Mycenaeans c. 1650-1100 BC, The

The timeless appeal of Homer's epic poem of the ancient Trojan War, The Iliad, has meant an enduring interest in the Mycenaean age. Modern scholarship and new archaeological evidence now allows us to reconstruct with reasonable confidence the appearance of this great warrior civilization, which dominated much of the eastern Mediterranean between the 16th and 12th centuries BC. We can also make deductions, from the few surviving pictorial sources, about the tactics of these armies. This absorbing text is illustrated with examples of the archaeological and pictorial evidence, and with striking color reconstructions of light and heavy infantry and chariot warriors of the Mycenaean age.