Who are the 'barbarians' that these Mycenaean warriors are fighting in this artwork?

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Manofthemoon

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Apologies for the awkward format of this post. This is my very first attempt at submitting to this forum, and I'm not very savvy with constructing these threads. Anyways, what are the likely identities of the "barbarians" that these Mycenaean warriors are fighting in this artwork?

This artwork comes Osprey Publshing's "The Mycenaeans c.1650–1100 BC". Artist is Angus McBride.

Here is a link to the book:

 
I know I am a month too late, but still...
Anyway, if we want to be historically accurate, "barbarians" is a bit of a fantasy term, or at least, not really relevant to the time and place. "Barbarians" were regarded by Greeks of the Classical and later eras all the people that didn't speak Greek, because the Greeks (very politically incorrectly :razz: ) heard every language foreign to them as barking of "bar-bar-bar" sounds. Now, during the Mycenean era, the Greek alphabet wasn't even thought of, so I don't think barbarians were a thing. Specifically, in the region of Pylos, before the descending of the Dorians, the only people leaving there were indigenous Mycenean and proto-Greeks. Basically, quite kindred people, in ethnicity. Some were organised in 'kingdoms', some in 'tribes'. So, in this image, the warriors depicted are basically the same thing, just some belong to an organized kingdom, some not.
 
I know I am a month too late, but still...
Anyway, if we want to be historically accurate, "barbarians" is a bit of a fantasy term, or at least, not really relevant to the time and place. "Barbarians" were regarded by Greeks of the Classical and later eras all the people that didn't speak Greek, because the Greeks (very politically incorrectly :razz: ) heard every language foreign to them as barking of "bar-bar-bar" sounds. Now, during the Mycenean era, the Greek alphabet wasn't even thought of, so I don't think barbarians were a thing. Specifically, in the region of Pylos, before the descending of the Dorians, the only people leaving there were indigenous Mycenean and proto-Greeks. Basically, quite kindred people, in ethnicity. Some were organised in 'kingdoms', some in 'tribes'. So, in this image, the warriors depicted are basically the same thing, just some belong to an organized kingdom, some not.

It's alright, don't mind. I'm just happy that my post finally got a response.
 
Sorry for the late reply ? here is the old information from
Osprey - Elite 130 - The Mycenaeans c.1650–1100 BC

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& here is the update from Osprey Warrior 153 - Bronze Age Greek Warrior 1600-1100 BC
According to archaeologist N. Yalouris and others, they may be Arcadians

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Pylian warrior, Focus Storia Wars n.36 - April 2020

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Angel Garcia Pinto

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Arcadia :arrow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcadia_(ancient_region)

Battle at the Iardanus river :arrow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iardanus

The Arcadian Shepherds :arrow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Et_in_Arcadia_ego

Et in Arcadia ego ?☠? "The translation of the phrase is "Even in Arcadia, there am I". The usual interpretation is that "I" refers to Death, and "Arcadia" means an utopian land. It would thus be a memento mori. During Antiquity, many Greeks lived in cities close to the sea, and led an urban life. Only Arcadians, in the middle of the Peloponnese, lacked cities, were far from the sea, and led a shepherd life. Thus Arcadia symbolized pure, rural, idyllic life, far from the city... "

"Mycenaean Mythologies in the Making: The Frescoes of Pylos Hall 64 and the Mycenae Megaron"
:arrow: https://www.academia.edu/37847839/_...oes_of_Pylos_Hall_64_and_the_Mycenae_Megaron_

"Who these skin-clad figures represent, we cannot be sure, and few useful artistic parallels exist. Also from Hall 64, fragments 25 H 64 show a figure of a man being dragged; traces of white on his torso suggested to Lang that he may have been wearing a sheepskin costume, not included in the restoration. Fragments of “Tarzans” in sheepskins were found in a dump at Pylos (31 H nws), but these men do not fight. At Mycenae, a fresco fragment from the megaron may also depict a skin-clad warrior but the preservation is poor. Other Aegean figures clad in animal skins appear in ceremonial and priestly roles, or as simple townsfolk. The skin-clad warriors of Pylos 22 H 64, then, do not fit easily into identifiable categories for Aegean peoples, nor do they resemble any of the various populations pictured in contemporary art from Egypt and the Near East. Lang refers to the skin wearers as barbarians – “wildmen of the mountains,” and indeed, the scene does bring to mind Classical tales of primitive shepherds reputedly living in the remote highlands of nearby Arcadia..." page 461

Poetry and the Gods, by H. P. Lovecraft and Anna Helen Crofts

:arrow: https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/pg.aspx

? " A damp, gloomy evening in April it was, just after the close of the Great War, when Marcia found herself alone with strange thoughts and wishes; unheard-of yearnings which floated out of the spacious twentieth-century drawing-room, up the misty deeps of the air, and eastward to far olive-groves in Arcady which she had seen only in her dreams... ??

⛲ Gone is the old spirit of unrest, for beside her is one whose name is luminous with celebrity; the young poet of poets at whose feet sits all the world. He is reading from a manuscript words which none has ever heard before, but which when heard will bring to men the dreams and fancies they lost so many centuries ago, when Pan lay down to doze in Arcady, and the greater Gods withdrew to sleep in lotos-gardens beyond the lands of the Hesperides. In the subtle cadences and hidden melodies of the bard the spirit of the maiden has found rest at last, for there echo the divinest notes of Thracian Orpheus; notes that moved the very rocks and trees by Hebrus’ banks...
" ??

:xf-wink: Osprey Elite 007 - The Ancient Greeks ? ?✨
An Eleian and an Arcadian hoplites, battling at the Olympic stadium, 346 BC

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Apologies for the awkward format of this post. This is my very first attempt at submitting to this forum, and I'm not very savvy with constructing these threads. Anyways, what are the likely identities of the "barbarians" that these Mycenaean warriors are fighting in this artwork?

This artwork comes Osprey Publshing's "The Mycenaeans c.1650–1100 BC". Artist is Angus McBride.
Actually, the primitive one can’t be from any Bronze Age civilization of Anatolia or Eastern Mediterranean. They were all more advanced than Mycenaeans. It is obvious they are not coming from the sea either. So I can only assume those are warriors from North. Accordingly, it is sometimes accepted by scholars (if they can avoid lynching and/or assassination) that the first Dorians and Greeks invading Greece (Mycenaeans) after 1200BCE were half-civilized savages. They were the Dinaric race of the Dinaric Alps and Macedons of Macedonian highlands descending to more civilized regions of the South, by the confidence of the iron weapons they had recently attained. Both Dinarics and Macedons are known as quite large sized people. People of Dinaric region are still very tall today, and the word Macedon itself is interpreted as “tall people” or “people of highlands”. Also as I said, those first invaders are known to be wielding iron weapons. So, unlike the fragile bronze, iron does not require much finesse to wield. Any primitive but large person with a slashing, highly durable, iron sword, is much more advantageous against a trained Mycenaean soldier wielding a piercing bronze weapon. So considering the destruction of Mycenaeans is usually accepted to happen due to those invasions, I would say that guy on the right should be them.
 
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