stop. Army would be completed with missile units, archers, slingers and javeliners.
3:55 one of the Ur-liest, you say?
hah!
You'd be surprised how strong Bronze is. Of course Bronze Swords were used in battle.
Total war Pharoah should be the one thanking total war Troy for allowing use of their assets, lol
Amazing, are there any Accurate films depicting this period of warfare?.
Hell yes! More SandRhoman!
Any more 16/15th century military content coming out?
You're one of the few with great videos in that period
At some point, yeah sure but not within the next couple of uploads. There will be some stuff about the 18th century though, also a pretty neglected time period. I think we covered many of the better known events of that period and we struggled to get people to watch the more niche stuff. Even our Thirty Years' War videos have struggled to get over 60k which almost ruined us this summer, to be honest. So, we're hesitant to cover 15th and 16th century history too often, I'm afraid.
History is so interesting.
What were the soldier's paid during this time period? I apologize if this is a stupid question, I'm just being curious.
Yes they were paid mostly rations but sometimes in beer or allowed to plunder and take slaves
Sometimes when performing exeptional deeds of valor, like capturing enemies as prisoners or slaying a certain number of enemies the pharaoh would reward their soldiers with necklaces of golden flies. This was as much a form of payment as a symbol of status. Some of these soldiers recorded these rewards in their tombs.
😮 The top two thirds the painting from Beni Hasan is a wrestling manual!!! I need to find more about it. This is can be the oldest example of depiction of wrestling techniques and they are I sequences!!!
High quality as always 👏
Well UA-cam finally got something right in the algorithm. Would love to see a video on Götz von Berlichingen.
Regarding Bronze Age fiction, I recommend Dawn of Empire by Sam Barone. Basically it's the story of how a barbarian Eskkar rose to the defence of the first big village, Orak, and trained its people and built a wall to resist the nomadic Alur Meriki for the first time in history. Later he became father to Sargon of Akkad. It's a really good read.
All this guys stuff is good.
We're not far from a Total War: Alexander.
They made that already in rome 1 engine
Total war: my toilet after taco night
Do we have any information about units of heavy crack infantry from Mycenian Greece in Egypt? They were not competing directly and shared common foe in Hittites
Crazy how we went from chosing the best war tactic guys as a leader to choosing old guys that like little kids 😂
Another beautiful video!
@SandRhomanHistory. At 2:16 your graphic and the dialogue says “New Orleans 1815: 5,000 Americans vs 9,000 French”. The Americans fought the British at the Battle of New Orleans. Not the French.
6:05 Cloak would be great armor..?!?! .. heavy leather cloak could close distance! loose heavy tough material is perfect for stopping ranged attack.... then drop it or use it in the charge....
Not saying they did but they could have....🤷♂️
So thankful for this and the Wevers Institute!
always loved the mysteries of this period
Much of the information I have read says the Hittites had around 30K, the Egyptians 20K. After an battle with only the chariots, the Hittites retreated across the river. However, neither regular army troops were involved. Despite the Pharaoh claiming victory in great monuments, the city remained in Hittite hands. The tablets found in Hittite sources barely mention the battle as they kept Kadesh and conquered further south to Amurru.
According to the Hittites, not only that they defeated the Egyptians, but in the aftermath, they hunted and pursued the withdrawing Egyptians for hundreds of kilometers. They stopped their pursuit only when they reached the border of Egypt.
If this is true, the Egyptian texts written under Ramses the 2nd are the oldest propaganda / misinformation known in history.
one of the recurring complaints among us military-historians, is "the ones who did the fighting are not the ones who did the writing" (and vice versa): until the advent of state-sponsored literacy programs around the start of the industrial revolution, the common soldier was illiterate and did not record his experiences; his officers, if literate, were 'gentlemen' and would not lower themselves to write descriptions of tactics, logistics, etc; and the vast majority of literate persons were employed to write, did not participate in combat, and were as unfamiliar with war-related things as most non-combatants today. it's no wonder that we have to fall back on archeology and stylized artistic representations to understand how they did things.
one of the hazards of doing so is the conservatism of 'official' artistic motifs (the pharaoh must be shown like this, etc) - Sumer and Akkadia were going concerns for almost 4000 years, and it stretches credibility to assume that there was no innovation in the warlike arts: even if their weapons were limited to the technologies available (stone & bronze), someone SURELY at some point would have said to his squad, "guys, this time, try to stand close to your neighbor & take cover behind his shield" (or whatever).
I want to be an art collector like the ones Napoleon brought to Egypt. In fact, it's actually in my blood. My grandfather had a great time collecting art in central and Western Europe in the late 1930s till mid 1940s. It sounds like a blast. Plus he made a killing
Um lol nice one I see what you're doing there 😅
Really, well-told history. Thank you very much indeed
No way a video about Bronze Age warfare started with “desert storm, 1991”
Lol that was the strangest opening I've ever seen. I skipped it first thinking it was an ad
The Sintashta culture first emerged in the Urals at around 2,200 BC with multiple technological innovations, such as the earliest known spoke 2 wheeled chariots and training horses.
The Sintashta chariots weren’t just Middle Eastern imports. Like the more plodding wagons that have been found to the west, near the Black Sea, the Sintashta chariots were wide enough for just one person, whereas Middle Eastern chariots could hold two or three. Moreover, the Sintashta wheels had between 8 and 12 spokes, where as Middle Eastern chariot wheels had only 4. It doesn’t look like something that’s being copied from the Middle East.
Didnt you guys gave a full video about the tercios? I thought you did and i cant find it now
It's kind of mind blowing how long the chariot was the king of the battlefield and then just suddenly went out of fashion. Then there was no equivalent until the 20th century.
What about the war wagon in the 15th century?
@@medalex195322 not as ubiquitous.
It went out of fashion after horses were bred large enough to support a rider in battle attire. Cavalry had greater mobility and utility.
Horses were being ridden before the chariot was invented. The reason the chariot went out of style is because they were easily defeated by various Infantry tactics.
I've never been able to understand how chariots could ever be used in war. I mean, a kinda uneven piece of land is all it takes to fuck its day up...
The geography on those lands was very smooth
Hey
Use your brain
The doge of the Nahue II bronze swordmithing guild wants to have a word with the Belgian barbarian who claimed that bronze swords were useless. The guilds of Iberian bronze longswordsmiths support him.
He said early bronze swords were not very effective. They got better as time went on, and more advanced smithing techniques and bronze alloys were discovered.
@@addisonwelsh - Hmm... I may have misinterpreted?
Surprisingly the oldest known bronze alloys, which are 1000 years before anywhere else in the Balcans (Karanovo-Gumelnita and nearby cultures), were quite perfect copper-tin alloys (they had not invented the sword concept however). AFAIK it was only later, probably because of tin scarcity, that worse alloys evolved, incluiding the infamously poisonous arsenic bronze one.
Could there have been more people than we thought back then?
I don't think we were ever sure how many people were there during that age.
the ziggurat of ur looks crazy cool
After Bronze Age, we have Iron Age.
-Persian Empire
-Greeks and Macedonians
-Phoenicians and Carthagians
-European Barbarians
-Sythians
-Italians and Romans
Thanks, really enjoyed this.
This is my favourite period of history
It wasn't called Palestine back in the bronze age really wish he would stop saying such a basic thing wrong I mean he could have said the area around modern Palestine I guess if you really wanted to but yeah just drives me a little mad getting something so basic wrong 😂
Thanks, people, this was awesome. As, after all, are all of your videos
Glad you like them!
I like this "probably ritual weapon" meme, but people are using it way too often.
Yeah we could have explained this better. We're aware that whenever archaeologists don't know something it's ritualistic but who are we to dispute it? It could be that there is more to it in this specific case and unfortunately we can't check it every time. We are kinda forced to trust the literature and hope that the major publication get these things right. Once thing, however, seems clear: early bronze weapon did lack tin / arsenic making them less effective for use in war. I think that's where the "ritual"-argument comes from in this case.
Thanks very informative
At 2:17, the battle of New Orleans mistakenly has US vs. France. It was actually the US against the British.
Why would they have had bronze swords if they were unusable? Have you tried the effectiveness of a bronze age sword in combat? From 2000 BC onwards in Central Europe a warrior was difficult to imagine without his bronze sword.
we didn't say they were ineffective. we say the were ineffective early on which is probably because the tin / arsenic content was too low.
It’s likely that a spear and then a mace or ax was used with a early Bronze Age sword would be the absolute last resort and mostly there for looks
@@squidmanfedsfeds5301 well yeah swords where never the primary weapon, and also swords are really uneconomical as a weapon of war. You need so much good metal to make a sword that doesn't dull or bend after a few strikes. A spear point is enormously more economical and in addition a stronger weapon for armies.
Both spear points and blunt weapons likes maces and axes would have more concentrated mass that could take more punishment and remain usable, regardless of metal quality.
@@megalonoobiacinc4863 Spears and shields were the most common weapons even in the Iron Age and up to the Middle Ages. But I must insist that swords were ubiquitous in Central and northern Europe in the Bronze Age and they have many traces of use so they were used a lot in war or in duels, so maybe they were not as ineffective. Some were really long and narrow, called "rapiers" in reference to the Renaissance rapiers (they were not as long thought), so the metal they used must have not been so bad.
@@petrapetrakoliou8979 yeah i downplayed them a bit much, being a spear fan myself, but they seem to have had more function as a backup or secondary weapon, sort of like the pistol in modern armies (overall, however i'm not denying that certain armies in certain periods primarily used blade like weapons).
I do believe that arsenic bronze was toxic - not good for drinking or eating off of - not that led wasn't used plenty for such uses, or that the people at the time could figure out what the problem was... And yet you could make bronze out of arsenic, providing 2 comparatively rare metals rather than the single one of tin.