Another problem that remains central to the investigation of‘‘Greek religion and the ancient Near East’’ is that of the vehicles of cultural transmission. Simply put, how were religious ideas and practices transmitted from the civilizations of the Near East to the Aegean? And who transmitted them? As one might imagine, many factors, including trade and commerce, warfare, migration, exile, foreign employment, religious festivals, and diplomacy, are likely to have created contexts for exchange (Dalley 1998). Unfortunately, the textual, artistic, and archaeological evidence is too fragmentary to provide a detailed picture of how these factors enabled religious exchange in each historical period. Nevertheless, it does allow us to recognize the importance of all of them throughout the history of the Aegean world. Even a cursory survey of the evidence reveals a long history of nearly constant international exchange by land and sea (Astour 1995; Bass 1995), which is likely to have stimulated exchange among the region’s diverse religious traditions.
It is generally recognized that, during the Bronze Age, the Minoan civilization of Crete played a formative role in shaping the cultural contours of what was later to become Mycenaean Greece (Burkert 1985:19-22). However, it is also known that the Minoan civilization was itself greatly shaped by contacts with Egypt and with the civilizations of the eastern Mediterranean, including Mesopotamia (Cline 1987, 1991,1994; N. Marinatos 1993; Redford 1992:242-3). In early scholarship, Minoan religion was typically referred to as a ‘‘primitive’’ form of ‘‘fertility worship’’ that focused primarily on a ‘‘Great Mother Goddess.’’ Today, however, scholars see the Minoan religious system as far more complex, resembling the sophisticated cults of the Near East (Marinatos 1993).
Yet despite international influences, Minoan Crete was not a carbon copy of Near Eastern polities. It did not represent Near Eastern culture any more than it represented ‘‘the first high European culture’’ (Burkert 2005a:292). It was an island culture of its own making and it was highly influential. Wonderfully preserved Minoan frescoes on the island of Thera, for example, demonstrate the extent of their presence in the region and depict their travels to North Africa (S. Marinatos 1973). The palace walls of the Hyksos capital of Avaris (Tel el-Daba’) in the sixteenth century BC reveal the presence of Minoan artisans (Marinatos 1998), as do palace reliefs at Mari, on the mid-Euphrates, Qatna in Syria, and Tel Kabri in Israel.
The material culture of Mycenae, from its vaulted tombs to its mountain sanctuaries, gives conclusive evidence for the imprint of Cretan religious traditions - so much so that many classicists find it difficult to differentiate Minoan religion from that of Mycenae. Nevertheless, one must rely entirely upon the artistic and archaeological record of Crete in order to understand Minoan religion. No one has yet been able to decipher convincingly the Minoan scripts in use from 1850 to 1450 BC (i. e., Cretan hieroglyphic, Linear A, and Cypro-Minoan). Linear B, the script in use after the thirteenth century BC, was used to record an early form of Greek. A period of intermittent destruction separates Linear B from the earlier scripts. Nevertheless, the apparent rupture and change of script do not correlate to massive changes in Minoan culture, for many aspects of the so-called ‘‘Minoan-Mycenaean religion’’ appear to have survived the transition (Nilsson 1950). Despite an influx of Mycenaean settlers after this period, Minoan culture remained distinctively Minoan (Knapp 1995:1442).
While much attention has focused on Crete, in part owing to its later connections to mainland Mycenae, the Mediterranean archaeological record attests to a much larger network of maritime powers during the Bronze Age.
The Egyptians had enjoyed a long and ubiquitous presence on the Mediterranean. Egypt’s close commercial and cultural connections to Syria, especially the city of Byblos, meant that it had to protect its interests there. The conflicts that ensued between Egypt and the Hittite kingdom during the fourteenth to thirteenth centuries BC are a fitting demonstration of Egypt’s protective interest in the Levant. Not only were some Egyptians (probably merchants) living in various cities of Syria and the Levant, as well as on Cyprus, some Aegean peoples (also probably merchants) were living in Egypt (Dothan 1995:1273). There they doubtless were exposed to Egyptian religious practices and beliefs.
Mycenaean wares found at the seaport of Ugarit (modern Ras Shamra, in Syria) show that exchanges between Mycenaeans and the peoples of the eastern edges of the Mediterranean were close and frequent (Langdon 1989). Ongoing trade with Mycenae would have provided opportunities for the introduction of Syria’s many gods (in fact Ugaritic offering lists name more than one hundred gods: D. P. Wright 2004b:174). As illustrated by the Bronze Age shipwreck discovered at Ulu Burun off the coast of southern Turkey, the peoples of Syro-Canaan were long engaged in the transport of cargo from Egypt to Mesopotamia, Cyprus, the Levant, and the Aegean (Bass 1989). Such a context offered numerous occasions for cultural exchange.
Bronze Age Cyprus was also a cosmopolitan place. There is evidence for Hittites, Semites, Hurrians, Egyptians, and Aegean peoples all living on the island. Because of its proximity to the Syrian coast, its material culture appears to have shared more in common with the lands to the East. Nevertheless, because it was a vital source of copper, its contacts reached far West as well. Though our knowledge of Bronze Age
Cypriote religions is scant, the settlement of so many diverse peoples must have brought many different traditions into contact.
The sum total of evidence makes it clear that the Bronze Age Mediterranean was far more interactive than is often portrayed in textbooks. Indeed, we must envision it as a maritime world in which people from Crete, Cyprus, Sardinia, Rhodes, Thera, the city-states of Syria and the Levant, and, of course, Egypt enjoyed strong commercial and cultural ties. It is safe to assume that when these peoples took to the water they took their religious traditions along with them (Brody 1998).
Of course, sea trade was not the only means of cultural transmission during the Bronze Age. Religious festivals, known especially from Anatolia, also provided opportunities for contact between Hurrian, Hittite, and Aegean bards, performers, and cultic personnel (Bachvarova forthcoming). Such festivals accompanied the transport of divine statues from one region to another. The two bronze ‘‘smiting gods’’ found at the Mycenaean site of Phylakopi on Melos may be placed into this context. The Mycenaeans also imported an Anatolian goddess, whom they called ‘‘Potnia Aswiya.’’ Evidence suggests that her cultic officials and rituals accompanied her (Bachvarova forthcoming; Morris 2001). Though Hittite religion appears to have synthesized Hattic and Hurrian traditions (McMahon 1995:1983), it must be kept in mind that scribes who wrote Akkadian had long lived at Hattusha and had promoted Mesopotamian learning there (Beckman 1983). Since Akkadian education consisted of learning the epic religious texts, we may see Anatolia as a conduit for the westward movement of Mesopotamian religious ideas as well.
As a consequence of the catastrophes that led to, or resulted from, the invasions of the ‘‘Sea Peoples,’’ palace life in the Mediterranean came to an abrupt end in the twelfth century BC, plunging the Aegean world into a ‘‘dark age’’ (Sandars 1978). It is, of course, ‘‘dark’’ only to us because next to nothing survives from this period that might shed light on it - written records, for example, appear to vanish. Nevertheless, archaeological finds found on certain sites on the periphery of Egyptian and Neo-Hittite control show that contacts between the Aegean and Anatolia (especially Lydia) and Syria were not cut off entirely and that, though radically altered, international maritime trade did not cease (Muhly 2003; Sherratt 2003).
It is into this context that we must place the coastal peoples of Syro-Canaan (especially Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos), whom Greek texts (but no native sources) refer to as ‘‘Phoenicians’’ (Burstein 1996; Stern 2003). Their ubiquitous maritime, mercantile, and colonial activities made them enormously influential throughout the Mediterranean world (Noegel 2005b). Already by the end of the twelfth century BC, the rulers of Tyre and Sidon, often with Assyrian encouragement, had re-established the trading links that once connected the Aegean world to the cities of the East (Frankenstein 1979). But their expansion did not stop there. In the years that followed, Tyre extended its presence primarily in a southern direction into Palestine and North Africa, though Tyrian enclaves are also in evidence at Carthage and Cyprus and further north at Carchemish. Sidon, on the other hand, moved north into Anatolia, Cilicia, Aramaea, and Assyria, and west to Crete, Cyprus, Sardinia, Sicily, and Spain. Contacts between Phoenician and Aegean centers were clearly very close since early in this period Greek speakers adopted and adapted the Phoenician alphabet (Naveh 1973), although possibly through Aramaean intermediaries. As demonstrated by dedicatory inscriptions devoted to the goddess Astarte of Sidon in Spain and
Cyprus, the religions of the distinctive Phoenician city-states were transported with them (Ribichini 1999; Stern 2003).
Another result of the upheavals of the twelfth century BC was the settlement in Canaan of the Philistines. Textual, artistic, and archaeological evidence shows that the Philistines were Aegean in origin (Dothan 1995; cf. Morris 2003). They are listed and depicted, for example, along with a number of others, as one of the ‘‘Sea Peoples,’’ on reliefs at the mortuary temple of Ramesses III (1187-1156 BC) at Medinet Habu. The reliefs depict pharaoh’s victory over them during a naval battle fought on Egypt’s coast. Additional documents inform us that after the war the ‘‘Sea Peoples’’ settled on the Levantine coast. Excavations at Philistine sites, especially Ashdod, Ekron, and Tel Qasile, show them to have been highly advanced, especially in farming, building, metallurgy, and the production of olive oil. Their religious cults included Aegean, Canaanite, Cypriot, and Egyptian elements. A dedicatory inscription to a goddess (perhaps named Potnia) found at Ekron and written in a locally adapted Phoenician-type script similarly illustrates the complex culture of the Philistines (Noegel 2005c). The cult and inscription also demonstrate how mutually influential intercultural contact was early in the second millennium.
From the eighth century BC, a period coinciding with a ‘‘renaissance’’ of‘‘Greek religion’’ (Mikalson 2004b:212), peoples of the Aegean came into increasing contact with Assyrians when the Assyrian king Tilglath-Pileser III (744-727 BC) expanded his presence northward, defeating the kingdom of Urartu, and westward, taking control of Byblos and Tyre (Rollinger 2001). Shortly after these conquests, the city-states of Syria informed the Assyrian king that they were under attack by a people they called ‘‘Ionians’’ (whom some scholars see as a more general reference to the peoples of Euboea, Athens, Samos, and Naxos [Burkert 1992:13]). Tilglath-Pileser III’s expansionist policies were continued by his successors Shalmaneser V (726-722 BC) and Sargon II (721-705 BC). The latter seized control of the Hittite city-states of Carchemish, Cilicia, and Zinjirli in the late eighth century BC, causing the kings of Paphos and Salamis in Cyprus to recognize his suzerainty and send gifts.
In the early seventh century BC the Assyrian king Sennacherib (704-681 BC) defeated the Ionians in a decisive naval battle. Soon afterwards, however, contact continued through the Assyrian royal house and its ambassadors (Parpola 2003), as well as merchants, artisans, and others who were eager to maintain Assyrian hegemony and entrepreneurial interests in the region. After securing his power in the region, Sennacherib instituted a policy of encouraging foreign trade and settlement on lands that he had thoroughly annexed (Lafranchi 2000). This policy extended his reach deep into the Aegean. Berossus tells us that Sennacherib even inscribed his achievements on bronze statues and placed them in Athens in a temple especially constructed for them (Dalley and Reyes 1998a:98). Though we cannot confirm the reference, the discovery of Mesopotamian bronze statues at temples in Athens, Delphi, Olympia, Rhodes, and Samos argues in favor of its credibility (Curtis 1994).
A little more than a generation after Sennacherib, when the Assyrian king Assur-banipal (669-627 BC) allied with Lydia against the Cimmerians, he protected his ambitions in the region by maintaining the royal road connecting Nineveh to Sardis. This road provided the Assyrian court with a direct conduit to channel its political, military, and cultural influences to western Anatolia, and by extension to the coastal states of Ionia. It is into this context of exchange between royal courts that some scholars place the influence of Akkadian religious literature upon the Homeric epics (Rollinger 1996).
Other scholars credit peripatetic Near Eastern artisans (Gordon 1956), seers, and purification priests (Burkert 1992) with disseminating their sacred, ‘‘magical,’’ and medical traditions (Thomas 2004) (and cite Homeric references to itinerant seers and bards in support, e. g., Odyssey 17.383-5). Thus, it is during this period of increased access (ca. the eighth to seventh centuries BC) that the Mesopotamian protective deities gallu and lamastu were introduced to the Greek-speaking world, becoming the demons Gallo and Lamia (West 1991). Images of Gilgamesh and Enkidu slaying Humbaba, the guardian of the Cedar Forest, similarly began to inspire depictions of Perseus killing the Gorgon. Apotropaic masks of Humbaba’s frightening face also appear in Aegean domestic settings at this time (Faraone 1992). The Aegean practice of extispicy, along with that of augury from birds, lecanomancy, and certain ‘‘magical’’ practices all appear to have been imported from the Near East during this period (Burkert 1992:41-52; Dalley and Reyes 1998a:100-1; Faraone 1993, 1995, 2002). The existence of migrant seers and bards may provide a background for understanding the etymological connection between the Greek word temenos ‘‘sacred precinct’’ and the Akkadian temmenu ‘‘boundary marker, foundation deposit, temple platform’’ (West 1997:36). It also allows us to understand why many Greek musical instruments, as well as the so-called ‘‘Pythagorean’’ system of tuning, have Mesopotamian origins (Yamauchi 1967). Nevertheless, it is probable that such figures had enjoyed a great deal of influence already during the Bronze Age (Bachvarova forthcoming).
Still, cultural exchange between the cities of the Aegean and Mesopotamia was very close during the late archaic and classical periods. In some cases, the evidence for exchange appears to go well beyond the orbits of courtiers and migrant seers. One notable example is the worship of Hera at Samos, which had a particularly Mesopotamian look. Discovered there were Assyrian bronze votive figurines of a man at prayer with his hand on a dog. The use of dog images and sacred dog cemeteries at Samos closely resembles the cult of Gula the Babylonian goddess of healing whose image was a canine (Burkert 1992:17-19,75-9). Also discovered at Samos was a bronze mushussu dragon, a creature associated with the Babylonian cult of Marduk. The annual cultic procession of Hera also involved ritual bathing and clothing of the divine statue similar to that practiced at Babylon during the New Year festival (Dalley and Reyes 1998a:98). Just how Hera’s cult on Samos acquired these Mesopotamian trappings is unknown. Some have suggested the influence of traveling Assyrian merchants or Greek mercenaries returning from Babylon (Burkert 1992:77), but the combined evidence suggests a more continued Mesopotamian stimulus.
Evidence for Near Eastern influence in the Aegean world after the seventh century BC becomes increasingly obvious and is rarely debated. International affairs, especially wars, close the gap between east and west. Aegean mercenaries can be found in Egyptian, Levantine, and Mesopotamian armies, but we do not know what their religions were. Shifting alliances in the sixth century BC, caused in part by the threat of Babylonian power, brought Cyprus and Cyrene to the aid of Egypt. The Mediterranean world was becoming smaller. Ionian merchants and craftsmen were living in
Babylon and apparently marrying among the local population (Coldstream 1993). It is around this time that the Presocratic philosophers (e. g., Pythagoras of Samos, Pherecydes of Syros, and Thales of Miletos) were becoming familiar with Babylonian science and mythology (Dalley and Reyes 1998a:104).
Later still when Persia emerged as a world power, we find Babylon allying with Sparta, and despite the eventual war that ensued between the Greek city-states and Persia, east-west contacts of all kinds only increased. For some time, these contacts were hostile. For example, when the lonians burned the temple of Kubaba in Sardis, the Persian kings launched a series of counterattacks on Greek sanctuaries that lasted for nearly two decades (Mikalson 2004b:217). Nevertheless, we eventually find Greeks working in Persia, even in positions of high status. Greek artisans began to adopt artistic styles that they thought of as Persian, even though the styles were in origin Babylonian (Dalley and Reyes 1998b:108-9). It is during this period of intimate contact that the Greek world became aware of the religions of Persia, including Zoroastrianism (de Jong 1997). By the fifth century BC Near Eastern mythologies were topics of discussion among Athenian sophists (Dalley and Reyes 1998b:110-11).
By the late fourth century BC, in the hellenistic period, cultural influences and religious practices were moving fluidly in all directions (Scheid 2004). Alexander’s conquest of Babylon resulted in direct national ties with Macedonia and the steady flow of knowledge of Babylonian customs and beliefs to the west. Alexander and his Seleucid successors allowed Mesopotamian cities to exist as they had for centuries, and even participated in their religious festivals, including the Babylonian New Year, where presumably they would have been exposed to Babylonian religious customs and textual traditions such as that of Enuma Elish.
Alexander’s successors in Egypt, the Ptolemies, lavished support upon Egyptian temples (Finnestad 1997) and fully promoted the worship of Egyptian gods, especially Amun-Re. They even portrayed themselves on temple walls in pharaonic dress as Horus incarnate (Koenen 1993). Egyptian influences appear to have been greater on hellenistic religion than hellenism was on Egyptian religion. Zeus was identified with Amun and was depicted with the physical attributes of Amun-Re, including his ram’s horns and solar disk. Ptolemaic efforts to introduce the figure of Sarapis, on the other hand, did not meet the interests of the Egyptians, who preferred their longstanding solar cults of Isis, Osiris, Horus, and Amun-Re (Fraser 1972:1.274; Morenz 1973:246).
The city of Alexandria became a hotbed of intercultural exchange, where Greek speakers lived side by side with Jews and Egyptians. Their religious traditions came into frequent contact and conflict (Fraser 1972:1.24-76, 189-301; Gruen 1998, 2000). Alexandrian tombs illustrate the symbiotic relationship between hellenistic and Egyptian religious traditions (Venit 2002). Alexandrian literary activity similarly incorporates Egyptian religious tastes (Noegel 2004; Stephens 2003). Egyptian religions also spread to the Aegean. In the hellenistic period the cults of Isis, Horus, and Osiris were rather widespread throughout the Mediterranean world (Johnston 2004a:104-5; Mikalson 2005: 202). A cult to Amun had already been established in Athens a century earlier.
Though the latter periods ofAegean history are better documented than the earlier periods, the aggregate impact of the evidence suggests that the vehicles of cultural transmission were as complex in the Bronze Age as they were at the end of the first millennium BC. It is clear that multiple opportunities for the exchange of religious ideas existed at all times, even if our understanding of them is better for some periods than others. Nevertheless, while we may obtain some insight into the contexts and mechanisms of exchange, our inability to provide anything but the broad historical contours of the processes of religious exchange remains a central problem for scholars.
World History
