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The Peleset
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Message 1.
Posted by henvell (U1781664) on Friday, 6th August 2010
The ranks of the Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age "Sea Peoples" included the Peleset,who fought against Ramses III in the Battle of the Nile.Subsequently they settled in the southern Levant,where they were known as the Philistines.The PHD dissertation of Adam Aga [2009] compared the distinctive architectural style of Philistine homes with the coeval domiciles of other eastern Mediterranean countries.One of his objectives was to trace the origins of the Peleset/Philistines.He concluded that
the Philistia Linear House style most closely resembled abodes in the NE Pelopnneus region of Greece near Corinth and that the Peleset probably came from that area.The Linear House style differs from that of the local Canaanite peoples homes. -
Message 2
Posted by WickerMan (U14275309) on Sunday, 8th August 2010
A number of interesting issues are raised here.
I have not heard of Adam Aga, is he involved in any excavations in Palestine?
To date, current excavations have not revealed any 'Philistine' structures. All Iron I. foundations unearthed in Ashdod, Ashkelon, Ekron, Gaza & Gath are Canaanite and can be traced through earlier Late Bronze strata.
Recent thinking on evidence so far unearthed suggests the newcomers (Philistines) who filtered in after the Egyptians departed Canaan (circa. 1130 BCE), came down from Anatolia, perhaps Hattina/Pattina in the region of Alalakh, and from the island of Cyprus (associated with the Denyen/Danoi?).
Most of the previous post reflects conjecture not tied to the actual archaeological findings. -
Message 3
Posted by henvell (U1781664) on Sunday, 8th August 2010
Yes he was involved in excavations ion southern Canaan.You can use your favourite search engine to download his PHD dissertation at no cost.Mistyped
his name on my original post.
Philistine Domestic Architecture in the Iron Age by Adam J Aja,Harvard University,2009.It does not provide definitive proof that the Peleset came from the Corinth region of mainlandGreece,but it certainly warrents serious consideration. -
Message 4
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Monday, 9th August 2010
Hello Wickerman,
In "The Sea Peoples" thread you've written im message 57:
The Peleset may well have been simply Asiatics, as we were told by Ramesses III, resident in Canaan. So they were not foreign invaders.
You seem to have had a change of heart since, given that you've written in message 2:
Recent thinking on evidence so far unearthed suggests the newcomers (Philistines) who filtered in after the Egyptians departed Canaan (circa. 1130 BCE), came down from Anatolia, perhaps Hattina/Pattina in the region of Alalakh, and from the island of Cyprus (associated with the Denyen/Danoi?).
Apart from the fact that the Egyptians fought the Peleset around 1180 BCE, may I have the audacity as to ask you about the origin of the recent thinking on the evidence?
After our discussion on the Sea Peoples thread I read a book by my countryman Ed Noort: Die Seevölker in Palestina, Kok Pharos, 1994, who comes to the conclusion that the Peleset were people from the Northern Levant after studying the very portrait of the Peleset soldier of which you gave the link in your message 98 in the Sea Peoples thread The book is in German, I'm afraid.
Regards,
Poldertijger -
Message 5
Posted by WickerMan (U14275309) on Tuesday, 10th August 2010
Apart from the fact that the Egyptians fought the Peleset around 1180 BCE, may I have the audacity as to ask you about the origin of the recent thinking on the evidence?
The recent thinking is developed out of more indepth analysis of the pottery and its location.
The principal caveat being, we are required to accept that the Monochrome (Myc. IIIC:1b) and the subsequent “Philistine” Bichrome pottery found in the Pentapolis sites IS the pottery of the Philistines.
This is something that cannot be proven, it must be accepted on faith.
I say this because in all cases there are far more Canaanite wares in these cities than Bichrome, a fact which rarely receives attention.
If the Philistines totally occupied the 5 Pentapolis cities, then how to account for so much Canaanite pottery?, or, if the Philistines shared the city with Canaanites then how do we know who used what?
One could also argue that the Monochrome/Bichrome wares are the 'new' wares, the Canaanite being the traditional 'older' wares, therefore the 'new' wares must be associated with the 'new' invaders. However, those 'new' wares only appear 'after' the time of Ramesses III, so who is he shown fighting with in the reliefs, or perhaps we should ask, where is he fighting these Sea Peoples?
Writers on this issue are principally Finkelstein, Kling & Killebrew and they agree that the Bichrome was preceded by the Monochrome, and that this Monochrome “first” appeared in the Levant contemporary with, or immediately following, the reign of Ramesses VI, circa 1130 BCE.
This means, the wars between Ramesses III and the “Sea Peoples”, circa 1175 BCE, were elsewhere outside Canaan, likely to the north.
Prof. Ussishkin (excavated Megiddo) is confident these “Sea Peoples” never made it as far south as Megiddo because the fortifications are massive and strong and were not destroyed in this period. No invading 'peoples' could have passed such a strong military center leaving it behind them to cause then trouble at their rear.
After our discussion on the Sea Peoples thread I read a book by my countryman Ed Noort: Die Seevölker in Palestina, Kok Pharos, 1994, who comes to the conclusion that the Peleset were people from the Northern Levant....
Agreed, we cannot change the fact the profile used for the Peleset captive is that of a Semite. Neither can we ignore the fact that the Chevron designed & tassled tunic represents Asiatics.
A recent publication, Scripta Mediterranea Vol. XXVII 2006, XXVIII 2007 contains a paper by Brian Janeway which analysed the finds at Tell Ta'yinat (near Alalakh). Another paper, this by David J. Hawkins entitled, CILICIA, THE AMUQ, AND ALEPPO: NEW LIGHT IN A DARK AGE, 2009, throws some light on the 'possible' northern heritage of the Philistines.
The people who inhabited Tell Ta'yinat had strong connections with the Aegean and with Anatolia, it seems that these peoples were know by the name of WaDAsatini/PaDAsatini. Hawkins provides phonetic arguments to show that the name originally in Luwian may have been pronounced Palasatini (Peleset=Philistine?).
Whether the Aegean connection at Tell Ta'yinat had come via Cyprus or Cilicia (which had connections with Cyprus anyway) is yet to be determined. Much about the design & form of the Myc. IIIC:1b (Monochrome) pottery found in the Levant is also seen on Cyprus.
The eastern region of Cyprus had very strong Canaanite (Asiatic) connections not only evident in their pottery but also determined by the structural style of some of their building foundations.
I understand the insinuation in your post but remember this, those who establish a theory which never changes and defend it to the death are not in touch with the ever changing world of archaeology. Theories must be kept fluid and as new finds are unearthed certain hypothesis may need revision. There is nothing wrong with that, in fact it is required.
Both Academic & private theories only reflect the 'status quo' at the time of writing.
Regards, Wickerman -
Message 6
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Wednesday, 11th August 2010
Hello Wickerman,
You write:
This means, the wars between Ramesses III and the "Sea Peoples", circa 1175 BCE, were elsewhere outside Canaan, likely to the north.
Prof. Ussishkin (excavated Megiddo) is confident these "Sea Peoples" never made it as far south as Megiddo because the fortifications are massive and strong and were not destroyed in this period.
I feel that Ussishkin is right, given that that would make sense militarywise to the Egyptians.
But the Egyptians attacked the Sea Peoples, not the Hittites. I've read Bryce's The Kingdom of the Hittites and I fail to see how you would have come to the conclusion that the Hittites colluded with the Sea Peoples; these peoples really hated each other!
You write:
I say this because in all cases there are far more Canaanite wares in these cities than Bichrome, a fact which rarely receives attention.
If the Philistines totally occupied the 5 Pentapolis cities, then how to account for so much Canaanite pottery?, or, if the Philistines shared the city with Canaanites then how do we know who used what?
Yes, it is hard to see how this would have come about, had the Peleset really invaded the plain of Asjkelon and driven the natives out of it.
I think that wikipedia gives a believable solution:
Papyrus Harris I details the achievements of the reign of Ramses III. In the brief description of the outcome of the battles in Year 8 is the description of the fate of the Sea Peoples. Ramses tells us that, having brought the imprisoned Sea Peoples to Egypt, he "settled them in strongholds, bound in my name. Numerous were their classes like hundred-thousands. I taxed them all, in clothing and grain from the storehouses and granaries each year." Some scholars suggest it is likely that these "strongholds" were fortified towns in southern Canaan, which would eventually become the five cities (the Pentapolis) of the Philistines (Redford 1992, p. 289). Israel Finkelstein has suggested that there may be a period of 25-50 years after the sacking of these cities and their reoccupation by the Philistines. It is quite possible that for the initial period of time, the Philistines were housed in Egypt, only subsequently late in the troubled end of the reign of Ramses III would they have been allowed to settle Philistia. Jewish tradition identifies Caphtor the original home of the later Philistines as the region of Pelusium in Egypt.
It can be argued that under the Egyptian occupation the Pereset developped the superior technology of the Iron Age and that with this technology they were able to throw the Egyptians out of the Pentapolis some eighty years after the Battle of the Nile. Having the superior technology, they made themselves masters of the Pentapolis.
Regards,
Poldertijger -
Message 7
Posted by henvell (U1781664) on Wednesday, 11th August 2010
A Aja [2009] contends that there was a change in population patterns and that many Canaanites moved to the larger urban centres during the Early Iron Age and brought their ceramics and other cultural items with them.Validity?
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Message 8
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Thursday, 12th August 2010
Hello Henvell,
The city of the Bronze Age was foremost administrative; to secure its survival it needed the money that was gained by the state from levying taxes from the peasants.
The city of the Iron Age was self sustainable. It made use of markets to gain the income necessary to secure its survival.
Anywhere where the Iron Age took off, people from the countryside took to the cities to try their luck.
Regards,
Poldertijger -
Message 9
Posted by Prof Muster (U14387921) on Thursday, 12th August 2010
Stranger is that,
50 years ago Dr V. already solved the enigma of the Sea-Peoples.
as the combined allied fleet of the Persians(=PRS=Peleset.)who attached the runaway -kingdom of Egypt under Rammesses-3.
The Fleetcommanders were the Greek general Iphicraters and the Persian Satrap Pharnabasos.
UNKNOWN or suppressed by many( Greek-)historians
is the fact that Greece long before the Persian-conquest of Greece was allready under treaty vassalage of Persia But for a stupid reason they hid that.
The early Greek poleis were warring each other and made yearly raiding-parties
So some clever Assyrian,( Salmanasser-3?) later Persian ruler(= Darius-1?)made secret traeties of military assistance in cases of " neighbourly " raids on each city.
Prof Woudhuizen & Jan Best, from Amsterdam Univ. issued in 1999 a booklett titled "In persue of tvr", wherein they explain that
the (Ten-odd)Disks of Phaistos on Crete were in fact Assyrian assistance treaties whith ( Supposedly-)souvern Greek rulers of Crete(= eg. Nestor & Neleus.)
The means of 'military' assisance were rather an ambulat persian sponsored War fleet of mercenary Phoenicians, who also routed the ( secret-)treaty-kings, for troops to fight a common cause against
Rebellious Egypt.
The Date for the Sea-Peoples is an arbitrary one
Dr. V discovered( through a long string of associate resarchers mind you, before the Internet area!)that inbetween 1500 and 1000 bc there was a randomly-filled in gap of (500-)non-existing years.
Conclusion:
Ramesses-3 of the 20-th dynasty was the same as Nepherites-1 of the 28-th Dynasty, Ramesses-3/Nepherites-1 ruled around 380-340 bc
just before Persian King Artaxerxes-3 occupied Egypt for the lasrt time as a persian ruler(=340-333 bc.)(I may be in error on cyphers.)
Anyway Rammesses-2 who oficially ruled around 1200 bc
was found out by Dr.V (and his string of researchers.) to have ruled inbetween 610- 560 bc.
and his real name was General NECHO-2.
Others have written books on the Sea-Peoples but none as truly as Dr.V. who equated these Sharden oand danaoii or whatever with the then modern classical greek poleis in ( secret)service of the Persian Empire.
At that time 380 bc, a handicaped Greek King ( I forget his name.Agathocles no, )was marching on Persepolis to demand his soldiers fee,( for not capturing Egypt.) but was recalled. He copied the raid on Babylon by Cyrus-3 in 401 and paved the same way for Alexander in 333 bc. -
Message 10
Posted by WickerMan (U14275309) on Thursday, 12th August 2010
A Aja [2009] contends that there was a change in population patterns and that many Canaanites moved to the larger urban centres during the Early Iron Age....
Aja was likely referring to the demographic study conducted and published by Finkelstein, in 2000.
Within the coastal plain and Shephelah towards the end of the Late Bronze Age there were 102 settlements comprising of 173 hectares.
At the dawn of Iron I there was a dramatic decrease in the number of settlements from 102 down to 49 but surprisingly little built-up area was lost, from 173 down to 155 hectares.
Finkelstein describes a two step process at work. Over half the Late Bronze Age sites were destroyed due to an annihilation of the countryside.
Secondly, there was a population shift from many small settlements surrounding a few large urban centers, to a few small settlements near many large urban centers.
The territories north of Lachish and south of Gath suffered complete destruction.
This population shift cannot be dated precisely, nor can we determine the length of the process in months or years.
Finkelstein uses a common formula to estimate population size over this transition period.
(eg; multiply the total built-up area by a coefficient of 200 people per one inhabited hectare).
The population density at the end of the Late Bronze Age on the coastal plain and Shephelah works out to be around 35,000, but only drops to about 30,000 by Iron I.
If the total built-up area has not changed significantly (actually dropped), likewise the population appears to have dropped by an estimated 5,000, what does that say about the size of any "foreign" occupying force?
Perhaps the whole "Invasion" hypothesis needs a rework?
Still we have the Egyptian inscriptions of Ramesses III who declares he will advance into Djahy to "disperse" the Asiatic rebels.
The "ox-cart" scene demonstrates this very encounter, that the Egyptian forces are chasing out whole families with possessions.
Typically this scene is described as a migration "into" Canaan, but the accompanying text describes a 'route', chasing out the Asiatics.
This interpretation is then supported by Finkelsteins demographic study, not forgetting Ramesses III also claims to have destroyed at least 124 Asiatic towns & cities.
Regards, Wickerman -
Message 11
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Friday, 13th August 2010
Hello Wickerman,
You write:
...the demographic study conducted and published by Finkelstein, in 2000.
Within the coastal plain and Shephelah towards the end of the Late Bronze Age there were 102 settlements comprising of 173 hectares.
At the dawn of Iron I there was a dramatic decrease in the number of settlements from 102 down to 49 but surprisingly little built-up area was lost, from 173 down to 155 hectares.
Finkelstein describes a two step process at work. Over half the Late Bronze Age sites were destroyed due to an annihilation of the countryside.
Secondly, there was a population shift from many small settlements surrounding a few large urban centers, to a few small settlements near many large urban centers.
The territories north of Lachish and south of Gath suffered complete destruction.
The population density at the end of the Late Bronze Age on the coastal plain and Shephelah works out to be around 35,000, but only drops to about 30,000 by Iron I.
This is interesting, because it looks a lot like the modern military technique of population concentration to prevent the effects of guerrilla warfare. It has been recently applied, for instance, by the Dutch military in Afghanistan.
It seems that Ramses III was taking no chances when he was preparing Egypt for the attack of the Sea Peoples! A preventive war, the tactic of scorched earth in the Northern Levant, population concentration.
I feel that you are obfuscating when you write:
This population shift cannot be dated precisely, nor can we determine the length of the process in months or years.
Surely we can distinguish the Bronze Age from the Iron Age?
I feel that Aja has written about a different kind of population shift to the urban centres, viz. in the Iron Age, than Finkelstein has, viz. in the Bronze Age.
Regards,
Poldertijger -
Message 12
Posted by WickerMan (U14275309) on Friday, 13th August 2010
I feel that you are obfuscating when you write:
This population shift cannot be dated precisely, nor can we determine the length of the process in months or years.
Quoted from this message
Surely we can distinguish the Bronze Age from the Iron Age?
Prof. Killebrew wished Finkelstein's demographic study had been datable. The study can be taken over a window of time covering the end of the LBA into Iron I. but whether the destructions & population shift occured within one year or over a decade or more is not provided in the report.
Also, there are theorists who suggest many of those Levantine destructions were caused by Merneptah, not the Sea Peoples, nor Ramesses III.
if this were so the window-of-time could be enlarged even further.
Hence my point in telling you (or anyone else) that a specific time period is not given.
As a side issue, actually it is not as easy as some people think to separate the LBA from the Iron Age. In a number of sites these periods overlap, hence scholars refer to this period as transitional.
Because the end of the LBA is typically tied to particular types of pottery, and the presence of these pottery types are being dated lower and lower (it used to be 1200 BCE, then fell to 1150, now preference is being given to 1130, with some even targetting the end of the LBA nearer 1100 BCE).
Many argue that the end of the LBA in the Levant can be identified by the existance of Myc. IIIB pottery. However, not every Levantine site has Myc. IIIB, so other wares either Cypriot or Canaanite which are commonly seen as contemporary, but were known to overlap with Myc. IIIB must be evaluated.
So it is not an exact science.
Regards, Wickerman -
Message 13
Posted by WickerMan (U14275309) on Saturday, 14th August 2010
But the Egyptians attacked the Sea Peoples, not the Hittites. I've read Bryce's The Kingdom of the Hittites and I fail to see how you would have come to the conclusion that the Hittites colluded with the Sea Peoples; these peoples really hated each other!
Hi Poldertijger.
I know what you mean, but you must bear in mind that academics generally consider this period as the period of the fall of the Hittites because this is the interpretation of one introductory sentence from the text at Medinet Habu. That the Sea Peoples destroyed “Khatti, Kode, Carchemish, Arvad/Arzawa & Alishaya.
Also from an archaeological perspective the Hittite capital of Hattushas was burned somewhere around this period, though there is no way to provide a specific date for this.
So generally scholars interpret whatever they find with this paradigm in mind.
The second dilemma is that very few paragraphs of text are quoted from the Medinet-Habu temple. The general reader only reads the same old 'few' quotes. There are other reliefs & inscriptions which concern Ramesses III fighting the Hittites in Syria.
So, how do we accept the texts of Ramesses III at Medinet-Habu which spell out in clear detail his engagement with Hittites ? Is he lying?
How do we explain this, ...Ramesses shows a captured “chief of Khatti', also a captured “chief of Kode”, there are no captured chiefs of Carchemish, or Arvad, or Alishaya, but the Medinet-Habu temple is not complete, other clues may have been lost forever.
There is however among the great Asiatic conquest list also at Medinet-Habu, the names, “land of Carchemish”, and 'Land of Arvad”. Some of the names in this list have been damaged beyond repair so there 'may' have been a “land of Alishaya”, but we do not know.
So, how do we incorporate the fact that Ramesses III claims to have conquered Khatti, Kode, Carchemish and Arvad (is Alishaya missing?)
We are required to believe the accepted paradigm that it was Sea Peoples who conquered Khatti, Kode, Carchemish, etc?
Where did this idea originate from?
Taking a step back for a moment, there was another Hittite alliance almost a hundred years previously when Ramesses II faced an alliance at Kadesh.
Among those listed against Ramesses II that day were, Khatti, Kode, Carchemish & Arvad.
In this period, 1274 BCE, Alishaya was still independent, it was only brought into the Hittite fold by Tudhaliya IV, sometime after the battle at Kadesh.
As these 'nations' were known to have formed an alliance against Ramesses II, just possibly Ramesses III was telling the truth, that these same 'nations' once again formed an alliance but this time against Ramesses III.
Scholars need to review that introductory line from Medinet-Habu, maybe it was interpreted wrong to begin with.
(the original text is in columns and obviously with no punctuation)
The first line actually reads:
“The foreign lands made a conspiracy in their islands (coasts?), dislodged and scattered by war were all the lands together.”
Then we read:
“No land could stand before their arms, from Khatti, Kode, Carchemish, Arzawa (Arvad?), and Alishaya”.
(translation by R. Gareth Roberts, 2009)
Scholarly convention has always interpreted the portion, “no land could stand before their arms” as referring to the previously mentioned “foreign lands”.
In other words, the “foreign lands” are the Sea Peoples, and therefore the “foreign lands” destroyed Khatti, Kode, Carchemish, etc.
However, it is equally possible that this line actually refers to the subsequent group of names, Khatti, Kode, Carchemish, etc.
If this is the case then we were meant to interpret the line as reading:
No lands could stand before the arms of Khatti, Kode, Carchemish, etc., in other words, no lands were able to face the alliance of Khatti, Kode, Carchemish, Arvad & Alishaya.
It is my contention that, “Their arms” referred to the armed alliance of the Hittites, not the armed alliance of the “foreign lands”.
The introductory line was not a reference to Sea Peoples, the “foreign lands” meant both the Hittites and the Sea Peoples together. We can see this because the introductory sentence then continues with:
“...their confederation consisting of the Peleset, Tjeker, Shekelesh, Denyen, and Wesesh, lands united”.
There are three componants to consider.
First, the introductory statement concerning “a conspiracy of foreign lands”.
Second, the mention of the principal players among the “foreign lands” being the alliance of Hittite states (Khatti, Kode, Carchemish, Arvad/Arzawa, & Alishaya).
Third, the confederates allied with the Hittite cause are the Peleset, Tjekker, Shekelesh, Denyen & Weshesh (Sea Peoples). There is also a partial text preserved at Deir el-Medina which mentions the Tursha, in ships.
Not only are the Sherdan first observed in Syria in the Amarna period, but in “classical” Cilicia there were three principal Hittite satellite city-states, Tarsus (Tursha?), Adana (Denyen?) and Issus (Weshesh?).
Circumstantial evidence suggests that this whole Sea Peoples Aegean Invasion hypothesis was a 19th century invention by Maspero, deRouge & Chabas. And that most of the actual participants were east Mediterranean peoples all of whom were very familiar to the Egyptians.
Ramses tells us that, having brought the imprisoned Sea Peoples to Egypt, he "settled them in strongholds, bound in my name. Numerous were their classes like hundred-thousands......Some scholars suggest it is likely that these "strongholds" were fortified towns in southern Canaan,
There's a few games being played here, scholarly politics?
First of all, in order to justify the Philistines being found in Canaan the scholar has to throw attention away from the Peleset/Philistines (who were not imprisoned in Canaan) as a specific group by identifying them broadly as Sea Peoples.
Secondly, the scholar will propose that captive Sea Peoples were kept in Strongholds, but in Canaan. The connection is then complete!
What the general reader is not normally aware of is Ramesses III actually specified which captives were imprisoned in Strongholds, only the Sherden and the Weshesh.
He also states categorically that they were taken to Strongholds, in Egypt. Keeping enemy captives in annexed territories within reach of like-minded rebellious Asiatics would be an extremely risky endeavour.
The only fate assigned to the Peleset/Philistines (& Tjekker), was that they were burned out (made as ashes).
Jewish tradition identifies Caphtor the original home of the later Philistines as the region of Pelusium in Egypt.
Is someone inventing these traditions?
It can be argued that under the Egyptian occupation the Pereset developped the superior technology of the Iron Age and that with this technology they were able to throw the Egyptians out of the Pentapolis some eighty years after the Battle of the Nile.
I don't know on what grounds?
The arrival of the Philistines is so firmly tied to the first appearance of Monochrome pottery (Myc. IIIC:1b), some two(?) generations after the wars of Ramesses III, that any attempt to argue them as contemporaries fails miserably, unless you choose to argue that those wares were not Philistine?
Regards, Wickerman -
Message 14
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Monday, 16th August 2010
Hello Wickerman,
You write:
So it (viz. dating by shards) is not an exact science.
May be it isn't, but the period between the Mediterranean disaster and Iron II is considerable, viz. more than 80 years, and in my view it is enough to distinguish Ramses' punishing from the voluntary cooperation of Iron II.
In regard to the Peleset you write:
There's a few games being played here, scholarly politics?
Wikipedia is saying:
Israel Finkelstein has suggested that there may be a period of 25-50 years after the sacking of these cities and their reoccupation by the Philistines.
What kind of scholarly politics would Finkelstein been playing?
The arrival of the Philistines is so firmly tied to the first appearance of Monochrome pottery (Myc. IIIC:1b), some two(?) generations after the wars of Ramesses III, that any attempt to argue them as contemporaries fails miserably, unless you choose to argue that those wares were not Philistine?
Yes, the arrival of monochrome pottery is dated well after Ramses’ reign but still well before the end of the Egyptian occupation of Canaan. Finkelstein is suggesting that the Peleset arrived at the end of the Egyptian occupation of Canaan, not after the end of the Egyptian occupation as you seem to be suggesting.
You write:
So, how do we accept the texts of Ramesses III at Medinet-Habu which spell out in clear detail his engagement with Hittites ? Is he lying?
Consider this: suppose the Sea Peoples having the upper hand in their war against the Hettite Kingdom made the Hettite elite revolt against their monarch. This is not far-fetched, given that the actual destruction of Hattusha was limited to the royal domains; the end of Hattusha was probably brought about by a palace revolution.
After the removal of the Hittite king the Hittite cities were without leadership. It can easily be understood that under those circumstances many of the Hittite cities decided to try their luck with the Sea Peoples and allied with that mighty military power after the military defeat of the Hittite kingdom.
Now that would account for Ramses' mentioning that no city could withstand the power of the Sea Peoples and that Ramses seemed to be going after Hittite cities: he was, but only after the fall of Hattusha and the subsequent alliance of Hittite cities with the Sea Peoples. Such an alliance would give pause to Ramses and make him decide to attack that dangerous alliance.
You write:
Circumstantial evidence suggests that this whole Sea Peoples Aegean Invasion hypothesis was a 19th century invention by Maspero, deRouge & Chabas. And that most of the actual participants were east Mediterranean peoples all of whom were very familiar to the Egyptians.
You’re probably referring to the theory that the Sea Peoples were Greek. Actually, the Sea Peoples hypothesis was a sound theory at the time that has been refuted since. It happens.
And yes, today we know who the Sea Peoples were: Ionians, Lukkians, Cilicians, Peleset. What matters is that this confederation has seen to it that the mighty Hittite kingdom was brought to its knees. You mention an invasion but there are more ways than one to skin a cat.
The problem that the historians and archaeologists of the Sea Peoples are facing is that they lack knowledge of military strategy; that is why they can't imagine how the seemingly weak Sea Peoples could have beaten the seemingly strong Hettite kingdom.
Regards,
Poldertijger -
Message 15
Posted by henvell (U1781664) on Monday, 16th August 2010
The Sea Peoples,who fought Ramses III were probably
an ephemeral alliance of land and sea forces,who were united by their desire to pillage the riches of Egypt.Prior to the Battle of the Nile Hittite power had been eroded by plague,famine and earthquakes. -
Message 16
Posted by WickerMan (U14275309) on Wednesday, 18th August 2010
Hello Poldertijger.
My reference to 'scholarly politics' was aimed at your quote (settling the Sea Peoples in strongholds, in Canaan), not at Finkelstein.
That opinion is something that Donald Redford has said.
I tried to explain what I meant in the subsequent paragraph.
Redford, knows the Peleset were not stated to be among those imprisoned in strongholds, therefore he writes that the Sea Peoples (as a whole) were imprisoned, which is not true. Redford attempts to shift focus from the Peleset in order to establish an argument to justify the Peleset being found in Canaan.
Perhaps my point was too complicated.
In short it was an erroneous argument. Only the Sherden & Weshesh were put in strongholds, and only in Egypt.
Yes, the arrival of monochrome pottery is dated well after Ramses’ reign but still well before the end of the Egyptian occupation of Canaan.
I don't know where you get that idea from, I already wrote in message #5, when this Monochrome first appears..
Writers on this issue are principally Finkelstein, Kling & Killebrew and they agree that the Bichrome was preceded by the Monochrome, and that this Monochrome “first” appeared in the Levant contemporary with, or immediately following, the reign of Ramesses VI, circa 1130 BCE.
1130 BCE (roughly) is the end of Egyptian occupation of the Levant, sometime in or at the end of the reign of Ramesses VI.
Thats when the new pottery begins to appear.
Consider this: suppose the Sea Peoples having the upper hand in their war against the Hettite Kingdom made the Hettite elite revolt against their monarch.
In order to establish the Hittites fought any Sea Peoples we need some reference to this in their own writings, no such reference exists.
Decades ago it was believed that the Bichrome pottery in Canaan was proof of the arrival of Aegean invaders, they left their pottery in the cities.
This is now known to have been completely wrong.
However, scholars do accept that if a foreign peoples invade, destroy & occupy any Canaanite city, we should see evidence of this in the way of Aegean-style pottery made elsewhere.
No Aegean pottery has been found at the Hittite capital, so there's no evidence to connect any Sea Peoples with the destruction of Hattushas.
..the end of Hattusha was probably brought about by a palace revolution.
Yes, but present thinking is that a civil war erupted between the southern capital at Tarhuntassa ruled by a descendent of Karunta, and the northern capital at Hattushas ruled by Suppiluliuma II.
After the removal of the Hittite king the Hittite cities were without leadership.
The Hittite empire was divided into three separate kingdoms, under three different kings.
Hattushas in the north.
Tarhuntassa in the south.
Carchemish in the east.
IF the king of Hattushas had been removed there were still the other two to deal with.
And yes, today we know who the Sea Peoples were: Ionians, Lukkians, Cilicians, Peleset. What matters is that this confederation has seen to it that the mighty Hittite kingdom was brought to its knees.
Well, the Lycians (Lukka) are longtime supporters of the Hittites, also (check Bryce), Cilicia aka, Kizzuwadna, belonged to Hatti.
So you are only left with Ionians & Peleset, for your Sea Peoples clan.
I think Ionians is a later term, not existing in the 12th century. We come across this in the later 7th-6th century BCE.
And the Peleset does not appear to have been derived from Pelasgian (as many thought), because Pelasgian means "neighbour" (or, neighbouring-land).
The word "pelas" means "near", so "pelas-go/i" means "near-land" (or, nearby-land).
It's not an ethnic term, numerous ethnic groups lived in the lands near the ancestors of the Greeks (Hellenes).
Peleset is an ethnicon, Pelasgian is not, it can be equated with Barbaroi (Barbarians). The Pelasgians were an uncultured groups of many languages who lived close to the Greek ancestors.
It's about time authors dropped this argument to equate the Peleset from Pelasgian, they are two completely different words, and mean different things. -
Message 17
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Thursday, 19th August 2010
Hello Wickerman,
On the subject of the Peleset occupation of the Pentapolis, you write:
My reference to 'scholarly politics' was aimed at your quote (settling the Sea Peoples in strongholds, in Canaan), not at Finkelstein.
That may be, but wikipedia clearly states that Finkelstein subscribes to the theory of Redford, so once again I ask you: "What kind of scholarly politics is Finkelstein playing?"
On the subject of the end of the Egyptian occupation of Palestine, you write:
1130 BCE (roughly) is the end of Egyptian occupation of the Levant, sometime in or at the end of the reign of Ramesses VI.
The books I've read date the end of the Egyptian occupation of Palestine a generation later.
On the issue whether the Hittites fought the Sea Peoples you write:
In order to establish the Hittites fought any Sea Peoples we need some reference to this in their own writings, no such reference exists.
Well, we have the diplomatic messages from Ugarit and Hittite kings. They do not mention the exact name of the enemy they are fighting but they are certainly up against a powerful enemy, because the Hittite king has to deny help to his ally the Ugarit king.
In the thread of the Sea Peoples you suggested that this powerful enemy might be Egypt. This seems rather strange to me as it is clear from the diplomatic message of Ugarit that the power they are fighting is a Sea Power and I'm not aware that Egypt has been a Sea Power at any time.
Besides, I've found the smoking gun that ties the Sea Peoples to the end of Hattusha.
On the end of Hattusha, you write:
However, scholars do accept that if a foreign peoples invade, destroy & occupy any Canaanite city, we should see evidence of this in the way of Aegean-style pottery made elsewhere.
No Aegean pottery has been found at the Hittite capital, so there's no evidence to connect any Sea Peoples with the destruction of Hattushas.
Read my messages; I never contended that the Sea Peoples invaded Hattusha, I merely stated:
Consider this: suppose the Sea Peoples having the upper hand in their war against the Hettite Kingdom made the Hettite elite revolt against their monarch. This is not far-fetched, given that the actual destruction of Hattusha was limited to the royal domains; the end of Hattusha was probably brought about by a palace revolution.
What matters is that this confederation has seen to it that the mighty Hittite kingdom was brought to its knees. You mention an invasion but there are more ways than one to skin a cat.
The problem that the historians and archaeologists of the Sea Peoples are facing is that they lack knowledge of military strategy; that is why they can't imagine how the seemingly weak Sea Peoples could have beaten the seemingly strong Hettite kingdom.
On the enemy that brought down Hattusha you write:
but present thinking is that a civil war erupted between the southern capital at Tarhuntassa ruled by a descendent of Karunta, and the northern capital at Hattushas ruled by Suppiluliuma II.
If that were true, one would see far greater destruction of Hattusha than is the case and surely people would have been allowed to stay. Instead we see almost no destruction beyond the royal domains, but the people of Hattusha had to leave the city. This implicates that rather a different enemy than Tarhuntassa is responsible for bringing down Hattusha.
Besides Tarhuntassa was far more dependent on Hattusha than Hattusha was on Tarhuntassa, so Tarhuntassa would not be tempted to challenge Hattusha.
On the division of power within the Hittite kingdom you mention:
The Hittite empire was divided into three separate kingdoms, under three different kings.
Hattushas in the north.
Tarhuntassa in the south.
Carchemish in the east.
And you end by stating:
IF the king of Hattushas had been removed there were still the other two to deal with.
No, They were not. You are forgetting the international situation of the time; Carchamish was threatened by the Assyrians and Tarhuntassa was threatened by Egypt, so the Sea Peoples could be pretty sure that neither Carchemish nor Tarhuntassa would be continuing the war.
On the allies of the Hittite kingdom you write:
the Lycians (Lukka) are long time supporters of the Hittites...
But at the end of the Hittite kingdom they were its enemies.
also (check Bryce), Cilicia aka, Kizzuwadna, belonged to Hatti.
But at the end of the Hittite kingdom Kizzuwadna rose against its oppressor the Hittite kingdom, check the article The West-Anatolian origins of the Que kingdom Dynasty by Jasink and Marino.
So you are only left with Ionians & Peleset, for your Sea Peoples clan.
No, Ionians, Lukkans, Cilicians, Cypriots, Peleset, Tsjeker and after the fall of Hattusha, Tarhuntassa as well.
On the subject of the name of the South Western corner of Anatolia you write:
I think Ionians is a later term, not existing in the 12th century. We come across this in the later 7th-6th century BCE.
Wickerman, you are a hard man to please: I observed that you had difficulty accepting the name of Achaeans for the people of South-Western Anatolia, so for this thread I opted for the anachronism Ionians.
I agree with your observation that the word Peleset is not derived from the word Pelasgian.
Regards,
Poldertijger -
Message 18
Posted by WickerMan (U14275309) on Saturday, 21st August 2010
Hi Poldertijger.
.....but Wikipedia clearly states that Finkelstein subscribes to the theory of Redford...
I think you need to read those paragraphs again.
From your Wiki link..
Here we have an offering of a quote by Ramesses III
Ramses tells us that, having brought the imprisoned Sea Peoples to Egypt, he "settled them in strongholds, bound in my name. Numerous were their classes like hundred-thousands. I taxed them all, in clothing and grain from the storehouses and granaries each year."
Then the writer (of Wiki) provides Redfords opinion:
Some scholars suggest it is likely that these "strongholds" were fortified towns in southern Canaan, which would eventually become the five cities (the Pentapolis) of the Philistines (Redford 1992, p.289).
Then Finkelstein's findings are inserted:
Israel Finkelstein has suggested that there may be a period of 25-50 years after the sacking of these cities and their reoccupation by the Philistines.
Finkelstein's findings are contrary to the opinion of Redford, because, Ramesses could not have settled the Philistines in Canaan after the wars if there is a settlement hiatus of 20-50 years at these same Canaanite sites.
I think the writer realized this, which is why 'he/she' then provides this apologetic sentence:
It is quite possible that for the initial period of time, the Philistines were housed in Egypt, only subsequently late in the troubled end of the reign of Ramses III would they have been allowed to settle Philistia.
The above afterthought is an excuse offered by the writer in an attempt to resolve the disparity. Quite forgetting that nothing remotely like Monochrome or Bichrome pottery has even been found in Egypt to justify the fictional claim.
Then, with respect to the end of Egyptian occupation of Canaan, you offer:
The books I've read date the end of the Egyptian occupation of Palestine a generation later.
It can only ever be an estimate, but this estimate is based on the discovery of a statue base of Ramesses VI unearthed at Megiddo, hence, circa 1130 BCE, depending on whose chronology you use..
You refer to diplomatic correspondance between Ugarit and Hatti concerning an unspecified enemy.
Yes, the king of Ugarit does complain to the king of Alishaya in one example, about a raid from the sea numbering 7 ships. This same king of Ugarit, Ammurapi, also appeals to the viceroy of Carchemish again concerning ships, and his own defences.
What we do not know here is whether Hattushas has already fallen. Seeing as how Ammurpi appealed to Carchemish, we cannot be sure that Ugarit was ruled by Hattushas or Carchemish in this period. I don't see any specific mention of Suppiluliuma II in this period, it just seems to be a king of Alishaya, Ammurapi of Ugarit & Talmi-Teshup, king of Carchemish.
As for Egypt being a sea power, not necessary. Egypt used ships against the 'Sea Peoples' (in relief at Medinet-Habu) and assembled forces in Canaanite harbours. Ramesses III also lists 5 Cypriot cities that he conquered, (Seti I also attacked Cyprus).
They don't need to be a “sea power” they had ships, and they used them.
Regardless, the attack on Ugarit could easily have been nothing more than a pirate raid. We know how local kings exaggerated their 'dire' circumstances in the earlier Amarna letters. Anything that comes by boat is not necessarily 'proof' of Sea Peoples.
You also contest the present thinking that Hattushas may have fallen to civil war.
Scholars can only guess, some think the Kaskans (Gaska) from the north raided the city, either before the confrontation between Hattushas & Tarhuntassa, or soon after.
The city had been deserted, then some of it burned, and not resettled.
Trevor Bryce writes:
“Tarhuntassa was probably lost to the Hittites in Tudhaliya's reign, in the aftermath of Kurunta's presumed seizure of and removal from the Hittite throne. Whatever Kurunta's fate, Suppiluliuma's later conquest of the appendage kingdom over which he had ruled is a clear indication that it had broken its ties with Hattusa and become openly hostile to its former overlord”
(The Kingdom of the Hitties, Bryce, 2005, p.331)
We must remember the king of Tarhuntassa, Ulmi-Teshup, never recognised Suppiluliuma II as the rightful king in the first place. So there was always tension between the two realms.
The Sudberg inscription does refer to Suppiluliuma's campaigns against cities in Tarhuntassa, supporting the civil war hypothesis, and Suppiluliuma's reign was seemingly shortlived. This southern campaign also seems to be the time of rebellion(?) in Kizzuwadna, or part thereof.
Because it is impossible to date precisely when Suppiluliuma II ruled, and in consequence the date of his southern campaign, we cannot say whether or not the revolt in the south (Tarhuntassa & Kizzuwadna) was not as a result of the lost campaign against Ramesses III.
Some have conjectured that the brief rule of Arnuwandas III 'may' have been contemporary with the wars of Ramesses III, that he was deposed(?) by his brother Suppiluliuma II as a direct result of Hatti losing a war against Egypt.
[Note: Itamar Singer suggests KUB 26. 33 (CTH 125) have been misinterpreted. The fragmented text mentions an unspecified enemy of Arnuwandas III, who he could not withstand in battle. The translator 'assumed' the mention of Egypt (line 7) was not as the enemy because Egypt had been under a treaty since Kadesh, therefore the enemy 'must' be Assyria. Singer argues the passage needs to be understood quite differently. The role of Egypt is quite uncertain due to the state of the text, and Assyria is not mentioned at all, so Singer argues, “...in any event I fail to see in the passage any allusion to a lost battle aggainst the Assyrians”.]
You then mention Lukka were the enemies of Hatti towards the end. Actually Suppiluliuma lists Lukka among his conquests (Wiyanawanda, Tamina, Masa, Lukka, and Ikuna), so towards the 'end' Lukka were part of the Hittite kingdom, as was Alishaya.
Regards, Wickerman -
Message 19
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Tuesday, 24th August 2010
Re16: Wickerman, while not claiming any specialist of the period I know a thing or two to spot 2-3 thingies and comment:
In order to establish the Hittites fought any Sea Peoples we need some reference to this in their own writings, no such reference exists.
Decades ago it was believed that the Bichrome pottery in Canaan was proof of the arrival of Aegean invaders, they left their pottery in the cities.
Correct. "Sea People" involvement in Hittite kingdom and/or linked to their downfall has not yet been proved by any finding. If anything the appearence of that alliance of Sea People does not only coincides with the fall of the Hittite Kingdom but also with the fall of the Mycenian kingdoms (most of them being the major Sea People of the Mediterranean by the way) pinpointing a general upheaval in the Eastern Mediterranean not necessarily linked to specific "Sea People" but rather everyone fights everyeone for... survival (kind of saying)" since all that also coincides with a notable climatic change (turning from sub-tropical to a colder Mediterranean with all what that could imply) that can be attested by climatologists and geologists even today. From there on the appearence of new styles of pottery while extremely significant is no absolut proof of the presence of newcomers but first of all of new commercial traderoutes and of changing styles & fashions. Greeks are an excellent example of people having repeatedly changed pottery fashions from linear to elaborate pictures (Cycladic to Minoan-Mycenaean) and from pictures to linear (from Mycenaean to Geometric) and from linear to pictures (from Geometric to Archaic) often having the odd caselike instead of having drawings having figures collated upon the vase - all that without having the appearence of any new people but rather having simply changing economics by losing or gaining traderoutes and of course changing tastes through the lapse of time.
And the Peleset does not appear to have been derived from Pelasgian (as many thought), because Pelasgian means "neighbour" (or, neighbouring-land).
I have not heard of that that much to be honest but yes the words "Peleset" and "Pelasgos" cannot be linked without any valid basis.
The word "pelas" means "near", so "pelas-go/i" means "near-land" (or, nearby-land).
There are various explanations on the meaning of Pelasgos and the one you present is perhaps the most convincing. One must also check the resemblance to the word pelagos which from historic times down to today refers to sea but actually initially seemed to refer to plains on land rather than the sea level.
It's not an ethnic term
Not only it is not an ethnic term, it is not even any tribal term. Various writers found Pelasgians pretty much all over the place. It is simply a "bunch-em all under it" term to ease discussion. There were other such terms, I can remember of the Leleges, another people we find in various places.
numerous ethnic groups lived in the lands near the ancestors of the Greeks (Hellenes).
Plain wrong & technically wrong at the same time unless you describe too all the Greek tribes as "numerous ethnic groups". From neolithic times down to later times there has been absolutely no finding that ever suggested any different ethnic groups residing in the European side apart extermely rare cases of tablets in undeciphered language (like in Lemnos) which down to the basics could had been down to the occasional passing by tribe. Linear B was said to be so, then it too was deciphered as Greek and so on. From there on, most writers just stick with tribal names and make a hole in the water.
Peleset is an ethnicon, Pelasgian is not, it can be equated with Barbaroi (Barbarians). The Pelasgians were an uncultured groups of many languages who lived close to the Greek ancestors.
... only that what you mentioned simply does not make sense since Pelasgians did not just live "close" to the Greek ancestors but inbetween and around them. One has really to see the map to see how the places Pelasgians were supposed to live in comparison to where Greeks lived were like mixing salt and pepper in one bottle and salt&peppering your plate expecting the salt ot fall on the right and the pepper on the left...i.e. impossible.
I find it absolutely amazing that people have such a problem when dealing with tribal names and how these are transposed in comparison to much later ethnic terms. For your information, all three major terms that describe what you call "Greeks", i.e. Graikoi (used in west) Ellines (used by Greeks), Iones (used in the east) have been derived by more localised tribal names. Graikoi were Epirot/Aetolian Greeks installed in early archaic Italy prior to their cousins Dorians founding the well known cities of South Italy and Sicily which of course means that the likes of Athenians or Naxians or Ephesians were not Greeks. In their turn Persians were wrong to call Macedonians and Spartans Ionians.
You understand that if we start enterring that logic we will be dancing all night long.
But that is what happend often unfortunately. For example modern writers speak of a Dorian tribe while ancient writers clearly described Dorians as being not a tribe of their own but only being that part of the Macedonians that moved south of Olympus, conquered Doris and took from there on the name, Macedonians who were of course also part of the Aetolian-Epirot-Macedonian group of Greeks as opposed to the Arcado-Achaio-Ionian group and in between the two you had the Aeolians... all that being both obvious in the places these tribes occupied as well as noted in their dialects.
Where do Pelasgians fit in all that?
Pelasgians, like Leleges like Danaans, like Achaians and Arcadians like so many other tribal names we hear were nothing else than various tribes that lived in the region. Tribes that would later evolve into the classically known tribes. While the term "Arcadian" remained in use for the particular tribe, the term "Achaian" (like occasionally "Danaan") was spread to include all Greek tribes of the region but then it went back to its initial localised use for the region of north Peloponesus where some pre-Dorian habitants had concentrated while the terms like Leleges and Pelasgian were maintained as bunch-em-all terms to refer to forgotten tribes that lost in the poker game on the few lands of the area. In a few words, Pelasgians were the habitants of the nice places (i.e. the more arable lower plains) who lost and got enslaved or at best retracted into enclaves. In a sense, an Ionian, an Arcadian, an Achaian or even an Epirot could had been a Pelasgian had he lost his place and been pushed out by a new population. The distinction between the "newer populations" and the "older pelasgiasn" is therefore idiotic and this had been already pinpointed by many ancient writers who openly explained that Pelasgians were not in any sense any other people other than Greek tribes that had been expulsed by other Greek tribes. Quite referring to the times of the Aetolo-Epirot-Macedonian=Dorian invasions where those mountainous tribes took over the nice places from the earlier populations today described as Mycenians (found to be Greek). -
Message 20
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Wednesday, 25th August 2010
Now as long as the Philistines (if they are to be connected to Peleset) were concerned, it is quite clear for historians specialised in that era that they were newcomers from the west. Jewish remarks in bible are quite open on their link to Crete. Since back then Crete was the Aegean place most known to Asians as well as the last major stop of ships prior to sailing to Middle East (and in here not to forget that already 400 years back, Minoan Cretans were already conquered by the then already risen Myceneans) one could generalise the reference to include any Aegean tribe. It is not accident that in later bible books the term Philistine and Cretan is interchanged with the term Yunan, i.e. the Ionians (i.e. Greeks) appear in the same places where Philistines/Cretans were appearing earlier and that should tell us a lot.
Not that we would jump to call Philistines Greeks or something but they certainly had a relationship. An Aegean-MinorAsian mix arriving on Palestine and integrating there prior to the organisation of the Phoenician or their neighbouring southern Jewish kingdoms is very probable.
One has not to search a lot. There are 2 things that Phoenicians did to differentiate themselves from other Middle Easterners:
1) Took it to serious seafaring instead of being land based
2) Adopted a Linear style alphabet instead of cuneiform
Only that:
2) Aegean tribes had linear alphabets several 100 of years earlier
1) Aegean tribes had taken to serious seafaring several millenia earlier
Whatever the details that are still hidden, it is extremely difficult to argue that Aegean tribes had little to do with the case. -
Message 21
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Wednesday, 25th August 2010
Hello Wickerman,
You take issue with my contention that Finkelstein agrees with Redford. You write:
Finkelstein's findings are contrary to the opinion of Redford, because, Ramesses could not have settled the Philistines in Canaan after the wars if there is a settlement hiatus of 20-50 years at these same Canaanite sites.
Actually, you have mentioned that Asjekelon was not destroyed by the Peleset but by a Pharao that lived before Ramses III. Pharao Mernephta mentions trouble in Asjkelon. If Mernephta destroyed Asjkelon, then there would be 25 years passed at the moment that Ramses III fought the Peleset. It is conceivable that after the fighting Ramses III granted the Peleset the right to live in the Pentapolis, so the Peleset living in the Perntapolis during the Egyptian occupation is not in contradiction with Finkelstein's findings.
On the cause of Hattusha's demise you write:
You refer to diplomatic correspondance between Ugarit and Hatti concerning an unspecified enemy.
Yes, the king of Ugarit does complain to the king of Alishaya in one example, about a raid from the sea numbering 7 ships. This same king of Ugarit, Ammurapi, also appeals to the viceroy of Carchemish again concerning ships, and his own defences.
What we do not know here is whether Hattushas has already fallen.
Nor do we know that it hadn't. However, given the fact that Greece had already been blown out of civilization a few years before, the fact that international trade had com to a standstill, the fact that Ramses mentions that the Sea Peoples overpowered Hatti, and the fact that Ugarit is fighting a navy more or less gives it away. Hattusha might have been fallen already, but it is more than likely that the same power that is on the brink of overpowering Ugarit and that has certainly been responsible for the demise of the Greek cities is responsible, too, for the end of Hattusha, whether that came before or after the end of Ugarit.
On the issue whether Egypt was a seapower you write:
As for Egypt being a sea power, not necessary. Egypt used ships against the 'Sea Peoples' (in relief at Medinet-Habu) and assembled forces in Canaanite harbours. Ramesses III also lists 5 Cypriot cities that he conquered, (Seti I also attacked Cyprus).
They don't need to be a 'sea power' they had ships, and they used them.
The battle of the Nile was fought on the Nile, not in some chimaraean Canaan seaport. The Egyptians could win the battle of the Nile because they had the river boats that were better adapted at fighting battles on a river and they had knowledge of the local situation that the Sea Peoples didn't have.
If the Egyptians had given battle to the Sea Peoples on open sea they would have surely lost the battle.
And yes, the Egyptians used ships to cross the seas; they used other peoples navies to carry their troops, but given that the Egyptians were at war with the Sea peoples at the time, this doesn't seem to have been a feasible solution in the period around 1175
On the events leading up to the end of Hattusha you write:
Because it is impossible to date precisely when Suppiluliuma II ruled, and in consequence the date of his southern campaign, we cannot say whether or not the revolt in the south (Tarhuntassa & Kizzuwadna) was not as a result of the lost campaign against Ramesses III.
Some have conjectured that the brief rule of Arnuwandas III 'may' have been contemporary with the wars of Ramesses III, that he was deposed(?) by his brother Suppiluliuma II as a direct result of Hatti losing a war against Egypt.
[Note: Itamar Singer suggests KUB 26. 33 (CTH 125) have been misinterpreted. The fragmented text mentions an unspecified enemy of Arnuwandas III, who he could not withstand in battle. The translator 'assumed' the mention of Egypt (line 7) was not as the enemy because Egypt had been under a treaty since Kadesh, therefore the enemy 'must' be Assyria. Singer argues the passage needs to be understood quite differently. The role of Egypt is quite uncertain due to the state of the text, and Assyria is not mentioned at all, so Singer argues, "...in any event I fail to see in the passage any allusion to a lost battle aggainst the Assyrians".]
But that enemy might well have been the Sea Peoples. For instance: Troy was captured and set afire by the Sea Peoples around 1190! And Ilium, as Troy was called at the time was subservient to the Hettite kingdom.
I can not understand why the historians are so bent on attrbuting the fall of the Hittite empire to Egypt. We know that Ramses III devastated the Southern part of the Hittite kingdom, but the only question that matters is what caused the fall of Hattusha. As we can be pretty certain that Hatusha fell around 1190 and Egypt didn’t attack the southern part of the Hittite kingdom before 1175 it can’t have been the Egyptians that causesd the fall of Hattusha.
On the fate of Tarhuntassa you write:
Trevor Bryce writes:
"Tarhuntassa was probably lost to the Hittites in Tudhaliya's reign, in the aftermath of Kurunta's presumed seizure of and removal from the Hittite throne. Whatever Kurunta's fate, Suppiluliuma's later conquest of the appendage kingdom over which he had ruled is a clear indication that it had broken its ties with Hattusa and become openly hostile to its former overlord."
(The Kingdom of the Hitties, Bryce, 2005, p.331)
But than how do you explain your proposal in message 16:
...but present thinking is that a civil war erupted between the southern capital at Tarhuntassa ruled by a descendent of Karunta, and the northern capital at Hattushas ruled by Suppiluliuma II.
which was your answer to my statement:
..the end of Hattusha was probably brought about by a palace revolution.
Now, if Suppiluliuma had seized Tarhuntassa, how could this beaten appendage kingdom have managed to stage a palace revolution? So Tarhuntassa drops out, too, as a cause for the fall of Hattusha.
On the question of adherence of Lukka you write:
Actually Suppiluliuma lists Lukka among his conquests (Wiyanawanda, Tamina, Masa, Lukka, and Ikuna), so towards the 'end' Lukka were part of the Hittite kingdom.
We have the testimony of the king of Ugarit that his ships are patrolling the coasts of Lukka. If Lukka were an ally of the Hittites, why would the fleet of Ugarit be patroling the waters of Lukka?
Lukka was typically one of those states that constantly had to be reconquered. So it is no stretch of the imagination to assume that after its conquest by Suppiluliuma the Lukkans regained their independance.
On the issue of the end of the Egyptian occupation of Canaan you write:
It can only ever be an estimate, but this estimate is based on the discovery of a statue base of Ramesses VI unearthed at Megiddo, hence, circa 1130 BCE, depending on whose chronology you use..
I seem to have used the chronology of biblical archaeologists, who date the events that we are discussing 30 years closer to year zero, so you are right: the Egyptian occupation of Canaan has ended in 1130.
Regards,
Poldertijger -
Message 22
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Wednesday, 25th August 2010
Re: Messages 19 and 20.
Hello Nik,
You doubt my assertion that it were the Sea Peoples that brought down Greece and Hattusha. Actually we have enough proof. The fact how Greece was put out of existence shows that it was done by a merciless powerful enemy that was bent on taking over control of the Eastern Seaboard of the Mediterranean. Greek cities were dependent on their exports to the Hittite kingdom, the Levant and Egypt. As long as they could keep these exports going there would be no need for a fight to the death of everybody against everybody. It can be shown that the Greek exports to the Hittite kingdom and Egypt continued until almost all of the Greek cities had been destroyed. The enemy must therefore have come from outside.
It was not the Mediterranean disaster that caused the fall of the Greek cities, it was the fall of the Greek cities that caused the Mediterranean disaster. Besides, I have found the smoking gun that ties the demise of Hattusha to the Sea Peoples.
Nik, you have not been thinking like an economist!
I would be very wary of reading a Greek descendancy into the word Achaia. The word A is a commonly used word among Indo-Europeans, meaning water, and the word Achaia has been shown by Jasink and Marino to stand for the multicultural state in the South-West of Anatolia. The word IJ is used for the water in front of Amsterdam. It is derived from the word A end originally meant water. Now you wouldn’t assume that the people from Amsterdam were originally Greek, would you?
And the Philistines definitively came from Cyprus or the Northern Levant. The picture of Medinet Habu is clear evidence.
Regards,
Poldertijger -
Message 23
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Thursday, 26th August 2010
HI Poldertijger,
It is not so much that I doubt directly your assertion that it was the "Sea People" that brought down "Greece" (by "Greece" I guess you mean the kingdoms of the Greek peninsula - cos back then those called Greeks were just a hellenic tribe in Epirus, western Greece). I will also use the term "Greek" below for convenience though I also use for those periods the term "Aegean tribes" so as to avoid technical side issues.
What I mostly ask is "who" were these Sea People? And I take it linearly: up to 1200 B.C. the only worth-mentioning shipping power in the Meditteranean had been the Minoan and Mycenaean kingdoms with Egyptians not really interested in the sport of seafaring (preferring to subcontract navies outside their river) and Phoenicians being just in their start. The fact that Phoenicians jumped up right after the events could indicate us that they could be behind the events as they certainly largely profited, but then they could just take up the empty space left after the destruction of the Mycenian centers. Apart from the Greek and Phoenician tribes one can mention other lesser regional powers like the Lycians (Lukka) but these being a lesser and very localised tribe in south Minor Asia, a place not noted for its natural harbours apart the region of Attalia, could only do so much - they had some navy, they had done a bit of pirating too but then how many ships and how many people could they have to really threaten half the Mediterranean? Carians, a southwestern Minor Asian tribe (as we found them in archaic times) living very close to Greeks (and who had religion & culture quite similar to the tribes later known as Greeks and possibly a cousin language too given their extremely rapid hellenisation a bit later in the archaic-classical times) that had occupied for some time some islands in eastern Aegean and who had more of a navy yet they are not mentioned often as Sea People - though one could guess that the likes of Lukka could had employed their ships.
I do agree what you mention about the Greek-Hittite exports and the role of the economy but then that is only part of the picture. You have also to add in the picture the Greek-Egyptian exports too as well the Greek-Egyptian imports and the Greek-Scythian (if I can call Ukraine like that) imports.
Greek exports like wine, olive and ceramics, were vital for the survival of the Greek states' economy but Greek imports like wheat and barley where vital for the Greeks' physical survival and as such much more important. -
Message 24
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Thursday, 26th August 2010
From there on:
As long as they could keep these exports going there would be no need for a fight to the death of everybody against everybody.
Hmmm... as I added above, I consider the Greek imports more important than their exports. Greece even today is the least arrable landscape in Europe and I am talking about the non-mountainous regions of this extremely mountainous country! Back then the situation was more critical, not only there did not exist the plains like those in Macedonia and Thrace which wsere created in later historic times by the Axios, Aliakmon and Loudias rivers in the center and Strymon river in the east but also apart the bright exception of Thessalian plain, all other plains in central-southern Greece were plagued by the presence of malaria-causing swamps which the inhabitants worked hard to drain and sanitize. Greek land indeed produced quality plants but these were vineyards and olive trees which of course cannot feed a lot. Hence, the kingdoms of the time (like the quasitotality of the following history) were highly dependent in wheat imports from north Black Sea (modern Ukraine) and Egypt. The importance of Troy to Greeks indicated their dependence on the Greece-Black Sea commerce.
Hence, I would say the desperation point for Mycenaean kingdoms would be the cut of imports and the reduction of food, not the cut of exports and the reduction of gold deposits or something!!!
It can be shown that the Greek exports to the Hittite kingdom and Egypt continued until almost all of the Greek cities had been destroyed.
...which actually shows that the bulk of Mycenaean kingdoms were destroyed not by sea but by land! Had the destructor come from the sea the first thing to go would had been the commercial traderoutes. This point hugely supports the land origin of the destructor. Beyond the myths which refer only to land-based destructors (the descent of northern tribes), there are other massive points that support all that which I will develop below:
The enemy must therefore have come from outside.
There is nothing to indicate us so. Not in the findings, nor in the myths. Greeks themselves in their numerous myths make absolutely no other mention to any other major shipping nation apart the Carians whom they treat rather as a lesser tribe-nation along with the Leleges that had a passage from some Aegean islands from their neighbouring southwestern Minor Asian base (not to mention the relations of Carians as a tribe to Greek tribes as back then there was no exact notion of "Greek" nation). Let alone anyone that came from the sea to conquer them, nothing to suggest us so. The myths make also no mention of any major shipping force, Aegean or foreign, that conquered their kingdoms.
The myths say the exact opposte: that the Mycenaean kingdoms had large navies (something easily noticed in findings all over the Eastern and sometimes western Mediterranean) and organised naval campaigns in Minor Asia, Black Sea, Cyprus and Egypt as well as at least one huge campaign in Minor Asia on the mouth of Hellespont and from there on, following the chaotic situation that followed after the conquest of Troy, their kingdoms fell to the invading northern tribes that came from Epirus-Macedonia after crossing Olympus south and gettig the well known name of Dorians.
There is not a single writer that makes reference to any foreign sea attack and all concentrate in land assaults by mountainous northern tribes. There is also no finding in any Mycenaean site that indicates any attack from the sea apart sporadic evidence near Pylos if I remember well where signs of measures of port surveilance had been taken, but then that was not anything exceptional as piratery was a common practice among all Aegean tribes that had a boat or two.
It was not the Mediterranean disaster that caused the fall of the Greek cities, it was the fall of the Greek cities that caused the Mediterranean disaster. Besides, I have found the smoking gun that ties the demise of Hattusha to the Sea Peoples. Nik, you have not been thinking like an economist!
Hmmm, no I try also to include economic matters in my way of thinking. And I am wondering where could that force of the Sea People come to cause so much disruption to the commerce of large naval kingdoms like the Mycenaeans that dominated for so long the inter-Mediterranean commerce. I could directly think of the Phoenicians but then their presence even in Cyprus is minority regarding the Greek Arcadian majority while their presence in Greek islands and mainland is merely in the form of trade stations, i.e. they traded with Greeks, they did not make wars. In myths we have only the reference to Kadmus who came from Phoenice but he is not explicitly mentioned as Phoenician or something - afterall we talk about an era where already the whole of Palestine and Lebanon had been colonised by Aegean tribes (an offshoot which most possible are also the Philistines, probably the Peleset).
Not to mention that any Greek-Phoenician direct war would had been mentioned, Phoenicians were not any uknown people to Greeks afterall.
Let me question this. One wonders who where these Sea people that managed to cause so much diruption to the sea commerce of people like the Aegean tribes who had the largest commercial fleets but also the largest pirate fleets in the Mediterranean. Down to the basics, only Aegean tribes themselves could do this effectively. The rising Phoenicians, though largely profitted from the situation, cannot be easily candidates in that since they never seemed to be able to replace Greeks even as close as in Cyprus just opposite to them: in fact even their main colony in Cyprus, Kityon, was destroyed and repopulated by Greeks. Which while not any absolute proof is 100% in line with what I am saying and certainly not an aid-tool in proving the opposite of what I saying.
I would be very wary of reading a Greek descendancy into the word Achaia. The word A is a commonly used word among Indo-Europeans, meaning water, and the word Achaia has been shown by Jasink and Marino to stand for the multicultural state in the South-West of Anatolia.
I would not jump and call such a state "multicultural" and would remain to the term multi-tribal. Western Minor Asian tribes just like south Thraecians were far too close not only culturally and religiously but also linguistically to Greeks to be called different cultures to speak of any larger state as "multicultural state" in the modern sense. From there on, do you refer to the Arzawa condeferate kingdom to link either of them to the Achaians? Reality is that even the Assuwa norhtern counterpart of the Arzawa confederation which sounds a bit more close to Achaians cannot be easily linked to Achaians.
However there is an interesting twist into that in the text where a Hittite king mention a treaty with a a fellow king of Wilusa (Ilion, Troy) called Alaksandu and whose protector god was Apaliunas, 2 names that sound way too Greek and way too close to the named of Alexader (note that Troyan prince Paris original name was Alexander) and Apollo (funnily a main protector of the city of Troy!!!). Which if anything may indicate to us either that some western Anatolian tribes were way too close to Greek tribes or a much earlier than we think installation of Greek tribes from western Aegean there.
And the Philistines definitively came from Cyprus or the Northern Levant. The picture of Medinet Habu i66.photobucket.com/... is clear evidence.
I cannot see anything particularly explicit in the picture as it is not detailed. The face of the man could be just any Mediterranean man while the dressing is a random one. One has to show to you pictures of Mycenaean soldiers of the time who do not look any substantially different than contemporary Minor Asian and Middle Eastern ones, something funnily pinpointed by Herodotus who explicitly said that the ancestors of Greeks had "barbaric" stylish fashions, obviously making reference to the fact that what we know as Greek fashion of the archaic-classical times was actually majorly the Dorian input - by the way both the later terms "Greek" and "Hellen" have an obvious link to nothern tribes like those who became later the Dorians and not to the southern ones like Achaians or the later Ionians.
That Philistines may have come from Cyprus I have no major objection only that Cyprus was already massively colonised by Greeks rather than Phoenicians or other Levantines who had comparatively fewer installations in the north-eastern side and who adopted there the Greek linear alphabets around that time by the 14th-13th century. To my understanding Philistines were a tribe that came from north-west and installed itself in Palestine retaining visible links to the Aegean world back then (so that it was identified as Cretan-Greek in Bible) as well as today (as identified by their Mycenaean pottery and styles). -
Message 25
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Thursday, 26th August 2010
Hello Nik,
You ask me to tell who the Sea Peoples were. Well, Ramses is very clear about this; in the Medinet Habu inscriptions he mentions: "Their confederation was Peleset, Tsjeker, Shekelesh, Denyen and Weshesh". I'm not sure about the Shekelesh, but Peleset are Philistines, Tsjeker are a Canaanite tribe in today's Northern-Israel, Denyen are Cilicians and Weshesh are Achaeans, a multicultural state that later became Ionia.
Wickerman thought these people must have been tribes in the Levant because the M.H. inscriptions call these people rebels. In the case of the Tsjeker he was right, but he had forgotten that most of these nations had supplied earlier Pharaohs with soldiers that had sworn fealty to the Pharaoh. So, although the countries that these people came from had not been part of the Egyptian kingdom, Ramses III had a point in regarding these peoples as rebels.
Your mentioning of Lukka as a Minor Power is I think a diversion: the country that called the shots within the Sea Peoples alliance was Achaia with its harbour Miletus.
The Hittite king was the overlord of Anatolia. However, the interests of the Hittites and the Southern Anatolian regions being incompatible, these regions managed to gain independence. Although threatened by the Hittite kingdom and sometimes occupied by its forces, the Hittites were not able to hold these regions and had to accept their independence. These barren regions being out of the control of the Hittite kingdom they fit the picture of how Toynbee has described an outside proletariat. Because of these regions suffering from overpopulation their inhabitants took to seafaring, piracy and a livelihood as soldiers of fortune. In the course of their adventures they must have come to begrudge the seemingly lucky Greek, Hittites and Egyptians.
You mention that these Sea Peoples were merely pirates, but given that the only mentioning of them is from their enemies, their description of the Sea Peoples might give a skewed picture.
When I look at the Mediterranean disaster, I see not mere piracy but Star Wars. Consider that Greece and Hattusha were blown into oblivion and that Egypt hardly escaped the same fate and you will come to the conclusion that some pretty smart generals must have been at work.
Given the naval defences that the Greek cities built to withstand an attack from sea, the enemy must have come from sea. This is an important clue, because the Greek cities themselves fought as Bronze Age powers used to fight: on land with chariots. So the attackers of the Greek cities can't have been Greek soldiers. They can't have been farmers or labourers either, because at the time the Greek states of the Bronze Age must still be considered to be able to withstand any revolt from the lower classes, which certainly would not come from overseas. Given that Greece was at peace with Ugarit, the only sea power left are the Sea Peoples.
Around 1190 Troy was destroyed in the same way that the Greek cities were. Greece was already booted out of civilization. Egypt was still at peace with the Hittite Kingdom. Is it really so far-fetched to assume that the destroyers of Troy, which was an ally of the Hittite kingdom at the time, were the arch enemies of the Hittite kingdom, the Sea Peoples.
Not very soon after the fall of Troy, Hattusha fell. We know this because there hasn't been found pottery in Hattusha that was younger than IIIb; soon after 1190 IIIc pottery came into use in the Eastern Seaboard of the Mediterranean, so the fall of Hattusha can not be much later than 1190. Remember that the Hittites had had no difficulty in defeating the Assyrians and Egyptians. It must have been a pretty smart and powerful people that made Hattusha disappear from history. The point is: I know how the Sea Peoples might have pulled this off.
You mention that Greek imports were necessary for the Greeks' physical survival. Of course they were, but as long as the Greek were able to export wine, olives and ceramics its survival would be secured. It would take a hostile navy to endanger the imports and exports of Greece. At the time Greece was at peace with the Hittite kingdom, so the only naval power that could have been hostile to Greece were the Sea Peoples
Regards,
Poldertijger -
Message 26
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Thursday, 26th August 2010
Re: message 24.
Hello Nik,
I answered your questions about economics in message 25.
On the question of where the enemy came from you write
There is nothing to indicate us so. Not in the findings…
Not true, read Robert Drews’ The End of the Bronze Age
and
There is nothing to indicate us … in the myths.
I recommend that you read the Iliad. It is a story about the fall of Troy in which the enemy transports its troops to the city of Troy in ships and then besieges and finally destroys the city.
I can’t imagine why you don’t know about this book from the man, who is arguably the best poet that Greece ever had. Frankly, I blame the Greek educational system.
Of course you must be willing to understand that tvr changed the attacking Sea Peoples into Greek, but we know that by the time of the fall of Troy Greece was no longer a military force. Whoever took Troy, it weren’t the Greek.
On the subject of the origin of the Peleset, my countryman Ed Noort has given definitive proof in his book Die Seevölker in Palestina, Kok Pharos, 1994. you have to know German of course.
Regards,
Poldertijger -
Message 27
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Thursday, 26th August 2010
Peleset, Tjeker, Shekelesh, Denyen, Weshesh, Ekwesh, Teresh, Lukka, Sherden
... names of the Sea People. Out of these names the Ekwesh sound like Achaians, the Denyen like Danaans, the Peleset like Philistines (related too to Aegean tribes) and while Teresh, Tjeker, Weshesh, Shekelesh & Sherden are more discussable, the Lukka can be more easily related to Lycians, perhaps the most convincing of all. If anything, most points out an Aegean & south Minor Asian origin of these people which is nothing more than the most natural. My friend George, would ask "What else"?
Whatever the reality behind the names, these "Sea People" were not any solid conferation of people but rather a bunch up term made of Egyptians to describe pretty much anyone that came to teir lands by sea. There is not either any leader mentioned guiding them or any particular plot that united them to attack Egypt, but it is more like random people ocupying the Egyptians not all at once in the same war, same year but in the span of some years. Some of them were enemies, others interchanged positions between being mercenaries and enemies. Egyptians were known to take Mycenaean and Minor Asian mercenaries in their armies and used of course extensively Minoan-Mycenaean navies for commerce since centuries before the "Sea People" events as well as war and that is why do not find all over the Mediterranean more Minoan/Mycenaean artifacts than Egyptian ones.
If you want, for me, there is no puzzle: some of the Sea People were of the Aegean islands and Greek mainland , others were of the Eastern Aegean south Minor Asia, Cyprus and Palestine. Did I include all the Eastern Mediterranean from 9 o clock to 4 o clock clockwise? Well yes. If anything Egyptians ruling a powerful rich kingdom naturally attracted all these people in their lands and had extensively employed a lot of them in their wars (eg. conquest of Libya, wars against the Middle East etc.), before as well as after the Sea People events.
However, for me there is no case that any Sea People were directly responsible for the destruction of the Mycenaean kingdoms, whatever the origins of all the aforementioned Sea People. There is nothing particularly usefull out of all findings in excavations and there is absolutely nothing in myths to establish something like that. On the opposite, yourself mentioned the fact that Mycenaean kingdoms held visibly some sea traderoutes till the very end, their fall while myths constantly talk about land invasions from the north (what later was known as Epirus and Macedonia).
There is also something else that I thought while writing the above (and which has puzzled me one more time in the past):
The Greek colonisation of Minor Asia and South Italy had been absolutely massive. From its supposed start, around 900 B.C., its ramp-up from 800 B.C. down to 700 B.C. it already had created cities by far larger than the original ones in Greek mainland and islands all that without having any evidence of massive incorporation of local foreign Minor Asian and Italic elements - on the contrary, colonies made explicit efforts to prove their tribal continuity (without that implying that some numbers of locals could not had integrated their lines even since early on).
There are various interesting issues around the above remark:
- Early Ionian colonists were supposed to be fugitives after the destruction of their centers in the Greek mainland. However, if that destruction came by the sea, they would had taken it to the mountains (like Greek populations did in the totality of their history till today!) not to the sea were they would be intercepted and decimated/sold as slaves. This fact adds as another one on the top of the list indicating the land-based destruction of the Mycenaean centers.
- Early Ionian colonists were supposed to be fugitives. Yet they seemed to retain enough power to be able to enforce their installation in Minor Asia.
- Aeolians, in Thessalia, while struck by Dorians (before these were named so) were not conquered by them and they even expanded south to Boetia inbetween the Dorian conquests. Then they are found too in northwestern Minor Asia. Could they be treated as fugitives too like the Ionians?
- Dorians too after having conquered Peloponesus they expanded from there to south Aegean, conquering several islands including Crete and Rhodes and from there jumping to south Minor Asia (where Ionians were said to be first) founding them also large cities like Ionians and Aeolians.
-... i.e. the above story line basically tells us that the native Minor Asian tribes like Phrygians, Carians, Lycians etc. were tragically weak and completely incapable ones since they were tolerating the one colonist after the other from the western Aegean. Let aside the invading Aeolians and Dorians, they could not have handled even the fugitive Ionians who took their best lands, lands there in the center which however are very easy to retake if one comes from ther eastern side. However, that contrasts though with ancient texts that pinpoint that in early archaic times the likes of Carians, Lycians and Phrygians were particularly active and very much rich.
- The other explanation of "overpopulation" as a starting point for colonisation also contradicts with the fact that this colonisation is supposed to have started after the destructive end of the Mycenaean centers which let us naturallly thing of at least some substantial reduction in population. Let aside that Dorians themselves were overwhelmingly mentioned as small in numbers (naturally, since they were only a part of Epirot-Macedonian tribes that went south). The archaic "provincial" culture lets us understand that most Greeks lived in small villages while the well known towns were not more that large villages either. Had Greeks been overpopulated they would had certainly formed larger cities first, albeit city formation seems to be parallel if not in some cases more quick in Ionia and south Italy than Greece itself!!!!!! I.e. completely against logic.
Well it is all against logic unless one takes into consideration the next logical hypothesis:
Colonisation of Minor Asia and South Italy prior to Achaian expendition against Troy (whatever that was afterall) and the "Sea People" fuzzy wars in Egypt.
If anything that is the next thing to imagine when we know already that Greeks had massively colonised Cyprus by early 14th century and had numerous outposts in Palestine. One would really have to explain it seriously why Greeks would not be present in western Minor Asian coastline!!!
Before going into more details of that theory, one should highlight that the term "Greek" above is used lightly. Far from talking striclty about Greeks and "barbarian" Minor Asian, at a time where western aegean (that some ecognise as Greek), northern Aegean (that some recognise as Thraecian) and eastern Aegean (that some describe as either Thraecian or Anatolian), in reality ALL tribes ALL around Aegean were interelated in inter-layered tribal continuums, 1 land-based (an inverse U around Aegean), then 1 sea-based (an E-shape imbedding in Minor Asia).
Hence, to put it bluntly, the installation of western Aegean tribes, namely Achaians-Ioanians and soon Aeolians predates not only the final conquests of Dorians and the destruction of Mycenaean centers but also the downfall of Mycenaeans. That expansion had started already several 100s of years earlier, I would imagine prior to the colonisation of Cyprus which started prior to 1400 (as by 1350 there are already developed towns whose remains we find - and none can expect that we found the remains of the first colonists by all means!!!). This does not only explain the obvious homeric description of an identical culture of Trojans to Achaians and their separate nature from other Minor Asian tribes (which, note, should be really not so different to Achaians either...) but also the historic evidence we have by Hittites mentioning evident Greek king & god names (Alaksadu, Apaliunas) for the west Minor Asian city Wilusa, mostly linked to Ilion-Troy.
Without using it as any argument, it is funny that the whole story of Troy sounds more like a punitive expendition of fellow-men who ended up as "traitors" rather like an invading force on a barbaric unknown place (Achains do not seem to be particularly belligerent to other Minor Asian nations other than the fact that they raided them to live on the loot while sieging Troy).
With Achaian-Ionian-Aeolian tribes already installed in Minor Asia, at least in some basic enclaves (I do not speak necessarily of massive colonisation) prior and right after the 1200 A.D Aegean wars, the ease with which the Ionian refugees installed later themselves as well as the total inability of the local Minor Asian tribes (who must had suffered a huge setback during those wars) is much more easily explained. And more than that, the rapid augmentation of the Greek population in Minor Asia and the appearence of large cities even prior to the Greek mainland, all that without evidence of perfect hellenisation (i.e. one not leaving any trace for the contemporaries of Herodotus by early 5th century) of a large part of the neighbouring non-greek populations from 900 to 600 B.C., is also even more easily explained. The theory answers similar questions for South Italy too.
Of course, one may answer with examples of other colonisations that increased rapidly their numbers in relatively similar spans. Like the Carthagenians who rose in only 300 years rose from 800 B.C. when it was a small Phoenician outpost to 500 B.C. into a major power. Only that in the case of Carthage we know very well that the city was governed by a Phoenician nomenlature but the bulk of the population and especially its armies were all shorts of people much like Rome of 1st century B.C. which is not mentioned being the case for Miletus or Syracuse even if we take the liberty to hypothetise a healthy number of Phrygians or local Sicilians that would naturally had integrated one way or another the numbers of these cities.
While I am not imposing this as the only viable theory, I have the strong feeling that:
1) The only major (major, i.e. not speaking of minor ones) sea-faring people of the Mediterranean prior to 1200 B.C. came from the Aegean region.
2) Sea People are a random bunching by Egyptians of several tribes some from the Aegean, other from the southern Minor Asian and Palestinian coastlines who in various times occupied them during the Amarna tumultuous period. Obviously as Egyptians themselves mention, some of them were in Egypt first as their own mercenaries before turning against them.
3) The rise of the "Middle Eastern" Phoenicians was indirectly Aegean-induced by means of the Mycenaean downfall but it is not directly related to it. Even if we imagine Phoenicians chasing Mycenaeans out of the Aegean-Egypt-Palestine commercial traderoutes, still the most substantial traderoute for Myceneans was the Black Sea-Aegean one and the Black Sea was a place that Phoenicians hardly ever held substiantial commerce. Phoenicians seem more to jump up to the opportunity and appear as the first Middle Easterners to occupty with serious Mediterranean seafaring.
4) Mycenean kingdoms downfall came after their weaking due to over-expansion to the east and their confrontation to the Minor Asian kingdoms which were devasted thus leaving empty space for colonisation even prior to Dorian descent
5) Dorians simply took advantage of the weakening of the Myceanean kingdoms and finished them off while accelerating the emmigration of Achaians-Ionians to Minor Asia - it is not them though that kickstarted it since we find also Aeolians who were tribes relatively spared and even benefited by Dorian conquest in comparable numbers. -
Message 28
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Thursday, 26th August 2010
Hmmm, I see you have a totally different picture for the case and so I will have to answer you point for point:
-
Message 29
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Thursday, 26th August 2010
...quoting some points of yours that need direct comment:
You ask me to tell who the Sea Peoples were. Well, Ramses is very clear about this; in the Medinet Habu inscriptions he mentions: "Their confederation was Peleset, Tsjeker, Shekelesh, Denyen and Weshesh". I'm not sure about the Shekelesh, but Peleset are Philistines, Tsjeker are a Canaanite tribe in today's Northern-Israel, Denyen are Cilicians and Weshesh are Achaeans, a multicultural state that later became Ionia.
There are other sea people also, like the Shardana and the Ekwesh. Anyway, I do not understand. It sounds too arbitrary all that from the generalise of what could be separate random battles some even possibly of low level into a large "confederation" down to locating Tjekers in Palestine and Denyen in Cilicia. Why Weshesh are Achaians and not the Ekwesh? EKWESH is a name that is much more close to AXAIOS (AKHAIOS) rather than the WESHESH. And Weshesh does not sound at all like Arzawa, the Hittie pronounciation for the loose confederacy of the southern Minor Asian tribes that dealt with the Hittites.
From there on to state that a multicultural state that became Ionia would end up having a 99,9% perfectly Greek dialect with only bits and parts loan-words from the local Minor Asian dialects and which would be not only direct sister dialect to Athenian (ok, you could explain this with a westwards migration at some point) but also a sister dialect to the very much Aetolian-Epirot-Macedonian dialects known today as Dorian is really really something hard hard to prove. I am aware of the theory of westwards immigration but this has huge trouble to pass on the net. There was even a sister-theory claiming Dorians to had been a naval nation coming from Caria but it has been repeatedly proven unsubstantiated.
Wickerman thought these people must have been tribes in the Levant because the M.H. inscriptions call these people rebels....Ramses III had a point in regarding these peoples as rebels.
Indeed, Egyptian mercenaries marching against the Pharao, no matter if coming from inside the Empire or outside would be considered as rebels and traitors. No sign of their origins. What is known is that numerous people from the Aegean worked as such in Egypt.
The Hittite king was the overlord of Anatolia... ...In the course of their adventures they must have come to begrudge the seemingly lucky Greek, Hittites and Egyptians.
You mention that these Sea Peoples were merely pirates, but given that the only mentioning of them is from their enemies, their description of the Sea Peoples might give a skewed picture.
Well I am not against the idea that southern Anatolian people like the Lycians could had developed at some point some significant navy but I honestly find laughable the idea that they did it so quickly and so good to attack successfully half the Mediterraneans fleets. If anything the only sea-faring people in south-western Minor Asia, where are the Carians and Carians were already pushed by late Mycenaeans into relative insignificance, most of them hellenised since mid-archaic times!!! If anything where where the Lukka? How could they had done anything against the sea-faring Mycenaeans when they were not event present on the island just opposite to them, Cyprus? And how come right after the Sea-People destruction we simply find pretty much everywhere the Greek people and not any of the people you hypothetise? Now that is the huge question to answer first before deploying such a theory.
When I look at the Mediterranean disaster, I see not mere piracy but Star Wars. Consider that Greece and Hattusha were blown into oblivion and that Egypt hardly escaped the same fate and you will come to the conclusion that some pretty smart generals must have been at work.
I agree it was not just piracy but a whole sinking of advanced culture all over the place but that need not be rooted to a single force but rather the result of successive wars that occured the one because of the other just like the Japanese-US and the French-German and the Italian-Greek wars had certainly links (financial, political etc.) but were not necessarily directly related the one with the other and only due to propaganda they were connected into a "World War" scenario.
In such a fashion, the change of climate, the long series of bad crops, the lack of food, the pressure on populations, created an ever difficult situation which pushed people to make war there, to rebel there. No need for a single force and a single leader to have brought all that destruction. With the Amarna Egyuptians struggling, with the Hittites down, Mycynaean kingdoms obviously failed to re-create their traderoutes and being unable to run on all fronts, their centers collapsed and fell easy pray to even low-numbered invaders. I repeat, Mycenaean kingdoms, themselves largely sea-nations, fell by land, not by sea.
Given the naval defences that the Greek cities built to withstand an attack from sea, the enemy must have come from sea.
Why would you imagine a foreign sea nation coming from south Minor Asia when Mycenaean kingdoms had inbetween them friction and sea attacks and piracy were often common place among them?
This is an important clue, because the Greek cities themselves fought as Bronze Age powers used to fight: on land with chariots.
How else would you want them to fight on land? With paddles and oars? They are described to fight like that only in descriptions of land-based assaults. Our reference is of course mainly the tvric poems that refer to that era but then you seem to forget that tvr mentions a massive gathering of some 1100 ships that transported around 80,000 troops that landed on the beach some kilometers far from Ilion which was an inland not a coastal one. Naturally they took out their land gear to fight that. Naturally since they came by the sea they lacked professional siege-equipment and frankly they were not specialists in building so despite the fact that back home most of them were very proficient fortress builders (thus they seemed to fight not in siege style but either on the sea for commercial control or out in the fields for food production control).
So the attackers of the Greek cities can't have been Greek soldiers.
Not only this is an arbitrary conclusion but also comes weird:
The attackers of the Greek cities, i.e. the Mycynean kingdoms are known. They were the Dorians. We know them since not only the myths talk of them and their precise path but also we know historically about them and where they established themselves. And myths and historic facts go hand in hand in these terms and few ever will try to prove otherwise aparth those adventurous that like to invent new theories to differentiate "for fun".
They can't have been farmers or labourers either, because at the time the Greek states of the Bronze Age must still be considered to be able to withstand any revolt from the lower classes, which certainly would not come from overseas. Given that Greece was at peace with Ugarit, the only sea power left are the Sea Peoples.
On the contrary, just like the case of Minoans, Mycenaeans prior to their fall showed signs of dealing with social troubles. There is massive evidence that the centers were already in vertical social fall prior to their fall to Dorians. No South Minor Asian people there, the only sea people you had were the Greek tribes themselves out of whom not only the sea-lovers Ionians but also the quite land-based Aeolians and Dorians got occupied with seafaring.
If anything at the very end of this tumultuous period of 1200-1000 B.C. the Greeks are found not only in contraction but in a huge expansion which totally contradicts your theory about non-Greek people arriving on ships from south Minor Asia and causing the collapse of the Myceaans. There is absolutely no evidence of it, instead, the Mycynean weakening after the successful but extremely costly expansion to the Minor Asia that shattered the kingdoms there, followed by the climatic change and the collapse of old established traderoutes is quite established while the final downfall due to the Dorian invasions is not only established but an... axiom as proven by both the consistency of Greece in early, mid and late archaic times as well as the totality of the narratives of the Greek historians whom you should trust a little more to had been able to tell the difference between footsoldier Dorians armed with spears, Lycians mariners on ships, and the difference between north and east so as to had left us such stories of northern Dorian invaders rather than eastern mariners breaking into ports. -
Message 30
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Friday, 27th August 2010
Hello Nik,
Here you go again! After having had to confess that you didn't know that the Iliad is a description in Greek mythology of warfare by the Sea Peoples you again show your ignorance by claiming that the Mycenaean palace-system was put out of order by the Dorian invasion. Not! The Greek palace system had been put out of order before 1200, while the Dorian invasion didn't start before 1050. See
You claim that I would assert that the Sea Peoples suddenly came into the possession of a navy. This is the straw man argument; I have not done anything like that. The truth is that the Sea Peoples had had hundreds of years to build up a navy. Miletus was originally a dependency of the Crete Minoic system, when it already had a navy at its disposal. Miletus was then conquered by the Hittites. It was part of the state of Achaia that regained independence.
On the strength of the Sea Peoples' navy you say:
How could they had done anything against the sea-faring Mycenaeans when they were not event present on the island just opposite to them, Cyprus?
And you claim that the Sea Peoples would be very stupid to attack the Greek cities when they simply could impose a blockade to prevent Greek imports and exports. But that assumes that the Sea Peoples would have had naval superiority and the fact that Greek exports continued until right before the collapse of the Mycenaean palace system shows that the Sea Peoples had no naval superiority. They didn’t gain naval superiority until after the collapse of the Minoic palace system soon after 1200. That doesn't mean that they weren't military superior to the Greek, but their basic fighting power was land based. They had to bring their soldiers with ships to Greek soil and if they would succeed in doing so they could be pretty certain that their soldiers would be able to beat the Greek armies. This has been described in detail by Drews; the Bronze Age armies that used chariots like the Mycenaean Greek did were no match against the infantry soldiers of the Sea Peoples. That is why even before the end of the Bronze Age the armies stopped using chariots. It was the Sea Peoples that revolutionized military tactics of the Bronze Age and beyond. We know this by the study of Egyptian drawings on the MH monument and the like.
I can only recommend that you read Drews.
Then you come up with the question why the Greek can be found everywhere in the Mediterranean immediately after the Mediterranean disaster, while the Sea Peoples have disappeared.
First of all, these were military exploits, not Völkerwanderungen. The aim of the Sea Peoples was to knock down the Mycenaean palace system, not to move to Greece and they succeeded in doing so.
Then we have to consider that the Sea Peoples were beaten by the Egyptians. This meant that the Sea Peoples had lost their economic base: the Great Powers wouldn't use them as soldiers anymore and the Mediterranean collapse meant that there was no more use for the Sea Peoples navy. The Sea Peoples were very good at the game of destructing, but they hadn't thought it out completely. From hindsight it is clear that by provoking the Mediterranean collapse they destroyed their economic base.
This was a case of “new game new chances”, and in this new game the Sea Peoples lost out against the Greek.
And finally, the classical Greek Ionians were descendants of the Sea Peoples! So the Sea Peoples are not really lost; they just took up speaking Greek.
Regards,
Poldertijger -
Message 31
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Friday, 27th August 2010
Hi Pol,
Pol, it is natural that I cannot come to terms with the logic you use:
If I understand well, what you suggest is that:
1) Mycenean kingdoms were destroyed about 150 years prior to Dorian conquests, i.e. a bit prior to 1200 B.C. while Dorians descended profiting the power vacuum about 1050.
2) Mycenaean kingdoms were not destroyed by mainland tribes but by overseas navies arriving from the East (western or southern Minor Asia).
3) The same naval invaders are responsible for the downfall of the Hittites and the trouble that Egyptians met.
4) tvr's poem refers to those naval expenditions of Minor Asians
- 1 might be a logical assumption that I partially share (only that I place the Mycenaean downfall due to financial reasons, famine and social chaos about 1150 and the influx of Dorians about 2-3 generations after that downfall
- 2 is an assumption for which we have absolutely no evidence and it is classified in yet another "theory"
- 3 is likewise an assumption
- 4 is certainly an impossibility. tvr not only refers to a west to east naval campaign but goes on to a huge effort to name down each of the 1100 ships and where it came from naming real names of people and places. While names of people were passed on to him as semi-mythical and from him to us as mythical the place names were very real and very exact in their geography and they are in the totality not in Minor Asia but in what later was known as Greece. tvr is really very detailed in that part (and one poet writing complete fantasies would not be: it is apparent that the poem is based losely on historic records and that part of the narrative simple reflects so). On the other side of Troyans and their allies, tvr goes again in details mentioning easily identified nations that we can still see in later historic times like the Phrygians, the Lycians & the Carians etc. The narrative in Iliad is geographically very precise.
While some (and still today a few) have in the past conveniently discarted all mythology as complete fantasies (something easy to do anyway), there is absolutely nothing within the homeric poems, nor is there anything in any other ancient text that could imply that tvr did all that effort to inverse the real event and have the attacked being the attackers and the attackers being the attacked. It is simply impossible.
What you could theoretically say is a scenario where Mycenaean kingdoms organised a huge campaign in Minor Asia, took Troy but weakened so much that soon Minor Asian confederations struck back destroying them. But as said, that is completely theoretical and has absolutely no base in whatever indications we have. If anything, whatever wars happened, what followed it was an absolute jump of the western Aegean tribes at the expense of Minor Asian tribes. Even the up to then not so nautically-oriented Dorians (since they came from mountainous Macedonia and Epirus), were able to jump on ships and swiftly move from Peloponesus to Crete, from Crete to Rhodes and from Rhodes to all over southwestern Minor Asia showing a complete power vacuum not only in western Minor Asia but also on most of this big peninsula. If such a "powerfull Minor Asian Sea People" ever existed then we have absolutely no trace of them. The only nautically oriented had been the Carians and them had proceeded in occupying only selective small eastern Aegean islands which they lost one after the other during the 1200-800 B.C. period so even them do not pose well as candidates of those powerfull Sea People. -
Message 32
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Friday, 27th August 2010
Let me quote,
After having had to confess that you didn't know that the Iliad is a description in Greek mythology of warfare by the Sea Peoples
As said, I can see nothing in Iliad that can make me think that it is a description of warfare by "non-western Aegean Sea People". That Myceneans were the major Sea People of Eastern as well as all of the Mediterranean in the period, that is a well established fact. We find their trace from Palestine to Spain. Egyptians used both their navies and armies as mercenaries next to trading with them.
...The truth is that the Sea Peoples had had hundreds of years to build up a navy. Miletus was originally a dependency of the Crete Minoic system, when it already had a navy at its disposal. Miletus was then conquered by the Hittites. It was part of the state of Achaia that regained independence.
Ok, I misphrased myself. Did not really want to claim that you claimed Sea People jumped out of nowhere. And indeed 100-200 years are enough even for a not so nautical nation to built a serious navy, such as the Dorians, traditionally a mountainous tribe that quickly took it to the sea just like other Aegean tribes. So I do not find it irrational to propose that a Minor Asian state would had at some point between 1300 and 1200 develop a substantial navy able to threaten the powerful navies of the Mycenaeans. If anything the Trojan war campaign could suggest also something like that. But there is nothing out there to aid us built more on that hypothesis.
From there on, Minoans in their heydays had stations all over the Aegean space. We find Minoan activity in Peloponesus, Thessalia, Macedonia, Thrace as well as Minor Asia. However I am not aware of Miletus (the city Hitties call Milawanda?) being a Minoan vassal city. And even if so, I am certainly not aware of Miletus being a base for organising campaigns against Mycenaean kingdoms.
On the other hand, Achaia is not a name for any Minor Asian tribe, kingdom or confederation. The two confederations implicated in alliances and wars with Hittites were the Assuwas in the north (from where the word Asia came) and the Arzawas in the south, non of which presented any huge nautical activity to our knowledge.
On the sides there is the reference to "Ahhiyawa" (and apparently you refer to that) and their city "Milawanda" but then Hittites do not refer it as part of the Arzawa or Assuwa conferacies of local Minor Asian tribes but as a distinct kingdom, a city on the western part of Minor Asia (most probable case it being e precursor of the historic city of Miletus) that collaborated with Hittites but also talked with the other kingdoms in the region. With the term "Ahhiyawa" so close to a geographical name Akhaiwasha we find in Linear B tablets found in Crete and so close to the term "Ekwesh" we find in Egyptian records and all together so close to the later historic term of Achaians a tribe out of which apparently the Ionians sprung out after being pushed by Dorians, the only reasonable guess is to speak of a pre-1200 colonisation of Minor Asian coastline by western Aegean maritime tribes. Which is only reinforced by the reference to another city, Wilusa being governed by someone called Alaksandu whose protector God was Apaliunas... names too Greek to be discarted like that.
An early west Aegean colonisation of Minor Asia is exactly what I have mentioned above!
But still, even with these "Sea People" being western Aegean there is no element to tell us that Minor Asian Achaians attacked the Greek peninsula Achaians on the other side of the Aegean. There is no element, no myth, no story, nothing in there to tell us so. -
Message 33
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Friday, 27th August 2010
This is indeed an interesting discussion we have so I go on,
...
First of all, these were military exploits, not Völkerwanderungen....
Ok, this proposition explains why they disappeared rather quickly without leaving any trace. But then even with this proposition, there is absolutely no Achaian-Ionian (and certainly not any Aeolian or Dorian) record recording such attacks from eastern originated shipping forces (be it Achaians of western Minor Asia or Carians or Lyceans). So again we have no base to jump up on this hypothesis.
From hindsight it is clear that by provoking the Mediterranean collapse they destroyed their economic base.
What you propose is that they were raiders that destoryed everything in their passage. But then such an event would had certainly been mentioned in Greek myths which constantly stuck to the descend of Dorians and nothing else. Note that most myths we have have been passed to us from Greek people of... Ionian tribal ancestry so it is even more weird the lack of reference to such.
This was a case of “new game new chances”, and in this new game the Sea Peoples lost out against the Greek.
They should had left some records, not necessarily written but some records. Could the undeciphered Lemnos column and the Eteocretan writings be the work of descendants of Sea People? Still, there is no Greek record refering to them as being descendants of invaders let alone be the work of those who destroyed the Mycenaean kingdoms. Greeks refer to them as simply random tiny populations left overs of past bigger populations of mysterious origins.
And finally, the classical Greek Ionians were descendants of the Sea Peoples! So the Sea Peoples are not really lost; they just took up speaking Greek.
This is practically an empty hypothesis and I will explain it mathematically:
If what you suggest is true then we should imagine a hypothetic Achaian people, a sea tribe of Western Minor Asia that alone or dragging along other local tribes (eg. Carians and Lycians) stormed the Mycenaean kingdoms one after the other in a relatively small period of time around 1200. The left overs of that huge campaign were the Achaians in Peloponesus and the Attics in Athens who naturally mingled in the next 150 years or so with the local population and naturally became hellenophone. Then Dorians came, found them in weak position and swept them out of most places apart northwestern Peloponesus and Attica while most of them found refuge to the nearby Aegean islands.
Problem is that we should have at least linguistic traces of that
1) The region of Ionia in Minor Asian should not had been hellenophone in the way this was by early 1 millenia B.C.
2) Ionians were perceived by ancient writers as the descendants of Achaians from central Greece and Peloponesus fleeing the Dorian descent with the only place they managed to keep on land being Attica. I.e. Ionians claimed to had been the more ancient tribes of south Greece whose lands were taken by the Dorians, tribes of north Greece.
4) The Greek language, attested to be spoken in the Greek peninsula at least since 1500 B.C. as per the Linear B tablets is the most well monitored language in history and by far the most well studied in the world. It happens to be also the most rich language in the world and one that - for the joy of linguistics specialists - has the habbit of root based word construction, thus it makes it fairly easier to study it. Hence, any such scenario of Minor Asians, even if speaking cousin languages (the likes of Phrygians for example spoke cousing languages in later historic times despite the relative isolsation from Greeks inside Minor Asia) should be observable, especially in the Ionian dialects. Which of course is not.
Regards,
Nik -
Message 34
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Friday, 27th August 2010
Note also that:
- Minoans were not so much into picture in the 1500-1000 B.C. peroid. They had their heyday much earlier. They arrived in picture prior to 3000 B.C. following the development of Cycladic cultures all over the Aegean, rose from 3000 to 2500, had their heyday between 2250 to 1750 B.C. and got hit by the Theran eruption by 1650 B.C. (current official date, note this is "at latest", i.e. it can't be later than that) losing their economy and successively their state organisation and ending up being conquered by Achaians (or otherwise called Danaans, Argives etc. we term today Myceneans) some 50 years later.
- Achaians and all the other tribes (as Achaians were just the major tribe out of a large number of similar tribes on the mainland) themselves developed in parallel with Minoans since there are already considerable kingdoms in the 3000-2000 B.C. period like the Minyans in central Greece, responsible for the drainage of a large part of the local swamps and for building large stone structures while what are recognised as Mycenean kingdoms come forwards around 2000 and already by 1600 are notable for both their military power as well as navy becoming antagonists of the islandic Minoans and we find them pretty much in all places we find Minoans. With the eruption hitting mostly the coastal regions and spearing the mainland ones, Achaians found the chance to hit the weakened Minoans. By 1650 when we talk about Crete we essentially talk about Achaians. Another mainland tribe, Arcadians, appear in Cyprus earlier than 1350 B.C., most possibly earlier than 1400 (to justify findings of Linear C evolved alphabets by 1300 B.C.!).
Given the timescales, and in conjuction with all what I mentioned above, Achaian (i.e. western Aegean) presence in Minor Asia is more of a certainty than not in times prior to 1300 B.C. I would dare say that it is mostly modern political affirmations that mainly hinder that being outspoken rather than the reality we have before our eyes. Now in such a case, Achains in Minor Asia were essentially just another Mycenaean state and would remain in the Aegean cultural sphere rather than blend in the local Minor Asian one as hinted by the Hittite records too showing one important and at times powerfull city standing out of all Hittite, Assuwa or Arzawa kingdoms and down to the basics trying to play all sides. If this city campaigned itself aganst the western Mycenean kingdoms then it would be all an endo-Mycenaean affair and most probably they would be allie of the particular kingdom of their origins or simply trying to rule over it in another scenario. Under that light while it is still strange that there is no myth about it, one could say that their involvement was immersed in the number of endo-mycenean state wars that tore the kingdoms.
But that is again an identical case of what I propose: endo-Mycynaean warfare in the light of falling economies due to failing traderoutes due to failing foreign kingdoms which all is linked somehow to the climatic change that the region underwent in the 1400-1000 B.C. period.
Now where we find some general agreement is that:
That for most cases of Mycynean kingdoms, there was some time of at least 2-3 generations between their downfall and their final fall to the Dorians (just like there was some time of about 2 generations between the downfall of the Minoans and the final fall to Achaians).
Where we disagree is that you propose an eastern marine non-hellenic speaking people attacking by sea and destroying all Mycenean centers in a short time which you link with the Egyptian Sea People while I propose that Egyptian Sea people were various people found in Egypt as mercenaries and who while obviously of Aegean and Minor Asian ancenstry were not linked in the downfall of Mycenean kingdoms that rather fell of spiralling economics, social strife and the same usual intense warfare we saw in Greece in later periods, thus giving the chance to norhtern Greek tribes like those from Epirus and Macedonia to come down (later known as Dorians). -
Message 35
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Saturday, 28th August 2010
Pol, obviously you see the subject is of great interest to me as we have referred to several different extremely important issues for the birth of the later archaic and classical civilizations we know the following 1000 years.
Somehow I did not comment yet the following interesting suggestion you put forward:
And you claim that the Sea Peoples would be very stupid to attack the Greek cities when they simply could impose a blockade to prevent Greek imports and exports. But that assumes that the Sea Peoples would have had naval superiority and the fact that Greek exports continued until right before the collapse of the Mycenaean palace system shows that the Sea Peoples had no naval superiority.
Interesting twist. Perhaps the Egyptian records also have something to say on it. In most battles the “Sea People” took the term for having simply arrived on ships by the sea giving no great emphasis on their naval skills. If I remember well the quasi-totality of battles were land-based ones as some of the Sea People were former Egyptian infantry mercenaries. If anything, at the end no-one knows if all of the mentioned Sea People had really their own ships or if some of them had and others simply followed as allies and mercenaries (just as later most of the Persian navy was actually Phoenician).
But to my eyes, the first guess of the fact that Mycenaeans were able to maintain some traderoutes to the very end shows that apart the good old piracy (that might had increased in those difficult times) there was no major attack launched by sea upon them but the danger came from the land. If I am supposed to take into consideration the scarce evidence of any effort of Mycenaeans to guard better their ports why should I not take into consideration the huge fortresses that they had built around their towns showing the amount of warfare that went through among them (same thing as we saw later)?
They didn’t gain naval superiority until after the collapse of the Minoic palace system soon after 1200.
But we saw nothing of that. All we know is that the commercial-oriented Phoenicians rose as a major maritime force while Greeks maintained always a particular ease in establishing themselves wherever they pleased. If anything there is no space to suggest a 3rd naval power in the region. It is also noteworthy that Phoenicians while having heavily colonized North Africa they only managed to colonise some of north-eastern Cyprus and a bit of south Minor Asia on the eastern side (Cilicia), while in the Aegean space they only managed to establish small trading stations like the Gefyra one close to Thebes (hence the myths of Kadmus arriving from Phoenice etc.) and to 1-2 random Aegean islands but that mostly to trade the wine and olives of the region while they are not present anywhere else and they failed (or perhaps were not interested) in doing anything in the strategic Hellespont and thus being not really present in the Black Sea. Interesting quote.
That doesn't mean that they weren't military superior to the Greek, but their basic fighting power was land based. They had to bring their soldiers with ships to Greek soil and if they would succeed in doing so they could be pretty certain that their soldiers would be able to beat the Greek armies.
I am also of the view that it would be hard for each of the Mycenaean kingdoms to pretend being more powerfull than say the Hittite or the Arzawa kingdoms. However, a confederation of Mycenaean kingdoms against the Arzawa is a different story. Mycenaeans were an extremely militarist culture, they did war for breakfast. I would not jump to speak about superiorities.
The only comparison we have is the Iliad and this may contain certainly a lot of propagandist approach towards the Achaian armies but what we see certainly is a clear superiority of the Achaian armies over the Minor Asian (be it that Trojans might had been Achaian themselves). What you mention about Sea People coming by ships, landing and doing land-based warfare conforms with what we saw in the Iliad but then again I repeat that is the only way to siege a city that was not a port itself but built on a hill some kilometers on the inside of the mainland.
This has been described in detail by Drews; the Bronze Age armies that used chariots like the Mycenaean Greek did were no match against the infantry soldiers of the Sea Peoples. That is why even before the end of the Bronze Age the armies stopped using chariots. It was the Sea Peoples that revolutionized military tactics of the Bronze Age and beyond. We know this by the study of Egyptian drawings on the MH monument and the like. can only recommend that you read Drews.
I have nto read yet Drew but I search a bit his works in the net and he has written interesting things and can be a source of information seen from a certain angle but I am sure that if I will read more I will find more points of partial or total disagreement. For a first, he is yet another proponent of the general indo-european theory. I am not.
Now regarding the use of chariots, it is more than certain that the use of chariots in Greece had never been so extensive as it had been in the Middle East as well as all over the rest of Europe. Why? Because of the extremely expensive price of raising horses in Greece! And because of the immensely mountainous terrain of Greece. Chariots in Mycenean warfare did not play a role in the battle other than transporting the heavily clad nobleman and distinguishing him from the mass of the infantry at a time much of the Mycenean warfare was a fight between noblemen with peasants following to complete the ranks. But when the armies would class the noble man would fight as much as a foot soldier as the rest filling naturally the first lines of his formation. We saw much of that in the Heliad where we also have hints of line formations from the Greek side but no mention of such on the Trojan side (naturally since they were the sieged ones thus doing only skirmishes to push back the Achaians).
We also have some depictions of Mycenaean warfare and that shows mainly foot soldiers. There is even a vase showing Mycenaean soldiers marching the one after the other dressed in identical manner and this could be a hint of an infantry-based tactical army although this could be simply the result of vase depiction. There is nothing out there to tell us that infantry-based warfare was imported in the Greek peninsula by Minor Asia. It is more than certain that the first revolution in Greek warfare came with the Dorians who being of smaller numbers tended to organize better their armies to gain a strategic advantage eventually leading to the formation of the phalanx-based tactics later on.
Mind you, my direction is not pointing that every military innovation was done by the Greeks themselves. It is known that serious mechanised warfare was introduced to Greeks by Persians during the Persian campaigns in western Minor Asia where they stormed all Greek cities with particular ease. It is just that I cannot find a stable base in Drew's claims. -
Message 36
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Saturday, 28th August 2010
Hello Nik,
There is no evidence that the Mycenaean palace system was economically in decline, whereas the excavations show many signs of violence. This suggests social or military upheaval. But the nobility of the time should have been capable of keeping down the population as long as imports and exports continued, so it can not have been social upheaval that brought down the Mycenaean palace system. Given the military technique of the time any army that used chariots can not have erased the Mycenaean palace system. That excludes Greek, Egyptians and Hittites. Dorians didn't invade Greece until 150 years later. That left historians at a loss; who might the destroyers of Greece have been. But this conundrum happened because we had no knowledge that a system of independent states existed in Southern Anatolia. Now that we do, thanks to Jarink and Marino, we should reappraise our theories in such a way that it includes the Sea Peoples. So far from it being a mere assumption, I have proved my theory by elimination. Only the Sea Peoples could have destroyed the Mycenaean palace system.
In the case of Huttasha I can do one better; I have found the smoking gun that ties the Sea Peoples directly to its fall.
You wonder why their have been no accounts of the Sea Peoples. Simple, with the demise of the Mycenaean palace system Greece had lost its ability to write. This situation continued for hundreds of years. At the time of the invention of the Greek writing system the memory of the Sea Peoples had been lost.
I feel that you totally misjudge the intentions of tvr. tvr tried to include Ionia and Cilice into the body total of Greece. In order to do so he had to have the Ionian culture god Apollodorus accepted in the circle of gods of the Olympus. Luckily, the Greek didn't have a culture god. tvr made Apollodorus immortal as Apollo, the brother no less of Athena. That made Apollo the son of Zeus!
Though Apollo fought against the Greek, The Greek considered Apollo to be worthy to be accepted into the circle of gods, so tvr succeeded in his design.
The original battle for Troy was between the Sea Peoples as attackers and Hittites as defenders. We know this because tvr uses the words Achaians and Danaans. You know perfectly well that the Achaians were the South Western Anatolians and that the Danaans were the Cilicians.
tvr has Hector been taken to the battlefield by a carriage; clearly tvr didn't know the purpose of chariots.
Of course tvr couldn't write that the attackers of Troy were Anatolians; his purpose was to make the Greek feel good about them selves so the winners at Troy should be Greek. That is why tvr has written about Greek attacking Troy, which is contrary to the truth, but we might assume that the real history had been forgotten by then.
Regards,
Poldertijger -
Message 37
Posted by WickerMan (U14275309) on Saturday, 28th August 2010
Hello Nik.
If anything the appearence of that alliance of Sea People does not only coincides with the fall of the Hittite Kingdom but also with the fall of the Mycenian kingdoms (most of them being the major Sea People of the Mediterranean by the way) pinpointing a general upheaval in the Eastern Mediterranean not necessarily linked to specific "Sea People" but rather everyone fights everyeone for... survival (kind of saying)"
The transition of the Late Bronze into early Iron I in the Levant, or rather any events which led to the change, can be measured over a century. Nothing occurred at a singular moment in time.
Which is why your summary above is rather like merging WW I & WW II together (only separated by two decades), and asking us to accept “everbody was fighting everyone else so we don't know who the good guy's & bad guy's were”.
This is just an extention of the old 19th century invention by Maspero, DeRouge & Chabas.
The basic point I have been pursuing is that there never was an invasion/migration of any kind, any where. The whole concept is the product of the 19th century Empire-minded writers and todays scholars have always come up wanting in their investigations to find proof of such people movements.
Ancient writers, Diodorus, Herodotus, Thucydides, and the rest, who all wrote concerning Aegean peoples never once allude to anything remotely like mass-migrations or invasions of the east Mediterranean. Neither any mass takeover of mainland Greece by foreigners from the north.
There are various explanations on the meaning of Pelasgos and the one you present is perhaps the most convincing. One must also check the resemblance to the word pelagos which from historic times down to today refers to sea but actually initially seemed to refer to plains on land rather than the sea level.
George Murray proposed “pelas-go” (nearby/neighbour) back in the 20th century, it remains thee most logical interpretation. However, the more popular (among Sea People advocates) was that proposed by Julius Pokorny, that Pelasgoi came from Pelag-skoi.
Arguing that “asgo” somehow became “agso” is conveniently overlooked by adherents to this proposal.
I am not impressed when scholars transpose consonants to invent an argument. Pokorny was playing games to support the Sea Peoples Invasion hypothesis, and he's not the only one to resort to similar tactics.
When I referred to “numerous ethnic groups”, you responded
Plain wrong & technically wrong at the same time unless you describe too all the Greek tribes as "numerous ethnic groups". From neolithic times down to later times there has been absolutely no finding that ever suggested any different ethnic groups residing in the European side
I'm not so sure about that, apparently both Mellaart & Schachermeyr used archaeological arguments to suggest a people from Asia Minor did move into the Aegean sometime in the 4th millennium BCE.
Also, I have to question what you mean by “Greek tribes”.
If the Hellenes are the initial “Greeks”, and the Hellenes were a branch of the Pelasgians, and the Pelasgians were made up of different tribes which came from Asia Minor, what do you mean by Greek Tribes?
Besides, I was using the term 'ethnic' in the more modern & loose sense, similar to which you alluded. Today the definition of ethnicity is not so strict as it use to be.
Ze'ev Herzog (in, From Nomadism to Monarchy, 1994, p.147), provides a reasonable summary of the changing situation with respect to the academic view on ethnicity.
Ethnicity has always been viewed as pertaining to race distinctions where a common people shared a common heritage, this is no longer the case.
If we apply the modern interpretation to this scenario a group of various tribes referred to in later times as Pelasgian, may all have had different ethnic identities if their social habits or ideological pursuits were not common. Also, even if the Hellenes did branch from this collective Pelasgian group, they might develop their own ethnic identity. In other words the modern view is that ethnicity is an adopted trait.
Pelasgian seems to refer to a foreign people who became indigenous as they settled on mainland Greece. While they were the ancestors of the later Hellenistic branch, the other branches still lived on side-by-side with the Hellenes, or at least this is one interpretation. Afterall, we are heavily dependent on myths for information, and I struggle with that.
If you recall, tvr introduces the Pelasgians as allies of Troy, and mentions them on the Hellespontine borders of Thrace. There's a reference in 'Odyssey' to the mixing of languages on Crete.
Hellanicus suggests that the Pelasgians & Hellenes were different ethnic groups.
Herodotus when commenting on the inhabitants of Creston, Skylace & Placia, writes: “If one must pronounce judging by these, the Pelasgians used to speak a Barbarian language.”
Herodotus did believe the Greeks (Hellenes) always used the same language, but that they had descended from the foreign Pelasgians, who's language was different.
Thucydides tells us that before the Hellenes the country went by the names of different tribes, among them the Pelasgian.
If we accept all this circumstantial evidence of an Asiatic people moving into 'Greece' and settling all the lands that will eventually become known as Greece, then isn't this movement in the completely opposite direction to the common Sea Peoples movement?
The myth (supported by DNA evidence from Tyrrhenia) suggests Asiatic peoples moved (migrated/invaded?) into Greece from the east, yet the Sea Peoples paradigm suggests the complete opposite.
Finally, in your last paragraph entitled,... Where do Pelasgians fit in all that?
I tend to agree with most, if not all of what you write – good summary. -
Message 38
Posted by WickerMan (U14275309) on Saturday, 28th August 2010
Hi Nik, with ref to Message #20..
The first paragraph is very pro-Crete, when in reality much of what is interpreted within the Bible as 'Cretan' is not so secure. Certainly the Kerethites can be associated with people from Crete, as we know from Ptolemaic writings that Crete was known as Gerty. Associating Kereth with Kerthy from Gerty, taken from the principal city Gortyn is a matter requiring little imagination.
Not so when scholars insist Biblical Caphtor also means Crete. Here then we are required to accept the same Hebrew scribes applied two different names in the same period to the same island. Deriving Caphtor from Gerthy/Krethy is yet to be explained.
And yes I know that a Keftian is shown in the tomb of Rekhmire, but in the Canopus Decree Keftiu is associated with/in Phoenicia.
So, how sure are we that the tomb painting is not that of a Phoenician?
It is not accident that in later bible books the term Philistine and Cretan is interchanged with the term Yunan, i.e. the Ionians
Do you happen to have an example of Ionian replacing Philistine in the Bible?
Not that we would jump to call Philistines Greeks or something but they certainly had a relationship.
Yes indeed. And it's the nature of that relationship which forms the basis of the controversy.
Here's another consideration, the question was asked that if Greeks directly came and settled on the Canaanite coast (as Philistines), then perhaps faunal evidence will will reflect an Aegean (Greek) diet?
Not all ancient sites in the Aegean provide a suitable number & variety of faunal (bones) evidence to establish a culinery diet for the 12th century inhabitants, however David Lipovitch was fortunate enough to find some that do. Analysis of animal bones from Nichoria in the Peloponnesus, also Lerna in the east Peloponnesus, and from Tiryns, have been studied, and to be brief. The Mycenaean diet in the LH III period was dominated by pork and beef which made up over half the dietary source of animal protein.
Brian Hesse and Paula Wapnish examined the faunal remains from the Late Bronze & Iron I levels at Tel Miqne/Ekron and determined that at the onset of Iron I there was a noticable change in diet in Philistia. After comparing the tabulated data Lipovitch writes:
“While these patterns do not match completely with the Mycenaean culinary evidence, they do share some similarities and, perhaps more importantly, differ significantly from both the preceding Late Bronze Age and succeeding Iron Age culinary patterns.”
Lipovitch, in summary writes:
“...it is clear that the Philistine presence at the site did not replace the local population, but rather augmented it. Thus the faunal evidence very likely reflects a mixing of Aegean and local dietary practices”
Modeling a Mycenaean Menu, in Scripta Mediterranea, Vol XXVII 2006, Vol XXVIII 2007, pp. 147-159.
Lipovitch does not interpret the evidence as suggestive of a direct connection, as might be implied by the migration hypothesis. Rather he see's the Philistines as being familiar with Aegean traditions and practices, but not Aegean in themselves.
They may have been a people who had a long-standing connection with Aegeans, or perhaps who's ancestors had come from the Aegean long before the 12th century.
And this is consistent with other evidence.. -
Message 39
Posted by WickerMan (U14275309) on Saturday, 28th August 2010
Hi Poldertijger.
You write:
Actually, you have mentioned that Asjekelon was not destroyed by the Peleset but by a Pharao that lived before Ramses III.
I wasn't aware I wrote that but, yes scholars debate whether Ashkelon was once destroyed by either, Ramesses II or Merneptah.
But which level?
Ideally we would need to find one destruction level which separates Late Bronze Mycenaean & Cypriot imports (below), from Iron Age & Monochrome or Bichrome wares (above).
Until that level is identified we can only speculate.
...given the fact that Greece had already been blown out of civilization a few years before,...
Had it? I wasn't aware the Greek civilization was destroyed.
...the fact that international trade had com to a standstill,..
Imports stopped entering the south Levantine region in Iron I, but it picked up again in Iron II.
...the fact that Ramses mentions that the Sea Peoples overpowered Hatti,..
As I offered elsewhere, it was Ramesses III who fought Hatti, Kode, Carchemish, Yereth, etc. Not the Sea Peoples.
...and the fact that Ugarit is fighting a navy more or less gives it away..
Ugarit reports the arrival of 7 ships, and Ugarit also reports to the king of Alishaya that Ugarit's ships are in Lukka lands.
You also may recall Ugarit's military were in Hatti-lands, which means Hatti-land was the scene of trouble.
So if Ugarit sent it's ships westward and it's military to Hatti (north or east?), then Ugarit was not aware of any impending threat to itself.
which would not be the case if 'Sea Peoples' were threatening the mainland.
Something else transpired involving Ugarit, either way Ugarit was not fighting a navy.
The battle of the Nile was fought on the Nile, not in some chimaraean Canaan seaport.
The river Nile is nowhere mentioned in the text.
In fact the location is nowhere indicated, except that they encountered the invaders at harbours.
Those harbours could have been anywhere, except Egypt, because Egypt had no coastal harbours.
Troy was captured and set afire by the Sea Peoples around 1190!
Now thats 'your' invention!
I can not understand why the historians are so bent on attrbuting the fall of the Hittite empire to Egypt.
They are not, no historian is arguing precisely when Hattusha fell, except that some see it's fall as the result of civil war, and that it fell sometime within the LH IIIB pottery period.
Now, if Suppiluliuma had seized Tarhuntassa, how could this beaten appendage kingdom have managed to stage a palace revolution?
Well thats the scenario, Suppiluliuma II may have been ruling Tarhuntassa (assuming control from Tudhaliya), then Tarhuntassa rebelled, causing civil war betweeb Tarhuntassa & Hattusha.
Remember, between Tudhaliya IV and Suppiluliuma II there was a very brief reign by (a weak?) Arnuwandas III.
Perhaps it was during this reign that Tarhuntassa rebelled, then Suppiluliuma stepped in...?
We have the testimony of the king of Ugarit that his ships are patrolling the coasts of Lukka. If Lukka were an ally of the Hittites, why would the fleet of Ugarit be patroling the waters of Lukka?
They are "in" Lukka-lands, he does not use the term "patrolling", that implies control by Ugarit of Lukka seaways.
We do not know who's side Ugarit was on, remember the sword (gift) with Merneptah's cartouch, and the letter received at Ugarit from Egypt signed by Bey.
Ugarit may have been shifting alliances, and Hatti was not amused!! -
Message 40
Posted by WickerMan (U14275309) on Sunday, 29th August 2010
Comments on Message #29.
Hi Nik.
Quote:
There are other sea people also, like the Shardana and the Ekwesh. Anyway, I do not understand. It sounds too arbitrary all that from the generalise of what could be separate random battles some even possibly of low level into a large "confederation" down to locating Tjekers in Palestine and Denyen in Cilicia. Why Weshesh are Achaians and not the Ekwesh? EKWESH is a name that is much more close to AXAIOS (AKHAIOS) rather than the WESHESH. And Weshesh does not sound at all like Arzawa, the Hittie pronounciation for the loose confederacy of the southern Minor Asian tribes that dealt with the Hittites.
Because I see the principal enemy of Ramesses III in his Asiatic campaign(s) as Hatti, then I suggest the confederation who fight along with Hatti against Egypt would include Hittite satellite city-states from Kizzuwadna (Cilicia). Among them would be people from Tursha (Tarsus), Weshesh (Issus), Danoi (Adana), Kelekesh & Ekwesh (Ahhiyawa), and in northern Syria the Shekelesh (Sikaru) and Sherden (from around Byblos).
Recently excavations near Alalakh (Tell Ta'yinat) have opened the possibility that the Philistines had connections with, or were related to inhabitants from this region.
After the fall of Hatti the Amuq valley became the principal region of Hattina/Pattina.
Hawkins theorised that the peoples from this region who were named PaDAsatini/WaDAsatini were, when pronounced in the Luwian language, actually known as Palasatini = Peleset/Philistines.
Where the Tjekker originated is not at all clear, but many still theorize that there is a connection to Teucer, whether the Teucer (1) of Trojan fame or the Teucer (2) who migrated to Cyprus is still debated. Either way, such fanciful ideas do nothing to answer historical questions.
Tribes from mainland Greece, or the Peloponnesus had no part in this Asiatic uprising against Egypt at the end of the Late Bronze.
Regards, Wickerman -
Message 41
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Monday, 30th August 2010
Hello Nik,
There is no evidence that the Mycenaean palace system was economically in decline… the nobility of the time should have been capable of keeping down the population as long as imports and exports continued…
Indeed. But these kingdoms had only loose alliances between them and were more often in war than not. A combination of inter-kingdom wars and social upheaval (which usually go hand in hand of course), could do the task in a relatively short time.
Given the military technique of the time any army that used chariots can not have erased the Mycenaean palace system. That excludes Greek, Egyptians and Hittites. Dorians didn't invade Greece until 150 years later.
Agreed that a chariot-based army would not have any success in the Greek peninsula. But Achaians themselves were not chariot-based armies either. The Greek peninsula is the land the most difficult to raise and put to use horses not only of all Europe but also of all Middle East. I sincerely doubt the use of horses and chariots would be integrated in Mycenaean military tactics for more uses than transporting a couple of heavily armed noblemen in the first line of battle. We have a few war scenes on Mycenean drawings (on vases, swords etc.) and they all show infantry based warfare with spears and swords. Chariots are shown to indicate the noblemen but there is no scene of them fighting on a chariot like we find in Egyptian and other Asiatic artistic depictions. If anything, fighting on chariot does require the extensive use of the bow and does not require heavy armours while Mycenaeans like later Greeks wore heavy armours (some of them having designs which did not even permit throwing easily even a light throwing spear) while they did not use that much the bow but preferred the spear/pike and the sword. On top of that, the large circular and 8-shaped shields used by Myceneans were obviously used by foot soldiers since these designs are not appropriate for use on a chariot. The link of Myceneans and chariots is the result of the overinflated importance pre-WWII indo-european-oriented archaeologists had given in the appearance of horses and chariots in eastern Mediterranean and the wrong emphasis on their existence in tvric poem – despite the fact that tvr describes them mostly as transportation means rather than fighting means (heros would maximum fire 1 spear from the chariot before jumping down and fighting on foot).
An interesting site comprises the artistic depictions in Mycenaean art:
The writer too, is of the same opinion that Achaians had not really integrated the chariot in their military tactics as Middle Eastern and Egyptian armies had done as too many depictions of transportation and hunting and races are shown and too few real fighting scenes.
That left historians at a loss; who might the destroyers of Greece have been…we should reappraise our theories in such a way that it includes the Sea Peoples. So far from it being a mere assumption, I have proved my theory by elimination. Only the Sea Peoples could have destroyed the Mycenaean palace system.
I have no logical objection to the proposition “by elimination of other possibilities” of the Sea People being southern and western Minor Asians and them destroying with military campaigns the Mycenaean kingdoms and indeed it conveniently explains the 3-generations lapse between the fall of most Achaian tribes to Dorian tribes. It is just that there not either any evidence towards that way either.
You wonder why their have been no accounts of the Sea Peoples. Simple, with the demise of the Mycenaean palace system Greece had lost its ability to write.
The “loss of ability to write” of Greeks is a matter under discussion today more than ever for a long series of reasons. The established explanation of Greeks losing their Linear alphabets by 1200 B.C. and reintroducing the Phoenician alphabet by 800 B.C. since:
1) Arcadian Greeks in Cyprus continued down to late Hellenistic times to use the Linear C (Cypriot) alphabet which of course predates the Phoenician alphabet and which (strangely?) resembles it (or should we say the opposite?)
2) All Phoenicians on Cyprus were introduced in the late 14th century B.C.the Linear C and stuck with it not introducing the Phoenician alphabet despite the fact that they were living just next to Phoenice. Quite weird.
3) Phoenician alphabet might had evolved from south Palestinian Egyptian-oriented linear alphabet but then that is exactly where Philisitines were of course. The Egyptian influence on Mycenean Linear alphabets is also something hotly discussed.
4) Phoenicians broke a 3000 years Middle Eastern writing tradition of cuneiform (along with being the first known Middle Eastern culture to navigate in the Mediterranean in substantial numbers)
5) Greek alphabet appears in 800 B.C. on… vases evidently created and signed by vase artists who were of course middle or lower middle class people which implies a long period of alphabetisation of more than 100 years.
6) Greek alphabet does not appear as 1 but as many parallel regional variations which directly contrast the idea of an imported alphabet but of a continuous parallel evolution of more than 200-300 years.
Hence, it is much more plausible that the Phoenician alphabet was just another variation, a simplified one, of the numerous Linear variations that circulated in the region while Greeks continued to evolve their various Linear alphabets into the later archaic regional variations of the Greek alphabet. Having lost the ability to write is a possibility excluded. Even the supposedly orally-transmitted tvric poems have far too much detail to have been passed completely orally, especially if we take care to mention the tiresome lists of states, kings, ships and soldiers and their numbers participating in the campaign. What happened is that as the palace system was over, there was not a place where we could have the chance to find concentrated artefacts with writings. As you might guess, clay-tablets are perishable materials and in case of Myceneans we only found them in storage rooms and in general in protected places. A clay tablet written by a geometric era village mayor would stand no chance in surviving. That together with the fact that certainly alphabetisation was hit hard in those difficult years meant that we have 1000 times less chance to find writings in that era. We have not either found any tombs of important people in that era for the simple reason that they were no important people in that era where even the largest of cities were nothing more than random small towns.
This situation continued for hundreds of years. At the time of the invention of the Greek writing system the memory of the Sea Peoples had been lost.
Could be an explanation. But another explanation can be that the Dorians, being mountainous tribes, were not alphabetised either and did not save much of historic information especially concerning the inter-Achaian wars that predated some 3 generations their final descend, wars that may have brought the demise of Mycenean kingdoms permitting them to conquer and establish in the south.
I feel that you totally misjudge the intentions of tvr. tvr tried to include Ionia and Cilice into the body total of Greece. In order to do so he had to have the Ionian culture god Apollodorus accepted in the circle of gods of the Olympus. Luckily, the Greek didn't have a culture god. tvr made Apollodorus immortal as Apollo, the brother no less of Athena. That made Apollo the son of Zeus!
That is hard to believe. tvr clearly makes no particular efforts in that sense. He treats most Minor Asian tribes as relatively foreign to Achaians but Trojans seem to speak same language having same gods and same culture as Achaians something not unnatural if we take the suggestion of earlier western Aegean presence in Minor Asia. But certainly tvr makes no particular effort in that sense.
Though Apollo fought against the Greek, The Greek considered Apollo to be worthy to be accepted into the circle of gods, so tvr succeeded in his design. The original battle for Troy was between the Sea Peoples as attackers and Hittites as defenders. We know this because tvr uses the words Achaians and Danaans. You know perfectly well that the Achaians were the South Western Anatolians and that the Danaans were the Cilicians.
Greeks could have accepted by proxy religious and cultural traits from ever further than Minor Asia in reality thus I do not have any basic objection to that supposition but it remains as such. However saying that tvr changed the attackers from Minor Asia to place them coming from west Aegean and then putting them being allies of the defendants is completely arbitrary. There is no evidence from that. If anything even practically your suggestion is plain wrong as Minor Asian tribes would march with men and horses through the quite flat western Minor Asian plains till Troy rather than waste all that money to built 1000s of ships to embark their men and a few horses to do the round by sea.
tvr has Hector been taken to the battlefield by a carriage; clearly tvr didn't know the purpose of chariots.
Naturally. Few Greeks knew either. Myceneans used them mainly for transportation.
Of course tvr couldn't write that the attackers of Troy were Anatolians; his purpose was to make the Greek feel good about them selves so the winners at Troy should be Greek. That is why tvr has written about Greek attacking Troy, which is contrary to the truth, but we might assume that the real history had been forgotten by then.
The Greeks had not the habit of going to such extense to hide the truth. They might had exaggerated sometimes in battle numbers or importance of this or the other event but we have no known case of them having turned deliberately the truth upside down. And in tvr’s time, at a time when Achaians-Ionians main enemy had been not the Minor Asians (who did not or could not resist the installation of Achaians in Minor Asia) but the Dorians which however was the tribe that named the western Aegean lot of tribes as Greeks and Hellenes!!! thus there was really no reason to do so apart perhaps talking about an ancient forgotten past of glories of Achaians-Ionians. But overturn to that extend the truth to say so, that is impossible. tvr passes far too many details and a full list of kingdoms all of whom existed to had lied about it. And the later developments in the region coincide with his view that it was the Achaians that invaded and conquered the coastline not the opposite. -
Message 42
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Monday, 30th August 2010
Re 37 :
<quote>The transition of the Late Bronze into early Iron I in the Levant, or rather any events which led to the change, can be measured over a century. Nothing occurred at a singular moment in time.
</quote>
I am very much of your opinion. Correct that the demise of Mycenean kingdoms is swift and but then from place to place it is measured in about a century. When I mentioned about everyone fighting everyone else I referred to the fact that like in later times, the Greek peninsula had not seen any standing union of Mycenean kingdoms apart occasional loose allies and the rare confederation to do that arger campaign in Minor Asia. Most of the time they were in war with each other.
<quote>The basic point I have been pursuing is that there never was an invasion/migration of any kind, any where. The whole concept is the product of the 19th century Empire-minded writers and todays scholars have always come up wanting in their investigations to find proof of such people movements.</quote>
I agree with this. Poldertijger also does not claim a classic invasion of Minor Asian people but rather the conduction of raid-like campaigns in a short time which brought down the Mycenean kingdoms without these being followed by an installation of people (i.e. more in the sense, go in, destroy and leave). I argued so far that I find even that supposition hard to prove.
<quote>Ancient writers, Diodorus, Herodotus, Thucydides, and the rest, who all wrote concerning Aegean peoples never once allude to anything remotely like mass-migrations or invasions of the east Mediterranean. Neither any mass takeover of mainland Greece by foreigners from the north.</quote>
Agreed 100%. Dorians were simply neighbouring, same speech tribes, they had not come from central Balkans or central Europe but from western Epirus-eastern Macedonia.
<quote>George Murray proposed “pelas-go” (nearby/neighbour) back in the 20th century, it remains thee most logical interpretation……. Pokorny, that Pelasgoi came from Pelag-skoi…I am not impressed when scholars transpose consonants to invent an argument. Pokorny was playing games to support the Sea Peoples Invasion hypothesis, and he's not the only one to resort to similar tactics.<quote>
I agree 100%.
<quote> I'm not so sure about that, apparently both Mellaart & Schachermeyr used archaeological arguments to suggest a people from Asia Minor did move into the Aegean sometime in the 4th millennium BCE. Also, I have to question what you mean by “Greek tribes”.
If the Hellenes are the initial “Greeks”, and the Hellenes were a branch of the Pelasgians, and the Pelasgians were made up of different tribes which came from Asia Minor, what do you mean by Greek Tribes?
I will explain better my view on this.
Referring first to Minor Asian tribes installing in Greece as you said, this has to be sought further in the past as there is no sign of it happening in major numbers post-3000 B.C. You mention 4000 B.C. That is really the start of the Cyladic cultures. However, if anything the Cycladic cultures are characteristic for being genuine local cultures that although have Middle Eastern and Egyptian influences are very much local. Personally I would search the most major Minor Asian tribe installation in the Greek peninsula even further in the past, I would go back to the early times of the spread of agriculture inbetween 10,000 and 8,000 B.C. which clearly came from Minor Asia. That said, I find no objection of accepting the suggestion of important tribal installations from Minor Asia to the Greek peninsula between 4000 B.C. and 2000 B.C. and even later. One is known, the Carian presence in some eastern Aegean islands while we have a bit of evidence of some presence of non-Greek speaking populations on Crete and on Lemnos in archaic times.
Now, as I have stated in a previous message here is that for pre-archaic times I use only loosely the term “Greek tribes” and I prefer the geneal and colourless western Aegean tribes term. When I refer to the geographical notion of the Greek peninsula I refer to the lands including Epirus, Macedonia, Thessalia, Aetolia, Boetia, Attica & Peloponesus although I have a firm belief that even the original coastal Thraecian tribes between Strymon and the Hellespont were Greek-talking tribes prior to their hypothetic hellenisation by proxy (that had been never proved as there is no proof of any hellenisation process apart them establishing the koini Greek like any other Greek) not to mention the example of Phrygians, a Thraecian tribe that till mid-Mycenean times was said to had lived north east of Macedonians and who then had moved to Minor Asia installing in the center (thus at some distance from the Greek coast at a place Greeks usually did not pass in large numbers – Greeks did not use caravans for their trade but ships) and who despite mixing there with locals and dealing mostly with eastern kingdoms for centuries managed to retain a language in much later classical times that was really close to Greek to be termed as a cousin language – if anything Phrygians and Greeks communicated OK with a bit of effort. In any other case that Phrygians would had remained in more coastal regions or as neighbours of Macedonians, they would had been considered as yet another Greek tribe, for me there is no doubt on that.
From there on, to my understanding the lot of tribes from Peloponesus to Macedonia and from Macedonia to Thrace and from Thrace to western Minor Asia were all interrelated in a bow+arrow fashion, i.e. each tribe being related to its neighbours north and south, east and west with the occasional installation of western Aegean tribes to Minor Asia coming in like the arrow in the bow. The fragmentalisation that occurred by the end of Mycenean times provoked the acceleration of tribal movements which created the situation we came to know in later archaic times when western Aegean tribes developed a sense of a nation of their own while the eastern Minor Asian tribes already under the spell of Imperialist kingdoms and Empires as well as having some north-south division characterised by the Thraecian-Luwian line as well as the Greek coastal line, they did not manage to develop such one.
There fore going back to my definition of ethnicity of tribes regarding Mycenean times I would make rather reference to western Aegean tribes as the place is really too small to have fitted substantially differentiated tribes without us today being able to find the trace. As said in my understanding the tribes from the Greek peninsula to western Minor Asia can be bunched in a super-group out of which the 3 major groups were the western Arcadian-Ionian-Aeolian-Dorian lot recognised as Greek, the Mysian, Phrygian, Pamphlagonian lot recognised today as Thraecian and the Lycian-Carian-Lydian lot recognised today as Luwian. Out of which only the first lot ever described their inter-relation as a nation. Thraecians were rarely seen as a nation and by classical times the reference was mostly geographical and with an enlarged scope of extending up to north of Danube, which would bunch greek-speaking, greek-cultured 12-theist tribes that should be not distinguished for anything apart their geographic location along with other inner Thraecian tribes (gradual grades of tribes from Aegean to Danube) along with tribes that were largely irrelevant like the Dacians.
Now concentrating in the west part of the Aegean, the tribes had been historically described under the 6 following terms such as 1) Achaians 2) Danaans, 3) Argives, 4) Ionians 5) Greeks, 6) Hellens. Ouf of which all of them refer to tribal names of specific tribes which of course were not even the majority of the population of the region. Achaians were a tribe related to the later known Ionians having their epicentre in south mainland and Peloponesus. Danaans were a tribe of more obcure origins and location possible located also in Peloponesus, much as the Argives who obviously came from the Peloponesian city of Argos. Ionians came from the fugitive Achaians that fled to the eastern Aegean coastline and is the term used till today by most Asiatic people, i.e. much of the world’s population today. The term Greek however followed by the term Hellen is the one mostly spread due to existence in the latin and western European languages. Unsurprisingly both terms have a Dorian relation since both terms derive from north Greece. Greeks were the (Dorian relatred) tribes of Epirus and Aetolia that established first in Italy while Hellens seemed to be the name of Dorian tribes that descended to Doris there taking their final name Dorians. Somehow among the tribes, the term Hellen was gradually spread to include all Greek-speaking tribes however it can be argued that the term Hellen for somet times remained in reference only to Dorians and later included everyone else. Afterall even Athenian writers often accepted the fact that what was then recognised as “Greek culture” was actually the Dorian input and that ancestors of other Greek tribes had a culture (cloths, habits etc.) resembling very much the eastern barbarians. Quite natural if one takes into consideration that the Dorians initially were an Epirot-Macedonian bunch of people thus situated originally on the other of the Aegean space.
<quote>If we apply the modern interpretation to this scenario a group of various tribes referred to in later times as Pelasgian, may all have had different ethnic identities if their social habits or ideological pursuits were not common. Also, even if the Hellenes did branch from this collective Pelasgian group, they might develop their own ethnic identity. In other words the modern view is that ethnicity is an adopted trait.</quote>
Quite correct.
<quote>Pelasgian seems to refer to a foreign people who became indigenous as they settled on mainland Greece. While they were the ancestors of the later Hellenistic branch, the other branches still lived on side-by-side with the Hellenes, or at least this is one interpretation. Afterall, we are heavily dependent on myths for information, and I struggle with that.</quote>
A bit like this. My problem is that according to some ancient writers Pelasgians were different, according to others they were nothing else other than a group of the numerous Greek tribes. From there on everything can be said when today people dare call the likes of Macedonians and Epirots, the archetypal Dorians, i.e. the archetypal Greeks, as barbarians despite the fact that we know very well both their dialects and culture to had been 100% Greek, perhaps more Greek than Greek given the fact that Epirot Dodone was the first known Greek cultural center while the Macedonian Olympus mountain was the base of the Zeus worship.
<quote>If you recall, tvr introduces the Pelasgians as allies of Troy, and mentions them on the Hellespontine borders of Thrace. There's a reference in 'Odyssey' to the mixing of languages on Crete.</quote>
Yes, tvrs places them there. Were they Thraecians living there? Could they had been colonists in the region? tvr makes no effort in describing these tribes as non-Greek while he mentions other Minor Asian tribes like Phrygians as “barbarophone” (but Phrygians had a cousin language as related to Greek albeit more close to Dorian than Ionian for reasons of their initial origins).
<quote>Hellanicus suggests that the Pelasgians & Hellenes were different ethnic groups.
Herodotus did believe the Greeks (Hellenes) always used the same language, but that they had descended from the foreign Pelasgians, who's language was different.</quote>
<quote>Thucydides tells us that before the Hellenes the country went by the names of different tribes, among them the Pelasgian.</quote>
Indeed. A lot of conflicting evidence. Problem is that Myceneans, Greek speakers ruled for more than 1000 years. Perhaps Pelasgians were an Eastern Aegean tribe having made some moves into the islands and in western Greek peninsula with their name later used as a bunch-them-all-under-term for every random little tribe that found itself there. From there on, the various Greek writers would often term as “barbaric speaking” Greek tribes with traditionally strong provincial accents – something which might had been even more prominent at times prior to the spread of the term “Greek” and “Hellen”. On the other hand these different tribes that Thoycidides talks are now known to be Greek too so does that mean that Pelasgians were Greek too? Note too that Thoucydides had often a funny definition who belonged in the same nation calling for example the tribe of Eurytaneans too barbaric-like to be included in the nation of Greeks!!! He wanted Macedonians too to be excluded from the Greeks for similar reasons (plus political motives since Macedonians were threatening the Athenian-controlled goldmines of Chalkidiki), funnily not mentioning that for Epirots who were of course practically the same tribe with Macedonians and very close to Eurytaneans!!!
<quote>If we accept all this circumstantial evidence of an Asiatic people moving into 'Greece' and settling all the lands that will eventually become known as Greece, then isn't this movement in the completely opposite direction to the common Sea Peoples movement? The myth (supported by DNA evidence from Tyrrhenia) suggests Asiatic peoples moved (migrated/invaded?) into Greece from the east, yet the Sea Peoples paradigm suggests the complete opposite.<quote>
I agree with most of what you say. I wish though to note that in case of DNA analysis it rarely gives us precise times of a population move but only the inter-relationships. Thus if there is a DNA link of Minor Asian people in western Aegean this cannot easily been shown that it occurred in 1000, 2000 or 8000 B.C. unless we see an abrupt change at some point in local western Aegean populations. Mind you, there has been extensive studying of western Aegean DNA as well as skeletal remains (as the subject of the “continuation of the Greeks” is the holy grail of international ethnologists and anthropologists – apart being the hobby-horse of local Balkan nationalists of course) and every serious study resulted in the fact that at least since 8000 B.C. there is no visible change in the basic anthropologic consistency of the local populations this implying that during all that time the possibility of a large influx of a differentiated population is not the case (shattering the myth of indo-european population invasion). From there on, the continuation of influx of Minor Asian populations will not be visible since we already know that even the early neo-lithic populations in the Greek peninsula had already a long established Minor Asian connection. -
Message 43
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Monday, 30th August 2010
Hello Wickerman,
You write Nik that you want to fight the idea of a Völkerwanderung or invasion of the Sea Peoples. But you must see that that leaves open the possibility of military exploits of the Sea Peoples!
On the subject of the identity of the destroyer of Asjkelon you write:
scholars debate whether Ashkelon was once destroyed by either, Ramesses II or Merneptah.
But which level?
Ideally we would need to find one destruction level which separates Late Bronze Mycenaean & Cypriot imports (below), from Iron Age & Monochrome or Bichrome wares (above).
Until that level is identified we can only speculate.
I think that you mean Ramses III, instead of Ramses II. If not, then your dating monochrome at the end of the Bronze Age would certainly be wrong.
If Merneptah destroyed Asjkelon I'm right.
And I feel that the reason historians are contemplating the possibility that Mernephta could be the destroyer of Asjkelon is that there hasn't been found IIIc in the destruction level of pre-Peleset Asjkelon, but that this finding hasn't been published yet. And I have the distinct feeling that you already know this.
On the end of the Mycenaean palace system you write:
Had it? I wasn't aware the Greek civilization was destroyed.
Then how do you explain the coincidence of all the burned Mycenaean palaces and the sudden end of Greek exports? As a coincidence?
And on the subject of Greek exports you further write:
Imports stopped entering the south Levantine region in Iron I, but it picked up again in Iron II.
Nik has explained that the Greek needed exports in order to pay for the necessary imports. If the Greek failed to export even for a couple of years, their society would collapse. You describe a halt of Greek exports for 200 years! You are even a worse economist then Nik is.
On the identity of the destroyers of Hattusha you write:
As I offered elsewhere, it was Ramesses III who fought Hatti, Kode, Carchemish, Yereth, etc. Not the Sea Peoples.
You stand quite alone in your assumption. Besides, it doesn't make sense literary. Your explanation is only valid for poetry, but I doubt very much that the writers of the MH description were writing poetry when they described the Sea Peoples.
On my identification of the Sea Peoples as the destroyers of Troy you write that this is my invention. Silly me to think that the arch-enemies of the Hittites would destroy a dependency of the Hittites!
On the fate of Ugarit you write:
Ugarit reports the arrival of 7 ships, and Ugarit also reports to the king of Alishaya that Ugarit's ships are in Lukka lands.
You also may recall Ugarit's military were in Hatti-lands, which means Hatti-land was the scene of trouble.
So if Ugarit sent its ships westward and it's military to Hatti (north or east?), then Ugarit was not aware of any impending threat to itself.
which would not be the case if 'Sea Peoples' were threatening the mainland.
Something else transpired involving Ugarit, either way Ugarit was not fighting a navy.Ugarit reports the arrival of 7 ships, and Ugarit also reports to the king of Alishaya that Ugarit's ships are in Lukka lands.
You also may recall Ugarit's military were in Hatti-lands, which means Hatti-land was the scene of trouble.
So if Ugarit sent it's ships westward and it's military to Hatti (north or east?), then Ugarit was not aware of any impending threat to itself.
which would not be the case if 'Sea Peoples' were threatening the mainland.
Something else transpired involving Ugarit, either way Ugarit was not fighting a navy.
You still haven't figured out how the Sea Peoples could get the better of Hattusha. Besides, the fact that Ugarit had to send its navy to Lukka is a clear sign that something was rotten in the state of Lukka.
And Wickerman, Hattusha and Ugarit fell around 1190, given the absence of LHIIIc, while Ramses III didn't attack until 1175. Ramses III is LHIIIc, as you are well aware. So Egypt wasn't the cause of the fall of Hattusha and Ugarit.
On the cause of the fall of Hattusha you write:
no historian is arguing precisely when Hattusha fell,..
Actually, by the absence of LHIIIc we know that it fell not very later than 1190, well before the Egyptians attacked.
...some (historians) see (Hattusha's) fall as the result of civil war,...
that might have been caused by the Sea Peoples. If you want to identify the identity of the power that brought down Hattusha, you may not rule out the Sea Peoples that certainly were stronger than Tarhuntassa. Or would you make us believe that Tarhuntassa was the cause of the halt of Greek exports as well?
Wickerman, I think that the end of the Mycenaean palace system before 1200, the end of Greek exports around 1200, the fall of Troy, which is an exact copy of the fall of the Mycenaean palace system, the fall of Hattusha and Ugarit in 1190, and Ramses III exploits between 1175 and 1170 are related. Most historians feel that these events are related. The relation has been described in the MH inscriptions.
You are merely describing a small piece of the puzzle, while I have in my hands the last piece that fits exactly the gaping hole that is the exact fate of Hatusha.
And about the description of WW I and WW II: most historians do indeed believe that these two are related.
Regards,
Poldertijger -
Message 44
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Monday, 30th August 2010
Hello Nik,
About Drews' End of the Bronze Age it is important to realize that this book was published before Jasink and Marino outed South-Western Anatolia as the true Achaia. Although Drews was aware of the possible identity of Achaia, as this possibility was first raised in 1975, he felt he couldn't use this information as long as it wasn't confirmed, so he knowingly made some mistakes.
I have forgotten to mention one important detail that can shed light on the true identity of the destroyers of the Mykenaean palace system. It appears that one of the Greek cities had built strong defences against an enemy coming from sea. I think I've read this in Drew's book, but I'm not sure.
Now, they might have been defending against a Greek enemy, but why would another Greek city be prepared to make such a desperate attack. As long as Greek exports were secured there would have been no cause for a fight of all against all. Ockam's raizor clearly states that we should first try to look for the attackers among the peoples that had been left out by the globalization of the Bronze Age and these are the Sea Peoples, who we know were in possession of a mighty navy.
Wickerman gives you kudos:
I tend to agree with most, if not all of what you write
But he certainly doesn't agree of all you write. On the all important question of the direction of the movement of peoples, he writes:
If we accept all this circumstantial evidence of an Asiatic people moving into 'Greece' and settling all the lands that will eventually become known as Greece, then isn't this movement in the completely opposite direction to the common Sea Peoples movement?
Forgetting momentarily that these movements happened at different stages, if at all.
I, too, can't find any evidence for a movement from mainland Greece to Anatolia, but there is a mass movement from Crete to the part of Anatolia that was to become Ionia.
At the high-tide of Minoan Crete South-Western Anatolia was its dependancy. Then the Hittites took over South-Western Anatolia, but later it gained independence.
The word Ionian is originally used for Greek living in Crete. Many of these Greek emigrated to South-Western Anatolia during the Hittite occupation and after and quite a few of these settled as sailors in the harbour of Miletus. This migration can best be compared to the Irish migration to the VS in the 19th century. Later on the non Greek took up speaking Greek. The Ionian dialect had been born. Later still Athens and Miletus resurfaced from their ruins. Apparently, commerce made the Athenians having more dealings with the people from Miletus than with the rest of Greece and thus made the Athenians adopt the Ionian dialect.
The Ionian dialect might have spread from Miletos to Athens instead of the other way around.
On the identity of the destroyers of Troy you write:
And the later developments in the region coincide with his view that it was the Achaians that invaded and conquered the coastline not the opposite.
Nik, how many times do we have to repeat that Achaia is Ahawayya is South-West Anatolia, not Greek Achaia? Not even Wickerman will support your view.
If anything even practically your suggestion is plain wrong as Minor Asian tribes would march with men and horses through the quite flat western Minor Asian plains till Troy rather than waste all that money to built 1000s of ships to embark their men and a few horses to do the round by sea.
Then the Sea Peoples would have to fight the Hittite infested Anatolian mountain ranges, while they could simply circumvent these by making use of their navy that was already at hand.
I think your argument that the the Greek wouldn't use chariots in combat because horses would be too expensive doesn't cut the musterd. In those days copper was at least as expensive as gold, and yet Bronze Age soldiers made an extensive use of Bronze to protect themselves. The horses would be deemed as necessary for survival then as we regard atomic weapons as necessary for survival nowadays. Besides, Drews writes that the Greek fighting technique was still a battle with chariots.
On the use of chariots by the Greek you write:
The writer too, is of the same opinion that Achaians had not really integrated the chariot in their military tactics...
Not at all, Nik! What he actually says is:
Even if the question how the Achaeans used chariots in warfare is still controversial, it seems that, based on the pictorial scenes, they did not use their war-chariots in the large squadron mass charges in the manner of the Near Eastern kingdoms and Egypt. There are very few and questionable images of chariots being actually used on the battlefield in the Aegean pictorial art, indeed based on some hunting scene and armed charioteers representations, Linear B tablets as well as Iliad descriptions there is no question that the chariots were largely used in warfare both as platform for throwing javelins (or when possible thrusting long spears), as a means of conveyance to and from battle, and in less occasions as platform for bow-armed warrior.
This means that the Greek used the chariots to throw javelins!
Regards,
Poldertijger -
Message 45
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Monday, 30th August 2010
The discussion has been heated positevely and I apologise for the technical error above with "quotes" (I did not preview correctly...).
I will stay to Poldertujger's main point on
1) use of chariots by Myceneans
2) South Minor Asian people moving to north Minor Asia with ships
3) Achaians coming from Minor Asia
1) One really has to see the landscape in the Greek peninsula to understand that the Greeks could never had based their fighting tactics on the chariot even for fast troops transportation since even a rider & his horse were mocing slower than a runner (and thus the use of men instead of horses for delivering messages). Chariots may have worked well as a squadron in the flat Nile delta or in the the similarly flat Middle East, perhaps even in the some of the lowlands of western Minor Asia but talking about Greece, that could be only Thessalia. And Thessalia was not even the most powerful region in Mycenean Greece.
Now if we have depictions of charioteers throwing a javalin or holding the bow we can even call it circumstantial evidence of some minor military use of the chariot, let alone the possibility of this describing the adventures in other eastern lands. But there is nothing there to tell us Greeks based their warfare on it. Everything speaks against it.
The argument of copper being expensive and horses being expensive and if they had used a lot of copper they would had certainly used a lot of horses too if deemed useful is there by Poldertijger and is 100% natural to say so but I personally find weird the Mycenean emphasis on heavy hoplite-like armours with a use on chariots. None can throw easily javelins when dressed with 20kg of bronze. Also the fact that Myceneans were not at all bow-oriented indicates that they were more oriented into being heavily clad and arrow protected and thus necessarily infantry-oriented. Chariots are useful only against poorly-equiped poorly-trained armies, and mainland Myceneans, unlike Minoans and other islanders, had been anything but poorly clad and inexperienced. Note also that despite the fact that many of them had served in the Egyptian ranks, they never really copied Egyptian warfare. It is all a geomorphology issue.
2) Similarly one can say with much difficulty that the Sea People would embark on ships to go to Troy when they could had moved almost the same as quickly and at a fraction of a cost in terms of money, men, money and materials their army by land - even if they had the ships ready made: why permit all those Minor Asian friends of Troy to come to its aid and make it 10 times more difficult?
3) Achaians were mentioned by all ancient writers as people originating from Peloponesus and it is out of whom that Ionians originated being their part that emigrated to the east. Now what Pol proposes is that this emigration occured earlier, perhaps via Crete and that they got the name Achaians in Minor Asia where they hellenised a lot of locals and it was that lot altogether with the rest of the sea people (Lycians? Carians?) that made the westwards attack against the Mycenaean kingdoms, with Athenians rather being the colonists coming from east rather than being one of the last mainland free remnants of the pre-Dorian populations.
Interesting point and it cross-sections with my suspicion that western Aegean colonisation of Minor Asia predates the Trojan war and the 1200 B.C. date - only that what I propose is that the term "Achaian" had its origin in the Greek mainland: Hittites simply spoke of Achaians living in Minor Asia knowing that Achaians came from the west. If anything, they treat the Milawanda as a different state on its own from the rest Arzawa and Assuwa federated kingdoms which sometimes was an ally of Hittites, sometimes was on its own while for Wilusa they mention even names of princes that sound too Greek to had been anything else, like prince Alaksandu.
But then in Greece there existed not only the Ioanians and the Dorians, but also the Aeolians, the Arcadians, the Macedonians, the Epirots, the Boetians and large number of known to be hellenic speaking tribes which permit us to have a clear idea about the evolution of the Greek language. While the Ionian languge evidently had been influenced by Minor Asian languages it presented itself both in Ionia and Athens as being closely knit with the other dialects. In fact out of all Greek dialects the Aeolian seemed to be grammatically quite particular while the biggest group of dialects - and thus irrespective of politics, the most standard form of Greek - had been the Aetolian-Epirot-Macedonian-Dorian group of dialects. And Ionian collates simply too well to this north-western linguistic group to had been the result of the mix of western and eastern Aegean tribes. Linguistically it is much more plausible that minor asian Ionian was the continuation of the pre-Dorian (i.e. Achaian) dialects of western Aegea rather than the opposite. -
Message 46
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Tuesday, 31st August 2010
Re38&40: Hi WickerMan and thanks for the lot of very interesting info.
The first paragraph is very pro-Crete, when in reality much of what is interpreted within the Bible as 'Cretan' is not so secure....
And yes I know that a Keftian is shown in the tomb of Rekhmire, but in the Canopus Decree Keftiu is associated with/in Phoenicia. So, how sure are we that the tomb painting is not that of a Phoenician?
Valid questioning shared by me too. Thus I only speak generically of western Aegean presence in Palestine, I do not point directly. I only mention the cultural affinities of Philistines but also of Phoenicians to western Aegean tribes. Phoenicians and Philistines can be seen as odd kids in Middle East.
It is not accident that in later bible books the term Philistine and Cretan is interchanged with the term Yunan, i.e. the Ionians
Do you happen to have an example of Ionian replacing Philistine in the Bible?
I had read in the past about the use of the term "Philistines" on later Greeks in Biblical references but I have to search it. But then I have rephrased my sentence not very well since even if we have reference on Greeks as Philistines that might had been just an easy way to discart Greeks unde the term of the good-old enemies of Jewish, the Philistines (as both coming from "elsewhere" in the region). In my opinion what is interesting is all that quiet pre-hellenistic installation of Greek populations in Palestine which we have not studied thoroughly. The connection of Greeks in the region are deeper than we think. Even in archaic Jewish bible we keep finding references that make the direct link to Greek language. While one can claim the contrary too (that Greeks got it from the middle east) the names Japeth, Jonas, Jesus sounding too close to Iapetos, Ionas, Iason and the latter have a meaning in Greek while I ignore if the former have a meaning in Jewish.
Anyway, I should not rush to conclusions. I myself too do not treat the Philistines as a thoroughly western Aegean tribe but rather as a mixed Aegean-Middle Eastern tribe which kept being the link between Middle Eastern - Aegean commerce as well as being on the frontier line of the Egyptian and Hittite/later Assyrian Empires.
The reference on comparison of Mycenaean and Philistine eating habits is extremely interesting though I would imagine that eating habits can change dramatically since these depend really on local conditions that permit or not the upkeeping of animals.
...They may have been a people who had a long-standing connection with Aegeans, or perhaps who's ancestors had come from the Aegean long before the 12th century.
That is more close to what I think too.
Because I see the principal enemy of Ramesses III in his Asiatic campaign(s) as Hatti, then I suggest the confederation who fight along with Hatti against Egypt would include Hittite satellite city-states from Kizzuwadna (Cilicia). Among them would be people from Tursha (Tarsus), Weshesh (Issus), Danoi (Adana), Kelekesh & Ekwesh (Ahhiyawa), and in northern Syria the Shekelesh (Sikaru) and Sherden (from around Byblos).
Under the light of seeing the Sea People as part of a greater Hittite initiative to reduce the Egyptian influence in coastal Middle East, one can hypothetise that most of the tribes mentioned should had been the close satellites of Hittites, hence mainly people from Minor Asia.
Where the Tjekker originated is not at all clear, but many still theorize that there is a connection to Teucer, whether the Teucer (1) of Trojan fame or the Teucer (2) who migrated to Cyprus is still debated. Either way, such fanciful ideas do nothing to answer historical questions.
While I like playing with names (as shown above) I am also of the same opinion that we need more than a simple name connection to get convinced on the relation of a name with a region.
Tribes from mainland Greece, or the Peloponnesus had no part in this Asiatic uprising against Egypt at the end of the Late Bronze.
I have always maintained - on the basis of the fact that till 1200 A.D. the major maritime people in the Mediterranean were the Aegean people - that at least 1-2 of the Sea People should come from Aegean, presumably the Ekwesh and the Denyen. My idea on that would be that no mainland, Peloponesus or other islandic Aegean kingdom would had been officially involved but that it was all about mercenary groups that offered their ships and arms in the service of either Hittites or Egyptians. Mycenaeans apart being the major maritime people were also a prime source of mercenaries. If I am not mistaken, Egyptians mentioned too that some of the Sea People were initially their mercenaries but who then turned against them. But it has been years I read the texts and I might remember badly. Since Mycenaeans were known to be more mercenaries of Egyptians than of Hittites it would be interesting to see if any of Ekwesh and Denyen were such mercenaries that turned against Egyptians. -
Message 47
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Tuesday, 31st August 2010
Hello Nik and Wickerman,
On the leadership of the enemy that Ramses was fighting against, Wickerman writes:
Because I see the principal enemy of Ramesses III in his Asiatic campaign(s) as Hatti, then I suggest the confederation who fight along with Hatti against Egypt would include Hittite satellite city-states from Kizzuwadna (Cilicia). Among them would be people from Tursha (Tarsus), Weshesh (Issus), Danoi (Adana), Kelekesh & Ekwesh (Ahhiyawa), and in northern Syria the Shekelesh (Sikaru) and Sherden (from around Byblos).
and Nik writes:
Under the light of seeing the Sea People as part of a greater Hittite initiative to reduce the Egyptian influence in coastal Middle East, one can hypothetise that most of the tribes mentioned should had been the close satellites of Hittites, hence mainly people from Minor Asia.
How can this be true when Hattusha had already fallen at the time of Ramses III attack?
The absence of LHIIIc in the ruins of Hattusha makes clear that Hattusha didn't fall much later than 1190, when the Hittite kingdom was still at peace with Egypt. Ramses III attacked the remnants of the Hittite kingdom in 1175, when Hattusha had already fallen.
This makes clear that Wickerman's interpretation of the MH inscription can't be right. Wickerman, you may recall that you've written in message 67 of the Sea Peoples thread
The first line is the assembly of the foreign alliance, the second line is the Egyptian response - Ramesses scattered them!
And then you say of the third line of the MH inscription:
No land could stand before their arms from Hatti, Kode, Carchemish, Arzawa and Alishaya on, ...
that
The third line is the identification of the principal parties, and Ramesses is saying 'no-one' meaning no-one else, 'could stand before them', except me!
but that can only be true if Hatti hadn't fallen at the time of Ramses III attack, but we know that it had!
I'm sorry Wickerman, but the only rational explanation is that the first line of the MH inscription is the identification of Ramses principal enemies and the third line is the list of the great cities that have already fallen victim to them.
Regards,
Poldertijger -
Message 48
Posted by Poldertijger (U11154078) on Tuesday, 31st August 2010
Hello Wickerman,
On the identity of the destroyer of Asjkelon in your message 39 you write that this will be hard to discover:
Ideally we would need to find one destruction level which separates Late Bronze Mycenaean & Cypriot imports (below), from Iron Age & Monochrome or Bichrome wares (above).
Until that level is identified we can only speculate.
But in message 57 of the Sea Peoples thread you write:
There is no foreign 'Aegean' pottery in or directly above these Levantine destruction levels.
The destruction levels, in many places, are followed by an occupational hiatus, this is consistent with Egypt's firm possession of the Levant for 35-50 yrs. Many towns & cities were burned out and not reoccupied while Egypt dominated this land.
which to me make clear that these destruction levels have already been found by Finkelstein.
And I agree with you that it is about time that Finkelstein reveals his findings.
On the identity of the destroyers of Troy I've written:
Troy was captured and set afire by the Sea Peoples around 1190!
to which you replied:
Now thats 'your' invention!
Wickerman, it is funny how you and Nik accept the Odyssey as evidence if it fits your theories, and that you won't accept it if it fits mine.
The story coming from Ionia it can't be anything but a myth from the Greek or the Achawayans. The fact that the Greek have not been at war with the Hittites, while the Achawayans were, the important role of Apollo, a god that wasn't known at the time by the Greek, the names Achaians and Danaans given to the attackers of Troy, names that identify Sea Peoples at the time, the way the attackers of Troy went to Troy and fought, all this suggests Sea Peoples as the attackers of Troy, not Greek.
On the exact spot of the Battle of the Delta you write:
The river Nile is nowhere mentioned in the text.
In fact the location is nowhere indicated, except that they encountered the invaders at harbours.
Those harbours could have been anywhere, except Egypt, because Egypt had no coastal harbours.
Actually, the MH inscriptions do not mention that the Battle of the Delta was fought in a harbour, it merely states that Ramses III equipped harbours at the border of Egypt. Finkelstein, for one, places the battle in the Delta. You can read all about it on page 454 in Baruch Halpern's book David's Secret Demons: Messiah, Murderer, Traitor, King
Regards,
Poldertijger -
Message 49
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Tuesday, 31st August 2010
How can this be true when Hattusha had already fallen at the time of Ramses III attack?
Excellent point and well noted Poldertijger. Being not a specialist on the era (I am only an amateur of history) and having a long time since I read the Egyptian texts of the period, I'll have to avoid talking in the air and should rather go back to them. I do not want either to propose more speculations on that specific event which however does not necessarily relates directly to the fall of the Mycenaean kingdoms at the same period. -
Message 50
Posted by WickerMan (U14275309) on Tuesday, 31st August 2010
Hi Poldertijger.
With reference to the destruction of Ashkelon, you write:
I think that you mean Ramses III, instead of Ramses II. If not, then your dating monochrome at the end of the Bronze Age would certainly be wrong.
If Merneptah destroyed Asjkelon I'm right.
Actually, I was refering to the Karnak relief showing the destruction of Ashkelon, long attributed to Ramesses 2nd, but later suggested by Frank Yurco to have been inscribed by Merneptah and reflective of his Victory Stela accounts.
Again, I don't recall discussing the fall of Ashkelon.
With reference to my suggestion that Ramesses III fought Hatti, Kode, Carchemish, etc. you write:
You stand quite alone in your assumption. Besides, it doesn't make sense literary. Your explanation is only valid for poetry, but I doubt very much that the writers of the MH description were writing poetry when they described the Sea Peoples.
To the best of my knowledge I am alone in this interpretation, and also I am thoroughly astonished that these details have not even been discussed by writers or historians. It rather looks as if historians don't bother to read the entire Medinet-Habu texts, they just repeat all the well-worn phrases concerning Sea Peoples, avoiding or ignoring the bigger picture.
Some historians do have a tendency to avoid that which they cannot explain.
Regardless, the official publications by the Univ. of Chicago of the survey of Medinet-Habu provide all the reliefs & texts concerning this monument, for this specific argument we see....
On one column, interior, first court, on the south side we read the words of Amon-Re:
'Receive thou the sword, My hand is with thee that thou mayest overthrow the land of Hatti” (plate 120C).
Among the victory reliefs carved into the 14 surviving Osirid column bases are two specific ones:
“The wretched Chief of Hatti whom his majesty slew” (plate 119A)
“The wretched Chief of Kode whom his majesty slew” (plate 118E)
Among the conquest-list of 124 Asiatic names we read “Land of Carchemish” (#29, plate 101).
Likewise, we read 'Land of Yereth” (#88, plate 101).
So, even in it's ruined state, 4 out of the 5 names still exist, Hatti, Kode, Carchemish & Yereth.
How can this be ignored?
Subsequent to your suggestion that Troy was destroyed by Sea Peoples, you write:
Silly me to think that the arch-enemies of the Hittites would destroy a dependency of the Hittites!
I do not see any reason to believe that tvr would only write about a single battle that lasted 10 years if this one encounter at Troy was only part of a massive invasion force which swept across all of Anatolia, into the Levant, and on down to the borders of Egypt?
tvr only gave us the introduction, what happened to the rest of the story???
No, it is 'your' choice to identify tvr's Trojan campaign as a chapter in a Sea Peoples migration. Except, the war against Troy was not a migration – minor point I guess!
You still haven't figured out how the Sea Peoples could get the better of Hattusha.
From your point of view, by seizing the port of Ura?, but from my perspective, following the text at Medinet-Habu, to me it is clear the Sea Peoples were allied to Hatti, so the Sea Peoples didn't get the better of Hatti at all, they were all on the same side.
Hatti 'may' have fallen due to civil war after losing the fight with Ramesses III.
The Egyptian texts say, “their confederation were the Peleset, Tjekker, Shekelesh, Denyen and Weshesh, lands united.” To my mind this means these so-called Sea Peoples (which were actually resident local Asiatics all along) were allied to the previously mentioned coalition of Hatti, Kode, Carchemish, Yereth (Arvad?/Arzawa?) and Alishaya, who formed the principal members.
(I mentioned elsewhere that at Kadesh, allied with Hatti, were Kode, Carchemish & Yereth, 100 years before, so this assembly does reflect an alliance!)
And Wickerman, Hattusha and Ugarit fell around 1190, given the absence of LHIIIc, while Ramses III didn't attack until 1175. Ramses III is LHIIIc, as you are well aware.
But I thought we just went through the exercise that showed LHIIIC only appeared in the Levant around 1130 BCE (roughly).
We know LHIIIB was still available in the 1180's, and as yet no LHIIIC pottery has been unearthed contemporary with the 20th dynasty (Ramesses III, et al.)
The transition from LHIIIB to IIIC in the Levant 'will' be down-dated in the near future, it has to be, due to Ussishkin & Finkelstein's arguments for Lachish & Megiddo.
Presently the earliest accepted date for the appearance of Myc. IIIC in the Levant is 'post' 1130 BCE, and possibly as late as 1100 BCE.
We might not like it, but the way things look both Ugarit & Hattusha 'could' have fallen anytime within the 12th century. And I think Ugarit fell before Hattushas, because tentatively, I think the Hittites destroyed Ugarit, I will give my reasons in a subsequent post.
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