Historical mideval setting

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by a humble lich

As for anachronistic weaponry and armor, that is a tradition going much further back than the Victorians. When the Arthurian romances were written, Arthur was generally wearing armor, clothing, and weapons that were contemporary to the artist instead of late roman era armor. (For example a 16th century statue or a 14th century (?) illustration).

Going back further, classical Greeks would depict the heroes of the Trojan war with classical Greek armor instead of late Bronze Age armor. For that matter combat in the illiad is a miss-mash of classical Greek tactics with a vague memory of Bronze Age tactics.

I want to see what anachronisms future generations will depict in the current era. Will there be pictures of George Washington and Adolph Hitler dogfighting in Jets?

For the matter of that Howard Pyle was probably just copying the story rather then the history. Someone back then knew roughly about when plate developed and so knew it was ridiculous. But Pyle liked the story-so there!

[pestigor]

I'll just say that I like anachronistic settings as much as anyone, I was looking for (at least as far as the window dressing) gritty realism.

When a humble Lich mentioned the trojan war, it reminded me of a realistic Bronze age campaign idea I had for the collapse in ~1200BCE. That is actually a great place to put a post apocalypse game. Sea peoples a plenty!

[Flyndaran]

I've heard conflicting information about the severity and even existence of cohesive "sea peoples" with regards to the alleged bronze age collapse.
I'm not at all a historian so have no educated opinion. I just think it's interesting how much disagreement there seems to be about that pivotal time period.

That does allow more leeway for realistic historic approaches though.

[DanHoward]

The best research on this suggests that there was no Bronze Age collapse at all. It only looks like a collapse because of the faulty chronology was have been using. If the chronology is fixed and the so-called "Dark Ages" are removed, we see a gradual progression into the Archaic Age.

The Sea Peoples were likely a disparate band of pirates. The Egyptians fought them off in a battle in the Nile Delta and that is pretty much all the evindence we have for them. There was no invasion and no settlement. The people and cultures present before the event are exactly the same as those living in those regions afterwards.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

The best research on this suggests that there was no Bronze Age collapse at all. It only looks like a collapse because of the faulty chronology was have been using. If the chronology is fixed and the so-called "Dark Ages" are removed, we see a gradual progression into the Archaic Age.

Huh?! That's a huge claim. Where can I find the details on it? A cursory Web search turns up nothing

[Purple Haze]

The traditional "Bronze Age Collapse" is certainly nonsense. There is not a several hundred year gap between the civilized bronze age and the beginnings of classical civilization.

But to say that nothing happened is equally ridiculous. Multiple empires collapsed. Multiple civilizations lost literacy. When literacy reappears it has significantly evolved. There is at least a generation or two of serious turmoil.

Whether there was significant decline in population, or replacement in population, can be debated. If there was significant loss of technology can be debated. But something happened, and it affect a lot of people over a large area.

[pestigor]

My use of the term collapse was meant in reference to the area and time period. While there isn't a lead pipe cinch theory on what happened, what is agreed upon is pretty awesome stuff for a game with many peoples declining and some vanishing and others coming into their own. As the historic data is almost all theory we have a palliate upon which to paint a great picture. I'm a rank armature in the fields of archeology and history. But of the many theories, if taken in the way we use splat books, could make the "bronze age collapse" a wonderful place to explore with gurps.

If I stepped on toes, I apologize, as this post is becoming a brainstorming thing for me.
Thanks!

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by Purple Haze

The traditional "Bronze Age Collapse" is certainly nonsense. There is not a several hundred year gap between the civilized bronze age and the beginnings of classical civilization.

But to say that nothing happened is equally ridiculous. Multiple empires collapsed. Multiple civilizations lost literacy. When literacy reappears it has significantly evolved. There is at least a generation or two of serious turmoil.

Whether there was significant decline in population, or replacement in population, can be debated. If there was significant loss of technology can be debated. But something happened, and it affect a lot of people over a large area.

There was no collapse. There are no Dark Age. It was an artificial construction to try and reconcile the dodgy chronology we've been using. This is a good summary
http://www.larp.com/hoplite/chronology.html

The most comprehensive attempt to address the problems was published by James et al in Centuries of Darkness but every year there are new papers being published supporting the lowering of the chronology.

Pierce Furlong published the best paper on revising the Egyptian chronology, which needs to be done before the others can be reconciled.
https://philpapers.org/rec/FURAOA

[a humble lich]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

There was no collapse. There are no Dark Age. It was an artificial construction to try and reconcile the dodgy chronology we've been using. This is a good summary
http://www.larp.com/hoplite/chronology.html

I'm not sure that link supports your claim given that the third sentence in the web page is

"That there was a collapse and subsequent cultural decline is not in question."

The page instead says the Dark Ages should be shorter by about 250 years, which is reasonable; however, the Dark Age in Greece lasted for longer than 250 years.

When looking at Greece in particular there is a lot of written and archaeological evidence that the palace culture of the Mycenaeans broke down around 1200. Pottery from the Mycenaean era was significantly more developed then the photo-geometic pottery which follow. Writing stops and the Greeks don't start writing again for several hundred years. Many of the Mycenaean palaces are destroyed. The Greeks stop using the word "wanax" for king (which was used in Mycenaean writing and Homer when describing kings of that era) and replace it with "Basileus" (which Homer uses to mean more chieftain). Many groups of Greeks themselves felt that they arrived in Greece during this time. All of these point to massive upheavals in society.

Now whether the Greek Dark Age lasted as long as perviously claimed, or how much destruction there actually was, or how sharp the collapse was are questions which can be debated. I don't know much about Egyptian Chronology, and sure there could be a couple hundred years off. But to say there was no collapse you need to explain what happened in Greece at the end of the Bronze Age and how that does not qualify as a collapse.

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by a humble lich

Now whether the Greek Dark Age lasted as long as perviously claimed, or how much destruction there actually was, or how sharp the collapse was are questions which can be debated. I don't know much about Egyptian Chronology, and sure there could be a couple hundred years off. But to say there was no collapse you need to explain what happened in Greece at the end of the Bronze Age and how that does not qualify as a collapse.

Everything stops, not just writing, for three hundred years and suddenly comes back again as if nothing ever happened. One explanation for their buildings disappearing is that they decided to live in tents for three centuries before remembering how to build from stone again. There was some upheaval in Greece but it was likely caused by the death of an Agamemnon-like "big man" resulting in civil strife. We see the same thing today in tribal cultures like Iraq, Egypt, and Libya. There was no collapse - just a transition to a different political system. It occurred at the end of the tenth C and took less than a generation to sort out.