Babylonian-Hittite-Elimite-Medes army info

[Roundie]

Hi
Can anyone recommend any good resources for the ancient armies listed in the title?

I'm currently rebasing/repainting my old 28mm Assyrian figures at the moment and have enough to build both an Assyrian and Babylonian army.

Can't seem to find anything online about the look of the Babylonians or Medes

So any help would be welcome

cheers

[David Kuijt]

Hi
Can anyone recommend any good resources for the ancient armies listed in the title?

I'm currently rebasing/repainting my old 28mm Assyrian figures at the moment and have enough to build both an Assyrian and Babylonian army.

Can't seem to find anything online about the look of the Babylonians or Medes

Your best sources are the various stone wallcarving decorations of the Assyrian palaces, many of them at the British Museum. They're full of battle images. I suspect that the majority of them are online these days -- I've got some books I can recommend, if you can't find anything appropriate.

Search on "Assyrian wall reliefs" possibly with "british museum" added.

[David Kuijt]

Note that the Elamites appear as opponents in some of these reliefs. For Babylonians, they should be a mix of Elamite and Assyrian -- their ruling class was Assyrian, and their main base population Elamite, IIRC.

The Hittites didn't exist at that point -- a number of smaller Neo-Hittite powers existed in Anatolia and northern Syria after the fall of Hattusas, but those have all essentially disappeared by the rise of Big Assyria (8th and 7th centuries BC).

[Andreas Johansson]

For Babylonians, they should be a mix of Elamite and Assyrian -- their ruling class was Assyrian, and their main base population Elamite, IIRC.

More like a Chaldaean ruling class with a mainly Babylonian population base.

They'd look a lot like the Assyrians, although probably less professional and well-equipped until Assyria started collapsing and a strong Babylonian monarchy was restored in the late 7th century.

And googling a little on the Medes (didn't find any pre-Achaemenid illustrations I'm afraid) I stumble on a website claiming they, the Persians, the Egyptians, and apparently about everyone in the Near East before the Turkish migrations were Black ...

[David Kuijt]

For Babylonians, they should be a mix of Elamite and Assyrian -- their ruling class was Assyrian, and their main base population Elamite, IIRC.

More like a Chaldaean ruling class with a mainly Babylonian population base.

Right. I was talking about their equipment and the figures I use to represent them in my Neo-Bab army; sorry for any imprecision.

They'd look a lot like the Assyrians, although probably less professional and well-equipped until Assyria started collapsing and a strong Babylonian monarchy was restored in the late 7th century.

Agree. Assyrian figures work great for the better troops (Chariots and the non Bow-levy). For the massed bow levy, I used a mix of anything without armor/helmet that had a bow, with a lot of Elamites. Sadly the gorgeous and useful-for-figure-finding Assyrian palace wall carvings don't show civil wars (and with Assyrian kings constantly installed in Babylon, that's what a battle against Babylon would have been before the late 7th century).

[Texus Maximus]

The most useful reference for all the armies listed is:

Stillman and Tallis. Armies of the Ancient Near East, 3,000 BC to 539 BC: organisation, tactics, dress and equipment. WRG, 1984
Expensive, but a PDF is available from some online services such as Scribd.

I used this source for the Hittites:
Bryce, Trevor. Hittite Warrior. Osprey, 2007.

This one looks good too:
Wise, Terence. Ancient Armies of the Middle East. Osprey, 1981

I also recommend this book, which has chapters on Babylonians, Assyrians, and Elamites:
Watson, Phillip. Costumes of the Old Testament Peoples. Chelsea House, 1987.
It can be had for $15 or so and has very detailed descriptions and line drawings of clothing and equipment. It is also one of the few books I found with good clothing descriptions of early Hebrews.