Fig 1.
Diagram of the ‘Cuirass’ Tomb (no 12) in which the Dendra armour was found, illustrating the location of the offerings based on information [1] provided during the original excavation.
The chamber tomb is characteristic of Mycenaean civilization, consisting of an underground room with a long entrance corridor. The richly furnished tomb containing the warrior and his panoply was the smallest in a cemetery used for several centuries. An attempt by looters to rob the tomb early in 1960 was foiled, though not before some items had been removed.
Fig 2.
Top: Geomorphology of the area surrounding Troy in the later phases of the Late Bronze Age (labels indicate the locations of the two army encampments and the geographic features of the area).
The map was created using Azgaar’s Fantasy Map Generator, a free web application, under a CC BY license, with permission from Max Haniyeu, original copyright 2017–2021. Bottom: Volunteer marine soldiers in simulated combat wearing the Dendra armour replica during the empirical study (right) and an artistic photo shoot (left). Photo credit: Andreas Flouris and Marija Marković. Permission required for reproduction.
Fig 3.
The total (panel A) and daily (panel B) encounters described in the Iliad as well as the combat moves used by warriors (panel C) across the different days described in the Iliad (panel D). Panels B and D are two-level scatterplots with data points randomly distributed within each rectangle at the crossing of the horizontal and vertical axes. The colour of rectangles in the scatterplots indicates the frequency of data points included (darker shades indicate more data points).
Fig 4.
Box plot showing the energy cost from indirect calorimetry during different activities of the Late Bronze Age combat simulation protocol.
For each activity, the top and bottom whiskers represent the maximum and minimum values, the top and bottom of the coloured rectangle represent the 3rd and 1st quartile, the lines represent the median, and the X marks represent the mean. The energy cost of various activities [51] is listed on the right side of the graph as reference. The effect size of the differences for all comparisons was large (d ≥ 0.8) except for between “1-on-1” and “Foot warrior vs chariot”.
Fig 5.
The Late Bronze Age combat simulation protocol incorporating the activities performed by elite warriors during one day described in the Iliad (panel A) and the average heart rate (panel B) and core body temperature (panel C) of the volunteers undergoing this physical task. Colours indicate the different stages of the combat protocol.
Fig 6.
Characteristics of the resultant force generated (graph A) and the deviation from the target centre (graph B) during hits across the different encounter types. Shaded areas represent standard deviation. Note: a = different from foot warrior vs chariot (p < 0.05); b = different from 1-on-1 (p < 0.05); c = different from chariot vs chariot (p < 0.05); d = different from chariot vs warrior on ship (p < 0.05).
Fig 7.
Artistic photo taken after the end of the human experiment.
Photo credit: Andreas Flouris and Marija Marković. Permission required for reproduction.