This brief video shows study volunteers learning different combinations of late Bronze Age combat fighting techniques, based in part on descriptions from Homer’s Iliad. They were also put on a Bronze Age diet including beef, goat cheese, onions, and red wine.
The 3,500-year-old Dendra armor may not look sleek, but new research shows how battle-worthy it really was.
Known as the Dendra armor or the Dendra panoply, it dates to the 15th century B.C. a few centuries before the Trojan War that inspired Homer probably took place. The volunteers prepared for the protocol by eating only carefully weighed food under a nutrition plan that consisted of dried bread, beef, olives, goat cheese, onions, red wine, and water—a diet researchers deemed typical for a Mycenaean army on the move.
Many of the volunteers also reported suffering high levels of fatigue, a sore upper body from the weight to the armor, and foot pain from walking, running, and fighting barefoot.The research shows the Dendra armor gave better protection than the other type of armor typically used in the late Bronze Age, which consisted of small bronze scales on a linen backing, Wardle says —but at the cost of mobility, which was prized in later eras.
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