1177 BC on Superphysics

Prologue

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The warriors entered the world scene and moved rapidly, leaving death and destruction in their wake. Modern scholars refer to them collectively as the “Sea Peoples,” but the Egyptians who recorded their attack on Egypt never used that term, instead identifying them as separate groups working together: the Peleset, Tjekker, Shekelesh, Shardana, Danuna, and Weshesh—foreignsounding names for foreign-looking people.1 We know little about them, beyond what the Egyptian records tell us. We are not certain where the Sea Peoples originated: perhaps in Sicily, Sardinia, and Italy, according to one scenario, perhaps in the Aegean or western Anatolia, or possibly even Cyprus or the Eastern Mediterranean.2 No ancient site has ever been identified as their origin or departure point. We think of them as moving relentlessly from site to site, overrunning countries and kingdoms as they went. According to the Egyptian texts, they set up camp in Syria before proceeding down the coast of Canaan (including parts of modern Syria, Lebanon, and Israel) and into the Nile delta of Egypt.

Act 1 -- Of Arms And The Man: The 15th Century Bc

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

In about the year 1477 BC, in the city of Peru-nefer in the Nile delta of Lower Egypt, quite close to the Mediterranean Sea, Pharaoh Thutmose III ordered the construction of a grand palace with elaborate frescoes.

Flashback: Mesopotamia And The Minoans

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Minoan manufactured objects had been transported to Mesopotamia by the 18th century BC, nearly 4,000 years ago.

This is proven by the ancient site of Mari, on the western side of the Euphrates River in modern Syria.

Back To Egypt

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Hatshepsut’s reign was in the 15th century BC, that the first of the tombs was built in which Aegean peoples are actually shown in wall paintings.

Hatshepsut And Thutmose 3Rd

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Hatshepsut’s reign, just prior to that of Thutmose III, saw interactions not only with the Aegean but also with other areas of the ancient Near East.

She started the 18th Dynasty on its road to international contacts and global prestige, using diplomacy rather than war.

Egypt And Canaan At The Battle Of Megiddo, 1479 Bc

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Hatshepsut suffered in her old age from obesity, dental problems, and cancer.

The Assuwa Rebellion In Anatolia

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Thutmose 3rd was in contact, and perhaps involved in active commercial exchange, with distant areas, including areas located to the north and west of Egypt.

Contact with Assuwa (assuming that is the proper identification for Isy) was initiated by Assuwa rather than by Egypt.

The Assuwa Rebellion And The Ahhiyawa Question

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

In 1430 BC the Hittites and their king Tudhaliya I/II were dealing with a coalition of renegade states collectively known as Assuwa.

They were located in northwestern Turkey, just inland from the Dardanelles where the battle of Gallipoli was fought during World War I. The Hittite tablets give us the names of all twenty-two of these allied states that rose up in rebellion against the Hittites.

An Early Trojan War?

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

If Ahhiyawa represents both mainland Greece and the Mycenaeans, and if the letter known as KUB XXVI 91 found at Hattusa shows that Ahhiyawa was involved somehow with Assuwa during its rebellion against the Hittites, then what can we conclude? The letter itself, and all of those relating to the Assuwa Rebellion, date to 1430 BC, some two hundred years before the generally accepted date for the Trojan War (usually placed between 1250 BC and 1175 BC).

Act 2: An Aegean Affair To Remember: 14th Century BC

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Towering more than sixty feet high and destined to stand guard for the next thirty-four hundred years, even as the mortuary temple that stood behind them was looted for its magnificent stone blocks and slowly crumbled into dust, the two huge statues standing at the entrance to Amenhotep III’s mortuary temple at Kom el-Hetan were, and still are, erroneously called the Colossi of Memnon as a result of a mistaken identification with Memnon, a mythological Ethiopian prince killed at Troy by Achilles.

Act Ii An (Aegean) Affair To Remember: The Fourteenth Century BC

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Keftiu (Crete) and
Tanaja (mainland Greece)
Knossos and its port city of Amnisos
Phaistos and Kydonia, listed in an order that goes from east to west

All of these either had Minoan palaces or, in the case of Amnisos, functioned as a port for a nearby Minoan palace.

The Amarna Archives

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An archive of royal records of Amenhotep III was found in Tell el-Amarna, which contains the ruins of the city once called Akhetaten (meaning “Horizon of the Solar Disk”).10

Amenhotep 3rd’s heretic son, Amenhotep IV, better known as Akhenaten, had built it in the mid-fourteenth century BC as a new capital city.

Gold, Fool’S Gold, And High-Level Trade

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Egypt had gold from the mines in Nubia.

More than one king wrote to Amenhotep III and Akhenaten, requesting shipments of gold while acting as if it were nothing out of the ordinary—the refrain “gold is like dust in your land,” and similar phrases, are seen again and again in the Amarna Letters.

Rise Of Alashiya And Assyria

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From the Amarna Letters that date specifically to the time of Akhenaten, we know that Egypt’s international contacts expanded during his reign to include the rising power of Assyria, under its king Assur-uballit I, who had come to the throne in the decade before Amenhotep III died.

Suppiluliuma And The Zannanza Affair

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After Tudhaliya I/II, the Hittites of Turkey had languished under comparatively weak rulers.

Their fortunes began to rise again about 1350 BC, under a new king named Suppiluliuma I, briefly mentioned earlier in relation to Akhenaten’s correspondence and archives.

Act 3: Fighting For Gods And Country: The Thirteenth Century Bc

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Around 1300 BC, a ship sank off the southwestern coast of Turkey at Uluburun (roughly translated as “Grand Promontory”).

It was:

sailing from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Aegean.
discovered in 1982

It was excavated by George Bass at Cape Gelidonya.

Sinaranu Of Ugarit

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Forty years after the Uluburun ship went down, a text was composed that recorded some of the contents of a similar ship, sent by a merchant named Sinaranu from Ugarit in northern Syria to the island of Crete.

The Trojan War

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Around the same time as the run-up to the Battle of Qadesh, the Hittites were also busy on a second front, in western Anatolia, where they were trying to contain rebellious subjects whose activities were apparently being underwritten by the Mycenaeans.23 This may be one of the earliest examples that we have of one government deliberately engaging in activities designed to undermine another (think Iranian support for Hezbollah in Lebanon, 3,200 years after the Battle of Qadesh).

Foreign Contacts And The Greek Mainland In The Thirteenth Century Bc

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

At this time, back at Mycenae on the Greek mainland, that huge fortification walls, which are still visible, were erected in about 1250 BC.

These were constructed about the same time as other projects—perhaps defensive measures—were undertaken, including an underground tunnel leading to a water source that inhabitants could access without leaving the protection of the city.

The Exodus And The Israelite Conquest

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The book of Exodus says that the Israelites had been in Egypt for 400 years following their initial arrival during the lifetime of Jacob, one of the biblical patriarchs, probably in about the seventeenth century BC. If so, they would have arrived in Egypt during the time of the Hyksos and then remained in Egypt during the heyday of the Late Bronze Age, including the Amarna period.

Hittites, Assyrians, Amurru, And Ahhiyawa

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The last kings of the Hittites—especially Tudhaliya IV (1237–1209 BC) and Suppiluliuma II (1207–? BC)—were very active during the last quarter of the thirteenth century, from ca. 1237 BC, even as their world and civilization were showing signs of coming to an end.

The Hittite Invasion Of Cyprus

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While all of this was going on, Tudhaliya 4th attacked the island of Cyprus.

It had been a major source of copper throughout the 2nd millennium BC.

The Hittites tried to control copper.

Act 4: The End Of An Era: The Twelfth Century Bc

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The 12th century BC is marked more by tales of woe and destruction than by trade and international relations.

THE DISCOVERY OF UGARIT AND MINET EL-BEIDA

In 1929, French archaeologists excavated a tomb and port city at Minet el-Beida Bay, now referred to as Minet el-Beida.

Economic And Commercial Connections Of Ugarit And Its Merchants

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Ugarit was clearly an international entrepôt, with ships of many nations arriving in the harbor of Minet el-Beida.

It was was a vassal of the Hittites from the 2nd half of the 14th century onward, after Suppiluliuma conquered the area, ca. 1350–1340 BC. Texts at the site, found in the various archives, most of which date to the last half century of the city’s existence, document connections between Ugarit and numerous other polities both large and small, including Egypt, Cyprus, Assyria, the Hittites, Carchemish, Tyre, Beirut, Amurru, and Mari. Most recently, the Aegean has been added to this list as well.

Destructions In North Syria

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The letters from the House of Urtenu showed that there was very little indication of trouble, apart from the mention of enemy ships in one letter, and that the trade routes seemed to be open right up until the end.

Destructions In Southern Syria/Canaan

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During this same period, in the twelfth century BC, a number of cities and towns were destroyed in southern Syria and Canaan. Just as in north Syria, it is not clear who destroyed them or when exactly they were destroyed, although in the destruction level at the small site of Deir ‘Alla in Jordan, a vase with the cartouche of the Egyptian queen Twosret was found. She was the widow of Pharaoh Seti II and is known to have ruled from 1187 to 1185 BC. Thus, the destruction can probably be dated to shortly after this time. The same holds true for the site of Akko, in what is now modern Israel, where a similar scarab of Twosret was found in the destruction debris.38 Other evidence of destruction can be seen at Beth Shan, where Yigael Yadin’s excavations uncovered a violent end to the Egyptian presence at the site.

Lachish

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Lachish, another site in modern Israel, also suffered 2 destructions during this period.

Here the seventh and sixth cities (Strata VII and VI) are identified as the last Canaanite cities, based on the material remains found during the excavations.

The Philistine Pentapolis

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Of particular interest are the sites in southern Canaan, including those identified in the Bible and elsewhere as belonging to the socalled Philistine pentapolis, the five major Philistine sites: Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, Gath, and Gaza.

Destructions In Anatolia

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In Anatolia at this time, a number of cities were also destroyed.

The Sea Peoples have traditionally been credited for the devastation on the basis of little or no evidence.

Destructions On The Greek Mainland

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

If the Mycenaeans were not involved in the destruction of Troy VIIA, it may have been because they were also under attack at approximately the same time. It is universally accepted by scholars that Mycenae, Tiryns, Midea, Pylos, Thebes, and many other Mycenaean sites on the Greek mainland suffered destructions at this same approximate time, at the end of the thirteenth century BC, and early in the twelfth.

Tiryns

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Just a few kilometers from Mycenae, the excavations at Tiryns in the Argolid region of mainland Greece have been ongoing since the days of Heinrich Schliemann in the late 1800s. Evidence for destructions at the site has been recorded by most of the excavators, but most recently by Joseph Maran, of the University of Heidelberg.

Fighting In Egypt And The Harem Conspiracy

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The Egyptians had ended the 13th century BC on a high note, having defeated the first wave of Sea Peoples during the reign of Merneptah, in 1207 BC.

The 12th century began calmly, under the rule of Seti 2nd and then Queen Twosret, but by the time Ramses III came to the throne in 1184 BC, events were growing tumultuous.

A Perfect Storm Of Calamities?

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The origin of the Sea Peoples and the Catastrophe at the end of the Late Bronze Age such as the destruction of the Palace of Nestor at Pylos, ca. 1180 BC, are unknown.

Famines

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

There was famine in the Hittite Empire and elsewhere in the Eastern Mediterranean at the end of the Bronze Age.17

They have also correctly noted that the occurrence of famine in this region was not unique to the final years of the Late Bronze Age.

Internal Rebellion

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Some scholars have suggested that internal rebellions may have contributed to the turmoil at the end of the Late Bronze Age.

Such a scenario might be invoked to explain the destruction at Hazor in Canaan, where there is no evidence for an earthquake, nor is there specific evidence for warfare or invaders.

Decentralization And The Rise Of The Private Merchant

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Susan Sherratt concluded that the Sea Peoples represent the final step in the replacement of the old centralized politicoeconomic systems present in the Bronze Age with the new decentralized economic systems of the Iron Age—that is, the change from kingdoms and empires that controlled the international trade to smaller city-states and individual entrepreneurs who were in business for themselves.

Decentralization And The Rise Of The Private Merchant

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The city was destroyed at about the time identified by the excavators.

The excavators have not proven a role for the Sea Peoples for its destruction.

They simply point out that the material culture of the settlement that was established on the tell after the destruction includes “the appearance of Aegean-type architecture, locally-made Mycenaean IIIC Early pottery, handmade burnished pottery, and Aegean-type loam-weights.”72 As they state, “these materials, also known from Philistine settlements, are cultural markers of foreign settlers, most probably the Sea Peoples.”73 While Tweini could be the best example yet of a site possibly destroyed and then resettled by the Sea Peoples, we cannot say so with absolute certainty.

Decentralization And The Rise Of The Private Merchant

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

In 1987, Mario Liverani, of the University of Rome, laid the blame upon the concentration of power and control in the palaces, so that when they collapsed, the extent of the disaster was magnified.

Decentralization And The Rise Of The Private Merchant

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

I think that systems collapsed by a series of events linked together via a “multiplier effect” in which one factor affected the others, thereby magnifying the effects of each.

The Aftermath

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

For more than 300 years during the Late Bronze Age—from about the time of Hatshepsut’s reign beginning about 1500 BC until the time that everything collapsed after 1200 BC—the Mediterranean region played host to a complex international world in which Minoans, Mycenaeans, Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Mitannians, Canaanites, Cypriots, and Egyptians all interacted, creating a cosmopolitan and globalized world system such as has only rarely been seen before the current day.

Dramatis Personae

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The chronology for Egyptian regnal dates follows the most commonly accepted scheme, for which see, for example, Kitchen 1982 and Clayton 1994. The following list does not include all names mentioned in the text, but rather those of the major rulers and related personnel.