Mycenaean chariots – a taxi service?
So from about 1350 BC. Some Greek noblemen would have been mounted on chariots which were no longer battle chariots as in the East or in Africa, but transport chariots …
These types of chariots , known as ' railchariots ', had appeared during the 13th century BC. BC and would eventually have replaced the previous types.
They consisted only of a platform and a rail …
These chariots were certainly the result of a major change in the chariots tactics, if not of the military organization in general.
It seems therefore highly probable that their crews would descend to land more easily than the crews of the more ancient chariots types of the Aegean world, and they corresponded to most of the descriptions of the chariots tactics contained in the Iliad.
These models thus probably mark the transition between battle chariots tactics and transport chariots , a gradual process occurring in some states before others and perhaps still incomplete at the time of the Trojan War, which could the meaning of certain confused descriptions existing in the Iliad.
The chariots in the Iliad were therefore not used for massive charges, but simply to carry the heroes to the front line where they fought on foot.
For me it is hard to believe that the chariots were used in this way so soon after the great battle of chariots of Kadesh between Hittites and Egyptians …
Thus an inventory found in the arsenal of Knossos in Crete lists 340 cases of chariots and 1000 pairs of wheels.
These were hardly used to bring the nobility into the front line.
Indeed the ratio of five to six wheels for each case implies that these chariots were intended for a service more severe than that of taxi.
They had to be used for combat.
The insular Bretons also used their chariots as taxis.
But it was at a time when the chariots had become obsolete.
Was this the case at the time of the Trojan War?
