Collapse of Mycenaean Civilization
There is archaeological evidence of rising social instability in the radical change in building programs, which diverted energies and resources from construction of palaces and elaborate tombs in the 13th century b.c.e. to the building of fortifications at the various centers, including Pylos, which hitherto had been the least defended of Mycenaean cities. A defensive wall was built across the isthmus of Corinth, although whether as a protection against invasion from north or south is unclear.
The strongest evidence of violent activity at this time was that of the so-called Sea Peoples, a name given by the Egyptians to warrior armies who attacked them in repeated raids around the turn of the 13th and 12th centuries b.c.e. It seems probable that the Sea Peoples originally were bands of pirates preying on the lucrative trade routes crossing the Mediterranean, similar to the Vikings of a later day. By the end of the 13th century b.c.e. they had joined into armies massive enough to attack Egypt, documented in papyri there that show their distinctive horned helmets. Their place of origin is unknown, but they are associated with artifacts found on Sicily and sardinia, where they probably settled after the collapse of Mycenaean civilization.
The dating of events during the period of destruction that occurred around 1200 b.c.e. throughout the Mycenaean world and beyond is highly uncertain. The attack on the palace at Pylos that caused its destruction seems to have been among the earliest; its former dating of approximately 1200 b.c.e. is now in some doubt and it could have been earlier. The scenario seems more complicated than a wholesale invasion of foreigners on Mycenaean civilization, with a simple equation of invaders against Greeks. Some strongholds were reoccu-pied after their destruction, then destroyed again. Athens remained largely unscathed, possibly because of the impregnability of the Acropolis (high city), the steep-sided hill on top of which a Mycenaean palace was built. The great powers of the time, the Egyptians and the Hittites, were also under attack, as well as states in Syria, Palestine, and Cyprus, and during the succeeding century there is evidence of widespread population movements throughout the eastern Mediterranean, as well as depopulation and devastation of some regions. in some places there is a sharp break with what had gone before, evidence that a completely different culture replaced the native culture. Elsewhere there are signs of the establishment of new mixed communities who combined elements of previous cultures with new features. in general Greece suffered severe depopulation.
The fragmentary evidence from this period of destruction together with uncertainties of dating have given rise to a number of competing theories and an intensity of debate in inverse proportion to the strength of the data. A view held in the past has been to connect the demise of the Mycenaeans with the invasion from the northwest of a people called Dorians, an oral tradition preserved in writing by later Greeks. There is some evidence of newcomers to Greece from this time: handmade burnished pottery found on several 12th-century b.c.e. sites, which has been called "Barbarian Ware," and also some bronze weapons similar to types found in Europe north of the Peloponnese, "cut and thrust" swords of the so-called Naue II type. But the finds are too few to document a large movement of peoples. The swords have been found only in Mycenaean tombs as offerings or burial goods and thus suggest that Mycenaeans had adopted this type of weapon, which they had probably obtained through trade.
some scholars have seen in the so-called Barbarian Ware affinities with pottery made in contemporary Troy (Coarse Ware) and in southeastern Romania. similar pottery is also found in southern italy and sicily, the latter associated with one of the Sea Peoples named by the Egyptians the shekelesh. Another group called the shardana by the Egyptians may have originated or lived on the island of sardinia. in all contexts this pottery appears without precursors and seems to be associated with outsiders. such pottery found at Korakou, Mycenae, Lefkandi, and a few other sites in central and southern Greece dates to just after the widespread destruction. The Coarse Ware of Troy is also contemporary with its destruction.
The small amount of Barbarian Ware that has been found shows that its makers probably were small-scale raiders and war bands who had found their way to the Mediterranean possibly from the Middle Danube region and who per haps would later become part of the armies of the Sea Peoples who attacked the Egyptians. However, such raiders, as would the Vikings, could have had a destructive effect all out of proportion to their numbers. There are signs, as well, that the makers of Barbarian Ware soon began to imitate Mycenaean pottery shapes in their handmade pottery. This is seen at Tiryns, where Barbarian Ware may predate the destruction of the palace, possibly evidence that its makers were mercenaries. Barbarian Ware continued to be made for some time after the collapse of Mycenaean society at Tiryns. Meanwhile the making of large amounts of sophisticated, wheel-thrown Mycenaean pottery also continued for a time. The possibility that outsiders may have quickly adopted material aspects of the more advanced culture of the Mycenaeans may be the reason there is so little sign of them in the archaeological record.
The Sea Peoples may have formed armies in response to defensive efforts of the Mycenaeans and other states. They could have swept into their forces smaller groups of warriors, such as the Dorians; it is equally possible that Dorians had been hired by the Mycenaeans as mercenaries for defense; these two possibilities are not mutually exclusive and could both be true.
It is also probable that the various Mycenaean power centers—Tiryns, Athens, Argos, Mycenae—competed for access to trade routes, each trying to carve out its own sphere of power, even as the city-states of classical Greece did. An early version of the Peloponnesian War played out among different Mycenaean powers may have been the cause of much of the damage that has been found.
Such competition could have intensified in times of climate change. The pattern of destruction could be explained by a prolonged drought in the areas of Crete, the southern Peloponnese, Boeotia, Euboea, Phocis, and the Argolid, where the destruction was greatest that did not greatly affect Attica, the northwest Peloponnese, Thessaly, and the rest of northern Greece, or the Dodecanese (that is, the islands of Rhodes, Kos, etc.), which were largely spared. Meteorologists have shown that such a pattern of drought is entirely likely and has actually occurred in recorded times. Study of tree-growth rings from Turkey suggests that there may have been a drought in central Anatolia, which may be connected with the collapse of the Hittite Empire in about 1200 b.c.e.
After the period of destruction some of the groups that made up the Sea Peoples settled in the Near East; one group, later known as the Philistines, settled in southern Palestine. The majority of European-made swords and knives found in the Mediterranean from this period occur on Cyprus, where a phase of prosperity and cultural flowering took place, in stark contrast to most of the larger region. A bronze statuette of a warrior with horned helmet very similar to those depicted by the Egyptians as worn by the Sea Peoples was found at Enkomi on Cyprus. This find may suggest that one of the warrior groups settled here and was involved in the rebuilding of the main cities. On the other hand on the Greek mainland in places where warrior groups such as the Dorians seem to have taken hold and where Mycenaean culture disappeared no such resurgence occurred; instead a Dark Ages of economic dislocation, depopulation, and disorder ensued. Mycenaean and Near Eastern influences are clear in the art of Cyprus at this time, and later Greeks there spoke a dialect, called Arcado-Cypriot (because it was also spoken in the remote region of Arcadia in mainland Greece), which is more closely related to Mycenaean Greek than any other dialect that survived the Dark Ages. It is therefore more probable that the socioeconomic resurgence on Cyprus involved refugee Mycenaeans—both elites and artisans. The resurgence was probably facilitated by the favorable location of Cyprus for trading, but the dominant group could have been Mycenaeans alone or in conjunction with a Sea People group whom they had hired as mercenaries or with whom they had struck an alliance. The European weapons found on Cyprus could as easily have belonged to Mycenaeans (like those found earlier in Mycenaean tombs) as to barbarian European raiders. In any case the period of recovery on Cyprus was short-lived, and after several disruptions probably caused by further raiding, society there experienced the decline that had happened everywhere else.
Average user rating: 5 stars out of 1 votes
Post a comment