Miniatures Talk

Hittite chariots

Posted by Beano Boy on 02 Apr 2017, 15:52

Well I believe the Hittite Stone reveals all.
:mrgreen: Even my beard and donkey thanks guys that was funny! BB
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Posted by David O'Brien on 02 Apr 2017, 23:14

Surely it is obvious with two wheels = two disc brakes. They are disc brakes.
The sadly missed Angus Mc Bride who more or less started this thread seems to have also included a differential on his chariot rear/front axle.
2 hp engine and one careful owner several thousand years old but stored in tomb. Good runner. Buyer collects only serious purchasers please.
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Posted by Ochoin on 03 Apr 2017, 03:19

David O'Brien wrote:The sadly missed Angus Mc Bride who more or less started this thread .


I must correct Mr O'Brian. I am neither Angus McBride nor am I "sadly missed" - indeed, most people cheer when I leave.

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Posted by FredG on 03 Apr 2017, 08:15

Is this the real origin of the Daleks?

Did Davros breach the Hittite patent?

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It's an odd time for the mechanic to be working on the horse though. :eh:
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Posted by Ochoin on 03 Apr 2017, 11:29

FredG wrote:
It's an odd time for the mechanic to be working on the horse though. :eh:


That's not a mechanic, Fred. It's the infamous Mitannian, Whiplash Wakim who used to throw himself in front of passing chariots & threatened to sue unless the driver paid up big.


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Posted by FredG on 03 Apr 2017, 11:38

Which begs the question " Where's the dashcam?"
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Posted by bilsonius on 07 Apr 2017, 23:24

The circular objects are smoke detectors, to discourage employees from lighting up a crafty ciggie in the cab (especially if they're supposed to be picking up the kids from school on the way home)
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Posted by Cryns on 11 Apr 2017, 10:22

What a great research discussion this is! :-D
(until it went silly)

My vision to these mysterious circles is quite different from all of your suggestions.
I believe its a 19th century mistake, a free style artist's interpretation by Jean-Francois Champollion back in 1835.
The circle Is nothing. Copied again and again by illustrators and sculptors. Its probably based upon the image of an Egyptian hole :mrgreen: :-D

So lets trace this thing back.

Wiking wrote: I think only the sculptor of Cäsar know it.
I think he doesn't.

He must have copied it from the Osprey Books:

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The Osprey illustrators copied it from Jean-Francois Champollion:

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Jean-Francois Champollion, founder of Egyptology, copied it around 1835 from the 13thC BC Ramesseum in Egypt:

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So here something went wrong. The original does not show any discs at all.
Neither do all other Egyptian or Syrian reliefs depicting Hittite chariots:

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Image

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Why did Champollion add those discs?
Maybe because he wanted to decorate the plain sides of the Hittite Chariots.

Where did he get the inspiration?
Maybe here:

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Many Egyptian reliefs show Egyptian chariots with small circles similar to 'our' discs. These must be holes though. Most of them are situated in the back of the chariots sideboard. Probably to create a handgrip. Or a hole to attach ropes for quivers:

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But some images show these holes a little more positioned towards the front of the sideboard.

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These represent Egyptian chariots, but since Champollion was one of the first people to study them, he may have judged these as Hittite ones.

What is it? As I'll need to paint it, I have to know.

My advice to you: Take a knive and remove it from the chariot so your problem is solved. :P
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Posted by Ochoin on 11 Apr 2017, 10:38

Clearly, nearly everything we know about the Hittite military comes from Egyptian wall paintings. This begs the question as to how accurate the artists were. Did any of them ever see a Hittite chariot? Was it described to them? How important was it to be realistic?

For example, shield less Hittite spearmen. I've read that because the Egyptian painters had no conventions for depicting the "odd" Hittite shields, they simply left them out.

Maybe. Maybe the Hittite spearmen were shield less.

Other "impossible" questions:
How many spokes did Hittite chariots have?
Did Hittites have iron weapons?
How much armour did they wear?
Were Hittite chariots crewed by three or did the paintings show Chariot Runners being given a lift?

I do know that the Egyptians seemed to despise the Hittites; calling them "girly-men" because of their hair styles. Can we expect that Egyptians were faithful in showing such enemies?


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Posted by Cryns on 11 Apr 2017, 11:20

Ochoin wrote:Can we expect that Egyptians were faithful in showing such enemies?


I think we can not. What we see is Egyptian propaganda, at least to a certain level. But since its our main source, its all we have to start from.
Making our own interpretation when looking at the Egyptian reliefs is part of our hobby, isn't it?
Trying to destile 'modern mistakes' is another part of the fun. At least it is to me.

I can not answer all of your 'impossible questions' (good expression of yours :-D :yeah: ) but look at what Yigael Yadin in his book 'The Art of Warfare in Biblical Lands' has to say about 8 spoke Hittite chariot wheels:

Image

The 8 spoked Hittite wheels I know about are neo-Hittite.
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Posted by FredG on 11 Apr 2017, 11:31

Mr. Cryns wrote:Many Egyptian reliefs show Egyptian chariots with small circles similar to 'our' discs. These must be holes though. Most of them are situated in the back of the chariots sideboard. Probably to create a handgrip. Or a hole to attach ropes for quivers:

Image
These represent Egyptian chariots, but since Champollion was one of the first people to study them, he may have judged these as Hittite ones.

My advice to you: Take a knive and remove it from the chariot so your problem is solved. :P


So the disc on the chariot is a hole and the hole just above the horse's withers is a disc. Got it :yeah:
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Posted by Ochoin on 11 Apr 2017, 13:06

Mr. Cryns wrote:
I can not answer all of your 'impossible questions' .


My point, though I made it badly, was we gamers & modellers base our work on absurdly small & probably erroneous bits of information. From a single extant carving, Osprey will postulate a "troop type" and manufacturers will build an army. An example of this is the Mycenaean boar's tusk helmet. Sure some 30-40 have been found by archaeologists but as many as 70 boars are needed to make one, it would not have been "standard issue" yet nearly every miniature Mycenaean figure sports one.

These gigantic leaps we take *are* necessary: as you know, there's so little information on the Bronze Age (& Ancients in general) we seize upon anything we can.

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Posted by Ochoin on 11 Apr 2017, 13:09

FredG wrote:[So the disc on the chariot is a hole and the hole just above the horse's withers is a disc. Got it :yeah:


:-D

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Posted by Cryns on 11 Apr 2017, 14:38

Ochoin wrote:we gamers & modellers base our work on absurdly small & probably erroneous bits of information. From a single extant carving, Osprey will postulate a "troop type" and manufacturers will build an army.


:notworthy: Well said. I completely agree with you on this.

And also you opened my eyes for the depiction of 4, 6 and 8 spoked wheels.
I tried to explain how 19th century European artists changed 6 spoked wheels into 8 spoked because they probably only knew 8 or more spoked wheels from their own European 'modern' world and could not imagine why a six spoke wheel had existed back in ancient times.
But you say the same thing about the Egyptians: their artists may have changed the Hittite 8 spoked wheels into 6 spoked ones because they had never seen a 8 spoked one and just used the type of wheel they did know: 6 spoked.
I think you made an excellent point here.

All the 8 spoked Hittite wheels depicted on stone reliefs are Neo Hittite I think, so from many centuries after Kadesh. So we still don't know what was the original Hittite Kingdoms & Empire wheel design.
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Posted by Ochoin on 11 Apr 2017, 22:45

You ever read Drews?
http://press.princeton.edu/titles/5314.html
His hypothesis is chariot warfare ended with the appearance of javelin armed skirmishers.

It's very clever stuff but rests on the premise that although Bronze Age people had javelins (& other weapons such as bows & slings), they didn't use them in warfare until the 1200s (ie the Sea Peoples & the Catastrophe).

I hate to admit it but Bronze Age warfare is not that far away from being interested in fantasy.

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Posted by Cryns on 14 Apr 2017, 10:33

Ochoin wrote:You ever read Drews? His hypothesis is chariot warfare ended with the appearance of javelin armed skirmishers.

No, I did not know his work and not this theory. Very interesting. Thanks for sharing.

Ochoin wrote:I hate to admit it but Bronze Age warfare is not that far away from being interested in fantasy.

Ochion don't turn things the other way around! :-D :xd: :-)

Fantasy is not that far away from being interested in some proper piece of history. :mrgreen:
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Posted by FredG on 14 Apr 2017, 11:55

Mr. Cryns wrote:But you say the same thing about the Egyptians: their artists may have changed the Hittite 8 spoked wheels into 6 spoked ones because they had never seen a 8 spoked one and just used the type of wheel they did know: 6 spoked.
I think you made an excellent point here.


You are failing to introduce the possibility that none of the wheels may have had six spokes. It may be that the 6 spoked wheels are merely a simple representation of ones with a greater number. The Egyptians are working in stone. reducing the number of spokes saves a lot of carving time.
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Posted by Cryns on 17 Apr 2017, 11:43

FredG wrote:It may be that the 6 spoked wheels are merely a simple representation of ones with a greater number. The Egyptians are working in stone. reducing the number of spokes saves a lot of carving time.


Giving your idea a second thought during these Easter days I have to admit its an interesting theory: Simplification to protect the sandstone from crumbling apart because of too many detail.
On the other hand, its more easy to 'draw' an 8 spoked wheel than a 6 spoked one (try it at home ;-) )
Also your theory does not support the fact the few real chariotwheels that did survive those thousands of years in the Valley of the Kings, and found by archeologists, do have 4 ( early Elamite) or 6 spokes (later Tutanchamon) and not 8. Probably to reduce weight to the chariot.
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Posted by FredG on 17 Apr 2017, 12:11

Mr. Cryns wrote:Also your theory does not support the fact the few real chariot wheels that did survive those thousands of years in the Valley of the Kings, and found by archeologists, do have 4 ( early Elamite) or 6 spokes (later Tutanchamon) and not 8. Probably to reduce weight to the chariot.


Are these wheels you cite as evidence not grave goods? Do we really know that they were practical working chariot wheels?

Mr. Cryns wrote:On the other hand, its more easy to 'draw' an 8 spoked wheel than a 6 spoked one (try it at home ).


I believe the same would apply to making one :P
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Posted by Cryns on 17 Apr 2017, 12:26

No we and I don't know. You may be right.
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