bronze age mediterranean island cultures and the ancient near east

Bronze Age Mediterranean Island Cultures and the Ancient Near East

A. Bernard Knapp

The Biblical Archaeologist, Vol. 55, No. 3. (Sep., 1992), pp. 112-128.

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The "West Courtnseen in the foreground is traversed by the raised "Processional Way" Behind that is the West Wing (upper floor re- stored), which contained what are believed to be several shrines or sanctuaries, as well as rows o f storage "magazines."Beyond the West Wing is the Central Court, where various activities-like bull-leaping- would have taken place, and finally the East Wing, which probably served as the domestic quarter of the palace. The palace o f Knossos, like most Minoan palaces, was enclosed by an extensive residential area. The palaces stood at the apex of a settlement hierarchy that included 'kountry houses,"smaller towns, ports. farmsteads and "peak sanctuaries." Knossos was the largest and grandest of the palaces, not just in terms of size (about 75 hectares) but also in the quantity o f its administrative paraphernalia (Linear A and Linear B documents and sealings) and in the quality of its pottery, painting, other fine arts and architecture. It remains uncertain, however, whether Knossos ever exercised political or economic control over the rest of Crete. Photo courtesy o f Ekdotike Athenon S.A., Athens.

Bronze Age Mediterranean Island Cultures and the Ancient Near East, Part 2 ly A. Ikmwrd Knapp

The Neo-Palatial Period About 1700 B.c.E., an earthquake (or series of quakes) destroyed Crete's first palaces. During the Neo-Palatial period that followed, these palaces were elaborately reconstructed: the magnificent frescos widely recognized as an important hallmark of Minoan civilization adorned the new palace walls. Fine pottery painted with marine and floral designs reveal a specialized level of craftsmanship; a variety of other products - jewelry, engraved gems, bronze items and ivory figurines - indicate unprecedented wealth. Self-sufficient in food and most basic resources (except metals), Minoan Crete reached the apex of prosperity by about 1600 B.C.E. as a result of intensified agricultural

112 Biblical Archaeologist, September 1992

(olive and grape) and textile production (for internal consumption as well as for export). Wide ranging trade contacts funneled luxury items and other goods into the economy.

In most cases, the palaces were enclosed by extensive residential areas and served as regional centers for the surrounding territories. On another level, the palaces stood at the summit of a settlement hierarchy that included "country houses" (second-order regional administrative centers?), smaller towns, farmsteads and other sites that fulfilled specific functions (for example, ports, "peak" sanctuaries for religious ob- servances-Bennet 1988; Peatfield 1990). Knossos was preeminent among the Neo-Palatial centers in terms of its overall size (about 75 hectares?), quantity of administrative paraphernalia and quality of pottery, painting and architecture (Hood and Taylor 1984; Bennet 1990). However, none of these factors demonstrates unequivocally that Knossos exercised political or economic control over the rest of the island. On the contrary, the evidence of seals and sealings from this period suggests distinct administrative districts (Weingarten 1988; Bennet 1990).

Even if the economic basis of the palaces and "country houses" lay in land and agriculture-pastoralism, centralized (palatial) control over foreign trade would have provided much of the extraordinary wealth and prestige items around which political and economic power revolved

Dated to the fifteenth century B.c.E., the "Marseille Ewer"is one of the most elegant and best known Late Minoan IB "Marine" style vases. Along with the magnificent fres- coes that adorned Cretan palace walls during its "Neo-Palatialnperiod, fine painted pottery with floral or marine motifs-such as the Marseille Ewer-shows the high level o f specialization that had been reached by that time, lewelry, engraved gems, metal items and ivory figurines reveal the same sort o f unprecedented wealth, at least partially the result o f wide-ranging trade contacts that typified the "International Eranof the Late Bronze Age i n the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean. Photo courtesy o f the Musde Borley. Marseille.

(Manning 1992). Yet even state controlled trade does not preclude merchants or mariners dealing in other forms of trade and barter to their own advantage (Wiener 1987: 263-64). Although specifically 'Minoan goods (especially pottery) are thin on the ground in Cyprus, the Levant and Egypt, documentary and pictorial evidence for the KeftiulKaptaru suggests that this trade was much more extensive than the material remains alone indicate.

Extensive finds of Minoan pottery, or other indications of Minoan cultural influence (in architecture, wall-paintings, "double-axe" motifs, "conical cups") in the Cyclades and on a chain of islands stretching toward Anatolia (Karpathos, Rhodes, Kos) have led to suggestions of Minoan settlement, or even of Minoan colonies, seen as part of an extensive, Knossos-controlled, island empire (later termed the "Minoan Thalasso- cracy" by Thucydides - Hagg and Marinatos 1984; Wiener 1990, 1991).

This latter suggestion must be ques- tioned, because the sort of "cultural imperialism" implied by the presence of Minoan goods and influence overseas does not necessarily imply political or even economic domination in that place. Certain pottery styles (especially the Late Minoan IB "Marine" style) once regarded as the sole products of Knossos, and spread widely throughout the island and abroad, are now thought also to have been made elsewhere in Crete, if not overseas. At the moment, the issue of Minoan colonies continues to spark new lines of research and to fuel de- bates, but there is no way to settle it one way or another. Thera. Even if the full implications of Minoan cultural contacts overseas remain uncertain, nowhere are they so apparent as at the site of Akrotiri on Thera, a veritable Bronze Age Pompeii of the Aegean. Excavations at Akrotiri have revealed copious amounts of Minoan pottery, and "Minoanizing" features and iconog-

su Biblical Archaeologist, September 1992

The site of Akrotiri on Thera is the Bronze Age Mediterranean's equivalent o f Pompeii: this strikingphotograph reveals clear evidence for a major volcanic eruption during the Late Minoan IA period, one of the most dramatic eruptions that has occurred on earth since the last ice age. The absolute calendar date for the eruption is still a matter o f intense debate: on its resolution hinges the acceptance o f a high or low chronology, which has ramifications for the chronology not only o f the Mediterranean world, but for the cultures o f ancient western Asia and Egypt. The massive destruction suffered by the town o f Santorini buried i t i n uv to 30 meters o f volcanic ash

raphy in pottery, frescos, spindle whorls, lamps and other items (Doumas 1987; various papers in Hardy, Doumas and others 1990). When the Minoans became a major political and economic force in the Aegean during the early second millennium B.c.E., it is likely that prestige or power accrued simply from possessing Minoan products, or from adopting certain aspects of Minoan religion. If nothing else, such finds reflect prehistoric socio-economic relationships between neighboring islands (for example, marriage or trading partners; prestige goods exchange -Cherry 1987: 24); the long- term maintenance of such links would have ensured access to various resources in times of shortage and may be regarded as one means of adapting to the inherent risks of island life.

About the same time the new palaces were (re)built on Crete, Akro- tiri's "town houses" also underwent reconstruction on a grander scale. The material evidence of this period of grandeur on Thera has been uniquely preserved by a violent volcanic eruption that occurred early in the Neo- Palatial period, toward the end of what Aegean prehistorians call the Late Minoan (LM) IA period. The absolute calendar date for the eruption,

and debris, as shown. The entire island, i f not and thus the range of time included the southern Aegean and Crete, was affected, in the LM IA period, is still intensely and shiuvinn and trade must have been dis- . . rupted j6r some time. From a photograph debated (noted in part 1). taken by lames V Luce, author o f Lost In its final two phases of occu- Atlantis (2969). pation, the settlement at Akrotiri

took on urban characteristics similar to those of the dominant Minoan centers of Neo-Palatial Crete. Akro- tirits size alone is exceptional within the MiddlelLate Bronze Age Cycla- des: its estimated 20 hectares made it 10-20 times larger than contemporary sites on the Cycladic islands of Kea and Melos, and almost one-third the size of the contemporary settlement at Knossos (Davis and Cherry 1990: 191). Proximity between Crete and Thera must have played some role in these developments, but did not preclude Therals self-determina- tion: Akrotiri's multistoried architecture is unique, and its pottery and other fine arts represent a high Cy- cladic standard. Within the Cyclades, Therals material refinement stands out; there is some evidence of rural settlements on the island, with a quality and range of artifactual and architectural sophistication equivalent to that known from Akrotiri.

Unlike other Cycladic islands, where evidence of a highly nucleat- ed settlement pattern (i.e. with one predominant center) has been discov- ered, Thera shows signs of dispersed settlement -farmsteads, villages, perhaps even "country housescmore reminiscent of contemporary Minoan Crete (Davis and Cherry 1990: 192). (The centralized palatial system on Crete, however, is unlikely to have promoted independent rural settlement, which may have been possible on Thera.) In Minoan terms, Akrotiri, with a maritime location ideally

The site ofAkrotiri on Thera, with a maritime location well suited to trade and communications within the Aegean, shows several signs of a centralized bureaucracy. In addition to the knowledge o f writing, there is good evi-

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as indicated by this series o f graduated lead me,-

. & .. weights excavated at Akrotiri; graduated volu- metric measures o f capacity i n pottery vessels have also been proposed. A standardized measuring system suggests, among other things, p @% ,. p. 4 - . . . I ,

. .. iT' ,r- ,-. '7 that local Theran producers, administrators and merchants could have helped to regulate &:. 'i c ' ... - ,- .- commercial exchanges within the Cyclades, or in the wider Aegean world. Photo courtesy 1

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of Anna Michailidou, Hellenic Research .. . -, ... . - - C. . , 3 u Foundation, Athens.


situated for inter-Aegeancommuni-cations, would have represented the headquarters of a centralized bureau-cracy. Although there is evidence of a measuringsystemand the knowledge of writing (inthe form of potmarks) at Akrotiri, there isasyet no evidence of a Minoan-typemini-palaceor its extensiveadministrativeparapher-nalia. Still, the hurried abandonment of the site in the face of a volcanic eruption increases the possibility that the excavators may find an ad-ministrativearchive, which would offer important new clues to the Theran economy.Even if suggestions of a hierarchicalsettlement system and centralizedadministration on Thera- based ontheMinoan model-prove to be valid, it is unnecessary to presume that this reflects the exten-sion to Thera of Minoan settlement, security, or control.

Akrotiri is distinct in many ways from Crete and the remainder of the Cyclades. Yet in economicterms, it served as an important maritime center for contacts and trade within the Aegean; its material remains and frescossuggest that Akrotiri's resi-dents or merchants had direct links with the interregionaltrade and sup-ply system in the eastern Mediter-ranean. A graduated series of disk welghts has been found at Akrotiri, and graduated volumetricmeasures of capacity in pottery vessels (simi-lar to fractionalvalues proposed for Minoan Linear A signs)have been postulated (KatsarIbmara1990; Michailidou 1990).Both factors indi-cate-already duringthe Middle Bronze Age-a standardizedmeasur-ing system, and suggest that local Theran producers, administrators and merchants regulated commer-cial exchanges within the Cyclades. On Crete, units of measure for vari-ous commoditiesare implied by the Minoan Linear A writing system. If these conceptual similarities in Mi-noan and Theran calculatingmethods are taken at facevalue, a direct link-or even a common systemof weights and measures-between Crete and

the Cycladesis likely. Such a system would have facilitated interregional communications and exchange.

Sailingships (likeone depicted on the "Miniature Fresco"from Thera)also helped regularize intra-Aegean trade and made possible an increasedmovement of local, surplus and luxury goods, includingthe bulk exchange of metals. Standardized measures and products (oxhideingots, "stirrup"jars, storage jars) were in-trinsic to long-distance commercial transactions,and soreflect increasing --demand from an interregionaltrade network. Akrotiri's economicafflu- ~ & c o v ( ~ encemust have derived chiefly from the maritime trading activities of its merchants or rulers. As in Crete, the incentivecame from a desire to ob-tain certain symbolicallycharged &k l@& tprestige goods (inthe Theran case, often of Minoan origin or style)in Each yeat many new discoveriesare order to concentrate and legitimize made that cntich ourunderstandingof power, and from the ability of a small the roots ofWestern tradition-Since it elite group to control and support a Ifbtrepottedthe diswvery of the Dead labor force that produced finished Sea Scrolls in 1947,BibliculAtrhacdo-goods for trade (Manning1992). gist has led the way with &hating The cataclysmic destruction repom ofthe latest field work.Pub-lished quattetl~&A isbeginning itssuffered by the town of Akrotiri 55thyeat oftimely challengingarticles.(towardthe end of LMIA)buried it in up to 30 meters of volcanic ash and debris. Thera itself was devastated, and there is little doubt that the entire Aegean area-especially the Press, PO.Box 15399, Atlanta, GA 303330399.lldiIndivktua orders mustsouthern Aegean and Crete-was bcprcp;udbydrcdcormoncyotdersomehow affected by ash fallout, if drawn ona United States bank or by not tidal waves. Shipsat sea may VISAorMastetCard.Forhtetmvice have been batteredbut, because tidal wavesbuildupto their greatestheight and velocity when they encounter shallowwater, ships in port would have been destroyedutterly. As a re-sult, shippingand trading within the Aegean region must have been cur-tailed, and some scholarsargue that this (hypothetical)series of related Crad number events must have broken Minoan Expitation date control over Aegean seas.

It must be cautioned that a natu- Name ral event like a volcaniceruption (and its most devastatingeffects)occurs within a very short period of time. If a seriesof calamities or a major historical event like the (presumed) -ay

BiblicalArchaeologist, September 1992

destruction of the Minoan fleet (and thus the collapse of Minoan maritime power) are attributed to the same natural cause, the associated archaeological levels - from which such arguments are generated - and the historical event must be shown convincingly to belong to precisely the same date (Davis and Cherry 1990: 196-98). Our current level of understanding, measuring and coor- dinating the occurrence of prehistoric events makes this a Herculean task.

However, archaeologists and physical scientists now agree that stratified finds of Theran pumice and tephra (volcanic substances) at several sites in the south and east Aegean belong to a relative sequence late in the LM IA pottery phase (Renfrew, in Hardy, with Renfrew 1990: 11,242). Yet if the causes of the destruction levels at Akrotiri and at other sites in the Aegean cannot be attributed strictly to the same natural event (as just argued), the eruption of Thera cannot be held responsible for the collapse of Minoan civilization. And even if earthquakes connected with the eruption caused some localized destructions, most scholars now con- cur that the series of catastrophes on Crete, which seriously undermined its preeminent position within the Aegean, occurred during the LM IB (not the LM IA) pottery phase. It is, therefore, doubly difficult to demonstrate any association between the eruption of Thera and the demise of Minoan culture and political domination. Along with the city-states of Ialysos and Camiros, that at Lindos formed a major Rhodian center during the Classical period. During the Early Bronze Age, there was also on important site at Lindos, on Rhodes'east central coast. With the exception o f Lindos, and as was the case during the Iron Age and later periods, sites were concentrated along the more fertile northwest coastal plain. The sparse settlement o f the equally fertile northeast coast perhaps resulted from its lack o f a suitable harbor. The Bay o f Bianda, where the important Late Bronze Age sites of Ialysos and Bianda were situated, provided a natural harbor, albeit one that offered little shelter from the northwest winds and rain. Photo courtesy of Christopher Mee.

The Collapse of Minoan Power: The Post-Palatial Period on Crete Nearly all excavated Minoan sites - with the possible exception of Knos- sos- show evidence of damage, destruction or desertion toward the end of the LM IB period. Whether caused by human or natural agents, these destructions were followed eventual- ly by extensive rebuilding in a style hardly less elaborate than that of the palatial era. Even if Knossos was not destroyed, it too was remodeled at this time in the same manner.

Settlement all over Crete con- tracted during the subsequent, LM II period, and henceforth Knossos was the only functioning palatial center. Other sites, furthermore, emulated developments at Knossos. At the same time, there was limited Mycenaean (i.e. Greek mainland) influence on Crete: "warriors" were buried with extensive weaponry (in the ~ycenaei an fashion); unprecedented military themes were depicted in the frescos that adorned the rebuilt palace at Knossos; pottery reminiscent of My- cenaean styles was produced; and the Linear B script was used (to write the Mycenaean Greek dialect), which at least partially replaced Linear A. Finally, at some much disputed point in time (once thought to be within the first half of the fourteenth century B.C.E. but now generally regarded

as at least a century later), the grand palace at Knossos was destroyed by fire, which clearly diminished Knos- sian influence over the island as a whole. Regional Minoan cultures continued to flourish at sites such as Khania in the west, Kommos and Hagia Triada on the south coast, and Palaikastro in the east; but palatial life on Crete - and Minoan hegemony in the Aegean-clearly had come to an end.

Because this political and economic collapse, and the subsequent cultural transformations, occurred at a time when Minoan power - in archaeological terms - seemed at its peak, it is one of the enduring enig- mas in Mediterranean prehistoric archaeology. Over the past 50 years, the LM IB destructions and the following Minoan collapse have been attributed to such singular, exclusive factors as the Theran eruption, earthquakes and fires, a Mycenaean inva- sion, or an internal revolution. The collapse of dominant early states at their peak is not uncommon, however, and is demonstrated by such examples as that of Mesopotamia during the Old Babylonian (Middle Bronze Age) or Neo-Assyrian (Iron Age) periods, or of Egypt during its New Kingdom (Late Bronze Age). The reasons marshaled to explain collapse- spiraling costs of various


The Late Minoan IA t own o f 7tianda on Rhodes covered more than 12 hectares and revealed abundant evidence of Minoan contacts: large-scale t own planning and architectural design, pottery, fresco fragments, bronze statuettes and a pair o f Minoan-style "horns o f consecration."Although ma n y scholars therefore tend t o regard W a n d a as a Minoan colony or outpost, such a designation ignores the fact that W a n d a underwent a significant expansion and elaboration during t he Late Minoan IB period, while smaller settlements grew up around the core town. n i a nda would have served as the first Aegean port for ships and traders arriving from Cyprus, the Levant or Egypt, and would have been a logical point at which to transship cargo from Cypriot or Levantine ships onto local carriers. Drawing courtesy of Christopher Mee.

sorts, overspecialization, expansion of territory (and the inability to maintain control over it) -are certainly valid in part (Yoffee 1988), but specific historical or cultural factors will have precipitated these more common processes.

Political power and economic predominance on Minoan Crete were most likely disrupted by several inter- locking factors. The Theran eruption, for example, resulted at most in some structural stress on the Minoan system near the end of the LM IAperiod. Tephra fallout may have affected agriculture in the short term, and other, related factors may have disrupted the smooth course of trade (especially in metals) throughout the south and eastern Aegean (including southwest Anatolia). Subsequent earthquakes during LM IB may have caused some social strife or economic setbacks on Crete, but are unlikely to have precipitated a complete cultural collapse. Mycenaean influence is evident -especially beginning in the mid- fourteenth century B.c+E.-but Mino- an material culture remained strongly in evidence: Linear A continued to be used at least throughout LM II;and at Knossos the Linear B archives reveal that three-quarters of the names mentioned are non-Greek. Crete, in other words, remained staunchly Minoan to the end.

External factors, however, may also have upset the balance of power within Crete: increasing Mycenaean

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power on the Greek mainland may have disrupted the supply of metals or other resources coming from or through that quarter (thus explaining the increased presence of Cypriot oxhide ingots on LM IB-LM I11 Crete, between about 1500-1300 B.c.E.- Muhly 1987); Hittite expansion in Anatolia and north Syria may have disrupted long-standing Mino- an links with those areas. As a result of these circumstances, if not others, the multiple domains of power on Late Minoan Crete were broken, and-at first-an internal revolution may have resulted in the temporary concentration of power at Knos- sos. Subsequently, during the late fourteenth-thirteenth centuries B.c.E., settlements with distinctive regional characteristics spread across the island, and contacts with the central Mediterranean began to be cultivated. But Crete never regained its position of dominance within the Aegean and, like all states large and small in the eastern Mediterranean, it suffered further economic and sys- temic stress at the end of the Late Bronze Age (about 1200 B.c.E.-

Liverani 1987; Shrimpton 1987). Rhodes.The archaeological situation on Rhodes in the Dodecanese ("twelve-islands")has one important thing in common with those on Cyprus, Crete and the Cyclades: clandestine and illegal excavations in tombs during the nineteenth century produced a multitude of pottery- including a wealth of Mycenaean- type pottery-whose findspots (and thus cultural contexts) have been lost forever.

Throughout the Dodecanese (including Rhodes), archaeological evidence for the Early and Middle Bronze Ages is still poorly attested. Excavations at Late Bronze Age sites by Italian, British and Danish teams -in the late nineteenth and early twen- tieth centuries- have been continued and expanded in recent decades by the Greek Archaeological Service (Dietz and Papachristodoulou 1988). Because of the abundance of Minoan and (later in time) Mycenaean pottery that characterizes the excavated sites, there still exists an unfortunate ten- dency to refer to "Minoan" Trianda or "Mycenaean" Ialysos (Mee 1982,

Biblical Archaeologist, September 1992 117

1988; Benzi 1988), rather than to evaluate the full range of material in its Rhodian context.

With regard to shipping and trade, Rhodes suffers from a dearth of natural harbors. The Bay of Trianda, for example, offers little shelter from northwest winds and rain, even though the proximity of the Anatoli- an plateau moderates the north wind, and ameliorates winter temperatures on Rhodes. Excepting the important Early Bronze Age site of Lindos on the east central coast, the heaviest concentration of sites is found along the fertile northwest coastal plain. Two key Late Bronze Age sites - Trianda and Ialysos -lie near the northwestern tip of Rhodes. The equally fertile northeast coast was sparsely settled, as was the whole southern part of the island (partially swampy, poor agricultural land). If contacts between Rhodes and the Aegean region seem particularly intense (less so but still evident with Cyprus), the island's comparative lack of Levantine or Near Eastern goods poses an enigma.

The material culture of the earliest, Middle Bronze Age settlement at Trianda is local in character but interlaced with "Trojan" (northwest Anatolian) elements (Marketou 1988: 27-28). A subsequent, "Late Minoan IN town covered more than 12 hectares (contemporary Akrotiri on Thera was about 20 hectares); so much evidence of Minoan contact - large-scale town planning, architectural design, pottery, fresco fragments, a pair of stone "horns of consecration," bronze statuettes -has been found in Trianda, that it is now widely regarded as a Minoan colony (Fururnark 1950; Marketou 1988: 28-31). Such a classification tends to mask the fact that Trianda-like contemporary Akrotiri and many Minoan settlements-underwent a remarkable expansion and elaboration during the LMIB period, while smaller settlements developed around the core town.

LMIA Trianda was a port town,

the first Aegean port for traders coming from the east (no Middle or Late Bronze Age sites are known along the southern coast of Anatolia, I and Rhodes is the first known stop- 1 ping place west of Cyprus - Portugali and Knapp 1985: 52-53). Trianda would have been the obvious port in

: -1 - - - \.., which to transship cargo from Cyp- \ riot or Levantine ships onto local

a \ - :% ships; the site thus may have controlled much of the trade coming into d' the southeast Aegean from points farther east. In such a situation, one might expect to find more evidence of eastern Mediterranean contacts at

d Trianda or other Rhodian sites. If the Minoans actually dominated Rhodes, however, and controlled the

- - .- #

flow of prestige goods or essential raw materials through the island (so ensuring their continued transport to Crete), the limited amounts of eastern Mediterranean materials found on the island would be more understandable.

After what appears to be earthquake damage, the large LMIA town at Trianda underwent some renova- tion. But those renovations were disrupted and left unfinished, perhaps as one outcome of the massive volcanic eruption on Thera (Doumas

After about 1350 B.c.E.; the Late Bronze Age on Rhodes is best known from the large cemetery site o f Ialysos, which contained more than 125 tombs o f "Mycenaean"type. A range of pottery from these tombs (55 samples) analyzed by optical emissions spectro- scopy indicated that most LHIIIA-B wares from Ialysos (like the kylix above) were imports, whereas most o f the LH lllC wares (like the jug below) were locally produced. Because fine Mycenaean pottery like this may have been reserved exclusively for mortuary use, one should not extrapolate from the 55 samples analyzed to the entire corpus o f Late Helladic (Mycenaean) pottery found on Rhodes. Photos courtesy o f Christopher Mee.


1988; Marketou 1990). Tephra from several places in northwest Rhodes -including stratigraphic excavations at Trianda, and a layer up to 1 meter thick found during the opening of a sewer ditch- has been analyzed as Theran in origin. Although Trianda was partially reconstructed in LMIB, and in fact continued to be occupied until the mid-fourteenth century B.c.E., the new town was reduced in size and limited in habitation to the northern sector, nearest the sea. The LMIB and Late Cypriot I pottery found in this stratum suggests that overseas links remained open; the increasing presence of Mycenaean pottery (Late Helladic 11-IIIA2) in the upper layers indicates the same, but perhaps with changing economic orientations.

Evidence for Late Bronze Age settlement on Rhodes ends with the apparent abandonment of Trianda (sometime during the fourteenth century B.c.E.). For the following centuries, the (mortuary) evidence is overwhelmingly one-sided -based on the massive cemetery site at nearby Ialysos (Mee 1988). Intensive survey work on Rhodes, furthermore, is sorely lacking, and thus the entire dimension of settlement pattern analysis is denied to us. The cemetery at Ialysos contained more than 125 chamber tombs (of "Mycenaean" type) and hundreds of Mycenaean pottery vessels, dated between about 1400-1200 B.C.E. (LHIIB-LHIIIC; Mee 1982, 1988). Some pottery from this cemetery has been analyzed geo- chemically (to determine its origin), and almost all of the LHIIIA-IIIB pots proved to be imports (from Greece or Crete); the reverse holds true for the LHIIIC pottery (chiefly of local origin; Jones and Mee 1978). These pro- portions should not be extrapolated to encompass all Mycenaean pottery found on Rhodes since; for cultural reasons unknown to us, these fine Mycenaean painted wares may have been reserved for mortuary use.

Given the nature of the evidence, it is inappropriate to characterize

Rhodes simply as a Minoan colony during the first 200 years of the Late Bronze Age, and as a Mycenaean en- clave thereafter. Evidence from the end of the Bronze Age (LHIIIC), more-over, demonstrates local production of "Mycenaean1'-type pottery, and indicates that most second-order settlements on the island had been abandoned. Although these developments are often viewed as yet another influx of Mycenaeans (refugees this time), they could equally be seen as reflecting internal change on Rhodes, namely the nucleation of settlement near Ialysos, for reasons yet to be determined.

The presence in the Ialysos tombs of a variety of metal artifacts (including gold and silver), amber, glass ornaments, beads of semipre- cious stones (including rock crystal), and even the odd seal and Egyptian scarab (Mee 1982: 45-46; Benzi 1988), attests to far-flung economic relations of some sort, even if Aegean materials dominate most tomb assemblages. It should be reiterated that Rhodes offered significant locational advan- tages within the eastern Mediterra- nean: it has the first known major settlement and port west of Cyprus, and at the same time is the first major stopping place after an extended sea journey (approximately half the distance between Cyprus and mainland Greece, and two-thirds of the distance between Cyprus and Crete); the island of Rhodes is an important junction along this route, because the journey westward splits at this point into two branches (to Crete, or to the Cy~ladeslGreece)~ as both port and junction, it may have hosted foreign ships at dock for several days at a time, while products were unload- ed or reloaded for transshipment (Portugali and Knapp 1985: 53).

Although some scholars- nota-bly Lord William Taylour -once argued on the basis of pottery form and decoration that Rhodian sailors ventured as far west as South Italy and Sicily, geochemical analyses have failed to corroborate such a sys-

tem of trade (the pottery in question most likely emanated from mainland Greece, and was shipped both east and west- Jones and Mee 1978). Even conservative prehistorians would agree that intra-Aegean trade- with Rhodes at the easternmost perimeter- involved a great deal of entrepreneurial activity within a pre- monetar); economy, where metals and other goods may function as valuables and move in all directions (as dictated by demand for those products). Although Minoans and My~enaeans certainly participated in Late Bronze Age trade throughout the eastern Mediterranean (including Rhodes and the Dodecanese generally), there is no reason to insist that they had to establish full-fledged colonies in order to do so. As it currently exists, the archaeological record of Late Bronze Age Rhodes suggests that a group of Minoan or Mycenaean merchants may have been quartered at Trianda or Ialysos to handle the transshipment of goods to and from Cyprus and the Levant. In such a system Rhodian elites would have sought to emulate and acquire certain types of prestige goods from the Aegean core area.

Sardinia and the Shardanu Sardinia, with its 24,800 square kilometers, is the second largest island (after Sicily) in the Mediterranean. At no point does Sardinia lie closer than 200 kilometers to the Italian mainland; yet only 12 kilometers separate it from Corsica (55 kilometers from the mainland), which probably served as the stepping- stone in the earliest colonization of both islands.

In many respects, the material and documentary evidence that per- tains to the west Mediterranean island of Sardinia parallels that of the eastern Mediterranean islands. Texts that mention the Shardanu (or Sherden-if indeed this term can be associated with the Bronze-Early Iron Age inhabitants of Sardinia- have been studied at great length by


trast to the situation in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean. Deeply felt notions about the superiority of Classical Greek and Roman civilization, together with a focus on the complex, urban, literate cultures of the Bronze Age, promoted the widespread participation of foreign archaeologists throughout the eastern Mediterranean and Aegean. Because Sardinia was regarded as a culturally less complex society, and because its unique stone monuments -nurag)u - were regarded as crude in comparison with the palaces of Minoan Crete (or even the "temples" of Malta), "main- stream" Mediterranean archaeologists shunned fieldwork on Sardinia (Becker 1980).

Yet even this exclusionary tactic failed to stifle interest in Sardinia's metal resources, and in the ever- increasing number of copper oxhide ingots (of typically eastern Mediter- ranean shape) found on the island. Until very recently, however, this evidence has always been interpreted as the result of Aegean or eastern Mediterranean colonists, merchants or metalsmiths exploiting Sardinia's resources (see Lo Schiavo and others 1985; Vagnetti and Lo Schiavo 1989: 23.1-33; compare Chapman 1985: 115-16; Bietti Sestieri 1988; Knapp

philologists, but are often cast by east- between about 1600-1000 B.C .E. i990b: 142-43). In fact strong argu- em Mediterranean archaeologists in (various papers in Marazzi and others ments can also be mounted for local rather dubious historical scenarios 1986; Balmuth 1987; Lo Schiavo and production by indigenous miners (Lo (for example, Dothan 1986). Efforts others 1990; Tykot and Andrew 1992). Schiavo 1986), perhaps stimulated by of archaeological superintendents Yet the study and understanding of demand from a wider, Late Bronze on Sardinia during the 1980s have the mechanisms of Mediterranean Age Mediterranean trade system. dramatically expanded our knawl- trade overall is still in its infancy: The nature of island life during edge of the island's archaeological often it is no more than a scholar's the "Copper" Age and Early Bronze record (especially that of the Bronze geographical area of training, or their Age (about 2800-1800 B.c.E.) is poor- and Iron Ages). But the type of de- approach to the material in question, ly documented in comparison with tailed information available on mate- that leads to suggestions of ethnic our knowledge of developments on rial culture, settlement patterns, and preeminence-for example, by Ca- Sardinia during the centuries be- chronology in the Aegean and eastern naanites, Cypriotes, Mycenaeans, tween 1800-500 B.C.E. (the "Nuragic Mediterranean has yet to be paral- or even Sardinians-and economic periodlLthe upper limit suggested by leled in Sardinia and the western control over the trade that brought the few radiocarbon dates available Mediterranean. Recent archaeologi- eastern Mediterranean goods and for Bronze Age Sardinia-Lo Schiavo cal excavations and archaeometal- materials to central or west Mediter- 1981). The precursors of Nuragic soci- lurgical research by Italian, British ranean ports (Bietti Sestieri 1988; ety in Sardinia, and an understanding and American teams have cast impor- Knapp 1990b). of the economic and political basis tant new light on contacts between The history of archaeological of pre-Nuragic society, are still mat- the east and west Mediterranean exploration on Sardinia stands in con- ters for speculation (Lewthwaite

Biblical Archaeologist, September 1992

1986); in fact, even the economic factors that stimulated east-west Mediterranean contacts during the Nuragic period are limited to the realm of hypotheses. At this stage, a chronological framework for Late Bronze Age Sardinia is only a pious hope; the dates that exist rely chiefly on stratigraphic associations among Aegean, eastern Mediterranean and Sardinian artifacts.

The nuraghi are ubiquitous, often well preserved features on the Sardinian landscape. Attempts to understand their cultural signifi- cance have been limited by inatten- tion to the total social and spatial context in which these monumental towers were situated and by the ex- tremely limited chronological con- trols available. More than 7,000 nuraghi have been inventoried and mapped (Gallin 1987, 1989). Most are modest single-tower structures, but about 2,000 are elaborate multi- tower complexes -occasionally with heavy curtains walls, stone galleries, bastions and subsidiary towers- that went through several building stages. Long thought to have served exclusively military or defensive functions in prehistoric Sardinian society (for example, fortresses, signal towers, refuges), the amount of occupational and domestic debris recovered in most excavated nuraghi suggests that many served as habitations (in times of danger perhaps as fortified refuges for those who lived in the adjacent villages). There is still no evidence for economic specialization in the few excavated nuraghi (for example, potters, metalsmiths or even soldiers), or for a postulated medieval type system, with rustic lords and village peasants (Lewth- waite 1986).

During a long period of occupa- tion, abandonment, rebuilding and use (from about 1800 B.c.E.-1000 c.E.), nuraghi must have served a variety of domestic and other (defensive, pastoral, ceremonial) functions. Within any given 10-50 square kilo- meter area, it is possible to find not

only examples of all three types of nuraghi (proto-, simple, complex), but also of other civil or ceremonial types of architecture: tombs, wells, "temples" and "meeting houses." Such groupings may indicate regional or sub-regional polities and could reflect sociopolitical hierarchies, particularly when measured in terms of architectural elaboration, living space, exotic trade goods (fine painted pottery, ivory), and perhaps even access to metal resources or goods. Webster (1991) has sought to understand the long-term use of nuraghi by employ- ing an ethnographically based, "multiphase" model: in general, nuraghi would have functioned as fortified, single family residences, which underwent specific changes from non-permanent pastoral camps (pre-Nuragic period), to permanent, autonomous, tribally organized, agro-pastoral homesteads (about 1800-1250 B.c.E.), and finally to high status, residential family compounds within villages that formed part of a sub-regional, small scale chiefdom (1250-500 B.c.E.). The period between about 1250-900 B.C.E. witnessed the elaboration of many single story towers into large, multi-tower complexes, and the development of village settlements immediately surrounding them; it is, therefore, a time often regarded as the high point of Nuragic culture on Sardinia.

During the thirteenth century B.c.E.,a few examples of Mycenaean pottery and a miniature ivory head of Mycenaean style arrived on Sar- dinia (Ferrarese Ceruti and others 1987). Within 100 years, "Aegean-style" pottery had become widespread (even if not in great quantities): it is found at eight different sites, four of which are situated on or very near the sea- coast. Of these, the Nuraghe Anti-gori, on the south central coast, con- tains about 90 percent of the several hundred extant Aegean-style vessels or sherds thus far recovered. Of the 80 or so Aegean-style sherds sampled and examined by geochemical analysis, only about half proved to be im-

ports (Jones and Day 1987; Jones and Vagnetti 1991). Most painted pottery vessels or sherds appear -in the eyes of specialists -to be local copies of the more exotic imports.

This situation nonetheless argues for some level of Aegean influence on local potters, and the Aegean technique of making wheel- made pottery may have influenced the local manufacture of fine hand- made wares (for example, ceramica grigia -"grey wares"). Aegean and other eastern Mediterranean artifacts or influence, especially in metallurgical products, may have figured as exotica to be emulated or exchanged by elites within an intraisland network. With the exception of the large number of Aegean-style (and a few Cypriot-style) sherds at the Nuraghe Antigori, the exotic pottery is scattered randomly, in small numbers, among several sites around the island.

The distribution of metal finds in Sardinia, while more widespread than exotic pottery, still lacks any patterning indicative of centrally organized production or trade. Archae- ological excavations have recovered two types of copper ingots: plano- convex (or "bun") ingots, and oxhide ingots (many of the latter lack prove- nience -Lo Schiavo 1989). The oxhide ingots are very similar in form and weight to those commonly found in the Aegean and eastern Mediterra- nean. Of the plano-convex ingots and Sardinian metal artifacts that have been sampled for chemical and isotopic analyses, most show a similar composition and were almost certainly produced from Sardinian ores (Gale and Stos-Gale 1987; Stos-Gale and Gale 1992). Oxhide ingots analyzed (from 15 sites) have a more pure copper content, and show close similarities in geochemical composition to eastern Mediterranean ingots. Many of these analyzed oxhide ingots may well be of Cypriot origin although, in principle, it is still possible that some were local products made to conform to a Mediterranean- wide standard of value.


Although clear indications exist of metallurgical production- includ-ing the numerous tools that could have been used for mining (Lo Schiavo 1986-there is no firm evidence of local metal workshops. Certainly no known site could be construed as a center for commercial scale production, nor were nuraghi usually lo- cated to take advantage of known metal ore deposits. So far, there is no clear correlation between the size of nuraghi and metallurgical finds on an interregional scale, as might be expected with Sardinia's spatially restricted ore sources and apparent overseas trading contacts. Although many of the largest nuraghi have yielded little evidence of metalworking or of overseas trade, this may simply be the result of the small number of Nuragic sites thus far excavated.

Until it is possible to assess the level of specialization in pottery or metal production on Sardinia, and in particular to see how the output of the coastal centers compares to that in settlements islandwide, it will be difficult to judge adequately the relationship between metallurgical production and trade, and settlement nucleation. Even at the Nuraghe Antigori, with its hundreds of "Aegean-style" pottery vessels or sherds and indicators of incipient iron metallurgy, the local context is poorly understood: the suggestion that it was an important trading emporium serving as a gateway for Mediterranean products is at this time no more than an intriguing proposition (Ferrarese Ceruti and others 1987: 25-27).

Although the evidence is still limited, geochemical analyses of pottery and isotopic analysis of metal ores, artifacts and ingots show that different Nuragic sites received a variety of both local and imported goods (Gale and Stos-Gale 1987). If such variability among sites is sus- tained with increasing archaeological evidence and larger numbers of analyzed samples, it might be more realistic to speak of coastal trading

centers as standing at the apex of a settlement hierarchy, with prestigious goods traveling to inland sites via some sort of "down-the-line" trading system (Knapp 1990b). In such a scenario, the suggestion of multi-towered Nuragic complexes on the periphery of a settlement system, with smaller, single-towernuraghi at the center, must also be reassessed carefully (Gallin 1987): such "peripheral" complexes could have served as conduits between neighboring polities. If it were possible to confirm or reject such a hierarchical model of settlement, it would help resolve the debate over local versus foreign exploitation of Sardinia's copper resources. Fur- thermore, the proposed relationship between settlement ranking and metallurgical activity could be reconsidered on a sound, empirical basis. If the nuraghi were grouped hierarchically, it may be predicted that the higher status settlements will reveal evidence of control over copper production or trade, and over the interisland exchange of other, prestige-related goods.

The spatial, temporal and ana- lytical relationships between the plano-convex (local products?) and oxhide ingots (imports?) must be reconsidered fully. Whatever the outcome, solid evidence exists for indigenous metalworking: bronze and lead artifacts, bronzesmith's tools, molds for casting tools and implements, clay crucibles for melting ores, and several metal "hoards" recovered from Nuragic villages (Lo Schiavo 1986). Such an array of evidence for secondary melting, refining and production of copper provides reasonable support for primary metallurgical production. Neither in the realm of copper production and trade, nor in that of pottery production and the distribution of other exotica, is there any demonstrated need to pos- tulate the presence of Mycenaean colonists or Cypriot metallurgical specialists. The frequent occurrence of a copper oxhide ingot weighing from 30-35 kilograms (approximate-

ly 66-77 pounds) in the Aegean, the eastern Mediterranean (Cyprus, Anatolia, the Levant) and the central Mediterranean (Lipari, Sicily, Sar- dinia) suggests an accepted standard for weight and purity (Lo Schiavo and others 1985: 10-13; Gale and Stos- Gale 1987: 136; compare Bass 1967: 71-72), and makes it possible that all these areas were part of a broader Mediterranean trade system.

If the oxhide ingots recovered on Sardinia were produced in Cyprus, as isotopic analysis suggests, they may represent nothing more than the economic response by Cypriot entrepreneurs to the collapse of the eastern Mediterranean trade system (about 1200 B.c.E.). If SO, this response would have been an attempt to maintain a lucrative copper trade in the central Mediterranean in the face of the intensified commercialization of iron in eastern markets (Knapp 1990b). On Sardinia, increased contact with and demand from the eastern Mediterra- nean may have strengthened tenden- cies toward a hierarchical ordering of settlements, extraneous to the internal system but integral to an external, Mediterranean system. Such centers, coastal or otherwise, should reveal the clearest evidence for contacts with the Aegean world or Cyprus, and- once excavated more exten- sively- should provide important new evidence for understanding the sociopolitical and economic dynam- ics of Nuragic culture.

The Mediterranean Islands and the Ancient Near East: Discussion Cuneiform and hieroglyphic or hier- atic documents, dated primarily to the second millennium B.c.E., refer only sporadically to the major island polities of the Bronze Age Mediterra- nean. These texts are both limited in number (compared to the total body of Near Eastern documentary material) and uneven in nature; they are concerned with idiosyncratic matters often devoid of interest to philologists or even to historians. Many seem to have little bearing on, and certainly


no one-to-one relationship to, the archaeological record of the island to which they refer. Although epig- raphers and philologists have studied these documents at length, their concern with lexical, syntactic or grammatical questions has seldom resulted in rigorous historical or cultural treatments. Historians and archaeologists, for their part, have not always used textual materials in a suitably critical fashion, but rather have tended to ward selectivity in culling documents to reconstruct cultural or historical scenarios that focus on individual sites or supple- ment individual viewpoints.

What, then, can be said generally about the nature and intensity of ties between Mediterranean island cultures and the mainland ancient Near East? Cyprus shows the clearest evidence-material and documentarv- for contacts with the Near East, bk- tween about 1800-1100 B.C.E. Cunei-form records from Mari mention the copper of Alashiya as early as the nineteenth-eighteenth centuries B.C.E.Through time, and especially during the centuries between about 1600-1300 B.c.E., Cypriot copper became an important trade commodity throughout western Asia and Egypti as the Amarna Letters demonstrate, the ruler of Cyprus was firmly in control of the Mediterranean side of this trade by the mid-fourteenth century B.C.E.Besides copper, an extraordinary variety of goods was involved in the Cypro-Asiatic or Cypro-Egyptian trade (Knapp 1991: 21-68): food (bar- ley, grain), wine and resins; horses and oxen; precious metals (gold, silver); clothing (linen, leather, wool, hides) and blankets; woods (ebony, boxwood) and ivory; oils, (olive and vegetable oils, myrrh, myrtle, various "perfumed" oils), aromatics and dyes (blue-purple, red, gold, green). By the end of the Bronze Age, Cyprus's economic orientations increasingly turned toward the Aegean and the central Mediterranean.

Documentary evidence alone records Levantine and Asiatic elements

within Cyprus's polyglot society of the fourteenth-thirteenth centuries B.C.E.(Hurrians, Semites, Hittites, Egyptians). By the early eleventh century B.c.E., a bronze spit inscribed with a Greek personal name (from a tomb near Paphos in the southwest) suggests that Greek-speaking people had attained some prominence on the island (Masson and Masson, in Kara- georghis 1983). In both cases, the archaeological evidence corresponds in part to these likely ethnic orientations. The fact that exiles banished from Syria and Anatolia turned up on Cyprus indicates some sort of mutual -albeit perhaps strained -relationship. Such a picture is not denied by the (Hittite-backed?) mari-time raids of the Lukka and Ahhiya wa

often intense, and spread over several centuries. The provision of Cypriot copper to these states formed the mainstay of such contacts, and the wealth realized from this trade helped to transform Cyprus from a circum- scribed, village-based society into a highly coordinated, international state system. In so doing, wittingly or unwittingly, the reigning powers of ancient western Asia opened up a valuable nexus for trade with the wider Mediterranean world. Al-though the full ramifications of this trade only became fully apparent with the ventures of the Phoenicians in the early Iron Age, Near Eastern contacts with the Aegean world had become quite intense by the Late Bronze Age, at least in some instances

The issue of interrelationshim between

the Bronze Age Aegean and Egypt or the

Levant has alwavs been a volatile one.

based largely on archaeological evidence

(or on controversial documentary evidence).

against Cypriot coastal towns, or by the battle fought between Hittite- controlled ships and other ships from Cyprus (although the latter were not necessarily Cypriot ships). Perhaps because political relations with Egypt had a strong economic flavor, on the whole they were more amicable than Cypro-Asiatic relations. And yet, when Cypriot merchants were re- tained in Egypt (or perished there), the king of Cyprus had to appeal for their return (and for the dead man's personal effects-unuti: el-Amarna letter 35: 30-34; see Knapp 1991: 49).

Cypriot contacts with Egypt, Hatti and the Syrian polities cen- tered at Ugarit and Mari were diverse,

through Cypriot intermediaries. The issue of interrelationships

between the Bronze Age Aegean and Egypt or the Levant has always been a volatile one, based largely on archaeological evidence (or on controversial documentary evidence). It is, moreover, charged and constrained by nineteenth century preconceptions that disallowed any significant level of Semitic cultural impact upon the Bronze Age precursors of Classical Greek civilization. These views have altered dramatically over the past five years. Two recent doctoral theses de- tail a broad range and large number of material exchanges between the Aegean and the Near East (Lambrou-


Phillipson 1990; Cline 1991b); Martin Bernal's controversial new study Black Athena (two of four projected volumes have appeared- 1987, 1991) maintains that Egyptian -and to a lesser extent Levantine -cultural and linguistic influences on the Aegean world began as early as the first half of the second millennium B.C.E. (with an Egypto-Levantine colonization of the Aegean) and played a central role in the formation of Greek civilization. However, the impact of Egypto- Levantine influence on the Aegean (and particularly on mainland Greece) during the Early and Middle Bronze Ages remains hypothetical at best; the Minoan-style fresco recently found in the Egyptian Delta perhaps suggests that cultural influences flowed in the opposite direction. I pointed out earlier that, perhaps in the wake of commercial exchanges, some rulers of Minoan Crete may have emulated aspects of Near East- ern ideology in order to enhance their own political roles. At most, such contacts would have intensified intra-

The Shardanu

Among the groups of Sea Peoples mentioned in Near Eastern documentary evidence, the best known are the Plst, or Philistines, who settled in the southern Levant and gave their name to the region still known as Palestine. Other groups, whose association with various ethnic elements or geographic locations remains contentious, included the Lk (Lycians?), 7?s (Etruscans?), S k l ~ or Skl (Sicilians?), Dnyn (Danuna? Danaan Greeks?) and the ShardanulSherden, fre- quently equated with Sardinians (Tykot 1989, 1991).

The Shardanu first appear in cuneiform texts as Egyptian mercenary troops stationed in Levantine garrisons (fourteenth century B.c.E.) or fighting with Ramesses I1 against Hittites at the Battle of Kadesh in southern Syria (thirteenth century B.c.E.). Ugaritic administrative texts of the thirteenth century B.C.E. also mention the Shardanu; some were mobi- lized for military service by the royal palace, and others received royal land grants,

Aegean competition to obtain prestige goods from the Near East, and thereby sparked sociopolitical or economic development within the Aegean.

The Keftiu textual and icono- graphic evidence makes it clear that Aegean peoples visited Egypt during the mid-second millennium R.C.E. These contacts were certainly commercial in nature, even though the Egyptians chose to describe them as tributary-and thus politically moti- vated-in the tomb texts that depict the Keftiu.Mycenaean material continued to reach Egypt until the thirteenth century R.c.E., although it is uncertain if this resulted from direct contacts or through Levantine intermediaries.

Even if it is accepted that Amenophis 111's well-known statue base, which mentions several Aegean and Cretan place names, recorded the visit of an Egyptian emissary to the Aegean during the fourteenth century R.c.E., it is a radical and otherwise ill-founded notion to maintain -as Rernal does- that this demonstrates

presumably as payment for their military activities. By the reign of the Egyptian pharaoh Merneptah late in the thirteenth century B.c.E., the Shardanu had switched allegiance and appear among a group of "Libyan" allies defeated by pharaoh in Egypt's western delta.

Since this group of "Sea Peoples" also included the S k l ~ and 7?s (Sicilians and Etruscans?), as well as the IkwS and Lk (Achaeans and Lycians?), might it be regarded as a Mediterranean group of raiders? Some of them would then have been the logical precursors of groups who later migrated westward and gave their names to Sardinia, Sicily and Etruria. In such a scenario, the groups repulsed in Egypt must have scattered widely, or wandered for long, indeterminate periods of time, before settling in their final destinations. The Shardanu reverted to their role as Egyptian accomplices in the Libyan strug- gles of Ramesses 111, early in the twelfth century B.C.E. In Ramesses' eighth year, however, in the inscription cited in the

Egyptian suzerainty (overlordshipl over the Aegean. The statue base in cluestion was only one of five that lined a court in Amcnophis 111's fu-nerary temple; many of the places mentioned on the other bases (for example, Hatti, Arzawa, Assyria, Mitanni, Babylonia) could never be considered as subservient to Egypt. Bernal's challenge to the accepted orthodoxy about the nature of Aegean- Near Eastern relations during the second millennium B.C.E. should and will force scholars to reconsider certain colonial, racist and political con- cepts that have served to propagate European ethnocentrism in interpre- ting the past. However, his notions of Egyptian or Levantine coloniza- tions in the Aegean are not persuasive, and in fact confuse the nature of economic and political-ideological processes at work in the Bronze Age Mediterranean.

Within the Aegean, Crete's location proved to be strategic for east- west trade and communications. As its material record demonstrates,

first part of this study (BA 55: 52), the Shardanu and the WSS were defeated and brought as captives to Egypt by the thou- sands I". . . like the sand of the shore"). Allowing here for a bit of pharaonic hyper- bole, this inscription may describe the cli- max of the battles waged by the Egyptians against the Sea Peoples.

The Shardanu appear next- together with the Plst and Skl- in an early eleventh century B.C.E. Egyptian text (the Onomas- ticon of Arnenope) that refers to the towns and peoples of Canaan (the southern Le-vant). By this time, the pioneering interest of Bronze Age Cypriots and Aegeans in the centrallwest Mediterranean had been appropriated-or at least supplemented- by the Iron Age Phoenicians (Muhly 1985). The earliest archaeological evidence of Phoenician settlements or trading sta- tions at western Mediterranean sites is no earlier than the ninth century B.C.E. How-ever, the eleventh century B.C.E. dating (based on the writing style) of a Phoenician inscription found at Nora in Sardinia (the


during the centuries between about 1600-1150 B.c.E., Crete increasingly became involved in an interregional exchange system (or interlinked sys- tems) that extended from Sardinia (perhaps even from Spain's south- eastern coast) in the west to the Euphrates and Jordan rivers in the east. As the KeftiulKaptaru documents demonstrate, the Aegean world-particularly Crete -had a recognized political status among contemporary Near Eastern states and enjoyed good economic relations with Egypt, Mari and Ugarit. A variety of goods locally grown or produced in the Aegean were exported to Egypt and the Levant, and certain Levantine items were transshipped to Egypt on Keftiu ships. In exchange, a range of Egyptian, eastern Mediter- ranean and Near Eastern goods -tin, copper, faience, alabaster, seals and scarabs, pottery and stone vessels (and their contents) and an array of organic goods -arrived from the east. Crete's active involvement in this trade enriched its own culture, helped

"Nora Fragmentl'Cross 1972), together with a proposed eleventh century B.C.E. dating for certain Phoenician figurines, suggest that the Phoenicians were explor- ing the central Mediterranean two cen- tuties before they began to reside in that area. Another inscription found at Nora (the "Nora Stone") is even more significant for this discussion: it indicates that, bv the

, ,

ninth century B.c.E., some people called Shardanu dwelt on the island of Sardinia (Cross 1988).

The link between the Shardanu-now friend, now foe of the Egyptians- mentioned in cuneiform and hieroglyphic documents of the centuries between about 1400-1150 B.c.E., and the Shardanu of the ninth century B.C.E. (Phoenician) Nora Stone, is vague and difficult to substanti- ate. To make the link historically valid, it must be demonstrated that some of the Levantine Shardanu had established themselves (perhaps in a merchant colony or quarter) on Sardinia, as Phoenician traders or raiders, by the ninth century

to secure and vitalize the palatial economy, and expanded its horizons far beyond the Aegean world. Like the situation on Bronze Age Cyprus, Cretan contacts with the Near East helped to transform the island's interregional political-economic standing in the broader Mediterranean world, and perhaps served- after about 1400 B.c.E.-to stimulate Aege- an maritime activities in the central Mediterranean.

Despite the reservations of Aegean prehistorians, Mycenaean linguists, and Hittitologists, the Ahhiya wa-Achaiwa correspondence -circumstantial though it must remain- seems eminently de- fensible: it opens a window on Aege- an military and political maneuvers in western Anatolia (less so in Cy- prus), indicates that diplomatic relations existed between the two areas, and makes it possible to consider anew the quasi-historical aspects of the Trojan war portrayed in the Homeric epics. The proposed cor- respondences should not be regarded

B.C.E. Although the trade in bulk metals (i.e copper "oxhide" ingots) provides one material link between the eastern and central Mediterranean that hints at such an association, that trade had ceased by about 1000 B.C.E. (LoSchiavo 1986: 238- 40; Muhly and others 1988: 283). The role of the Phoenicians in that trade seems unlikely, and in any case has not been demonstrated.

The Phoenicians, nonetheless, not only functioned as purveyors of luxury and manufactured goods, but also came to monopolize the vital trade in raw materials (Frankenstein 1979). By so doing, they filled demand for these basic materials in various lands of the Mediterranean (Cy- prus, Italy, North Africa, Malta, southern France, Spain and the Balearic islands). Sardinia, rich in both copper and silver- bearing lead ores, may have become an important supplier of these metals, particularly since the western Mediterranean remained fully in a0Bronze Agel'economy until well into the first millennium B.C.E.

as an attempt to reduce Mycenaean pottery, the Ahhiyawa and Homer's Achaean Greeks to a single, simplis- tic, material-documentary entity. Rather they represent an attempt to reconsider converging, or at least parallel, streams of evidence as aspects of sociopolitical and economic interactions in the Bronze Age eastern Mediterranean world.

As is the case with the Sea Peo- ples in general, what we are able to say about the Shardanu, Plst, IkwS and others, or even about Ahhiyawa, is limited because their identifica- t i o n ( ~ )with a specific country cannot be established beyond doubt. Thus the archaeological record of that country or region cannot be contrasted or compared to the documentary evidence without exercising great caution and heeding strict caveats.

The upheavals that triggered the demographic disruptions and economic setbacks that became a hallmark of the century from about 1250-1150 B.C.E. are still debated.

(Sandars 1969: 25-26). Although some scholars have suggested that Sardinia served as a "middleman" in the transport of tin from Cornwall (England) or western Iberia to the eastern Mediterranean, in fact the Phoenicians would have more readily filled this (still hypothetical) role.

Are the Shardanu, then, simply one group of Phoenicians, known in first millennium B.C.E. Sardinia by their earlier ethnic name? Whereas the Onomasticon suggests that some Shardanu perhaps lived in the vicinity of Tyre during the eleventh century B.c.E., the Nora Stone confirms that other Shardanu dwelt on Sardinia in the ninth century B.c.E., and in addition makes reference to a person called Pummay, thought to be Pygmalion, King of Tyre (831-785 B.c.E.). Such evidence, often regarded as definitive, is as best persuasive and circumstantial; it establishes a very tenuous link between Shardanu and Sardinia acrcss a period of almost 300 years and a space of 2,000 kilometers.


One thing, however, seems evident: the collapse of eastern Mediterranean states and the movements of the Sea Peoples must be regarded as interre- latedphenomena, not as simple cause and effect. Economic and political disruptions led to demographic dis- placement, which led to further tur- moil and disruption and helped set in motion a process about which ancient historians and archaeologists understand very little. Tribal movements occurred on the mainlands (Kaska in northern Anatolia; Arama- eans and Israelites in the Levant). The economic blockade established by the Hittites at Levantine ports against Assyria was probably only one of many factors that destabilized a tenuous economic balance. Docu- mentary evidence also reveals that famine seriously affected certain areas of the eastern Mediterranean at this time, and climatic change may also have played a part.

Sociopolitical, economic and ideological factors unique to each

Ahhiyawa

The tombs full of Mycenaean pottery in the cemetery at Ialysos led some scholars to characterize Rhodes as one of the most important Mycenaean centers outside of Greece. As such, Rhodes was equated by some with the land of Abhiyawa, mentioned in Hittite cuneiform texts of the fifteenth-thirteenth centuries B.C.E. Emil Forrer (1924), a Swiss scholar who studied these texts in the 1920s and 1930s, maintained that, although linguistically problematic, Ahhi-yawa was the Hittite way of writing Greek Achaiwa, which he equated with the Achaean Greeks of the Homeric epics. Ferdinand Sommer (1932), a German scholar, strongly contested Forrer's equation; he felt that the resemblance between Ahhiyawa and Achaiwa was entirely superficial, and that Ahhiyawa most likely referred to a western Anatolian state. The debate continues to this day. Over the decades Ahhiyawa has been identified variously as an Anatolian kingdom, the Mycenaean kingdom on main-

area contributed to the overall collapse throughout the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean. Communica- tions were disrupted severely, while brigandage on land and piracy at sea complicated international trade. These were not new phenomena: beginning at least in the fourteenth century B.c.E.,groups like the Lukka and the Ahhiyawa raided coastal ports in Anatolia, Cyprus and the Levant, while other intrusive groups disrupted order at inland urban centers.

The Shardanu, who fought with or against Egypt as circumstances dictated, contributed in no small measure to the chaos. The Shardanu and their Libyan allies (in the battle against Merneptah) -Skii, Trs, IkwS and Lk- may have represented a Mediterranean group of raiders, but admittedly there is no evidence to confirm this suggestion. There is, furthermore, some inconsistency in currently held notions that, on the one hand, would bring some elements of the Sea Peoples from the Aegean

land Greece, or some island kingdom off the Anatolian coast [for example, Rhodes or Cyprus).

The texts make it clear that Ahhi-yawa enjoyed a prominent political status in the Late Bronze Age eastern Mediter- ranean world; the Hittites regarded its ruler as an equal not only to the kings of Egypt, Babylon, Assyria and Mitanni, but to the Hittite king himself. The maritime component of the Ahhiyawa-state is a matter of debate (Steiner 1989; compare Cline 1991a); Ahhiyawa nonetheless seems to have been in close contact with several polities in western Anatolia, the northern Aegean, Cyprus and the Levant. The subject matter of the Ahhiyawa sources is predominantly geopolitical or military in nature, even when it concerns matters of economics or trade. Ahhiyawa clearly constituted a forceful presence, and exercised considerable influence in the eastern Aegean during the fourteenth- thirteenth centuries B.C.E.

Ahhiyawa first appears in Hittite

(IkwS) or Anatolia [Lk) to do battle in the eastern Mediterranean, and on the other hand suggest that different elements (Skii, Trs, Skl) scattered to the central Mediterranean only after their setbacks against the Egyp- tians. Did the same groups of people who came from the eastern Mediter- ranean to the Levant and Egypt in the thirteenth century B.C.E. disperse to the western Mediterranean in the twelfth-eleventh centuries B.c.E.? If so, why? These questions have never been asked, much less answered. Given the current state of archaeological lznowledge, and the steady state of the documentary evidence, our understanding of the causes and outcomes of these "years of crisis" is limited, and attempts to explain politico-economic relationships in the Bronze Age Mediterranean remain very hypothetical {however well documented and cleverly argued they may be).

The raids of the Sea Peoples against international trading em-

texts at a time (fourteenth century B.c.E.-- LHIIIA)when there is a significant expansion of Mycenaean activity throughout the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean. As a result, several scholars have come to regard Ahhiyawa in an ethnic sense and as a term that refers to some part of the Mycenaean world (whether or not one accepts the linguistically problematic equation of Ahhiyawa and Achaiwa-Guterboclz and others 1983; Bryce 1989a, 1989bj compare ~ n a l 19911. Mycenaean commercial ventures became increasingly unified during the fourteenth-thirteenth centuries B.C.E. (when the activities of the Ahhiyawa reached their peak]. The easily recognized, often standardized Mycenaean pottery is found throughout the Mediter- ranean, from Egypt and the Levant in the east to Sardinia and Spain in the west (Leonard 1987; Martin de la Cruz 1990; Hanlzey and Leonard unpublished). Does it not push the limits of credibility to dis- miss as mere coincidence the contempo- raneity of two prominent polities -with


poria signaled the end of an era of piracy. Pirates, it must be remem- bered, thrive on consistent, lucrative, commercial shipping ventures. The Sea Peoples' quest, however, had become more desperate, a search for sustenance rather than wealth. By devastating port cities in Cyprus and all along the Levantine coast, they finally destroyed their own prey, and in the diaspora that followed, dispersed (or returned?) -at different paces and in different ways -to several Mediterranean shores. The Egyptian monuments, in other words, record the end of a chain reaction, behind which lay a highly complex series of ethnic intermixings and demographic displacements.

The Shardanu, like the Philis- tines (Plst) and Lukka, and the inhabitants of Ahhiyawa and Keftiu/ Kaptaru, were a seafaring people. There is nothing in the relevant evidence-archaeological or documentary-that precludes an argument maintaining that the Shardanu

remarkably similar names-that make their greatest impact in the same region at the same time? Bryce (1989a) points out that Ahbiyawa is well-known from documentary records but lacks any material trace, while the Mycenaean Greeks are well attested archaeologically but unknown in the contemporary textual evidence.

While the circumstantial evidence for the Ahhiyawa-Mycenaean equation is persuasive, some scholars harbor seri- ous reservations. Because documentary evidence directly related to Bronze Age Greece is limited to what may be gleaned from Linear B account tablets (or extrapolated from the much later Homeric epics), many Mycenaean linguists and Aegean prehistorians find it difficult to acknowl- edge a sqgdicant Mycenaean political and military involvement in western Asia. Others suggest that a higher dating for the Hittite A)?hiyawa texts (fifteenth century B.c.E.) would make it plausible to identlfy A)?)?iyawa with the "Minoanized"centers

played some role in east-west trade by the eleventh century B.C.E. Such a scenario, however, would necessitate a firm link not only between Shar- danu and Sardinia, but also between the Shardanu and some element of the Phoenicians. If these links are valid, it means, first, that the popu- lation dispersal, which followed the Sea Peoples' raids on Egypt, was a long and drawn out affair, and second, that it is only in the context of Phoenician prospection, mercantile expansion and colonization, in the ninth-eighth centuries B.c.E., that the descendants of the Sea Peoples imposed their names on the central Mediterranean islands of Sicily and Sardinia.

Exclusively ethnic terms like Shardanu or Skli present considerable difficulties for historical reconstruction. All scholars involved with these matters have not accepted the equations used without hesitation in this study: Alashiya with Cyprus; Keftiu with the Aegean; Kaptaru

of the southeast Aegean (from Rhodes north to Miletos on the Anatolian coast- Melas 1988: 118).

However one regards the historicity of the Trojan war as presented in the Homeric epics (as myth, as history, or as some combination of the two -McNeill 19861, it is widely believed that the relevant archaeological levels in the mound of Hissarlik in northwest Anatolia can be equated with the Bronze Age city of Troy (Korfrnann 1986, 1990; Zangger 1992). If this coastal plain in northwest Anatolia was the setting for a war between Myce- naean Greeks and Trojans (and by impli-cation the location of a local Anatolian polity during the Hittite empire period), then Hittite texts should at least mention the area. Forrer drew attention to the place names Taruiia and Wiluia (which appeared in a list of west Anatolian states that had rebelled against Hittite rule), and equated them with 7koy and (W)Ilios. In addition, one of the kings of Wilus'a was named Alakiandui, which resembles the

with Crete. Given such restrictions, is it still ~oss ible to situate the island cultures of the Bronze Age Mediter- ranean within the cultural and historical framework of the ancient Near East?

Conclusion Cultural associations between the Mediterranean islands and the mainland Near East are best demonstrated by archaeological materials that, in fact, show particularly close, probably intensive contacts on the part of Cyprus and Minoan Crete during the Middle-Late Bronze Ages. The documentary evidence associated with the ethniclgeographic terms Abbiyawa, Alashiya, Keftiu, Kaptaru and Shardanu provides in- sight into certain kinds of island- mainland contacts, most often economic or geopolitical in nature. For example, what we can learn from textual evidence about relations between Ahbiya wa and Hittite Anatolia is decidedly geopolitical or military

name of the Trojan prince Alexander (Paris, son of Priarn) in Homer's Iliad.

Many scholars reject these equations, not least because Hittite texts gave no indi- cation of Wiluials whereabouts. Recently, however, the joining of a broken Hittite cuneiform tablet (a letter written by a vas- sal Hittite ruler in the west) has indicated that the kingdom of Wiluia lay precisely in northwest Anatolia, in close proximity to the land of Lazpai (argued to be the northeast Aegean island of Lesbos -Bryce 1985). This development strengthens the equation of Wiluh with Ilios, and so of Taruis'a with Troy. Hittite texts dated to the thirteenth century B.C.E. also reveal that Wiluia suffered several attacks, some of which directly involved the king of the Ahhiyawa, or else benefitted from his nominal support. The implication, difficult to accept for many scholars who work on both sides of the Aegean sea, is that one or all of these conflicts provided some of the historical threads used to weave the epic tales of the Iliad and Odyssey.


in outlook; yet it is clear that the people of Ahhiyawa were able to ply the eastern Mediterranean Sea to their political- and perhaps economic -advantage. Whereas documentary materials that refer to Ala- shiya and KeftiulKaptaru are predominantly economic in nature, it is evident that Cyprus had but a single ruler (who controlled copper production and used state agents [tamkiru] to conduct the interregional trade in copper), and that Keftiu was ranked politically with powerful states such as Babylon, Hatti, Assur, Ugarit and Cyprus.

Diverse mechanisms propelled the elaborate commercial network(s) and interactions spheres of the Bronze Age Mediterranean, and dictated the nature and intensity of Mediterranean contacts with the ancient Near East. State-controlled trade was the norm in Cyprus (at least during the fourteenth century B.c.E.),as it may have been with the state of Ahhiyawa. Although some would argue for an Aegean-wide Minoan thalassocracy, there are good reasons to think that a localized system of trade existed in the Cycladic and Dodecanese islands. In any case, centralized control over some aspects of trade does not preclude private enterprise in others. The ethnicity of the merchants and mariners who conducted Mediterranean trade may be deduced from archaeological evidence, or presumed from the evidence of personal names in documentary records: together they indicate that Semites, Hurrians, Anatolians, Egyp- tians, Minoans, Cypriotes and perhaps even Mycenaean Greeks were involved, but there is no acceptable way to determine who controlled or directed trade. A Canaanite thalassocracy, it may be emphasized, is no more acceptable than a Minoan one. Basic hypotheses about entrepre- neurship, ethnicity and trade are the best that can be offered at this time: a multidirectional network of trade -including royal merchants, itinerant tinkerers and private individuals

(entrepreneurs) -is the picture that emerges from the foregoing evalua- tion of a diverse body of documentary and archaeological data relevant to Mediterranean island cultures and the ancient Near East.

A one-to-one correspondence between archaeological data and documentary evidence seldom exists and, strictly speaking, the two should always be kept separate: they may be confronted or compared only when each has undergone care- ful scrutiny and methodological criticism in terms of its own inherent qualities (Knapp 1992b). When the documentary evidence is not even contemporary, and in fact belongs to the realm of "myth-history" (as is the case with the Hebrew Bible or the Homeric epics), the need for sound literary criticism becomes even more important. Historical re- constructions that conflate material, (contemporaneous) documentary and (non-contemporaneous) epic evidence present clear methodological problems, and must be handled with great care. It requires a bold historical stroke to combine these different streams of evidence in a coherent and plausible fashion. For the most part, only philologists have taken this initiative, but the results are tantalizing and have paved the way for studies that could engage the archaeological evidence in a far more comprehensive manner. There is little firm ground on which to erect arguments based on ethnicity, and further discussion of the nature, course and configuration of contacts between the Mediterranean and the Near East would benefit from a more comprehensive synthesis of evidence than has been possible in this study.

Acknowledgements For providing unpublished papers that made it possible to discuss a wide range of Mediterranean material on the basis of very recent evidence, I am grateful to John F. Cherry and

JackL. Davis, Steve 0.Held, Sturt W. Manning, and Gary S. Webster. Thanks also go to Cherry, Held, Manning and Webster for helpful comments on an earlier draft. I am indebted to several other scholars and institutions for providing illus- trative material: John F. Cherry, Cheryl Haldane, Alice Kingsnorth, J.V. Luce, Christopher Mee, Anna Michailidou, Alison South, John Strange, Stuart Swiny, Shelley Wachs- mann; The Ashmolean Museum, The Musee Borley, and The Metro- politan Museum of Art. Mr. Todd McGee, Senior Editor of BA, played the key role in acquiring most of these illustrations; my sincere thanks to him. In a study such as this, one relies heavily on the expertise and generosity of one's colleagues: as a result, and in a twist on the usual disclaimer, I ascribe equal culpability to them for any errors that appear in this study. A related but very con- densed chapter on the same topic will appear in Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, edited by Jack M. Sasson (Scribners: New York, sched- uled to appear in 1993).


bronze age mediterranean island cultures and the ancient near east

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