Around the turn of the thirteenth to the twelfth centuries BC, the palaces at Pylos and Knosos burned to the ground. The citadels at Mycene and Tiryns in the Argolis were also destroyed, and the same pattern of destruction is found elsewhere across Mycenaean Greece. Along with these palaces and citadels, the Mycenaean kingdoms, too, fell. So much is not in dispute. What remains in dispute is the cause of all this destruction. The archaeological evidence is limited to proving that the destruction occurred as well as how widespread it was: in most cases it is very difficult to tell the difference between destruction wrought by human agency and that wrought by an earthquake.
Earthquakes occur with distressing frequency in Greece (see chap. 1), and it is theoretically possible that a series of devastating earthquakes destroyed the
A History of Greece: 1300 to 30 BC, First Edition. Victor Parker.
© 2014 Victor Parker. Published 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Mycenaean citadels and caused so much damage that the various states, unable to cope with the refugees, the chaos, and the social upheaval, simply collapsed. On the other hand, unless all the earthquakes in all those places occurred simultaneously, one ought to find some trace of this posited social upheaval in the texts of the yet unaffected kingdoms. If, for example, earthquakes on the Peloponnese had already caused sufficient destruction and social upheaval to destroy several states on the Peloponnese, but Pylos still stood untouched, then one might expect to catch some glimpses of the situation in Pylos’ archives. Instead one sees bureaucrats calmly recording deeds and leases to property and the dispositions for troops assigned to a watch along the coast. Now one might suggest that Pylos was the first of the states to be destroyed by a severe earthquake; but in no kingdom does the archive give the impression of a world collapsing just beyond the borders.
Surveying the Linear B archives also helps to dispose of another theory which scholars have sometimes raised, whether in complete or partial explanation of the Mycenaean kingdoms’ destruction. This is the Aegean-Anatolian drought. In the envisioned scenario the drought is so severe that the kingdoms have great difficulty in feeding their burgeoning populations. The kings resort to warfare with each other in an increasingly desperate attempt to acquire foodstuffs and, effectively, destroy themselves as well as their kingdoms. Yet once again the archives, from their respective kingdoms’ final year, provide no evidence of any such endemic, internecine warfare. Quite the contrary, one large-scale slaving raid within the last generation of the Pylian kingdom is the only genuine act of war attested in the evidence, however indirectly. Moreover, as far as the drought itself is concerned, the flax harvest in Pylos was proceeding smoothly (Na-series). Flax is a water-intensive crop; and the presence of such a crop strongly suggests that there was no drought in Pylos during the kingdom’s last year.
Another theory posits that internal instability within the kingdoms themselves led to their collapse. Yet if there is anything that the Linear B tablets show us, it is placid stability. In any case the archaeological evidence demonstrates that the destruction was not limited to the Mycenaean kingdoms - the Hittite capital Hattusa was destroyed around this time and the Hittite kingdom disappeared; cities in Syria, in Palestine, and on Cyprus were also destroyed. It is asking a lot to expect internal instability or social upheaval in every single place. Internally, in any case, all seems in order in the Mycenaean kingdoms (as it does in the Hittite kingdom - very little, if indeed anything at all, in the Hittite texts suggests that the kingdom was on the verge of collapse circa 1200 BC).
If internally nothing was wrong with the Mycenaean (or Hittite) kingdoms, was there an external threat? An Egyptian text from the eighth year of the reign of Ramses III (1188 BC) suggests there may have been. According to Ramses III invaders from the north attacked various lands in the eastern Mediterranean:
No land could stand before their arms. From Hatti [i. e., the Hittite kingdom in central Anatolia], Kode [i. e., roughly Cilicia], Carchemish [an inland town on the
Euphrates], Arzawa [a land in western Anatolia], and Alashiya [Cyprus] on, being cut off at (one time). A camp (was set up) in one place in Amor [Syria]. They desolated its people and its land was like that which has never come into being. They were coming forward toward Egypt, while the flame was prepared before them. (ANET, p. 262)
Ramses III’s account finds independent corroboration in several essential respects. First, the archaeological evidence shows that all the places which Ramses III claims were devastated actually were devastated. Second, the attack on the island of Cyprus implies that the marauders were sea-borne; and this too is independently confirmed (see Boxes 3.1 and 3.2 for the evidence from contemporary letters from Cyprus, Ugarit, and the Hittite kingdom, all of which speak of sea-borne invaders in the eastern Mediterranean). In addition one of the reliefs which accompany Ramses III’s inscription depict some of the invaders in ships (see Figure 3.1).
These so-called Sea Peoples, to give them their conventional name, were very real then; and not just Ramses III, but other rulers in the eastern Mediterranean, viewed them as highly dangerous. Where, however, did these Sea Peoples come from? If one plots on a map the places which Ramses III
Figure 3.1 Relief from Medinet Habu showing sea-borne invaders attacking Egypt. Source: photo © Erich Lessing / akg-images
World History
