The Sea People
I was reading about the decline of Mycenae during the Greek dark ages, and I had a sudden recollection about this lecture on the Sea People in college. Too bad I don't have any ability to conceptualize time, and even less an ability to conceptualize geography (making it impossible to learn history). Anyways, my book was going through various theories as to why the Mycenaean civilization got ruined, including a discussion on why it probably wasn't the coming of the Dorians, and that's when I remembered vaguely that there did exist some invading peoples somewhere that destroyed a lot of civilizations sometime long ago, which my book does not identify by name. So I looked it up on wikipedia, and found that the peoples I was thinking of were the Sea People, who may or may not have been the Myceneans.
Anyways, this bit of history means little to me because I can't conceptualize geography, but in the absence of anything interesting to say or any good jokes to tell (tear), I thought I might as well share some of it. This is from my college history book:
Disasters hit the whole easter Mediterranean around 1200 BC, not just Greece. Ugarit, the greatest emporium on the Mediterranean, was destroyed, and the Hittite Empire collapsed. Of the great ancient civilizations, only Egypt survived; and this time we know why. An inscription at Karnak, the Egyptian capital 200 miles south of modern Cairo, says that in 1209 BC the pharaoh Merneptah defeated an invasion of Libyans and their allies...
We call these invaders the Sea Peoples. They were probably involved in the destructions in Greece... But what was their role? The Sea Peoples included the Peleset, probably the same people as the Philistines, well known from the Hebrew Bible. Philistines settled five towns in what is now the Gaza strip and southern Israel after Ramses III defeated them. Some of their towns have been excavated: the finds are almost identical to those from Greece in the twelfth century BC. The Philistines were perhaps Mycenaean Greek refugees. Merneptah's inscription of 1209 BC names a group called in Egyptian the 3kwsh, which could have been pronounced Akaiwasha, very like the Ahhiyawa (= Achaeans) in the Hittite texts. Egyptian texts also mention the Danuna, perhaps the same as Homer's Danaans, and Shardana, perhaps men from Sardinia. Shekelesh sounds like the Greek Sikeloi, or Sicilians.
The most influential theory is that a broad population movement started around 1225 BC in the central Mediterranean. Later authors say that the Dorians...entered Greece after the Trojan War, though archaeological research does not document this. Still, such a movement may have been linked to the depredations of the Sea Peoples. By themselves migrations would not have toppled palaces, but they apparently coincided with ferocious earthquakes and possibly other natural disasters. Faced with economic collapse and starvation, bands of Mycenaean Greeks may have joined a broader tide of displaced peoples...
Anyways, this bit of history means little to me because I can't conceptualize geography, but in the absence of anything interesting to say or any good jokes to tell (tear), I thought I might as well share some of it. This is from my college history book:
Disasters hit the whole easter Mediterranean around 1200 BC, not just Greece. Ugarit, the greatest emporium on the Mediterranean, was destroyed, and the Hittite Empire collapsed. Of the great ancient civilizations, only Egypt survived; and this time we know why. An inscription at Karnak, the Egyptian capital 200 miles south of modern Cairo, says that in 1209 BC the pharaoh Merneptah defeated an invasion of Libyans and their allies...
We call these invaders the Sea Peoples. They were probably involved in the destructions in Greece... But what was their role? The Sea Peoples included the Peleset, probably the same people as the Philistines, well known from the Hebrew Bible. Philistines settled five towns in what is now the Gaza strip and southern Israel after Ramses III defeated them. Some of their towns have been excavated: the finds are almost identical to those from Greece in the twelfth century BC. The Philistines were perhaps Mycenaean Greek refugees. Merneptah's inscription of 1209 BC names a group called in Egyptian the 3kwsh, which could have been pronounced Akaiwasha, very like the Ahhiyawa (= Achaeans) in the Hittite texts. Egyptian texts also mention the Danuna, perhaps the same as Homer's Danaans, and Shardana, perhaps men from Sardinia. Shekelesh sounds like the Greek Sikeloi, or Sicilians.
The most influential theory is that a broad population movement started around 1225 BC in the central Mediterranean. Later authors say that the Dorians...entered Greece after the Trojan War, though archaeological research does not document this. Still, such a movement may have been linked to the depredations of the Sea Peoples. By themselves migrations would not have toppled palaces, but they apparently coincided with ferocious earthquakes and possibly other natural disasters. Faced with economic collapse and starvation, bands of Mycenaean Greeks may have joined a broader tide of displaced peoples...
posted by Rex at 1:20 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home