In this podcast, you can hear the oldest stories still known, tales that have passed the test of time with flying colors, though usually because they were written down then buried for millennia. This show is focused on the history and myth of the Cradle of Civilization, bronze age Mesopotamia, beginning with the dawn of writing. The history runs begins in the mythic mists of 3000 BCE and will continue until the bronze age collapse around 1200BCE, with myths of heroes and gods, and tales of daily life peppered throughout. Never fear though, for your humble podcast host has taken these literally dusty old stories and breathed new life into them, or at least as much as I am able. So join me as I re-tell millennia old tales, making this possibly the most derivative podcast you have ever listened to. You can check out notes for each episode at oldeststories.net and you can also listen on any quality podcast app by searching Oldest Stories.
It's a crying shame that this video has gone so unloved for so long. I've spent years wanting to know more about daily life for the regular people in ancient Mesopotamia. I know you put a lot of work into it, and it looks like it didn't pay off much over the years, but I hope you know that when I found it, it was like someone made a video specifically for me. That story about the children traveling to be with their father is so relatable. My dad also worked out of town when I was a kid and I felt the same way. I'm glad I found your channel.
Funny thing in rome total war chariots just chop the legs of horses like thyre are more of spaghetti. And yea in rome total war the original chariots where the anty cav unit.
IIRC , the progression from chariots to cavalry was something like 2-3 man chariot ---> 2 men riding 2 horses , one fires a bow , the other guides both horses ----> 2 men on the same horse , one is an archer , one rides ---> 1 men on a horse. It would be hilarious if a company put the 2 horse thing in a game and I can just imagine the outcry over it.
they didn't have yet money in the bronze age (the first money date of 600 bc), tough the commerce of bronze would had been, verry mutch unexistent and so, less bronze accessible to country lacking copper and zinc mine (do not ask me how they traded without money, i do not know, even if i wish to know)
honestly i like much more to has a full historical game but the game itself its quite good. things apart really good video i didnt know the detail of the horse morphological change and the biomecanics behind that. thank you so much
If people were complaining about unit variety why did they make it take place during the bronze age?!! Well of course we know why anyone with half a brain knows this was meant to be like troy with Mythos like creature.
I would like to express that I find it unlikely that the Mitanni and the Kassites solely used chariots. This comes from an understanding of Indo-European archaeology/anthropology. The Sintashta culture invented the Chariot, and was an offshoot of the Yamnaya, which had originally domesticated the modern horse. The Yamnaya, or Proto-Indo-Europeans, migrated out of the Steppes on horseback, and their progenies did raids and subjugations all the way from Ireland to India by the time of the Late Bronze Age. The Mitanni, and the Kassites, along with the Mycenaeans and Hittites, were Indo-European peoples. It would be assumable that, much like the Indians, Germanics, Slavs, and Celts, they would have used horses solo [as in without an attachment or vehicle] for raiding. Additionally, there's cultural clues to the use of horseback riding; Akin to the integration of the Kóryos tradition into folklore and mythology as Werewolves and Lycanthropes, horseback Kóryos were likewise conceptually preserved through the myth of Centaurs. Of course, this is not to diminish the important role of chariots in Bronze Age warfare, as they were incredibly significant, but it is to state that horseback riding evidentially did occur. The claim that horses could not be used for travel and warfare at the time is wrong; There is a lecture by David W. Anthony on horseback riding on Penn Museum's channel. There's actual studies (Martin Trautmann et al. ,First bioanthropological evidence for Yamnaya horsemanship) conducted by him and other anthropologists as well. I believe that study also included Ancient Egyptian depictions as part of its evidence, after the section on biomechanics. I believe there are artifacts recorded by Georgian archaeologists that further prove this point, but I don't have the available resources at the moment, so nullify this sentence. You are however partially correct, as David Anthony also makes clear in his lecture, that shock cavalry did not exist until the Iron Age. Horseback riders in the Bronze Age used horses to transport them to a location, dismount for a raid, then mount the horse post-war to move on. Throughout the Bronze Age, this would be the norm. The issue with Total War is that it cannot express the idea of skirmishing and guerrilla tactics which were often used by ancient peoples, especially Indo-European cultures.
Certainly, Hittites and Mycenaean were peoples that spoke Indo-European languages however there is no evidence for a Kassite connection and the Mitanni being an Indo-Aryan elite ruling a Hurrian speaking Kingdom has started to be phased out recently.
@@gudea5207 The Kassites and Mitanni have ruler names and theonyms that strongly imply they had an Indo-European elite. The raiding and warfare style described is also consistent with common Indo-European strategies and consistent with the Kóryos tradition.
The bronze age is interesting as Chariots take the place of cavalry or rather act as proto-cavalry compared to later ages. I think it would've just made more sense to rework chariot mechanics with larger chariot and maybe giving them a fear aura to represent this.
It is a universalization of Christ. A victory for the Christian kingdom. BC/AD is a christian calendar, one among many religious/cultural calenders. BCE/CE is a self-declared universal calendar for all people and what is its central event? Even if it won't acknoledge it, it is centered around one estimated date for the birth of the Savior. The "common era" to be acknoledged by all mankind finds its meridian in God's Incarnation. What was intended as a victory for secularism universalizes the Christian faith. And yet I get no end of angry comments by Christians who refuse to believe that the sovereign God could bring forth beauty from ashes and angrily pout whenever I mention the calendrical triumph that has overtaken basically all the world. That is what bce is.
@@entirelyalive That's a completely new reason it's why BCE/CE is dumb though. The claim, "The "common era" to be acknowledged by all mankind" is ridiculous. There are plenty of people, both religious and secular, that absolutely despise the meaningless abstractness of "common era".
I'm not happy to see cavalry being added into the game. The fact that we were only relying on chariots and infantry is what made that game so unique. Don't make a game about Bronze Age if you aren't comfortable with the time period. I'm still waiting for the update though.
I bought the game on sale because I want to play the expansion. Im fascinated by the bronze age, so I don't like the cavalry either but I might just ignore it
I really don't blame CA Sofia for introducing cavalry. As they said and as you pointed out, it's only because of player feedback and not because it makes sense historically. But then again, that's the exact same reason why it kinda hurts? It felt like them having to begrudgingly give in to a vocal minority/majority (?) that looked for the exact same game as every other Total War basically (at least that's how I read their answer). Not having cavalry was so much more interesting tactically in my opinion, people should realize that taking away options can be just as interesting as giving new ones. I was always drawn to chariots more than to cavalry as well in other Total War games anyway, so it felt really nice to finally have a game where they are front and center (and very useful! They can totally win you battles if used correctly). I just hope they won't get outcompeted by the new cavalry, read some good stuff here I thought about as well like archer cavalry not being able to shoot while moving (which wasn't a widely known skill anyway, even if older TW games made it one) and not having shock cavalry grind up medium or heavy infantry units. I hope it will also help that most of the rosters won't get cavalry by themselves, you'll have to use native recruitment for the most part. (Btw player since day one and very much enjoying the game, and even if I would have liked cavalry to not make an appearance the new update looks overwhelmingly good! Super excited for that)
that's the problem with companies and gaming forums. So what if a few people complain on the forums , the vast majority of players are not. Even if you have 100 people saying something is an issue in game that's not even a fraction of player base. In AOE2 DE, they changed something that had been in the game for like 20 years over someone losing a game of nomad. smh.
@@ciruelo5921 I've heard the complaint of missing cavalry specifically a lot. Question then is if that's what they were really missing or if they just thought they do (especially since we have units that take the role of cavalry, like chariots and shock infantry. I guess it comes all down to people trying to find stuff to hate about that game and others just mindlessly repeating. What's better than "OMG this game so bad it's just infantry running at each other"?
@@Dragonette666 Yeah, there's definitely situations where companies should definitely look listen to parts of their community and situations where they shouldn't. That's one where they should not have in my opinion. (Also I've played the shit out of AoE2 and got some hours in DE but never nomad, so I can't really tell if that was a change that made sense or not.)
I bought the game upon first seeing that the DLC was adding pretty much everything that they could've added except the Meshweh in Cryrenaica, and maybe Dilmun. For my opinion about the chariots and horses, I think they could've found a good middle ground. Buffing chariots somewhat, and then adding in just horse archers, and NOT heavy cavalry. I still need to learn a lot of the game, in my only full playthrough to date as the Hittites I just built armies of phalanxes with ranged support, so I'm working from the historical background and don't really know how chariots function in total war or how to improve them, I just know what people have been saying. I left a comment on one of your later Hittite videos, asking about Ramesses the Great wanting to have a get together with Mursili somewhere in Canaan, one Mursili could not attend thanks to his maladies, and I'm wondering about the source document for that?
For the source: Egypt is not my strong suit, I don't have the source depth for them that I do for other places. I was relying almost entirely on Trevor Bryce "The Kingdom of the Hittites", which is the foremost book on the topic, and he relates that story mostly from a Hittite perspective, seeming to draw upon Egyptian documents for most of it. Unfortunately, I am more reliant on secondary sources the further I get from Mesopotamia.
I had such high hopes for this game but was so dissapointed. I tend to go back to medieval mods. I like some of the later games but the systems they use are in general more restrictive and focused on uneeded balance.
have you read the article "Horseback riding and Cavalry in Mycenaean Greece" by Jorrit Kelder? he makes a good case for cavalry being used in the late bronze age.
He does have a decent case, but it is important to note that his is one voice in a wider crowd. I don't discount his argument by any means, but it is, at the end of the day, art interpretation. It may be the start of a revolution that makes my video obsolete in a decade. It could be a curious but minor footnote about early adoption in one place without much wider significance. Or it could be overturned, in whole or part, on further review. For a popular level video, best to keep the matter at the general consensus.
@@entirelyalive totally understandable. still the paper makes me feel a little bit better about using cavalry in the bronze age. hopefully CA implements them in an interesting way instead of just insert shock cav and archer cav.maybe the troops have to dismount to fight effectively or they are mainly scouts.
TW Pharaoh is wrong with almost all the 3d stuff they did. It's extremely bad, specially considering even for a period with tons of evidence for the military. I didn't bought just because of their totally unhistorical plastic american Halloween costumes. (Orientalistic Western (American mostly) Fantasy game would be more its "historical" era)
As you mentioned, I think the addition of cavalry is mostly due to the critique some players gave. While I'd prefer to keep it more historically authentic, I think if the cavalry is balanced right, it'll still be okay for the game. Maybe having reduced unit sizes along with missle cavalry only being able to fire while stationary and the melee cavalry not acting as shock cavalry would help keep it more grounded in reality. I also just received your book and am really enjoying it! Thanks for the great work you do!
@@entirelyalive did chariots ever like literally smash straight into infantry like a cavalry charge? Maybe the heavier, later scythe chariots? I have trouble imagining how that would work without them instantly crashing
@tillercaesar-kq4ou The majority of historians will say it never happened. A minority will say it very rarely may have been a tactic among the heaviest Hittite/Hurrian/Mitanni ambushers, but even then it would have been extremely risky and destructive, meant to break the enemy before the crash from fear, not a full TW style charge.
make sure you are subbed then - tomorrow we go in depth on the actual historical impact of cavalry, including some alt history about the impact it would have had in 1200 had it existed then.
An interesting tidbit is the story of the antediluvian kings. The First was called Alulim (and modern linguists tell us that he started up in Eridu) but the Blum Wendell prism tells us that the first two kings reigned in HA-A-KI which would be Subari, especially since the text mentions the river Hubur, which does exist in the Subarian area. It was later conjectured that Subari was a town near Eridu and the text referred to the river Hubur in mythological form only (the Sumerians saw the river Hubur akin to the Greek Styx) but the Sumerians were long off at the point of the first antediluvian King. Also, Alulim translated means ‘Red Deer’ which is curious, as the earliest stamp seals ever found always depict a red deer within a gabled frame. Thus, your story of the deer, might just hint at Alulim? Imagine….if the later Sumer wasn’t the beginning of civilization, but just another rendition? I think it’s archaeologically proven now that the oldest city wasn’t Jericho, or Ur, nor Eridu….it was Hamoukar, closely followed by Tell Brak, which is in the old Subartu area. Anyways….it was the deer that spawned my little tirade. It’s worth looking up the stamp seals (forefather of the cylinder seals) with the distinct Red Deer in gabled outline/frame (almost like a cartouche, with the gable hinting at a house…House of the Red Deer)
Baffled by your need for a faction that doesn't exist at that time when I agree with points being deducted for early appearance by others. I suspect the other region on Cyprus is an autocorrect error that should be Maroni a place near the south coast with excavations from the era.
Re Cyprus - I have noticed a lot of faction and province spellings a bit different from the academic standard in English. I think some of it has to do with a different academic transliteration convention in europe, and some is I think someone in CA is trying really hard to get closer to the "original" place names, which is admirable if difficult. Re Israel - check my Israel playlist, the main podcast spent a year getting deep into historicity. The Israel skeptic position is not an insane fringe theory, but it is weaker than it is often presented in many popular publications. Bronze age israel is the most controversial, but Merneptah himself confirmed some group of Israel existed in some fashion circa 1200, though with out comment on its yahwism or character. ru-vid.com/group/PLYVF2lD9MIqwGD8Dhwx5JDCwAYuFJ-XhV&si=547UnNNGM78QnW0A
@@entirelyalive I think it's an autocorrect error because I have family in modern day Maroni and that sometimes gets corrected that way while I have never heard of Marion in relation to the island. I've never heard of 'the Israel skeptic position' nor anyone denying the places existence. So why is it cowardly?
@mrmr446 There is an abundance of evidence for some form of an early Israel existing in or close to Canaan. Very unlikely to be monotheistic but that isnt the point. The skeptic belief makes little sense as it calls the Israelite ethnicity a social revolution by a group of canaanites. But then why is there a massive influx of a distinct non-pork eating culture in Judea and Samaria around 1200BC. If Israel was made up in the 9th century, why does Merneptah says he destroyed Israel around 1200BC. Why does the historical account of the Habiru sound similar to the canaanite conquest by the Hebrews. Yes it's likely that Iron Age Israel consisted of previous Canaanite groups, but there is very strong evidence for a non-indiginous Israel of some form migrating west into Canaan around 1200 BC and later. What is cowardly is the fact that any representation of Israel will piss some people off as it conflicts with their religous beliefs. So CA deprives everyone of the fun of playing as the most famous culture of the Iron age to avoid controversy
There's e fifth version of where Israel (and all other later Moabs etc are). It's called the mixed multitudes thesis. It tries to combine as much evidence as possible from as many other versions as possible. Are they historically right? Idk. They are imo more convincing then others. :)
That is basically what I meant by option 4, though I did cover that whole thing really fast. Basically there was no "Israel" in biblical terms, but there were canaanites and mixed people in the land, and probably polytheist yahwists, with Israel only forming circa 900bce and its yahwist cult coalescing much later. I do think it is probably wrong as a thesis, for reasons I covered in the Israel playlist, but it is an idea many smart people have spent a long time defending, so it is right to keep it open as a possibility until more evidence comes in. Check my Israel series for way, way more on all that: ru-vid.com/group/PLYVF2lD9MIqwGD8Dhwx5JDCwAYuFJ-XhV&si=547UnNNGM78QnW0A
@@entirelyalive Yeah, listened to your podcast episodes already. Though personally I've listened more times than once to the Hittite episodes, just because that topic is imo more interesting. Though the current focus on Assyria your doing is also interesting. :)
I agree with you. If scholarly works are available to everyone who wants them, may be we will not have know-it-all people who use Facebook for their library
This kind of reminds me of One of my favorite George Carlin quotes is “if you wanna know how stupid the word lifestyle is, you have to realize in a technical sense of had an active outdoor lifestyle”
I wish ca had based the Greeks on the adventures of the heroes after the fall of Troy, they were very sea-peapole-esque. In addition to the very well known Odyssey, we have Menelaus raiding Egypt, Teucer, brother of Ajax settling in Cyprus, Orestes, son of Agamemnon adventuring in the Black Sea, Diomedes founding many cities in southern Italy and surviving Trojans under Aeneas becoming the progenitors of the Romans. Instead, we get total war Troy, pocket edition
Cimmerians if already existed at this moment, should be living somewhere between borders of Ukrainie and Kazakhstan, that's very strange choce indeed. I think that we should get Hayasa-Azzi instead of them.
I do think they probably existed by now, at least some proto-group if not the full thing, but you are right, they are way off the map. I am not surprised to see a lack of Hayasa though, I bet they are saving Dorians, Kaskans, and caucus mtn folk for a "northern barbarians" dlc
@@entirelyalive Semi-barbaric Dorians armed with iron weapons and maces led by one of Heraclidae fits well this game as ultimate ravagers of the west, even if "Dorian invasion" is invention of later historians, at least to some degree. I am sure that CA will aim to monetize them, hardcore historical players love Greeks...
CA have said in a recent Q&A that Merneptah's death script is getting removed and adjustable turns per year (up to 12) are being added so it should be possible to play as Merneptah without dying.
