1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed (Turning Points in Ancient History) (7 page)

It is interesting to note that the Minoan civilization was given its name by the British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans in the early 1900s. We don’t actually know what they called themselves, although we do know that the Egyptians, Canaanites, and Mesopotamians each had a name for them. Furthermore, we do not know where they came from, although our suspicion points to Anatolia/Turkey as most likely.

We do know that they established a civilization on Crete during the third millennium BC that lasted until ca. 1200 BC. Partway through this period, in about 1700 BC, the island was hit by a devastating earthquake that required the rebuilding of the palaces at Knossos and elsewhere on the island. However, the Minoans recovered quickly and flourished as an independent civilization until Mycenaeans from the Greek mainland invaded the island later in the second millennium, after which time the island continued under Mycenaean rule until everything collapsed ca. 1200 BC.

Sir Arthur Evans began excavating on Crete after tracking down the source of so-called milk stones that he found for sale in the marketplace of Athens. Greek women who had given birth or were about to give birth wore these “milk stones.” The stones had symbols engraved upon them that Evans had never seen before, but which he recognized as writing. He traced them back to a buried site at Knossos (Kephala Hill)
near the major modern city of Heraklion on Crete—a site that Heinrich Schliemann, the excavator of Troy, had tried to purchase and excavate, but to no avail. Evans, however, was able to purchase the land and began excavating in March 1900. He continued to dig for the next several decades, sinking most of his personal fortune into the project, and eventually publishing his findings in a massive multivolume work entitled
The Palace of Minos at Knossos
.
¹⁵

Aided by his trusted Scottish assistant Duncan Mackenzie,
¹⁶
Evans soon uncovered what appeared to be a royal palace. He promptly named the newly discovered civilization “Minoan,” after King Minos of Greek legend, who it was said ruled Crete during ancient times, complete with a Minotaur (half man, half bull) in the labyrinthine subterranean extensions of the palace. Evans found numerous clay tablets, and other objects, with writing on them—in both Linear A (still undeciphered) and Linear B (an early form of Greek probably brought to Crete by the Mycenaeans). However, he never did discover the real name of these people, and, as mentioned, it remains unknown to this day—despite more than a century of continuous excavation not only at Knossos but at numerous other sites on Crete as well.
¹⁷

Evans uncovered numerous imports from Egypt and the Near East at Knossos, including an alabaster lid inscribed in hieroglyphs with “the good god, Seweserenre, son of Re, Khyan.”
¹⁸
Khyan, one of the best-known Hyksos kings, ruled during the early years of the sixteenth century BC. His objects have been found across the ancient Near East, but how this lid got to Crete is still a mystery.

Of additional interest is an Egyptian alabaster vase found many years later during another archaeologist’s excavation in a tomb at the site of Katsamba on Crete, one of the port cities on the north coast related to Knossos. It is inscribed with the royal name of Pharaoh Thutmose III: “the good god Men-kheper-Re, son of Re, Thutmose perfect in transformations.” It is one of the only objects bearing his name to be found in the Aegean.
¹⁹

The fifth-century Greek historian Thucydides claimed that the Minoans had a navy and ruled the seas during this period: “And the first person known to us by tradition as having established a navy is Minos. He made himself master of what is now called the Hellenic sea” (Thucydides,
History of the Peloponnesian War
, 1.3–8). To earlier scholars, this became
known as the “Minoan Thalassocracy,” from
kratia
meaning power and
thalassos
meaning sea. Although this supposed Minoan naval supremacy has now been called into question, there are mentions of “
Keftiu
-boats” in the Egyptian records—
Keftiu
being the Egyptian term for Crete at that time—although it is unclear whether these were boats from Crete, going to Crete, or built in a Minoan manner.
²⁰

Evans’s successor at the site, John Devitt Stringfellow Pendlebury, was extremely interested in the possible connections between Egypt and Crete; he excavated at the Egyptian site of Amarna (Akhenaten’s capital city, of which we will speak more below) as well as at Knossos. Pendlebury even published a monograph on the topic, entitled
Aegyptiaca
, in which he collected and cataloged all of the Egyptian imports found at Knossos and elsewhere on the island, before being shot to death by German paratroopers when they invaded Crete in 1941.
²¹

Evans and Pendlebury found additional imported objects at Knossos, and it has become clear over the ensuing decades that the Minoans seem to have been in both the import and the export business, industriously networking with a number of foreign areas in addition to Egypt. For instance, cylinder seals from Mesopotamia and storage jars from Canaan have been found at various sites on Crete in Middle and Late Bronze Age contexts, while Minoan pottery and other finished objects, or at least mentions of them, have been found in countries stretching from Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and Cyprus to Syria and Iraq.

B
ACK TO
E
GYPT

We must keep in mind that the goods mentioned above represent only a tiny portion of those that once crossed the Mediterranean Sea, for many of the goods traded during the Late Bronze Age were perishable and would be unlikely to leave much in the way of identifiable remains today. Grain, wine, spices, perfumes, wood, and textiles almost certainly have long since disappeared. Raw materials such as ivory, precious stones like lapis lazuli, agate, and carnelian, and metals such as gold, copper, and tin will also have been locally converted long ago into other objects such as weapons and jewelry. Thus, the most abundant signposts of the trade routes and of international contacts may have perished, disintegrated, or
otherwise disappeared in antiquity. However, the existence of perishable trade goods can sometimes be identified in written texts or by depiction in wall paintings that have survived to the present. Such paintings, inscriptions, and literary references can serve as less ambiguous guides to contacts between peoples, provided that they are interpreted correctly. Thus, the representations of foreign peoples in a number of painted Egyptian tombs dating to the reigns of New Kingdom pharaohs, from Hatshepsut through Amenhotep III, are invaluable as concrete attestations to diplomatic, commercial, and transportation networks functioning during the fifteenth and fourteenth centuries BC.
²²

It is during Hatshepsut’s reign, in the fifteenth century BC, that the first of the tombs was built in which Aegean peoples are actually shown in wall paintings. In these tombs, we frequently see Minoans depicted, often with their goods and with inscriptions that identify them in unequivocal terms as coming from the island of Crete. For instance, in the tomb of Senenmut, Hatshepsut’s architect, adviser, and perhaps paramour, an embassy from the Aegean is pictured, with six men carrying metal vases of general Aegean manufacture.
²³

In another painting, within the tomb of Rekhmire, vizier to Thutmose III (ca. 1450 BC), we see men dressed in typical Aegean-style kilts and carrying specifically Aegean objects. Next to them is written (in part), “Coming in peace by the chiefs of Keftiu and ‘Islands in the Midst of the Sea,’ bowing down and bending the head to the might of his Majesty the King of Upper and Lower Egypt.”
²⁴
This is clearly a representation of an Aegean delegation to Egypt, one of several depicted in Egyptian tombs from this period.

The Aegean peoples are not the only ones shown in Rekhmire’s tomb; in other registers both above and below are shown emissaries from Punt, Nubia, and Syria, with inscriptions next to each. Although unproven, it seems likely that we are looking here at a depiction of some major event that took place during Thutmose III’s reign, and that the delegates or merchants from the Aegean are just one part of the multinational crowd that has gathered or been summoned. If so, this would most likely be the
Sed
(or Jubilee) festival, first celebrated by a pharaoh after thirty years of rule and then irregularly thereafter; in Thutmose III’s case, we know that he held at least three such festivals, which is not surprising since he ruled for fifty-four years.
²⁵

Fig. 4. Rekhmire’s tomb, with Aegean peoples depicted (after Davies 1943, pl. xx; courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art).

In all, there are about fourteen tombs dating from Hatshepsut’s reign and/or that of Thutmose III, all belonging to high-ranking officials and advisers, that depict delegations of foreigners visiting Egypt, including Aegean peoples, Nubians, and Canaanites, all carrying foreign products.
²⁶
In the nine tombs dating specifically to the time of Thutmose III, we often see depictions of foreigners presenting diplomatic gifts, delivering annual dues, or participating in a royally commissioned expedition that Thutmose III sent to Lebanon in order to acquire cedar.
²⁷

Keftiu
,
Keftiu
-men, and
Keftiu
-boats are mentioned in a variety of other contexts in Egypt from this period, including inscriptions on temples and notations on papyri. Among the most interesting of these is a papyrus from Thutmose III’s thirtieth year (about 1450 BC) that mentions several “
Keftiu
-ships” in the context of the importation of materials for the Egyptian navy: “Given to craftsman [man’s name], this sheathing-timber for the
Keftiu
-ship”; “Today given to craftsman Tity for the other
Keftiu
-ship on his commission”; and “Given to craftsman
Ina for the other …
Keftiu
-ship.”
²⁸
Similarly, an inscription on a wall of the Temple of Amun at Karnak from Thutmose III’s thirty-fourth year also mentions
Keftiu
-ships.
²⁹

Although it is still unclear whether these ships are from
Keftiu
(that is, Minoan ships) or are capable of going to
Keftiu
(that is, Egyptian ships), it is clear that there was contact, and probably direct contact, between Minoan Crete and New Kingdom Egypt during the time of Thutmose III. Because of the prevailing winds, a sailing vessel—whether today or thirty-four hundred years ago—can travel with relative ease from the southern shores of Crete to Marsa Matruh on the northern coast of Egypt and thence to the Nile delta. The return journey by sail is not easy, given the winds and currents, but is possible at certain times of the year. It was also possible to go in a counterclockwise motion from Egypt to Canaan and Cyprus, thence to Anatolia and Rhodes, and from there to Crete, the Cycladic islands, and the Greek mainland, then back to Crete and south to Egypt.

It is clear from the painting and inscription in the tomb of Menkheperreseneb, first prophet of Amun,
³⁰
that the Egyptians knew about Minoan royalty and understood them to be on a par with those from other foreign areas. On the walls of the tomb we can see the “Prince of
Keftiu
” (Crete) in the company of the Prince of the Hittites (from Anatolia), the Prince of Tunip (probably in Syria), and the Prince of Qadesh (in Syria). The title used to identify the figures,
wr
, meaning “Prince” or “Chief,” is the same in each case.
³¹
The picture presented seems to indicate that such royalty visited Egypt upon occasion, including perhaps a very special occasion. Did they all come at the same time (possibly a different perspective on the same event depicted in Rekhmire’s tomb?) or on separate occasions? We cannot be certain, but it is interesting to consider the possibility of the principal figures of the Late Bronze Age gathering together for some great event in Egypt, much as dignitaries gather today for a British royal wedding or a G-8 conference.

The same term,
wr
(Prince or Chief), is also used elsewhere by Thutmose III, in the entry for the forty-second year of his Annals, where he mentions the “Prince of Tanaja,” the Egyptian designation for mainland Greece. Here he lists objects from the Aegean, including a silver vessel in
Keftiuan
workmanship and four bowls with handles of silver. Interestingly, he calls them
inw
, a term usually translated as “tribute,” but which
more likely means “gift” in this context.
³²
Engaging in “regular” trade may have been considered beneath the dignity of the king, whereas exchanging “gifts” with equals (or near equals) was perfectly acceptable. We will discuss this further in the next chapter, in the context of international trade conducted in the guise of gift giving during the fourteenth century BC.

H
ATSHEPSUT AND
T
HUTMOSE
III

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. It was she who essentially started the Eighteenth Dynasty on its road to international contacts and global prestige, using diplomacy rather than war. She was of fully royal blood, the daughter of Pharaoh Thutmose I and Queen Ahmose—though it should be noted that her father had achieved royal status only by marrying into the family.