The Late Bronze AgeThe Late Bronze Age1400 – 1000 BCE1400 – 1000 BCE

Instructor PacasInstructor Pacas

The Ancient MediterraneanThe Ancient Mediterranean

• The 200 years between 1400 – 1200 BCE were ones of immense social upheavals throughout the ancient world from India in the east to Spain in the west.

• This period witnessed one of the greatest Indo-European movements across the European and Asian land masses.

The period also witnessed some of the worse natural disasters throughout the Mediterranean.

It is also the first time we have any records of these natural disasters which would eventually give rise to many legends and myths of the period.

Whether these natural disasters were the culprit which weakened certain civilizations and left them prone to invasion or the invasions followed by natural disasters were the cause of the destruction of these civilizations are still debated by scholars.

Around 1500 – 1450 BCE the island of Thera which was one of the main trading contacts and perhaps an outpost of the Minoan Civilization suffered a cataclysmic volcanic explosion that destroyed ¾ of the island and is perhaps the source of the legend of Atlantis.

The volcano that exploded blew the top upwards of 30 miles and was responsible for wiping out the population of the island.

It sent huge waves in all directions and there are records in Egypt and Israel that claim the catastrophe that these waves caused in their respective areas.

The island of Crete was also affected by these gigantic waves. It is estimated that Thera’s explosion was 4 times larger than Krakatoa.

Krakatoa in the pacific was responsible for having produced waves 50 feet tall and killing 36,000 people by its explosion.

No one knows how populated Thera was but this would produce waves 200 feet tall and kill off a population of 144,000 people which seems a overestimation for an island population of the time.

The destruction of Thera coincides with the decline of Minoan Civilization in Crete and the invasion of Crete by marauders from mainland Greece known to historians as Mycenaeans from Peloponnesus.

Many scholars believe that it is these Mycenaeans that were responsible for the attacks on many civilizations of the Mediterranean around this time period 1400 – 1200 BCE.

They were also responsible for the destruction of Ilium (Troy) and the Hittite Empire.

They also invaded the Levant and the Egypt.

Egyptian records refer to invasions. The Egyptians were successful in routing of a

group of maritime marauders known as Sea Peoples.

Pictorial sources of the Levant, Egypt and Mycenae seem to show many parallels between ships and equipment of Mycenaeans and the Sea People.

But this is not completely relevant as studies also demonstrate that military equipment in the ancient world was produce in diverse regions and sold in distant markets so it is not really indicative of homogenous groups from a specific region.

Mediterranean Maritime TradeMediterranean Maritime Trade

Between 1600 – 1200 centers of trade shifted from Mesopotamia and Egypt as main exporters to independent ‘states’ in Anatolia and the Aegean.

Trade contacts had also expanded throughout the Mediterranean. There was contact between south eastern Spain and Minoan Crete.

Contact between Minoan Crete and Central Europe via the Greek mainland.

In Western Anatolia the city of Ilium was conducting a lucrative trade between Macedonia, Thrace, Hittites and Mesopotamian civilization.

The city of Ugarit in Syria was also able to tap into this lucrative trade throughout the Mediterranean.

Ilium - TroyIlium - Troy

Ilium or Troy seems to have been settled in part by immigrants that spoke a very primitive form of Greek and had intermixed with other cultures in the area such as Hurrians and Hittites.

It was recognized as one of the preeminent centers for the production of bronze weapons and armor of the ancient world.

It traded semi-precious stones as far as Afghanistan, ivory and gold and art from Egypt, olive oil and wood from Crete and Greek mainland as well.

By the 1600 it was an extremely lucrative independent city enjoying trade with the Hittite Empire to its east, Egypt to its south and the Cretan civilization to its west.

Ilium had been sacked before probably by earlier Indo-European migrations in the 1900 BCE which had made the inhabitants concentrate on making their new reconstructed city state a formidable citadel.

Throughout much of the 700 years Ilium was an independent city and it seems to have enjoyed relations with the Hittite Empire and Egypt as equals.

Many of its neighbors were either client kingdoms or states to one of these two superpowers.

Many artifacts that scholars classify as particularly Trojan have been found in Crete, Thera and far away as south east Spain.

Historians believe that there existed contact either directly or indirectly between these regions in the ancient world.

It is possible that the legend of Aeneas was created out of this knowledge though its fabrication is quite later in history under the Emperor Augustus.

Period of Upheaval in the Ancient World Period of Upheaval in the Ancient World 1400 – 1200 BCE1400 – 1200 BCE

Fall of Minoan Civilization, Hittites and IliumFall of Minoan Civilization, Hittites and Ilium

In the early 14th century BCE around 1370’s BCE the Mediterranean world underwent many socio-political changes that could have led to the eventual conquest and destructions of empires and independent city states we have discussed.

It is not known whether the invasion of the palace of Knossos in Crete preceded events in Egypt or if events in Egypt allowed the rapid conquest of Crete by Mycenaeans but circa this period Knossos fell to invading Mycenaeans from mainland Greece.

Contemporary to the problems occurring in Crete, the Egyptians were experiencing a period of social and cultural upheaval.

One of the pharaohs, Amenhotep IV (1370 – 1352 BCE), known as Akhenaten enforced a form of monotheism centered around the worship of the sun.

This created a division among Egyptian civilization that zapped much power of the empire as violent oppression set in between pharaoh and the priestly class.

• After Akhnetan’s death Egypt witnessed a period of civil strife.

• The priestly class tried to reestablish the older polytheistic worship and destroyed the monotheistic worship of Aten established by Akhenaten.

• The Hittites tried to take advantage of the situation in Egypt and began to encroach along the Levant in what had been traditionally Egyptian spheres of influence.

Around 1300 BCE Egyptians had stabilized the situation to a certain degree and felt comfortable enough to try to challenge the Hittites and reestablish control over their area of influence in the Levant.

At the famous battle of Kadesh in Syria along the river Orontes the armies of Hittite Empire and Egypt met.

Though Egyptians inscriptions claim an overwhelming victory it seems that they got the worst of it.

At best it was a stalemate but its importance is that the Hittite Empire soon fell perhaps because its resources were depleted.

It coincides with a period of mass invasion by a maritime power against Hittite vassals in the Levant.

• These Sea People as the Egyptians call them also threatened Egyptian vassals in the Levant and even mounted an invasion against Egypt which the Egyptian were able to repulse.

• This coincides with the conquest of Minoan Crete which had a large fleet that enabled Mycenaean warriors to mount invasions throughout the Mediterranean.

With the fall of the Hittite Empire the city of Troy was left without assistance and the Mycenaeans proceeded to try to conquer.

It is this account that survives in the retelling of the Trojan War by the poet Homer.

The MycenaeansThe Mycenaeans

The Mycenaeans were a group of Indo-European warriors who had earlier migrated to the Greek mainland.

Their culture shares similarities with cultures in the Eurasian steppe between the Black Sea and Caspian sea of what is Russia today.

• The Mycenaeans aristocracy fought using horse drawn war chariots much like their Hittite adversaries and fought with bronze weapons and armor.

• They adopted much equipment from the Minoans such as the large figure 8 shields and long spears.

• Their language was an early form of Greek.• It was deciphered last century and was given the

name Linear B. It consisted of pictographic symbols with designated sounds.

The Mycenaeans were a sophisticated military civilization whose power rose between 1400 – 1200 BCE.

They seemed to have conquered or migrated from mainland Greece to Western Anatolia, made some enclaves into Egypt and the Levant as well as Cyprus.

The people received their name from the famous citadel that seems to have been the center of power from 1300 – 1200 BCE in the Peloponnesus at Mycenae.

Their palaces were more like fortified cities which have led many scholars to deduce that conditions in the Peloponnesus were conditions of constant strife.

Legends make it difficult to sift historical reality from myth but names from the Iliad were borrowed to give name to probable leaders of these people.

The palace of Mycenae since it was the seat of the most powerful citadel has been attributed to Agamemnon the leader of the Greek expedition to Troy during the Trojan War.