Lecture 7, Bronze Age
1. The Inception of Bronze
Age Aegean Archaeology
Archaeological exploration of
Bronze Age Greece has been profoundly influenced by Homeric traditions. A
legendary bard who lived around 750 BC, Homer presumably traveled to the manor
houses of early Iron Age Greek nobles to sing his version of the epic saga
recounting the siege of
The person to change all this
was an iconoclast named Heinrich
Schliemann (1822-1890). Schliemann was a wealthy businessman who
made his fortunes in the Russian fur trade and the gold rush in
In contradistinction to
Schliemann’s work at Troy and Mycenae, a British archaeologist, Sir Arthur Evans,
pursued an alternative line of research on the south Aegean island of Crete.
Trained in Egyptology Evans came to reject the Homeric tradition that
prehistoric Greek peoples ruled the Aegean in favor of another tradition that
the Aegean was initially ruled by kings from overseas. Instead of Homer he
pointed to the myths recounting the feats of an earlier generation of Greek
heroes, namely, Theseus of Athens. Theseus slew the Minotaur in the labyrinth
at
The hypothesis that advanced
urban culture radiated outward from core civilizations in the Ancient Near East
to peripheral regions such as the
Outsiders may wonder at the
intensity of the debate waged over the origins of two small Aegean civilizations that existed
thousands of years ago. Nonetheless, much of what we assume to know about the
origins of modern “Western” civilization remains based on interpretations such
as this. There is little external textual information to guide the way and even
this, as the disputed contexts of the Linear A and B tablets at
Minoan
The inhabitants of Minoan
Crete migrated to the island from the
Some cataclysmic event,
perhaps the eruption of the volcano at nearby Thera,
led to the civilization's decline. Unfortunately, the date for this is disputed
(sometime between 1600-1450 BC with accumulating evidence for the earlier
date). A layer of volcanic ash has been found in core sediments sampled
throughout the Eastern Mediterranean, demonstrating that the volcanic plume of
this eruption extended as far as the coast of Egypt. Since Thera
is situated 90 miles to the north, the eruption conceivably subjected Minoan
settlements at Crete to tidal waves, hypocaustic
clouds of poison gas, and earthquakes. The Minoan Colony at Thera
itself was indeed destroyed. Vividly painted frescoes excavated at Akrotiri are on display in National Museum in Athens. The
account in the Old Testament of
Moses summoning three days of darkness may also preserve some
long-standing memory of this event. The final phase of habitation Mycenaeans appear to have seized control of the palace
complex at Knossos. Finds include the discovery of a Mycenaean throne room and
hundreds of Linear B tablets. In Homer's Iliad, the "Catalogue of
Ships" records a king of Knossos among the Greek leaders who contributed
warships to to the armada that sailed against Troy.
INDO-EUROPEAN MIGRATIONS
As noted earlier, around
2200-2000 BC Indo-European migrations expanded into the Balkan region (as well
as into Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Iranian plateau, and Indus Valley). Indo-European
Culture consisted of clan-based pastoral populations dominated by warrior
bands. Warrior chieftains rode horses and were buried in earthen mounds known
as tumuli, sometimes together with the remains of their horse and female
dependents. For sake of argument one can compare Mycenaean culture to that of
the Germanic tribes that migrated into the Roman world at the end of antiquity
(3-5th centuries AD). Like the Early Germans Mycenaean nobles demonstrated
their aristocratic status by recruiting warriors into feudally dependent bands
(comitatus). In each Germanic tribe a
particular noble family was recognized as the royal line. The Early German king
possessed a warrior band that was ostensibly no larger than those of his
nobles, and his power to assert genuine authority over his nobles was highly
restricted. The situation in Mycenaean Civilization appears to have been
similar. A Mycenaean king, such as Agamemnon, referred to in Linear B tablets
as a wanax, was characterized by Homer as a
"King among Kings," As Agamemnon’s dispute with Achilles over a
captured female prisoner indicates, rivalries between “kings” and “nobles”
resulted in a highly unstable hierarchy. The nobles tended to defer to the
royal line during times of emergency, such as periods of warfare or migration.
The challenge for the Mycenaean wanax, much as
it was for Early German kings, was to preserve his heightened status once the
emergency had past.
MYCENAEAN CIVILIZATION (c.
2000-1100, high point, 1600-1100 BC)
Mycenaean Hierarchy Flow
Chart
|
King |
King among kings |
King |
|
Retinue of Warriors |
Retinue of Warriors |
Retinue of Warriors |
|
Artisans and scribes |
Artisans and scribes |
Artisans and scribes |
|
Farmers and slaves |
Farmers and slaves |
Farmers and slaves |
The Indo-Europeans that
invaded the Greek mainland appear to have conquered the native population and
to have reduced it to laboring status. They also came in contact with Minoan
civilization and assimilated its superior technology. They adapted to the
Minoan palace-based economic system, as the excavated palaces at Mycenae, Pylos, and Tiryns amply demonstrate. Given similarities in
art and architectural design, not to mention, those of Linear A and B script,
the Mycenaeans would appear to have relied on skilled
Minoan artisans and scribes themselves to effect the transition. A palace-based
bureaucracy appears to have supervised the administration of palace resources
while the Mycenaean warrior elites concentrated on warfare, gradually extending
their raids into Aegean and eastern Mediterranean sea lanes. Some Linear B
tablets recovered at Mycenae preserve records of booty obtained from raids on
coastal Anatolia, making reference to slave women captured at Miluwasa (Miletus). Since the Mycenaean hierarchy left no
written legacy, no Gilgamesh epic, no law code, no prose of any kind, one
suspects that members of the Mycenaean warrior elites were illiterate,
including the kings themselves, and that they depended on educated servants to
run the palaces.
Architectural features at
Mycenae are representative of wider Mycenaean civilization and include the megaron (a royal reception hall with a round central
hearth), Grave Circle A (c. 1600-1400 BC), Tholos tombs (1400-1100
BC), and Cyclopean fortification walls (1200-1100 BC). At Grave Circle A Schliemann unearthed gold death masks, amber seal
stones originating from the Baltic, and ivory inlaid swords displaying hunting scenes.
Nearby at the site of Dendra, the discovery of a panoply of bronze armor with boar’s tusk
helmet conforms with the descriptions of Mycenaean
armor preserved in Homer. Linear B tablets themselves appear to have functioned
as temporary archival records and survive only because they were fire hardened at
the time of palace destruction. They record, therefore, the final days of the
palace based communities (1200-1000 BC).
A crucial indicator of
Mycenaean power arises in the form of colorfully painted "stirrup jars" used to export surplus
commodities of wine and olive oil. Some 15 to 30 cm. tall, these squat jars
have been discovered throughout the Near Eastern coastal region, including
Egypt, and serve to demonstrate the extent of Mycenaean trade. Along with the
discovery of Canaanite jars in the Aegean and the rich and varied cargo
recovered from the Uluburun Shipwreck off the
southwest coast of Turkey (and now on display at the Bodrum
Museum), these point to the increasingly interdependent character of the
economies of eastern Mediterranean societies at this time. Increasingly
specialized production for export purposes are feasible only when other
essential staple goods, such as grain, are made available by distant trading
partners such as New Kingdom Egypt. Similar evidence of Mycenaean trading posts
has been identified in Italy, Spain, and in Cornwall in England, where
Mycenaean traders probably sailed in search of metals such as tin. Through
maritime commerce the Mycenaeans were able to sustain
large local populations. Mycenae alone possibly supported 180,000 people in plain
below the site (the plain of Argos). This was unthinkable under subsistence modes
of production.
The Peak era of Mycenaean
Civilization was 1400-1200 BC, the period of the megaron
and the Tholos tomb. External threats to Mycenaean
palace complexes clearly arose around 1200 BC, necessitating the construction
of the Cyclopean fortification walls that mark the last phase of
monumental construction at these palaces. At Mycenae the inhabitants took great
pain to incorporate Grave Circle A within the perimeter of its massive circuit
wall some 40 ft. thick. Something about the status of the people interred there
warranted this effort. Excavated levels of 1200-1000 BC exhibit fire damage at
several Mycenean palace complexes, indicative of
widespread societal collapse. Again, the Mycenaeans
left no evidence of advanced literary culture, despite the relative
sophistication of neighboring Ancient Near Eastern hierarchies at this time. Apart
from their adaptation of Minoan-styled palace bureaucracies, the warrior elites
of the Mycenaean Aegean adhered to the warrior ethos that had enabled them
successfully to conquer the Aegean region in the first place.
THE HITTITE EMPIRE (c. 2000
- 1200)
Other Indo-European tribal
elements migrated to central Anatolia. These assimilated the native culture of
the autochthonous Hatti, and established a royal
hierarchy at Hattusas (Bogazkoy,
excavated by the German Institute of Archaeology since 1906 AD) by 1700 BC. The
Hittites adopted both a local hieroglyphic script and Near Eastern cuneiform as
written languages. From Hattusas and other centrally
located palaces, the Hittite warlords established supremacy over a variety of
native Anatolian peoples. They controlled local mining production as well as the
trade in metals from abroad. The Hittites’ focus on metallurgy possibly enabled
them to perfect iron smelting prior to the close of the Bronze Age. Their empire
grew in strength until c. 1595 BC, when its forces invaded Mesopotamia and sacked
Babylon. Like the Mycenaeans the Hittite hierarchy
consisted of an array of relatively independent local kings who deferred when
necessary to the authority of a “Great King,” essentially a “King among Kings.”
The inherent instability of this political system appears to have induced a century-long
wave of political convulsions following the invasion of Mesopotamia.
By 1400 BC, order to the
Hittite Empire was restored and the Great Kings extended their authority as far
away as Northern Mesopotamia and Canaan. King Suppiluliumas
I (c. 1344-1322 BC) conquered Syria, defeated the Mitanni, and sent his son, Zannzannza, to marry daughter of the New Kingdom Pharaoh Akhnaton. King Muwattallii II
(1293-1271 BC) fought Ramses II at the Battle of Kadesh
(c. 1274). At this battle in the hills
of Syria, a combined host of 47000 Hittite warriors fought some 41000 Egyptian
warriors to a standstill. After several days of fighting the two kings agreed
to the Peace of Kadesh that recognized a line
of demarcation between their respective empires.
Evidence of Mycenaean
disturbances were likewise recorded in the Hittite Archive found at the palace
at Bogazkoy. The texts make mention of repeated
attacks by the "Ahhijawa.” This name sounds
remarkably similar to Homer's references to Achaioi
or the Achaeans, that is, the Mycenaean tribe ruled by Agamemnon. In addition,
an archival record of 1250 BC, refers specifically to a client king named
"Aleksandros of Wilusa,"
who urgently implored the Greak King for assistance
against an assault by the Ahhijawa. Some scholars identify
this person with the Homeric hero, Paris (Alexander ) of Troy, particularly since
the city of Troy was known by the epiethet, Ilios or Ilium, during the Classical era. The
epithet sounds remarkably similar to Wilusa,
particularly when one allows for the loss of the digamma or the “wha” sound in spoken Classical Greek. The archival
record of Alexander of Wilusa could be an actual reference
to the siege of Troy, in other words. The Hittite empire experienced political
collapse shortly after this time. Hattusas and other
Hittite communities were destroyed or abandoned (date?), and the
populations migrated to mountain retreats along the southern Mediterranean
coast of Anatolia, resulting in the formation of a Neo-Hittite Empire in
Cilicia around 1000 BC. Unlike the Mycenaeans the
Hittites largely assimilated Near Eastern culture, going so far as to adapt
their spoken Indo-European language to Akkadian
cuneiform. Their literary record exhibits considerable merit. The Hittites left
a significant law code that recognized the role of human will in law making.
They assimilated Near Eastern literary traditions such as the Gilgamesh Epic
and helped to transfer these to Iron Age Aegean societies.
THE
COLLAPSE OF BRONZE AGE MEDITERRANEAN CIVILIZATIONS (1200-1000 BC)
A fragmentary array of
ancient source material furnishes an outline for widespread urban collapse in
the eastern Mediterranean region, c. 1250 - 1069 BC. As noted earlier in 1274
BC, the armies of the Hittites and new Kingdom Egypt fought a fierce battle to
a standstill at Kadesh. In 1258 BC, they agreed to
the Treaty of Kadesh (preserved in writing on
tablets found at Tel el Amarna and Hattusas), marking the cessation of conflict between these
two world powers. One scenario holds that this truce led to a demobilization of large standing armies of mercenaries. The
cost of maintaining such large military establishments (more than 40000 troops
on each side) may have prompted the decision to make peace. There is also evidence
to suggest a heightened awareness for growing internal threats to security. The
Hittites confronted accelerating border attacks of the Mycenaeans
and dissension from within, whereas, the Egyptians were faced with numerous disturbances
in the vicinity of Canaan, including the
migration of the Hebrews. Around 1250-1220 BC, the destruction of Troy Level VIIA occurred. The assemblages of this layer at the site are
clearly associated with a late Bronze Age settlement. Apparently at this time
Troy was reduced to a meager garrison town with barracks and soup kitchens by
the walls and bodies of warriors found lying in streets. As noted earlier, the
Hittite Archive, c. 1250 BC, makes mentions of a client king named Alexander
of Wilusa urgently summoning assistance against
the Ahhijawa from the Great King at Hattusas.
Hittite Kings claim to have led several punitive expeditions against these
Aegean marauders. Despite the Great King’s assurances of security the Hittite
Empire itself collapsed shortly thereafter (abandonment of Hattusas ca. 1200 BC).
In New Kingdom Egypt the
reign of Ramses II is generally associated with the Exodus of the Hebrews led by Moses. As noted earlier, in
addition to the Treaty of Kadesh, Ramses constructed
a large bastion, Pi-Ramsesses,
at the western edge of the Sinai desert. To build so vast a complex in short
order, Ramses’ administrators would have employed the traditional corvée system by conscripting laborers from the
local population, quite possibly including Hebrews who migrated into this
region centuries earlier. Compelled against their will to work on this project
and unused to being conscripted in this manner (given little evidence of
previous building projects in the region), the Hebrews possibly fled into the
Sinai, as their tradition records. According to the Old Testament Book of
Exodus, they migrated for 40 years before invading the "promised
land" of Canaan. Dated to 1220 BC, the Stele of Pharaoh Merneptah at Karnak records
the first external reference to the Israelites. Merneptah
claims to have defeated this population along with others during a punitive
expedition in Canaan. An associated wall relief that appears to depict this
campaign shows Merneptah’s army defeating a pastoral
element comprised of warriors riding on camels and families dwelling in tents,
precisely the lifestyle one could expect for the migrating Hebrews. Allowing forty years from the time
of Treaty of Kadesh (1259 BC), and the construction
of Pi-Ramesses, the Stele of Merneptah
appears to place the Israelites where they were supposed to be, doing what they
were supposed to be doing, at precisely the moment they were supposed to be
doing it (recall the tradition of Joshua’s conquest of Jericho).
Around 1200 BC, the
construction of Cyclopean Walls marked the beginning of the end at Mycenae and Tiryns.
They indicate that the inhabitants of Mycenaean palace complexes were
confronting some undetermined military threat. The collapse of the Hittite
Empire and the destruction of Hattusas are also dated
to this time. In 1180 BC, Ramses III recorded his defeat of the "Sea
Peoples," a migrating horde of armed peoples that attacked cities
along the eastern Mediterranean coast. Communities such as Ugarit, Carchemish,
and Sidon on the Syrio-Phoenician coast experienced
fired destruction at this time. Canaan was ravaged. Egyptian naval forces were
able to repel these invaders at the delta of the Nile River. A second wave of
invasions occurred slightly later (1069). Egyptian sources were so familiar
with these marauders that they could name
the constituent tribal elements of each horde and depict them in accompanying
temple reliefs. One possible explanation
for this was that various elements of the Sea Peoples had served in the
Egyptian army as mercenaries. While caution is required when constructing lines
of association based solely on the evidence of similar sounding names, examples
of significant nomenclature include the Aqaiwasha, which to some sounds a
lot like the Ahhijawa, or Achaeans, that is,
the tribe ruled by Agamemnon of Mycenae. The Peleset (Pulisati)
sounds to some like the Philistines, a Bronze Age people who settled on
south coast of Canaan (and lent their name to the region Palestine). The
Philistines later became the inveterate foes of the Hebrews. They used iron
weapons and prohibited the Hebrews from manufacturing metal tools or weaponry.
They organized their cities according to a "Greek" styled tetrapolis. Their pottery exhibit clear Mycenaean
forms including stirrup jars. According to the Old Testament the
Philistines originated from "Kaphtor", the
biblical word for Crete. The Peleset offer our most
certain example that the Sea Peoples ultimately originated from the Bronze Age
Aegean world. The Lukka people were most
probably identical with the ancient Lycians, who
dwelled along the south coast of Anatolia, and roved the waters of Cyprus as
notorious pirates during the late Bronze Age. The Tursha people have been identified with the
Tyrsenoi, the Greek name for the Etruscans,
who were the inhabitants of northwest Italy in the early Iron Age (the Etruscan
empire is dated c. 800-500 BC). This highly tenuous scenario requires that the
Etruscans migrated at Fall of Bronze Age from the Aegean region to Egypt.
Defeated there, they sailed on to western Italy where they ultimately settled,
conveying Bronze Age technology to an otherwise Stone Age environment. The
Etruscans later assumed a dominant position in the Italian peninsula,
conquering neighboring urban settlements along the west coast including the
city of Rome around 660 BC. Although the Etruscan script has not been
deciphered, it is demonstrably a non Indo-European
language. Disputed epigraphical evidence for a
similar script has surfaced in the vicinity of Troy (at a nearby island). From
the Etruscans the Romans inherited the legend of their national epic, the Aenead, which recounts the traditional founding of
the Roman royal dynasty by Aeneas, the warrior prince from Troy. According to
the Aenead, at the fall of Troy Aeneas took
his aged father, his young son, and the urn bearing the ashes of his ancestors and
searched for a new homeland. He voyaged to Carthage where he fell in love with
Queen Dido, but his religious obligation to his family (‘Pius Aeneas’)
compelled him to sail onward and find a new homeland. Ultimately he settled at
the mouth of the Tiber River in Italy where he married a native princess, Lavinia, and founded the line of Romulus and Remus. The
association of the Tursha Sea Peoples with the
Etruscans furnishes a tantalizing explanation for the emergence of Iron Age
civilization in Italy, therefore. It is essential, nonetheless, to bear in mind
that the association itself is based entirely on two similarly sounding names.
Other associations remain
equally tentative but suggestive. The Sheklesh
people sounds like Sikeloi, the natives of
Sicily encountered by Phoenicians and Greeks in the early Iron Age. The Sherden sounds like Sardinoi,
the natives of Sardinia in the same era. In both instances Phoenician and Greek
explorers encountered islands dominated by warrior elites using Bronze Age
technology. By 1069 BC, the urban polities of the Mycenaean and Hittite realms
experienced near total collapse. Cities along the Syrio-Phoenician
coast experienced similar destruction, though their advantageous position along
the trading routes would enable them to rebound quickly. The interior
communities along this coast were subjected to invasions by the Hebrews, the Aramaeans, and the Philistines. Egypt alone survived
another century because of its self-sufficient economy and its strategically
defensive geography, but the cost of its defensive efforts left its population
weakened and vulnerable. By 1000 BC, the New Kingdom Pharaohs (20th dynasty)
were defeated by warriors invading from Libya and then from Kush.
CONCLUSIONS
Given the limited information
available to reconstruct the process of societal collapse in the Bronze Age
Aegean and eastern Mediterranean basin, our conclusions remain brief and
speculative. Even the true extent of societal collapse remains open to debate.
In many parts of the basin local populations gradually surpassed the carrying
capacity for subsistence agriculture in their immediate locations and adapted
to specialized production of surplus commodities for overseas trade. This made
them increasingly dependent on overseas sources of food and other raw materials.
The ease of maritime trade made this feasible, but it also put Mediterranean
societies increasingly dependent on trading partners separated by vast extents
of water. The material remains of Mycenaean and Canaanite maritime trade – the Mycenaean stirrup jars and Canaanite jars – indicate that specialization had occurred in these
regions by the Late Bronze Age. In exchange for these export commodities local
populations probably relied on imports of Egyptian grain. Although the scale of
specialized agricultural production cannot be estimated, in those areas where
it took root it most likely occurred at the expense of a more diversified
subsistence strategy. Specialization simplifies production systems and enhances
efficiency, but it also renders producers less self reliant
and less resilient to change. In addition, the integrated economies of the
eastern Mediterranean basin depended on highly instable lines of communication.
If the trade lines were disrupted (regardless of whether the source of
disruption were Mycenaean raiders, Lukka piracy, or
attacks by demobilized mercenaries), populations would have confronted starvation, warfare, and
migration. The evidence of chaos, fortress construction, fire damage, famine
and destruction in Mycenae points to such a scenario. Since the evidence for
Bronze Age societal collapse is limited, we will revisit the question at the
end of the Classical era when the source material is much more abundant.
On a positive note, the preserved
remains of Late Bronze Age civilization reveal evidence as well of cultural integration between Aegean and Near
Eastern (Indo-European and Semitic) populations. The Homeric tradition records
the legendary movement of Bronze Age Greek heroes to the southern coast of
Anatolia, Syria and beyond; Aeneas perhaps sailed as far as Italy. Similar
movement is recorded of Near Eastern heroes into Aegean. Thebes in central
Greece, for example, was supposedly founded by princes of Tyre,
and Argos and Erythrae (Iron Age Greek cities) were
allegedly settled by similar Phoenician adventurers. The strands to this
tradition have recently been seized upon by M. Bernal's controversial work, Black
Athena. Regardless of where scholars stand regarding the direction of Mediterranean
cultural diffusion, there can be no question that throughout their
history the Aegean and Phoenician
coasts remained gateways to distant civilizations. Mixed populations such as
those residing in Iron Age Cyprus or Phoenicia assumed importance as central
axes in these cultural exchanges. Regardless of the causes of Bronze Age societal
collapse, in other words, the evidence of westward migration by some Bronze Age
peoples allowed for the diffusion of advanced culture and technology into
untapped regions of the Mediterranean. Iron Age cultures would became more
widely dispersed than those of the Bronze Age and extend from Spain and North
Africa to Syria, Egypt, Anatolia, and the Black Sea. This would allow for
greater diversity and redundancy within the trading system and help to insure a
broader, more sustainable foundation to urban civilization in the period to
follow.
