Armies of the Ancient Near East alternative

[Cremorn]

What is the alternative book for AANE?
I can't afford a second-hand copy.

There is an Osprey title that is too general and short, and a Concord book that's the same.

Is there an alternative book that covers appearance and composition of armies of the ancient near east?

I'm gearing up to do two Mycenaean armies, then I'd like to do some contempories/enemies. Where do I turn?

[ June 27, 2004, 20:23: Message edited by: Cremorn ]

[Chris Jones]

Hi,

I don't know of any book that covers the whole Early Near East and I have looked long and hard - they tend to cover just Egypt or Assyria or Mycenae or Babylon or Palestine. There is a book Battles of the Bible which I think is quite good but not illustrated. Most books seem to have photos of archaeological evidence like carvings and painted pots which are often not in colour and are hard to relate directly to figures. Historians have different priorities from us it seems!!

The British Museum used to do a cheap and slender booklet on their Assyrian Reliefs (mostly military) which is very well illustrated with photos.

I have the Osprey "The Warrior Pharaoh" (Rameses II and the Battle of Qadesh)" on sale at a good price in the Bazaar and also Egyptian Warfare by Ian Shaw which I would sell for £4 plus £2 p & p.

[<other mike at work>]

The "Warrior Pharaoh" book is certainly better than nothing for Egypt and the coaliton at Kadesh. Yadin's "The art of warfare in biblical lands" has some great color reproductions of Egyptian reliefs and so forth, but will probably be at least as costly as AANE, if not more so. Did you try an interlibrary loan? I've been able to get both AANE and the ealier (if dated) WRG book by Alan Buttery for a look. Interlibrary loans can be free, although sometimes they will cost a nominal fee. Take some notes on the armies you'd like to do, and look over the bibliography for further leads. A good university library can offer a lot of leads too, if you have the time.

Gabriel's "Armies of Antiquity" has some good information too, but it does not have much in the way of illustrations.

DBAOL has some decent illustrations if all else fails, although I wouldn't rely on them without confirmation from other sources.

So the short answer is, no, as far as I know there is no real substitute for AANE. I've heard that the WAB book "Chariot wars" has some good information, but I haven't seen it. The one WAB supplement I have, "Armies of Antiquity," does not provide much useful information on composition apart from the army lists which are admittedly "gamey."