Warrior Bronze takes place three and a half thousand years ago during the Bronze Age, in what we call ancient Greece. We don’t know much about Bronze Age Greece, as its people left so few written records, but we do know something about their astonishing cultures, which we call the Mycenaeans and the Minoans. (Hylas is Mycenaean, and Pirra is Minoan.)
It’s thought that this was a world of scattered chieftaincies, separated by mountain ranges and forests, and that it was wetter and greener than today, with far more wild animals both on land and sea. Also, this was long before the Ancient Greeks ranged their gods into an orderly pantheon of Zeus, Hera, Hades, and so on. That’s why the gods Hylas and Pirra worship have different names: they were the forerunners of the later lot.
To create the world of Hylas and Pirra, I’ve studied the archaeology of the Greek Bronze Age. To get an idea of peoples’ beliefs, I’ve drawn on those of more recent peoples who still live in traditional ways, as I did in my Stone Age series, Chronicles of Ancient Darkness. And although most people in Hylas’ time lived by farming or fishing, I think much of the knowledge and beliefs of the Stone Age hunter-gatherers would have survived into the Bronze Age, particularly among poorer people, such as Hylas himself.
Concerning place names, Akea (or Achaea, as it’s often spelt) is the ancient name for mainland Greece, and Lykonia is my name for the region which today is called Lakonia. I haven’t changed the name Mycenae, as it’s so well known. And I’ve used the name ‘Keftian’ for the great Cretan civilization we call Minoan. (We don’t know what they called themselves; depending on which book you read, their name may have been Keftians, or that may have been a name given them by the ancient Egyptians.)
The map of the World of Gods and Warriors shows the world as Hylas and Pirra experience it, so it leaves out many places and islands that don’t come into the story, and includes others that I made up, such as the Island of the Fin People and Thalakrea. The same goes for the map of Akea; this features only those places which are relevant to the story in Warrior Bronze.
Warrior Bronze brings Hylas back to the mountains where his adventures began, so I’ve drawn extensively on the research trips to Greece which I made for the earlier books in the series. In particular, I’ve drawn on the time I spent in Lakonia, especially: the Langada Gorge that winds through the Taÿgetos Mountains; the area around the top of the Langada Pass, which I explored for several days; and the coast and caves at Vlychada, on the Bay of Diros in south-west Lakonia.
I will always be grateful to Todd Whitelaw, Professor of Aegean Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, for patiently reading and commenting on each manuscript, and providing me with many helpful pointers on various aspects of Bronze Age life. I also want to thank my editor at Puffin Books, Ben Horslen, for his lively and imaginative response to the story of Hylas and Pirra. Finally, as always, my thanks to my wonderful and immensely talented agent Peter Cox, for his never-failing commitment and support.
MICHELLE PAVER, 2016