Early Aegean Warrior 5000–1450 BC (Warrior, 167)

Again the team D'Amato, Salimbeti and Rava take on really ancient history. They had a lot of success with their previous "Bronze age Greek warrior", which is a very good work, so the decision to make a "prequel" was easy to make. And this product is, IMHO, the best it ca be delivered for this time period.Written sources are non-existing for most of these cultures, even indirect. So, the main source for the content of this book is naturally archeological finds. And all important site for the mainland Aegean culture, Cycladic islands, Cyprus, Crete and not forgetting the invading proto-hellenes are covered. Their peculiarities from weapons, helmets, foot and head wear, body painting, fortifications and even what we can learn from paintings about leisure times, social classes, duels, etc, are dealt with. It is truly amazing the amount of information the authors provide. Obviously there are informed guessing, but the archeological evidence is thoroughly explained and interpreted with caution.The photographs are very good and the comparative tables with the evolution of helmets and other equipment (the authors already used them in their above mentioned former work) are extremely useful (and now for the periods of 5000 - 1450 BC).Now something about the illustrations...they're awesome. Giuseppe Rava is quickly becoming one of my favorite military artists. Looking at the paintings from the usual reading range they look ery good; but try to look at them from slightly farther away! The shining in bronzed flesh and metal reveals a fabulous dynamism and realism that seem that those persons are real and moving. This book include the following illustrations from Rava: Early continental siege warfare - Sesklo, about 4400 BC; Cycladic settlement and fortress in Kastri-Chalandriani - Syros, about 2300BC; Early Aegean warriors 3000 - 1700 BC; Centro-European migration on the present day Greek mainland, about 2200-1800 BC; Return from victory - "Kretes"warriors with Lybian prisioners in Akrotiri, 1600 BC; The Minoan Thalassocracy - boarding of pirate ships in the Aegean sea - about 1500 BC; Late Minoan warrior 1700 - 1450 BC; The Achaean conquest of KnossosGreat work overall. Highly recommended.

This Osprey volume is more of an archaeological text than it is a military history. This work covers a time before there was a written historical record. The first fragmentary accounts of this period come from Iron Age Greece. (Approx. 750 b.c.e.) If you are going to write a book about this era, an author mus rely on the archaeological record. Rafaele D'Amato does an excellent job of putting meat on to some rather dry bones. This is a very well done book for a general audience. Highly recommended!

This brief work (60 pages of text) is a part of the Osprey "Warrior" series. The volume covers Aegean warriors from 5000 to 1450 BC. It covers a series of civilizations--Crete, Cyprus, Cyclades, and mainland Greece. There are also occasional references to Troy.The book does an estimable job of making sense of sketchy data. The societies studies are far enough in the past that the evidence available is not easy to make full sense of. By the way, page 11 has a useful chronology that helps place the material into historical context.The book explores, even with incomplete information, issues such as military organization, clothing, weapons and armor, fortifications, naval power, the life of a warrior, and strategy and tactics of warfare.Warfare is covered in just two pages, suggesting how little we can be confident of.The book has many diagrams and photos of relevant artifacts that help give a more visual sense of the time.All in all, a good work in this series. . . .

These books are graphic novel size but I like the in-depth information on the time period. It's really nice to see some original art from these ancient time periods to get a better idea of what things may have looked like instead of just pictures of ancient wall art or carvings.

Finally someone has tackled the dodgy question of weapons, armor, ships and tactics in the pre-Hellenic Aegean. The mainland, Crete and the Cyclades are all covered in this wonderful book. While some of the inferences were come to inductively, I feel no doubt that they are on the mark.

A lot of great info in these little books.

Great overview.

I was looking for information regarding th Bronze Age Mediterranean military capabilities and this helped to flesh out the period for me.

It's a short book that aims at giving an overview of the Aegean warrior world, through iconic and material archaeology evidence – it succeeds on its intent.

This Osprey publication may seem a bit unusual, because it largely lacks the historical context that can be found in most other volumes of the series. A fairer assessment would be to recognize the choice that the authors have deliberately made to concentrate on archaeological findings, to describe these and to use them as the basis for their reconstructions. To a large extent, their alternatives were limited simply because there were no primary written sources that they could make use of.This is not to say that there is no discussion of the origins of the various waves of "Indo-Europeans", or the Cretans, for instance. Only that it is kept to a minimum with the authors, for instance, also clearly making the point that the existence of the "Minoan sea power" is nothing more than a theory dating back to Evans, even if it is a plausible and logical one, as they also show. Also interesting is the explanation given for the collapse of Minoan power. Again, this is a theory, to the extent that we do not know "know" for sure in the absence of written sources, but it is a rather plausible one. One last important point is that by the time of the "Trojan War" (assuming, again, that it really took place as indicated by Homer), Crete was divided into Achaean principalities with the Achaeans having conquered the island and ruling it for a couple of centuriesThe main (and high!) value of this book lies in its descriptions centred on the various findings of pieces of arms and armour, on one hand, and the rather gorgeous reconstructions through the plates. At times, the descriptions of assorted arms and armour may read as some museum catalogue but with the added advantage that they are a selection from findings all over Greece and the Aegean. They are also superbly illustrated by sets of pictures and drawings.Then there are the colour plates themselves which, when superb as they are here, are one of the main attractions of every Osprey volume. I was particularly impressed by the one of page 57 titled "the Achaean conquest of Knossos, 1430 BC" with the characters "feeling" so real that I had the impression that they were about to leap of the page! More generally, there is a rather good interaction between the plates, the pictures and drawings and the main text.I also had two relatively minor points to raise - I cannot call them "issues". One was about the bibliography, where the authors referenced multiple and rather specialized titles but did not seem to recommend any book that could provide more context about the period. For instance, I was surprised not to find a reference to Oliver Dickinson's "The Aegean Bronze Age", although another of his works is cited. Maybe space constraints obliged the authors to make some hard choices and leave that one (and a few others perhaps) out. Another little quibble is a tendency to write about the various periods and using the rather specialised and hermetic acronyms (such as LH, LM etc...) without always providing the corresponding dates. The non-specialist reader is then obliged to "jump back and forth" at times to see what period is being covered exactly.Anyway, these were quibbles more and the title was worth a solid four stars for me.

again very informative and an interesting read...