Sporting the Middle Elamite look

[Andreas Johansson]

For unusual reasons, I've been thinking recently of what a Middle Elamite (ca 1600-1200 BC) army might look like. AANE says that almost nothing is known except from a relief showing archers with helmet, tunic, and dagger (probably this one), on which shaky grounds I've previously toyed with the idea of borrowing the chariotry from my Mitanni - they're supposed to have been role models for charioteering all over the ANE, right? - and adding a horde of foot archers in tunics to round the army out.

But AANE is now forty years old, so maybe more evidence has turned up in the meantime? Discouragingly, the other wargamer's guide to the ANE I've got, Zeughaus' Die Heere im Alten Orient (2010) doesn't have any reconstructions of Elamites at all.

[Mick Hession]

It might be worth posting this to the DBMMlist group Andrea's as Nigel Tallis is a member and should be able to confirm the current thinking

[gavindbm]

It might be worth posting this to the DBMMlist group Andrea's as Nigel Tallis is a member and should be able to confirm the current thinking

Good idea ... and please post any answer back here.

[Andreas Johansson]

I did, though haven't had any direct response from Nigel yet.

Duncan did post this (paywalled) article, which might be useful, and Nigel said it should be on JSTOR next year.

[Andreas Johansson]

User "andrewnz" over at TMP gave this reply:

I spent a lot of time looking around for images or information. My best single source resource was Potts, 1999. The archaeology of Elam: Formation and transformation of an ancient Iranian state. Cambridge University Press. There is a copy of the first edition on line with academia.edu

There were some great items in the Louvre: cylinder seal impressions, chariot wheel hoops, some stone reliefs.

Ultimately I decided that the Late Bronze Age was a very international era (long range trading tin to make the bronze) so perhaps well equiped Elamites did not look so different from others. More unarmoured archers with head bands as a nod to the much later Assyrian relief sculptures to be sure.

Also, that chariots were not mass produced in factories so they could also look different. And ideally should. But most pulled by armoured horses.

I think I can get access to the 2nd edition, so I'll report back if/when I get around to reading or skimming it.

[DBS]

Had a quick flick through my copy of Potts last night. Relevant chapter is no7.

Not a lot in there in terms of your question. Middle Elamite is arguably when the region was at its strongest, beating up Babylon and Assyria, marrying a lot of Kassite princesses, and rulers calling themselves "king of Susa and Anshan", though Susa itself seems to have waned with the seat of power 10km away at Haft Tepe.

No obvious signs of large palace organisation usually associated with the period and chariot squadrons. There are temple records, which mention expenditure on chariots and armour, but these seem to be sacred silver and gold gods' chariots in the temples. Also, are they true chariots or just processional vehicles.

My suspicion, no more than that, is that royalty probably had chariots, technology having been obtained via Babylon, but possibly not in large, tactically significant, numbers. Elam had controlled a little earlier the flow of tin to Mari, so no reason to assume a lack of bronze armour for those who merited it.

Perhaps just not a culture of palace chariot squadrons, rather than well led, effective hillmen, good at archery?

Of course, absence of evidence does not necessarily equal evidence of absence!

[Andreas Johansson]

I've now given the chapter (2nd 2016 edition) a quick read-through myself, and the chief takeaway, from a military modelling point of view, seems to be that the Middle Elamites just weren't much interested in depicting warriors. (This affliction seems to be shared with their Kassite Babylonian contemporaries.)

Weapons found include swords, axes, and arrowheads - the apparent lack of spearheads perhaps supports the idea that Elamite infantry was largely archers (as Ashurbanipal had them depicted half a millennium later).

Potts only mentions chariots belonging to gods and kings, but the paper Duncan linked to identifies a "a mid-fifteenth to mid-fourteenth century BCE state-controlled arsenal of war chariots and weaponry" at Haft Tepe, suggesting that charioteering was of practical military significance. It also makes good intuitive sense that chariots would be similarly useful in the Elamite lowlands as in neighbouring Mesopotamia - perhaps they were less popular at Anshan in the highlands.

Potts made no mention of the relief with archers mentioned above.

[stevenneate]

'Man in kilt with bow' about sums it up. I can't think of any other depictions for the specific period you mention, even Assyrian works. We're lucky that the Late Assyrians were great artists of those they crushed!

[Imperial Dave]

And that they loved walnut whip helmets

[Andreas Johansson]

What's the evidence for kilts? The above-mentioned relief shows tunics.

[Cantabrigian]

What's the evidence for kilts? The above-mentioned relief shows tunics.

Devils in Skirts, either way...

[Imperial Dave]

 

[stevenneate]

Routledge published a book on the Elamites in 2018.

I have not seen or read it so cannot vouch for its content unfortunately.

Álvarez-Mon, J., Basello, G.P., & Wicks, Y. (Eds.). (2018). The Elamite World (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315658032

[stevenneate]

There was also The Art of Elam c.4200-525 BC, published by Routledge in 2020.
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003018254

I'm sure there's a dozen Slingshot articles to be prised from their hiding place in these two books!

[Imperial Dave]

YES!