"Bronze Age Battle by the Tollense River" Topic

Archaeological evidence of a Bronze Age battle:

link

Covered here as well.

TMP link

Great stuff: many thanks for the post.

Very interesting – commentary beneath also interesting

" "If you fight with body armor and helmet and corselet, you need daily training or you can't move," Hansen says. That's why, for example, the biblical David—a shepherd—refused to don a suit of armor and bronze helmet before fighting Goliath. "

Not at all. It wasn't heavy armor that prevented David, it was his untried status as a warrior: he hadn't proven himself worthy yet of being able to wear it. Armor wasn't heavy at all, especially in the bronze age, when armor was not extensive (I would make exception of chariot "hoop" armor from head to toe, but that is more conjectural). A "corselet" would weigh less than twenty pounds, a helmet 2 to 4 lbs, a shield 5 to 8 lbs. Anyone could wear it and fight. Training is all about positioning yourself and moving properly. Stamina is more a function of not over-exerting yourself, rather than increasing your energy levels.

Wonderful article and what an incredible find. And given the amount of time passed to find so many artifacts and remains still intact is nothing short of amazing.

Doug? 1 Samuel 17 seems pretty explicit about David and Saul's armor:

38 Then Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor on him and a bronze helmet on his head. 39 David fastened on his sword over the tunic and tried walking around, because he was not used to them.

"I cannot go in these," he said to Saul, "because I am not used to them." So he took them off. 40 Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd's bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine.

@ Ace

I don't know what Bible you've read but it clearly states:
In Samuel 17:39
"Then Saul clothed David with his garments and put a bronze helmet on his head, and he clothed him with armor. 39David girded his sword over his armor and tried to walk, for he had not tested them. So David said to Saul, "I cannot go with these, for I have not tested them." And David took them off."

David refused the armour. Saul's *bronze* armour would be heavy and awkward as any king of the times would be. He even refused to take a sword (17:50). He made these decisions because he had no experience in the use of these things.

In particular, David could see that he would be unable to run quickly in armour. David had few natural advantages against Goliath. Goliath was stronger, and he had more experience. However, David could run faster, and he did not want to lose that advantage. He could see that God might use that advantage during the fight.

You should check your sources before pontificating.

You should check your sources before pontificating.

Ace? Sources?

Wow, the arrowhead into the Humerus looks painful! Interesting find, been reading accounts of it all weekend.

I was pointing out that the article makes too much of a point that armor was so heavy that "you need daily training or you can't move". Ridiculous assertion. Stamina and sustained movement at speed would be noticeably cut for someone putting on armor for the first time. There was no time to "study". So it would be a disadvantage, not any compensation in the fight facing David.

The difference in "heavy" infantry and "light/unarmored" infantry is what's being described; anyone not accustomed to armor will tire quickly, but even when used to it armor will slow the wearer down.

At first wearing any armor feels constricting. It's not long before you don't feel it much if at all anymore. But as soon as you move, you notice the difference again.

My assertion that he wasn't a proven warrior yet, and that was the main reason for not wearing it, is arguable of course. But we read more into historical/story accounts all the time. A shepherd teenager with a sling ought to do some training first before he goes out to prance around in "mail" and helmet….

Ace, you said, "[H]e hadn't proven himself worthy yet of being able to wear [armor]."

You got called on it by posters citing the original source material, the Bible. His "worthiness" had nothing to do with his not wearing armor.

Now you backtrack, saying, "I was pointing out that the article makes too much of a point that armor was so heavy that "you need daily training or you can't move".

At the very least, it seems like you need to take more time with your posts, and make sure you're saying what you mean to say, and that your points are clearly stated.

Never mind, Great War Ace. You can't know everything. Though I heartily recommend your read the Bible some time.
It's a great book & might even change your life.

Yes, I can be more careful posting. Usually I do it in a single run, then edit spelling and move on.

The original motivation for posting was the "can't move" assertion. And I instantly segued into "unproven warrior", because something in my memory clicked on that from something I read years and years ago on this very topic of why David didn't wear the king's offered armor. In that explanation there was the point made that a more likely reason why David didn't wear the armor was because of less obvious (to us) social distinctions. The "had difficulty walking" reason was put in there to accentuate David's tyro status as a fighter, to make his victory even more miraculous, and to focus on the courage of his faith. It wasn't literally true….

In that explanation there was the point made that a more likely reason why David didn't wear the armor was because of less obvious (to us) social distinctions. The "had difficulty walking" reason was put in there to accentuate David's tyro status as a fighter, to make his victory even more miraculous, and to focus on the courage of his faith. It wasn't literally true….

Ace, at the risk of piling on (and that's quite a dogpile on top of you, my gosh)…the argument that David refused the armor because he was not yet worthy to wear it smacks to me of too much Bible study rather than too little. It strikes me as some fervent student reaching a bit too far to find a 'deep meaning' in the passage, where the plain text is sufficient. I come from somewhere where that level of 'study' is common sport, I think I recognize it.

I know you have personal experience of doing medieval combat drills in harness. I've hefted a shield at an SCA event, and I agree that a good one is light and easy to handle. But. Consider just how scrawny and puny a teenage Israelite shepherd boy would have been. David lived on barley gruel and a little goat cheese, ate meat only three or four times a year at the festivals, or if someone in the family had to make a special offering.

At 14 David was probably about the size of modern American 10 year old. A lot tougher, with no baby fat on him, but puny. You would have loomed over him in your hauberk and helmet, with your great spear, a giant, invulnerable, terrifying.

The deep meaning of the story is plain in the text:

45 David said to the Philistine, "You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. 46 This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands, and I'll strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. 47 All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord's, and he will give all of you into our hands."

The giant warrior struck down by the hand of an angry god, killed Dead Right There by a naked boy's slung stone.

I was into Bible study much more many years ago. The seminal work that I got the "social distinctions" from wasn't searching for deeper meaning. It was, if anything, attempting to disconnect the reader/student from miraculous and suggest real life. A shepherd youth who later became king had all of his exploits turned into legend. His first act was killing the Philistine champion with a sling. What was originally a decision to not wear the king's armor out of respect for his own tyro status, turned into "puny", to augment the miraculous courage David showed.

Any "kid" who can kill lions and bears is not "puny". So I think that you are falling for the blunder of reading too much into the story.

In any case, it is obvious that "cannot move" is a gross exaggeration of the effects of Bronze Age armor on agility.

So, instead of using the "primary source," the Bible, you're using a modern-day interpretation of the story.

If you're going to go that far, why not take it a step farther, and ask how much historical evidence there is for the battle between David and Goliath. link

Jacob L. Wright, Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible at Emory University, has written that the most popular legends about David, including his killing of Goliath, his affair with Bathsheba, and his ruling of a United Kingdom of Israel rather than just Judah, are the creation of those who lived generations after him, in particular those living in the late Persian or Hellenistic period.

link

After 3,000 years, the little girls still sing of him:

Dovid melech Yisroel,
Chai! Chai v'kayam!

He left quite a mark, for a man who never existed.

Ace, I grew up with some kids who were born in Yemen and weaned on a traditional diet. They were puny. "Gracile" if you want to be diplomatic about it. Capable enough of killing a lion or a bear, from a safe distance, with a slung stone. But short and skinny. Their children, raised on American chicken and beef, tower over them. That's my experience. You believe what you like.

You believe what you like.

Ace never doesn't.

Love the double negative, Pattern. I always believe what I can, not always what I like.

The OT is indeed a much later written creation than the events spoken of. King Josiah's reign is the most likely coalescence of the verbal legends of generations. The "Hebrews" were not (going by the known evidence) a literate people more than a century before that.

There is (this is from my acquired "lore" of over a decade ago) a single physical reference to a "David", from the place and time, more or less, given the range of possible dating of artifacts. So I don't see any reason, even if that were lacking, to call into question "David king of Jerusalem". But all the archaeological evidence of that time period shows "Jerusalem" to have been a mere hilltop village of a few hundred souls. The entire kingdom was c. 5K people; "Israel" to the north was ten times larger. So our vision of what the later written accounts say needs revision. It does not require tossing out.

Legends grow even within the lifetime of the occupants of the legends. The world surrounding the current generation, then passing down the legends, looks the same in the stories. So Abraham lives in the Levant of the story tellers. When it all got written down, that fixed it in place. So, seventh century BCE, more or less.

As for diet and physical size, that would apply to everyone, not just Israelites. So Goliath was "puny" compared to the legendary augmentation of later centuries. He was the biggest skinny kid around, a lot bigger, probably afflicted with the same disease as Andre the Giant, but nowhere near as well fed.

David was a teenager, not some puny kid. Or he would not have tried on the king's tunic and armor in the first place.

Also, David did not kill a lion or a bear from a safe distance with a sling, but grabbed them by the jaw and slew them with his own hands. So he was not some shrimp….

I always believe what I can, not always what I like.

And when you don't like it, you morph it into a more palatable form, so you can believe it. Because belief always trumps knowing. Knowing just doesn't give the emotional and psychological relief that a firmly held belief does.

Bowman +1.

"Darwinism" works for Dawkins. To me "Darwinism" is the examination of flyspecks. Origins of existence pull my mind beyond the Big Bang or any other theory of how the world of humans got started.

There isn't any "emotional or psychological relief" included in any of that!…

QED