Transcript The Collapse of Mycenaean Civilization

The Collapse of Mycenaean
Civilization
LHIIIB-LHIIIC:
1320/1300-1050/1030
• 2 centuries of
disasters:
1250-1050 bc
• Multiple destructions
across Mycenaean
world
LHIIIB1:
Signs of
Trouble?
•
•
•
•
Mycenae
Zygouries
Thebes
Gla
• Tiryns
• Athens
• Isthmus Wall
Destruction at Mycenae
• Houses
outside
citadel
(south of
Grave
Circle B)
destroyed
by fire
Fire
Accidental
or
Deliberate?
• Oil from stirrup
jars poured
over floor of
“House of the
Oil Merchant”
Cistern &
Expanded,
Strengthened
Fortifications
Gla
Massive engineering
project to drain
Copaic Basin
• Fortified granary?
• Drainage channels
destroyed
Tiryns
• Enclosure of lower citadel
• Syringes
(underground water supply)
Pylos: Watchers by the Sea
Further Disasters in LHIIIB2
• Earthquake & Fire at
Tiryns, Mycenae & Midea
• Mycenaean Collapse due
to Natural Disasters?
• But Fire (not earthquake)
destroys Menelaion,
Nichoria & palace at Pylos
Population Movements
in/before LHIIIC
• Massive
depopulation of
Messenia
• Depopulation of
Argolid, Lakonia
• Influx in Achaia
Mapping the Movement
• Influx in Attica,
Ionian Islands,
Crete, Cyprus
• North-South
line of
depopulation
• East-West
population
increase
What is Happening
Social Unrest
• Neo-Marxist
Theory
• Peasant revolt
against elite?
• Thersites in
Iliad
• But why
abandon
fertile land?
Mycenaean States
at War?
• New fortifications due to threat from
outside or inside Mycenaean World?
• “Watchers by the Sea” => fear of
piratic neighboring Mycenaeans?
• Myths of Conflict post Trojan War
=> Internecine Strife?
• Eteocles and Polyneices: Theban vs.
Argos?
Splits within the Elites?
• Mycenae
• Atreus vs.
Thyestes
• Agamemnon vs.
Aegisthus
& Clytemnestra
Climate Change
across Eastern
Mediterranean?
• Dendrochronology says
drought in Anatolia may
have destroyed Hittite
Empire
• Possible but Unproven
for Greece
But why so many
palaces destroyed at the
same time?
Historic
Evidence?
• In the seventh book of his
History Herodotus
recounts that Crete was
so beset by famine and
pestilence after the
Trojan War that it
became virtually
uninhabited until its
resettlement by later
inhabitants.
Invasion of
the Sea
Peoples
• Egyptian Sources
of C13th-C12th
BC
• Attacked Levant,
Cyprus, Anatolia,
Egypt
• But Cycladic islands
seem unscathed
Origins of Sea Peoples?
Ramses III: 1176 B.C.
Medinet Habu Inscription
"No land could stand before their arms, from Hatti,
Qode, Carchemish, Arzawa and Alasiya on, being
cut off at one time. A camp was set up in one place in
Amurru. They desolated its people, and its land was
like that which has never come into being. They were
coming toward Egypt, while the flame was prepared
before them. Their confederation was the Peleset,
Tjeker, Shekelesh, Denyen, and Weshesh, lands
united. They laid their hands upon the land as far as
the circuit of the earth, their hearts confident and
trusting: 'Our plans will succeed!'
Cut-and-thrust swords as
evidence of Northern
“invaders”?
Good Evidence for Sea Peoples in
Egypt but swords in Greece in good
Mycenaean contexts: graves, etc.
Evidence for Barbarian
Invaders?
• Handmade Burnished
Ware (HMBW) =
“Barbarian or Dorian
Ware” found at sites in
central & southern
Greece, Achaea, Troy
VIIb
• Intrusive population of
small bands of pirates
from Central Europe?
Evidence from
Myth?
• Tradition of Dorian
Invasion
• Spartans claim decent
from Dorians
• Athenians claim to have
repulsed Dorians
• Who are the Dorians?
• The Heracleidae?
• Multiple waves of
invasions fits fits evidence
& myth
Disruption of
Trade
• Fragile palace
economies pushed
over the edge by
collapse of trade
routes
• But, again, why
abandon fertile land?
Change in Warfare
• Light-armed, swiftmoving Infantry with
Javelin replaces
Chariot-based warfare
• Mycenaean, Hittite, &
other Near Eastern
empires collapse
• But War Chariot
depiction more popular
than ever
Confusing Possibilities
•
•
•
•
(a) Internal Social Upheaval
(b) Mycenaean States at war
(c) Climate Change
(d) Invasion from Outside the
Aegean World
• (e) Changes in the Nature of
Warfare Economic Factors
Film time?
• Topics & Questions
• Opportunity to boost
grade in discussion
class