The Mitanni
The Mitanni are a somewhat mysterious nation. They were
contemporaries of the New Kingdom of Egypt, and were a major power in
the Near East, but are usually mentioned only as a footnote to the
Egyptians and the Assyrians (who the Mittani subjugated but who later
displaced them to become the dominant power).
No manufacturer of plastic figures has produced Mitanni figures.
Judging
by my memory of the illustration in the Osprey NKE book, they had
slightly
heavier and more heavily armored chariotry. The Mitanni wore
scale
armor and long undergarments. Because of the space limitations of
the
Atlantic chariots, I put only one charioteer in each. I painted
the
horse's armor bronze to give the impression of a heavier barding.
The maryannu (charioteer) is an Atlantic Greek archer, with a head swap
from
an Atlantic Egyptian charioteer. The skirt is tissue paper and
white
glue. The chariot is an unmodified Egyptian chariot from
Atlantic.
I only had a couple of the Egyptian heads with domed caps to
spare,
so I also tried using the existing Greek head with the crest, cheek
pieces,
etc. carved down to a point. You can see an example in the next
image:
The chariotry of the Mitanni is comparatively well-documented, but the
infantry
are practically ignored by history. They would be levies of a
variety
of Hurrian, Syrian, Assyrian, and such subjugated by the Mitanni.* I decided to go with HaT Macedonian light
infantry
archers (Ps) and Atlantic Egyptians (Aux & Hd).
The Mitanni used a good number of archers, which are classed as Psiloi
in
DBA so they must have been in loose formations.
The Auxilia would be better equipted, even trained, infantry. I
used
Egyptians for them. Mine are armed with the mace-axe and sword,
although
it is much more likely they used spears and daggers. I just
wanted
to make them easily distinguishable from the Hordes, which have spears
and
hide-covered shields.
The shields were simply clipped to rectangles, as the Hurrians and
Mitanni
are depicted with square or recangular shields by the Egyptians.
The holes in the shields were filled in also.
The Horde is just some generic-looking spearmen:
*I asked for ideas on the DBLCHM list, although
I more or less committed to using the Egyptian and Greek figures I'd
already
set aside for the project. These posts and what little I could
glean
from other sources did convince me to use only archers for Psiloi and
to
trim the shields fo the Auxilia into rectangular shapes.
Claudio Berni had some good ideas:
Mike,
Mitanni were Canaanite/Syrian types, like Hyksos, Retennu, Amurru,
Kharu,
ancient Phoenicians, etc.
I'd wait to see HAT's Nubian infantry as I think some of those figs may
be
useful.
Another good source is the ESCI barbarian set, just been re-released by
Italeri. Not all the figures are usable but pretty much anyone who isn't
wearing trousers would do.
Infantry were mainly archers and unarmoured javelinmen [ps(I) in DBM]
hence
no shields. In the late period some of them used wicker shields
sometimes
covered with hide, usually rectangular in shape... zvezda persian ones
would
look good if you don't want to scratchbuild them...
Many american indians sets can give you more usable figures, and so do
Zulus
and airfix jungle adventure set, but these are rather small and don't
mix
well with the others except Airfix Cheyenne...
Some useful figure also in the ex-ESCI muslim warriors set that
hopefully is
being re-issued by Italeri.
Atlantic egiptyan chariots are fine for light chariots Cv(O), except the
ridiculously small and chunky wheels, but I'd keep the original crew for
those. For the later heavy four horses chariots Kn(O) Zvezda's persian
one
without the scythes would work better IMO.
Atlantic made a roman 4 horse chariot that's hard to find but would be
a
good base for a conversion, and the old airfix roman one also can give
you a
good horse train and better wheels, even if still half the size...
Cheers,
Claudio
I also asked the Ancmed group, and got some useful information.
Duncan Head wrote:
From my memory of the WRG book, there are Mitannian records for the
issue of spears, daggers, shields and leather helmets, and that's
about all we know. I think most people use a mix of lightly-armed
bronze-age infantry in simple kilt or tunic from various sources.
Shields might be the smallish rectangular ones shown in illustrations
of chariotry; cross-bands of light textile armour are I imagine
possible.
In 15mm, Chariot have figures billed as Mitannian spear- and bowmen,
but I don't knwo what they look like -
http://www.kbnet.co.uk/chariot/page8.html
Gladiator have a "Mitanni-
Syrian foot command" pack but I'm not sure what they recommend for
the rankers - perhaps the Syrian/Canaanite infantry listed under
their Hyksos range -
http://www.gladiatorgames.co.uk/biblicals.htm#Mitanni
cheers,
Duncan
Another member wrote:
Think Arayan (like ancient Indian or gypsies). However, Most of
their
infantry is from the Syrian/ Cananite groups. The noble or warrior
class
went mounted, think chariot. By definition, the meaning of Mitanni
refers
to their service as the mounted warriors. You need to get a translation
for the basic terminology of this period: Mitanni; shippu; ilku, etc.
Then you will have a better feel for this period. Stuart
There was also an older post by Nigel Tallis to the DBM list which was
archived at the NSW DBM page:
Subject: Mitanni Alik-Ilki Spearmen
>>Should the Alik-Ilki Spearmen of the Mitanni army be graded
as Ax(X) instead of Ax (O)? <<
There's not much evidence for Mitannian infantry, it wasn't the glamour
corps and didn't involve great expense so they don't appear in the
textual record in any detail. They were raised through the ilku
land-grant system and were armed with dirks, javelins and light
shields, probably leather helmets. Not a lot of difference between them
and late Amorite troops, save the absence of substantial cutting
weapons. It's only the Assyrian battle accounts that enable us to grade
their elite infantry as Bd (F) on function, sadly we have nothing like
this for Mitanni, but this would also be a possibility.
What little info there is suggests Ax (O). Until something new turns
up. Speaking of which, I see there's a new-ish NKE representation of a
charioteer's hauberk. The paintings are similar to Kenamun's in
composition,
but unfinished, so we can't see if the neck-protector is solid or made
of scales.