Re: [tied] Re: First iron swords on mass scale

John Croft wrote:

> Arming soldiers with bronze, therefore was a costly business. Arming
> them with iron resulted in bigger infantry armies, which could easily
> outnumber the aristocratic Bronze-Age Maryanu, in his horse drawn
> chariot. It was one of the reasons why the Hittites were so
> formidable in the 15-13th centuries BCE.

So, it seems that the Hittites were able to arm all their soldiers with
iron weapons long before the invasion of the Sea Peoples took place. And
according to you and Mark, even if iron was inferior to bronze, it gave
Hettites the advantage over much smaller enemy armies armed with bronze.
Does it mean that the advantage of the Sea People over Hettites was not
related to iron swords they (both?) used, but was rather caused by some
other factors (surprising tactics, mobility, number of soldiers)? Did the
Sea People learn their iron technology from Anatolians, or was it an
independent invention? Was the Balkan pennisula (Thracia) an "unknown"
metallurgy center at that time, which supplied Phrygians and Dorians with
tons of iron weapons?

> However, when other Anatolians came by the technique, the balance of
> power inside Anatolia was really upset. The first evidence of this
> was the period after Muwattalis, the Hittite Labarnas (Emperor) who
> fought against Rameses II. His son Urhi Teshub abandoned Hattusas to
> the Kaska Hill Tribes, no doubt armed with iron weapons. It was only
> with a stint of hard fighting that the capital was recovered by
> Hattusilis III, his brother, who ousted his nephew to establish
> himself as monarch. This, however, was the calm before the storm.
> Routes to Cyprus were cut by pirates from Western Anatolia.
> Hattusilis's Queen, Padukhepa, organised an attack on Cyprus, to
> recover its rich copper deposits (thereby giving rise to the story of
> the maritime Queen of the Amazons Joao). His son Tudhalias was the
> last of the great Hittite Monarchs. I have spoken of the troubles
> he, like his father before him, had with the Western Anatolians and
> Greeks. The Trojan War seems to have occurred about this time.
>
> This event released a flood of "Sea Peoples" upon the Eastern
> Mediterranean, who not only retook Cyprus, but disrupted all
> transport in the Eastern Mediterranean, cutting trade routes to
> supplies of tin and copper.

Thanks for this wonderful post. If I understandd you correctly the fall of
Hettite Empire was caused by many different factors and the iron weapons
used by " invaders from the sea" was not the most important one. Honestly
speaking, the "big catastrophe theory" seems not very convincing to me,
but maybe I need to read more on this subject.

Michal