Teeth of fallen soldiers hold evidence that foreigners fought alongside ancient Greeks, challenging
Teeth of fallen soldiers hold evidence that foreigners fought alongside ancient Greeks, challenging millennia of military history
Katherine Reinberger
2 September 2021 11:57am
Ancient historians loved to write about warfare and famous battles. While these millennia-old stories still feed modern imaginations – Homer’s “Iliad” provides the plot for the movie “Troy,” while Herodotus’ “Histories Book VII” inspired the film “300,” for instance – there’s rarely any physical evidence that the events they describe really happened.
But in 2008 a team of Italian archaeologists began to excavate outside the ancient city wall at Himera, a Greek colony on the north-central coast of Sicily, Italy. In the western necropolis, or cemetery, they found several mass graves dating to the early fifth century B.C. All the individuals in the graves were male, and many had violent trauma or even weapons lodged in their bones.
The evidence strongly suggests these men could have been soldiers who fought in 480 B.C. and 409 B.C. in the Battles of Himera, written about by ancient Greek historians. I’m part of an interdisciplinary team of anthropologists, archaeologists and geologists who analyzed the teeth of these people who lived more than 2,400 years ago to figure out who they were and where they came from. It looks like early historians didn’t pass down the whole story, and our findings might rewrite parts of what’s known about Greek military history.
A chance to fact-check ancient history
Herodotus and another historian, Diodorus Siculus, both wrote about the Battles of Himera. They describe the first battle in 480 B.C. as a victory of an alliance of Greeks from all across Sicily over an invading Carthaginian force from modern-day Tunisia. Three generations later, the second battle in 409 B.C. was more chaotic. The historians report that Carthage besieged the city of Himera, which this time had little outside assistance.
These ancient accounts tell of grand generals, political alliances and sneaky military tactics such as the Greek cavalry who pretended to be friendly aid to get into the Carthaginian camp.
More:
https://neoskosmos.com/en/2021/09/02/dialogue/opinion/teeth-of-fallen-soldiers-hold-evidence-that-foreigners-fought-alongside-ancient-greeks-challenging-millennia-of-military-history/