Knossos, Mycenae, Troy: The Enchanting Bronze Age and its Tumultuous Climax 9781789259476, 9781789259483, 1789259479

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Knossos, Mycenae, Troy The Enchanting Bronze Age and its Tumultuous Climax

Natale Barca

Oxford & Philadelphia

Published in the United Kingdom in 2023 by OXBOW BOOKS The Old Music Hall, 106–108 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 1JE and in the United States by OXBOW BOOKS 1950 Lawrence Road, Havertown, PA 19083 © Oxbow Books and Natale Barca 2023 Paperback Edition: ISBN 978-1-78925-947-6 Digital Edition: ISBN 978-1-78925-948-3 (ePub) A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Control Number: 2022950962 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher in writing.

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Front and back cover: Delphins of Knossos (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dauphins_de_ knossos.jpg; Armagnac-commons; used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license)

Contents Timeline�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������iv Preface�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� v Introduction: The geographical context������������������������������������������������������������������������� xiii 1. The origins of the Minoan civilization������������������������������������������������������������������������� 1 2. The geography of Protopalatial Crete������������������������������������������������������������������������� 23 3. War weapons and defensive architecture������������������������������������������������������������������ 33 4. Maritime trade���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 37 5. Religion and worship����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 47 6. The transition to the Neopalatial Period������������������������������������������������������������������� 57 7. Neopalatial Crete������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 67 8. Mutual influences����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 75 9. The volcanic catastrophe of Santorini������������������������������������������������������������������������ 83 10. The Proto-Greeks������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 91 11. The Mycenaeans����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 103 12. The search for raw materials�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 113 13. Calamity and resilience����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 121 14. The Mycenaean conquest of Crete���������������������������������������������������������������������������� 131 15. The Mycenaeans seize mercantile trade from the Minoans��������������������������������� 139 16. The pre-colonization of the West������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 145 17. Kingdoms and city-palaces����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 155 18. Crete in the age of Minos I����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 173 19. Minos II��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 181 20. The catastrophe of Pylos. The Sea Peoples: Part I�������������������������������������������������� 193 21. The Trojan War������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 205 22. Which Troy?������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 213 23. The decline of the palace-cities��������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 229 24. The Sea Peoples: Part II����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 237 25. The recovery without the palaces and the final crisis�������������������������������������������245

Timeline

Crete

Dates BC

Cyclades

Dates BC

Mainland

Dates BC

3100–3000

ECI

3100–3000

Early Helladic I

3100+ to 3000

(EMIB)

(2900–2650)

Kampos Phase

2900–2650

EMIIA

2650–2450/00

ECII (Keros-Syros Phase)

2650–2500

EHII

2650–2500

EMIIB

2450/00–2200

Kastri Phase

2500–2250

Later EHII/ Lefkandi I

2500–2200

EMIII

2200–2100/2050

Kastri Phase and into Phylakopi I Phase

2400–2200

EHIII

2250–2100/2050

Middle Minoan IA

2100/50–1925/00

Middle CycladicPhylakopi I Phase

2200–

Middle Helladic

2100/2050–

MMIB

1925/00–1875/50

MMII

1875/50–1750/00

Early Minoan I

MMIII(A–B)

1750/00–1700/1675

Late Minoan IA

1700/1675–1625/00

Late Cycladic I

1750/1675– 1625/00

Late Helladic I

1700/1675– 1635/00

LMIB

1625/00–1470/60

LCII

1625/00–

LHIIA

1635/00–1480/70

LMII

1470/60–1420/10

LHIIB

1480/70–1420/10

LMIIIA1

1420/10–1390/70

LHIIIA1

1420/10–1390/70

LMIIIA2

1390/70–1330/15

LHIIIA2

1390/70–1330/15

LMIIIB

1330/15–1200/1190

LHIIIB

1330/15– 1200/1190

LMIIIC

1200/1190–1075/50

LHIIIC

1200/1190– 1075/50

LCIII

1420/00–

Source: E. H. Cline (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Bronze Age Aegean (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 23.

Preface Located in central Crete, in a valley in the hinterland of the northern coast, 5 km from the sea, and surrounded by low, verdant hills, a large field of ruins, largely still buried, testify to the existence of one of the most ancient and enduring human settlements in the West. Its focus is a low hill called Kephala, situated northwest of the confluence of the Vlychia and Katsambas torrents; its flat top is occupied by the remains of a gigantic architectural complex. The site is now the archaeological area of Knossos, one of the most important of its kind in Greece and the entire Mediterranean region. It was called ko-no-so, or ku-ni-su, by its inhabitants in the Bronze Age and Knossos by the Greeks of the 1st millennium BC. The Romans, in 36 BC, built a Roman colony in the vicinity of Kephala: Colonia Iulia Nobilis. Ko-no-so was the hub of one of the first Mediterranean civilizations worthy of the name, the one that was called the Minoan civilization by the English archaeologist Arthur John Evans (1851–1941). The name refers to the legend of Minos, the wise and just king of Crete, the founder of the Cretan thalassocracy of his time, who, after his death, became a judge of the dead in the underworld. Evans identified the architectural complex of Kephala—which he discovered, excavated, and restored according to highly questionable criteria—as the Palace of Minos, which he called the Labyrinth because of the complexity of its layout. The Minoan civilization was made up of cities, palaces, maritime supremacy, mercantile expansion, advanced technology, fine craftsmanship, and elegant and refined art. It flourished from 3000 BC onward for a couple of millennia, lasting throughout the entire Bronze Age with close ties with other Mediterranean civilizations—those of the Cycladics (southern Aegean Sea), Mycenaeans (the Greek mainland and islands), Hittites (central Anatolian plateau), and Egyptians (Nile Valley and part of the southern Levant)—as well as with the contemporary cultures of Cyprus, Syria, and the southern Levant. It emitted a strong cultural influence, so much so that the Cycladic civilization allowed itself to be ‘Minoanized’ and the Mycenaean civilization looked to it as a model to imitate. The architects and protagonists of the Minoan civilization are today called Minoans. They descended from the Neolithic peoples of Crete. We have an idea of these people thanks to the skeletons and tibias in their tombs and their frescoes, painted stuccos, seal engravings, weaponry etchings, statuettes, stone engravings, and vases with relief decorations, which portray both men and women, never mature but young.

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They were quite short individuals: men were around 1.67 m tall, while women were around 1.55 m. They were reasonably well-fed people. The life expectancy was 35 years for men and 30 years for women, in line with those of other Mediterranean peoples of their day. As for their general health, this was often affected by anemia or malaria. The Minoans were well-proportioned individuals, lithe and slender, animated and attractive. They had a tanned complexion, large, dark eyes framed by thick eyebrows, a straight, arched, or aquiline nose, a well-shaped mouth, thick lips, and prominent chins. They had an athletic, tough physique, rather thin, even skinny, with muscular shoulders, arms, and thighs and slender, wiry legs, giving them a flexible and graceful gait. Some had short hair, while others wore it long, letting their curls fall to their shoulders. Usually, they wore a perizoma, supported by a wide belt worn very tightly at their waist, or a short skirt with an angled wrap, akin to a kilt. Having a thin waist was characteristic of both Minoan men and Minoan women. To protect themselves from the sun, they covered their heads with a turban, a cap, or a large hat, flat and round. When it was cold, they covered themselves with a long garment and a cloak. When not walking barefoot, they wore a pair of sandals or ankle boots, which could reach the calf, of white or light yellow leather. The boys went naked and had braided hair. Women, on the other hand, wore very low-cut doublets, which revealed their protruding bosom, with puffed sleeves, and multicolored skirts with a bell shape, narrow at the waist and hanging from the hips. They were rather attractive, had elaborately coiffed hair, white skin, an ample chest, and a proud expression. Both men and women often wore jewelry. From 1450 BC onward, the Minoan civilization was enriched with elements of the Mycenaean civilization. It flourished for a few more centuries, then declined. The Mycenaean civilization flourished in mainland Greece from the end of the 17th century BC for around 500 years. It took its name from Mycenae, a city in Argolis (Peloponnese), probably its most important center of influence. It learned and drew everything it could from the Minoan civilization—among other things, a centralized system of government, the architecture of the palaces, and wall decoration—before dealing it a severe blow by invading and occupying Crete and its overseas territories, thereby removing its primacy in mercantile trade. Meanwhile, another civilization was rising up in the Aegean region, one which is now known as the Trojan civilization after its main settlement. Troy was the capital of a kingdom and controlled access to the Turkish Straits, a fundamental access route to the agricultural and metallic resources of the Black Sea. It was part of the federation of Arzawa and, therefore, part of the Hittite Empire. The latter had its heart in the Hatti Kingdom and its capital in Ḫattuša, a city found on the central Anatolian plateau. Troy had arisen on the layered ruins of at least six cities that had succeeded each other on the same site for thousands of years, thriving on the metal industry and trade, and eventually being destroyed due to an earthquake, a fire, or a war, depending on the era. It was famous for its impenetrable fortifications, and it was a bridge between

Preface

vii

two worlds: the Mycenaean and, more generally, the Aegean world on the one hand and the Anatolian one on the other. The site of Troy has been identified with the hill of Hissarlik, found in northwestern Anatolia at the mouth of the Dardanelles. That place has seen numerous civilizations follow one after another, starting with that of Maritime Troy. The Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations declined shortly after the legendary Trojan War had come to an end after—it is said—it exploded between an Achaean and Mycenaean coalition and the eponymous city. Despite being struck at their very hearts, they survived the disasters that befell them. The former gave a last sign of life in a general context of renewal, while the latter declined slowly. For the Mycenaean civilization, the Postpalatial period was its ‘swan song’ (swans, on hearing death approach, ‘dance’ more beautifully and melodically than they ever have before instead of sadly giving up on life). The coup de grâce followed. But the Mycenaean civilization did not die out. Instead, it transformed and became the basis for the formation of Classical Greece. During the Greek Dark Ages (c. 1050–750 BC)—a murky period, but one full of promise—Greek civilization germinated like a seed of wheat under the winter snow. For this reason, today we no longer tend to think of the Mycenaean civilization as being on the pre-Hellenic horizon but as the initial phase of the history and civilization of the Greeks. As for Troy, it, too, was reborn in a new form. Indeed, the hill of Hissarlik was later, at different times and in different circumstances, the seat of two other cities: Greek Ilion and Roman Ilium. The Romans considered Ilium as their ancestral homeland due to the legend of Aeneas, the founder of Lavinium (Lazio), the legend of his son Iulus, founder of Alba Longa, near Lavinium, and the legend of Romulus, a descendant of Iulus and the founder of Roma quadrata. In the ‘dark ages’ of the Iron Age, traces and even the memory of the Mycenaean civilization were lost, so much so that the Greeks of the Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic Ages were unaware of the formative benefits they owed to it. In fact, they did not distinguish between Myth and History and were unable to trace through the sands of time by two or three generations to the era of the heroes of the Theban Wars and the Trojan War, whose deeds were handed down by the storytellers. Nor were they aware of the Minoan civilization or the prehistoric civilizations of Troy. The Aegean civilizations of the Bronze Age remained buried and forgotten for two millennia. At the end of the 19th century, the German businessman and amateur archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann, Homeric poems in hand, discovered the remains of Troy and the Grave Circles of Mycenae. Later, in the first years of the 20th century, Arthur J. Evans discovered the Minoan civilization and brought it to the attention of an astonished world. This book traces the rise, mixing, and osmosis of the civilizations of the Minoans, the Mycenaeans, and the Trojans of the Late Bronze Age and the causes of their ruinous fall. Its historical narrative forms a chronologically ordered continuum.

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It does not aim to provide an exhaustive account but rather to compose a broad and evolutionary picture in which the facts and their connections find their place in their consequentiality. I refer to facts that are inferred from the archaeological evidence, reported in the primary sources, as this is interpreted by archaeologists, or deduced from the reports of ancient historians. A choice that defines this work is the decision to place the chronology of the volcanic catastrophe of Santorini around 1615 BC, instead of 1450 BC, and the definitive fall of the Palace of Knossos in 1150 BC, instead of 1370/60 BC. The first deviation is based on radiocarbon dating, the second on the sequence of the Mycenaean kings of Crete, as emerges from the ancient literature. Knossos, Mycenae, Troy is a book that is aimed at an audience made up of both students and scholars of prehistory, ancient history, and archaeology as well as general ‘visitors’ to the subject, and therefore it has a scientific basis but uses language that is accessible to all and is, as such, rather distant from a traditional academic style. Following the example of Indro Montanelli (1909–2001), a great Italian journalist and writer, I start from the idea that, when I write, I have to do it in such a way that it can be understood by anyone. But it is not enough to think that “if you don’t understand me, the idiot is me” and to behave accordingly. It is also necessary to encourage the reader to read, insofar as this is within the author’s ability. When reporting history, “it isn’t possible to ‘be read’ if one fails to combine the scientific solidity of the research with the opportunity to reconstruct the events in the form of an exciting story.”1 It is not necessary to write a historical novel to recount history because history is itself a novel, but the narrative must be compelling. This book also contains few bibliographic references in order not to get too bogged down (specialists will not need them either). However, for readers wishing to deepen their reading on the subject, I would like to point out that the following volume contains, among other things, extensive and up-to-date bibliographies: A. L. D’Agata, L. Girella, E. Papadopoulou, and S. G. Aquini (eds.), One State, Many Worlds: Crete in the Late Minoan II–IIIA2 Early Period. Proceedings of the International Conference held at Khania, 21st–23rd November 2019 (Rome: Edizioni Quasar, 2022). The absolute chronology of the Bronze Age in the Aegean is subject to constant revisions in relation to new data that emerges from ongoing excavations. I have chosen to follow the chronology reported in Table 2.2 in E. H. Cline (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Bronze Age Aegean (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 23. Another distinguishing aspect of this book is the extensive use that is made of the historical present to represent events and structure the text. The historical present, by way of a reminder, is a verbal form that is used to refer to events that belong to the past but are presented as contemporary or close to the moment of enunciation so as to obtain the effect of a perspective approach and an actualization of the events narrated. 1

  A. Schiavone, in A. Carioti, Storici in cerca di lettori, in “Corriere della Sera”, 21 April 2013, 10.

Preface

ix

I would like to thank Julie Gardiner for having placed her trust in this book, the whole of her team at Oxbow Books, and the translator, editor, and proofreader of the work, Anthony Wright, who took care of the manuscript brilliantly. Preparing illustrations is a significant task, and I am obliged to Edoardo Aguilar from Studio Aguilar, Milan, Italy, for making the maps. Natale Barca Trieste, September 2022

ATLANTIC

L

A

OCEAN

S

P

Ad EES

Iberian Peninsula

tic

Corsica Sardinia

Se

al m

a

a

t

i

PYREN

D

ria

Tyrrhenian Sea

Balearic Is.

Sicily

Mycen

P

L

S

MEDITERRANEAN L

A

T

A

I B

Studio Aguilar - Milano

Y

Fig. 1. The Mediterranean Sea in the Bronze Age

A

N

CA

PA

TH

e

IANS

Dn

Crimea

e

ub Dan

Black Sea

B A L K A N S

a

Troy

Thebes

Nineveh Karkemish Ashur Halab Assyria

Egypt Ni

S

Memphis

at

es

Babylon

Babylonia Ur

Arabian Desert

Re

lo

d

Thebes

Saww

.

Libyan Desert

pr

TS

Tanis

Sais

Syrian Desert

Eu

M

Palestine

Tigris

Thera Ugarit Knossos Rhodes Enkomi Ebla Kato Zakros Kition Crete Phoenicia Mari Cyprus Malia N SEA Sidon Phaistos Tyre Kommos

OS

cia Cili Tarsus

Caria Lycia

L. Van

GR

Miletus

Urart u

Hattusas

ZA

Pylos Tiryns Kydonia

Sea

Athens

P h ryg ia

Lydia

ean

Aeg

Midea nae

C A U C A S U S

Thrace

Macedonia

a lg Vo

R

Don

pr

Se a

Danube

B l a ck

I

S ea

l l

y

He

a r i

Sirymon

br

Nes

a Vard

tos

r

Macedonia Chalcidice

Mt Olympus

e

s

s Acheloo

us

Iolkos

Troy

Lemnos

Lesbos

Ly dia

Samos

mus

Her

I

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Miletos

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a

Delos

Paros Midea Naxos Tiryns Sifnos a

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Peloponnesus

C

Ionian

nder

Maea

o

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Zacynthus

c

Messenia Kos Pylos Lakaidemon d Laconia ArgosMelos Phylakopi e s Therassos Kastri Kythira Thera-Santorini

a

l

Sea

Studio Aguilar - Milano

P h r y g i a

M y sia

Aetolia Mt Parnassus Euboea Chios Delphi Boetia Thebes G. of Cor inth Achaia Corinth Attica Athens Andros Kolonna Elis AMycenae A rg lph Haghia Irini oli ios s

Cephalonia

Sakarya

Samothracia

io

in

sa P l y Pindus

Propontis

Thasos

a n g e A e

s

ir

Corcyra

Th

Ep

us

T h r a c e

Seraya

M

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D I T E R R A N E A

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Trianda

Kato Zakros

S

Ly c ia Rhodes

Kydonia

Malia Knossos Crete Phaistos

Pamphylia

Caria

E

A

Fig. 2. The Aegean Sea in the Bronze Age

Introduction: The geographical context

Crete Crete is positioned latitudinally between the Cyclades archipelago and Africa, separating the Aegean Sea from the Libyan Sea. At 8,336 km2, it is the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and Corsica. It stretches for around 250 km from west to east and up to a maximum of 35 km from north to south, and has over 1,000 km of coastline. It can be circumnavigated in four to five days and crossed on foot, from one end to the other, in seven. It is 95% mountainous, but it is also verdant, especially in the mountains and along its rivers (there are around 40 perennial water courses, streams not included). There are trees, woods and groves, natural forests, and Mediterranean scrub, with fruit trees, vineyards and olive groves, fields of wheat and barley, bushes with berries, and oleanders with large pink flowers. On the south side, the mountains form a continuous wall, broken only by the plains of Messara and Ierapetra. As such, the cliffs are high and constant, with few openings and landing points. On the northern side, however, the mountains descend to sea level, and the coast is littered with numerous inlets. On the west side of the island, the landscape often consists of expanses of limestone rocks with curved, bare, smooth shapes with grooves. Here, there are no valleys and no surface water, except for short temporary water courses produced by the rains. However, closed basins of all shapes and sizes are frequent: sinkholes, karst fields, wells, temporary lakes, caves, and swallow holes. The larger basins (polje) sometimes stretch for dozens of kilometers and have a flat bottom, suitable for crops or grazing. The cavities are often crossed by streams and feature lakes, stalactites, and stalagmites. The five main groups of peaks are Sitia, Lasithi, Psiloritis, Amari, and the White Mountains. The mountains of Sitia, at the eastern end of the island, rise to 1,417 m a.s.l. and have three massifs, between which coastal streams and the Zakros and Praisos rivers flow. One of the mountains in Lasithi is Mount Selena (1,559 m), and another is Mount Spathi (2,148 m). It is believed that the birthplace of Zeus can be found in a cave on Mount Spathi. Zeus, we recall, is the Greek god of lightning and the father of the Olympian gods. In the center of the island rises the Psiloritis and the so-called Cretan Ida to distinguish it from the Trojan Ida (northwestern Anatolia). The highest peaks of the massif rise to 2,456 m and 1,424 m, respectively. The Cretan Ida is covered with snow for three to five months of the year. There are 200 caves and 20 gorges there. One of the caves is the Diktaion Antron, the Diktaian Cave. This is the setting for another myth, that of the infancy of Zeus, the Greek god of the sky, lightning, and thunder, who is

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said to have grown up among the skilled metallurgists of the Dactyls and Curetes and the lightning-throwers of the Cyclopes. The Idaion Antron was, together with Dodona in Epirus, one of the most important centers of the cult of Zeus. The true geographical center of the island is constituted by the mountains around Gonies. Further north are the Kouloukonas mountains, which stretch for 35 km, rise up to 1,078 m, and are rich in iron, copper, and lead. The mountains of Amari, which are lush and have plentiful water, are separated from the Psiloritis by the valley of the Platypotamos and that of the Platanos. It is said that gold can be found there. The Lefka Ori, or “White Mountains,” cover an area of 45 × 20 km (48.5 km2) in the southwest of the island. They are covered by woodland, with springs and rivers, and rise up to Mount Pachnes (2,453 m), which is almost as high as the Psiloritis, the difference between them being just 3 m. Other mountains in the western part of the island are Kadistos to the north, the Viannos mountains to the south, and the mountains of Kolokitha to the northwest, all bare and gray but filled with pastures, game, and hidden caves. The Asterousia mountains are found in the south of the central region. They stretch for 50 km in latitude and demarcate the southern boundary of the fertile plain of Messara. Their highest peak is Mount Kofinas (1,231 m). Further east of the Asterousia are the uplands of Matala. Some of Crete’s elevated terrain is rich in surface water, though it is not in its entirety, but this is not the case at all for the plains, which are few and poorly irrigated. The plains’ inhabitants look for water there in wells, at a depth of 5–12 m, and collect rainwater in cisterns. The most extensive plain is Messara in the central-south, between the Psiloritis to the north and the Asterousia mountains to the south. It stretches for 60 km from east to west and up to 15 km from north to south, and it is crossed by two rivers: the Anapodaris and the Geropotamos. It is very fertile and well cultivated and is used for rearing cattle. At one point, as early as 2100–2000 BC, there was a freshwater lake there, surrounded by the Mediterranean scrub, in which the olive tree and vegetation that thrives in a perennially humid environment prevail. The lake survived until 1200–1100, when it dried up as a consequence of rapid regional climate change—that is to say, a drought, observed elsewhere in the eastern Mediterranean as well—and local tectonic activity, though the influence of human intervention cannot be ruled out either. By 1100, it had become a swamp, remaining in this form until around 700. Other plains worthy of note are the coastal ones of Rethymnon, Pediada, Malia, and Ierapetra. Some fertile plateaus are covered with snow for half of the year. The mountains of Lasithi surround one such plateau between 840 and 870 m a.s.l. The Lefka Ori enclose another, the Omalos.

Introduction: The geographical context

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The Omalos Plateau and the Samaria Gorge The Omalos Plateau is enclosed in a circle of rocky mountains. It is found at around 1,200 m a.s.l., it has a trapezoidal form, and is a couple of kilometers long on each side. Originally it was a lake, then the water found an outlet through a cave and the basin dried up. It is a secluded place, and shepherds take their flocks to pasture there in the summer when the air is pleasantly fresh and the skies are clear. In winter, it is covered with snow. There are a few scattered houses, some fields planted with potatoes and cereal crops, and an alpine refuge (Kalergis). From the terrace of the latter, looking west, you can see some high-altitude peaks, half-hidden among the clouds, bare of vegetation. One of these is Mount Gingilos (2,000 m). According to Greek mythology, Zeus would sit there on a throne and descend to the foot of the mountain to bathe in a spring. Crete is an unusual place, one where myth and nature intertwine, and visitors find they are immersed in a supernatural world inhabited by mysterious presences. Looking down from the terrace, what instantly strikes you is a steep area down among the rocks, and it is impossible to see the bottom of it. It is a very deep corridorshaped valley with overhanging rock walls. It is called the Faraggi Samarias, and is one of the most rugged and wild places on Crete. This is not the only rift of its kind in the Lefka Ori. Another long, deep canyon that descends down toward the sea is the Agia Irini Gorge. It is 7.5 km long and 500 m deep at its deepest, and you can walk from one end to the other in a couple of hours. You can descend into the Samaria Gorge and follow it down to the coast, 16 km away, which you will reach in five hours if you walk at a good pace. The itinerary winds through a primordial environment of deep ravines, caves, trees, bushes and shrubs with flowers, aromatic herbs, wildflowers, and springs. The number of different plant species there is in the hundreds. Cypresses and pines prevail among the tall trees. A snake slithers here, a lizard sunbathes there, and a few kri-kri goats climb a steep slope beyond. Kri-kri (agrimi) goats are a rare species native to Crete. They have a long beard, a brown coat, a black chest and legs, and two long, curved horns, similar to those of the ibex. Turning your eyes to the sky, hovering above you are vultures, eagles, and griffons. At the bottom of the gorge flows a stream with a pleasant murmur. A large spring gushes out in the shade of a plane tree at Neroutsiko. As you proceed, the walls of rock to either side, cloaked in greenery, rise in height, and the gorge becomes deep and narrow. Along the way, there is a spring called Kefalovryso. According to an ancient tradition, a young girl named Britomartis was transformed by Zeus into that very spring of water. Britomartis had invoked the god’s help because King Minos was about to catch up with her after chasing her over mountains and through valleys, eager to possess her. After Kefalovryso, the chasm narrows dramatically, so much so that its walls nearly touch each other. This place is called Sidiroportes, “The Iron Gate,” a passage just a

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few meters wide and several meters deep, which opens up between two sheer rock walls that plunge down from a dizzying height. The sun’s rays only penetrate that passageway for a few minutes a day, so the air channeled through it is cold, making you shiver even in the summer. The place is shady, and large stones, rocks, trees, and bushes are scattered about. After Sidiroportes, the view opens up. A few more kilometers, and you will arrive at a wide, sandy beach at Agia Roumeli, bathed by the Libyan Sea.

The Cyclades Islands Situated between Crete (to the south) and mainland Greece (to the northwest), the 220 islands that make up the Cyclades archipelago dot the southern Aegean Sea like a handful of seeds that have been thrown about. Their ostensible center is Delos (3.4 km2), a granite boulder emerging from cobalt-colored waters. The Greek noun kuklos (= circle), from which the name “Cyclades” derives, is used to mean that an observer standing on Delos, looking around, will have the sensation of being in the center of a circle of similarly emerging lands. It was the Ionians who first used the word kyklos to suggest the idea of a circle of islands surrounding Delos on all sides. The name of the archipelago thus became the Kyklades, or Cyclades. Delos is an arid and barren strip of land, harsh and rocky, sterile and uncultivated, whipped by the wind and illuminated by blinding light. It is not an island but rather an isle, an islet, a speck of land. Rhenea, which faces it on the opposite side of a narrow channel, is four times larger. Mykonos, beyond a wider tract of sea, is thirty times bigger. Farther away, the undulating profiles of Tinos, Syros, Naxos, Paros, and Ios mark the horizon. The way the Cyclades are arranged seems chaotic, but it is not accidental. In fact, three main alignments can be identified, two with a northeast to southeast trend and one west to east. The first comprises the islands of Andros, Tinos, Mykonos, Naxos, and other smaller islands, and it can be considered as the extension of Euboea, the large island overlooking Boeotia in central Greece. The second is constituted by Kea, Kynthos, Serifos, and Sifnos, which seems to be the extension of mainland Attica, the region where Athens is found, bordered to the north by Boeotia. The third, by Folegandros, Sikinos, and Ios. Gyaros, Syros, Paros, Antiparos, and Despotiko are found between the first and second groups. Milos, Kimolos, Santorini, Anafi, and some remote islets close the archipelago to the south. The territory of the Cyclades is mountainous and the terrain is predominantly harsh and rocky, but the subsoil is rich in precious stones (above all, Parian marble, pure white, hard, semi-translucent, and excellent to work with, used in both sculpture and architecture) and other minerals (obsidian, copper, gold). The vegetation is low and sparse due to the climate, which is dry for most of the year, the rarity of springs, the absence of perennial streams, and the violently gusting winds. The climate is sufficiently humid to support lush vegetation, but this is sometimes reduced to mere

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specks of green dotting an otherwise parched, ocher-colored landscape. The only wooded regions are on Andros and Naxos. Of the surviving groves, olive groves and vineyards are the most extensive. At one time, the environment was more verdant. Its degradation began at the beginning of the Bronze Age, when the voracity of some species of livestock— goats, pigs—led to the contraction of woodland undergrowth coverage and the increased exposure of the land to erosion. The most severe problems were caused by deforestation in the classical era. The colors are bright, almost violent, everywhere in the Cyclades, and the scenery is harsh and steep. On the plus side, the sun shines all year round, and the weather is never extreme. In winter, the temperature never drops below zero, and snowfall is a rare and localized phenomenon. The critical roles around here are played by the sea and the wind. The sea is a ubiquitous, essential presence, and it is a perennial invitation to travel, born both from the region’s insularity and from the fact that the Cyclades are an ideal place for encounters and exchanges between Asia, Africa, and Europe. In winter, the wind blows from southern directions and is warm and humid. In the summer, however, it blows mainly from the northwest, often in strong gusts. The summer winds are called the meltemi. They are fresh and keep the temperature moderate. As if linked to the visible motion of the sun, they pick up in the morning and quieten down again at sunset. They lash the high, hanging cliffs mercilessly, raise swirls of sand from the shorelines, shake bushes violently, bend the trees, and churn up the sea, which foams and boils. To get shelter from the meltemi anywhere in the Cyclades, landings are almost always made on the southern coastlines, and, to break up its impetus, the villages are labyrinths of narrow streets. At sunset, however, when the last glimmer of the sun has gone out over the sea, an unparalleled peace spreads through the air, which, having now calmed down, seems to be fixed, immovable. From this comes a profound feeling of stillness, which relaxes the soul and the limbs, gently preparing them for the night’s rest. This can be felt even on Santorini, where the sunset is a real spectacle. The most famous place on the island from which to admire the sunset is the small village of Oia. One of the most popular points is located next to the old castle, where you will get the most wonderful view. Santorini is the largest of the southernmost Cycladic Islands. It has an area of 110 km2 and has an almost circular shape, indented by two inlets in the southwest and the northeast. There are four volcanic cones there, rising to a height of 400 m.1 The coasts are steep, with few beaches. This is one of the two Cycladic Islands of volcanic origin, the other being Milos, which we will look at shortly (the other Cycladic Islands have a different geological nature and instead are outcrops of metamorphic rocks).

1   The description of the island provided here is how it would have been before the natural catastrophe of 1615 (the early years of the Late Minoan IB period).

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The inlets that cut into the southwestern and northeastern coasts of the island are calderas.2 The largest was formed before 54000 BC, the other around 18300 BC. The inlet that cuts into the northern coast of Milos is also a caldera and gives this island a typical horseshoe shape. Milos is located quite far south, at the western end of the alignment of Ios, Sikinos, and Folegandros, which is south of the group of Naxos, Paros, and Sifnos. Both Santorini and Milos are islands where the land is particularly fertile. This has allowed them to develop agriculturally. Each of these islands also has another major natural mineral resource. In the case of Santorini, this is pozzolana, a material used in the building sector. In the case of Milos, it is obsidian, a black, shiny, volcanic glass which, if struck, shaves off sharp-edged flakes, suitable for use as blades and points and therefore as knives, scratchers, javelin heads, and arrowheads. The “volcanic glass” of Milos has been actively exported since the Mesolithic. The Cyclades are just one of the archipelagos of the Aegean Sea. Another is the Dodecanese, a string of islands that lies east of the Cyclades, off the coast of the Aegean region of Anatolia. The Greek colonists subdivided this region into three parts, according to the Greek dialect spoken there: Caria, Ionia, and Aeolia, going in order from south to north. Aeolia covered the area between the mouth of the Hellespont (Strait of the Dardanelles) and the mouth of the Hermos (present-day Gediz). The extreme northwestern offshoot of Anatolia (the Aegean coast of the Marmarica region), which extends north of Aeolia, from the Dardanelles toward the northeast, was called the Troad by the Greeks. The Dardanelles is the stretch of water that separates southeastern Europe from Asia, connecting the Aegean region to the coasts of the Black Sea (Georgia, the Caucasus, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey) via the Sea of Marmara and the Bosphorus. The Greeks will call this the Hellespont.

The Troad (northwestern Anatolia) The Troad is a land of gentle hills, carpeted in pine forests, olive groves, and fields of wheat, with large wooded areas and a coastline that veers between gentle and rugged, with rocky promontories and sandy beaches. The coast is bathed by the waters of the Aegean Sea to the west, overlooks the Hellespont to the northwest, and ends in the south on the shores of the Edremit Gulf. The Kasdagh massif (Trojan Ida3) separates the Troad from its hinterland, which is called Mysia. The mountain is covered by oaks, pines, swamps, and streams, and is a refuge for bears, wild boars, and wolves, as well as many resident and migratory birds. A coastal plain, continually battered by strong and cold northeastern winds and watered by various rivers, looks out over the intense blue of the Hellespont. 2   A caldera is a broad hollow or depression with a curvilinear shape that normally forms after the collapse of a volcanic structure. 3   Not to be confused with the other well-known Mount Ida on Crete, which is linked with the myth of Zeus, father of the Olympian Gods.

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An unstable geological structure Crete is a large island, favored by nature and by its position halfway between three continents: Asia, Africa, and Europe. It has mountains, forests, springs and streams, and a climate favorable for crops. The Cyclades—numerous, small, and scattered— also benefit from the advantage of finding themselves on the main merchant traffic routes between Asia and southeastern Europe. They are therefore naturally suited to the role of a commercial intermediary. From prehistory up to the end of the Roman Empire, this role was principally played by Delos, which, in Roman times, became a free port, a financial center, the epicenter of the cult of Apollo, and a large market for cereals and slaves. The Troad is a region rich in fertile soils, capable of supporting a large population and supplying agricultural produce for exportation. It is rich in pastureland and metal deposits and controls access through the vital commercial route of the Dardanelles from the west. The potential inherent in all three of these geographical regions means that their prehistoric populations have more significant opportunities for growth and development than others in the eastern Mediterranean. The Achilles heel of these lands is the instability of their geological structure. To explain what this means, we must first establish the premise that the Earth’s crust is a mosaic where every tile is a “plate,” and it moves continuously under the pressure of the connective movements of the Mantle. The displacements of the plates are very slow, imperceptible to the naked eye, but are of considerable amplitude if measured over the course of millions of years. When it moves, every plate presses on the nearby plate, causing the masses’ balance to shift and, subsequently, earthquakes. The pressure exerted, in particular, by the African Plate on the Eurasian Plate means that the lands of Italy (excluding Sardinia), the Aegean, Anatolia, and the coastal regions of the eastern Mediterranean are lands where seismic events can cause severe or even very severe economic, social, and environmental damage. The islands and mainland coasts of the southern Aegean Sea lie at the edge of one of the great fracture lines that cuts along the bottom—in a latitudinal sense—of the Mediterranean Sea. Milos and the nearby islands, in particular, belong to an important volcanic formation called the South Aegean Volcanic Arc, created by the subduction of the African Plate under the Aegean region. This arc spans from the Gulf of Corinth to the west coast of Turkey. The main volcanic areas are represented here by Methana-Poros, Milos, Nisyros, and Santorini. Santorini and Nisyros are found 150 km north and 150 northeast of Crete, respectively. Nisyros is the only area that still shows significant volcanic activity. What is of concern is not so much the danger of an eruption but the seismic activity related to volcanism. The Troad is subject to earthquakes like the rest of the Aegean-Anatolian region. Near Crete, there is a hotbed of constant instability and a source of tectonic activity between Mount Juktas and the island of Skandia, 12 km off the northern coast. It should be added that Crete is a young land, geologically speaking (it is just 1 million years old), and this means it is subject to discontinuous and repeated tectonic movements, which have the effect of deforming the coasts and the mountains, causing them to

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rise or fall by several meters. It can be stated that Crete is hit by earthquakes of a certain intensity every year, which have their epicenter in the depths of the island itself or in the surrounding sea. As the case may be, the seismic waves can be surface or subsurface. Sometimes, they are very powerful. As such, the Aegean region is crossed by significant fault lines. Numerous earthquakes with a magnitude of 6.5 (strong enough to destroy modern buildings) occur frequently here. The major shock is followed by an earthquake swarm, that is, a long sequence of micro-aftershocks of light or medium intensity that gradually decrease in intensity over a period of months until they dissipate entirely. It might also be that a major earthquake is followed by others, days, months, or even years later, somewhere else on the same fault line. In such cases, we speak of an earthquake cluster, i.e., a sequence, or even a “seismic storm.” It has been suggested that a “seismic storm” took place in the Aegean and the eastern Mediterranean between 1225 and 1175. This “storm” may have interacted with the other forces at work in the same areas around 1200. The earth tremors that occur in the Aegean Sea and their effects spread like a concentric wave across the Mediterranean Sea. Therefore, they are also felt on the Greek mainland, on the Aegean coastline of Anatolia, and even in Egypt, Cyprus, and the southern Levant (Syria and Canaan, the ensemble of what is now Lebanon, Israel, and the Palestinian Territories). Furthermore, the tremor of the seabed causes anomalous waves (tsunamis) that move very rapidly and crash over the coasts. In such cases, the sea first retreats by a few hundred meters, leaving the ports dry, before it submerges the coast and pours inland, sometimes even for several kilometers, flooding it.

Chapter 1 The origins of the Minoan civilization

The Aceramic Neolithic The Neolithic method of production, based on mixed farming1 and incorporating hunting, fishing, and foraging for vegetables and shellfish, was born in the valleys of the Nile, the Jordan, the Tigris, and the Euphrates in the 9th millennium. The first to adopt it were small groups, who lived in caves or hut villages and formed an egalitarian society, organized on the basis of kinship (family, clan) and made cohesive by the strong sense of belonging and collective identity of its members, typical of tribes. The oldest villages extended for no more than 1 ha and had no more than 50 inhabitants. The villagers owned only as much land as they could work and as much as was needed to survive. The exchange of goods, if it was practiced, was not aimed at making a profit. The social hierarchy was based on personal qualities (skills, strength, sex) and age (as a rule, seniority prevailed). The tribes communicated with each other. Perhaps there was a certain degree of organization between them. Individuals moved from one tribe to another for various reasons. The tribes gathered to celebrate sacred rites and marriages, exchange gifts, and reaffirm their mutual political and social solidarity. The first Neolithic farmers of Crete were immigrants, who landed on the island in successive waves around 7000 after having made a crossing of 150 km aboard monoxylic pirogues, leather-covered canoes, and rafts from Anatolia, making use of the bridge of islands between the southwestern coast of Anatolia and Crete (Rhodes, Saria, Casos, Carpathos). The migrants comprised entire families who brought domesticated animals and seeds with them, including a variety of soft wheat that was common only to Anatolia. The Cave of Lera is one of the cave sites on Crete that were permanently occupied during the Early Neolithic.2 It is situated in the western part of the island (15 km 1   Mixed farming is a method of production that associates agriculture (initially understood as horticulture) with pastoralism and the rearing of livestock. Pastoralism differs from the rearing of livestock because animals are not kept in pens or enclosures and fed with food provided by the farmer but instead are left to feed in the natural environment, grazing in pastures or in the wild. 2   In terms of relative chronology, the Neolithic, which spans from 7000 to 3300/3100, can be subdivided into three periods: Early (7000–5500/5300), Middle (5500/5300–4500/4300), and Late (4500/4300–3300/3100).

2

Knossos, Mycenae, Troy Cape Spatha

CRETE

Amnisos Mirabello Palaikastro Knossos Gulf Tylissos Psira Arkhanes Mochlos Armenoi Mt. Psilorits (Ida) Lefka Ori Kato Zakros Mt. Louktas Psychro Cave Monastiraki Apodoulu Haghia Triada

Studio Aguilar - Milano

Kydonia

Kommos

Gaudos

Phaistos

Messarà

Cape Lithinon

0

25

50 km

Fig. 3. Crete (Greece) in the Bronze Age (1900–1150 BC)

northeast of Chania) on the steep western slopes of Mount Vardies, 70 m a.s.l., above the Stavros lagoon, and contains three adjoining rooms, together with stalactites, stalagmites, and a small lake. One of the most ancient Neolithic sites that we know about is that of Kephala at Knossos. Around 7000, a small group of farmers who were unfamiliar with pottery built a village there with houses made of mud and reeds, on the left bank of the Katsambas, just before and west of the point where this stream is joined by the Vlichya tributary. The villagers numbered 25–30 people per generation and were divided into families, who were necessarily related to one another. They raised animals, harvested crops, and worked wool to obtain fabrics and stone, obsidian, and bone to obtain tools or hunting weapons or weapons of war, which included clubs, blades, and arrowheads. They modeled anthropomorphic or zoomorphic figurines out of clay, including seated or standing naked women with exaggerated breasts and buttocks and a goddess flanked by lionesses. In order to fish or navigate, they used the points of the nearby coastline where they could land at the shore: Amnisos, Katsambas, etc.

The Early Neolithic and the later Neolithic periods In the Early Neolithic Period, the village of Kephala was brought to life by 200–600 people in each generation. The families live in square-plan houses with one or two rooms, which have mud-brick walls built on stone foundations, partitions lined with mud plaster, and a hearth. The roofs of the houses are flat and composed of sticks and mud. A house of 50 m2 is subdivided into eight compartments. The two stages of this period (I and II) attest to the area’s opening up to the Cyclades Islands, Attica, and Argolis. The same settlement, in the Middle Neolithic, houses 500–1,000 people per generation. At this point, the houses are built better than in the past. The construction

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3

technique is the same, but there are windows and wooden doors, a fixed and raised hearth in the center of the main room, as well as pillars, wardrobes, and beds. One house, built of stone, covers 100 m2 and is divided into five rooms, with outer walls often 1 m thick, solid enough to support an additional floor. New migratory waves bring groups of Anatolian migrants to Crete in the Late Neolithic. Three-quarters of the newcomers are descended from Neolithic farmers from southwestern Anatolia, and a quarter are from Iranian and Caucasian immigrants who mixed with the former around 3800. They live in rather sizeable village communities. They shape clay pots, which they will bake in the oven, creating terracotta. They engage in long-distance exchange and perhaps are already familiar with the private ownership of means of production. Some villages of huts and camps of transhumant pastoralists, situated in the center (around Phaistos, on the edge of the Messara Plain) or the west of the island (in particular, on the Lasithi Plateau, the coastline around Istro, or the islet of Psira), date to this period. The inhabitants use pottery both produced by themselves and manufactured elsewhere, some of which is comparable with contemporary productions from Attica, some Cycladic Islands (Santorini, Amorgos, and Kea), and the Dodecanese. It should be noted that the Late Neolithic sites of the northern coast of Crete enable easier access to the obsidian and metals of the Cyclades, Gyali, and Anatolia. This is probably why the sites were chosen in the first place. In this period, the inhabitants of Kephala and Phaistos live in houses with a rectangular plan, built with the use of timber and mud bricks, and which have floors and hearths of beaten earth. They make use, perhaps for cultic purposes, of terracotta or stone figurines, which emulate Cycladic forms, such as the violin-shaped ones. They bury their dead in rocky crevices and caves. The village of Kephala, in particular, is experiencing a considerable population increase. As time goes by, it spreads out to cover an area of 5 ha and develops relations with the outside world.

The metal “revolution” The division and specialization of labor have initiated social change. Full-time artisans and merchants have appeared. The change started within the kinship structures (families, clans) and accelerated due to the “metal revolution.” Man now extracts metal ores from real mines and collects specks and nuggets of gold from riverbeds. The task of extraction by smelting the metal from the ore that contains it is carried out on a small scale by itinerant blacksmiths near their place of discovery, generally on wooded mountain slopes so as to have an abundant supply of wood to feed the smelting furnace. The metals obtained in this way are processed either in their natural state or together with other metals to produce work tools, pottery, or weapons for hunting and warfare. The metal alloys being used are mainly arsenical copper and bronze. The former is obtained by adding 0.5% arsenic to the copper and bringing to compound to a high temperature (the aim is to give it higher tensile strength and a

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reduced tendency to scaling). It is primarily used to make receptacles for boiling water and other liquids. The latter is an alloy of copper and tin, and it is used to make work tools, parts of hunting and war weapons, armor, personal ornaments, votive objects, ships, and statuettes. Sometimes, a small amount of arsenic is added to copper and tin to obtain an even harder alloy. Using the phrase “metal revolution” is a way of signifying a major change. In reality, it is not a real revolution but a process of gradual transformation. This means that the substitution of stone, obsidian, or bone instruments with more efficient metal instruments has begun. In short, metal objects do not suddenly replace stone or obsidian objects but are used alongside them (and will replace them in the long run). Metal objects are rare and, therefore, precious. The rarer and harder to obtain they are—metal is still a rare commodity—the more in demand and the more valuable they are. Weapons of war and metal armor are particularly coveted as they can determine the outcome of battles and wars. The whole of Bronze Age society is actively researching the latest in military weaponry, making those who manufacture them and those who sell them very rich. The demand for worked metals is also growing because metal artifacts are status symbols. Owning them is something to be flaunted to highlight the possessor’s wealth and preeminent social position. The supply of finished metal products presupposes the availability of raw metals and semi-finished products. The demand for the latter gives impetus to long-distance trading. The profit margin is so high that it tempts those searching for metal to take long and risky sea voyages to find it. No other reason would push a sensible man to face incessant storms and waves in an age in which naval technology can only produce fragile, inadequately equipped boats. Therefore, anyone who rides the waves does so to pursue the dream of getting rich.3 If their venture is successful, the benefits that can be derived from it are not only material but also social and political. Between the Late Neolithic and the Early Bronze Age, some individuals manage to assert themselves over other members of their community thanks to their resourcefulness, competence, and ability. This is perhaps because they know how to make themselves indispensable because they can procure the raw materials necessary for manufacturing work tools and weapons of war and master techniques unknown to the majority, such as metallurgy. The navigator-merchants are also metallurgists because they work metals onboard their ships. These use sails, a recent invention of the Cretans, if not of the inhabitants of the Cyclades or of the islands and mainland coasts of the northeastern Aegean Sea.

3   G. Ieranò, Il mare d’amore. Eros, tempeste e naufragi nella Grecia antica (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 2019), 17. Ieranò cites, among others, Statyllius Flaccus (1st century BC): “Avoid busying thee with the sea and put thy mind to the plough that the oxen draws / if it is any joy for thee to see the end of a long life. / For on land there is length of days, but on the sea / it is not easy to find a man with grey hair” (AP VII 650).

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5

The Cretans are farmers by vocation and obtain bountiful harvests from working the land, more than they need. Their island, however, lacks the metal resources that the metallurgical industry needs (though there are some copper deposits, exploited perhaps as early as the Neolithic). To obtain metals, they exchange them for agricultural products, fabrics, and painted ceramics. The Aegean Sea is now a crossroads of encounters and exchanges, thanks to the fact that navigators never lose sight of land. They can take refuge at any time, sheltering themselves from the sea and the winds. The introduction of bronze technology to the islands and mainland coasts of the Aegean region marks the localized transition from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age. From now on, we will use the terms Early Cycladic, Early Minoan, Early Helladic, and Proto-Helladic to refer to the Early Bronze Age in, respectively, the Cyclades, Crete, and mainland Greece. When dealing with the northeastern islands of the Aegean Sea and the Troad, we will continue to use the term Early Bronze Age (Anatolian Early Bronze Age). In the village of Kephala, the transition from the Late Neolithic to the Early Minoan Age occurs in 3300/3100. It takes place gradually, and this shows that those who live in the village for generation after generation share the same traditions and have the same history.

The Early Minoan Age The subsistence economy of the Cretans in the Early Minoan Age is based on specialized agriculture, integrating the raising of livestock, pastoralism, predatory activities (hunting, fishing), and the harvesting of vegetables and shellfish. Most manpower is directed to working the fields. This is mainly practiced in Messara and Lasithi and ensures abundant harvests of olives, grapes, and cereals (wheat, barley). Therefore, oil, wine, and flour are produced on a large scale. There is also widespread cultivation of vegetables (chickpeas, watercress, fennel, green peas, celery, vetch), vines, many fruit trees (olive, pear, apple, fig, date palm, pistachio, perhaps even almond), hemp, flax, and various spices, including cumin and saffron. Cyperus, coriander, and terebinth are used for the production of scented oils for use on the body and hair. To till the fields, farmers use the plow instead of the rudimentary hoe that was used in the past for the cultivation of small plots. This tool consists of two pieces of wood tied together by leather straps and is maneuvered by a man and pulled by a pair of donkeys or oxen. For cutting trees and shrubs and for turning the soil in preparation for sowing, farmers use a tool that is both an axe and a hoe. They use a sickle with a bronze blade to harvest the ears of crops. A pitchfork is used for piling up the ears and for spreading manure to be used as fertilizer. The harvest and hay bales are kept in circular pits, the walls of which are coated with gypsum.

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Some grapes are harvested and pressed, and some are dried and stored. The must is left to ferment in special tanks. The wine that is produced is white or red. It is kept cool in large jars with a spout at the base. Olives, as well as the oil that is obtained from their pressing (they are pressed with a millstone), are also kept in large storage jars. The olives are stored beneath salt. The livestock being reared include sheep, goats, pigs, cattle, and bees.4 Cattle are raised not so much for their meat as for their milk. They are also offered as sacrifices to the gods and are used for the towing of carts and the production of leather, which is used to make shoes and cover warriors’ shields. Bulls are used for reproduction. Bees are raised in wooden hives in order to produce honey and beeswax. The honey is stored in large jars and is used, other than as food, for offerings to the gods and, sometimes, even for embalming the dead. Pastoralism differs from livestock farming because animals are not kept in stables or enclosures and fed with food provided by the farmer but are left to feed themselves in the natural environment, either in pastures or in the wild. It is a crucial element of the economy of the mountain regions. It is aimed at both the building up of stores of meat and the production of wool. The shepherds take their flocks down to the plains in the winter and return them to the mountains in the summer. The hunt targets wild goats, boars, deer, and ibex (a kind of steinbock), perhaps even monkeys. These animals are killed for their meat, but the curved horns of the wild goats are also used, as are the fur and ivory tusks of the boars. Dogs are used for hunting and to guard the herds. Even domesticated cats are sometimes used for hunting, especially for bird hunting in wetlands. Fishing is practiced on the shoreline, offshore, and in the open sea. Among the greenery collected are medicinal plants and plants that can be used for dyeing fabrics. Another feature of the Cretans of the Early Minoan Age is their artisans’ skill, creativity, and sometimes even artistic flair, as evidenced, for example, in the decorations of the walls of their buildings, which are decorated with frescoes that are substantiated by the execution of abstract designs and imitations of masonry, and in the introduction of better plasters and pigments. As for the potters, smelters, blacksmiths, and goldsmiths, they produce shiny parade weapons, working tools and other instruments, woolen fabrics (including in purple), seals, worked shells, carvings, precious objects in gold, jewels, pots made out of earthenware, bronze, stone, rock crystal, or volcanic glass, and small mugs, often with inscriptions. A further strength of local communities is their ability, both as individuals and as a collective, to face and overcome traumatic events—such as an earthquake—or a period of difficulty and to start again with enthusiasm, combining reconstruction with development. This reflects the profound confidence that the Minoans have in themselves and in their future. 4

  It is unclear whether, before the 15th century, chickens and other poultry were also reared.

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In the meantime, the settlement model has changed. The main villages have evolved into proto-urban centers, and the latter developed in turn, transforming themselves into cities. It would be helpful to clarify first that a proto-urban center is a settlement that has some advanced characteristics in terms of size, urban planning, and a hierarchical relationship between center and periphery but is not yet so advanced as to be able to be defined as a city. It is larger and more populous than a village and incorporates an intended design to separate the spaces reserved for the rearing of domesticated animals in stables or appropriate places or enclosures, horticulture, and artisanal activities. In addition, it is the largest settlement in a given area and serves as a reference point for all the others. If it is equipped with artificial defenses, these will be more substantial than those of a fortified village. It differs from the city because it is smaller (7–20 ha) and does not include fixed and monumental spaces for cult worship or community meeting places. Furthermore, the hierarchical relationships between the center and periphery are less complex in the case of a proto-urban center than those in a territory where there is a city and where, consequently, decisions are taken at three levels: center, intermediate, and periphery.

Middle Neolithic IA: the birth of the cities Cities are places where the riches of a territory are found as well as centers for the transformation of raw materials, creative laboratories for ideas, theaters of socioeconomic and technological developments, and legal and institutional centers of power. They differ from villages because: • the inhabited areas are larger and more populated (some thousands of inhabitants rather than a few dozen or hundreds) and act decisively in the organization of socio-economic assets and territorial administration; • their population is less homogeneous because the local economy is based on agriculture, or on pastoralism or a hybrid form, that is integrated with commercial activity and the presence of artisans; and • local society is stratified, with a small clique that commands and a majority that obeys, distinctions between one class or social sect and the others, and rules of greater or lesser rigidity or flexibility. The process of development and organization through which a village becomes a city, or through which new settlements are born that have the characteristics of a city, is called urbanization. This occurs when the number of inhabitants of a proto-urban center increase, when the settlement gains infrastructure through the construction of roads, water supply systems, sewage systems, one or more markets, and fortification works, and when it becomes part of a settlement hierarchy at the top of which is a city.

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Urbanization began in the Near East between 8500 and 8000. From there, it spread to the East (between 6000 and 5000) and to the West (between 6500 and 6000). It appeared for the first time on the islands and the mainland coasts of the Mediterranean Sea quite late, which was primarily due to the region’s aridity.5 The first cities on Crete appeared during the Middle Minoan IA Period (2100/50– 1925/00). They are between 20 and 100 ha. They might be dense aggregations of buildings, where the houses are huddled together, poorly served by narrow lanes, under which waste water flows, or they might consist of groups of residential blocks, separated by gardens, avenues, and open spaces. It is characteristic of these cities that they do not have an acropolis, that is, an elevated area, distinct from the lower area. Furthermore, these cities do not have a pre-established urban layout, which, therefore, differs from one to the next. There are cisterns for collecting rainwater. Waste water is conveyed by means of terracotta drains that flow into the sewer network, which runs underneath the road network through stone channels. Minoan cities are important political, administrative, and religious centers, they are places for gathering and for the exchange of goods and services, and are where the population is increasing and society is increasingly subtly stratified, where division and hierarchies are created. They emerge almost everywhere: inland, on the coast, a few kilometers from the sea, on the plains or in the hills, and even in the mountains; usually, in any case, at the heart of productive lands. Those that are located on the shore occupy a naturally sheltered position that is suitable for boats to approach, land, and be brought ashore. Moreover, unlike cities inland, which are purely agricultural and manufacturing centers, coastal cities are usually places where the embarkation and disembarkation of people and goods are allowed and where vessels can be repaired (in the harbor). They are mainly found near Knossos, around the Gulf of Mirabello, on the Messara Plain, and at the eastern end of the island.

Architecture and building techniques. The buildings: intended use and the interiors Buildings range from huts and shacks to isolated houses and large and comfortable dwellings. They are usually quadrangular in plan. The largest contain dozens of rooms that are used for different purposes: residential, ceremonial, ritual, and productive. Typically, they are inhabited by a family of five. The living quarters are the home of a clan, that is, a group of families who have a common ancestor. Social groups and communities dwelling in the mountains, in inland valleys, or on the plateaus live in huts made of branches or clay and straw mortar or in dry stone huts. 5   G. Woolf, “Le prime città del Mediterraneo,” in Vita e morte delle antiche città. Una storia naturale (Turin: Einaudi, 2021), 147–179.

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Generally speaking, the buildings have no foundations but are built on the bedrock, as can be seen, for example, at Malia. In exceptional cases, rock-solid foundations are laid. Multi-story buildings have thick external walls on the ground floor, while the spaces on the upper floors are divided by partitions in mud-brick, either fired or unfired. The walls are made of irregular or squared stone blocks of various colors, grain, solidity, and size, cut and refined with saws, axes, and bronze chisels. In larger structures, the internal walls may be covered with a mud plaster mixed with clay and colored red, the color of blood and of life, or sometimes black, and covered up to a certain height with thin slabs of chalky stone laced like striped alabaster. Pillars and columns are used as supports for the upper floors. The square-section pillars can be formed of blocks of squared stone or a mixture held together by wooden poles placed on all four corners. Generally, the columns have a circular cross-section and are surmounted by a capital representing a palm tree or a flattened pulvinus. The barrel may be smooth or decorated with vertical or spiral grooves. Its diameter gradually decreases as it descends toward the base. The internal floors are separated by planks and beams, which support several layers of twigs, reeds, earth, and pressed clay. The beams are up to 5 m long and are connected to each other by internal stairs built out of stone or wood. The floors may be plastered or covered with limestone slabs with plastered joint lines, wood, pebbles mixed with gypsum, or beaten earth. The roof is flat, terraced, and constructed in the same way as the ceilings; only in the most prestigious buildings is it covered in cement. Sometimes, an opening (skylight) is made, which serves to illuminate the attic room or, in any case, the spaces below. Rooms that do not get sunlight from the front door or the windows that look over the street, or from the skylight, are often lit thanks to an internal courtyard. The kitchen is generally in this courtyard to reduce the risk of fire. A hearth is used to prepare food. There are sanitary facilities. The rainwater that falls onto the roof is channeled in such a way as to flush effluent away. Usually, in larger buildings, the ground-floor room that opens onto the public street, or a basement room, is a place for tasks related to commercial or mercantile activities (as a shop for merchants, bakers, carpenters, or blacksmiths), while the upper floors are reserved for the homeowner and his family. There may also be service accommodations, some shrines, and one or more annexes, such as a stable or a chicken coop. Separated from the dwellings are warehouses, industrial or artisanal facilities where work is done or products are assembled, repaired, reworked, or maintained (for example, in metallurgical workshops), etc. Furniture is reduced to the bare minimum: a few wooden benches, chests, etc. The bed is a large wooden chest covered with fabric. Sometimes, there are clay tubs, which look like bathtubs; wooden or clay crates or boxes, suitable for the storage and transport of goods and objects; wooden chairs, sunken recesses in the floors, clay pots, clay lamps that are either portable or on a pedestal in the shape of a palm tree;

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and wooden étagères, which are used for the same purposes as the niches carved into the walls. The crates and boxes may be decorated with scenes that are either painted or inlaid (with ivory, rock crystal, or faience) and have bronze lids and hinges. There are also clay pots of many shapes and sizes, including large ones (barrels, jars), small utensils and work tools, and possibly one or more weaver’s looms.

The early states The term “early state” is given to the initial phase of the state-formation process, state here being understood as a community made up of a people who live in a specific territory and are politically organized. The early states are born more or less at the same time as the first cities when the following combination of factors is realized: • there is a governing authority, which regulates access to the territory’s resources (i.e., controls work), monopolizes the legal force, undertakes and manages large collective works, and has a basic income, represented by agricultural surpluses and taxes derived from commerce and trade; • there is a central administration, made up of units of administrated personnel exempted in whole or in part from material production, and a seat that houses it (the Palace). The territory that each state controls is only small: less than 1,500 km2. As a rule, this extends within the boundaries of a region in which there are one or more cities, each of which expands and develops around a Palace and whose inhabitants tend to have moved from the countryside to the city.6 Between 2000 and 1450, there were at least three early states on Crete, the capitals of which were the island’s most important cities: ku-ni-su (Knossos), pa-i-to (Phaistos), and Malia. The state of Knossos dominates the northern part of the central region of the island, that is, the vast region between Gournes and Agia Pelagia to the north, with a strategic seaboard. The state of Phaistos dominates the south of the central region between Gournes and Agia Pelagia. The state of Malia borders the eastern area of the central region. There might also be a fourth state that occupies the east coast and has its capital at Kato Zakros. The fact that the accouterment of the shrines and sanctuaries in these states is the same everywhere suggests common religious beliefs and practices. This shows that all the states have the same cultural background. In all other respects, they have different customs, as evidenced, for example, by the variety in pottery productions.

6   See M. Cultraro, L’anello di Minosse. Archeologia della regalità nell’Egeo minoico (Milan: Longanesi & C., 2001), 16.

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It cannot be ruled out that a “large part of the island was united under a strong central government, at least a confederacy if not an empire, which not only exploited the rich agricultural plains of the Mesara, the Pedhiadha, Herakleion, Mallia, and the Mylopotamos valley but also carried on a thriving foreign trade with Egypt and the Near East.”7 Nor can it be ruled out a priori that states vie against each other, in which case their coexistence will be more or less peaceful. If they are in conflict, they will grow each time they have subjugated and incorporated an enemy state, or a part of it, or they will shrink or disappear if they are subjugated and incorporated in turn. If they encounter internecine tensions and strife, they may break apart.

The king and the ruling élite The governing authority, in the early states, plays a key role as a unifying symbol and represents the state externally. Furthermore, it protects civilians from enemies, administers justice, and defends public order. Sometimes, its role is also embodied in the intermediation between the human realm and the realm of the sacred. It is an institutional body, characterized by precise formal attributes and mechanisms, inserted into a complex ideological apparatus, and protected by a personal guard. It can make use of an army, a security apparatus, an administrative organization, specialists, commissions, consultative bodies, and trusted individuals in the smaller centers and villages. It has control of the state treasury. It is unknown what the Minoans called it. From now on, we will call this authority “king” or “sovereign.” A monarchy is more powerful when it is embodied in a man who has taken power by himself and leads the community as if he were entirely unshackled, that is, when he is an autocrat, an absolute ruler. If the autocrat can hand power down to his descendants, he will be an absolute dynastic sovereign. This is not the case with the Minoan ruler. We are referring here to the individual who sometimes appears in Minoan iconography as a young man with long hair, which falls in braids and curls down to his shoulders, and who is depicted on his feet and with a spear in his hand. In fact, the Minoan sovereign is, all in all, a low-profile character whose power barely exceeds that of the other members of the ruling élite who elevated him to the throne8 and who are by his side during discussions of affairs of state to advise him on the political and administrative choices to be made, and sometimes also to manage the community’s assets. We use the term “ruling élite” here to mean an aggregate of actual people placed between the individual and the state who can make and impose binding decisions on   R. W. Hutchinson, L’antica civiltà cretese (Turin: Einaudi, 1976), 136.   It is unknown whether this is by nomination or election and whether the sovereign remains so for life or for a fixed term. Homer, in Odyssey XIX.179, reports that Minos received his command from his father, Zeus, “every nine years,” perhaps alluding to the length of the royal mandate (and to its repetition). In any case, this refers to the Mycenaean kings of Crete, not to the previous Minoan rulers of the island. 7 8

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all community members, even by taking recourse to force. The sovereign himself is part of this social group through ties of family, caste, faction, etc. It follows that, in the Minoan states, the reins of political power are not so much in the hands of the sovereign as of the ruling élite. A nexus of this sort exists at least in Malia, where the power structure remains what it was originally, that is, it is regulated by various clans, and the main clan leaders gather in the Hypostyle Crypt and put on games in the agora for the community. The sovereign and the rest of the ruling élite, since they are one and the same, have the same interests, to be understood as any activity concerning the smooth running of their affairs, the administration of their assets, the care of matters affecting their economic situation, etc. Most of all, they are interested in ensuring that the current political and socio-economic system, which favors them, remains unchanged over time. Therefore, their internal politics aims in the first place to ensure that the dominated masses accept the established order and all the other demands that are made of them in terms of work, taxes, areas where their authority is exercised, the state’s borders, and relations of war and peace with other states. One of the social control strategies that they put in place to this end is the creation or adaptation of particular symbols that are indicative of a cultural and political commonality. Another is the communication of a public, group-oriented ideology—one that is based on the values of solidarity, ethnic and social cohesion, community participation, and collective belonging—that has at its core the struggle of man against the forces of chaos and wild nature, the exaltation of human works, and the sovereign, who is seen as the man on earth responsible for social order and as the intermediary between men and gods.9 The Minoan sovereign does not claim to be descended from a god but from a genealogy that links him to the gods, common ancestors, and other spiritual entities. He claims to be the spokesman for those Greatnesses, to be protected by them, and to have received particular powers from them, including that of conferring fertility on women, livestock, and the earth. And to prove that he administers such powers, he carries out symbolic actions, such as the invocation of divine protection for people and animals and the celebration of sacred ceremonies and rites. The exercise of sovereignty presupposes the ability to cover the related expenses. In the case of Minoan royalty, the sovereign’s expenses consist mainly of the creation of monumental architecture and other status symbols, primarily within the sphere of the sacred; the payment of wages to the guards and soldiers, and of salaries and commissions to those who contribute to the economic life and development of the community (land workers, shepherds, laborers, artisans); the organization of ritual and community banquets; the fulfillment of obligations of xenia; the performance of

  E. Borgna, “La civiltà minoica,” in Storia d’Europa e del Mediterraneo, vol. II: Le civiltà dell’Oriente mediterraneao (Roma: Salerno, 2006), 107.

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trade and exports; and the sending of diplomatic gifts in the context of international relations. The sovereign provides himself with financial means through taxation and other levies—such as compulsory military service and the performance of labor due from those farmers who reside on leased land and on royal properties in the form of days of mandatory work, participation in long-distance exchange, and the incentivization of the production of valuable commodities, including artistic ones, by specialist artisans. Maritime trade allows him to acquire raw materials and luxury goods.

The emergence of monumental architecture The seat of Minoan rulers is the Palace, the largest and most well-defined building in Minoan architecture. It is a monumental, complex structure with a roughly quadrangular plan, and is large, well made, well organized, and represents a considerable investment of resources in terms of both work and materials. This building type occurs not only in the main cities—Knossos, Phaistos, and Malia—but also in some smaller centers: Monastiraki (in the center of western Crete), Armeni (Archanes), Galatas Pediados (in the region of Kastelli, southeast of Knossos), Gournia (Gulf of Mirabello), and Petras (Gulf of Sitia). The first Palaces appear in the Middle Minoan IA, within the developing cities. This does not happen suddenly, nor as the result of a foreign conquest, but following the rebuilding of previous structures that anticipated its functions. The Minoan Palace is in fact the landfall of a long evolutionary process that witnessed the rise of various buildings and a succession of different building phases until it obtained a monumental character and structural unity. The evolution began with a primitive form, which was the result of the fusion of elements typical of buildings for public usage and that developed continuously, involving the addition of rooms if and when the occasion required it, so that its overall plan was entirely haphazard. It seems to be possible to identity a precursor to the Minoan Palace in a structure located in Vasiliki, on the Isthmus of Ierapetra.

The precursor of Vasiliki The Isthmus of Ierapetra is a corridor that joins the northern and southern coasts of the island, running flat for 11 km between the mountains. Ten kilometers north of Ierapetra and a couple of kilometers before reaching the shores of the Gulf of Mirabello, on the left, opposite the imposing Ha Gorge, is a typical Minoan village, which sits atop and on the slopes of a low hill (near the modern village of Vasiliki, which took its name) and serves as a reference point for the inhabitants of the surrounding area. This settlement has evolved out of the Northern Houses, the South Building, and the three rooms in a row that preceded the construction of the West House on the same site.

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In the Early Minoan IIA, it is one of the many places on the island that produces pottery with a characteristically mottled decoration (known as Vasiliki Ware), which is widely distributed across the island. The settlement is destroyed and then rebuilt. In the Early Minoan IIB, it is less dense than before. It consists of two buildings—the Red House (so-called because of the color of the plaster used to cover the walls) and the West House—that are positioned on two sides of a large, paved square bearing an unusual L-shape. The buildings have unfired brick walls with a framework of wooden beams and are built on a stone base. They have a raised floor in places. Each contains a series of rooms with orthogonal walls, laid out one next to the other. This architectural uniformity suggests that the local inhabitants formed an egalitarian-type community. The site is crossed by paved streets. This building phase (Early Minoan IIB) also ends with the destruction of the settlement caused by a fire, which may have broken out due to an earthquake. In the Middle Minoan IA, the settlement is rebuilt again and expands considerably. It will grow and develop for an extended period of time, reaching its greatest extent In the Middle Minoan IA. A tomb located nearby belongs to the Late Minoan III Period. From an architectural point of view, Vasiliki represents an intermediate evolutionary point between the informal layouts of Neolithic villages—see, for instance, that of Fournou Korifi/Myrtos, where the way of allocating the space into clusters is exemplified—and the organized plans of the Palaces, though it should be pointed out that this is not a primitive form of a Minoan palace, a prototype of this building type, and consequently the seat of some local “chieftain,” but a village that has evolved through several building phases. This hypothesis is supported by the number of rooms, the large extent of the complex, and the presence of a courtyard on the site.

A multifunctional structure From a typological point of view, the Minoan Palaces are reminiscent of the great temples of Asia Minor and the royal palaces of western Asia. Consider, for example, the Palace of Beycesultan (in the Upper Meander Valley on the Aegean coast of Anatolia), the Palace of Alalakh in Syria (Tell Atchana), the Royal Palace of Ugarit on the Syrian coast (Ras Shamra), or the Royal Palace of Mari on the Euphrates. One could also make a comparison with Egyptian architecture in general and with the North Palace of Akhetaten at Tell el-Amarna in particular. What all these structures have in common is that they function as the abode of the divines, as a center of ceremony and worship, as a treasury and warehouse for merchandise, and as a commercial and manufacturing center. Additionally, Sumerian temples house the temple’s priests, priestesses, and labor force. The Minoan Palaces are also used for many purposes. In fact, they are, simultaneously, a place where people live, govern the territory, practice worship,

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gather together for ritual activities, amass and store abundant quantities of local products, produce artifacts, and carry out administrative duties.10 Each of them is inhabited by many people: first of all, by a high-profile individual (the Lord of the Palace) and his family, and then by people who are high-ranking for reasons of lineage or service, by people who have been charged with guarding, protecting, or keeping an eye on someone or something, by groups of administrative personnel, and by artisans, workers, servants, indigenous merchants, and foreign guests. The Lord of the Palace could be the sovereign, someone he trusts who is responsible for administering part of the state’s territory, or the head of an economic-religious community that has possessions and interests in various parts of the island. In the latter case, the Palace is a large temple or convent where activities other than liturgical ones are carried out and where the sovereign goes in order to receive his investiture, mark the start of the new year, celebrate the mystical union with the Great Goddess, pray for victory, purify themselves, offer solemn sacrifices, and take part in ritual feasting.11 During the harvest festival and on other special occasions, the Lord of the Palace offers food and drink to hundreds of people. The banquet is set up in special rooms in the Palace. During the feast, a ritualized exchange of gifts takes place. At the same time, or at other moments in public life, the internal courtyard and/or the western courtyard of the Palace become the place for the performance of ritual dances, including bull-leaping. The accumulation, storage, and management of tax revenues and votive offerings Certain goods and services continuously flow through the Palace, namely, the payment in kind of taxes and offerings made to the patron deities of the dynasty and the kingdom. These are wheat, barley, legumes, olives, wine, cheeses, sausages, raw wool, and semi-worked stone, wood, and metal products. One of the most valuable of the widely consumed agricultural products is olive oil. The Minoans use it not only for frying and/or seasoning food but also and above all as a fuel for oil lamps and bronzers’ ovens, in the textile industry, and for cleaning the skin.

10   J. Driessen, “‘The King Must Die’: some observations on the use of Minoan court compounds,” in Monuments of Minos: Rethinking the Minoan Palaces. Proceedings of an International Workshop held in Louvainla-Neuve, 2001 (Aegaeum 23) (Liège: Université de Liège, 2002), 1–13, esp. 8. 11   Sir Arthur John Evans, the excavator of the Palace of Knossos, was always of the opinion that this Palace was the lavish residence of a ruler and his court, and other specialists such as Sinclair Hood, Nikolaos Platon, and James Walter Graham did not substantially differ from this view. After Evans’ death, Hans Georg Wunderlich, Rodney Castleden, and Paul Faure advanced a number of different theories, according to which the Minoan Palaces were large temple complexes.

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The goods that flow into the Palace are placed in large, well-built storerooms. These gravitate around the living quarters, the basements of which are used for this purpose and are full of storage vessels. On the occasion of particularly abundant harvests, new ones are built in order to be able to store a greater quantity of goods. The Lord of the Palace will draw on the contents of the storerooms to reward those who work for him, to offer gifts within the framework of the relations he maintains with the rest of the ruling élite and with foreign counterparts, to fuel internal trade and long-distance exchange, and to feed his workshops and ateliers, where skilled workers transform raw materials into luxury and high-tech products. Some permanent and specialist officials, recruited from outside the kinship systems, and their coworkers oversee the amassing and storage of the goods that arrive at the Palace and preside over how they are managed, according to the wishes of the Lord of the Palace. The administration of the Palace is divided into sections, each of which has someone in charge. Probably, those responsible belong to those family lineages that, before the strengthening of the state from a social and economic perspective, were private landlords. Administrative practice Groups of administrative staff record all ingress and egress of goods from the warehouses on a clay tablet or nodule (for example, records of who paid what, when, for what reason, etc., or receipts for depositing rations of food). They then file the documents in a specific room in the Palace, which purports to be an archive. Furthermore, they mark every single container crammed into the warehouses to indicate its ownership, the nature of its contents, and its place of origin. To this end, using a stylus to engrave, a sharp point to scratch, or a brush dipped into a dye to paint onto them using one or other of the two writing systems, Cretan Hieroglyphic and Linear A, which set down the Minoan language into writing. Cretan Hieroglyphic is so-called because it is made up of pictograms, but it developed independently of Egyptian hieroglyphs. An example of this writing system is provided by the Phaistos Disc, which is flat and circular in shape, 15.8–16.5 cm in diameter, and 16–22 mm thick, and which was found in the Palace of Phaistos alongside a tablet in Linear A. This artifact contains 241 tokens corresponding to 45 signs, which were imprinted using movable type in the still-soft clay and are arranged in the form of a spiral, partly on one side and partly on the other.12 Linear A is a syllabic system composed of 80–90 signs between digits, ideograms (or logograms), and groups of signs (or words) and serves the purpose of inventorying stocks of agricultural products and manufactured goods—that is, drawing up lists and 12   In contrast to those who believe that the Phaistos Disc dates from around 1750, the Italian-Belgian archaeologist Louis Godart holds that this artifact is attributable to an indeterminable date between Middle Minoan II and the end of Late Minoan IIIB (between the 18th century and the start of the 12th century) and, most probably, to the last phase of the Bronze Age. L. Godart, Da Minosse a Omero. Genesi della prima civiltà europea (Turin: Einaudi, 2020), 254–261.

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compile records and accounts—and making votive dedications. The numerical system used is the decimal system. The use of writing indicates the cultural advancement of Minoan Crete. It first appears In the Middle Minoan IA in the Palace at Tourkoyeitonia (a suburb of the modern town of Epano Archanes) that controls the rich and fertile hinterland of Knossos and coordinates the many places of worship in the area, among which are the rural sanctuary of Anemospilia and the peak sanctuary of Mount Juktas. Linear A is mainly used in the southern part of the island, while Cretan Hieroglyphic is used in the north-central and northeastern regions. However, there is no clear dividing line between them. This is demonstrated by the coexistence of texts in Linear A and Cretan Hieroglyphic in the Palace of Malia in the Middle Minoan III. Later, however, in the Middle Minoan III, Cretan Hieroglyphic is abandoned. Linear A will remain the only Cretan writing system until the Late Minoan IB, when it will be replaced by Linear B, a Mycenaean writing system, which constitutes an adaptation of Linear A to local needs.13 Storehouse workers make use of scribes when they are not themselves scribes. They are limited in number in the Palace of Phaistos, where the administration is highly centralized, while they are greater in number in the Palace of Knossos, where there is instead a decentralized form of administration. Administrative practice in Minoan Crete makes use not only of writing but also of seals and cretulae. Seals are tools that are used both as a signature and as an identity document. They are imprinted not only on lumps of clay (cretulae) but also on shipments, letters, and contracts drawn up by professional scribes. Through them, you can recognize that a message or item has been sent by a friend or a guest. Those who make use of them believe that it mystically protects the possessor because it is a kind of double for the personality. The harder and more resistant it is, the more its owner feels like he can keep going forever. It is such a personal accessory that it is sometimes buried with its possessor (see the Messara tombs). The quality of a single specimen can be ordinary, poor, or very high, depending on the material used, the accuracy of the incision, and the complexity of the motif depicted. Until the Middle Minoan IA, seals were made of hippopotamus ivory, bone, or vitreous enamel (faience). The engraved motifs are often spiral-shaped with wavy bands. In Archanes, they consist of signs with Linear A script. In the Middle Minoan II, seals are made of stone (agate, amethyst, chalcedony, carnelian, jasper, rock crystal). In Malia, in this period, there is a workshop that produces seals. The motifs engraved on them are varied: animalistic (aquatic animals, lions, quadrupeds, spiders, scorpions), cruciform, rosette, schematized people, and sometimes ships. In Phaistos, the seals bear engravings ranging from spirals, stars, and weaves to plant motifs, with petals and lilies, animalistic ones, some of which 13   H. Tomas, “Cretan Hieroglyphic and Linear A,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Bronze Age Aegean, ed. E. H. Cline (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 341.

18

Knossos, Mycenae, Troy

are mythological (goats, griffins, lions, octopuses, quadrupeds, spiders, scorpions, and sphinxes, these being fantastic beasts with a lion’s head and a carapace on its back), assimilated within oval or circular framings, and, possibly, a portrait of a person (Knossos). By the end of the Middle Minoan II, stone seals are accompanied by gold and silver rings with an engraved bezel (for example, depicting papyrus plants in a rocky landscape), which are also used as seals. This happens, for instance, at Petras, Phaistos, Hagios Charalambos in Lasithi, Malia, and Mochlos. To explain the use of seals and cretulae for administrative purposes, it must first be said that the warehouses are equipped with access doors that can be closed with wooden pegs. To monitor access to the warehouse, the workers place a lump of clay (cretula) on the peg while it is still soft and stamp it with the seal. To open the door, it is necessary to break the cretula, and this will evidence unauthorized access. The system of seals and cretulae is already in use on Crete in the Early Minoan IIA, that is, before the appearance of writing systems14—the same period in which it appeared on mainland Greece, such as at Lerna and Geraki. However, it is not native to either Crete or mainland Greece. In fact, it has actually been imported from Mesopotamia and adapted to local needs. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that, firstly, seals are often engraved with oriental motifs and, secondly, writing was invented in Mesopotamia and spread from there to Egypt, whence, probably, it came to Crete, where it was reworked. The production of goods The specialist artisans of the Palace transform raw materials that are supplied to them by an increasingly demanding clientele into luxury and high-tech goods. Among their finest products are fine ceramics, stone vases, personal ornaments, and worked metals. In the Middle Minoan II, the technical advances made by potters allow them to produce more and offer a wider variety of products to their customers. Fine ceramics now consist of Kamares Ware (named after the cave of the same name on Mount Ida). In part, these are vases and cups molded on a lathe with a particularly fine clay. The walls of the vase are shaped by being thrown on a wheel and are very thin. The decorative motifs are spirals, circles, and wavy patterns in white, black, red, or yellow. They are painted on a dark lilac or black background, sometimes a bright glossy black. These cover the entire surface of the vase, following its shape in an uninterrupted succession of signs. Sometimes they use a relief decoration (being worked “à la barbotine”). Elegant bowls with fluted shapes and walls as thin as eggshells, elaborately molded and decorated with daises, lilies, and water lilies also belong to this style of Kamares Ware. We are clearly dealing with imitations of the gold and 14   On Crete, the practice of administration made use of seals and cretulae even before the Palaces appeared. Later, it also availed itself of the practice of writing. The oldest known seals, in fact, have one or more signs of Cretan hieroglyphs on them. These were found in deposits from the Early Minoan III–Middle Minoan IA at Phourni near Archanes, Pangalochori near Rethymnon, and Moni Odigitria in the environs of Messara, and they are older than texts written in Cretan Hieroglyph on tablets.

1.  The origins of the Minoan civilization

19

silver cups produced at Knossos and Phaistos. Kamares Ware is produced mainly in the lands around Phaistos as well as in minor workshops operating on a localized basis and dependent on the Palaces of Knossos and Malia. They are known of and appreciated throughout the island, both in the cities and in the smaller towns, and are widely exported, mainly to Egypt, Cyprus, and the coast of Syria and Palestine. Stone vases are obtained from processing different lithic materials: breccia, limestone of various colors, gabbro (a local stone with green veins), and serpentine. The Minoans probably learned to work them from the Egyptian artisans who frequented Gubla (Byblos) around 2300. Goldsmiths use copper, bronze, gold, silver, pearls, and rare stones for their creations, combining technical perfection with refined taste. Some products result from applying the granulation technique, which consists of welding tiny gold or silver spheres onto a metal element. This was invented in Mesopotamia and developed in Syria in the II millennium, whence it spread to Egypt and thence to Crete.

Naval technology The Cretans prefer to breathe in the smell of the earth than the salty air of the sea, but this does not mean that they disdain sailing—far from it! Especially since naval technology, in the Protopalatial Period, is no longer as underdeveloped as it was in the past. Vessels are now no longer made of papyrus but cypress wood and are sealed with a linen cloth coated in pine resin. They are small, light, fast, sturdy, and easy to handle, requiring little maintenance. The hull is up to 20 m long, is wider at the bow than the stern, and can be careened and equipped with a keel to make it more stable for offshore sailing. The bow is raised so that it can better face the waves. Sometimes the stern is as well. It is propelled by oars or sail, but sometimes it can be a mix of oars and sail. There are a maximum of 15 oars per side. Usually, there are no more than five. There is a single vertical mast to support the sails, with two or three rows of shrouds, and it can be taken down. There can also be more than one mast, up to three. The sail is square15 and equipped with a yard. Sometimes there are two square sails, attached side by side to the same yard on a single mast. At first, the keel protruded from the stern to give the ship balance. Later, this system was replaced by one or two steering oars, positioned at the stern. The anchor is a large stone with a hole for a rope to pass through. Some ships have an equally raised bow and stern and wide sides, are entirely decked, move exclusively under sail, and are specifically known for their load capacity and stability. Other ships, on the other hand, are long and narrow, with a low bow, a raised stern, and an extension to the front part of the keel, which serves

  The sail which is called “square” in marine jargon is not actually square but rectangular or trapezoidal. It is set at a right-angle to the ship’s motion and is tied to a horizontal yard, which crosses the mast. Its lower edges are stretched by sheets that are tied to the deck or a lower yard. 15

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Knossos, Mycenae, Troy

to ram enemy ships.16 They are decked, or if not, there is a walkway that crosses the hull from bow to stern. They have high platforms at the ends, a mast, a square sail, and a mixed method of propulsion, with numerous rowers. They are fast and agile. Anyone who goes to sea does so out of necessity, a thirst for riches, or a desire for adventure. He does so with apprehension, if not fear, but also with courage and full awareness of the risks to which he will be exposed. Going to sea, in fact, means entrusting one’s life to the caprice of the winds in a physical space that is the place of danger and uncertainty par excellence. The sea is an unfathomable, threatening, unstable, and terrible element.17 To lessen the risks, seafaring is practiced only in summer; the safety margin is drastically reduced in winter. But it is in the warm season that the pirates come out of their hidden lairs and sail near to the shore or in the open sea in search of prey. In addition to the inherent danger of cutting through treacherous, possibly stormy waters, we must therefore consider another that derives from pirates raiding the trade routes.

Celestial navigation To orient themselves at sea, those who sail by following the coastline try not to lose sight of land, as it offers points of reference. However, those who sail on the high seas assess things using their senses and experience, based on the ship’s movement, the position of the stars and planets at sunrise and sunset, the winds, and the currents. The star Polaris, which is part of the Ursa Minor constellation and always appears in the same place in the sky, is an excellent reference point for celestial navigation. Having it on your left means you are going east, and having it on your right means you are heading west. During voyages, seafarers observe everything going on around them: the clouds in the sky and the rays of the sun, the changing colors of the water: azure, deep blue, sea green, leaden gray. At each stage of the journey, seagulls fly over the ships, some seemingly purposeless, simple travel companions, others because they are interested in the food that is thrown overboard and floats in the ship’s wake. Sailors are prompted by the approach of seagulls near ports to get an idea of the place where they are about to arrive and dock.18

Docking There is not yet a place in the whole Mediterranean that is equipped for the docking of ships and related commercial activities. At least, there is none that is comparable 16   The outline of such a ship appears among the Cretan hieroglyphs on the Phaistos Disc. S. Hood, La civiltà di Creta (Rome: Newton Compton, 1981), 149. 17   G. Ieranò, Il mare d’amore. Eros, tempeste e naufragi nella Grecia antica (Rome-Bari: Laterza, 2019), 17. 18   The image comes from P. Matvejevic, Mediterraneo, un nuovo breviario (Milan: Garzanti, 1992), 45–46.

1.  The origins of the Minoan civilization

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to the port of Saww (Mersa/Wadi Gawasis).19 However, some artificial improvements have been made to some landing points on the coastline of the southern Levant: for example, at Ugarit (an archival document mentions a ship that hit a pier), Sidon (cuts were made into a long sandstone ridge), and Yavne-Yam (on the coastal plain of southern Israel, around 15 km south of Tel Aviv), where there is a breakwater made of rocks.20 Stops and landings take place in bays and inlets, in front of beaches protected by coastal islets or promontories that offer the possibility of landing on either side when the weather is windy, in lagoons, or finally in rivers, either at its mouth or upstream, depending on circumstances. Larger ships, or those carrying cargo, moor offshore and are unloaded with the help of smaller boats or barges. The others are pulled ashore for the night and put back into the sea when needed or are moored to the shore in shallow water. There are numerous landing points along the northern coast of Crete but few others along the rest of its coastline. A populated settlement grew up around each of the best ones. Usually, it is the seaport of a city found further inland. Its continuous growth is reflected in the irregularity of the urban layout, which consists of large blocks of buildings, which are quite regular and separated by two perpendicular roads and a series of secondary paths descending toward the sea. Its inhabitants live off agriculture and sea fishing, cultivate terraced lands, shelter boats in the port, and collect rainwater in tanks and cisterns. Some wealthy families, probably merchants or customs officials, live in houses decorated with painted stucco.

19   Saww is a locality situated on the Egyptian coast of the Red Sea, at the mouth of the Wadi Gawasis and on the shores of a deep, sheltered bay. There are artificial caves that are used as shelters and to store equipment, functional and administrative areas, food production and food preparation areas, and the remains of huts and tents. All this was put to use in the complex organization and management of naval expeditions in the Land of Punt (Ethiopia) undertaken by the Egyptian pharaoh Amenemhat I (c. 1991–1962), the founder of the 12th dynasty, and by his successor, Senusret I, who came to the throne in 1971 and died in 1926. The pottery found on the site indicates that it was visited/occupied from the end of the Old Kingdom (c. 2700–c. 2182) until the 18th dynasty. 20   Yavne-Yam is a natural landing point, protected by cliffs to the east and by two headlands to the north and south. It is the only anchorage between the Sinai coast and Jaffa that can provide shelter for ships.

Chapter 2 The political geography of Protopalatial Crete

The city-palace and the minor palatial centers The modest hill of Kephala in the valley of the Katsambas at Knossos is not a natural formation. It was formed due to the accumulation of detritus from various continuous human settlements that followed one another on that spot, one on top of the other, over a span of five millennia. Starting from the bottom, the first five deposits (levels I–V), almost all with buildings, are testament to the existence of a Neolithic village and the first millennia of the site’s occupation. The transition to the Bronze Age happened locally around 2400 (level V). The building phases of the Early Bronze Age correspond to levels VI–X. Between 2100 and 2000 (level XI), the village expanded and developed considerably (from 5–6 ha to 40) and acquired urban characteristics. Thus was born the city called, in some tablets written in Linear A, Ko-no-so (from now on, Knossos). In the Middle Minoan IA (2100/50–1925/00), Knossos expands rapidly, well beyond the area it occupied in the Early Minoan Period, reaching the dimensions it will maintain for the rest of the Bronze Age. It occupies not just the flat summit of the hill (60 ha) but also its slopes as well as a wide area around it. It is a large, populous, and prosperous city, home to around 12,000 people. If we also consider the suburbs, then the urban area of Knossos extends for 270 ha and is inhabited by 82,000 people. If we also consider the small settlements on the coast (Poros-Katsambas, Amnisos, etc.), then it can be said that Knossos is a city of 100,000 inhabitants.1 There are residential properties, a Palace, warehouses, workshops, studios, stalls, etc. Some of the buildings use stone blocks as the lower parts of the walls and unfired bricks in the upper part. The water supply is ensured by artesian wells and an aqueduct. A hypogeum cut into the rock functions as a granary or a cistern.2 The Palace is in the middle of the city, standing atop the hill and on its slopes. It began to take shape around 1950 (Middle Minoan IA), when its builders demolished all existing buildings—the most recent of which

  L. Godart, Da Minosse a Omero. Genesi della prima civiltà europea (Turin: Einaudi, 2020), 152.   This structure is known as a hypogeum today. It was built in the Early Minoan III, if not in the Middle Minoan IA. 1 2

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were quite large—and cleared the rubble away.3 On the clearing thus obtained, they set out a western and an eastern wing around a large central open space, rectangular in shape and oriented in a north–south direction, and dug the foundations of the complex down into the oldest levels of occupation. The result of this work is what you can now see: a large and architecturally sophisticated structure, the largest and most complex ever seen in Crete. It has impressive façades and entrances and is connected by internal streets to the rest of the settlement. The western façade has characteristic orthostates with alabaster plaster. It is possible that the wall that encloses the square on the west side has a defensive character. The cemeteries of Knossos, in the Middle Minoan IA, are mainly those located east of Katsambas: Ailia, Mavro Spelio, the Tomb of the Cow (north of Mavro Spelio), and Monasteriako Kephali. The tombs are inhumations, and the body is laid curled up in them. When it is not placed on the bare earth, it is interred inside a jar (pithos), a larnax (a closed terracotta chest, richly ornamented), or a wooden box. The tombs are of various types: pit, shaft, chamber, irregular plan, dug into the rock. The smaller chamber tombs contain only one or two burials. The larger ones have pillars and dividing walls and remain in use for centuries, so they contain a lot of burials. Sometimes the bones of the older burials are gathered in a corner, or in a pit, to make room for new ones. In Mavro Spilio, offerings are often removed from the most ancient tombs and reused in newer ones. Knossos is currently, and will remain as such for the rest of the Bronze Age, the principal city on Crete. Not, however, the only one. Among the other cities, Phaistos, Malia, and Gournia are worthy of note. Pa-i-to (from now on, Phaistos) is located near the southern coast, in the central region of the island, on the edge of the large, fertile, and well-cultivated plain of Messara, south of the Ieropotamos River. It extends for 45 ha across three low but steep hills. It has 12,000 inhabitants. If we also consider the suburbs, this increases to 15,000–20,000.4 The most significant part of the urban area is the one that occupies the easternmost hill, which is lower and less defensible than the others. The site has been inhabited since the Neolithic. Its first inhabitants based their economy on mixed agriculture, modeled clay pots and statuettes, and worked stone and obsidian to create axes and blades. There are no springs here. The water supply is ensured by large cisterns and tanks that collect rainwater. The cisterns are circular, with internal walls waterproofed with stucco and internal stairs. You can easily reach the Palace using roads that climb the hill from all directions to a point from which the view extends over the entire plain to the east and, in the distance, the twin peaks of Psiloritis to the north. In the Middle Minoan IA, the city expands considerably, but the Palace had already been there since the Early Minoan Period. It first took shape,   It is possible that, in erecting the northwestern corner of the Palace, the architects incorporated older structures into the new complex. 4   Homer Iliad II.648; Odyssey III.293–296. 3

2.  The political geography of Protopalatial Crete

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in fact, in the Middle Minoan IA (2100/50–1925/00). It will fall into disrepair in the Middle Minoan IB (1925/00–1875/50), possibly due to an earthquake, but it will be rebuilt in the Middle Minoan II (1875/50–1750/00), larger and more beautiful than before. It also expands toward the north in the Middle Minoan II with the construction of a new nucleus, as large as the settlement in the valley. We refer, here, to the later Palace.5 This version is an imposing structure. Its architectural aspect, style, elegance, and highly varied decoration reflect the economic and political power of the local sovereign. It is at the center of a vast territorial entity and is where the traffic routes to and from the state’s periphery converge. It is a place where agricultural goods and other consumer products are amassed, stored, and redistributed and is home to specialized activities linked to agriculture and crafts. Highly skilled artisans produce fine clay or stone vases there. Malia is located in the island’s eastern region, on the northern coast, on the edge of a fertile plain and in the foothills of the Dikti mountain range in Lasithi.6 It is already a large settlement in the Middle Minoan IA, extending to the south, west, and north from the area that, in the future, will be occupied by the Palace. Its ports overlook a bay and have an islet facing them. The western port is accessed via a channel carved into the rock.7 Here, as in Phaistos, the water supply is ensured by collecting rainwater in large cisterns and tanks. The city has evolved from a Neolithic village of 2.5 ha and a population of 700–1,000 people per generation, which was destroyed by a fire at the end of the Early Minoan III, possibly following a pirate raid. The city’s center includes a Palace, residential districts with workshops and factories, public buildings, and sanctuaries, all separated by gardens, avenues, and empty spaces. The Palace is a homogeneous complex, organized around a large central courtyard, on the western side of which are some monumental rooms with stucco floors.8 It arose in the Middle Minoan IB–IIA in an area previously occupied by a group of buildings. Some warehouses are located northwest and southwest of the Palace. To the north of the Palace, where the main city streets converge, there is an open space of 40 × 30 m, surrounded by a wall, with a set of steps around it (agora). A large, paved entrance faces out onto the road that connects the agora with the Palace. Another entrance connects the agora to the rest of the city. A third connects it with the Hypostyle Crypt through a monumental door and a corner portico. The Hypostyle Crypt is a structure embedded deep in the earth on two levels. The lower level is accessible from the outside via a large corner staircase. It contains five rooms, placed in a row, the   The description of the first and second of the four periods of the Palace of Phaistos is drawn from E. Fiandra, “Cultura e scambi commerciali nella civiltà minoica,” Le Scienze 176 (April 1983), 30–43. 6   The Minoan name of the city in question is unknown, though perhaps it was Milatos or Tarmara. Its present name—Malia—derives from the name of the nearby village of Malia, or Mallia. 7   The coastline has since moved and the bay has been covered by sand. 8   The Palace of Malia was one of the most important of Minoan Crete. It was built around 1900, destroyed around 1700, rebuilt shortly after, mostly over the ruins of the old one, before being destroyed again—this time for good—by an earthquake around 1450. 5

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first and last of which are equipped with benches on three sides. The middle room has access to five storerooms, crammed with oil jars. This structure dates back to the Middle Minoan IB. Perhaps, it is the place where the “council of elders” meets. In the future, it will fall into ruin or be destroyed. In the Middle Minoan IIIB, part of it will be reused. Located northeast of the Palace, the Quartier Mu is a collection of two or three large buildings, contiguous to each other, built in the Middle Minoan II. Each edifice contains over 30 halls and painted stuccoes, with a sanctuary with an altar and a lustral basin. On the ground floor, there are workshops and storage rooms. Upstairs, there is an archive with seals, cretulae, and tablets, bearing signs and inscriptions in Cretan Hieroglyph. Clay and stone pots, bronze or gold objects, jewels, and votive objects are all used by the locals. One dagger has a hilt of perforated gold plate. Some of the very refined pottery is richly decorated. The Quartier Mu is the residence and workplace of a group of families of specialist artisans who work fulltime and produce luxury goods for the power elite, domestic trade, or exportation, having been given the mandate for this by the Palace administration, which supplies the raw materials and supervises production. Among the artifacts produced here, the following are worthy of note: some object classes widespread in the hinterland of the region of Lasithi; commonly used pottery, mass-produced either on the wheel or with molds (Malia Town Group); some small cups of the Chamaizi type, which may bear inscriptions in Cretan Hieroglyph; bronze weapons and dishware; stone vases; worked shells; and jewels made from semiprecious stones. The ruling class of Malia, in the 19th and 18th centuries, used the area of Chrysolakkos to bury their dead. This area is 30 × 38 m, found 500 m north of the Palace, toward the coast. Here, the tombs are closed by a stone slab and contain rich funerary objects, including the finest jewels. It should be emphasized that this is a cemetery for the élite and, as such, is exclusive. The poor are interred elsewhere and in collective burial tombs carved into large natural crevasses along the rocky coastline. In these cases, the dead are buried alongside very humble possessions and are covered with a thin layer of earth. Monastiraki and Apodoulou are found near Malia, specifically, between the mountains of Psiloritis and Kedros, in the Amari Valley, close to a small watercourse that runs south and flows into the Libyan Sea. In each of these, there is a large architectural complex that has a common feature with the Palaces of Knossos, Phaistos, and Malia: it amasses, stores, and redistributes large quantities of agricultural products and other consumer goods. The “Palace” of Monastiraki rises on a hill overlooking the road that runs along the valley floor and connects the island’s southern coast with the northern coast, allowing the goods imported at Kommos to be taken north to the region of Rethymnon. The site was inhabited in the Prepalatial Period. A Palace was built in the Middle Minoan I on strong foundations atop the rise and its terraced slopes. It covers an area of 30,000 m2 and consists of a series of buildings, at least some of which have an elevated floor. It contains dozens of storerooms, an audience hall overlooking the western courtyard, several archive rooms, some sanctuaries, an outdoor hearth, and a sewer system. It is an imposing structure, one of the best examples of protopalatial architecture. The locals practice agriculture, rear livestock,

2.  The political geography of Protopalatial Crete

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work wool, stitch clothes, produce beer, resinated wine, and olive oil, and use Kamares pottery and seals. Apodoulou is found 450 m a.s.l., around 20 km northeast of Phaistos. It has been inhabited since the Late Neolithic. A Palace was built there in the Middle Minoan III (1875/50–1750/00). It covers an area of 3,500 m2 and is distributed over terraces, and it is enclosed within a boundary wall, which can be passed via an entrance with a stone doorway. It comprises at least seven buildings—blocks A, B, C, D, E, F, and G—each occupying 100 m2 and including storage rooms, workshops, kitchens, flights of stairs, and living quarters. Except for blocks A and D, they are separated by narrow alleys. Blocks A and D have an elevated floor and are mutually adjacent. Block A (220 m2) is the most significant. Its rooms are larger than the others and were built using more sophisticated techniques. It appears to have a large courtyard and, for the most part, contains storerooms and workshops. The supply jars in the storerooms contain thousands of liters of olive oil, a quantity far exceeding local needs. The local administration uses seals identical to those of Phaistos, bearing script in Linear A.9 The fact that some of the seals in use at Apodoulou are identical to those at the Palace of Phaistos suggests that the Palace of Apodoulou and that of Phaistos have close ties. Galatas is a site located in the province of Pediada (in the central region, 30 km south of Heraklion, near the villages of Galatas and Arkalochori), between Knossos and Malia, near the sacred cave of Arkalochori, with panoramic views over the surrounding countryside. In the Middle Minoan III, a town grew up there around a Palace. The Palace is formed of four multi-story buildings around a large, paved central courtyard (32 × 16 m). A large structure (2,800 m2) was built in the Middle Minoan IIA in Petras, a town located a couple of kilometers east of Sitia, overlooking the sea from the top of a small plateau. Its architecture recalls that of the Palaces. Consider, for example, the rusticated masonry, the partitions of pillars and doors, the columns and combinations of pillars, particularly in the stoa of the east wing, the double stairs, the cut slab pavements, and the dadoes and frescoes. The brickwork of the central building bears many masons’ marks: double axes, a star, a branch, Linear A signs, double triangles, and other minor signs. There is a small central courtyard, oriented north–south, with a gypsum floor and a double drainage system. The first phase of the complex dates from the Middle Minoan IIA to the Late Minoan IA. Over the course of this phase, the central courtyard resembles those of other Palaces. It is oriented more or less north– south and measures 17.6 m by 7.6 m. An archive room is found in the west wing. The cretulae appear to bear 35 different seal prints. One tablet is inscribed with Linear A, and another has hieroglyphic signs. There are also other examples of Linear A. Zominthos is a settlement located on Mount Psiloritis, 1,200 m a.s.l., near the Idaion Antron (the large sacred cave near the summit), in a place rich in surface water and

9

  Around 400 m north of Apodoulou, there is a vaulted tomb from the Late Minoan period.

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vegetation.10 An imposing two-story building was constructed there around 1800. It covers 1,350 m2, has walls up to 3 m high that give it an air of a fortress, and encloses 80 rooms between underground and frescoed halls, skylights, wide corridors, private rooms, stairways, internal atriums, altars, storerooms, metallurgical workshops, a crystal workshop, a ceramic workshop, a perfumery, drainage systems,11 sewers, etc. It is most likely a Palace which, although smaller than those of Knossos and Phaistos, is nonetheless their equivalent in luxury. Outside the main building, there is an inhabited structure, built on older foundations, and a sanctuary with an altar, 200 vessels, and ritual objects. The sanctuary was constructed on top of an older structure. There are ritual basins, small and large vessels, some small figurines—one of which portrays the “Lady of Zominthos”—and a wooden object covered with 90 gold flakes. This sanctuary stands in for the Idaion Antron when the latter is inaccessible in the winter months due to the weather.

The coastal settlements For the most part, the landing points on Crete are located on the northern coast; there are very few around the rest of the coastline. Among them, the following are worthy of note: • Kydonia (Chania), Rethymnon, and Agia Pelagia, all on the western stretch of the northern coastline; • Amnisos, Agioi Theodoroi, Nirou Chani, and Poros-Katsambas, all on the central stretch of the northern coastline; • Gournia, Mochlos, Psira, and Priniatikos Pyrgos, all on the eastern stretch of the northern coastline (Gulf of Mirabello); • Itanos and Kato Zakros, both on the eastern coast; and • Kommos, on the central stretch of the southern coast (on the shore of the Gulf of Messara). The site of Kydonia12 was already being frequented in the Early Minoan age. At that time, the occupants had contacts and exchanges with Knossos, the Peloponnese via Cythera, other islands of the Cyclades, and the southern Levant. In the Middle   The site can be found around 7.5 km west of the village of Anogia, on the path that leads from Knossos to the Idaion Antron. 11   A stratum of broken shells, about 50 cm wide, which acts as a drainage system, separates the courtyard of the Neopalatial villa from the ruins of the Protopalatial Palace. Inside the walls are pipes for the drainage of water. 12   The toponym ku-do-ni-ja, which appears on the tablets in Linear A, transcribed into Greek as Kydonia, identifies the main archaeological site of the few that are located west of Heraklion on the northern coast. The Minoan site of ku-do-ni-ja is located at Chania, on the low Kastelli Hill and at its foot, east of the Old Port. It is buried underneath the buildings of the modern city. Digging amid the houses, archaeologists have unearthed significant remains of buildings from the Middle Minoan II and III, the Late Minoan I, and the Late Helladic IIIB, as well as an archive of tablets in Linear A and dozens of vase inscriptions in Linear B. 10

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Minoan II–III and Late Minoan I, a Palace and some ceremonial and cult buildings were constructed there. The Palace was erected in the Middle Minoan II. It contains large storerooms and an archive of tablets in Linear A, which indicates the presence of a developed administrative system. Those tasked with this work also used seals and trademarks. Poros-Katsambas, Agioi Theodoroi, and Nirou Chani13 are the stopovers used by the Palace of Knossos for the exportation of its goods. The main port of call is the one located in the Katsambas estuary and was already frequented in the Neolithic. In the Middle Minoan IB–IIA, a dense group of buildings rises up there, also extending westward (comprising the entire area now called Poros).14 Poros-Katsambas is a much smaller settlement than Knossos or Malia, but it is comparable to Phaistos and possibly Palaikastro, and is undoubtedly much larger than Myrtos or Vasiliki. The hill of Gournia rises near Malia, in a dominant position with respect to the northern mouth of the isthmus of Ierapetra. It was occupied on the side that looks toward the Gulf of Mirabello in the Early Minoan II and was occasionally frequented thereafter. In the Middle Minoan IA, it is home to a village of a thousand inhabitants, mostly farmers, fishermen, and artisans. The settlement extends for 4 ha and is an aggregate of seven blocks with houses, demarcated by two main streets, which run along the edges of the village, a series of secondary paved streets, and alleys and stairs that run up the hill, presenting a sophisticated drainage system. Some of the blocks of buildings are quite large. They contain five or six small rooms on the ground floor, organized around a lightwell. There may have been a cult space, with terracotta rhyta in the shape of a bull’s head, intended for use in worship, on the upper floor. Some rooms are used for storage or as a factory or workshop. In one house—perhaps the home of a priest—there is a pillared hall and some vases decorated with “sacral knots” and double axes. Another building contains a great quantity of bronze, including ingots, and a terracotta seal. This is probably the house-workshop of a merchant. Administrative activity also takes place in other buildings, evidenced through the use of clay discs and cretulae. A two-story building (ground floor and first floor) stands on top of the hill. It has similarities with the Palaces of Knossos, Phaistos, and Malia, but is much smaller (a tenth of the size of the Palace of Knossos). It has two entrances: one to the north, toward a sanctuary, and one to the west, where a monumental staircase leads to the upper floor. It contains a banqueting hall, a lustral basin, and a courtyard with a portico with alternating columns and pillars. Numerous storerooms and workshops of potters, blacksmiths, and metalworkers look out onto one side of the courtyard. To the north of the building is a paved open space toward which the two principal streets of the settlement converge. Its L-shaped access stairway imitates those of Knossos and Phaistos, and, like theirs, this area is probably a meeting place.   Amnisos is sometimes referred to in the literature as “the port of Knossos.” In reality, to date, archaeologists have not found any indication of the existence of a Minoan port there. Amnisos was, however, the port of Knossos in classical antiquity. 14   The district of Katsambas is now part of the eastern outskirts of the city of Heraklion. 13

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There is a small structure there, perhaps used for outdoor ceremonial activities.15 The locals use it for burials to be interred in the cemetery of Sphoungaras, located around 200 m north of the village. The deceased are inhumed in a pithos. The grave goods are relatively homogeneous and include fine tableware ceramics. Gournia is the reference point of an area in which there are some other quite significant centers, such as Pachyamnos and Plakoures. A grave in the cemetery of Pachyamnos contains a collection of finely painted ceramic pots. The motif of the double axe that appears on some of these vases qualifies them as products of palatine workshops. Situated on a promontory on the shores of the Gulf of Mirabello,16 the town of Mochlos is the result of the reconstruction (which took place in the Early Minoan IB, 2900–2650) of a previous settlement that grew up in the Early Minoan IA (3100–3000). This is evidenced by the fact that burials decrease drastically in the Prepalatial Period but start increasing again in the Middle Minoan A. The new settlement rises at the base of the promontory, however, rather than at its end. It will last until the Late Minoan IB. In the Middle Minoan IA, it consists of blocks of houses separated by narrow internal streets, extending across the isthmus to the coastal plain (to an area to the rear of the modern village of Mochlos). The tholos tomb of Galana Charakia, about 3 km to the east, proves that those who rebuilt Mochlos were originally from Messara. A ceremonial center can be found northwest of the city (House B2). It is a three-story building with ashlar walls, a kitchen, and two pillared tombs (an internal staircase leads to the upper floors). Priniatikos Pyrgos is a settlement located on the headland of Kalo Chorio (between Karavostasi and Agios Panteleimonas), near Vasiliki. It should not be confused with Myrtos Pyrgos, which can be found on the southern coast. It is a port, an industrial area, and an area of worship. It emerged around 1900 on the site of a small Late Neolithic and Early Minoan I and II settlement, which was formed around 3000 and was destroyed around 2150. A Palace was built there in the Middle Minoan IB. Psira is a small island not far from the coast. About 60 houses converge around a square. They occupy the peaks and slopes of a promontory and are divided at intervals by small stairways that descend to the port. A larger building, located on one side of the square, is probably a public shrine (House of the Rhyta). It is adorned with painted stucco reliefs on the ground floor. There is also a beautiful fresco with two women, or goddesses, in richly embroidered court dress.17 To the west of the settlement is a cemetery, with Neolithic burials dug into the rocks, pithos burials, cist graves, similar to Cycladic ones, small tombs carved into the rock, and tombs built to look like dwelling houses.   In the Late Minoan III, beginning in 1420/10, this structure will be delimited by a long wall.   Today, Mochlos is an island in the Gulf of Mirabello (northeastern coast of Crete), situated 150 m off the mainland, where a small fishing village and resort bearing the same name has risen up. In the Bronze Age, however, the settlement was on the mainland. 17   It recalls the “Ladies in Blue” fresco in the Palace of Knossos. 15 16

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The site of Palaikastro—15 km south of Cape Sideros, on the coastal plain of Roussolakkos, close to Chiona beach and the Minoan peak sanctuary of Petsofas—has been permanently occupied since 2200/2100/2050 (Early Minoan III). By the Middle Minoan IA, it was already a port and commercial center. In the Middle Minoan IB–IIA (end of the 20th century–start of the 19th), it became a city of quite a considerable size with a well-structured urban layout, that, via its port at Itanos, has relations with Egypt and the southern Levant. Nineteen kilometers south of Palaikastro, on the same coast, is a narrow, barren valley with steep slopes, which was carved out of the low, bare limestone hills for 7 km by the Zakros River. Locals call it the Gorge of the Dead because the caves and rock shelters that dot its sides have been used for burials since the Early Minoan I and II, while other caves and recesses have been used as places of refuge by shepherds since time immemorial. The Gorge of the Dead ends in a basin by the sea at a place called Kato Zakros, where two springs can be found. The basin is bordered by one beach of pebbles and very fine sand and two other beaches, smaller, lapped by the waters of a bay facing the Levant and fairly well sheltered from the Meltemi. After 1900, an inhabited structure arose in the upper part of the valley, on two hills separated by the gorge, while about 30 other buildings—mostly private houses, in addition to manufacturing plants and areas for the storage of agricultural products and equipment—are located in the basin below. The housing units press close to one another, forming a dense agglomeration, poorly served by narrow alleys that run between them to provide access to the buildings. Some date back to the Early Minoan III (Zakros I), and the others are of a later age. The complex of buildings in question (Kato Zakros) is a Palace and typically orients itself around a large central courtyard, around which three wings are arranged, with at least one raised floor. The wings house large halls—probably used for ceremonies and banquets—a spacious kitchen, some rooms with multiple doors along one side (polythyra), anterooms, service rooms, internal stairs, arcades, and rooms set aside for religious worship, among which are a small shrine and a lustral basin, with walls painted with ceremonial symbols. The wings also enclose storerooms, artisans’ workshops, armoires, and areas for the storage of agricultural products, elephant tusks, and molded bronze ingots. A steep processional entrance, toward the northeastern end, gives access to the Palace. It also has a few buildings functioning as annexes, found above it on the terraces on the hill to the northeast, bounded to the west by an uphill road. It is served by round cisterns, structures used for the extraction of groundwater, and a network of drainage channels that channel rainwater under the flooring of an internal courtyard. A paved street runs from the northeast entrance of the palace to the coast, where there are some megalithic structures. The inhabitants of Kato Zakros use tools and dishware made of bronze or faience, ceramic or stone containers, weaver’s looms, stone seals, seal rings, cretulae bearing the imprint of seals, ceremonial regalia, and jewels and inlays in rock crystal, faience, and ivory. Some signet rings are engraved with religious motifs, others have scenes that include hybrid human forms and mythical beasts,

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unmatched in Minoan iconography. In addition, they make use of Linear A.18 One of the reasons for the birth and development of the settlement of Kato Zakros, perhaps the main one, is to be found in its geographical position. The nearby beaches are in fact the only safe landing points along the steep cliffs of the eastern end of the island. In the Middle Minoan IA, Katos Zakros is a stopover on the route connecting Cyprus and the Asian coasts of the Eastern Mediterranean to the Nile Delta, and is frequented by Minoan, Mycenaean, Cypriot, Syrian, and Canaanite ships. Kommos is located 6 km southwest of Phaistos. It began to form in the Late Neolithic. A small community lived there during the Early Minoan Period, inhabiting the steep slopes of the local hills in particular. In the Middle Minoan IA–B and II, the settlement expanded to cover an area of 1.5 ha. Destroyed by an earthquake, it was rebuilt in the Middle Minoan III/Late Minoan IA with a different (less dense) layout. Later, it expanded further, reaching its maximum extent of 3.5 ha. It is divided into three nuclei, distributed parallel to a long beach of white sand: the houses atop the hill of Tou Spanou Ta Kephalia, the central hill, and the lower part. A paved road divides it in two. It descends along the slope and ends on the beach, near the main entrance of a monumental building (the Northwest Building, or Building J/T). The latter is a structure with a complex layout, with a large central courtyard. It is used for the storage of imports that are taken off ships at the nearby landing point. Another street, parallel to the first, ends in the flat area on the east side of House X. This building contains numerous rooms, decorated with frescoes depicting a landscape and lilies, and a pillared portico. Inside, there are olive presses, bronze and stone utensils, millstones and stone mortars, weaver’s looms, hearths, and furnaces. A seal used in this structure is engraved with two fish facing each other, while another bears the profile of a hybrid creature, half-woman and half-bird. The local community supports itself on mixed agriculture and fishing at sea and uses the beach to undertake importation and exportation activities. The ships that can approach the shore are stationed at anchor in front of the coast, sheltered by a reef,19 in good weather, and when the winds from the west stir up the sea, they are pulled ashore.

18   Both the lower and upper parts of the city, above all the latter, were destroyed in 1450 (end of the Early Minoan IB). 19   Currently, the reef is submerged and very treacherous. In the Bronze Age, it had to have surfaced and therefore been clearly visible.

Chapter 3 War weapons and defensive architecture

The Town Mosaic A series of small faience (glass paste) plaques, which fit together to form two complete scenes,1 decorate a wooden crate or box used in Knossos in the 18th or early 17th century. Called the Town Mosaic, or the Siege Mosaic, it takes its name from the fact that one of the scenes depicts a port city in its natural surroundings that is under enemy attack, though it is not possible to identify any specific incidents of combat.2 The other scene depicts trees, animals, water, the prow of a ship, and some darkskinned individuals. The city is depicted as a curtain of two- or three-story buildings, the façades of which are higher than they are wide, with doors, windows with ocher-red wooden frames (from the first floor up), and possibly a veranda. Atop the buildings is a rooftop terrace, perhaps with a skylight, except for one three-story building, which has a sloped roof. It is not certain that the city depicted is located in Crete. It may be a settlement in the Cyclades, given that Agia Irini (on the island of Kea) and Phylakopi (Milos) are both fortified. The fact remains, however, that Minoan cities can also be fortified, as will become evident later. The decoration we are talking about, as far as the siege scene is concerned, shows that, in the Bronze Age Aegean, situations sometimes arise in which an army surrounds a fortified settlement and cuts off access to it so that the besieged cannot receive supplies of food, weapons, or reinforcements from outside and are therefore forced to surrender. It shows that the Minoans do not consider war to be an unforeseeable event, but rather one that is present in their thoughts as much as the ideas that emerge from the other aspects of their character, which is not only creative and original, full of aesthetic meaning, minded toward nature, beauty, and elegance bordering on sophistication, but is also ready both to defend and attack. 1   The Town Mosaic, or the Siege Mosaic, was found in fragments in a deposit dating to the Middle Minoan IIB–IIIA, north of the residential district of the Palace of Knossos, in the Loom Weight Basement. 2   This find is validated in a silver vase, probably of Minoan manufacture, that accompanied the deceased in a burial in Mycenae.

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The hypothesis that the Minoans would not think about waging war because they feel safe on their own island, protected by the sea that surrounds it and by their navy,3 is unfounded for two main reasons: because it clashes with the situation in the other states bordering the Aegean Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean, which are characterized by political fragmentation and continuous tensions;4 and because weapons of war have been present in the Minoan environment since the very beginning. Crete is littered with architectural exempla that clearly have the purpose of defending or contributing to the defense of a settlement, or its key buildings, from potential invaders or raiders, of symbolically asserting the dominion of the local power and monitoring it, and of discouraging subjugated populations from rebelling.

Weapons of war and military paraphernalia The armories of the Minoans are made up of daggers, swords, javelins, bows, arrows, shields, and greaves. At first, the most typical weapon within this arsenal is a dagger with a short, thin, double-edged blade, with a thick mid-rib and a wooden hilt, fixed with rivets to the shoulder of the blade. Later, the blade was lengthened and the rivets became more prominent. The result was a 90-cm-long sword, good for stabbing and thrusting. The hilt of swords of this type ends with a large pommel of stone, ivory, or wood laminated in gold, which helps to balance the weight of the blade. Sometimes, the hilt’s pommel and/or the blade are elaborately decorated. This type of sword was produced from around 1850–1750 until about 1600. In the Late Minoan IA (1700/1675–1625/00) and later, the uppermost part of the blade often appears to have protrusions that look like horns, which, in the future, will give the upper part of the sword a cross-like shape. Over time, the cruciform sword will be replaced by another type of sword, of medium length, with a longer tang and a slightly wider blade, which will be produced until around 1375. Some large, flat blades that have been found are probably the heads of missile weapons. There are two types of bows: those that are made of a single length of wood and those that are of the composite type; in the latter case, they are made of wild goat horns. The javelin differs from the spear because it is normally a missile weapon, not used hand-to-hand, and therefore it is shorter, thinner, and lighter. At

  According to Arthur Evans, who excavated Knossos, and his supporters, the magnificence of the Palace of Knossos and the life philosophy that emerges from the splendid frescoes of this complex leads one to surmise that the Minoans had dominion over the sea and that their cities and Palaces were not fortified because their inhabitants felt safe on their island, surrounded by the sea, which was patrolled by their fleets. 4   S. Chryssoulaki, “Minoan roads and guard houses: war regained,” in Polemos: le contexte guerrier en Egée à l’âge du Bronze: actes de la 7e Rencontre égéenne internationale, Université de Liège, 14–17 avril 1998, ed. R. Laffineur (Liège: Université de Liège, 1999), 77. 3

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first, arrowheads are made of hardwood or bone. Later, though as early as the Early Minoan Period, they are made of metal. The shield is large and consists of a wooden frame covered with an ox hide. At first, there are two types. One is in a figure of eight shape—that is, it has two deep indentations on the sides, halfway up—and may have some sort of appendage (the tail of the animal whose hide was used to cover the shield). The other is oblong and semi-cylindrical, which envelops the bearer and protects him down to his feet. Later, a smaller type of shield appears that is round in shape. The helmet is conical and made of metal. The cuirass and the greaves are made of leather. Usually, however, soldiers make do without both a helmet and armor.

Defensive architecture The Minoans’ defensive architecture comprises city walls, towers and bastions, watchtowers, lookout and defensive structures (guardhouse), gatehouses, and guard posts. There are structures of such types at dozens of Minoan sites.5 The village of Myrtos-Fournou Korifi, in the Early Minoan IIB, is fortified.6 Fortification walls are also in place in Katharades and Agia Photia in the eastern part of the island. The first is at the foot of a cliff, not far from the Libyan Sea. The site of Katharedes was inhabited in the Late Neolithic and the Early Minoan I. It remains so in the Middle Minoan I or II and will continue to be in the Late Minoan I. Agia Photia is a town located east of Sitia on a rocky hillock on the coast. In the Middle Minoan IA and IB, there is a rectangular building there measuring 18 × 27.5 m which contains 22 rooms, opening onto a central courtyard; a silo for storing grain; and a fortifying wall enclosing an oval-shaped area of 1,800 m2. The wall was erected on the living rock by collocating irregular stone blocks and was then reinforced by projecting curvilinear towers. It recalls the walls of the fortified settlement of Kastri on the Cycladic island of Syros, dating back to 2300–2200, hence the assumption that Agia Photia is a Cycladic colony. The settlement will persist into the Middle Minoan II when two additional silos are built there. In the Middle Minoan IA, Knossos seems to be a walled city.7 Malia is surrounded by a cyclopean wall, probably erected for defensive purposes,8 and the same can be

5   T. Alusik, “Defensive architecture in Crete in the Late/Final Neolithic and Bronze Age,” in Defense Structures from Central Europe to the Aegean in the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC. Studia nad Pradziejami Europy Środkowej/Studien zur Archäologie in Ostmitteleuropa 5, ed. J. Czebreszuk, S. Kadrow, and J. Müller (PoznanBonn, 2008), 11–27, esp. 10. 6   Some excavations have unearthed towers or bastions. 7   M. S. F. Hood, “Archaeology in Greece, 1960–1,” AR (1960–1961): 27. 8   Archaeologists have unearthed two segments of the wall that surrounded Malia, one below the Villa Alpha, the other on Terrace O – Stas Aletrivopetras. H. van Effenterre, Le Palais de Mallia et la Cité Minoenne. Etude de synthése, vol. I (Rome: Edizioni dell’Ateneo, 1980), 266–267.

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said for Gournia. In the Middle Minoan, there are also towers and bastions at Petras, Aspro Nero stou Paletsi, and—it seems—at Palaikastro. Minoan guard houses are mighty structures of homogeneous style, 10 × 10 m or 12 × 12 m in size, with solid foundations. The external walls are made of gray limestone, extracted from small quarries located in the vicinity, and are 1 m to 1.2 m thick.9 The rooms are distributed around a paved area, taking up a quarter of the entire surface area of the structure. In many cases, there is an annex—a quadrangular terrace—that functions as a viewing platform. These structures are well defended both naturally and artificially and are difficult to access because they are built near rocky terrain and are protected by ravines, jagged rocks, boundary walls, and outposts. They are connected to roads and tracks or are constructed in places where a specific place, sometimes a small agricultural area, can be easily monitored. The guard houses appear in the Prepalatial Period, at the time of the formation of the early states, when they “supported the attempts of an emerging central authority to define the wider area of its sovereignty, to keep watch on the passes, and to protect the road arteries that might, in times of need, support its military forces.”10 At first, they are isolated and scattered. One of these is that of Apano Chorio, located in the eastern part of the island. In the Middle Minoan II at the latest and thereafter, when the number of fortified sites increases throughout the island, the guard houses also become more common, mainly in the central and eastern regions of the island. Now they are organically and functionally connected to each other, thereby forming a system of forts, watchtowers, roads, and sacred enclosures placed around a temple, in which aedicules, altars, statues, trees, and votive offerings can be found. For example, a guard house controls access through the saddle between Mount Enteichti and Mount Chalika and the vitally important pass of Kamares, which leads from the plateau of Krasi to the plain of Malia. Of the dozens of guard houses, worthy of mention are those of Choiromadres and Omalos. Among the gatehouses and guard posts are those of the Palace of Knossos. In Phaistos and Tylissos, there is evidence of construction works aimed at increasing the safety of the settlement.

  The height of these buildings is unknown, but it is assumed that they were multi-story and had a flat roof.   S. Chryssoulaki, “Minoan roads and guard houses: war regained,” in Polemos: le contexte guerrier en Egée à l’âge du Bronze: actes de la 7e Rencontre égéenne internationale, Université de Liège, 14–17 avril 1998, ed. R. Laffineur (Liège: Université de Liège, 1999), 83. 9

10

Chapter 4 Maritime trade

The sea routes of the Minoans In a region like the Aegean, where the sea is a constant presence, like the wind, which fills the sails, trade is conducted exclusively by sea. This means moving by ship, facing the dangers of the sea, and protecting oneself against the risk of piracy with an armed escort. At the landing points, where all kinds of goods are exchanged, the navigator merchants, who may be from Europe, Asia, or Africa, meet other navigator merchants of the Aegean, Levantine, or Egyptian civilizations. They land on shores crowded with peoples of various races and social, artistic, or commercial sectors, where the lapping of the waves and the salty air mix with the aromas of cardamom, cumin, and cinnamon and with various languages and dialects, whether official languages or local patois. They sell oil, wine, and typical products of Minoan craftsmanship—woolen fabrics, worked bronzes and ivories, pictorial-style ceramics, and spice-based ointments—in exchange for foodstuffs, salt, spices, perfumes, metal ores, copper ingots, ceramics, wool, and fabrics to products of artistic craftsmanship, including ambers, worked glass, statuettes, and jewels. They negotiate the price in the shade of temples, an art form practiced with the observance of a well-established ritual, and finalize the agreement with a handshake while, all around, one ship after another moors or docks and others get ready to leave. In some places, this activity takes place under the constraint of numerous and detailed regulations set by the local authorities. In others, it can be practiced more freely because the local authorities have less influence over the actions and transactions of those involved. The bulk of maritime trade chiefly occurs between the southern Levant (Syria, Palestine) and Egypt, along a route that passes by Crete. This detail must be underlined. Ships that set sail from any port in the southern Levant and are bound for Egypt do not point their bow south (to take the shortest route) but instead to the west. They pass by Cyprus, Rhodes, Casos, Carpathos, Saros, and Kato Zakros, follow Crete’s eastern and southern coasts, and make a final stop at Kommos before facing the 500 km crossing of the Libyan Sea. The journey is, therefore, much longer. The reason is to be found in the fact that one of the features of the Eastern Mediterranean is a current that flows counter-clockwise, consisting of a western branch that flows south to the

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Libyan-Egyptian Current, and an eastern branch that flows from Cyprus to about 24° east; then, there is an open sea current coming from the west that flows toward the east, of which one branch follows the Egyptian coast.

The Eastern Mediterranean Kommos, we recall, is the ‘port’ of Phaistos. The navigator merchants pointing their ships toward it unload some goods there and load others. Among the imports, there are metals and tableware of Cypriot production, which can be used for ceremonies and feasts. In particular, there are copper ingots and painted bowls and jugs, modeled on a lathe and decorated with a wealth of motifs. This pottery belongs to the Cypriot Monochrome Ware type, which is widespread in Cyprus, the southern Levant, and even in Egypt, where it is copied. The exports include Kamares ceramics, which are highly valued in Egypt and the southern Levant (Ugarit, Qatna, Beirut, Byblos) and in Cyprus. They are made on a rotating lathe by artisans who can shape thin or very thin walls, down to the thickness of an eggshell, and are painted white or red, orange, and yellow on a black background, with a great variety of abstract and naturalistic, stylized motifs, ranging from spirals to floral and marine themes. One of the most characteristic types is the three-lobed jug, which is suitable for pouring water or wine during meals or rituals. The southern Levant Gubla and Ugarit are the main cities along the Syrian-Palestinian coast. They are at the same time the port of entry for Minoan and Cypriot exports bound for Syria and Mesopotamia and the port of exit for Syrian and Mesopotamian exports bound for Egypt via Crete. Gubla Gubla (Byblos) stands on the promontory of Jbeil (42 km north of Beirut in Lebanon). It is one of the oldest cities in the world,1 a fulcrum of Middle Eastern history and a place of meetings and interpenetration between the Egyptian and Sumero-Akkadian civilizations. A Minoan-made obsidian and gold casket, which bears the cartouche of the pharaoh Amenemhat IV (1798–1786) and reached the king of Gubla, is proof of the intertwined links between Gubla, Crete, and Egypt. Ugarit Ugarit is situated on a hill that rises on the Syrian coast, opposite the eastern coast of Cyprus (Ras Shamra, around 9 km south of the modern city of Latakia). It evolved   The Phoenicians, in the Iron Age, changed the name to Gubla, calling it Gèbal. The Greeks, in turn, changed the name of the city, renaming it Byblos, because it was via this city that they received rolls of papyrus, which were used as material for writing (βίβλος = “book”). 1

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from a fortified village, which came into being in the 6th millennium (Ugarit I). By around 2400, it was already a political and commercial center of note. The Ebla tablets2 record its name: u-gù-ra-ad, ù-gù-ra-tum. At the time of the pharaohs Sesostris I (1971–1926), Sesostris II (1895–1878), and Amenemhat III (d. 1814), Ugarit was within Egypt’s sphere of influence. Objects of Egyptian manufacture arrived there. Its artistic culture showed strong Egyptian characteristics. Later, it fell under the control of the Hyksos people, nomadic populations of the Syrian Desert (Amorites? Hurrians?), and became one of the richest and liveliest cities in the Eastern Mediterranean, fully integrated in the trade between the regions of the Euphrates, Crete, and Cyprus. It is a cosmopolitan city, where a group of Minoan traders can also be found at work, and is the capital of an Amorite kingdom spanning 2,000 km2. The success of its agriculture, commerce, and artistic craftsmanship ensure that the local sovereign and the rest of the ruling élite have the conditions for a luxurious and refined lifestyle. Ugarit makes its ports of Ma’hadu (Minet el-Beida) and Ra’shu (Ras Ibn Hani) available to the kingdoms of the Syrian hinterland, including Mari and Yamhad. The Kingdom of Mari is an important commercial center, a hub of river and caravan routes which connect the state of Sumer (Mesopotamia) to Syria. It was an important center of Sumerian civilization in the 3rd millennium. In the first centuries of the 2nd millennium, it enjoys a period of absolute splendor (which will continue until, in 1761, it is destroyed by King Hammurabi of Babylon). Tin from Central Asia flows into Mari, where it is rerouted to Hazor (Israel), Qatna (Syria), Yamhad (the coastal region around Aleppo in Syria), Ugarit, and Crete. The kings of Ugarit, Mari, and Yamhad are linked by dynastic marriages and friendly relations. They maintain contact with mutual visits, letters, and gifts. Ugarit also maintains commercial and diplomatic ties with the Kingdom of Hatti (central Anatolian plateau) and the kingdoms of Babylonia, Cyprus, and Crete. As we saw earlier, the Cypriots and Minoans export all kinds of goods to the SyrianPalestinian region and Mesopotamia via Ugarit, especially pottery and metal to the former and, to the latter, primarily fabrics, footwear, Kamares Ware, precious metal vases, parade weapons, richly decorated fabrics, items of clothing, and leather shoes. The silver vases made in Crete are in great demand in the Middle Euphrates region. The caravan route that originates in Mesopotamia and passes through Mari ends in Ugarit. Through it, a multiplicity and variety of goods from internal Asia pass through Ugarit and reach Cyprus, Rhodes, Saros, Kassos, Carpathos, Crete, and Egypt. This explains how, between 2000 and 1750 (Middle Minoan I and II), the following reached Mochlos, Messara, and Malia, respectively: some elegant jewels decorated with floral designs, very similar to those of the Royal Cemetery at Ur, and therefore probably exported from Mesopotamia; a hematite seal, attributed to the dynasty of 2   Ebla (Tell Mardikh, around 60 km southwest of Aleppo in northern Syria) was the capital of a kingdom and engaged in trade with the rest of Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia, and Anatolia. As late as 1800, consignments of copper and timber going to Mesopotamia or Egypt, silver heading to Mesopotamia, Afghan lapis lazuli, and perhaps even Egyptian gold all passed through it.

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Hammurabi (it will become part of the funerary goods of a domed tomb); and a schist hatchet, depicting the front part of a leopard. It is worth dwelling on the schist hatchet. It comes from the region that extends from the Hindu Kush to the Oxus River that, in the future, will be called Bactriana and will have its capital at Bakhtri (known to the Greeks as Bactra or Bactria; modern Balkh in Afghanistan). It is not a working tool but an emblem of power. It was probably given in tribute to the ruler of Malia to an oriental counterpart, perhaps the king of Mari. Cyprus The urbanization of Cyprus is a process that begins in the Middle Cypriot (2000/1950– 1700/1650), prompted by population growth, the development of craftsmanship, and the growing success of its export trade. The latter is mainly due to its copper, in which the island is rich, but also its good quality construction timber and fragrant oils. There are not yet any cities as such, but some proto-urban centers are under development: on the east coast, which is particularly suitable for the development of economic relations with the Syrian coast (Enkomi, the future Greek town of Salamis, situated 8 km northwest of Famagusta); on the shores of Morphou Bay on the northwest coast (Morphou-Toumba tou Skourou); in the area of Myrtou-Stephania, mostly inland; and in the southwestern region (Palaepaphos/Kouklia, near the mouth of the Diarizos, 16 km east of the modern city of Paphos; Erimi-Laonin tou Porakou; Kissonerga Spilia). Some Cypriot exports, in the Middle Cypriot, reach Inner Syria. At the start of the 18th century, some Babylonian scribes, when writing something about the export of Cypriot copper to Mari and referring to Cyprus, or part of it (Enkomi? KalavasosAgios Dhimitrios? Alassa?), call it Alashiya, or Alasiya. Further proof is provided by the existence of a Syrian variant of the Cypriot White Painted Ware, the so-called Eyelet Style. It is at this time that Minoan commerce reaches Cyprus. This is evidenced by a Kamares Ware cup placed in a tomb at Karmi-Palealona that dates to the Middle Cypriot and by pottery from the Late Minoan IA (1700/1675–1625/00) in use at Morphou-Toumba tou Skourou from Agia Irini. In this period, at least in some ways, the material culture of the peoples of Cyprus does not differ from that of the Early Bronze Age on the island. A relationship of continuity emerges from the pottery, figurines, and funerary customs. The pottery is the same as in the Early Bronze Age, with differences between one region and another and clear contacts between one area and another. However, there is also a widespread form of pottery with brown motifs painted on a light background (White Painted Ware), especially in the north of the island. The figurines are the same as in the previous period, but it is worth noting the addition of naturalistic elements to certain types. The dead continue to be buried outside of inhabited areas. The tombs consist of a long corridor that provides access to one or more oval-shaped chambers, which are carved into the rock and contain lavish funerary objects. The funerary ritual is

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a means by which senses of cohesion and identity are created, as well as a sense of social competition. Another form of ritual is that of “work events.” Here food is eaten collectively in a place where the extraction, transport, and processing of metals takes place (see the excavations at Kalopsidha Koufos and the artifacts found at AthienouBamboulari tis Koukounninas). Cyprus’ external relations intensified toward the end of the Middle Bronze Age when it ventured into Levantine ceramics and exported White Painted Ware to Egypt and the southern Levant. Egypt There are numerous artifacts that demonstrate that there is contact between Egypt and Crete from at least 2900 on.3 These include a carved hippopotamus tusk, carnelian, amethyst, and ivory seals, presumed imitations of Egyptian stone vases from the necropolises of Mochlos and Zakros, and some scarabs and vases from Knossos, all datable to the period between the Protodynastic Egypt and the 6th Dynasty. In the second half of the 3rd millennium, the term iww Hrii-ibw nw wAD-wr, “Isles in the Midst of the Great Green,” referring to the islands of the Mediterranean Sea, appears for the first time. The expression is repeated in one of the Leiden Papyri and in the London Medical Papyrus, datable to the 5th Dynasty (2500–2350) or the 6th Dynasty (2350–2190), while it is attested in the Near East from 2200. Moreover, it seems that the Egyptians also used to say “Isles of the Great Green” to refer to the river islands in the Nile Delta and those that are created every time the Nile is in flood. It is in the context of the contacts and exchanges between the Old Kingdom of Egypt and Crete that we can place a stone vase with a cartouche of Userkaf (2510–2500), possibly the founder of the 5th Dynasty, who arrived in Cythera which, we recall, was a Minoan commercial outpost, located on the route that connects the northwestern coast of Crete to Laconia. Userkaf is a pharaoh who seems to have launched numerous naval expeditions. One suggestion in this regard is given by the ships depicted in his Sun Temple at Abusir. During the rule of the 5th or 6th Dynasty, some objects and the use of Egyptian blue in paintings arrived in Crete, perhaps in the context of the maritime trade between the southern Levant and Egypt. We refer here to the objects from the Early Minoan I in faience (glass paste) that are found in Mochlos (at this time, certain ceramics that emulate Egyptian ones are also in use in Mochlos) and to the Egyptian faience scarab from the cemetery of Phourni in Archanes. The grave goods of the tholoi of Messara (Early Minoan) also include some imitations of Egyptian scarabs manufactured in Crete. Among the earliest Minoan-made stone vases, some reflect a marked Egyptian influence. The same can be said for the earliest seals produced by the Minoans. The first Cretan seals, in ivory, in the shape of buttons,

3   The artifacts in question were found by Evans in 1928 under what came to be the central courtyard at Knossos in various contexts, one of which dates back to the Early Minoan I.

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and with incised linear and curvilinear motifs, are in fact comparable with some seals in use in Egypt between the 6th Dynasty and the 11th Dynasty. The contacts and exchanges between Egypt and Crete intensified in the last decades of the Middle Minoan IA–IB. This is demonstrated by the Kamares Ware that arrives in Egypt during the reign of Amenemhat II (1929–1895), the third pharaoh of the 12th Dynasty.4 The same can be said for the imitations of Kamares Ware in some Middle Kingdom tombs at Harageh. The 12th Dynasty, starting from the reign of Sesostris I (1971–1926), will be remembered as a time in which the arts flourished, from sculpture to goldsmithing. The very high degree of creativity and technical ability of the Egyptian goldsmiths of this age is reflected in the beautiful jewels accompanying the deceased in the tombs of the royal princesses at Dahshur and El Lahun. This is also the classic period of Egyptian literature in which it thrives. The tale of a certain Sinuhe, probably a fictional figure, set toward the end of the reign of Amenemhat I, can be dated to this period. An Egyptian diorite statuette from Knossos gives evidence of the continuation of relations between Egypt, Crete, and the southern Levant during the (first half of the) 12th Dynasty. It bears the inscription of a high-ranking officer named User and dates back to the first half of the 12th Dynasty. Another diorite statuette, bearing an inscription of the name Iebneb, comes to Knossos together with Kamares Ware during the reign of one of the rulers of the 12th Dynasty (1991–1782) or the 13th Dynasty (1782–1650). Some gold amulets in the shape of a bull’s head or a human foot, made in Crete in imitation of Egyptian prototypes, are part of the grave goods of tombs in Messara during the Middle Minoan IIIA–B (1750/00–1600/1575). Signs of the influence exerted by the Egyptian civilization on the Minoans can also be seen: in some vases with depictions of cats and sphinxes, and in a sword with gold decoration with an embossed figure of an acrobat, found in Malia; in a terracotta sphinx found in the Quartier Mu in Malia; in the Bee Pendant; and in the small temple with a statuette of a cat unearthed in the Palace at Monastiraki. Let us focus for a moment on the Bee Pendant, a jewel that forms part of the grave goods of a tomb in Chrysolakkos (Malia). This golden pendant takes the form of two identical bees, joined at the head with the tips of their abdomens almost in contact in symmetrical or heraldic arrangements. Their wings are pointing backward. Three discs hang from the lower edges of the wings and a point near the tip of the abdomen. The insects are “grabbing” a centrally positioned circular disc with their legs, and a second, smaller, smoother globe is placed above and between the insects’ heads, as if

4   See the finds from Tomb 879 from el-Lisht, House 530 at el-Haraga, Kahun (El Lahun, Fayyum)—the workmen’s village built near the construction site of the pyramid of Sesostris II—and Tomb 416 at Abydos.

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they are eating from it. All the evidence suggests that the jewel is inspired by those from Larsa, Gubla, and Dahshur and, therefore, by eastern models.5 The Cyclades Islands Exports from the Palace of Knossos mainly head toward the Cyclades Islands, mainland Greece, the islands of the northern Aegean Sea, and the Aegean region of western Anatolia, including the islands off the coast. The Cyclades receive most of them and also act as a bridge for selling the products on in mainland Greece. In the Early Cycladic IIIB (2400–2200), some inhabited centers become more important than others. We refer here to Agia Irini (on the island of Kea), Phylakopi (Milos), Paroikia (Paros), Grotta (Naxos), Skarkos (Ios), and Therassos (Santorini). In the Middle Cycladic (2200–1700), commercial centers and intermediary stopovers flourish on the routes between Crete and mainland Greece. They are the homes and workplaces of food producers (farmers, cattle ranchers, shepherds), fishermen, bird hunters, architects, bricklayers, workers, interior decorators, potters, stonecutters, carpenters, shipwrights, sailmakers, haulers, and metallurgists. Kea is the northernmost Cycladic island, very close to the coast of Attica (it is 20 km from Cape Sounion and 60 km from Athens). It is small (19 km long, 9 km wide, and 130 km2 in area), arid, and hilly. It has been inhabited since the Neolithic, as shown by the site of Kephala and from the fact that Agia Irini, on the peninsular of the same name (opposite the modern seaside resort of Vourkari), evolved from a Neolithic village, which was built around 3300. Agia Irini is defended by a fortification wall with a gateway and defensive tower. Among its most noteworthy buildings are a temple and a structure of considerable size containing an archive of texts in Linear A. In the Middle Cycladic, Agia Irini is one of the most populous and prosperous settlements in the entire Aegean region. Thanks to the dynamism of its entrepreneurial class, its geographical position, and the fact it boasts a sheltered landing place, it develops intense commercial activity along the coasts of Attica and in the islands of the southern Aegean Sea. One of the goods found in its marketplaces is silver imported from the mines of Laurion on the southern tip of Attica, between Thoricus and Cape Sounion, around 50 km south of Athens. Laurion is one of the two sources of silver in the Aegean region, the other being the Cycladic island of Sifnos. We have already come across Milos. It is found quite far south, at the western end of the alignment of Ios, Sikinos, and Folegandros, and its primary natural resources are its fertile soils and deposits of obsidian. Its main urban center, Phylakopi, is one of the most significant cities in the entire Aegean region. Its original nucleus, Phylakopi I (2300–2000), witnessed new buildings being constructed and a growing resident population. Phylakopi II (2000–1550) is densely populated, with blocks of houses separated by long, straight streets. Different styles of pottery are produced 5   The Bee Pendant is now kept in the Heraklion Archaeological Museum. Dated to the start of the 2nd millennium, it is probably the most famous piece of Minoan jewelry.

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there, often decorated with stylized plant and animal motifs (see, for example, the jugs decorated with birds that are exported to Knossos). The local community imports an increasing amount of Minoan pottery. This indicates that its relations with Crete are intense, and that the local Cycladic culture is influenced by the superior Minoan civilization. Santorini is also already familiar to us. It is the largest of the southernmost Cycladic Islands and, like Milos, is a volcanic island. In the Middle Minoan, its inhabitants number a few tens of thousands, spread across towns, villages, hamlets, and scattered houses, and they live peacefully in a land that is both beautiful and fertile. The navigator merchants traveling from Crete to mainland Greece, or along the route connecting Milos and Kea, Paros and Naxos, gladly take advantage of the excellent landing point offered by its bay to the southwest. The settlement of Therassos (Akrotiri), on the southern coast, began to form around 2200 and has been continuously inhabited by the same people, with the sporadic arrival of groups of immigrants from Crete, mainland Greece, or elsewhere. In the Middle Minoan, it is a city of 6,000 inhabitants. It bears a resemblance to Gournia and Phylakopi. It is a big city, considering that Santorini is only a small island. Furthermore, the population density, at least in the center, is very high. It has large buildings, up to four floors high, which are arranged in blocks and enclose living quarters, storerooms, workshops, and sometimes even domestic sanctuaries. The apartments are large and comfortable and may be decorated with frescoes. The blocks are intersected by winding, paved alleys. Running under these are the sewers, to which household drains are connected. Some areas open up between one block and another, confined in whole or in part by buildings, at the intersection of several internal streets, or along a major internal street. There is no Palace. The central district is inhabited by more than one wealthy family, all belonging to the same clan, and their servants. Poorer people live on the outskirts, in small houses and huts. Among the goods that the people of the Cyclades buy from the Minoans are Kamares Ware (see the finds from Phylakopi, Agia Irini, Paroikia, Grotta, and Akrotiri), vases in gold, silver, or bronze, ostrich-egg rhyta with inlays in glass paste (Santorini), and figurines in lead (Kampos, on the island of Tinos) or bronze (Agia Irini, Phylakopi). Often, the people of the Cyclades buy goods from the Minoans to sell them to the inhabitants of the coastal centers of the Peloponnese and central and eastern Greece (Mycenae). In this way, the latter gain access to Minoan-made luxury goods, such as golden cups (found in Vapheio in Lacedaemonia), swords, vases in gold, silver, or bronze, and ostrich-egg rhyta with inlays in glass paste (Mycenae). The Minoans gladly accept the intermediation of the people of the Cyclades. They also trade with the Mycenaeans themselves, who they reach via Cythera. Cythera Cythera is the westernmost of the Cyclades Islands. It rises from cobalt-blue waters in a border area between the Aegean Sea and the Cretan Sea, 2.5 nautical miles south

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of Cape Malea (southeastern Peloponnese). It has an area of 284 km2 and 50 km of coastline. As such, it is also one of the largest Cycladic Islands. Hilly and rocky, it is often beaten by strong winds and is subject to earthquakes. Its landscapes are mostly arid with sparse vegetation, most of which is bushes rather than trees. Its cliffs, almost always precipitous, are marked by many caves rich in stalactites. At their base, only a few beaches are to be found, one of which is that of sand and pebbles of Scandia, which delineates part of the Bay of Avlemonas (0.5 km from Kastri/Paleopoli) on the eastern side of the island. Collected from the surrounding sea are muricidae, mollusks that secrete a gland as a viscous liquid of a color similar to that of blood and fire that is used for dying textiles. Cythera is quite isolated from the other Greek islands, of which it is the westernmost, but it lies on the route that connects Laconia to the Eastern Mediterranean and to the Libyan and Egyptian coasts via Crete. This explains why it has always been a melting pot of navigators, merchants, and conquerors. Around 1925, the Minoans established a support base for navigation and the sorting of goods (emporion) there, managed by a handful of people living in loco, without territorial sovereignty, and they made it into an intermediary stop on the route that connects the northwest coast of Crete with Laconia. In addition, they expanded inland, building many hamlets and isolated farms across the island. The emporion is located on the east coast, near the peninsula of Akroterion.6 The locals form a prosperous community based on seafaring activities and the production of Tyrian purple. They use seals bearing the incisions of Cretan ideograms and Linear A script. They import Minoan pottery made in Kydonia (Chania) to sell to the natives and fine pottery from mainland Greece (see the finds from Kastri/Paleopoli). Local potters—no doubt specialist artisans who arrived from Crete—imitate Minoan vases in stone or bronze and elegant painted Minoan pottery. The dead are buried in chamber tombs carved into the rock, the plans of which resemble those of the necropolis on the hill of Ailias at Knossos and those at Poros-Katsambas. Samothrace A mountain emerges from the sea off the coast of Thrace, rising to the peak of Mount Fengari (1,600 m a.s.l.), the top of which is often hidden by clouds. Its slopes are covered with trees. There are woods, streams, waterfalls, and thermal springs. This island is called Samothrace and is the main landing point in the north Aegean Sea, on the route to Thrace, the Troad, Pontus, and the mines of the Caucasus. It has always played an important role in the trade between Europe and Asia and between Thrace and the Aegean islands. A small settlement arose around 5000 at Mikro Vouni, a hill west of a lagoon on the southwest coast. The occupation of this site came to a halt around 2800–2500, but it resumed with the foundation of Mikro 6   The promontory of Akroterion today also comprises the beach of Scandia. The nature of the places has changed with the passage of time.

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Vouni IV (Middle Minoan, 19th century). By that time, the Minoans had started to visit the island, probably for reasons related to the search for metals on the routes to the Troad and the Black Sea. Since then, Samothrace has been controlled by a local center of power, which uses seals and cretulae and also utilizes both Linear A and Cretan Hieroglyphs to compile archival documents.

Chapter 5 Religion and worship

The gods and sacred symbols Linked to fertility and life, but also to death, and worshipped in Crete since at least 3000, the Great Mother of the Minoans is the same divinity who is venerated elsewhere in the Mediterranean with other names: Astarte, Ishtar, Cybele, Rhea, Dictynna, etc. Sometimes she manifests herself as the Snake Goddess, the Goddess of Poppies, or the Goddess of Death, or even through other aspects of herself, but it is always the same goddess, invoked with different names and attributes. The Snake Goddess is depicted in effigies as a woman wearing the typical dress of a Minoan woman—a close-fitting bodice that clings to the breasts, exposing them, and covers the upper arms, and a hanging skirt, fixed to the hips by a belt of heavier cloth—who has her arms raised and her hands clutching snakes, writhing before the observer. This image is probably one of a goddess of fertility and sexuality, considering that the snake, since it periodically changes its shape, is symbolically associated with the renewal of life. The Great Mother is one of the two main divinities in the Minoan pantheon. The other is Potidas, or Poteidan, the god who has dominion over the Earth (understood as everything on its surface), the subsoil, and the sky and its phenomena, including thunder and lightning. Potidas is associated with the sun and the moon, the fertility of the fields, storms at sea, and earthquakes. The cultic practice of the Minoans employs multiple sacred symbols, attributable to the divinities in various ways. Some of these symbols are the solar disc, the crescent moon, and certain rough or worked stones, the column and the pillar being among the latter, which evoke the concepts of height, strength, lift, and structurality; in short, solidarity. Others include the tree, the snake, the dove, the lion, various species of bird, and some other zoomorphic forms that are difficult to trace to animals known to us today, such as a galloping winged animal. Still others are the shield, the double axe, and the bull’s horns, which evoke the concepts of fertility and vigor. The bull, in particular, is regarded as the manifestation of Potidas in visible form. And since Potidas presides over natural phenomena, among which is the reflowering of plants that occurs with the arrival of spring, the bull is made into a symbol of regeneration, as if this animal dies with the arrival of winter and is reborn with the return of spring. Therefore, the Minoans place the bull at the

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center of the festival that celebrates the return of summer, during which a particular event is staged, “bull-leaping” (taurokathapsia), which is represented in the frescoes at Knossos and in engravings on seals. Bull-leaping consists of the somersaults that some young acrobats, both male and female, perform over the back of a bull as follows: the acrobat leaps between the horns to land with their hands on either side of the animal’s ribcage, with their head facing down and their legs arched toward the tail, before bouncing backward and landing safe and sound behind the beast. Eventually, the bull is sacrificed. Bull-leaping takes place in the central paved courtyard of the Palaces after it has been sprinkled with wet sawdust and equipped with a movable wooden barrier that surrounds the courtyard on all four sides to block off access to its many openings. It is not a sporting competition, nor a show, but a ritual agony, a test of physical strength, courage, and ability, of a religious and symbolic nature, very similar to the ritual dances that the priestesses perform in the external western courtyard.1 The bull cult is practiced throughout Crete, but especially in Knossos. See the frescoes depicting bulls in the north part and the east and west wings of the Palace, the stylized horns of consecration that can be seen everywhere you go, the magnificent rhyton in the form of a bull’s head used in the Bull’s Head Sanctuary, and the bull skulls that form a foundation deposit in the House of the Sacrificed Oxen.

Palatine shrines and urban sanctuaries The Minoans practice worship in centers of power or as an expression of popular culture—therefore, in the shrines and sanctuaries of the Palaces, and in other places, which may be enclosed in urban areas or scattered around the countryside or on top of a mountain. Inside the Palaces, numerous ceremonial spaces and other rooms, smaller and more intimate, are set aside for this use, embellished with frescoes depicting large processions or initiation ceremonies, such as small crypts, whose ceilings are often supported by pillars. Everywhere, the sacred symbols of Minoan religion stand out—the double axe, the horns of consecration, etc.—as if the whole Palace were consecrated and under the gods’ protection. There are also altars, benches for votive offerings, stone thrones, snake-shaped tubes, ex-votos, frescoes illustrating religious ceremonies, idols, shells, pebbles smoothed by water, red pigments, drinking vessels in the shape of an animal (rhyton), and lustral basins. Significant examples of a palatine sanctuary are the Pillar Rooms with the double axes in the Palace of Knossos and the Pillar Crypt in the Palace of Malia. A room in the Palace of Phaistos features a table for sacrificial offerings with depictions of cattle. There are analogous elements in the two sanctuaries external to the Palace but within the city of Malia, which are   The embossed decorations on the gold cups of Vapheio—exported to Mycenaean Greece but the work of Minoan artisans—depict the capture and chaining of a bull, while the Boxer Vase from Agia Triada portrays a bull arching its rump to throw off some acrobats. 1

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the one from the Middle Minoan II and the one of the Horns. The former is situated west of the Palace, the latter a hundred meters west of House Epsilon. The fact that a lustral basin and some rooms from Building A in Quartier Mu in Malia have a religious function should not be overlooked either. The urban sanctuary of Myrtos, on the southern coast of the Isthmus of Ierapetra, has been in use since the Early Minoan II.2 A rural sanctuary can be found at Anemospilia.

Rural sanctuaries Anemospilia is located at the foot of the eastern slope of Mount Juktas, 5 km northwest of Archanes and 10 km south of Knossos. It is the site of a rural sanctuary that consists of a small building set in a demarcated area and some annexes. It was built in the Middle Minoan IB and is oriented from north to south, like the central courtyards of the Palaces. The main building has a square plan and thick walls, covered with white or red plaster. It contains three long, narrow rooms, side by side, which can be accessed from a larger room, positioned transversally. There are some altars of various types—bench, tiered, block—and ritual objects: fine ceramics, a goblet, and a large stone basin, among others. In one of the three rooms, the central one, there is also an idol leaning against the rear wall. The simulacrum is made of wood, stucco, and clay, is anthropomorphic and as tall as a man, and is clad in elaborate dress. A structure with a square layout (34 × 30 m), with a raised floor, is located in Nirou Chani, a site on the north coast in the environs of Kokkini Chani, near Amnisos and the tiny islet of Agioi Theodoroi. It contains 40 rooms, among which are private rooms, a ceremonial hall, storerooms, corridors, courtyards, and a probable sanctuary, which has depictions of sacred knots on the walls, horns of consecration, and a tripartite altar. On the west side of the building, a large paved courtyard provides a meeting place. Among the artifacts in use by the local inhabitants are dozens of small clay altars, large stone lamps, and ritual double axes in laminated bronze. Given the profusion of religious objects and symbols contained in the building, it is reasonable to assume that this is a temple, perhaps a temple frequented by the sailors who land in nearby Agioi Theodoroi, which is 400 m off the coast and is a safe landing point, with two small dry docks cut into the rock, a long pier, and warehouses.3

2   Myrtos is the only place where a Minoan shrine has been found in conjunction with a city. The skull of a young adult was found there. Perhaps we are faced with evidence of an ancestor cult, or of a human sacrifice. P. Warren, Myrtos: An Early Bronze Age Settlement in Crete (London: Thames & Hudson, 1972), 83. 3   Alternatively, it has been suggested to be a production center for votive objects to be exported and the residence of a high-ranking member of the clergy; a semi-public building whose ritual objects are used in ceremonies that take place in its eastern courtyard; and a place where male initiates from every city eat communal meals and stay overnight.

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Sacred caves The Minoans use large natural caves to perform religious rites and initiations, when they have already been used for burials since time immemorial. See, for example, the sacred caves of Psychro, Skotino (near Knossos), Trapeza (on the plateau of Lassithi), and Kamares (on Mount Ida), as well as those of Pyrgos, Eileithyia near Amnisos, Arkalochori, and the Idaion Antron (on Mount Ida), in addition to the caves of Kera Spiliotisa, Mameloukou Trypa, and Lera, close to Chania. It may be a simple cavity or a labyrinthine cavern. In the latter case, there are winding tunnels, side rooms, rock formations, stalactites, stalagmites, springs of water—and an air of mystery. Given a vivid imagination, or the influence of alcohol, drugs, or religious fervor, such rock formations could appear as animals, human beings, monsters, demons, or gods. Outside the cave, in front of the entrance, there may be a service building and/or a flat, demarcated area with one or more altars and wells, where devotional practices linked to those of the cave take place: sacrifices, cremations, dances, and feasts. The site could be the home of a generic cult or the cult of a particular divinity. In either case, it is a carefully chosen site due to the supernatural allure it exerts. There, devotees bring agricultural products in earthenware jars, such as grain; sacrifice livestock and wild beasts (oxen, goats, sheep, deer, pigs, wild boars); and leave exvotos and other objects as offerings. The ex-votos are figurines, ceremonial weapons, decorated helmets and shields, and jewels. The figurines are of terracotta, bronze, or gold, and they depict a double axe, a column, a human with an elongated neck, or a galloping winged animal. One of the most important sacred caves in Minoan religion is the Idaion Antron on Mount Ida (2,456 m), in the central part of the island. The Greeks will acknowledge it as the birthplace of Zeus. According to Greek mythology, Zeus is the son of Rhea— the daughter of Uranus (the sky god) and Gaia (the earth goddess)—and the latter’s brother, Cronus, the Titan of fertility, time, and agriculture, second lord of the world. Rhea gives birth to him on Crete, in a cave on Mount Aegaeon, near Lyctus,4 before hiding him in a cave in the Dikti Mountains (Diktaion Antron, the Dikteon Cave) to save him from the murderous fury of his father, who killed and ate all his other children. Zeus will be raised in secret in the Diktaion Antron.5 Another important sacred cave is the one at Skotino. It can be found at the base of a sinkhole that descends into a plateau and is accessible via a narrow passage that leads to a sequence of four rooms that extend 160 m underground. The first room, naturally lit, is 96 m long, 36 m wide, and 50 m high, and features an impressive formation of stalactites in the center. It is a place that gives an impression of mystery and solemnity. A room 24 m long and much lower than the first follows, illuminated   Hesiod, Theogony, 133–153.   The Idaion Antron, together with the sanctuary of Dodona in Epirus, was one of the most important centers of the cult of Zeus. The ancients, however, placed the Dikti Mountains elsewhere, in the eastern part of the island, near the city of Pressos. 4 5

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by a dim natural light. The third room, lower still than the second and covered with shadows, branches off into various tunnels, one of which leads to the fourth, circular room. The rites take place in the first two rooms, with the offering of sacrifices and the depositing of votive offerings, including figurines, and the use of small terracotta jars. Particular attention should be given to Psychro Cave.6 It can be found in the mountains in eastern Crete, above the Lasithi Plateau, at an altitude of 900 m. After being used for living purposes (Prepalatial Period), it is visited for the fulfillment of rites of initiation and worship (Middle Minoan IA–B). It seems to be linked to the cult of the Minoan equivalent of Zeus, the Greek god of the sky and thunder, the father of the Olympian gods, and the king of all the gods. Various high-quality artifacts were left there, such as bronze weapons and gold jewels, stone vases, seals, and Kamares Ware. Some of the ex-votos brought there by the faithful depict a scene of worship among trees. One, in particular, engraved on a bronze plate, is a snapshot of a man dancing around a conifer. The cave will remain in use beyond the Late Minoan IIIB (1330/15–1200/1190), indeed, until the Geometric Period. It is possible to identify a terrace (4/5 × 40 m) at the entrance, an upper room (around 25 × 20 m), and a lower room. The latter is 65 m underground, with a pool of water surrounded by fissures, stalactites, and stalagmites. Worshippers throw bronze figurines, rings, brooches, and seals into that pond. The sacred cave of Pyrgos is located near the Minoan port of Agioi Theodoroi and the “temple” of Nirou Chani.

Peak sanctuaries Mountain sanctuaries are small, isolated structures, adorned with colorful paintings and bas-reliefs, and preceded by tall pillars or, more simply, open spaces. In the former case, the façade is tripartite and surmounted by horns of consecration; the central section is higher than the lateral ones. The places of worship in question are located at a height between 200 and 1,100 m a.s.l., usually below a peak, in a windy, majestic, and wild place, on the edge of a precipice, and can be found close to one or more caves, among rocks, fissures and crevices, plants—Mediterranean scrub, vines, trees or shrubs, flowers, and herbs—woodland, or high-altitude pastures. They arise within an enclosure, together with various types of altars, ramps, and terraces, and perhaps statues and sacred images made of wood with clay feet and elaborate garments. Inside, there are sacrificial tables, ladles and stone oil lamps, zoomorphic pottery, other earthenware ceramics, and ritual double axes. Usually, the boundary encloses an area of less than 600 m2. The sanctuaries differ in plan and size, but in everything else (location, enclosure, architecture, altars, votive offerings), they are 6   It is commonly believed that Psychro Cave is the Dikteon Antron (the Dikteon Cave), consecrated to Zeus, where Dikti is the ancient name for a Cretan mountain range, which has been identified in Lassithi. The ancient Greeks, however, placed the Dikti elsewhere, in the eastern part of the island, near the city of Pressos.

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the same. People go there to venerate, pray to, and ingratiate themselves with the celestial divinities, who are believed to dwell on the mountaintops, and eat collective ritual meals together. Indeed, it is thought that one can see the face of a god in a mountain. This is the case with Mount Juktas, which, seen from east or west, resembles the profile of a bearded face. According to tradition, the face of a sleeping or dead Zeus can be seen in it. The Greeks will claim that the god was buried there in a cave. The act of adoration unfolds individually, in a non-ritual form and in informal circumstances, particularly in the case of shepherds, or in a collective, formal manner with predetermined recurrence. Inside the enclosure, against the backdrop of the sanctuary’s façade, ceremonies, ritual dances, processions, and perhaps even theatrical representations of religious themes are held. Prayer includes the sacrifice of an animal, a ritual feast, dancing, and singing; the deposition on an altar of a votive offering in the form of agricultural products, contained in large and small jars; and the lighting of a fire and throwing an ex-voto into the flames. The ex-votos consist of tablets with inscriptions, clay or bronze figurines depicting humans or animals, and pellets of rock crystal or steatite. The anthropomorphic figures represent a worshipper with a demeanor of adoration. It may be a woman, dressed in a flared skirt, a bodice that leaves the breasts uncovered, her hair worn high and a hat, or a man in a loincloth. The person is almost always depicted on their feet, with their hands raised as a sign of supplication, or raised to the height of their collarbone, or brought in front of their eyes, clenched in a fist, as a sign of veneration or to protect themselves from the dazzling light of the divinity. The figurine is left there to represent the worshipper in prayer in the sanctuary when they have gone away. The animal figurines depict livestock, especially bulls, but also oxen, sheep, and rams, and serve to place one’s herds and flocks under the gods’ protection. Alternatively, they depict beetles, understood to be the messengers of the gods or tangible manifestations of the divine. Sometimes, peak sanctuaries are portrayed schematically in Minoan seals and drinking vessels (rhyton). Probably the most important peak sanctuary is the one on Mount Juktas (811 m), its long ridge dominating the coastal plain of Heraklion in the center-north of the island. It is located at the top, in a very panoramic place (with sweeping views across the bays of Heraklion), where the mountain plunges steeply down to one side, and it is connected to the Palace of Knossos, from where Mount Juktas is visible. It consists of a stone boundary wall, 740 m long, 3 m thick, and 4 m high; an imposing platform, under which some rooms have been dug out; and a stepped altar. The latter is near a cleft in the rock, in which the faithful place anatomical ex-votos (small fictile models of male limbs), clay statuettes depicting animals and humans (including pregnant women), stone horns, bronze votives (double axes), weapons (swords, daggers), gold jewels, seals, bowls and tablets with Linear A inscriptions, cultic vases, and truncated conical cups. In addition, a stone with a hundred circular hollows and a votive deposit, with dozens of small models of double axes, are located near the cleft. The stone with the hollows is similar to the kernoi of the Early Palaces, which are terracotta pots to which numerous bowls are

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attached, used for the presentation of offerings of aromatic plants, cereals, legumes, fruit cake, honey, oil, wine, milk, and raw sheep’s wool. Among the peak sanctuaries, worthy of note are those of Zominthos, along the road that leads from Knossos to the Idaion Antron, and the exemplars of Hagios Elias south of Malia, Maza in Pediada, Chamaizi7 in eastern Crete, and Petsofa in Piskokephalo. The first of these is a religious center as well as an economic one, as storerooms, workshops for working with wool and herbs and spices and for the production of ceramics, and metallurgical workshops, with furnaces for melting copper, have been found there. Another peak sanctuary is located atop Afendis Stavromenos (1,470 m a.s.l.), a small mountain range in the far east of Crete, which offers incredible views of the entirety of this part of the island: Ierapetra, Agios Nikolaos, and the Gulf of Mirabello. Yet another is located on Kato Symi, on a terrace on the southern slopes of Mount Dikte, at an altitude of 1,130 m a.s.l., close to a spring. Two buildings (U, V) have been found here: one with columns and a paved courtyard, and a complex of 22 rooms used for the storage of commodities, the preparation of food, and the lodging of people, which takes the place of the former building in the Middle Minoan II. One of the rooms is a stonecutter’s shop specializing in manufacturing stone vases for religious use. Here too, there are numerous votive offerings of the same type as those in the cave on Mount Juktas, except for the fictile figurines of pregnant women. A further peak sanctuary is found at Tylissos, at the top of Mount Pyrgos, almost 700 m a.s.l. Others are found at Karphi on the Lasithi Plateau and at Adsipades. The sanctuary of Petsofa in Palaikastro is also located in a scenic spot, near a precipice. It is a tripartite, two-story building. It contains large figurines of beetles, votive tablets with inscriptions, oil lamps, and bronze daggers. It is also possible to find a peak sanctuary outside of Crete, that of Kastri on Cythera. Built during the first half of the 2nd millennium, it flourishes between 1700 and 1400. It is a place of worship, but it also functions as an observatory.8 An altar, ritual objects (one of which bears an inscription in Linear A), numerous bronze figurines of animals and worshippers, jewels, and pottery can be found there. A sacred cave (Hagia Sofia, in the southeast of the island) and a peak sanctuary (atop the hill of Agios Georgios, above Avlemonas) can also be found on Cythera. Agios Georgios is the highest point on the island. You can enjoy a breathtaking view from its summit, which extends as far as Cape Malea and Mount Taygetos in the Peloponnese in one direction and Crete in the other. On a clear day, looking toward Crete, you can see the White Mountains and the backcountry of Mount Psiloritis. By lighting a fire, you can even send optical messages to the Peloponnese and Crete. 7   The site is located on the top of a hill among the mountains southwest of Sitia, near the modern village of Chamaizi. The remains of an oval-shaped structure can be found there, which enclosed 10 rooms and was built in the Middle Minoan IA, surviving into the Middle Minoan IB. It is uncertain whether it really is a peak sanctuary (as was originally believed, based on the discovery of an offering table and figurines) or a residential house that also includes a pottery workshop. 8   In 1992, the archaeologist Yannis Sakellarakis and his team unearthed an intact altar, pottery, lithic artifacts, and copper figurines on Agios Georgios.

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The political use of places of worship The extra-urban sanctuaries, sacred caves, and peak sanctuaries are places of popular religiosity connected to the cults of fertility and reproduction, both agricultural and human. Furthermore, they are places where diseases are cured. This is evidenced by the ex-votos, understood both as the formulas affixed to objects offered in sanctuaries to thank the tutelary deity of the place, the recipient of the gift, for having heard a prayer, and as the object itself of the votive offering. We are referring in particular to the ex-votos that are connected to the sphere of health and therefore to the human body, which represent diseased body parts, medical instruments, orthopedic tools, etc., and to the painted tablets, which depict the event to which the favor received refers. Therefore, unlike palatine sanctuaries and other urban sanctuaries, which are used by the ruling élite and the entire urban community, extra-urban sanctuaries, sacred caves, and peak sanctuaries are instead places frequented by rural populations, made up in particular by farmers and shepherds, for whom the same places of worship provide both a religious and political frame of reference. They are strategically located on major routes and each receive offers from more than one village community. We are referring here to small, independent communities, based on tribes or clans, such as those that live scattered throughout Lasithi and in the district of Palaikastro. The extra-urban places of worship in question have existed since an era prior to the construction of the Palaces. In the Middle Minoan IA, sacred caves gradually fade away in the face of an increase in peak sanctuaries in general and of certain peak sanctuaries in particular (in the central region of the island, however, there are few peak sanctuaries, and caves located at high altitudes are instead used as places of worship). The reasons for this are not clear. Perhaps natural disasters have forced cult activities to be transferred to mountain peaks instead of underground. Moreover, in the Middle Minoan IB–IIA, all extra-urban places of worship are drawn into the sphere of influence of the Palaces. At the moment, there are around 30 extra-urban places of worship. In the Middle Minoan III (1750/00–1700/1675), they decrease in number because the political powers have seized control of the extra-urban places of worship and prefer to valorize some and abandon others. Extra-urban places of worship are attracted to the sphere of influence of the Palaces because the countryside and the mountain regions are the places where agricultural and pastoral resources are exploited; this activity is the primary source for the foodstuffs and manpower of the Palaces; the king and other members of the ruling élite want to control its populations. The control of the Palaces over the rural populations is exercised through the local priests because they are connected to the same élite and to the officials of the central administration, whether because they belong to the same family or clan, and they also make use of writing. The enhancement of certain extra-urban places of worship takes place through their monumentalization and the attribution to them of an important role with

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respect to the state’s territory (that of marking political borders in the central and eastern parts of the island) and the management of political and economic power. The following thus become the most significant extra-urban places of worship: the sanctuary of Kophinas and the cave of Kamares, both in the territory of Phaistos; the sanctuary of Mount Juktas, the cave of Pyrgos, the Idaion Antron, and the sites of worship of Gonies and Keria, all in the territory of Knossos; and the sanctuary of Profitis Elias, the cave of Psychro, and the cult complexes of Lasithi, all in the territory of Malia. From time to time, the sovereign visits these sanctuaries, presenting himself to the faithful as the intermediary between the celestial divinity and the subjects of the state in a context that justifies and legitimizes his power in an ideological key. On such occasions, he dedicates to the tutelary deity of the place one or more artifacts of great value, such as seals, artistic objects and personal ornaments of precious metal, or bronze ceremonial weapons.

Human sacrifices and ritual cannibalism The violence of which the Minoans are capable does not only find an outlet on occasions of war. In fact, they have a dark side, which consists of offering human victims to the gods as sacrifices, and perhaps even of practicing ritual cannibalism. The practice of human sacrifice is attested in Crete in the case of Anemospilia, which we will recount in the next chapter. There may have been similar behaviors as early as the Early Minoan II. Indeed, a human skull was found near a tripartite structure with a central hearth in Fournou Korifi. In addition, 10 children were apparently slaughtered alongside a goat, cut into pieces with a butcher’s knife, and eaten in the Little Palace of Knossos, around 100 m from the Bull’s Head Sanctuary.9 It is worth dwelling on this discovery. In the collapsed layers of a structure near the Palace of Knossos was found a basement room containing many human bones belonging to young individuals mixed with animal bones (cattle, sheep, pigs, and dogs). Some were contained in storage jars along with snail shells and other edible mollusks. A number of them bore traces of cuts, far from the joints, and the marks left by the blade on the surface seem to indicate a process of carving the flesh away. These findings are said to document the sacrifice of children, and the mixture of human and animal remains leads one to consider that these are the remains from a feast. Further clues that support the hypothesis that the Minoans practiced ritual cannibalism are represented by tablet Gg 713 from the archives of the Palace of Knossos, in which it is recorded that a female servant was offered to the god Marineus, and by a find in a deposit from about 1280 (Late Minoan IIIB) in Kydonia (Chania). We refer here to the skull of a girl found in a small area enclosed by rocks in the internal courtyard of the Palace, beneath some cracks in the floor, together with walnuts and the bones of two goats and a pig.   These finds were discovered in 1979 by Peter Warren, Professor of Ancient History and Classical Archaeology at the University of Bristol, and were examined by the osteologist Lewis Binford.

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Chapter 6 The transition to the Neopalatial Period

A seismic crisis, famine, and social revolts New, violent earthquakes hit Crete between 1700 and 1675 (transition from the Middle Minoan IIIB to the Late Minoan IA), ending a period of great artistic and economic prosperity. Throughout the island, the ground sways and shudders, splitting apart, there are landslides, buildings are ruined, the braziers, hearths, and lamps overturning and scattering the fire and the embers, sparking great conflagrations. Malia, Priniatikos Pyrgos, Gournia, and Galatas burn. In Knossos, things are collapsing and tumbling everywhere. The southwest corner of the Phaistos Palace crumbles and drags the entire façade with it. The floors of this building crash into the levels below, then the walls are calcined by the fire, and the ruin is total; there will be nothing left but piles of rubble, charred wood, and ash. The tremors violently shake the Palaces of Monastiraki and Apodoulou. The Monastiraki Palace collapses, and what little of it remains will be consumed by fire. The nodules of fresh clay, only just engraved with inscriptions, which had been left to dry in the archive room, are baked due to the heat. In Mochlos, the tremor not only destroys the inhabited settlement but also profoundly alters the shape of the place. The end of the peninsula is separated from its base and becomes an islet, 180 m off the coast. The archive of the Palace of Petras, due to the subsidence of the flooring, disappears beneath it. This catastrophic event does not unfold in one or two major tremors and in the subsequent earthquake swarm. The earth trembles for a long time, intermittently, exhausting the populations, whose mental stress is renewed with each vibration. In a situation like this, it is easy to imagine the psychological consequences. Those who live through it end up considering what happens to be a manifestation of divine anger. Therefore, they search for someone to blame, or people to blame, and perform rites intended to secure their liberation from the evil and purify the guilt through divine intervention. Some men and women are offered as sacrifices to Potidas, the god of earthquakes, to beg him to save their lives and allow them to return to normality. One of the scapegoats is a young boy. The following scene takes place in the rural sanctuary of Anemospilia and is a drama within a drama. There are two men, a woman, and a 17-year-old boy in the

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sanctuary. One of the men, the woman, and the boy are in a side room, and the other man has just left it to go into another room. One of the men is on his feet in the center of the room. He is a tall and robust 30-year-old, certainly an important figure, probably a priest. This can be seen from the fact that he wears an agate seal on his wrist that bears an engraving of a boat being operated by a man. In addition, he wears a ring of iron and silver on his little finger (in the Bronze Age, silver is more valuable than gold, while iron is a rare and highly sought-after metal, it too being very precious). The woman is standing next to the man. She is 28 years old, perhaps a priestess. The boy is lying on his side on a block altar about 1 m long in the center of the room. His legs are bent, his ankles are tied, and his wrists are tied behind his back.1 He is no longer breathing, his eyes rolled back in his head. His carotid artery has just been cut with a long bronze blade, which has an engraving of a boar’s head, and, after being used, was placed on top of the inanimate body. It must have been the supposed priest who slit the boy’s throat. The second adult male—probably an attendant—has collected the blood that flowed from the victim’s lacerated throat in a precious four-handled amphora, decorated with a painted bull, and is carrying it into the next room, where it will be placed at the feet of an idol, when the scene, horrifying in itself, turns into an otherworldly nightmare. Suddenly, an earthquake violently shakes the building, while carried on the air is a deep and dull sound, which sounds like a rumble of thunder but is coming from underground. While the building groans frighteningly, the two men and the woman are stunned, paralyzed by fear. Finally, the building collapses, the roof and the walls tumbling to the ground with a crash, creating a huge dust cloud. The two men and the woman are crushed and killed by the falling debris. The man with the ring is hit by a truss from the roof, which flattens him, pressing his back against the floor, next to the altar. The woman snuffs it near to the “priest.” The second man has dropped the amphora and is trying to reach the exit when he too is knocked down. The amphora smashes into pieces, spilling the blood across the floor. The sanctuary will not be rebuilt, and the bodies will remain entombed under the rubble. When the stables and sheep pens collapsed, many animals were killed, and the subsequent fires burned the crops. There is suddenly a severe lack of food. In the eastern region of Crete, the famine leads to anger, which explodes. The lower classes are in turmoil. Riots break out. Some individuals or groups take advantage of the confusion to commit criminal acts. The ruling élite respond with repression. The internal strife within the system unleashed by the famine may explain the significant destruction in the eastern region of Crete not attributable to the earthquakes and fires. The process of getting things in good shape again is gradual, but will bring back normal or decent living conditions. A new phase of activity begins in relation to   The painted decoration of the Agia Triada Sarcophagus depicts a bull on an altar, tied up and ready to be sacrificed in a similar position to the young boy at Anemospilia. This would support the hypothesis that the latter was ritually sacrificed. 1

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politics, economics, administration, spirituality, and art, which takes place within a context of substantial continuity with respect to the past.2 We refer here to the Neopalatial Period (in terms of absolute chronology: 1700/1675–1450; in terms of relative chronology: Late Minoan IA–IB). This will be no less extraordinary than the Protopalatial Period. Indeed, it will represent the peak of the trajectory of the Minoan civilization.

A new beginning After the forced stop, therefore, the Minoans start again with renewed enthusiasm and vigor. The tears to the building fabric of the large and small centers are stitched back up. Not everything will go back to the way it was before, however. The Palace of Monastiraki and the Palace of Apodoulou have not been rebuilt. Their ruins will remain abandoned and deserted.3 In the Protopalatial Period, Malia extended as far as the sea, with various residential districts. The city is occupied again in the Neopalatial Period, but only in part. The new Palace rises on the leveled ruins of the old ones. Some structures from the old Palace complex have remained in use: the Hypostyle Crypt, the Quartier Mu, and the Bâtiment Dessenne. The Bâtiment Dessenne is a warehouse crammed with storage vases, situated along one of the paved streets southwest of the Palace. The Palaces of Galatas and Kato Zakros are also brought back to life through complex restoration, reconstruction, and renovation processes. The former was devastated by fire. Its old buildings are repaired or rebuilt, and a southern wing is added. The reconstruction brings about a series of changes to the original layout of the building, which will render the latter less significant. The city of Kydonia (Chania) stands on a low hill by the sea atop a rocky and steep coastline. It was formed in the Prepalatial Period—specifically, in the Early Minoan II and III, the Middle Minoan IA, and thereafter—and contains some good quality architectural structures. The earthquake caused extensive destruction there. The reconstruction consists of the creation of blocks separated by narrow internal streets and squares and a complex of multi-story buildings, crowned by horns of consecration, the architecture of which features numerous elements typical of the Palaces. In Mochlos, two artisan neighborhoods arise outside the city in the Late Minoan IB: bronze (using Cypriot copper), ivory, and stone are worked in one, and the other produces pottery. Not far from the city, in Chalinomouri (at the eastern end of the plain of Mochlos), there is a farm in the Late Minoan IB. The important port of Mochlos is now sheltered from the fury of the sea when it is rough, thanks to the protective bulwark provided by the islet opposite.   L. Godart, Da Minosse a Omero. Genesi della prima civiltà europea (Turin: Einaudi, 2020), 139.   The former will remain so until the Late Minoan IIIC (1200/1190–1075/50), when it will be occupied once more, albeit only in part, and the latter until a later point in the Late Minoan. This is evidenced by the fact that a corbel-vaulted tomb will be built 400 m to the north of it. 2 3

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Palaikastro, after the earthquake at the end of the Middle Minoan IIIB, occupies an area of 600 × 600 m and is a medium-high-level city, in some respects much richer than Gournia. Its prosperity is based on the agricultural exploitation of the surrounding fertile plain. A central street crosses the entire urban area, crossed by larger or smaller streets, all paved (some with steps). All the houses overlooking the main street have impressive façades. There are dwellings, sanctuaries, storerooms, an elaborate drainage system for rainwater, and cemeteries with well-built ossuaries. The houses are grouped into nine blocks. Some blocks are larger and more elaborate than the others, since they feature a construction technique of the palatial type and some lustral basins, or original spaces with a central basin akin to an impluvium. These are probably the homes of members of the élite. Block B comprises no fewer than six houses, the smallest of which is made up of three rooms, while the largest contains 22 rooms, its walls made of large stone blocks and mud brick partitions. A building at the northern end of the urban area may be a temple because a statuette of the “young god” has been found there. The body of the human represented is made of ivory, the upper part of the head is in serpentine, with finely etched hair, and the eyes are in rock crystal. Some major projects were carried out in the Late Minoan IA and II, such as the construction of two large dam systems, one in Choiromandres, near Zakros, and the other on Psira, and a new site is occupied at Makriyialos. The best and most striking aspects of the recovery are reflected in some new and grandiose architectural models and equipment that determine the central power and in the ideological and symbolic tools of self-representation of the ruling élites, which are modeled on those of the central authority and serve to mark their social inequality within a broader perspective of their growing detachment form the base of the dominated. The chief of these instruments is the Palace.

The Second Palaces The Second Palaces, like the First, rise at the summits of the urban area, and therefore in the center of the city, and each occupies an area of thousands or tens of thousands of square meters. All of them typically consist of four wings arranged around a large central courtyard. The wings have a flat, terraced roof and are topped with horns of consecration. Hundreds of rooms are distributed around the floors of the complex, of which there are two or three. There are apartments, ceremonial halls, dining rooms for large banquets, shrines and sanctuaries, kitchens, storerooms, archives, service rooms, studios, workshops, and stables. There are internal stairs, arcades, and entrances on all sides, up to six. In addition, there are terraces, verandas, balconies, monumental entrances, atriums, corridors, lightwells, landings on each floor, sanitary facilities, and connections to sewer pipes. Some rooms are richly decorated with carved stone friezes, frescoes, and bas-reliefs of painted stucco, all of a delicate, elegant, and refined taste and with vivid, bright colors.

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The internal courtyard is the soul of every Palace, a heart beating with life. It is large and rectangular in shape. It is oriented in a north–south direction, perhaps for climatic reasons, or perhaps due to religiously inspired astronomy, and it is a place where assemblies and ceremonies take place. Usually, the external façades of the Palaces have an irregular pattern, all protrusions and recesses, like the Sumerian temples, the Egyptian mastabas, or the boundary wall of the pyramid complexes. The western external façade is monumental. It is here that the main entrance to the complex can be found, preceded by a staircase of greater or lesser length and impressiveness. The same façade overlooks a large paved courtyard, which connects the Palace to the city and is crossed by paths or walkways. Perhaps the Lord of the Palace “appears” to the crowds gathered in the courtyard below from the windows of the upper floors, as happens in the great buildings in Egypt. The ateliers of the Palace transform various raw materials, including precious ones, and they work semifinished products to obtain finished products, which can be of considerable value. The numerous storerooms are formed by sets of long, narrow rooms, providing a significant overall storage capacity. The Second Palaces differ from one another in size and location, but they do present some common characteristics. Among these are the rooms that are open on one side, the lightwells, the bathrooms or rooms of ritual purification (lustral basins), the doors being at a lower height than the adjoining rooms, the location of studios and sanctuaries on upper floors, and the location of ceremonial halls or audience halls, including the feasting hall. The Palace of Knossos is surrounded by a host of other large buildings: the Little Palace/Unexplored Mansion, the House of the High Priest, the House of the Chancel Screen, the South House, and the Southeast House. These are in part built ex novo and, in part, restored or reworked. When the works are completed, it will extend for 130 m east–west and 100 m north–south (13,000 m2), it will feature a new floor plan and more monumental architecture than the previous one, and it will be the largest and most magnificent Minoan Palace that has ever been seen or ever will be seen. Even in the Protopalatial Period, it was twice the size of the Palace of Phaistos, and, even then, like the Palace of Malia, it was at the center of a network of international relations that was vaster than that of the Palace of Phaistos. It consists of four building complexes, all on several floors, up to five, separate from one another and arranged around the internal courtyard, onto which various entrances open and which the rooms on the upper floors overlook. The wings enclose a thousand rooms, distributed over three floors to the west of the internal courtyard and over five floors to the east of it. The ground floor alone contains 200 rooms. The central courtyard is 50 m long and 30 m wide, and it is paved. It is considerably larger than any other of its kind. The western exterior façade of the Palace of Knossos is 60 m long. The West Porch is huge. The western storeroom contains more than 400 large supply jars, which have an overall cubic capacity of between 60,000 and 120,000 liters. Among the crafts practiced in the Palace, the main ones are the working of gems,

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the carving of ivory, the manufacturing of objects in glass paste, goldsmithing, the working of silver and bronze, the manufacture of stone vases, and the production of refined painted ceramics. The Palace of Phaistos, because it was so badly damaged that it could not be restored, had to be rebuilt ex novo, after having recovered anything precious that remained in the rubble and leaving the furnishing and earthenware where it was. The rubble was leveled and buried under a layer of poured cement, which was 1 m–1.5 m thick and very similar to concrete. The new Palace was built on this foundation, and particular attention was paid to rendering it, as far as possible, non-flammable and earthquake-proof. Therefore, the new complex is completely different to the previous ones, more solid than aesthetically pleasing. Its area is slightly smaller than the previous version and rests on solid foundations. It is capable of impressing anyone with its grandeur and scale. The complex rises on several floors, supported by a series of natural or artificial terraces. Its west wing offers a series of very elegant entrances and rooms. The ground floor of the building, on the wings, which surround it to the west and east, is decorated with porticos. On the north side, the façade is marked in the center by a gateway decorated with two semi-columns and shell-shaped niches. It is there that the residential rooms and audience halls are found, with small basement rooms, accessible via a short L-shaped staircase, furnished with a balustrade and generally adorned with pillars (lustral basins) and rooms with sequences of three or more adjacent doors on one or more sides (polythyra rooms). The best rooms have stone floors. There are many points where there are tanks for collecting rainwater. The internal courtyard is paved with blocks of tufa and is almost 50 m long by 25 m wide. The western external courtyard of the Palace of Phaistos is surrounded by wide steps, on which the people gather to watch ritual dances. A large staircase leads into the Palace through a monumental propylaeum with a central column. The storerooms on the west side of the Palace are crammed full of jars. The wings arranged around the central courtyard, the division into quarters, the system for the flow of people, and the presence of storerooms and megara make the Second Palace of Phaistos an extremely typical structure. As for the Palace of Malia, we must first consider the northern courtyards and the ceremonial rooms of the northwest sector and the west wing, which include an audience hall, with an adjoining lustral basin, as well as a loggia and the Main Hall, which overlook the central courtyard. There is also a sanctuary with an altar, some religious accouterments, and a series of well-refurbished storerooms. The exterior western façade is akin to that of Knossos. The reconstruction of the Palace of Kato Zakros seems to have been encouraged by the Palace of Knossos. The new Palace is smaller than the old one and has no external western courtyard. Instead, it has a northeastern square, near the main entrance. The central courtyard is surrounded by three wings. The eastern wing is larger than the others, as at Knossos. A magnificent processional entrance, preceded by some steps, provides access to the Palace. The building contains archive rooms with tablets in

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Linear A; warehouses for the storage of agricultural products; storage rooms and spaces for raw materials imported from abroad, including elephant tusks and bronze ingots; rooms for ceremonies and symposia; a spacious kitchen with fireplaces; some small sanctuaries; several lustral basins, which are adorned with frescoes depicting ceremonial symbols; and cisterns and wells. Its workshops produce precious stone vases, bronze vases, faience, jewels, and inlays made of rock crystal, faience, and ivory. The stone vases are of various typologies and use materials imported from Egypt, the island of Gyali (Dodecanese), the Cyclades Islands, the area around Sparta (Laconia, Peloponnese), etc. The Second Palace of Galatas consists of four wings, arranged around a large paved central courtyard, measuring 16 × 32 m. One of the frescoes decorating the Palace of Galatas depicts a rocky landscape. The upstairs rooms are used for ritual banquets. The east wing measures 70 × 60 m. It has replaced a large house from the Middle Minoan III that was destroyed in a fire. The most imposing façade of the Palace of Galatas is the one looking over the central courtyard, upon which five large windows on the ground floor and, probably, as many on the upper floor open. The windows on the ground floor allow air and light into three non-communicating rooms, accessible from a single room. Access to the upper floor is controlled from a room on the ground floor that gives access to two internal staircases. The floors are coated white. The steps are red in color. Some balconies overlook the city or the central courtyard, as the case may be. Perhaps they are used for official appearances. A room with four pillars, contained in the east wing, encloses a monumental hearth of 3 × 1.5 m and is adorned with a painted mural that depicts a landscape. Another room is used for cooking. Still another is a storage room. Banquets and social gatherings are held in a central hall, perhaps on the occasion of the celebration of purification rituals. Similar ceremonies probably take place in a room located at the north end of the west wing. A great deal of food and drink is also consumed in the houses near the Palace. The inhabitants of the Palace and the houses nearby are the most prominent people in the city. They probably control—directly or indirectly—a vast expanse of the countryside and large numbers of livestock. The administrative personnel live and work in the north wing. Some of the pottery used in the complex was made in Knossos or Phaistos. Some rooms in the Palace are used for grinding wheat into flour. This activity takes place on a larger scale than the satisfaction of internal needs. Some storerooms are added to the Palace of Petras during the first phase of the reconstruction. These are located north of the central courtyard and laid out on a north–south axis. In the Late Minoan IB, two more storage areas will be added, comprising a total area of 214 m2. Eventually, there will be so many pithoi that they will even be lined up in the courtyard. Evidently, the storage capacity of the complex exceeds local needs: this suggests the complex plays an administrative and redistributive role. The Palace of Kydonia occupies the hill and the surrounding plain. It consists of seven wings, arranged around a large courtyard. It is divided into four levels and is

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surrounded by a defensive enclosure. On an upper level of the central wing, there is a representation of a man holding a spear or a stock between horns of consecration. The Palace contains imprints of seals on cretulae and a large archive of clay tablets, discs, and nodules with text in Linear A, listing agricultural products, people, and animals. The complex will be destroyed by a fire in the first half of the 13th century. Two Palaces appear in the Middle Minoan III for the first time: one in Tourkoyeitonia (Archanes), and the other at Gaidourafos. The Palace of Tourkoyeitonia is the residence of the Lord of Archanes4 and is an important center connected by roads to Mount Juktas, Anemospilia, Xeri Kara, and Vathypetro. Used in its construction are ashlar blocks, blocks and slabs of limestone, plaster, wood, tiles for stucco floors, gypsum, slabs of kouskoura (a soft stone), mud bricks, blocks of ferrous stone, schist slabs, floors in blue marble, carved concave altars, wooden columns and pillars, frescoes, and numerous doors. There are altars, wooden columns and pillars, frescoed walls, a variety of oil lamps, vases, amphorae, pots, cups, lamps, tools and domestic objects for everyday use in porphyrite stone, like tweezers, and tablets inscribed with Linear A. Inside, there is a spring that was demarcated between the Middle Minoan IB and the Middle Minoan IIIA with a pebble floor and limestone walls. A large paved area, marked out by walkways that form a triangle, with two stepped altars, can be found in the Theater Area. The imposing building of Gaidourofas East stands in a mountain valley on the southern slopes of the Dikti (north of the village of Anatoli and around 11 km northeast of Ierapetra) at 900 m a.s.l., bordered to the south by the rocky peak of Stavromenos and, to the north, by a series of limestone peaks that reach almost 1,000 m a.s.l., in a landscape characterized by vineyards, pine forests, and sheepfolds. It can therefore be found close to the peak sanctuary of Stavromenos, which is itself in a position that allows both the northern part of Crete and the south of the island, toward the Libyan Sea, to be monitored. The building of Gaidourofas is an imposing two-story structure with a stone façade. It contains several rooms, a storeroom full of jars, and a crypt with pillars. It is an administrative and economic center aimed at exploiting the resources of a mountain environment, from which the locals obtain produce from livestock, honey, resin, and timber.

The villas One of the novelties of the Late Minoan IA is the appearance of the “villas,” structures with a complex plan, which can be considered as a smaller version of the Palaces, to which they are closely connected. In fact, they present all the structural elements and accouterments of the Palace, including the pillar crypts, the use of multiple passageways, the paved courtyards, and the ornamentation of the main rooms; they perform the same functions of accumulation, storage, redistribution, and production; 4

  Tourkoyeitonia is the place in the center of central Archanes where the Palace is found.

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and they utilize a system of cretulae, seals, and annotations on tablets for accounting purposes. Moreover, their architecture differs according to whether the villa in question is built in an urban center or in the countryside. The architecture of the urban villas is quite systematic and standardized. That of the rural villas, on the other hand, presents a more diversified and less uniform typology. Some villas appear in Knosssos and Malia. The former are positioned around the Palace, on the slopes of the hill of Kephala and in its environs. These are the Little Palace, the Unexplored Mansion, the House of the Balustrade, the House of the Frescoes, and the Royal Villa. The latter is a separate building from the Palace, situated a short distance away, and is perhaps an annex of the same. Other villas appear in Agia Triada, Tylissos, Myrtos Pyrgos, Vathypetro, Amnisos, Nirou Chani, Nerokourou (near Chania), Slavokampos (near Tylissos), Kannia in Messara, Achladia, and Makriyialos in western Crete. Agia Triada is a site located 3 km from Phaistos, at the foot of a low hill, near the banks of the Ieropotamos. The place was sparsely occupied in the Neolithic and Protopalatial Periods. Between the Middle Minoan IIIB and the Late Minoan IA (17th century), a structure with a complex layout was built there, connected to the Palace of Phaistos by a paved road. This is the so-called Royal Villa, which has been suggested to be not a single villa but a set of two villas (A and B), where B is an annex of A. It has an irregular L-shape plan, articulated to the north and west by a large courtyard. There is a propylaeum that opens onto a monumental façade with a fragmented, “toothed” pattern and square block masonry, and it has a short staircase leading up to it. There is an elevated floor, which is divided into four parts, intended for storage, living quarters, and religious practice. The apartments are decorated with coatings of alabaster, tile floors, and frescoes depicting women, lilies, crocuses, and hunting scenes. In some walls, there are doors interspersed with pillars with a stone base, shaped as a simple or a double T (polythyron). There are also peristyle courtyards, atriums, and small frescoed rooms, perhaps even shops and workshops, where valuable raw materials, such as copper, are worked and transformed to obtain ingots. There is also a substantial archive of Linear A tablets, cretulae with one or two seal impressions, and discs. Some vases or other objects in use bear inscriptions. Among the artifacts in use at the villa are stone vases, copper ingots, bronze figurines, and numerous daggers, spears, and javelins, which suggest the presence of a unit of armed guards. The villa at Amnisos is located in a small valley a short distance from a 2 km long sandy beach and the mouth of the Katsambas, near a Late Minoan tomb and the sacred cave of Eileithyia. The first building phase ended at the end of the Middle Minoan IIIB (first quarter of the 17th century), perhaps due to an earthquake. The second building phase is not as impressive as the previous one. It has two floors and is oriented in a north–south direction. It has an almost square floor plan of 20 × 20 m (an area of 400 m2). It is built with excellent masonry, with square blocks in the most important parts (the stonework bears numerous markings that were engraved by the masons: a trident, a star, an arrow, a cross). It contains 10 rooms on the ground floor and more on the upper floor (access to which is provided via internal stairs).

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On the first floor, an audience hall has two pillars in the center and is frescoed on two walls. The building also contains a paved courtyard, a room with polythrya, a kitchen, a sanctuary, a bathroom, and a lustral basin. It owes its name—the House of the Lilies—to the fact that there is a 1.8 m high fresco depicting lilies, an iris, a mint plant, and a papyrus plant growing in a vase. Some lilies are painted in white and blue on a red background, while other lilies and irises are painted in red and green on a white background. There are three villas at Tylissos. They are located side by side among the olive trees and vineyards of Malevyzion, west of Knossos. There is a rural villa at Zominthos on Mount Ida. It replaced the preexisting Palace (it stands on the same site) and is as big as the latter used to be, and as such it extends across the entire hill. A courtyard of 78 m2 has been discovered in the easternmost part of the site. A large building, approximately 50 × 37 m, can be found in Gournia. Its western façade is covered with square stone blocks. There is no real western courtyard, but what little there is is carefully paved. The inner courtyard is small, similar to an atrium. An open courtyard, approximately 40 × 15 m, precedes the main entrance, which is located on the south side of the structure and is preceded by two series of four steps, arranged at right angles to each other. Next to the entrance is a pillared portico, intended for ceremonial use. In this part of the building, the roof is surmounted by horns of consecration. Some private houses overlook the external courtyard.

The monumentalization of cult sites The monumentalization of certain extra-urban sites of worship continue after the earthquake. Of these, the activities at the peak sanctuaries of Kato Symi and Mount Juktas are worthy of note. The former becomes a complex consisting of three elements: a rectangular structure of around 12 × 7 m, placed at the center of a rectangular area of approximately 530 m2; a processional road, paved and 2 m wide, that leads into this area; and a massive surrounding wall. The peak sanctuary of Mount Juktas also becomes an imposing structure, laid out over several terraces, connected by a flight of stairs that leads to the highest terrace. Below, in the area of the stepped altar and the crevice in the rock, there are some rooms that have benches against the walls, at least one of which is decorated with frescoes. A priest’s house rises to the north of the complex. Among the other works to monumentalize the extra-urban places of worship that are carried out in the Neopalatial Period, we should also note those regarding the peak sanctuary of Petsofas, south of Palaikastro, and some sacred caves (Kamares, Psychro, Eileithyia, Trapeza, and Idaion Antron).

Chapter 7 Neopalatial Crete

Artisan products and the arts The spirit that animates the Neopalatial Period is optimistic and open to the new. This is reflected in its artistic craftsmanship, particularly as far as painted ceramics, glyptics (seals), sculptures, stone vases, painted stuccos, and frescoes are concerned. Ceramics With regard to the production of pottery, the principal novelty of this period is the appearance of a new style, the so-called Marine Style, or even Gournian Style, because it is widespread in the area around Gournia (northeastern Crete). Appearing in the Late Minoan IA, this style will persist throughout the Late Minoan IB. Unlike Kamares Ware, which is strongly geometric, this favors subjects of a naturalistic type, painted with a dark color on a light background. At first, floral decorations prevail. Later, the depiction of creatures of the marine world, such as mollusks, fish, octopuses, and dolphins, takes over. Among the artifacts belonging to this style, there is a pitcher decorated with the depiction of an octopus among underwater plants, probably algae. Marine Style, like Kamares Ware, which preceded it, gives a measure of the manual skill and technical and creative ability of the artisans, as well as the aesthetic sensitivity and refined taste of the customers, and it represents the high point of Minoan ceramic art. Seals In the Neopalatial Period, seals become very sophisticated objects, partly because they are obtained through the use of new tools. There are many specimens in gold, silver, or semiprecious stones, and while some are engraved with motifs that mimic the textures of weavers or basket makers, others have animals, humans, and plants, sometimes hybrid beings, or everyday scenes, images of daily life, or religious iconography. One exemplar, commonly known as the Isopata ring, accompanies a deceased person buried in a tomb near the Palace of Knossos. This is a gold ring engraved with an epiphany of the Great Mother, which takes place as part of a shamanistic ritual, where dancing, music, and hallucinogenic substances lead to a state of ecstasy, allowing visions of

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the divine. The scene depicted is one of three women dressed festively in long skirts, though their breasts are bare, dancing among flowers, with their arms raised free and light, while another woman, also extravagantly dressed, hovers in the air. Perhaps the dancers are priestesses of the Great Mother, while the fourth woman is the Great Mother herself. Around these figures are a bull, snakes, an eye, an ear of corn, and an oval surrounded by droplets, all symbols of a Nature that moves according to the celestial cycle. The eye denotes the sun, the snakes and the bull are sacred animals, and the droplets represent the Hyades, the rainmakers. The Great Mother, we recall, is a divinity that encompasses all the others in herself as an expression of the fertility of the earth and of all living beings, as well as of the sky, which governs the eternal cycle of the seasons from above. Sculptures and stone vases Minoan sculpture is represented almost exclusively by statuettes of divinities (Snake Goddess), in majolica, and by statuettes of worshippers, with one arm hanging down by the body and the other raised to the forehead, in bronze or clay. A single statuette, this in ivory, depicts an acrobat at the moment in which he vaults over a bull. Larger terracotta statues depict standing women, perhaps priestesses, dressed in multiple skirts, a wide belt, and bare breasts, in the Minoan fashion. Some wear necklaces or garlands. One is made of ivory, gold, and stone and represents a man, portrayed standing, with a loincloth and a dagger.1 The stone vases of the Neopalatial Period are partly prestige goods, partly vases for ritual use. Some are carved in relief, such as those in the form of a rhyton. One exemplar, in limestone and gold, is a rhyton in the shape of a bull’s head. One of the production centers of these artifacts can be found at Agia Triada, and another is at Kato Zakros. Some are exported to Mycenae. Painted stuccos and frescoes A fresco is a type of decoration that consists of an ornamental design painted on the plaster that covers an internal wall of a building. The Minoan technique of rendering this type of interior decoration takes inspiration from the monumental artistic traditions of Egypt and the Near East, from seal engravings, and from vase decoration, referring to both Minoan and Cycladic pottery. It is established in Crete in the Middle Minoan III, therefore, toward the end of the Protopalatial Period, becoming more widespread in the Late Minoan, from the Neopalatial Period onward, especially between 1550 and 1450. Unlike what happens in Egypt, where the colors are applied directly on the dry limestone or gypsum plaster, in Crete, and more generally wherever Minoan-style frescoes are made, the pigments are   We refer here to finds from the sanctuary of Agia Irini in Kea and a Late Minoan IB building at Palaikastro. Fragments of other statues, one of which is of a worshipper, have been found at Knossos in the ivory deposit at the Palace and in a workshop on the Royal Road. 1

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applied directly on the plaster while it is still damp. Sometimes, when it has dried, the artist overpaints it and adds some details. A mixture of lime, or a little egg white, is used to get the colors to adhere properly to the plaster. The colors used are black, white, red, ocher yellow, and blue. Blue is obtained from the powder of lapis lazuli. The style is naturalistic, characterized by the reproduction of vivid and impressionistic forms, and reflects the remarkable ability of the artist to adapt the painting to the area to be decorated. The depicted scenes may have sacred or secular content. In the former case, they reproduce processions, court ceremonies, and religious festivals. In the latter, they reproduce scenes drawn from nature (rural or marine landscapes, flowers, rocks, and animals, some of which are fantastic, such as the griffin) or from the activities and entertainments of human life (festivals, masquerades, dances, bull leaping). The women depicted look elegant, well dressed, and bejeweled. In many cases, the frescoes are delimited at the top and bottom by bands with geometric motifs. Therefore, the interior walls of Minoan buildings may have been decorated with frescoes even before 1700, and especially so after this date. There is evidence of this in the palaces of Knossos, Phaistos, Malia, Kato Zakros, Galatas, Archanes, and Kydonia; in the villas of Agia Triada, Tylissos, and Amnisos; and at Epano Zakros, Kommos, Palaikastro, and Psira. Outside Crete, there are frescoes in the Minoan style at Therassos (Santorini), Phylakopi (Milos), Agia Irini (Kea), and Trianda (Rhodes). Two frescoes at the Palace of Knossos depict a group or a crowd of people. These are those of the Grandstand and the Sacred Grove. These works adorn the walls of the corner room where the North Entrance Passage meets the Central Court, while spiral reliefs, both painted and in stucco, decorate the ceiling of the same room. The Grandstand Fresco depicts groups of well-dressed women seated prominently on either side of a tripartite sanctuary and surrounded by crowds of people. The Sacred Grove Fresco depicts a crowd of people (only the heads are shown) gathered around a grove of olive trees, in which—similarly to the Isopata signet ring—there is an epiphany of a goddess. Groups of young men, distinctively clad in necklaces and short kilts, traverse the walkways, while in the foreground, groups of young women, undoubtedly priestesses, appear to be fixated on something happening out of frame. In Minoan Crete, walls can also be decorated—in addition to frescoes—by using the technique of painted stucco, an intermediate art form between painting and relief sculpture. An example of this is the Prince of the Lilies in the Palace of Knossos, attributable to the Middle Minoan IIIA. Therefore, the inhabitants of the Minoan Palaces move around in spacious, aesthetically pleasing rooms, decorated with stuccos painted in ocher, blue, and white and polychrome frescoes. This principally applies to the rooms on the main floor and the audience halls. Some rooms are immersed in an atmosphere of austerity, while others have a grand, ornate style.

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Political developments The general state of affairs of the Minoan civilization, in the Neopalatial Period, evolved into one of greater affluence and more consolidated external relations, all the while remaining in the wake of tradition (all the great innovations of the previous period in the fields of technology, politics, economics, and administration continue to be applied). What is most striking is the homogeneity. From the very beginning, administrative procedures have the same characteristics everywhere: the same form of writing, the same formulas, the same annotations, the same registration criteria, the same archiving system. In addition, the same gods are worshipped throughout the island, with the same rituals and the same libation tables. The ceramics produced in Knossos, Phaistos, Malia, and Kato Zakros have the same forms and the same decoration. Architects and artisans use the same techniques. The palaces and the villas all conform to the same patterns. Everywhere, the practice of the banquet is understood as an ideological instrument of the affirmation and celebration of the ruling élite and plays a central role in the ceremonies promoted by the local authority. There are two possible explanations for this: either there is a center of power that is capable of influencing and making all the others contingent upon it, or the island is still divided into various states, as it was in the past, but these no longer compete with each other and are instead linked by a certain degree of interdependence. In the former case, we would no longer be dealing with city-states but with a territorial state. In the latter case, we would be faced with a confederation, if not an empire, framed by a strong central government. A territorial state is characterized by contiguous lands, which are very vast, and by a unitary organization. The settlement hierarchy has the state capital at the top. The cities perform mainly political and administrative functions and are inhabited almost exclusively by the ruling elite, artisans, and specialists, among whom are bureaucrats, holders of knowledge, and those who oversee ritual practices. The peasants mostly live outside the city, on isolated farms or in villages. They are more attached to traditions than those who live in the cities, they are less technologically advanced, and they practice less intensive agriculture than in the city-state. Therefore, the economy develops on two levels, the urban and the extraurban/rural, which are separate from each other, except for the ties represented by the payment of taxes, the obligation of peasants to provide corvée labor, and the trade they provide to feed the lower class. The artisans are supported by the Lord of the Palace and produce prestigious goods both for him and for the rest of the ruling élite, using the raw materials that they entrust to them for transformation into finished products. The ruling élite bases itself on the control of surpluses and labor, is able to undertake large-scale projects, and uses a bureaucratic apparatus, especially for the collection of taxes.

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The primacy of the Palace of Knossos Maritime trade no longer takes place only on the route from the southern Levant to Egypt that passes through Kommos in Crete but also on other routes. One of these is the one that runs from Anatolia to Attica, passing through Samos, Nicaria, Mykonos, Tinos, and Kea. Another is the one that starts in Anatolia and reaches the Argolid via the Cyclades. Yet another is the one that connects Anatolia to Laconia, passing through Rhodes, Carpathos, and Casos, the ports on the eastern and northern coasts of Crete, and Cythera. As for Crete, this multiplication of routes has harmed the port of Phaistos and opened up a great future for the ports on the north coast and the inland centers that make use of them. We refer mainly to Knossos and its ports, especially that of Poros-Katsambas, but also to the small rural communities that are distributed around Knossos, as well as to other rural communities in the region of the Gulf of Mirabello and along the east coast. These settlements have experienced a period of rapid development, to the point of outdoing the state of Phaistos, though without eclipsing it. It was principally Knossos that benefited from the advantages deriving from its geographical position. This city has become the most important political, economic, and religious center on Crete and one of the most important in the entire Mediterranean basin. It is a large, populous, and prosperous city. It stretches around the Palace and has sizeable public interest projects at its disposal: the Caravanserai, the viaduct over the Katzaba River, porticoes, cisterns, granaries, and warehouses. The Caravanserai is used to house travelers coming from the Messara and elsewhere in the south. Small and attractive, it is connected to the Palace. It is embellished with a frieze with hoopoes and red-legged partridges, and is equipped with a drinking trough for the animals fed by a channel that carries water from a spring on the Gypsadhes hill. Therefore, in the Late Minoan IA, the center of gravity of the main centers of Minoan power—Knossos, Phaistos, Malia—has changed. The primary center of power is now the Palace of Knossos. This will clearly be seen when we consider that this Palace has an area that is a good third greater than each of the Palaces of Malia and Phaistos (8,300 m2), four times that of the Palace of Kato Zakros (3,250 m2), and seven times that of the so-called Palace of Gournia. Of the other Palaces, the only one that comes close to it in size is that of Kydonia. The scribes of the Palace of Phaistos have emigrated to the Palace of Knossos. The peak sanctuary of Mount Juktas above Knossos has acquired greater importance, moving against the decreasing trend seen with regard to the other peak sanctuaries of the Protopalatial Period. Phaistos has undergone a substantial downsizing. Its Palace now occupies a smaller area than in the past, and its construction, begun in the Middle Minoan IIIA, was only completed in the Late Minoan IA as it was frequently halted, reflecting the difficulties of the ruling élite to bear the burden of the work. The fact that the Palace of Malia had to cede control of the Lassithi Plateau to the Palace of Knossos caused the decline of the former’s agricultural potential, the main

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source of its prosperity. Moreover, the prevailing influence of Knossos pottery on Malia pottery plays a significant part in the loss of competitiveness suffered by the latter. It is therefore conceivable that the major change in the Late Minoan IA was a significant shift on the political level, which moved from a polycentric structure to a monocentric one, in which the hegemonic role belonged to the Palace of Knossos. There are still many Palaces, but there is now a single Minoan state, which has its national or federal capital at Knossos and which controls a large part of the island, including Lassithi and perhaps the region of Messara. It is difficult to say whether this supremacy was freely accepted by the other Palaces. But it may also be noted that the dominance of the Lord of Knossos is not necessarily political. His leading position could be due to the fact that he is the High Priest of the Minoan religion.

An atmosphere of peace Pharaonic Egypt, the potentates of mainland Greece, the princedoms of Syria and Palestine, and the Great King of Hatti (heart of the central Anatolian plateau) and his vassals respect the political independence of Crete, either because they do business with the Minoans or because their interests are less aligned with lands in the middle of the sea than with those inland. The existence of a substantial atmosphere of peace is confirmed by the fact that grave goods, before 1450, do not include rich panoplies but only a few swords, which, hanging from the belt, are part of the garb of members of the ruling élite. This type of weapon becomes frequent among male burials in the Middle Minoan IIIA–B (1750/00–1700/1675), but this is nothing compared to the real arsenals of weapons and military equipment that will be contained in the “warrior graves” of the Late Minoan II (1470/60–1420/10). While Crete is in the midst of its Neopalatial Period, those in power in Egypt are the 15th and 16th Dynasties. The 15th (1650–1550) governs almost all of Egypt. It is also called the Dynasty of the Greater Hyksos to distinguish it from the 16th Dynasty, the so-called “Lesser Hyksos,” which will govern only the area of Thebes. The period of the Hyksos Pharaohs is characterized by stasis and confusion. During it, the rulers of Egypt intensify their relations with Crete. They continue to import the best products of Minoan artisans and use Minoan ships and crews to bring exports from the Near East (gold, silver, lapis lazuli, copper, ivory, etc.) to Egypt. The transport of goods by sea is preferred to trade by land to avoid the risks associated with banditry, which infests southern Palestine. The arrival at the Palace of Knossos of an Egyptian-made alabaster pyx, bearing the cartouche of Seuserenre Khyan, a pharaoh of the XV Dynasty, and the contemporary presence of Minoan artists decorating the Palace of Avaris with polychrome frescoes, depicting athletes, acrobats, bulls, and cats, thus gain relevance in this respect.

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Avaris (Hut-waret, modern Tell el-Dab’a) is a city located in the eastern part of the Nile Delta and is the capital of the 15th Dynasty. One fresco, in particular, depicts bulls charging with their heads down, galloping with their heads up, or lying down, together with men in loincloths, bracelets, and sometimes with white boots, portrayed in various poses, in the foreground against a rocky landscape in the background. Another depicts a rocky landscape with plants and flowers, a scene with hunters, dogs, and deer, and running animals, including lions, leopards, and a griffin. Still others depict griffins in heraldic pose and another animal, which appears to be a lion. During the period of the 15th dynasty, some groups of Minoans, who trade in Cretan and exotic products and who are dependent on Pharaoh, have a base in the Nile Delta. This Minoan presence in Egypt is destined to last until about 1425. Minoan pottery arrives in Cyprus in the Late Cypriot IB (late 16th century), specifically at Palaepaphos-Teratsoudhia. The first exchanges between Cyprus and Pharaonic Egypt take place in the Hyksos Period (= end of the Middle Cypriot Period). The island exports pottery belonging to various styles (White Slip I, Base Ring I, White Painted V–VI, Red Lustrous Wheelmade) to Avaris, starting from 1650–1600. The Egyptian variants of Tell-el-Yandiyeh and elLisht pottery reach Cyprus around 1600. An Egyptian scarab from a tomb at Akhera on Cyprus dates from the end of the Hyksos Period, or the start of the 18th Dynasty. The Egyptian-type bronze razors from some tombs of Morphou-Toumba tou Skourou and Agia Eirini at Palaikastro also date to this era. A fragment of a serpentine marble vase from Palaepaphos-Teratsoudhia bears two cartouches of Ahmose I, the founder of the 18th Dynasty.

Chapter 8 Mutual influences

The intangible aspect of exchange Long-distance exchange carries not only goods but also ideas and experiences. Some innovations that were made their own by the Minoans arrived in Crete from the Near East and Egypt by such a route. These included, among others, monumental architecture, the palatine administration system, the use of clay tablets for writing, and the art and techniques of the fresco, including the organization of representations and some iconographic motifs. The art of Minoan artisans is probably the product of the influence exerted by the metallurgists and goldsmiths of the southern Levant. The iconographic motifs adorning some Minoan artifacts are reminiscent of some eastern representations. One of these is that of circularity, suggested by both the Bee Pendant found in the Chrisolakkos cemetery at Malia and the acrobat depicted on the golden pommel of a long sword from the Palace of Malia. In turn, the Minoans export not only consumer and luxury goods but also technical and artistic skills, as well as stimuli, opinions, and skills related to their philosophy of life, which is based on a love for nature, beauty, good taste, and elegance to the point of sophistication. The Minoans’ worldview is very relatable abroad. Through long-distance exchange, Minoan civilization thus spreads far beyond its area of origin. This phenomenon has manifested itself since the Middle Minoan II (1875/50–1750/00). It mainly affects the urban centers of the Aegean region, where the Minoans influence the natives on the levels of habits, urban planning, architecture, and decorative styles. This explains both the local production of ceramics inspired by Minoan models and the practice in loco of cults connected to the Minoan religion. In particular, a differentiated degree of Minoan influence shines through the material culture of the islanders of Carpathos and Casos, the inhabitants of Trianda (Rhodes), Seraya (Kos), and Vathy (Calymnos), and the residents of Miletus (on the coast of southwestern Anatolia) and of Mikro Vouni (Samothrace). There is sometimes talk of “Minoan colonies” or Minoan “political protectorates” concerning these settlements, understood as forms of rule from afar that allow the local population the possibility for self-government but which also allow the “protectors” to have local agents in place both for political control and for safeguarding and promoting commerce.

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Carpathos, Casos Situated southwest of Rhodes and further west of Casos, Carpathos is the third largest island in the Dodecanese. Like nearby Casos and Saria (a remote islet in the windiest part of the Aegean, north of Carpathos), it has been inhabited since the Neolithic. In the Bronze Age, there were at least five settlements there. They are all located in the southern part, on modest hills, in an arid area, not far from the broad plain of Afiartis, fertile and well irrigated. Two are close to good anchorages, while the others are found 400–800 m away from the coast, albeit in a position from which you can see the sea.1 The islanders practice fishing at sea, raise bees and livestock, and have relations with Crete. There is an atmosphere of peace in the air. In the Middle Minoan III/Late Minoan IA, Carpathos and Casos are affected by a strong Minoan influence.2 Dodecanese Rhodes is the largest island in the Dodecanese and the easternmost of the major Aegean islands. It is located opposite the Anatolian coast (southwestern Anatolia), around 17.5 km offshore, and separates the southeastern Aegean Sea from the Levantine Sea. It is 78 km long and 38 km wide. Two smaller islands—Chalki (9 km) and Alimia (7 km)—as well as other islets, can be found off its west coast. It is a land of mountains (maximum elevation: Mount Akramitis, 1,215 m) that descend steeply toward the sea in its central part, while there are flatter areas to the north and south. The interior is full of pine forests. The first city formed on Rhodes was Asomatos (Early Anatolian Bronze Age). In the Middle Anatolian Bronze Age (2000/1900–1700), the population of Asomatos moved east and settled at the foot of Mount Filerimos (near the Doric city of Ialisos). A new settlement then arose at Trianda, about 4.5 km east of Asomatos, on an alluvial plain, in the navigable delta of the river of the same name.3 Trianda evolves in three phases (I, II, IIIA–B). In the Late Anatolian Bronze Age IA, it suffered from the destructive effects of an earthquake (the second time was shortly before the volcanic catastrophe of Santorini in 1615), but it recovered. In a later period of the Late Anatolian Bronze Age IA, it is one of the main urban centers of the Aegean region. It extends for about 18 ha and is crossed by four large paved streets, flanked by stone buildings. The local community has relations with Crete, Cyprus, and Egypt, and while it is somewhat influenced by the Minoan civilization, the local tradition remains alive. The adoption of Minoan culture is reflected in some of its pottery, hearths, clay or stone lamps, votive statuettes of worshippers, clay rhytha in the shape of a bull’s head, offering tables, architecture, and decoration of walls and religious symbols (polythyron, stucco floors, frescoes, horns of consecration, double axes, sacred knots). The frescoes of Triada compare favorably with those of 1   All the settlements in question were fated to be destroyed by earthquakes between 1800 and 1500. One was reinhabited in the late Bronze Age and again in the Roman era. 2   The same can be said for the Late Minoan IIIA:1 (1420/10–1390/70). 3   The site is now around 500 m from the sea due to the withdrawal of the sea that has since occurred.

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Patmos

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Therassos (Akrotiri on Santorini), which we will look at later. The grave goods also include Cypriot pottery, cylindrical seals in hematite, and scarabs from the 18th Dynasty in glass paste (faience), ivory, or gold. There is an abundance of copper and tin in the subsoil of Rhodes, and these are extracted and processed. This explains why the grave goods also include bronze objects and vases coated with tin.4 The island of Kos is 120 km north of Rhodes. It has an elongated shape, and it is verdant, fertile, and rich in water. It has been permanently occupied since the Final Neolithic. Several settlements arose there near arable land and streams in the Early Anatolian Bronze Age. Their inhabitants had contacts and exchanges with peoples of Asia Minor—especially with those of Iasos, Yortan, and KarataşSemayük—and the deceased were accompanied in their tombs by precious metal objects, especially daggers (this means that they led a prosperous life). In 2300, the hill of Seragia (near the region of Amigdalonas, in the central part of the modern city of Kos) was occupied by a settlement that was surrounded by a solid protective wall (Early Anatolian Bronze Age III). In the Late Helladic I, or more probably in 4

  A round, plano-convex ingot has been found in Trianda.

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the Late Helladic II (1700/1675–1625/00), the settlement expanded beyond the wall, spreading out to occupy an area of 7.5 ha. In this phase, Seragia becomes a protourban center, with fortification walls, buildings with an elongated shape, and a paved road that leads from the port to the hill of the acropolis.5 We refer here to the “first city” of Seragia, attributed to the Late Helladic IIA and a contemporary of Trianda IIA.6 The local population has contacts and exchanges with the Minoans, so much so that they import ceramics painted in the Marine Style and are culturally affected by their influence. From now on, signs of the “Minoanization” of the site will become increasingly numerous and evident. These will be perceived in its architecture, mural paintings (iconography), bronze tools, weapons, language, and written documents. The phenomenon will be characterized by a substantial degree of hybridization and ideological exchange with local traditions. Southwestern Anatolia (Miletus) A deer-shaped vase, coated in silver, probably intended for ritual use (rhython), found in Grave IV of Circle A in Mycenae, shows that Crete, toward the end of the Middle Helladic, maintains relations with the Aegean coast of Anatolia and with the string of islands off its coast. In turn, the Thessalian and Peloponnesian ceramics circulating in Troy VI, Chios, Samos, Mytilene/Lesbos, and Miletus show that these relations continued in the Late Helladic I and IIA. Let us focus here for a moment on Miletus. Miletus (Balat) is a city located in Ionia (central part of the Aegean coast of Anatolia) in an area that was already inhabited in the Late Neolithic and the Chalcolithic. It has always been an important waypoint in the stone and metal trade between Anatolia and Egypt. The occupants of the cite, in the Late Chalcolithic, traded with inland Anatolia and the Aegean world (this is demonstrated from some finds from Miletus: obsidian of Anatolian origin, imported Cycladic ceramics, the head of an Early Cycladic II figurine of the Keros-Syros Culture). At first, the settlement was located on the seashore. Later, due to the progressive silting up of the sea due to deposits carried by the Meander River, it ended up some distance away from the coast and could only reach the sea by river. The third occupation of the site begins in the 19th century with the settlement of groups of Anatolian and Minoan immigrants. In this phase, Kamares Ware from the Middle Minoan IB and II and locally produced everyday Anatolian pottery are in use at Miletus. The Minoans residing in Miletus are involved in trade and make use of seals. The fact that more than 95% of the pottery is Minoan

  A proto-urban center is defined as one that has more advanced characteristics in terms of size, urban planning, and hierarchical relationship between center and periphery, but not yet to the point where it can be defined as a city. 6   The settlement evolved in four phases, marked by earthquakes and the fallout from the ashes of the volcanic eruption of Santorini in 1615, up to the middle of the Late Helladic IIIC (1200/1190–1075/50). 5

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Euboea

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in Miletus IV (late Middle Bronze Age, about 1750/20–second half of the 15th century) suggests that this is a settlement inhabited almost entirely by Minoans.7 Cyclades In the Cyclades, settlements are fortified at the start of the Late Cycladic I/Late Minoan IA (1700/1675–1625/00).8 Evidently, there continues to be a threat to collective security. Despite this, there is intense import activity, both from Crete and from mainland Greece, and strong influence from the Minoan civilization concerning certain aspects of the local architecture, organization of residential areas, and material culture, specifically in terms of art and ceramics. The Minoan use of pillars and the lustral basin in architecture takes hold. The fashion of decorating houses with colorful images, in the Minoan style, is also established. 7   The same can be said for Miletus V (middle of the Late Bronze Age, second half of the 15th century–18th century). 8   The destruction of Agia Irini and Phylakopi signaled the end of the Middle Cycladic and the start of the Late Cycladic.

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Minoan forms and decorative motifs predominate among ceramics. Local imitations of Minoan pottery and stone vases appear. Typical Minoan artifacts—bronze vases, terracotta figurines, loom weights—and, it seems, Linear A are in use. The rest of the material culture, on the other hand, is in line with Cycladic tradition. Over time, the importation of Mycenaean ceramics will equal the importation of Minoan ceramics in volume. Agia Irini serves as a line of communication between the Minoan and MesoHelladic cultures. Therefore, it is exposed to cultural influences from various sources. Nonetheless, it manages to maintain its Cycladic identity. There is greater exposure to Minoan influence in the case of Phylakopi II (Milos). This building phase of this settlement comprises blocks of houses separated by long, straight streets. It will become renowned for the artistic appeal of its pottery styles (Dark Burnished Ware, Cycladic White). Phylakopi II pottery is often decorated with stylized plant and animal motifs in black and red matte varnish. Among others, the pitchers of Melian birds, exported to Knossos, are worthy of note. Toward the end of Phylakopi II, the presence in loco of increasing quantities of Minoan pottery marks the beginning of the “Minoanization” of the local culture, which will be most clearly evident at the start of Phylakopi III. However, the Cycladic settlement where the cultural influence of Crete takes the most hold is Therassos on Santorini. The cultural environment of Therassos is that of the Cyclades of its time, where Minoan cultural influence overlaps with local techniques and traditions but does not erase them. This Minoan influence is visible in the diffusion of the fresco technique, in the appearance of Minoan forms in some vases fashioned by local artisans, in its architecture, and in its religion, or at least in its rituals. Certain structures (lustral basins), décor (stone horns of consecration), objects of ritual use (rhyta, offering tables), and figurative themes (for example, the female figures in the frescoes found in the House of the Ladies) are concordant with what can be found in Crete. Therassos, however, is not a Minoan colony. Proof of this is in the fact that although the technique and naturalistic taste of the Therassos frescoes are Minoan, the freedom that the individual painter enjoys in creating them is greater than in Cretan art, which is more conventional, and they are rendered through light-hearted images that transmit serenity and joie de vivre. The rooms of the houses are large and comfortable. The inhabitants are in the habit of decorating them with large frescoes, which differ in quality and execution, and are the work of professionals. Of course, we are dealing here with families who are in a sufficiently comfortable economic position to be able to commission such frescoes. This also means that there are specialist painters who are able to carry out the commissions, each with their own style that differs from those of the others. Decorating one’s house with frescoes is a noted characteristic of Therassos, but it is also found elsewhere in the Cyclades. The Flying Fish Fresco of Phylakopi III imitates the Spring Fresco of Therassos.

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Let us consider the frescoes of the West House of Therassos, also called the House of the Admiral, and date at the latest to the beginning of the Late Cycladic II (= start of the Late Minoan IB). The West House is a normal private house, indistinguishable from the others in terms of its size, construction design, and organization of its space. The frescoes are found on the first floor, in two rooms. In one room, there is a portrayal of a richly dressed and well-adorned woman, who is holding a pyx in one hand, and a series of allegorical and symbolic representations, a sequence of eight naval command towers, such as those found on the stern of ships, which themselves are depicted in the other room. In the second room, there is a series of narrative paintings that depict various episodes from the same military campaign (the Meeting on the Hill, the Battle, the Return of the Flotilla), and other allegorical or symbolic representations (the hunt of a griffin, two naked youths holding bunches of fish). The Meeting on the Hill is probably a religious ceremony. Two processions of men—and only men—ascend a steep slope, converging toward a pair of tall, hieratic individuals, wrapped in cloaks that reach down to their feet. One participant in the parade is wearing a long gown, his hands stretching forward, as is typical for supplicants, while the other men are wearing a Minoan loincloth (taking the form of short trousers). Some participants in the second parade are wearing longer clothes, wrapped in garments down to the knee. The Battle is one scene in a series of three. The other two scenes depict the following: Aegean-style ships, which are small and with platforms with railings at the bow and the stern, but which are not the same as those in the third scene, probably being hostile toward the latter, which are near the coast and are absent of crew or soldiers, except for one figure with a Minoan loincloth; wrecks and naked, lifeless, floating human bodies, one of whom is near a shield with a bandolier and another unidentified object; and a group of colored warriors standing on the coastline, immersed in a subtropical landscape. They are armed with pikes and protect themselves with a tower shield, which protects them from head to toe. They might have disembarked from the ships near the coast, or they might be local Libyans. Behind the warriors, there is a flock of sheep and another of goats, each of which is accompanied by a shepherd, as well as two women who are returning from drawing water from a well and are dressed in the Minoan fashion, with a tight bodice, bare breasts, and a flared skirt. The third scene, that of the Battle, depicts a third fallen soldier and ships loaded with sailors and soldiers heading toward the coast. These are probably the ships of Therassos. Unless the smaller ships are not allied with those of Therassos, they may have preceded them in the landing of soldiers who are rushing to the aid of a Cycladic colony being attacked by the Libyans. All this could be the narrative of a large-scale raid by an Aegean fleet. In that case, the attackers could be pirates, and their aim would be that of plundering a city and the resources of its territory, including its livestock. The Return of the Flotilla depicts the triumphal return home of the victorious fleet (that of the supposed pirates). The scene illustrates the voyage of a fleet from one maritime city to another and its arrival in a port city. The first city is located

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at the fork of a small stream. Far away, in the countryside on the other side of the river, there are other buildings, separated by fences and hedges. Two men facing each other, on the banks of the stream, wear long fur mantles. The city in question is typically Aegean, considering that it seems to be a dense ensemble of buildings constructed of stones and brick, with protrusions and recesses, and terrace roofs. The second city is larger and more significant than the former, and is undoubtedly Minoan. It is located on the banks of an inlet along the coast. Here, too, there are men cloaked in furs. On the hills behind the city, a lion chases a herd of red deer in a typical Mediterranean wooded landscape, dominated by oaks and maritime pines. The flotilla is made up of seven ships, all of which are being rowed, other than one, which is at sail, and an eighth smaller boat, which is being rowed. Six ships have 19 or 21 pairs of oarsmen, all facing toward the prow, and a helmsman. The smaller ship has five men at the oars and two helmsmen. All the ships have curved ends (though the stern is lower than the bow, which is long and tapering) and an elevated platform at the stern (command tower), where the captain is seated, animals are depicted in profile close to the command towers, and each ship has a spur at the front. The hulls are decorated with friezes. Three ships have their masts raised, while the others have their masts lowered and supported by brackets.

Chapter 9 The volcanic catastrophe of Santorini

A sudden apocalypse The interior decorators of Therassos love to reproduce the flowering plants that take root on the island’s rocks in their frescoes because these flowers smell divine. They see it as a gift from Potidas, the God who has dominion over the Earth and thus governs the regeneration of Nature as well as the earthquakes, rain, wind, lightning, and thunder. They believe that Potidas manifests himself through these phenomena and that he watches over them and blesses them. How else can the fact that they can live in a place where the sky is always blue, the climate is mild all year round, and the soil is highly fertile and yields abundant harvests be explained other than by Potidas’ benevolence? They are well aware that they live on a volcano, both because it is always in front of them, in the center of the bay,1 and because the island’s beaches are of black sand, while the rocks are reddish. Tragically, they ignore both that the volcano of Santorini is of the explosive type—the most devastating eruptions are produced by volcanoes of this type—and that the fire monster that dwells in the subsoil of the island is about to awaken from its latent form of life. The awakening takes place in 1613 (Late Minoan IA).2 The apocalypse is heralded by a strong earthquake (7° on the Richter scale), of reduced focal depth, with its epicenter under the volcano. The earthquake results in casualties and damage and sows terror among the population, who, in panic, load all their valuables on the ships and leave the island, confident of finding refuge in the surrounding islands, which are Ios, Sikinos, Amorgos, Ios, Naxos, and Paros. The nearest village is Skarkos on Ios, perched on a hill in the center of the western side of the island, near the most fertile plains and the port. Theirs is a real diaspora. The Cypriot site of Toumba 1   Before the eruption of 1613, in place of the current Santorini caldera, which has the island of Kameni at its center, there was a much older, smaller, shallow, flooded caldera, created by the explosion of Riva (around 22,000 years ago). Within it, there was an island, Pre-Kameni, smaller than today’s Kameni, with a low volcanic cone. Gradually, as lava emerged from the underwater volcano, Pre-Kameni rose in height. 2   The dating of the eruption of the Santorini volcano is controversial, as there is a discrepancy between the carbon-14 dating (late 17th–early 16th century) and archaeological evidence (mid-16th–early 15th century).

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tou Skourou, located in an area rich in copper, was formed by the settlement of refugees fleeing Santorini after other refugees from the same island had taken refuge in Trianda (Rhodes). After the major tremors, while the earthquake swarm is still ongoing, some displaced people return to Santorini to bury the dead and lay the foundations for a return to normality. The reconstruction work begins with the clearing of rubble, the demolition of unsafe buildings, and the most urgent repairs. But it is dramatically interrupted a few weeks after it begins. A new, violent earthquake occurs just before the harvest (the supply jars are almost empty in the warehouses) when the meltemi has already begun to blow, therefore in late spring or early summer. The tremors cause new collapses and the opening of further cracks in the walls and in the ground. Those who are working to repair the damage caused by the previous earthquake leave the island hastily, for the most part (some remain). Shortly after, the volcano erupts. The paroxysm will be rapid and of unprecedented violence, proportion, and intensity. It will take place in four phases, the first of which will last for about six hours, while the others will follow one another over two to three days. The first phase consists of intermittent emissions of smoke, steam, poisonous gas, lava flows, ash, pumice, and lapilli, which rise like a column above the crater, darkening the sky and expanding toward the east. All this happens together with rumblings and earthquakes. The column is pushed upward by the volcano and sucked up by the convection currents. It grows more and more in size and height. It becomes a vast and horrible black cloud, torn apart by meandering flashes of fire, and rises 35–36 km high! It overlooks the island, covering it like a hood and darkening it, and expands eastward, pushed by the wind. Soon, the tephra falls to the ground, standing out in the foreground against the background of a dense darkness (fallout). Tephra is the name of the set of flying fragments produced by an eruption—pyroclasts—irrespective of their composition or size, which in explosive volcanoes are usually the product of viscous magma with a high silicon content. A rain of tephra buries the rubble and cultivated fields under a gray blanket up to 6 m thick. Its weight causes the roofs of buildings to collapse in on themselves. Meanwhile, the concentration of fine-grained ash in the air has exceeded the limit of asphyxiation, making survival impossible. Those who did not leave the island at the beginning of the eruption inevitably perish. The second phase begins when the earth shakes again and breaks apart. This occurs between Nea Kameni and Skaros and gives rise to new eruptive vents. Seawater pours into the crater in enormous quantities and, upon coming into contact with the boiling magma, causes its immediate vaporization and expulsion. The lava reaches a temperature of 150–200° C and is “shot” upwards at 80–150 m per second. A roar of thunder announces a new, powerful eruption. In 4–6 hours, the volcano will eject 2 km³ of lava (4.6 billion tons) and further immense quantities of ash and pumice.

9.  The volcanic catastrophe of Santorini

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In the third phase, the crater widens, allowing large volumes of seawater to enter it. The eruption thus resumes with renewed vigor. Boiling lava, rock fragments, and large quantities of ash are ejected from the crater at dizzying speeds for a total volume of at least 60 km³ of magma, that is, about 150 billion tons of rock. Blocks of lava weighing up to 7–8 tons are projected miles away. Falling back to the ground, some of them hit the inhabited centers like bombs, causing the buildings to crumble. At this point, the column that has formed above the volcano, which is shaped like a mushroom, while managing to keep part of itself balanced, albeit unsteadily, is no longer able to push the rest of itself upwards and falls back on itself. What descends gives rise to a “burning cloud,” essentially composed of ash, boiling gas, and very few heavy particles, if not a more consistent solid cloud (in which case, it would seem more like an avalanche of snow). This has an internal temperature of 500–600° C. Such a phenomenon will occur several times during the rest of the eruption, so there will be more than one “burning cloud.” The single cloud slides silently down the slopes toward the sea at a speed of 100 km/h and inexorably overwhelms everything. It crosses inhabited centers in a few seconds, channeling through the straight and narrow streets that descend toward the sea, reaching the steps leading down to the beach, and turning seawater into steam after a quick sizzle. During its frightening ride, it has carried away entire sections of buildings, ignited fires, and extinguished colors in a profusion of slamming doors, crashing roofs, and crumbling walls. Any humans who survived the conditions of asphyxiation have taken refuge indoors in the naïve hope of escaping their doom (the chances of being saved in the event of a burning cloud are almost non-existent). When the cloud comes, breaking through doors, windows, and even walls, they are hit by a hot blast, dying instantly, due to fulminant shock, just before the burning ceiling collapses on them, burying them. Their last, very rapid sensations are a scorching breath on the skin, lancing pain in the eyes and inside the body, and a violent stab in the head. Then their teeth and long bones break, their muscles and nerves shrink, their fingers twitch like they are on hooks, their brains boil, and their skulls explode. They burn alive, turn into skeletons within seconds, and vaporize.3 Meanwhile, the volcano continues to roar, flashes of lightning strike broken lines in the sky, illuminating a landscape of ruins for a moment, and the ground continues to shake violently. Its monstrous roar echoes, as does the swell of the rough sea. In turn, the fall of tephra continues while flames flare up among what remains of the abandoned and deserted buildings—their reddish glow is made more alive by the darkness—and a thick blanket of smoke rises from settlements. The tephra mantle

3   This description is inspired by the narrative provided by A. Angela, Le tre giornate di Pompei (Milan: Rizzoli, 2014), 319–416.

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that settles on the ground grows further, gradually: in the area of Therassos, a city located on the southeastern coast, it will be 55 m thick! It is not just the tephra that rains. The vapors generated by the eruption have condensed into a cloud over the island and now fall back in the form of rain. Rainwater cascades onto the lava and the tephra, forming rivulets and streams and causing landslides. Meanwhile, the volcano’s magma chamber, located several kilometers deep, has emptied due to the eruption. The pressure inside it decreases, and eventually, its vault can no longer support the weight of everything above it. The volcanic structure gradually collapses. In the fourth phase, two-thirds of the island (43 km²) slowly but surely crumbles, creating the central caldera, eventually disappearing underwater and sinking to a depth of 400 m. During the landslides, the remaining 22 km² of the island’s surface fragment.4 Aspronisi separates from Therasia, while Thera splits from Therasia. The eruption is over, but some of its effects continue. These are the rogue waves (tsunamis) and the tephra’s fallout in the sea and on the ground across a vast area, up to many hundreds of kilometers away from Santorini. The tsunamis are triggered by the landslide from the collapse of the volcanic structure and the sudden influx of seawater into the void created by the caldera’s formation. They are up to 28 m high and spread over the sea’s surface, in concentric waves, at a speed of 300 km/h, carrying volcanic ash and pumice while keeping their energy intact, with a modest height and a speed that increases in proportion to the depth of the water, until they spill over the islands and mainland coasts of the Aegean Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean. As they approach the mainland, they reduce their speed as the seabed rises but increase in height, up to several dozen meters. Meanwhile, on the seashore, the water suddenly and temporarily recedes, leaving the seabed uncovered for a few dozen meters. The fish, stranded, flap about on the wet sand. The severity of the impact’s effects depends on how much the coast’s morphology, the terrain’s configuration, and the vegetation manage to slow down the impetus of the wave. In any case, the impact is powerful, so much so as to overwhelm and sink the boats at anchor and damage and flood the coastal settlements. The waves then crash into the mainland, dragging burned bones and charred remains with them and pushing debris and sediment to accumulate against the buildings. Nowhere is safe from the loss of life, property damage, and coastal erosion caused by them. Crete, 120 km away from Santorini, feels the effects of the volcanic catastrophe that engulfs this island mainly due to the earthquake that spreads in concentric waves through the Aegean Sea and the buffeting of its northern and eastern coasts by the

4

  Later, the coastline of Thera was enlarged by 25 km2.

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rogue waves.5 The waves reach the northern coast of Crete in 25–30 minutes and hit it like walls of water, ranging from a few meters to more than 20 m high. The walls of the House of the Lilies in Amnisos are misaligned by the suction of a mighty mass of water. This building, however, must already have been in ruins when it is hit by the tsunami because it was destroyed by a violent fire, triggered by the overturning of open flames caused by earthquakes. The destruction must have been particularly violent because all the wooden parts of the buildings are charred, and the masonry, in some places, calcified due to the intense heat. One of the proofs of the damage inflicted on the structure by the earthquake is given by the fact that several stones of the building fell toward the outside. Other villas at Nirou Chani, Tylissos, and Sklavokambos are destroyed in Crete in the same period due to an earthquake. An 8 m high wave hits the coast of Malia. The seawater penetrates 400 m deep into the mainland, reaching as far as the Palace. Waves at least 9 m high hit Palaikastro, razing the buildings to the ground. It seems probable that other places in Crete were hit by the anomalous waves caused by the collapse of the Santorini volcano too because an abundant quantity of pumice, dragged by the waves, reaches numerous sites on the island at that time: Chania, Poros-Katsambas (Late Minoan IA destruction levels), Nirou Chani, Gouves (18 km east of Heraklion, very close to Gournes), Priniatikos Pyrgos (near Agios Nikolaos), Sissi (30 km west of Priniatikos Pyrgos and 25 km northwest of Agios Nikolaos), Palaikastro, Kato Zakros (Palace, House F), and others. A tsunami destroys the fishing and farming village of Papadiokampos on the northern coast, near the Trachilos peninsula, which separates the Gulf of Mirabello from the Gulf of Sitia. Papadiokampos is a series of buildings and open spaces stretching about 250 m along the coast, mostly along a cliff. A house of 130 m2 is located at the western end of the settlement. It was built at the beginning of the Middle Minoan II at the latest and experienced its peak during the Late Minoan I. It is hit by a wall of moving water while someone is inside cooking a dish based on limpets, marine snails, and crabs and another dish based on goat meat, mutton, pork, and lentils. The person cooking manages to escape, but the family dog is caught in the collapse of the building and is buried under the rubble. The inhabitants of the house made use of a large stone mortar for pressing olives, tools for grinding grain, a pantry for fruit, and olive stones for fuel, and they also ate almonds, figs, and olives.   According to the Greek archaeologist Spyridon N. Marinatos, the tidal wave caused by the sinking of the Santorini volcano into the sea crashed over the northern coast of Crete, demolishing coastal settlements and maritime infrastructure and wiping out its fleet, which was the basis of Minoan power. This theory was set out in the article “The Volcanic Destruction of Minoan Crete,” published in the journal Antiquity in 1939. This is now outdated. Today, we know that the collapse of the volcanic structure and the formation of the caldera were gradual and didn’t cause a tidal wave higher than a few dozen meters. Moreover, the archaeological evidence attributable to the destruction caused in Crete by the tsunami is modest. 5

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At least four coastal towns on the Aegean coast of Anatolia are hit by gigantic masses of water (this phenomenon will be repeated on four consecutive occasions). One is Çeşme-Bağlararası (Turkey), while the others—Miletus, Fethiye, Letoon—are further south. Çeşme-Bağlararası is a town located 227 km as the crow flies northeast of Santorini. Here, among other things, tsunamis impact a fortification wall, breaking it and creating a chaotic horizon of destruction. A young man is overwhelmed, killed, and dragged by the water and all kinds of other debris it brings. His body will be found along with a dog carcass under 1 m of debris, even large and heavy stones, some larger than 40 cm in diameter. Some survivors will try to recover the victims’ bodies, digging pits in various points of the site, but they are not able to locate the young man in the mass of debris, which thus remains in its place and in the same state. Pumice is the only stone that floats on water. It is, in fact, a magmatic rock, very light due to its very high porosity, and originates mainly from explosive eruptions. The pyroclastic fallout of the Santorini eruption especially affected Crete in the northeast.6 The fallout occurs after the tephra is pushed by high-altitude winds toward the southeast. It primarily affects the islands within a 50–60 km radius from Santorini: Anafi, Ios, Folegandros, Sikinos, Schinousa, Iraklia, Keros, and the southwest of Amorgos. The inhabitants of the areas affected by the phenomenon are hit by rain which first is of incandescent ash, then by gray and white pumice, and later by blackened rock fragments, which fall at the rate of thousands of cubic meters per second, forming thick deposits. The phenomenon is so intense that some people have to evacuate their islands. Consider that in Anafi, the southernmost Cycladic island and the closest to Santorini, from which it is 19 km away, the fallout causes the formation on the ground of a layer of tephra 3 m thick. A very abundant quantity of tephra is also deposited in Agia Irini (Kea), Phylakopi II (Milos), and Crete, 110 km away from Santorini. On Crete, a 10 cm layer of tephra is deposited mainly in Palaikastro, Psira, Mochlos, Papadiokampos, and in the area of Zakros, as well as in Knossos, Malia, Nirou Chani, Gournia, Priniatikos Pyrgos, and Vathypetro. A 30 cm layer of tephra is also formed on the islands of Rhodes and Tilos, to the west of Rhodes. Trianda (Rhodes) is first destroyed by the earthquake that spread in concentric waves through the Aegean region, starting from the Santorini volcano before the latter erupted, and is then buried due to the tephra falling to the ground. In the interval between these calamities, reconstruction work had begun, with the clearing of rubble and the first repairs, but the fallout stopped everything. Added to all this was a devastating flood. The city has had to be partially abandoned. Only its northernmost part, the closest to the sea, remains inhabited. The rain of tephra also affects Seray (Kos) and Miletus (southwestern Anatolia). It even occurs outside the Aegean region. A 15 cm thick deposit forms in lakes in

6   Traces of the ashes of the eruption of Thera have been found in various Late Minoan IA sites in eastern Crete, such as Palaikastro and Pyrgos.

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Anatolia. A great deal of tephra falls in the Black Sea region, and the same can be said for Cyprus, the southern Levant,7 and Egypt. Another consequence of the eruption of Santorini, in addition to the collapse of the volcano, the tsunamis, and the fallout, will manifest in short order. The dust that has dispersed into the atmosphere will reduce the solar radiation reaching Earth, causing a significant drop in average temperatures in the Aegean region (at least 2° C). This phenomenon will persist for at least two years.8 By the end of the eruption, Santorini has a new appearance. The volcanic cones have disintegrated. In their place, there is an immense flooded crater, 10 km in diameter. In addition, the island has broken into three sections: Thera, Therasia, and Aspronisi. Therassos was not affected by the landslide, but it is buried under the tephra that now covers Thera, Therasia, and Aspronisi, where all traces of life have vanished. Instead of a bustling, lively, populous, prosperous center of life with a busy port, there is now a desert of gray ash. The other towns, villages, and isolated farms have disappeared, swallowed up by the sea. A larger city than Therassos, which was located at the bottom of the large central inlet, is also unaccounted for.9 Several decades will have to pass before vegetation takes root in Santorini again, and it will be several centuries before man inhabits this island again, with the landing on the island of a group of Mycenaeans, who will establish the town of Monolithos. The Mycenaeans are a people living in the Peloponnese and central-western Greece. They descend from the Hellenes, emerge at the forefront of history in the second half of the 17th century, and call themselves Achaeans (they are indicated as such in some tablets in Linear B).10 Homer, in his epic poem The Iliad, will call the Greek invaders of the Trojan state “Achaeans.”11

  A sedimentary deposit discovered in Caesarea Maritima in Israel has been identified as the result of the rogue waves caused by the eruption on Santorini. 8   Using dendrochronology, a reduction in solar radiation that reaches the ground can manifest itself as an anomalous reduction, for one or two years, in the distance between tree rings in a sequence of growth rings. Similar results have been found in the growth rings of the California “hickory pine” for around the middle of the 2nd millennium. One of these irregularities, datable between 1628 and 1626, has been suggested to be related to the eruption on Thera. 9   Akrotiri will remain hidden and forgotten until, in the 1970s, it is discovered by the Greek archaeologist Spiros Marinatos, who excavates the central area. In that “Pompeii of the Aegean,” some people have recognized the mythical Atlantis mentioned by the Athenian philosopher Plato in his dialogues Timaeus and Critias, which both focus on the organization of an ideal city-state, governed by universal laws. Whether Plato’s narrative about Atlantis is truth or fiction has been the subject of debate since antiquity. 10   The Achaeans were called Mycenaeans in the 19th century AD after the site of Mycenae in the Argolid (northeastern Peloponnese), where archaeologists had discovered a great new civilization. 11   An epic poem composed in Greece in the 8th–9th century, in which the Achaeans are also called Danaans and Hellenes. 7

Chapter 10 The Proto-Greeks

The “brother” peoples The Achaeans, Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians are “brother” peoples, united by religious, moral, military, and economic customs and by the fact that they speak the same language, Proto-Greek, which stems from Proto-Indo-European. Around 2200, perhaps due to climate change, they emigrated en masse from the “ancestral cradle” of the Indo-Europeans, which is commonly identified with Ukraine and the neighboring regions of the Caucasus and southern Russia. They were led by Aiolos, Doros, and Xouthos, sons of the legendary hero Hellen, himself the son of Deucalion and Pyrrha, the saviors of humanity from the Great Flood.1 Aiolos led the Aeolians, Doros, the Dorians, and Xouthos, the Achaeans and Ionians. Their migration ended in Greece, into which the migrants descended from the northeast. Their arrival was perhaps preceded by instances of infiltration by members of the vanguard (a slow and stealthy penetration by individuals or small groups across the border). What is certain is that it put an end to the magnificent collective experience of the Early Helladic/Protohelladic I–II and resulted in a return to inferior and less evolved cultural forms concerning the cultural, social, political, and economic life of the Proto-Greeks. All this took place toward the end of the Early Helladic II, coinciding with the appearance of cultural elements that do not belong to the local tradition, such as terracotta anchors (Boeotia), apsidal houses, burial mounds (Hagia Sophia in Thessaly), and intramural burials, due to indigenous developments and the continuous contacts that Proto-Helladic Greece had with the Troad, the Cyclades, Epirus, and Dalmatia. In some areas, the cultural change took place smoothly, but in others, the process was more traumatic. This is evidenced, on the one hand, by the cultural continuity that can be observed between the Early Helladic II and the Early Helladic III at Lithares, Phlius, Manika, etc., and, on the other, by the destruction of Lerna (with the burial under a mound of the remains of the House 1

  Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1.7.2–3; Apollonius of Rhodes, The Argonautica I.118.

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of Tiles), Asine, Tiryns, Zygouries, Kirra, and Agia Marina. In the Early Helladic III (2200–2050/00), the newcomers appear to have settled permanently in Thessaly, Boeotia, Epirus, the Peloponnese, and the Cyclades. The rest of mainland Greece continued to be inhabited by non-Indo-European peoples, who variously spoke Illyrian, Macedonian, or Thracian. To recap: a cultural fracture marked the transition from the Early Helladic II to the Early Helladic III (c. 2200) due to the arrival in Greece of some Indo-European peoples, whose culture was superimposed over that of the Proto-Helladics. The culture of the Early Helladic III will imprint itself throughout the Middle Helladic, also called the Meso-Helladic period (c. 2050/00–1635), and the early phase of the Late Helladic I, until beyond 1650. It will remain in its initial, rather primitive state throughout this period. The cultural elements that distinguish it are the apsidal house, the potter’s wheel, gray monochrome ceramics, so-called Minyan Ware, Trojan glasses and cups, and the practice of burying the dead within the boundaries of a settlement. The Meso-Helladic is a cultural phase that spreads widely throughout the Peloponnese and central-eastern Greece, up to the north of the Spercheios, a river that flows through southern Thessaly. There is a tendency for settlements to be placed close to each other and on top of a rocky elevation, in contrast to the settlement model of the Early Helladic II, which was based on the criterion of dispersion. Some settlements are fortified. The houses are of the megaron type. Meso-Helladic pottery is monochromatic (Minyan Ware) or is decorated either with matte paint or dark colors (kitchenware), and it is exported to Thessaly as well as the Cyclades. The lathe is not yet commonly used. The use of stone or knapped obsidian tools, as well as bone tools, persists. However, there are also work tools, daggers, spearheads, tweezers, and personal ornaments in copper or bronze, as well as jewels in gold, silver, and electrum, although these are rare. Terracotta figurines are absent. Usually, the dead are buried inside the settlement, but there are also some external cemeteries. The tombs are either cist or shaft tombs. Usually, they are for one person, but in exceptional cases there are multiple burials. The grave goods are poor and infrequent at first, but these increase as time goes on. The site of Kolonna on Aegina is larger and more prosperous than the average mainland Greece site of this era and is also exceptional because, from a cultural point of view, it is placed between the Meso-Helladic and the Middle Cycladic (the same can be said for the site of Agia Irini on Kea). Its fortifications are comparable to those of Troy. Its “warrior’s grave” (a shaft grave), located next to the entrance to the citadel, contains lavish grave goods, consisting of weapons, gold diadems, and imported pottery. The deceased was certainly a member of the military or local political aristocracy. Late Proto-Helladic and Meso-Helladic Greece are a garden where myths flourish, many of which have Aiolos, Doros, Xouthos, their children, and their descendants at their center. These legends will be handed down by the mythographers of the Classical Age, and this will make them immortal.

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The legend of the sons of Aiolos and their descendants, and related myths Aiolos has five sons: Athamas, Cretheus, the cunning Sisyphus, the wicked Salmoneus, and the spirited Perieres.2 Doros has three: Tectamus, Aegimius, and Iphthime. Xouthos has two: Achaeus and Ion. We will focus here on Athamas and Cretheus. They are spoken of in two episodes of Greek mythology: the tale of Phrixus and Helle, and that of the Argonauts. The first is set in Thessaly (northeastern Greece, north of Boeotia), to where the Aeolians emigrated from Boeotia. The second starts in Thessaly, but the bulk of it unfolds elsewhere. For each tale, there is a set of facts that precedes the narrated events in time. The story of Phrixus and Helle is set against a background in which Athamas and Nephele play the major roles. The story of the Argonauts has the story of Pelias and Neleus as its background. Athamas and Nephele, Phrixus and Helle Athamas is one of the leaders of the Aeolians, who are established in Boeotia. His wife is Nephele, a cloud created by Zeus in the image of his wife Hera to mislead the Lapith Ixion. Nephele, before being tied to Athamas, wandered Olympus, disconsolate, for a long time. The couple has two children: Phrixus and Helle. They are still children when Athamas divorces their mother for Ino, daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia. Cadmus is himself a legendary figure. It is said that he was charged by his father Agenor, king of Tyre, to search for his own sister Europa, who had been abducted by Zeus. Arriving in Boeotia, he settled where he came across a heifer, because the oracle of Delphi had instructed him to stop when he encountered such an animal. Right there, a serpent consecrated to Ares, the god of war, killed some of Cadmus’ companions. Cadmus killed the serpent before serving Ares for eight years as penance for the deed. Later, instructed by Athena, goddess of wisdom, he sowed the serpent’s teeth. And from the ground miraculously sprang the warriors called the spartói (“the sown ones”). They fought each other until only five remained. The surviving Spartoi helped Cadmus to build the Cadmeia, a fortified citadel and the first nucleus of the city of Thebes, from where Cadmus then reigned over the Theban state. Learchus and Melicertes are born from the union of Athamas and Ino. After the death of Cadmus, Athamas succeeds him on the throne of Thebes. In the meantime, Nephele has returned to Olympus. To take revenge on her ex-husband, she successfully induces the women of Boeotia to burn the wheat crops. A famine ensues, which will afflict the entire country. Athamas sends an embassy to Delphi to consult the Pythia on how to end the curse. 2   Hesiod, Ehoiai, fra. 27, Rzach. Later sources add other names: Mimas, father of Hippotes and ancestor of the Aiolos who appears in the Odyssey (Diodorus Siculus, Library of History IV.67), Aethlios (Pausanias, Periegesis V.8.2), Macareus (Hymn. Ap. Del. 37; Pausanias, Periegesis X.38.4; Hyginus, Fabulae 242), Magnes and Deion (Apollodorus I.7.2, who adds another five daughters), and Minyas, the forefather of the Minyans of Orchomenos (Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica III.1094).

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Delphi is located on the southern slopes of Mount Parnassus in Phocis, a region bordering Boeotia and bathed by the waters of the Gulf of Corinth. There, one can find a vast oracular sanctuary, the center of the cult of Apollo, where other divinities are also worshipped: Gaia, Poseidon, and Dionysos. Apollo’s oracle is the Pythia, who makes prophecies during the course of mystical ecstasies. Ino is a wicked stepmother to Phrixus and Helle. She wants them dead, so much so that she suborns the envoys returning from Delphi, bearing the response of the Pythia, before they see Athamas, and she sees to it that they report to the king that Apollo demands the sacrifice of his children. Reluctantly, Athamas accepts the will of Apollo. Phrixus and Helle are about to be sacrificed on an altar when they are rescued by a winged ram with a golden fleece, which had been sent to them at the behest of Zeus by Nephele, who had been given it as a gift by Hera (or by the god Hermes). They jump on the back of the animal and it immediately takes off in flight. Unfortunately, during the flight, Helle gets dizzy, loses her balance, and falls into the sea at the entrance to the Dardanelles. In memory of Helle, the Greeks will call that strait the Hellespont, “the Sea of Helle.” The Dardanelles is the stretch of sea, about 50 km long and from 2 to 6 km wide, that separates Europe from Asia, worming its way between the Gallipoli Peninsula (ancient Thracian Chersonese) and northwest Anatolia (ancient Troad). As it connects the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara, which in turn leads to the Black Sea, it is a strait of great strategic importance. The northern coasts of the Black Sea and their hinterland are in fact a limitless source of cereals, while the southern coasts and their hinterland are rich in metals, including precious metals. This explains why it has always been the subject of political disputes and rivalries. Rising on its shores, in ancient times, were various major cities: Rhoeteum, Ofrinio, Dardanus, and Abydos on the Asian side, and Elaeus and Sestus on the European side. However, Helle does not die: she is rescued by Poseidon, the king of the sea and earthquakes, to whom horses are also sacred. Poseidon will love Helle, with whom he will have Paeon, Edonus, and Almops. Meanwhile, the ram, after Helle falls into the sea, speaks to Phrixus to give him courage, and Phrixus, reassured, continues his aerial ride. The flight ends in distant Colchis, a region south of the Caucasus overlooking the Black Sea. Upon his arrival, Phrixus is welcomed hospitably by the local ruler, Aeëtes, son of the sun god Helios and the Oceanid Perseis, brother of Circe, Perses, and Pasiphaë, and father of Medea, Chalciope, and Absyrtus. Phrixus sacrifices the flying ram to Zeus Phyxius, “the Savior of Fugitives,” and gives its golden fleece to Aeëtes, who will hang it on the branch of an oak tree in a wood sacred to the god Ares, son of Zeus and Hera; he will also give Phrixus his own daughter Chalciope, “bronze-face,” in marriage. Four sons are born from the union of Phrixus and Chalciope: Argos, Melas, Phrontis, and Cytisoros. On the death of Aeëtes, Phrixus succeeds him on the throne, and he will reign over Colchis until an advanced age. His sons will travel to Boeotia, where they will settle permanently.

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Meanwhile, Semele, Ino’s sister, while she was pregnant, looked upon Zeus and was incinerated by the god’s radiance. However, Zeus saved the unborn child from her ashes and sewed him into his thigh. On his birth, the son of Zeus and Semele was called Dionysos. He will be raised by Athamas and Ino in women’s clothing to prevent Hera from recognizing him. But Hera, wracked with jealousy, takes revenge on Athamas and Ino, driving them mad. The first to lose his mind is Athamas. During a hunting trip, he mistakes his little son Learchus for a deer, or a lion, and mortally wounds him with a spear. On hearing the news, Ino is shocked. In turn, she too loses her senses and runs away from her husband, taking their other young son, Melicertes, with her. She will throw herself into the sea from the Molurian Rock, near the Isthmus of Corinth, with the young one in her arms, who will drown with her. Melicertes’ lifeless body will be brought back to the shore by dolphins. The sea deities take pity on them and transform Ino and Melicertes into sea deities: Ino will become Leucothea, “the white goddess,” “the goddess of the sky covered with fog,” and Melicertes becomes Palaemon. In honor of him, Sisyphus, the uncle of Melicertes, will set up the Isthmian Games, consisting of gymnastic competitions, wrestling matches, and horse races. Athamas, after the tragedy that destroyed his family, comes to his senses and gets married again, this time to Themisto, daughter of Hypseus, with whom he has four sons: Leucon, Erythrius, Schoeneus, and Ptous. In addition, he adopts Coronus and Haliartus, the sons of his brother Thersander, one of the Epigoni who successfully attacked Thebes. Meanwhile, the famine has pushed the Aeolians to abandon Boeotia and set out in search of another land in which to settle. They split into two groups, both of which head north. One group is led by Athamas, the other by Cretheus. The migrants roam around for some time, eventually passing through northeastern Greece and settling there permanently. The land of the Aeolians will be called Aeolia. Later, the Aeolians will be driven out or enslaved by the Thessalians—a Thesprotian3 tribe who had invaded the western part of Aeolia from their homeland of Cichyrus—and it is from these people that the name Thessaly derives. Athamas settles permanently in Phthia (the Phthiotic plain in Thessaly and the mountainous region of Achaea), which in the future will be called Phthiotis. He makes himself king of this region and founds the cities of Halos and Akraephinion, while his sons Coronus and Haliartus will found the cities of Coroneia and Haliartos. His kingdom extends up to the territory of the future city of Orchomenos, including the flat region surrounding Lake Copais and Mount Laphystion, sacred to Zeus. Cretheus, Neleus, and Pelias Cretheus occupies Magnesia, drives out its occupants, re-establishes Iolcus (near Volos), a city in Magnesia (a region of Thessaly) on the slopes of Mount Pelion and its peninsula and on the Pagasetic Gulf, and rules over this city and the surrounding territory. 3

  Thesprotia is an area in Epirus (northwestern Greece) that borders Albania to the north.

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Cretheus married one of his nieces, Tyro, daughter of Salmoneus, when she was pregnant, as she had coupled with the god Poseidon. Tyro gave birth to twins: Neleus and Pelias. Cretheus adopted them. Later, Cretheus and Tyro had six children of their own, three sons and three daughters. The three sons are Aeson, Pheres, and Amythaon. Aeson marries Alcimede and has several children with her. Pheres will found Pherae and becomes its king. Pherae is a city situated in the southeast of Thessaly, on the slopes of Mount Chalcodonium and standing in front of the steppe plain that extends toward Lake Boebeis, a little north of the Pagasetic Gulf, on the shores of which is its port, Pagasae. He will father two sons: Admetus and Jason. Admetus will be one of the Argonauts and will then take part in the Calydonian Boar hunt. He will become famous for his hospitality and sense of justice. Jason will lead the Argonauts’ expedition and capture the Golden Fleece. Amythaon will marry his niece Idomene, the daughter of Pheres. He will give his name to part of Elis (a region in the Peloponnese)—Amythaonia—and will become the father of three children, two of whom are boys (Melampus and Bias) and one a girl (Aeolia). Bias will become king of Argos in the period in which this kingdom was divided into three domains (the second king will be Melampus, while the third will be Anaxagoras). Having fallen in love with his cousin Pero, the daughter of Neleus, he and Melampus arrange the theft of the herd of Phylacus, king of Phylace in Thessaly, whose delivery was set as a condition by Neleus so that he can choose which of his daughter’s suitors to give her to in marriage. Later, Bias will help Melampus in another enterprise (they will capture some girls—including the daughters of Proetus, king of Tiryns—who have gone mad and will cure them). In the meantime, however, Pero dies. Bias remarried Iphianassa, one of the girls he had healed. Among the descendants of this couple is the seer Amphiaraos, who will participate in the war of the Seven against Thebes. Melampus will become a healer and cures Iphicles, the son of Phylacus, of infertility, receiving a herd of oxen as a reward. He has the gift of clairvoyance and will become the progenitor of the line of seers called the Melampodidae, a hereditary family specializing in divination, just like the oracles and the analogous family of the Iamidae. Neleus, the natural son of Poseidon and Tyro, vies over the succession with him, but in the end Aeson prevails and condemns Neleus to exile. Neleus and his followers are about to leave Iolcus when Amythaon joins them. The group moves south, and they will receive hospitality from Aphareus, king of Pylos in Messenia. After the death of Aphareus, Neleus inherits the throne. Amythaon, on the other hand, returns to Thessaly, together with other members of his family, to intercede with Pelias on Jason’s behalf. One day, Neleus receives a visit from Heracles, who is the son of Zeus and the mortal Alcmene, and therefore is a demigod. Alcmene had been engaged to Amphitryon, a Theban general, when Zeus, in order to sleep with her, took the form of her fiancé before ensuring that the night lasted three times as long as it should have.

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Heracles is a hero known for his physical strength. He was married to Megara and had a little boy with her, but he killed them both in a fit of anger. Eager to rebuild a family, he asked Eurytus, king of Oechalia, for the hand of his daughter Iole in marriage, but he was rebuffed. When he left, he stole some cattle from Eurytus. Iphitus, a son of Eurytus, went to him to demand the return of the stolen animals. Iphitus is a guest of Heracles when the latter throws him from the city walls. The gods punished Heracles, sending him mad, though not for having killed Iphitus but for breaking the oath of hospitality. Heracles therefore goes to Neleus, king of Pylos, in search of purification and expiation. He asks him to perform the necessary rites, as only consecrated kings can do so, but again he is refused, as Neleus is an old friend of Eurytus and Iphitus had been like a son to him. Heracles then goes to the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi and questions the oracle about what he must do to purify himself of the killing of Iphitus, but the Pythia, who is called Xenoclea, does not tell him. Heracles is enraged and argues with Xenoclea. Apollo, the son of Zeus and brother of Heracles, descends from Olympus to restore order, but Heracles argues with him as well. Zeus breaks up the fight with a lightning bolt and forces them to make peace. In the end, Xenoclea, on Apollo’s orders, gives Heracles the counsel he requested: Heracles will have to submit himself to be a slave, for three years, to Omphale, queen of Lydia. Heracles submits. Omphale first takes pleasure in humiliating him, forcing him to dress as a woman, but then she falls in love with him. After three years of servitude, Heracles takes revenge, not only on Neleus but also on Laomedon, king of Troy, for failing to reward him when he saved his daughter Hesione from a sea monster, sent by Poseidon. Heracles gathers an army and attacks Troy, together with two of his old friends, Telamon and Oicles. He captures the city and kills Laomedon and his entire family, except for Hesione. Heracles then gives Hesione in marriage to Telamon. He then returns to Pylos and kills Neleus and all of his sons, except for one: Nestor. The survivor of the massacre takes his father’s place on the throne of Pylos, then he participates in two heroic endeavors: the fight between the Centaurs and the Lapiths and the hunt for the Calydonian Boar. Then he leaves for the Trojan War, during which he will restore the peace between Achilles and Agamemnon. He will return safely to his homeland (he will be one of the few Achaean heroes of the Trojan War who do) and will reign for many more years before dying in his bed at a very old age. Meanwhile, Pelias, the natural son of Tyro and the adopted son of Cretheus, has married Anaxibia, with whom he has nine children: one son, Acastus, and eight daughters, among whom is one called Alcestis. He is the legitimate heir to the throne after the death of Cretheus but is excluded from the succession by Neleus, who usurps the throne. He will settle in Thessaly and becomes king of Iolcus after seizing the throne from his brother Hesione, the legitimate heir, whom he imprisoned along with the rest of the family.

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The only survivor of the slaughter, Diomedes, escapes from Iolcus. He will be raised on Mount Pelion by the centaur Chiron, from whom he learns the art of medicine. For this reason, he will be nicknamed Jason, “the Healer.” Diomedes marries Clymene, the daughter of Minyas, king of Orchomenos. From this marriage, four children are born: two sons, Admetus and Lycurgus, and two daughters. The beautiful Admetus (the god Apollo will be so enamored with him that he puts himself at his service) will marry Alcestis, the daughter of Pelias, and he will succeed Diomedes on the throne of Pherae, though he also reigns over Glaphyra and Boebe. His kingdom extends to Lake Boebeis and up to the cool, wooded region that rises to the summit of Mount Pelion (1,651 m). This mountain looks eastward to the inlet north of the Pagasetic Gulf. Lycurgus will reign over Nemea in Laconia (Peloponnese). His son, Opheltes, will die at an early age after being bitten by a serpent during the march of the Seven against Thebes. This Lycurgus could, however, be a namesake of the son of Diomedes. We refer here to the son of Pronax, who will be killed by Amphiaraus, one of the Seven. Jason and the Argonauts Diomedes, son of Hesione, is a handsome young man, tall and robust, with long hair; he wears the pelt of a panther, wears only one sandal (his left foot remains bare), and carries a javelin in each hand. One day, he returns to Iolcus and confronts the elderly Pelias in the agora. He makes his claim to the kingdom with great daring, receiving support from his uncles Pheres, king of Pherae, and Amythaon, king of Pylos, who accompany him. Pelias does not deny the right claimed by Jason, but, to put him in difficulty, and perhaps to have him eliminated, he asks that, before recognizing him, he frees the land of Iolcus from the curse that weighs on it, being haunted by the ghost of King Phrixus, by bringing the Golden Fleece, which is hanging from the branch of an oak tree in Colchis and guarded by a dragon, back home. Jason accepts the challenge and, together with 49 other companions, who flock to Iolcus from all over Greece to take part in the expedition, he embarks on a quinquereme called the Argo, which was built—with the help of the goddess Athena— by Argos, son of Phrixus and one of those undertaking the challenge. The Argonauts, “those who sail on board the Argo,” set sail from the port of Pagasae in Thessaly, their destination set for Colchis.4 They first stop at Lemnos, in the northeast Aegean Sea, before making a second in Misia, where the Bebryces live, and then a third in Thrace. The voyage continues for the island of Samothrace and the coast of Cyzicus, passing the Symplegades, or the Cyanean Rocks, the gateway to the Black Sea. Crossing the Black Sea, they finally land at the mouth of the Phasis   Ancient Colchis extended inland from the eastern shores of the Black Sea as far as the mountains of Dagestan. Today, it corresponds to the western part of Georgia. At one time, the eastern part of modern Georgia was called Iberia. 4

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(present-day Rion, in the Caucasian republic of Georgia), after having also stopped among the Mariandyni and on the island of Aretiades. Phasis, the capital of Aeëtes’ kingdom, is situated on the banks of the river of the same name.5 There, Jason passes all the tests set for him by Aeëtes as conditions to retrieve the Golden Fleece with the help of Medea, the daughter of Aeëtes and a sorceress, like her aunt Circe. Medea falls madly in love with Jason. Jason manages to tame wild bulls with brass legs and flaming nostrils. But Aeëtes refuses to honor his word. Jason thus takes possession of the Golden Fleece by force after having drugged the dragon guardian and takes to the sea again with his companions. Medea goes with the Argonauts, carrying her little brother Absyrtus in her arms. Aeëtes does not resign himself to the loss of the Golden Fleece and pursues the fugitives at the head of a group of Colchians. As Aeëtes is closing the gap, Medea, to slow him down, kills Absyrtus, tearing him limb from limb and scattering the limbs into the sea. Aeëtes stops to pick up the pieces of his little boy, losing ground; then, disconsolate, he abandons the pursuit. The heinous crime provokes the ire of Zeus, who raises a storm. The Argonauts learn from the voice of their magical ship that such divine wrath will only be calmed if Jason is purified by the sorceress Circe. Jason orders them to change course and head for the land of Circe, in the Sea of Sirens. He and his fellow adventurers will reach their new destination after a long journey that takes them down the Po, the Rhone, and through the Sea of Sardinia. Circe purifies Jason, and the Argo can reach the end of its journey quickly and safely. The ship finally arrives at the port of Iolcus after having crossed the strait of Scylla and Charybdis (Messina) and reached the land of the Phaeacians (Corfu), the shores of the Gulf of Sidra, and the islands of Crete, Anafi, and Aegina. On hearing that Jason is about to return to Iolcus, Pelias causes Aeson to commit suicide by drinking the blood of a sacrificed bull before he kills the latter’s young son, Promachus. This indirectly causes the death of Aeson’s wife, Alcimede. She hangs herself, unable to resist the pain and despair of losing her loved ones. However, Pelias does not escape the revenge of the returning Jason. This is accomplished with the help of Medea, who induces Pelias’ daughters to kill their own father by cutting up his body into pieces and cooking them in order to give him fresh youth; to convince them, she kills a ram and, putting it to the boil, transforms it into a bleating lamb. All the daughters of Pelias participate in the patricide, except for Alcestis. Diomedes cannot recover the throne because Acastus, Pelias’ son, with the local people’s help, expels him and Medea from Iolcus. The two will find refuge in Corinth, where they will start a new life together. Ten years later, Jason falls in love with Creusa, daughter of Creon, king of Corinth; he has several children with her and divorces Medea. The latter, in revenge for having been abandoned, butchers both the children she had with Jason and the children of Jason and Creusa, and she hands her ex-husband’s new 5   Some classical and Byzantine authors placed the house of Aeëtes and Medea in Kutaia, on the River Phasis, modern Kutaisi, which is located north of Vani and, therefore, in the center of ancient Colchis.

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wife a poisoned dress, which burns Creusa to death. She then seeks shelter with the king of Athens, Aegeus, whom she promises to cure of his infertility. Jason will end his days in Corinth, killed by a piece of wood that falls from his old ship, the Argo, under which he was sleeping. According to another story, Jason makes an alliance with Peleus to overthrow Acastus, the son of Pelias. He takes control of Iolcus with the help of the Dioscuri and sacks it. Then he rules over the city and designates his son Thessalus to succeed him.

The grain of truth It is said that every myth is a compromise between the tradition that inspires it and the reality into which it falls, and that all legends have a grain of truth to them. As far as the myth of the Argonauts and the quest for the Golden Fleece is concerned, the grain of truth is the reference to the search for gold on the shores of the Black Sea that it reveals. In this regard, it must first be said that the riches of Colchis, which derived from its gold, silver, copper, and iron mines, suggest a reasonable motive for the expedition.6 As for the Golden Fleece, it must be remembered that Colchis, around the middle of the 3rd millennium, was home to a population of semi-nomadic shepherds, who were very skilled in metalworking. Those men and women used a ram’s fleece to collect the specks of gold that were carried by the current of certain streams that were rich in gold dust, using soaked sheep skins to sift for gold particles even finer than dust, and they sold the gold thus collected to the Aegean and Trojan navigator-merchants who went to visit them, receiving prestige goods in exchange. Perhaps the Golden Fleece was one such skin.7 But there are also those who say it was a text on a piece of parchment that describes the process of extracting gold.8

The emergence of the Mycenaeans The last decades of the 17th century (Late Helladic I, 1675/50–1600/1550) witnessed a cultural change in mainland Greece, the key characteristic of which is the advanced degree of social evolution and increase in wealth of the ruling élite. This is reflected in Grave Circles A and B at Mycenae and in other contexts, among which are the following: the tombs at Routsi and Koryphasion; the tholos tombs and grave goods in the cemeteries of Peristeria, Pylos, Osmanaga, Livaditi, Koukounara-Gouvalari, Tourkokivouro near Karpophora, and Akones (Messenia); a tomb at Asine (Argolis); 6   Strabo, Geography I.2.39. Confirmation of this comes from the discovery of the graves at Vani, a Colchian city-sanctuary from the 8th century to the 1st century (perhaps the sanctuary of Leucothea mentioned in Strabo, Geography XI.2.17). These graves in fact contained an abundance of gold jewelry created with the use of filigree and granulation techniques. 7   Appian, Mithridatic Wars 103. 8   For example, the 4th-century mythographer Palaephatus, whose work On Incredible Tales is known today through a Byzantine edition.

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the cemetery of Argos (Argolis); the pit tombs and grave goods from Thebes, Orchomenos, and Dramesi (Boeotia); and the settlements of Nichoria (Messenia) and Agios Stephanos (Laconia).9 It is worth dwelling on Grave Circles A and B from Mycenae for a moment. Each consists of a stone enclosure that encompasses a group of pit tombs, some of which are marked out by stelae carved in relief with chariot scenes or abstract decorations, and are located west of the acropolis, about 150 m away from each other. They began to form in the 17th century and continue to have fresh burials in the 16th century. Most likely, those buried there are members of royal and princely dynasties, the foci of the political and military power that dominates the Argolis plain.10 The burials are accompanied by a profusion of objects, which are often of great value and reveal the influence of the Minoan and Cycladic civilizations on the Helladic cultural environment. The male dead are buried together with weapons of war and helmets topped with boar tusks, which identify them as warriors. We are talking here about swords made of bronze with an ivory, gold, or alabaster pommel and a chiseled blade; decorated helmets, small blades, and daggers (the blade of two daggers is encrusted with gold, silver, and niello); spears, and arrows. The female dead are dressed in rich robes, with rosettes and other ornaments in gold, with pearls of amber, gold or silver rings, and other gold jewels (rings, diadems, earrings, necklaces, bracelets). The grave goods may also include one or more of the following types of objects: golden masks and crowns; seals made of semi-precious stones; pottery in rock crystal, bronze, silver, or gold, sometimes in Minoan style, sometimes with a continental style; rhyton in gold or silver, in the shape of a bull’s head (in the Minoan fashion) or of a deer, or in an eastern style, or with scenes of battles and sieges; items for personal use (razors, pins, fibulae); terracotta vases, either of continental, Cretan, or Cycladic production or Minoan imitations; and ostrich eggs. Swords can be counted by the dozen. There are hundreds of rosettes and other ornaments for clothing. The amber pearls number more than a thousand. The gold is weighed in kilos. A single tomb contains 7 kg of gold. How did Mycenae’s ruling élite become so wealthy? Perhaps they were fortunate in their maritime trade, amassed fabulous spoils by waging war on their neighbors, preyed on others through banditry and piracy, or obtained compensation for providing mercenary soldiers to Egypt. Perhaps they were able to exploit rich seams of gold. A clue supporting this hypothesis is the arrival of Cadmus in Greece. Cadmus is a   The settlements of Nichoria (Messenia), Korakou, and Tsoungiza (Argolis) and the shaft tombs of Lerna (Argolis) also belong to the Late Helladic I. As for the pottery of the Late Helladic I, this is characterized in the Peloponnese by funnel-shaped cups, jugs decorated with engraved rings or spirals, and other decorative motifs painted in dark colors on a light background. Local innovations of the Late Helladic I continue into the Late Helladic IIA. 10   See L. Godart, Da Minosse a Omero. Genesi della prima civiltà europea (Turin: Einaudi, 2020), 75. 9

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character from Greek mythology. He is said to have come up with the idea of mining and working gold and silver.11 The emergence of ruling élites from the heart of the complex societies of the Peloponnese and central-eastern Greece, with all that this represents in political, social, economic, and cultural terms, suggests that a new civilization has emerged from the trunk of Meso-Helladic culture in the last decades of the 17th century. This civilization will be called the Mycenaean civilization, taking its name from Mycenae, the most important center from which it spreads, and so we will call it as such from now on.

11

  Godart, Da Minosse a Omero, 183.

Chapter 11 The Mycenaeans

Life expectancy, diet, clothing, and personal adornments Among the Mycenaeans, on average, men are 1.67 m tall and women are 1.55 m tall.1 Those who grow old, up to the age of 50–55 years, are few. The average life expectancy is 35–36 for men and 30 for women. This could be higher if hygiene were less superficial, if there was no lack of effective remedies for potentially fatal diseases and infections or for injuries sustained in combat, and if violent and premature deaths were not so frequent. Many men are killed before they reach the age of 30, or shortly after, and many women die in childbirth, or shortly after having a child. The infant mortality rate is very high. Men and women eat starchy foods, legumes, olives, fruit, cheese, and onions. Ordinary people rarely eat meat; it is easier for them to eat fish. Members of the ruling élite eat better. This explains why they often have a large and robust build, even heavy. While at work, men wear a loincloth or, at most, a short skirt of wool or linen. On other occasions, they wear a tunic with short sleeves over the loincloth; they tie this tightly at the waist using a belt, possibly by a band of fabric that passes around the waist. Members of the ruling élite can be told apart from the hoi polloi because they wear their hair long, falling thickly over their shoulders, as well as a chiton—an anklelength garment, the lower part of which is flounced and pleated, and on which gold rosettes can be stitched—and signet rings tied to the wrist, as well as precious metal necklaces, bracelets, and bangles. The signet rings are made of hard stone or steatite and are engraved with religious, hunting, or combat scenes. Women wear their hair long or short depending on their age and social position (older women have longer hair). Usually, they wear a long, smooth tunic, cinched under the breasts by a thin belt, with a covering and a shawl. If they want to give off an air of elegance, they dress in the style of Minoan women, with full skirts and   The burials of the Grave Circles of Mycenae and some vase and wall decorations provide information about the physical appearance, infant mortality, and life expectancy of the Mycenaeans, as well as their way of dressing and hair styling. 1

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a bodice that reveals their breasts, with finery and embroidery. The skirts are made with overlapping horizontal strips of various colors and are tightened at the waist with a thin belt. In addition, women of a high social class are bejeweled with necklaces, bracelets, bangles, earrings, hair clips, and tiaras, all of gold, silver, or precious stones. Children have their heads shaved until, on the threshold of puberty, they are allowed to grow a braid (only when they are older will they be able to grow their hair fully).

The ruling élite Mycenaean society, therefore, is divided into two classes: the ruling élite and the common masses. The members of the élite occupy an unattainable position. Public offices, religious responsibilities, and military commands and privileges are shared among them. They monopolize the means of production. They control the fulfillment of arts, trade, and professions, and therefore the sphere of work. They share the dream of enriching themselves through the economic exploitation of the weakest, the accumulation of spoils of war, the proceeds of internal and long-distance trade, banditry, and piracy. To justify their supremacy ideologically, they pronounce that they are descended from the gods and that they are protected by them. Therefore, they are closely related to the sphere of the sacred. They have a high level of self-awareness and are keen to keep their distance from the rest of the community. To this end, they flaunt their primacy, competing with Minoan, Egyptian, and Eastern customs, and stocking up on luxury goods from Crete, the Balkan region, or the kingdom of Hatti (central Anatolian plateau). In addition, they bury their dead in exclusive cemeteries. They invest great resources and energy in the construction of monumental tombs in order to rest in the company of their ancestors and their many valuables for all eternity. One of their favorite pastimes is hunting wild boar and fallow deer. Another is fighting in war.

The common people, slaves, and foreigners The large base of the common folk is made up of food producers, construction workers (builders, master builders, stonecutters, interior decorators, etc.), shipbuilders (shipwrights, caulkers, sailmakers, etc.), traders, artisans, fishermen, seafarers, soldiers, servants, and traveling troubadours. The farmers, shepherds, and cattle ranchers live in rural villages or mountain stations situated near cultivated fields, stables, enclosures, and pastures. They may be tenant farmers, colonists, sharecroppers, or farmers, but they are all people of free status (in the sense that they are not slaves). They are distinguished from each other based on the skill or job they perform and are grouped into brotherhoods or associations. They may be employees, in the service of nobles or temples, or selfemployed workers. In one way or another, however, even the latter are in the service of the nobles and temples.

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Farmers combine the cultivation of fields with the rearing of horses, cattle, goats, sheep, and pigs. Horses are bred especially in the Argolid, Messenia, and Thessaly. This animal was domesticated somewhere between eastern Europe and central Asia, perhaps in Kazakhstan, in the 4th millennium. At that time, they were initially used to inspect grazing cattle. The practice later spread west and south. The Kurgans—the collective name for various nomadic populations from eastern Europe, central Asia and Siberia, up to the Altai Mountains and western Mongolia, known partly for their practice of burying high-ranking members of their society under large mounds— reared horses between eastern Ukraine and southeastern Russia. The Hittites imported the horse to Asia Minor, and from there, it spread through the Near East. The ProtoGreeks introduced it to Greece. In the Bronze Age, as the saddle and stirrups have not yet been invented, riding a horse is not easy, so pairs of horses are used to pull a light cart. Cattle farming is not very developed either; oxen are used as draft animals. At first, they constituted a unit of measure for bartering, which used the ox hide. Later, they were replaced in this function by copper ingots, which, not by chance, have the shape of an ox hide. Goat and sheep farming is important not just for the meat and milk obtained but also for the wool, which comes from shearing the fleece of the animals and feeds a significant textile industry. The artisans can be distinguished by their area of specialization. Some work with clay, metals, animal hides, natural fibers, hard materials of animal origin, aromatic essences, wood, or clay. Therefore, they may be potters, brickmakers, smelters, blacksmiths, coppersmiths, cutlers, weaponsmiths, decorators, engravers, goldsmiths, silversmiths, bronzesmiths, shoemakers, manufacturers of saddles and horse harnesses, fullers, dyers, tanners, leatherworkers, manufacturers of nets, ropes, sails, and fabrics, carvers of ivory, bone, and horn, perfumers, shipwrights, ebonists, inlayers, or luthiers. They live in the cities, in an appropriate neighborhood on the fringes inside the fortified citadel. The specialists who enjoy the most attention are the metallurgists. They make up a powerful fraternity which is entered after undergoing a long apprenticeship, and they have both apprentices and slaves at their disposal. Mycenaean society is familiar with slavery. Slaves are foreigners with a servile status who became such because they were prisoners of war or victims of kidnappings during a pirate raid or pillaging. They live on the fringes of society and are the property of the nobles and temples.

Political organization, administration, and the writing system The Mycenaeans are organized into tribes, brotherhoods, families, and houses with a patriarchal and monogamous regime and are united through their language, traditions, and religious, moral, military, and economic customs. The spoken language is Mycenaean Greek, an offshoot of the Hellenic Indo-European tree and part of the Arcado-Cypriot dialect group. It is used not only by nobles and officials but also by ordinary people and merchants, and it is put in writing through Linear B. This

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writing system comprises syllabograms, ideograms, signs of weights and measures, and numerical signs.2 Its structure is the same as Linear A (the signs of one and the other are almost identical), from which it derives, and it constitutes an adaptation therefrom to the Mycenaean context. The principal differences between Linear A and Linear B consist in the formulation of the text in horizontal lines, in the way ideograms are used, and in the numerical system. Linear B, like Linear A, is used uniquely for registering goods moving in and out of warehouses. Therefore, it is used for compiling registers of loading and unloading and lists of recipients of food rations and other goods, for creating labels, for marking goods, and for dedicating offerings to the gods. There is no Mycenaean literature, other than those concerning administration and worship.3 Like texts in Linear A, Linear B texts are engraved with a stylus on a tablet or a nodule of unfired clay. The tablets can be of two types: rectangular page shaped or palm-leaf shaped. Nodules are small, prism-shaped lumps of unfired clay; usually, two faces bear inscriptions, while the third bears a seal impression. If the nodules bear both inscriptions and a seal, they are called cretulae. Labels are made of lightweight wood and serve to describe the contents and/or provenance of a container. The markings are painted or engraved on the belly of stirrup jars containing oil or wine, or on another surface in ivory, ceramic, metal, or stone.4 They reference individuals linked to the Palace (“this jar belongs to …”). Both the labels and the markings refer to procedures that precede the dispatch of the container and its contents to their destination. The related inscriptions are in Linear B; however, unlike archival documents, they do not contain ideograms or figures. The archival documents deal with issues related to the economic life of the Palace (or House) as it unfolded in the final months that preceded the destruction of the building that contained the archive, perhaps even in the final days. They are placed on shelves or in special rooms within the seats of government.

The wa-na-ka Archaic states, we recall, are complex and centralized organisms formed by a territory, one or more peoples, and an administration that deals with putting the central government’s decisions into practice. These institutions are political, social, and cultural. Among the Mycenaeans, they are divided into damoi, “local districts.” The person in charge of each damos is the qa-si-re-wa, a figure linked to the central 2   There are around 6,000 texts of Linear B that have been discovered in archaeological excavations, including archival documents and inscriptions, for a total of more than 60,000 examples of writing signs. Many are unfinished or very abbreviated in form. Archival documents (tablets, nodules) have been found in the ruins of the Palaces of Pylos, Thebes, Tiryns, Knossos, and Kydonia (Chania) and in a series of buildings located either within the acropolis of Mycenae or outside of it, near to Grave Circle A: the House of the Sphinx, the House of Shields, the Citadel House, the West House, and the House of Columns. 3   Linear B is by far the best represented form of writing in pre-Hellenic Crete. Unlike texts in Linear A, which are legible but cannot be read (because the Minoan language has not yet been deciphered), texts in Linear B are both legible and can be read and understood. 4   These have been found in Mycenae and Tiryns (Argolis), Eleusis (Attica), Creusis, Orchomenos, and Thebes (Boeotia), and Armeni, Knossos, Kydonia, and Mamelouko (Crete).

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government and flanked by a council of elders. Social life in the damoi is organized into villages. The most important village gives its name to the damos. In each Mycenaean state, the political peak is the wa-na-ka, “he who commands, ruler, lord” (the major deities of the Mycenaean pantheon, which are Poseidon and Zeus, are called the same).5 The wa-na-ka is an autocrat: he exercises his powers without being subject to any constraints and can hand power down to his offspring. On solemn occasions, he carries a wooden staff covered with gold or bronze leaf6 and sits atop a stone platform on a throne of stone.7 His functions and prerogatives arise in relation to the state’s government, the administration of justice, and the sphere of the sacred. Therefore, the wa-na-ka not only rules but is also a judge and plays the most important role in the practice of religion (worship of the deities; cult practices, including rituals; religious festivals). In his capacity as priest-king, moreover, he presides over ceremonies that involve the offering of prestige goods and sacrificial victims to the gods.8 His foreign policy, in peacetime, consists of maintaining relations with his counterparts in other states, including non-Mycenaean ones, with whom he exchanges gifts related to hospitality and gifts that are traditionally given on the occasion of a wedding.

Functions and prerogatives, the anaktoron, and court dignitaries and officials Each wa-na-ka enjoys a right to levy taxes, controls various economic activities, and employs hundreds or thousands of people, among whom are farmers, ranchers, shepherds, hunters, fishermen, laborers, artisans, and sailors. He organizes some aspects of the agricultural and industrial production of the area, allowing the ruling élite to enjoy part of the tax revenues and appropriating the rest. He owns numerous slaves and a large amount of arable land, woods, pastures, orchards, vineyards, olive groves, herds, flocks, artisanal studios, workshops and forges, ships, etc. He rewards those who work for him, distributing food rations and sometimes other payments in 5   The Greek word (w)anax recurs in Homeric poems with the meaning of the highest organ of the state and supreme commander of the army. It likely derives from the Greco-Mycenaean word wa-na-ka. 6   Such a symbol of power has been found in various tombs among the Grave Circles of Mycenae, in the tholos tomb of Vapheio, in a tomb in the necropolis of Voudeni in Attica, in the Palace of Tiryns, and in the Palace of Knossos. 7   A throne of this type has been found in both the Palace of Tiryns and the Palace of Knossos. 8   The religion of the Mycenaeans was the result of the harmony of fusion of various motifs and ideas, the same that gave rise to the homogeneous Helladic-Minoan religious phenomenon and which was the basis of the future religion of the Greeks. Worship was practiced both in sanctuaries within cities and fortified citadels as well as sanctuaries scattered through the countryside and along the coasts. Inside, there were terracotta figurines (of horse riders, cattle, chariots, boats, etc.), vases, jars, large clay statues, and sometimes bronze swords, and on occasion they were frescoed. Examples of urban sanctuaries are the Cult Center at Mycenae, the shrines (‘sacello’, ex-voto deposits connected with open spaces, where ritual activities take place) and sanctuaries of Midea, Mycenae, and Tiryns, the sanctuary of Phylakopi (Milos), and the shrine of Agios Konstantinos. The rural sanctuaries were located on mountaintops. Of these, the one on Mount Kynortion near Epidauros, the one on Mount Oros on the island of Aegina, that of Nisakouli near Methoni (Messenia), and those in the territory of Tiryns are worthy of note.

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kind, such as terracotta pots for domestic use, work tools for personal jobs, pieces of fabric, etc. Only he, the wa-na-ka, and the priests can own plots of land (among the Mycenaeans, private property ownership is an almost entirely absent phenomenon). The residence of the wa-na-ka is a building that serves as both a dwelling and a seat of government, and it is located in the acropolis of a city. In the Late Helladic I—when the Mycenaean settlements are still small, they are formed only of private buildings, and are organized according to functional and social purposes—this is the anaktoron, “the house of the leader,” a building type that derives from the “corridor house” of the Proto-Helladic tradition.9 Sometimes, the anaktoron is decorated with frescoes that imitate corresponding Minoan and Cycladic ones. After the Mycenaean conquest of Crete (around 1450), the anaktoron will become an architectural complex that resembles the Minoan Palaces. One such anaktoron is the Cadmeion, a precursor to the Palace of Thebes, located on the city’s acropolis, from which it takes the name of Cadmea.10 It is also a precursor to the Palaces of Pylos, Mycenae, and Tiryns, as well as other buildings, located in Argos, Eleusis, and Iklaina, that are furnished and frescoed like the future Palaces. Another anaktoron can be found in Laconia (southwestern Peloponnese). On a hill overlooking the Crysapha valley, rich in gold and copper, stands the Menelaion,11 a building of around 500 m2, with three parallel wings separated by corridors, a number of storerooms, and a series of rooms.12 A further anaktoron is the building complex B85 at Malthi. Yet another is the Monumental Building of Kolonna on Aegina. The East House of Peristeria, in the Late Helladic I, differs from the typical Meso-Helladic megaron because it has a more complex plan, which includes a courtyard. In the Late Helladic IIA, the acropolis of Mycenae will include an anaktoron with frescoes. The court surrounding the wa-na-ka is made up of dignitaries, bards (singer-poets), storytellers, and distinguished guests. The dignitaries are nobles, members of sacred colleges, and army officers. Like the wa-na-ka, they have a numerous entourage and splendid abodes. The sovereign chooses the state officials, senior army officers, and those responsible for the prudent use of the means of production, the transformation of raw materials, and the management of provisions from among them. The appointees 9   Under the Palaces of Mycenae and Tiryns, which can be dated to the Late Helladic III, are the remains of more ancient structures and fragments of frescoes. There are also some other structures that constitute a transformation from the “corridor house” of the Helladic tradition that date back to the Late Helladic I, or at the latest to the Late Helladic II. Structures of this type have also surfaced in Eutresis and Thebes. 10   The Cadmeion was destroyed by an earthquake and replaced by another building of the same type in the Late Helladic IIIA:1. Later, the site was abandoned and deserted for about a century, after which it was reoccupied in the Late Helladic IIIA:2. 11   The Menelaion is so-called because, from the late 8th century or early 7th century until the 5th century, it was the center of the cult of the heroes Menelaus and Helen of Troy, possibly containing an altar and a boundary wall. 12   This site is located about 5 km from the modern city of Sparta. Archaeologists have brought evidence from several places to light: the North Hill (materials from the Middle Helladic), the Menelaion (Late Helladic settlement), Profitis Ilias, and Aetos.

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reciprocate the favorable treatment received with homage, the payment of taxes, and the provision of services.13 The supremacy of the wa-na-ka is based not only on the wealth he possesses but also on the loyalty and fidelity of his administrative officials, in particular because of the fact that they hold supreme command over the army.

The armies, weapons of war, and military equipment The Mycenaean states have fully-fledged armies that are essentially made up of units of infantry, either heavily or lightly armed. These are hierarchically organized and are armed and equipped in such a way as to use them most effectively for their designated purpose. There are at least four ranks of officers and various specializations in weaponry, including slingers and archers. The Mycenaean military formations are flanked by auxiliary units consisting of light-skinned mercenaries from the Italian or Balkan areas or dark-skinned mercenaries from Nubia.14 The light-skinned mercenaries are armed with slashing swords of the Naue II type, like the warriors of the Late Bronze Age of central and eastern Europe. The infantrymen wear a short skirt, which may be decorated with geometric motifs and fringed, and a pair of leather leggings that go up to the knees and are secured by straps that are wrapped three or four times around the leg (in the future, these leather leggings will be replaced by metal greaves). They may go bareheaded, wear a dark hood, or wear a leather helmet covered with rectangular plates made of wild boar tusks. They are armed with swords, daggers, spears, slings, bows, and a quiver full of arrows. They protect themselves with breastplates, shields, and leg guards. They use a light war chariot. The swords are long and narrow, sharp, and double-edged. The breastplates are made of bronze and may be of two types: an older style, with bronze plates in the shape of scales, forming a surplice (o-pa-wo-ta), following a model that was also 13   Various high-ranking individuals are mentioned on the tablets written in Linear B: the ra-wa-ke-ta, the e-qe-ta, the lawagetas, and the e-ke-ra2-wo. The ra-we-ke-ta seems to be the chief of staff of the army. He too is the owner of many material goods and slaves, albeit in lower quantities than the sovereign’s assets. The e-qe-ta, perhaps, is also a high military official; he seems to accompany and assist the wa-na-ka in wartime. The same term, however, is applicable for court dignitaries in general. The lawagetas seems to be the head of the aristocracy and of the army, the most important classes of Mycenaean society. He often appears alongside the wa-na-ka. He is one of the most powerful people in the kingdom, greatly feared and respected. As an advisor to the ruler, he can influence his decisions. The e-ke-ra2-wo (known in the future to the Greeks as Enkhelyawon) was perhaps a Great King who stood above the wa-na-ka, understood in this context as a Lesser King. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that, sometimes, in the Linear B tablets, e-ke-ra2-wo is mentioned before the wa-na-ka, the ra-wa-ke-ta, and other dignitaries, and he is one of the major benefactors of the sanctuary of Poseidon. He is, perhaps, the most important of Poseidon’s priests. 14   A group of dark-skinned mercenaries appears in a fresco, the so-called “Captain of the Blacks” fresco, which decorates a rich home of the Late Minoan IIIA:1,2 (1420/10–1330/15), situated near the Palace of Knossos. This fresco depicts a white officer at the head of a column of marching black troops. The darkskinned soldiers wear a distinctive plumage on their heads, which allows them to be identified as Nubians.

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widespread in Syria and Egypt in the second half of the 2nd millennium and in use during the transition from the Late Helladic II to the Late Helladic III, that is, until the end of the 15th century; and a newer style, which uses a leather corslet. A third type, with large, imbricated horizontal bands, which also covers the neck (to-ra-ka), was found in a monumental chamber tomb in Midea-Dendra in the Argolid. The use of a cuirass distinguishes heavy infantry from light infantry and is exclusive to soldiers of aristocratic origin. The shields may be large, “figure-of-eight” or “tower” types, or small and round, and they are made of ox hide.15 The figure-of-eight shield has a strap to hang it over the shoulder and is carried across the back. The tower shield, suitable for individual combat, protects the whole body from head to toe. It was already used on Crete before the Mycenaean conquest of the island. In Greece, it is used only in the 16th and 15th centuries. In the 14th century, it is replaced by the round shield, suitable for fighting as a group. The round shield has a handle and is carried on the left arm. The greaves are made of bronze and remain in use throughout the Mycenaean Age. However, there are also greaves made of leather or felt. The helmet is conical in shape, has a chin strap and cheek pieces, and can be topped by a round nodule or a feather adornment, and it consists of a cap, perhaps of leather, covered with elongated plates, obtained from the careful carving up of boar tusks. The plates are perforated on their short sides, sewn onto the cap, and arranged in overlapping bands, usually of four or five pieces (30 to 40 pairs are needed). In each band, the curvature of the plates is arranged in the opposite direction to those of the one next to it. Additional boar tusk plates cover the cheek pieces. At a later point, there is another type of helmet, two variants of which are known: one with a plume and two horns, the other grooved and crested. In this case, the helmet is a leather or felt cap covered by metal discs sewn on top of it. The spears range from a primitive type with a shoe-shaped tip, into which the end of the wooden shaft is inserted, to the longer, heavier type, with a tip in the shape of a narrow foliate blade with a central fuller and a hefty shaft, which is good for hunting lions as well as for fighting. One type of sword is long and estoc-shaped, finely decorated, of Minoan origin. It has rounded shoulders, a short tang, and a large fuller. The cruciform sword will derive from this type. Another less common type has right-angled or acute shoulders, a longer tang, and a shorter blade. In the Late Helladic IIIA, it will be replaced by a double-edged or bladed sword, perhaps deriving from the dagger with protruding shoulders, or from types common in the Near East. A Mycenaean version of this type of sword has right-angled shoulders with a raised edge like the hilt. The blade is wide and widens even more before it reaches the tip, and it has no fuller. A variant of this latter type is the sword with pointed shoulders that protrude in the shape of horns. The bows 15   Tower shields are being carried by presumed mercenaries in the Admiral’s Fresco from Akrotiri (Santorini). The figure-of-eight shield is comparatively smaller and is depicted on the “Warrior Krater” from the acropolis of Mycenae. Both types are depicted on a dagger decorated with a hunting scene found in Tomb IV of Grave Circle A at Mycenae. The circular shield was adopted in the Late Helladic IIIC, much later than the tower shield.

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are of simple form. The arrows are first made of flint or obsidian (Late Helladic I and II), then of bronze, often serrated (Late Helladic III). Light vehicles are recent inventions, revolutionary in their own way. They are used for hunting, for traveling, for transporting statues of the gods in religious processions, and for fighting. The Mycenaeans call the light war chariot, pulled by a pair of horses, the i-qi-ja.16 It has a wooden structure with spoked wheels hooped in bronze and a leather-covered platform with gold and ivory inserts. It is used to transport armored troops to the front lines and facilitate the movement of liaison officers.17 It also allows the warrior traveling alongside the driver, speeding toward and into the enemy lines, to fire arrows and throw javelins.

Pottery and figurative art The pottery of the Late Helladic IA—unlike the matte-painted ware, or mattmalerei, produced at the very end of the Middle Helladic (1700/1675), which was decorated with predominantly geometric motifs, painted with opaque paint on a light background—is decorated with more diversified motifs, or with new motifs with a naturalistic flavor, of Minoan origin, painted with glossy red or black paint. The pottery typology is partly the same as that of the Middle Helladic, but it also includes new forms, including the alabastron. The alabastron is a variation of the bag-shaped alabaster vase made in Egypt. It is made of clay and has a flatter and more elegant shape, perhaps derived from the single-handled, squat-bodied jug of the Middle Helladic. The art of the Mycenaeans is inspired by Minoan art and techniques. With regard to interior decoration, Mycenaean artisans learned how to create frescoes as well as numerous figurative-themed elements from the Minoans. The influence of Minoan decorative art on the Mycenaean style was very strong in the 17th and 16th centuries (Late Helladic I and II). In this period, it reproduces the naturalistic style of Minoan artists.18 Over time, Mycenaean decorative art will express itself more individually, independently from the Minoan style, which will translate into a rigid syntax and harmonious spatial background. The result, however, will be somewhat cold, devoid of the charm and inventiveness of the corresponding Cretan style.

16   Representations of this can be seen in the steles of Grave Circle A at Mycenae and in the pictorial style vases of the Late Helladic IIIB and the Late Helladic IIIC:1. 17   Unlike the Hittite light war chariot, which was heavier and used in groups as a weapon to break through enemy lines. 18   L. Godart, Da Minosse a Omero. Genesi della prima civiltà europea (Turin: Einaudi, 2020), 268.

Chapter 12 The search for raw materials

The western theater The Mycenaean ruling élite are very interested in everything that is beautiful, elegant, and exclusive in order to flaunt their possession of it and thus demonstrate the distance between themselves and the common masses. Therefore, they go in search of ceremonial helmets, weapons, shields, fine fabrics, leather bags, belts, ankle boots, buckles, rings, other small metal items, personal ornaments, other decorative items, precious ceramics, etc. As a result, the demand for such artifacts increases considerably, stimulates the exercise of arts and professions related to artistic craftsmanship, and feeds the demand for rare and precious raw materials. A large reservoir of such raw materials is the physical space that extends from the Adriatic Sea and the Ionian Sea to the west, as far as the Strait of Gibraltar. The wa-na-ka send their agents to draw on these, making available to them ships suitable for long-distance voyages, crews, and possibly even armed escorts. The Mycenaean ships that sail the routes of the western Mediterranean therefore belong to state fleets and carry royal ensigns. The main destinations of these voyages are the islands and mainland coasts of the area around Italy, the southern coasts of the Iberian Peninsula, and the Mediterranean coasts of North Africa. In the area around Italy, the Mycenaean navigator-merchants call at Sicily, Sardinia, the Tyrrhenian coasts of the Italian mainland from Calabria to Tuscany, and its Adriatic coastline, from Puglia to Veneto. They obtain supplies of copper from Tuscany, Sardinia, and Spain, sulfur and rock alum from Sicily, obsidian from the Aeolian Islands (especially Lipari and Vulcano), and amber from Sicily and the Po Delta. Amber can be found near the mouth of the Simeto, Sicily’s main river, after heavy storms. This variety amber of amber is red in color. Other varieties of amber, yellow-gold or brown, can be found in the Po Delta, where it is imported from the coasts of the Baltic Sea.1 The Amber Road starts in Poland, passes through Austria, and enters Italy in Tarvisio, before descending through Friuli and then the Veneto before ending in Polesine. Amber is sought after because it is believed to   Even today, amber is still widely harvested in Poland, the Baltic Republics, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, and Russia, and it is used to produce walking stick handles, personal ornaments, cigarette cases, and pipe stems. 1

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bring good luck and help ward off nightmares, delirium, and other illnesses, including sore throats. Moreover, it is also used to detect the presence of poisons in food. The Mycenaean ruling élite import considerable quantities of it. Consider that the grave goods in Tomb IV in Grave Circle A at Mycenae alone contain 1,290 pieces of amber. Mycenaean artisans work amber to make necklaces, pendants, and other objects. They will continue to do so throughout the entire Late Helladic, especially toward the end of this period, and in the Sub-Mycenaean Period (1150–1050). The Mycenaeans mainly search for metals (copper, tin, gold, silver, iron), sulfur, and rock alum. Above all, they search for copper and tin, which, when bound together, make bronze. The reason lies in the fact that weapons of war—whether pointed, edged, or missile—as well as helmets, breastplates, and greaves are made of bronze. Sulfur can be used to kill parasites, but also, when combined with other substances and in the form of an ointment, to treat skin problems. Primarily, it is used to clean white garments, to prevent them from yellowing or being stained with dirt, and to soften them. Rock alum is a material that is used to fix colors on wool and to tan leather, and it is also able to stem bleeding, and therefore it can be used as a hemostatic for wounds. It is also used in glass production and water purification treatments. Sicily The Mycenaeans, in exchange for the raw materials that interest them, provide the indigenous peoples of Sicily with a variety of goods: necklaces of glass paste beads (found from various sites in the region around Etna and the Plain of Catania), scales and other metal objects (found in Castelluccio in the province of Syracuse), cups with bronze foil (cups of this type, comparable with Minoan metallurgy of the Late Helladic I–IIA, have been found at Adrano in the province of Catania), and swords with bone or ivory pommels (found at Monte Grande). The matte-painted pottery in circulation in Sicily is probably sold there by Aegean traders from Aegina or other islands of the Saronic Gulf on their way to North Africa. Monte Grande is one of the places in Sicily frequented by them most intensively and for the longest time. Monte Grande is the name of a coastal hill, which is of modest altitude but is steep and precipitous, rising near the southern coastline of Punta Bianca (near Palma di Montechiaro in the province of Agrigento). Its summit, standing at 267 m a.s.l., dominates the sea in front of it and a long stretch of the coastline. This place is a “sacred mountain,” where fertility and prosperity cults are practiced in a sanctuary that is the most extensive and monumental of the Castelluccio sanctuaries, exercises hegemonic power over the small and scattered Castelluccio settlements, and profits from the economic exploitations of the sulfur veins, in which the area is rich. The Castelluccio Culture is the main expression of Early Bronze Age Sicily (2500/2200– 1700), if not also of the Late Bronze Age, up to 1450, the date of the emergence of the Thapsos Culture (named after the site of the same name located between Noto and Syracuse). The mineral, of extraordinary purity, is extracted from shallow chalk

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banks on the mountainside, crushed by the use of stone hammers and hatchets, melted in furnaces, and transported by foreign vessels, onto which it will be loaded by an organized workforce that operates under the control of the priests that manage the sanctuary and its affairs, and who, to account for the quantities of molten sulfur being exported, make use of circular terracotta discs, onto which markings and seal impressions with inscriptions are etched or impressed. Monte Grande is a place that was already being frequented for the purposes of worship in the Late Copper Age. In the Late Bronze Age,2 its southeastern part has three large terraces, with as many large circular enclosures, built using megalithic techniques, consecrated for worship, where devotees place various different types of ex-votos: clay horns and phalluses, small models of a temple, terracotta figurines, and loom weights. In reality, we are not dealing with a single sanctuary but three, interconnected with each other. One of these, found in the area of Baffo Inferiore, demonstrates continual use from the Copper Age to the Bronze Age,3 while the other two—one located in the area of Baffo Superiore and the other on the top of the hill (Pizzo Italiano)—belong to the Late Bronze Age. The sanctuaries of Basso Superiore and Pizzo Italiano are connected to each other by an access ramp, along which there is another small Castelluccio sanctuary, consisting of a horseshoe-shaped structure, the wall of which is very thick. The sanctuary of Baffo Inferiore consists of two large, very thick circles, built using the juxtaposition of large stones, which touch each other, around which there is a vast cobbled surface intended for sacred ceremonies and where ritual banquets are held. The sanctuary of Baffo Superiore, in turn, consists of a series of megalithic circular enclosures, which form around a large central enclosure, which has a diameter of around 38  m. A vast quantity of votive offerings have been found within these enclosures: Castelluccio vases, Aegean ceramics from the Late Helladic I and II (early 17th century–first decades of the second half of the 15th century), terracotta trays, fine Eneolithic vases, decorated with engravings in the style of San Cono-Piano NotaroGrotta Zubbia, and female terracotta figurines. The sanctuary of Pizzo Italiano consists of some large circular enclosures of the Castelluccio era supported by a very thick wall. In this case, the Bronze Age sanctuary stratigraphically overhangs the remains of an Early Copper Age village, consisting of some small circular huts with pottery of the Piano Vento and the San Cono-Piano Notaro-Grotta Zubbia styles. The Castelluccio layer of this sanctuary contains imported Aegean vessels dating back to the Late Helladic I–II. In the Late Helladic I and II, Aegean and Levantine navigator-merchants and metallurgists frequent Monte Grande to stock up on sulfur supplies. This explains why some imported Aegean or Cypriot-type ceramics were dedicated in that sanctuary   Activity at the sanctuary of Monte Grande ceased in the 15th century.   The stratigraphic layer of the Bronze Age sanctuary dates to the 16th century, while the lower Castelluccio layer dates to the 18th century. 2 3

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together with Castelluccio ceramics. These are mainly coarse ceramics for domestic use or transportation, but there is also fine tableware. In the 16th–15th centuries, western Sicily is a junction for the route that follows the Mediterranean coasts of Africa and the one that goes from the Gulf of Taranto and circumnavigates Sicily to reach the Aeolian Islands and the coasts of the Tyrrhenian side of mainland Italy. Having reached Monte Grande, sailors can continue for Africa, make a stopover in Pantelleria, or head to Sardinia, which itself is an island rich in copper and iron.4 Mainland Italy: Ionian and Adriatic coasts Evidence proving the Mycenaean presence on the Ionian coasts of Calabria and Puglia and the Adriatic coast of the Italian peninsula consists of Mycenaean pottery from the Late Helladic I–II from Capo Piccolo, the funerary cave of Manaccora, the hypogeum chamber tomb of Giovinazzo, and the dolmen of Casal Sabini, Rocca Vecchia, Porto Perone-Satyrion, and Molinella (Gargano Promontory). Aeolian Islands While sailing in the Lower Tyrrhenian Sea, Aegean and Levantine navigator-merchants stop in the Aeolian Islands, where they stock up on obsidian, sulfur, and potassium alum. Sometimes, they make a diversion toward the island of Ustica (where, in the village of Faraglioni, a fragment of a stirrup jar, perhaps imported, was found). The Aeolian culture that first establishes relations with the Aegean world is that of Capo Graziano. These are commercial in nature and persist from the Late Helladic IIA (1635/00–1480/70) to the Late Helladic IIB (1480/70–1420/10). Therefore, they are among the oldest relations of their kind that are established in the Lower Tyrrhenian Sea between the natives and the Mycenaeans, together with those of Lipari and of Punta Mezzogiorno on Vivara (Phlegraean Islands), which are attributable to the Late Helladic I and the start of the Late Helladic IIA. They mainly concern the importation of matte-painted, polychrome, red-surface, achromatic, and Mycenaean ceramics, particularly from the Peloponnese. This shows that, of the Mycenaean city-states that journey to the west in search of metals and other raw materials, Mycenae is the most active. At this stage, it seems that the Aeolian village communities of Filicudi and Stromboli are the most heavily involved in contacts and exchanges with the Mycenaeans. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that in the village of Filo Braccio (Piano del Porto), the quantity of imported Mycenaean pottery is more abundant than elsewhere, certainly more abundant than on Lipari (district of Diana, Castellaro) and on Salina (Serro dei Cianfi), and perhaps even more than in the village of San Vincenzo on Stromboli. Moreover, at Filo Braccio, Aegean imports are not limited to ceramics but extend to personal ornaments for men and women, such as faience (glass paste) beads. These 4   This is proven by the discovery of similar evidence at Mount Sallia in the southeast of Sicily (near Comiso) and Mursia in Pantelleria.

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beads are very common in Mycenaean Greece, where they are strung together to create necklaces and bracelets or are sewn onto clothes (it should not be overlooked that among the finds from Filo Braccio dating from the Late Helladic IIA–IIB, there are also some beads of semiprecious stones). The presence of the Mycenaeans on Lipari is also documented by a comb with a semicircular handle decorated with concentric circles and by a plate of wild boar bone that must have been part of a helmet, perhaps of the same type of helmet that was found—intact—in the settlement of Palma Campania (Salerno). With the importation of Aegean pottery, an Aegean influence begins to be reflected in the form of local ceramics and in the custom of marking vases and other clay objects. Furthermore, the Mycenaeans bring the most advanced knowledge of metallurgical techniques to the Aeolian Islands, particularly that of bronze casting. Consider the (rare) metal finds from Capo Graziano (chisel blade, fish hooks) and from hut Delta XII of Castello di Lipari (awls), and the bivalve molds with lumps of metal (Montagnola di Capo Graziano and hut Delta XII at Castello di Lipari). The casting molds, in particular, document the local production of the socketed axe, a type of axe that is also quite widespread on Sicily, and register the local presence of craftsmen, perhaps Aegeans. The Aegean influence is also reflected in the architecture of the stoves of San Calogero on Lipari and in the masonry of this structure, which belongs to the Capo Graziano Culture. San Calogero is a site located in a valley on the west side of the island of Lipari, where there is a spring of hot sulfurous water. The stove has a hemispherical pseudo-domed vault, built in blocks of squared stone, arranged in projecting rows, all of equal height and thickness, smoothed on the inside and left unfinished on the outside. The architecture and masonry we have mentioned are typical of the socalled tholos building type of the Mycenaeans, of which there is another example in the Gazzi district of the city of Messina and which proves once more that laborers from the Ionian Sea crossed the Strait of Messina to reach the islands of the Lower Tyrrhenian Sea, including the Aeolian Islands. It cannot be ruled out that these voyages were hampered both by Aeolian pirates and by the rivalries between Mycenaean potentates who were part of this precolonization era or that this had the effect of concentrating the Aeolian populations in just three villages: Castello di Lipari, Montagnola di Capo Graziano on Filicudi, and San Vincenzo on Stromboli. The islands and mainland coasts of Campania The navigator-merchants who sail up the Tyrrhenian Sea, skirting the Italian mainland, stop at Procida, an island in the Phlegraean archipelago in the Bay of Naples, extending out onto the promontory of Vivara.5   Over time, the sea level in the area has risen by 6 m due to slow but continual bradyseism, causing the isthmus to flood, and Vivara thus became an islet. Today, many historical settlements are found 14 m below sea level. 5

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But Procida is not the terminus for journeys from Greece to Tyrrhenian Italy. Among the navigator-merchants, there are some who, after having stopped on that island, continue their journey to the metalliferous basins of Monti della Tolfa (Lazio), Elba, and Monte Amiata (Tuscany) before heading from there to Sardinia. Procida is in a highly strategic position because it monitors, on the one hand, access to the southeastern coast of Ischia and the entire coastline of the area around Cumae and Puteolis and, on the other, access into the Bay of Naples from the Lower Tyrrhenian Sea. Moreover, it offers various landing points and large areas for bringing boats ashore. In the 17th century, it is occupied by an indigenous community, who converse with the Aegean visitors and are influenced by their culture, if we are not, in fact, dealing with a mixed Aegean-western culture. In the 17th century, there is a terrace above the Punta di Alaca (Vivara) upon which huts are built, which spread down across other terraces that descend as far as the sea. The inhabitants use bowls and large jars for storing food, plates for cooking, bows and arrows, hunting weapons, and stone or terracotta tools to work leather and spin wool. Furthermore, they are equipped to melt metals, as evidenced by slag and droplets, fragments of a crucible, and the probable remains of a melting bed.6 The treated metal ores come from Tuscany and Sardinia. In the 16th and 15th centuries, Procida is the main Tyrrhenian port of call for Aegean-Mycenaean commercial traffic in the west, operated by ships and crews from the Peloponnese, Crete, and the Cyclades Islands, and is also an Aegean trading post, where the sorting, sale, and processing of Tuscan and Sardinian copper takes place. The large hut located between the beaches of Ciraccio and Chiaiolella is of significance in this regard. The island is a sorting place for goods arriving from Greece and destined for the coast and hinterland of Campania. This is proved by the discovery of some ceramics consistent with the Aegean Meso-Helladic tradition in the Grotta del Pino in Early Middle Bronze Age contexts in the south (= Protoappenine contexts).7 Sardinia The relations between Sardinia and the Aegean world began in the recent Neolithic (end of the 4th millennium). This can be seen from the Aegean-eastern decorative motifs on ceramics and from the stone or clay statuettes of women, influenced by Cycladic models, present in the sites of the Ozieri Culture. These continued into the 6   In no other place outside of mainland Greece and the islands of the southern Aegean Sea have so many Aegean-Mycenaean imported materials been found as were discovered on Vivara, at least as far as the Late Helladic I and IIA are concerned. 7   The Grotta del Pino is a small natural cavity, hidden and almost inaccessible, situated at the foot of the town of Sassano (Salerno), near the mouth of the Vallo di Diano. It is used for funerary purposes toward the end of the Copper Age, in the Early Bronze Age, and in the early Middle Bronze Age, until the Apennine facies disappear (in absolute chronological terms, from the second half of the 3rd millennium to the 15th century), that is, up until the Protoappenine Period. It is visited most intensively during the early Middle Bronze Age.

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Eneolithic (mid-3rd millennium–early 2nd millennium), during which time the island’s cultures fragmented with the birth and development in the south of the Monte Claro Culture and the Bell Beaker Culture in other areas. Pottery belonging to the Monte Claro Culture is comparable to finds from Sicily, the Italian mainland, and Cyprus. The Bell Beaker Culture, derived from the culture of the French Midi, is characterized by its megalithic structures. Relations between Sardinia and the Aegean world continued through the Early Bronze Age and into the Middle Bronze Age. The Early Bronze Age was characterized by the Bonnanaro Culture, which demonstrated an affinity with central Europe and contemporary cultures of the Italian mainland.

Chapter 13 Calamity and resilience

A new beginning The effects of the tephra rain on Crete, unlike the effects of the tsunamis, which were severe, are difficult to assess. The phenomenon may have caused the fields to dry up and caused a major agricultural crisis and a famine, or it may have covered the soil with a fine layer of ash, insufficient to cause the roofs of houses to collapse on themselves—in fact, it may have been simple enough for people to shovel away or for the wind and rain to erode. Indeed, the volcanic ash may even have been good for agriculture.1 In fact, if used in small quantities, together with a little compost, it is an excellent fertilizer. In addition, it absorbs rainwater like a sponge, then releases it slowly. This is a real godsend for soils with insufficient water supply. In any case, the shock suffered by the Minoan civilization due to the eruption of Santorini was not so severe that it could not be absorbed. After the catastrophe, a new phase of splendor and renewal begins, and it will continue until 1450. At the center of this will be the Palaces, but it will also extend to the organization of territory, artistic and artisanal production, social structure, politics, the administrative system, and the sphere of the sacred. The cities all become construction sites. At Knossos, there are extensions, reconstructions, and improvements. The Palace expands: a new, large residential quarter rises on the side of the hill. The old rooms are restored and/or redecorated with frescoes and painted stuccos. Often, the ornamentation depicts scenes from court life, women dressed and made up in an elegant and carefree way, landscapes with rocks, plants, flowers, mammals, birds, and fish, bulls’ heads, large shields, and processions. One of the participants in the processions is an athletic man whose chest and feet are bare, with a slender waist and flowing locks, whose right arm is folded across his chest and his left outstretched. He wears the typical Minoan

1   The theory according to which a crisis in agricultural production of vast proportions and a consequent famine affected Crete due to the blanket of tephra that coated the northeast part of the island, expounded by Spiros Marinatos in 1939 and then shared and endorsed by other writers, is not supported by factual data. All the studies carried out so far estimate that no more than 10 cm of tephra could have accumulated. See S. Marinatos, “The volcanic destruction of Minoan Crete,” Antiquity 13, no. 52 (1939): 425–439.

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kilt and a richly ornamented headdress.2 The “temple” of Nirou Chani is refounded and reconsecrated by the burial of numerous votive cups containing pieces of volcanic pumice. At Palaikastro, the reconstruction work produces the best-known example of Minoan urban planning: wide streets separate large blocks of buildings, which are spacious houses with impressive façades.

The earthquake of 1580 Life begins with renewed momentum on the Cyclades as well. Phylakopi (Phylakopi III on Milos) and Agia Irini (Agia Irini V on Kea) were shaken by tremors and then covered with tephra, but they recover and become important cities once more, among the most significant in the Cyclades. Both are exposed to the influence of the Minoan civilization as well as that of the Mycenaean civilization, as can be seen from the pottery evidence, but they manage to maintain their Cycladic identity. Phylakopi II is a densely built-up area, with blocks of houses built over a hill, separated by long, straight streets and a cyclopean wall. Agia Irini is a city of farmers, fishermen, and metallurgists. It is defended by a fortification wall, with an entrance gate and defensive towers. It avails itself of a sheltered landing point and trades with Attica and other islands in the Aegean Sea. The urban area also encompasses a temple and a structure where texts in Linear A are composed. In 1580, a new, severe earthquake, the epicenter of which is probably in the subsoil of Santorini or in the island’s environs, shakes the Cyclades violently. The earthquake spreads in concentric waves throughout the Aegean Sea and is felt as far away as Crete and the Dodecanese. In Agia Irini, the fortifying walls and many buildings collapse. The seismic tremor that will do the most serious damage is forewarned by lesser shocks. The residents, alarmed, will be able to save themselves, except for one (who will be buried under the rubble). In Knossos, one façade of the Palace crashes loudly to the ground, causing a huge dust cloud to billow up. Two small but well-built houses are crushed by large blocks thrown loose from the Palace above.3 One is the House of the Fallen Blocks, so-called after the materials that destroyed it. It was the home of a manufacturer of stone lamps. The other is the House of the Sacrificed Oxen. It took its name from the two pairs of bulls’ horns found there together with some painted tripod altars. The Palace of Zominthos is destroyed, and the place will remain abandoned and deserted, though not for long. Palaikastro is damaged. Kommos is temporarily abandoned. Trianda (Rhodes) and Seraya (Kos) suffer significant damage.

2 3

  We refer here to the individual commonly known today as the Prince of the Lilies.   R. W. Hutchinson, L’antica civiltà cretese (Milan: Einaudi, 1976), 169, n. 1.

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A(nother) new beginning Once again, the initial daze gives way to a new beginning. Before long, the Minoan civilization heals its wounds and regains its vigor. It will start to grow in wealth, power, and splendor again and to develop profitable external relationships. The damage is repaired, and new works are started. In Knossos, access roads lead to the Palace from the west and south. A villa is built in Zominthos. Kommos is rebuilt higher up, spanning an area of 3.5 ha, with the houses placed apart to reduce the impact of earthquakes. A villa rises in the upper part of the settlement. Construction activity around this structure will continue in the Late Minoan II and III. The primitive architectural complex becomes a country house with dozens of rooms, distributed over several floors, connected by internal stairs, an internal courtyard, a small sanctuary in the form of niches, and workshops. Some rooms are plastered, painted with bright colors, and equipped with stone lamps and bronze cauldrons. There is also a bronze idol, gold leaves, and stone seals. Some rooms, with stone paving slabs and pillars, can be used as an olive press;4 they contain a stone basin for washing the olives, a press for crushing the olives, and large receptacles for storing the oil produced. In other rooms, there are weaver’s looms. There is also a pottery workshop with a kiln. A small town grows and expands to the south of Mochlos and some graves from the old cemetery are reused. It is much smaller than Knossos and Malia, but is comparable to Phaistos and is undoubtedly much larger than Myrtos and Vasiliki. Before long, it is one of the largest inhabited settlements on Crete of its time. Judging by the profusion of jewels that accompany members of wealthy families in their tombs, it is also one of the most prosperous. However, it will never reach the importance of the prepalatial settlement. The urban area also includes two artisanal districts. One is utilized for the manufacture of bronze vases and for the processing of ivory and stone. The other is used for the production of ceramics. Each district also contains a sanctuary. Another building can be found at Chalinmouri, at the eastern end of the coastal plain. Psira is a small and arid islet in the Gulf of Mirabello. In the Late Minoan IB and II, it is the seat of a prosperous inhabited settlement that consists of 60 buildings and overlooks a landing point, to which it is connected by a staircase that descends to it from the top of a cliff. Most of the buildings are arranged around an open, square space, on one side of which stands a single large building, perhaps a “civic sanctuary,” adorned with painted stucco bas-reliefs and frescoes, one of which depicts two women in Minoan dress facing each other. In some houses, cult practices take place, which require the use of ritual pottery: rhyta, drinking vessels, a bull-shaped vase, triton shells, goblets, and cups. Vathypetro is a town located near Archanes (central Crete), at the foot of the southern slopes of Mount Iuktas, on the road from Knossos to Messara. A mansion was built there in the Neopalatial Period, presumably after 1580, to give the landowner a   A place where olives destined for the production of olive oil are brought and where all the manufacturing processes take place.

4

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comfortable home while overseeing the economic management of his lands. This is the most important structure—and the only one built in stone—of a wider settlement, which extends over three hills. It consists of two sets of buildings separated by a narrow pathway. Its architecture recalls that of the Palaces due to the coexistence of the following elements: a north–south orientation, the typical western façade, halls with lightwells, a lustral basin (?), a crypt with pillars, a storeroom with pillars, and an internal courtyard surrounded by a portico. The Cycladic city of Phylakopi, located on the northern coast of the island of Milos, was destroyed in an earthquake in the 16th century. We refer here to Phylakopi II. Its subsequent reconstruction gave birth to Phylakopi III, or rather, Phylakopi III-i. This building phase in the city’s history coincided with the “Minoanization” of local culture, as can be seen from the architecture and fresco decoration of the House of the Pillars (a fresco contained in this structure depicts a flying fish), from the use of Linear A in what appears to be an administrative center, and from the Minoan influence that shines through in the locally produced pottery in terms of typology and decoration. In this subphase, the settlement may also have been fortified. It seems that Phylakopi III-i was the object of a political protectorate, through which an unidentified Mycenaean kingdom of mainland Greece exercised a form of remote domination over it, which allowed the population to govern themselves and the “protector” to have local agents on the spot to ensure continuing political control and to protect and promote trade. This would have influenced the local culture with regard to customs, urban planning, architecture, and decorative styles. During a later construction phase (Phylakopi III-ii), the Minoan influence decreased. This occurred after the volcanic catastrophe of Santorini (Late Minoan IA, around 1615). In this subphase, the locally produced pottery reveals a Mycenaean influence. The architecture of Phylakopi III (the city born out of the reconstruction of Phylakopi II) reveals a Minoan influence. One of the structures in the urban area, called the “Hall of the Pillars,” was built with pillars and ashlar stone blocks. The interior is decorated with a fresco depicting a flying fish. The so-called Mansion contains archival documents in Linear A. In the temple, some clay statues, modeled by hand with wooden armatures and colored with yellow, red, and white paint, are a very particular art form. They depict a young girl, her breasts bare, wearing a long dress and, sometimes, a necklace (the Great Goddess of the Minoans?). The majority of the most important buildings in Agia Irini VI (the city born from the reconstruction of Agia Irini V) are built during this phase. The city uses systems for its water supply and for the drainage of wastewater. The inhabitants use pottery, jars, and kilns for ceramics and own some remarkable pieces of art. Everything seems to have returned to normal, as it used to be before the earthquake. In reality, there are some visible changes. Both Helladic and Minoan pottery are in circulation. These include, among others, the depas amphikypellon, a tall, narrow vessel with two handles. Furthermore, the frescoes connect some figurative elements of the Helladic tradition with Minoan figurative elements. At Agia Irini VI,

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imported Mycenaean ceramics even surpass imported Minoan ones. The fact that these changes emerge principally in Agia Irini can be explained by the fact that the island of Kea, where Agia Irini is found, is closer to mainland Greece than to Crete and has always had close ties with both. But the phenomenon is more general. After 1580, the Mycenaeans are more present in the Cyclades, especially in the northernmost islands, than in the past.

The recovery of trading activities Most of the foreign trade dealings of the Palace of Knossos takes place through the port of Poros Katsambas (eastern outskirts of the city of Heraklion), where there is a small Palace, a postpalatial house, and some chamber tombs carved into the rock. One of these tombs, which has a rectangular plan, contains some beautiful vases decorated in the Palace style. As in the past, the maritime trade of the Minoans looks not only to mainland Greece but also to the ports of the Eastern Mediterranean. Ships bearing the insignia of the Lords of the Palaces of Crete frequently land in Ugarit (Syria), Enkomi (Cyprus), and the seaports of the Nile Delta (Egypt). Syria In Syria, the Minoans, in the Late Helladic IIA, regularly frequent not just Ugarit and Tell Sukas, which are located on the coast or immediately inland, but also Tell Atchana further inland. Their main destination is Ugarit III. This city was destroyed by an earthquake and a subsequent fire in 1600/1550, but it rose from its ruins and returned to a state of great prosperity. Its main buildings include the Royal Palace, the North Palace and the South Palace, adjacent to the Royal Palace, two temples on the acropolis (one dedicated to Ba’al, the other to Dagan), and some houses belonging to court dignitaries, priests, or scholars. The Palace contains some artisan workshops producing works of art. The dwelling houses of modest standards, with family tombs in the subsoil, are concentrated in the Lower City. Other buildings contain archives. The Royal Archives hold a total of more than 2,000 inscribed clay tablets. The Ugaritic texts of this period are written in Akkadian, and therefore in cuneiform characters, or in Ugaritic, a local Semitic language, the written form of which is rendered in Linear A. Cyprus The Late Cypriot IA:1 (1625–1550/40) witnessed widespread fighting. In all probability, what was at stake was control of the copper mines and the best agricultural land. The fighting affected large areas, causing, among other things, the destruction of three fortresses5 and inhabited structures at Kalopsidha and Episkopi-Phaneromeni. 5   The ruins of one of the three fortresses in question can be found in the northernmost part of Enkomi. The ruins of the others can be found in Nitovikla, on the Karpas Peninsula, and Nikolidhes in the center of the island.

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To avoid the outbreak of epidemics, many of the casualties were buried in mass graves at Pendayia, Myrtou-Stephania, and Agios Iakovos. With the re-establishment of peace and the economic recovery, which took place around 1600, the first cities began to form: Morphou-Toumba tou Skourou and Enkomi. The former arose in an area rich in copper, perhaps following the arrival on the island of a group of refugees from Santorini (this could possibly be framed within the spread of the diaspora of inhabitants from this island; it seems that it had a precedent in the establishment of a group of refugees at Trianda). Enkomi is the port from which copper extracted from the island’s subsoil is exported to Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and Crete.6 Trade between Cyprus, Anatolia, and the southern Levant, in the Late Cypriot IA:2 (1550/40–1525/00), has an important role. It is monopolized by the rulers of some of the cities on the eastern and southern coasts, which have grown and developed thanks to their participation in long-distance exchange. The port through which both Minoan goods bound for Cyprus and Minoan and Cypriot goods bound for Mesopotamia pass is Ugarit. There is both a Cypriot community and a Minoan community there. It is probably via Ugarit that Linear A reaches Enkomi toward the end of the 16th century: it will become the written form of the language spoken on Cyprus, Eteocypriot. In Cyprus, Linear A signs appear on clay tablets, loom weights, cylinder seals, clay balls, miniature copper ingots, clay containers, etc. The tablets are large, engraved with texts arranged into multiple columns, and the clay is fired, per the eastern custom. The homogeneity and wide diffusion of these materials attest to the existence of linguistic uniformity throughout the island. The satisfaction of administrative needs can be only one of the reasons that prompted the introduction of Linear A to Cyprus. Literacy is perhaps more widespread on Cyprus than in the Aegean area, where it is limited to the administrative environment of the Palaces. The Late Cypriot IB (1525/00–1450) is a period of general economic and cultural growth. The island communities are structured in a more stratified sense, the ruling élites take control of distinct territories and the management of copper exports, and the first centralized political organizations are formed. The terracotta pottery that is produced on Cyprus in this period belongs to various classes: White Slip Ware, Base Ring Ware, Monochrome Ware, Bichrome Wheelmade, and Red Lustrous Wheelmade. The first two types will remain in production for over 400 years (from 1600 to 1200) and will become very popular abroad. White Slip Ware is one of the most distinctive and easily recognizable Cypriot products, emblematic of the Late Cypriot Period. It is decorated in a refined style with red or brown paint and geometric patterns. Base Ring Ware is made by hand and has a black, gray, brown, or red-orange surface. It probably originated in the northwest and spread from there throughout the rest of

6   The ancient name of this place is unknown. Enkomi is the name of the modern village to the west of where the ruins of the ancient settlement were found.

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the island. Its principal forms include jugs, bowls with quadrilateral handles, mugs, and special pouring vessels (rhyta, askoi) in the shape of animals such as bulls. Bichrome Wheelmade will also be produced in the Late Cypriot II (1450–1375) and, sporadically, even later. It is originally from Cyprus and is exported or imitated in Palestine and Egypt. Although it is found throughout Cyprus, especially in Milia, Nitovikla, and Enkomi, it is nevertheless rare in the west. Red Lustrous Wheelmade will remain in production for 300 years. It will circulate through Cyprus, Palestine, Syria, Anatolia, Rhodes, Crete, and Egypt. It may be a Cypriot imitation of SyrianAnatolia prototypes, unless it is itself of Cilician origin. Egypt The relations between Egypt and Crete did not stop with the fragmentation of power that occurred in Egypt during the 17th Dynasty and are still ongoing when, in 1540–1530, Ahmose I (c. 1549–1524?), a prince of the Theban royal house of the 17th Dynasty, expels the Hyksos from Egypt, reunifies the country politically, and founds the 18th Dynasty (1543–1292) as the New Kingdom era begins. At this stage, Minoan trends influence those of Egypt. Proof of this is that one of the silver and lapis lazuli jewels of the warrior queen Ahhotep I—mother of Ahmose I and queen regent while the latter was a minor—bears decorative Minoan motifs. It is uncertain whether this object, a necklace, reflects the work of Minoan artists working in Egypt or the work of local artisans influenced by Minoan originals. However, it may also be that the Minoan motifs in question originated in the Near East and were only later exported to Crete. Some Minoan artists would have been working in Egypt, and some local artisans would have been influenced by Minoan prototypes. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that, during the reign of Ahmose I, or at the latest during that of his successor Amenhotep I, one or more of the new palaces of the citadel of Avaris are decorated with frescoes in the Aegean style, which recall those of the Palace of Knossos. Avaris (Tell el-Dab’a) is a site located on the east side of the Nile Delta and is where the Hyksos Pharaohs had their capital. One of these frescoes depicts bull-leaping. Another depicts a hunting scene with a landscape of plants and rocks in the background. Still others represent griffins and other domestic and wild animals, possibly including a lion. There are also miniature friezes and abstract motifs. The enduring relations between Egypt and Crete in the Late Minoan IB is also documented by the blue-painted wooden sarcophagus and the Egyptian vases with the cartouche of Thutmose III (1504–1450) that are contained in a tomb at PorosKatsambas, dug out of the rock and shaped like a horseshoe. Another tomb at Poros-Katsambas is particularly rich: the deceased is adorned with a gold ring with Linear A signs and gold, silver, and bronze jewelry. In that tomb, there are also a few hundred vases, the decoration of some of which is of excellent quality.7 7   G. Touchais, S. Huber, and A. Philippa-Touchais, “Poros Katsamba,” Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique 124, no. 2 (2000): 994.

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Further confirmation of the existence of relations between Egypt and the islands of the Aegean Sea is given by the 20 Egyptian texts that mention the kft(i).w, “Cretans,” all dated between 1580 and c. 1372. Among these texts, it is worth highlighting the Ebers Papyrus, which is datable to the ninth year of the reign of Amenhotep I, but could be considerably older. The Ebers Papyrus is a roll of papyrus 20 m long and 20 cm high and is divided into 108 pages. It is written in hieratic, the cursive form of writing used by Egyptian scribes, and contains magical formulas and various kinds of remedies for illnesses.8

The destruction of Skandia, Agia Irini VI, and Phylakopi III. The crisis of the Minoan state Around 1450, yet another earthquake hits the Cyclades Islands like a mallet. The Minoan emporium of Skandia (Palaiopolis, Cythera)9 and the city of Agia Irini V (Kea) are completely destroyed. The tremor also has devastating effects on Crete. There is destruction along the northern coastline (Kydonia, Gournia, Pseira, Plakes), in the center-north (Archanes-Tourkoyeitonia, Knossos), and in the center-south (Agia Triada, Phaistos, Kommos). The seismic shove is so strong that the Minoan state wavers, partly because it has already been in crisis for several decades (Late Minoan IB, equivalent to the Late Cycladic II and the Late Helladic IIA), for various reasons. It is possible to hypothesize, in this regard, a series of concomitant causes, both internal and external: • The supremacy of the Lord of Knossos over the rest of the island is questioned due to the competition between different interest groups for social or ideological reasons; • The common people rise up against the ruling élite, who had enslaved them and exploited them economically, at various times and in multiple places; • Groups of Mycenaean mercenary soldiers, serving the Minoan centers of power, mutiny; • A wave of raids for the purpose of robbery is pouring over the island, which could be the work of pirates attracted by the riches of the Minoan state and/or by the Mycenaean princedoms of mainland Greece, trying to test the Minoan state’s ability to defend itself against attacks from the sea. The mechanisms of political power—the management activities carried out by the bureaucratic apparatus, the ability to mobilize resources, the control over the territory   It is now kept in Leipzig University Library in Germany.   Alternating Style pottery was found in the destruction layers. This shows that the destruction of the site occurred at the same time as the Agia Irini earthquake. The site is abandoned and will remain practically deserted. 8 9

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and its resources, and the administration of cult worship—all get jammed or, at best, operate at a grindingly slow speed. Gradually, the state falls apart, the palace system is disrupted and breaks down, and the relations between the center and the periphery are lost. The economy wastes away, with social and demographic repercussions. There is a massive reduction in the number and size of occupied sites. The decline is staggering. Knossos contracts but remains the main economic, political, and administrative center of the island, in contact with Egypt and numerous islands and coastal cities of the Aegean Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean. The stone vases from a tomb at Katsambas and some rich burials demonstrate the enduring external projection of the Palace of Knossos during the Late Minoan II. The uncertain nature of the times prompts the Lords of the Palaces to adopt preventative measures against hostile activity and precautionary measures against the risk of looting. The Palaces are also much more closely guarded, as is the water supply. Obligatory itineraries are created, guard corps are set up, and wells within city walls are fenced off. The entrances to the Palaces of Malia, Phaistos, Knossos, and Kato Zakros are fortified. Two towers now flank the main entrance to the Palace of Knossos, which opens onto the northern façade of the complex. The large northern fortified tower is built with large blocks of limestone, with deep foundations, using cyclopean masonry and rounded corners, and contains small, windowless rooms. The Palace of Priniatikos Pyrgos is also equipped with a defensive system. The safety measures at Malia, even in the Late Minoan I, are formed of unbaked brick walls erected on a stone base. In the Late Minoan II, this was strengthened by constructing a guard tower on the summit of Profitis Ilias (c. 100 m), 800 m south of the Palace. At Palaikastro, instances of defensive architecture are multiplied. The settlement may have been fortified in the Early Minoan Period (city walls). In the Middle Minoan II, some fortifications were built: a quasi-fort, some guard stations (Roussolakkos, Dicta 4, Dicta 5, Plakalona), a building at Kehalaki, another at Angathia, a megalithic homestead, a rectangular-shaped building at Vagies, and fenced-off wells (Area 6). In addition, at least some sections of the city walls have been repaired or rebuilt, and other parts of these fortifications have been erected as part of the expansion of the settlement toward the coast and to protect the new port. In this atmosphere of extreme tension, impending dangers, and widespread uncertainty about the future, accumulations of valuables are built up that make their recovery very difficult, if not impossible—underground, in a cave, in a ravine, under a house—to protect them against theft or pillage, or to avoid losing them after taking flight, with the hope of being able to recover them when the danger has passed. Consider the bronze vases buried under a room in the Quartier Mu in Malia, the collection of silver vases hidden in Knossos, and the great treasure of valuable metals hidden in the Cave of Arkalochori. Precious objects and goods are buried in the Palace of Kato Zakros. Metals and precious objects are deliberately buried under the floors in Mochlos. Further caches of bronzes and other metal objects are stored in Palaikastro and Gournia. All these items will remain hidden forever for one of two

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reasons: either no one knows where they are, or no one dares or is able to reclaim them, because they have been enslaved, they are now far away, or they have died. The cause of all of this may be found in pirate raids, which have always been a bane of the communities of the islands and mainland coastlines of the Aegean Sea. To protect themselves from pirates, the peoples of the Cyclades built impressive fortifications. In the Early Cycladic IIIA (2400–2200), they erected some at Kastri (3,750 m2), and perhaps at Panormos (500 m2) and on Mount Cynthus, and in the Middle Cycladic (from 2200 on), at Agia Irini (Kea) and, perhaps, at Phylakopi (Milos). Further fortifications protect Grotta (Naxos), Koukounaries (Paros), and Agios Andreas (Sifnos). It may be due to a piratical incursion that, in the Late Cycladic II, the city of Phylakopi dissolves in the flames of a raging fire. Pirates also venture into the waters of Crete. This can be inferred from the fact that a substantial part of the defensive structures that dot this island are watchtowers. The community of Psira is preparing to withstand an attack from the outside, piling up beach pebbles slightly larger than an egg, with a view to using them as slingshot stones. All this is the prelude to the drama about to take place on the Mycenaeans’ initiative. First of all, however, it is necessary to consider in this regard that the Mycenaean ruling élites have learned many things from their Minoan counterparts and have been their partners in maritime trade, from which they have drawn increasing profits. Thanks to the Minoans, the Mycenaeans have learned to apply writing to accounting records (they then adapted Linear A to their own context, inventing a writing system that is similar yet different, called Linear B). They have been able to enter the world of maritime trade. They were accepted in the Minoan support bases abroad. They have been able to engage in various forms of ongoing collaboration with Minoan ventures in the field of commercial distribution. The Minoans and the Mycenaeans appeared together in the markets of the southern Levant and Egypt. Proof of this is that the ethnonym keftiw, which recurs in many documents from the 18th Dynasty in Egypt, groups the Minoans with the Mycenaeans. In exchange, the Mycenaeans bought goods and services from the Minoans. This explains the circulation of Minoan ceramics, textiles, and vases among the Mycenaeans and the Minoan frescoes in the houses of the ruling class of Mycenaean societies. However, now that they too have become rich and powerful, the Mycenaeans no longer consider the Minoans as business partners but as competitors. They want to rid themselves of them to collect the profits of the commercial intermediation between the southern Levant and Egypt, and they are waiting for the right opportunity to do so. While they wait, they test the waters to ascertain the responsiveness of their intended victims. It is perhaps possible, then, to frame the pirate raids hypothesized above in this perspective.

Chapter 14 The Mycenaean conquest of Crete

A wave of destruction According to the legend of the Aeolian lineage, Doros was the son of the legendary hero Hellen and will go down in history as the progenitor of the Dorians. Cretheus was the son of Aiolos and the founder and first king of Iolcus, a city in Thessaly. Aiolos was the brother of Doros and the progenitor of the Aeolians. The Aeolians live in Aiolis, the region of northeastern Greece that in future will become known as Thessaly. Aiolis also includes Pelasgiotis, a strip of land that stretches from the valley of Tempe to the southern city of Pherae and is inhabited by the Pelasgians, a people who are also widespread in Epirus, Lycia, Caria, and on the island of Lemnos. The armed men who have embarked on the ships approaching Crete in considerable numbers, intent on conquering the largest island in the Aegean Sea and in the Eastern Mediterranean, are Aeolians and Pelasgians. The ships are laden with horses and military equipment. A bloom of sails on the horizon announces the arrival of the invaders. Their standards are waving in the air, and from far away, glistening in the sunlight, come bright flashes off the bronze weapons and armor of the soldiers crammed onto the decks. The leader of the expedition is Tectamus. Who this individual is is a question that is destined to remain largely unanswered. In fact, nothing is known about him, except that he is a son of Doros and married a daughter of Kretheus.1 Since Tectamus is a Dorian, it follows that he speaks Doric, a Proto-Greek dialect, particularly widespread in Laconia, Messenia, the Argolid, and Corinthia, as well as in some areas between Phocis and Aetolia and in Chalkidiki. As such, he is a Mycenaean native from the Peloponnese or somewhere else in mainland Greece. The questions that have this man at their center are many. One wonders if he is leading the army of a Mycenaean state to Crete and, if so, which state it is; whether he is the ruler of this kingdom, a viceroy, or simply a military commander; or whether 1   Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 4.60.2 [“Tectamus, the son of Dorus, the son of Hellen, the son of Deucalion, sailed to Crete with Aeolians and Pelasgians and became king of the island …”].

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instead he is the leader of a mercenary militia in the service of a Minoan potentate who has set out to overthrow the Lord of Knossos from his throne. But there is also another possibility: that Tectamus is the leader of a large band of pirates who have set out to plunder and pillage Crete at a time when the kingdom of Knossos is facing a crisis. This idea is supported by the fact that the Pelasgians are renowned for being pirates. However, it is a weak hypothesis and unsupported by evidence. The only certainty is that, around 1450/40 (Late Minoan IB), a wave of violence crashes over Crete at the hands of an army of Aeolians and Pelasgians, led by Tectamus, son of Doros. However, this is a picture supplied by Diodorus. In reality, things are more complicated, as Malcolm H. Wiener explains: “It is difficult to envisage a mainland armada launching a Normandy D-Day-type amphibious assault against a united and fully functioning Minoan Crete, defended by a Minoan navy.” It seems more likely, Wiener continues, that a first wave of raids by forces from the Greek mainland, some possibly already present in Crete as mercenaries, perhaps even as royal guards, arrived following some combination of: earthquake damage; the ongoing unraveling of a Minoan civilization that was already stretched to breaking point; food shortages; serf or captive labor uprisings; and/or internal strife, including cultic conflicts. Any combination of these could have led to a general system collapse, for example, in the form of local uprisings against the rulers of Knossos. Traces of earthquakes, perhaps massive, have been found in south-central Crete at Agia Triada and Phaistos and in north-central Crete at Archanes-Tourkoyeitonia and Knossos. But this cannot be the sole cause of the destruction on Crete in the period considered because this is a large island and coherent cultures generally rebuild after earthquakes, however severe they may be, but in this case, some destroyed sites appear to have been abandoned and deserted for a long time. Many will remain as such until the end of the Late Minoan II (1420/10). The cultic conflicts are suggested by the willful destruction of precious cultic objects and structures at Kato Zakros and Phaistos. The hypothesis of local uprisings is supported by the fact that some bronze and precious metal hoards were deliberately buried and never recovered at many sites.2 In fact, the causes of the destruction on Crete at the beginning of the Late Minoan II appear to be many, including at least all those listed by Wiener. The devastation is total. The Palace of Knossos does not suffer serious damage, but all the large structures near it are destroyed or seriously damaged, such as the Little Palace and the Unexplored Mansion. The Palaces of Kydonia, Tourkoyeitonia, Phaistos, Malia, Galatas, Kato Zakros, Gournia, and Myrtos-Pyrgos are set ablaze. The same goes for the villas of Knossos, Amnisos, Agia Triada, and Tylissos, as well 2   M. H. Wiener, “The fateful century: from the destruction of Crete ca. 1450–1440 to the destruction of Knossos, ca. 1350–1340,” in One State, Many Worlds: Crete in the Late Minoan II–IIIA2 Early Period. Proceedings of the International Conference held at Khania, 21st–23rd November 2019, ed. A. L. D’Agata, L. Girella, E. Papadopoulou, and S. G. Aquini (Rome: Edizioni Quasar, 2022), 98.

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as every small village unprotected by walls or barriers. The harbor towns of Knossos at Poros and Katsambas are destroyed, and the Poros cemetery is abandoned. The inhabited structure at Slavokampos (southeast of Heraklion, near the village of Tylissos) is ravaged and will fall into ruin. It had been rebuilt after being damaged by an earthquake in the 16th century, becoming a farm with wine presses, an olive press, and a kiln for firing clay pots. Nor are the inhabited centers of Vasiliki, Petras, Psira, Mochlos, Palaikastro, etc. spared from the wrath of the events. In Psira, the survivors of the catastrophe will clear some areas among the rubble and dwell among the ruins. In Mochlos, some human bodies and animal carcasses will remain unburies in the rubble after the fire that destroyed the city. Here too, some families will live among the ruins. Palaikastro crumbles amid the flames of destruction. A 50 cm high sculpture in gold and ivory, which depicts an athletic young man, standing and with his arms folded across his chest, and which is an absolute masterpiece of Minoan art, is buried under the debris.3 The inhabitants of the destroyed city abandon the coast. They will establish a new settlement on the nearby hill of Kastri, previously occupied in the Early Minoan IB and IIA. The sudden abandonment of the Late Minoan IB settlement of Chrysi, a small island off Ierapetra in the Libyan Sea, also seems to take place at this point. Some groups of refugees settle on the mainland, in the eastern region of the mainland— specifically, on the northern side of the Ha Gorge near Monastiraki Katalimata. This place is hard to reach and an excellent place to find refuge. It was already previously occupied in the past, as early as 3500 (Neolithic), on several occasions in periods of unrest, translocation, and destruction, not only when the threat was more serious, and not only by small groups of people who went there to hide, but also, frequently, in a lasting and more complex way.4

The installation of a wa-na-ka at Knossos Diodorus reports that Tectamus, after conquering Crete, settles there permanently while the reconstruction process starts. The Palace of Knossos is repaired, partially restored, and embellished. It is from here that Tectamus will rule the island from now on. The Messara Plain, the cities of Kydonia and Aptera, and other lands that in the past had not been directly controlled by the Palace of Knossos but by other Cretan Palaces are certainly under his control. The western region and the far eastern parts of the island have perhaps remained independent because they are too far from Knossos. In Kydonia, the reconstruction will take a few decades, and in the meantime the people will live among the ruins. The Palace will be rebuilt. Spaces reserved for 3   We are speaking about the Palaikastro Kouros, a chryselephantine statuette of a male youth, standing roughly 50 cm (19.5 in) tall, dated to the very end of the Late Minoan IB (1625/00–1470/60), which was found in Palaikastro and is now on display in the Archaeological Museum of Sitia. 4   The site was also occupied in the Late Minoan II, IIIA:1, IIIB (around 1200), and IIIC.

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public use will be built. The Palace of Tourkoyeitonia will also be restored,5 as will the Palace of Phaistos. Neither the Palaces of Malia, Gournia, Petras, and Kato Zakros nor any of the villas will be rebuilt, except for the Royal Villa of Agia Triada. This rises again in new and impressive forms in the broader context of a general reorganization of the town. Malia will be partially rebuilt. In Gournia, some houses will be built on the outskirts of the destroyed city by reusing squared blocks taken from the ruins of the “Palace.” The site of Mochlos will be occupied again in the Late Minoan IIIA, if not before. The new settlement is located on the hills behind the coastal plain, 2 or 3 km to the east of the ruins of the neopalatial city.

The Minoan civilization is enriched by some Mycenaean cultural elements Life in the Palace of Knossos has returned to what it once was. Delegates and officials receive, seize, and register agricultural products and other goods, while smelters, blacksmiths, bronzesmiths, potters, ivory and gem carvers, plasterers, goldsmiths, decorators, and other artisans work in the studios of the complex and in other workshops scattered in and around the city. The administration of the Palace is divided into about 10 offices. Some of these run the spinning mills, where wool or linen yarn, fabrics, and textile products are produced. Others manage the sheep, goats, and cattle ranches. Still others administer employees or look after the registration of wagons, wheels, and various weapons. The remaining offices either are not specialized or their specialization is not clear. This apparatus can avail itself of more than 85 scribes, if not 100: these are not simple scribes but educated functionaries, possibly of a high rank, who are either Mycenaeans (most probably) or “Mycenaeanized” natives, in the sense that they speak the language of the Mycenaeans and know how to render it into writing according to the conventions of the palace administrations of the Greek mainland. Therefore, the writing system used is no longer Linear A, let alone Cretan Hieroglyphic, but Linear B, typical of the Mycenaean administration system. It follows that the administrative accounts, engraved on clay tablets,6 and the lettering painted on the necks of terracotta amphorae7 no longer reflects the language of the Minoans but is Greco-Mycenaean. This is just one aspect of the ongoing change, which is not only organizational but also cultural. The Minoan civilization, in the Late Minoan II, will also be enriched by other elements from the Mycenaean matrix, from architecture, furnishings, and wall decoration, through weapons of war, military equipment, and the use of the horse, to pottery, funerary customs, and tomb typology. The traditional architecture of the   The Palace will later be destroyed once again, this time for good.   Around 4,000 texts in Linear B have been found on Crete. The majority come from Knossos. The most recent tablets can be dated to shortly before the final destruction of the Palace of Kydonia in 1190/80. 7   These have been found in Armeni, Knossos, Kydonia, and Mamelouko. 5 6

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Palaces of Crete reveals, in fact, the insertion of Mycenaean architectural, decorative, and furnishing elements. The new monumental buildings of Agia Triada are all Mycenaean in style. The largest of the new houses erected in Gournia and the new buildings in Kommos also each reflect a project of continental conception. A throne, a typical element of furnishing in the Mycenaean style, is installed in a room in the Palace of Knossos, positioned up against the back wall. Art retains a Minoan imprint. But as far as the execution of frescoes and the previous plant and marine styles are concerned, these have become, except for the addition of birds and flowers, rigid and formal, closer to the Mycenaean taste than the Minoan one. This perhaps reflects an artistic influence from Egypt, where human figures are simpler and more schematic, often outlined in black. This style will also characterize the Late Minoan IIIA and will mark the further development of later Mycenaean painting.8 It is worth considering a particular wall decoration, perhaps on the upper floor, from the House of the Frescoes—an urban “villa” in Knossos that stands near the Palace. We refer here to several frescoes, one of which is the Crocus Panel, which features red- and blue-flowered crocuses, wavy bands, an olive tree, and perhaps even two wild goats of a typically Cretan species (kri-kri). Crocuses are perennial herbaceous plants with cup-shaped flowers. The delegation rooms of the Palace of Knossos, as well as those of the House of the Frescoes, are decorated with frescoes that integrate typical motifs of the Minoan tradition with iconographic motifs of the Mycenaean tradition. One of these motifs is the chiton, a typical Mycenaean piece of clothing. This is reproduced in association with the standard Minoan kilt. The frescoes depicting figure-of-eight shields in the east wing of the Palace of Knossos are similar to those in the Palace of Tiryns (Argolid). The Griffin fresco in the Throne Room of the Palace of Knossos is comparable to a fresco of a later date in the Palace of Pylos.9 The fresco of the Captain of the Blacks decorates a building that stands outside the Palace of Knossos, near the House of the Frescoes. Like the Blue Monkey fresco at the Palace of Knossos, it testifies to the existence of relations between Crete and Sub-Saharan Africa. The Captain is a fair-skinned individual with a feathered cap on his head and two short spears in his hand, proceeding at a run, followed by two black-skinned individuals. It seems the latter also have plumage on their heads and are armed with short spears. All are wearing the Minoan kilt, edged in white. The scene may depict a detachment of Palace guards, whose commander is white while the soldiers are Nubian mercenaries. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that Nubians are known overseas as gifted warriors, so much so that units of Nubian archers are in the pay of the Pharaohs. New types of weapons of war and armor appear in Crete after the Mycenaean conquest alongside the corresponding types of the Minoan tradition. We refer here   A. P. Chapin, “Frescoes,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Bronze Age Aegean, ed. E. H. Cline (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 230. 9   The decorative motif of griffins heraldically facing one other had never been seen in Crete prior to 1450. 8

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to a kind of bell-shaped helmet with metal cheek pieces, lined with padded leather and surmounted by a knob with a hole through which feathers can be passed, and to armor made of metal strips and metal greaves. In this period, moreover, references to the profession of arms, military equipment, and war are increasing. The Linear B tablets in the Palace of Knossos often account for the supply of chariots, horses, and military equipment to individual warriors. The use of horses now appears in Crete for the first time, or intensifies,10 presumably at the hands of military personnel. This does not mean that the army stationed on the island is made up of cavalry units as well as infantry units. One of the novelties in the production of vases is the diffusion of the Palace Style in the region of Knossos. We refer here to Mycenaean ceramics whose ornamentation reuses known motifs of Minoan art, stiffening them into a monumental pose: mainly clumps of stylized lilies, octopuses, and architectural motifs.11 The typical typology of vases of this type is limited. The most popular form is the jar, derived from an earlier Minoan form. Another novelty in this field is the addition of two forms to the Minoan ceramic repertoire: the stirrup jar, typically Mycenaean, and the Ephyraean goblet, the result of the Mycenaean elaboration of a Minoan prototype. Still another is the fact that the alabastron, a prevalent type of pottery in mainland Greece, now recurs frequently in the area of Knossos. In the Late Minoan IA and II, new tomb types also appear in Crete (new to Crete, but not for mainland Greece, where they have been in use for some time). We refer here to the cave tomb, the shaft tomb, and the chamber tomb. The latter is dug deep into the rock and consists of a long access corridor, the walls of which slant inward, and single rooms inside (see exempla in the Kalyvia cemetery at Phaistos, especially Tomb 8). In addition, a type of vaulted, underground tomb for royal burials appears. One such tomb is built in Kephala (Knossos), halfway between the Zafer Papoura cemetery and the cemetery of Isopata. Another is the tomb of the “Mycenaean princess” of Archanes. In some respects (construction technique, shape), this type of tomb is typically Mycenaean, and therefore not very similar to the older vaulted tombs of Messara, but in other respects, it closely resembles the Temple Tomb of Isopata from the end of the Late Minoan IA. The new tomb types have a non-Minoan shape, contain one or more bodies, and are part of new cemeteries. Grave goods now also include objects that are common in mainland Greece, sometimes since the times of Grave Circles A and B of Mycenae, and which in the past were rare on Crete or entirely absent from this island. We refer to real arsenals of swords, daggers, spears, bows and arrows, and helmets, all of bronze, all Mycenaean models, jewels, bronze vases, and certain types of pottery, such as the two-handled glass and the kylix. The swords are of the horned cruciform type. Swords of this type and daggers can be   It is possible that the Minoans were already familiar with the horse since the Neopalatial Period because horses from good stock could have been imported to Crete from Syria or Egypt. 11   R. Higgins, Minoan and Mycenaean Art (London: Thames and Hudson, 1997), 106. 10

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found in some tombs at Knossos and Chanis. Evidently, the graves containing weapons are “warrior tombs,” pit or chamber burials of members of the military aristocracy, containing rich grave goods comprising metal objects, including valuable ones, such as combat weapons, vases, razors, mirrors, and jewels. These can be found in Agios Ioannis, Katsambas, and in the cemetery at Zapher Papoura, as well as (at a later point) in Kydonia, Archanes, and Phaistos and the cemeteries of Isopata, Mavro Spilio, the new hospital at Knossos, and Gypsadhes. Ultimately, after 1450, the Minoan civilization evidences certain signs of Mycenaean influence, but this, however, remains mild. Fundamentally, the Cretans retain their own traditional culture. This can be seen in pottery production (the Palace Style was born in Knossos in the Late Minoan II as a product of the evolution of previous Minoan vessel styles), artistic craftsmanship (an area in which the Minoans remain unmatched masters), domestic architecture, and religious expression.

Chapter 15 The Mycenaeans seize mercantile trade from the Minoans

A new chapter in the history of mercantile trade Around 1450, shortly before the Mycenaean conquest of Crete, Phylakopi III-ii underwent a traumatic event, the cause of which is unclear. A new reconstruction of the city followed (Phylakopi III-iii was born), which took place in a different cultural context, a Mycenaean one without any additional Minoan influence. A megaron, a sanctuary with Mycenaean figurines, and a new fortification wall, among other things, were built. As for the pottery, this is now almost exclusively of a Mycenaean style. The cultural change could have been imposed by force by conquerors from mainland Greece.1 In this case, the Mycenaeans destroyed Phylakopi II around 1450, then rebuilt it and settled there permanently. The fact that, within the scope of the reconstruction of the city, a megaron, that is, a Palace—a building type that did not previously exist there—was built could mean that the city has become the seat of the governor of the province of the Cyclades within a Mycenaean kingdom. These are reasonable assumptions but, nonetheless, are still conjectures. What is certain is that, around 1450, the Minoans withdrew or were expelled from the Cyclades by the Mycenaeans, who replaced them. The case of the town of Trianda on Rhodes (Trianda IIB) is similar. After 1450, the local culture lost its “Minoanizing” traits and became “Mycenaeanized.” Consider the widespread diffusion of imported Mycenaean ceramics, local imitations of Mycenaean pottery, and the chamber tombs dug into the rock on the hills of Moschou and Makria Vounara. Trianda is a bustling emporium for the Mycenaeans. They import marble from Anatolia, copper and gold from Cyprus, lapis lazuli from Syria, copper, food, and spices from Crete and Palestine, and stone vases, faience artifacts, and scarabs from Egypt, and they export textiles, woolen garments, and painted ceramics. Recently, the local community, already heavily affected by the long-range effects of the volcanic eruption of Santorini (c. 1615), had to contain themselves to the northern part of 1

  R. L. N. Barber, The Cyclades in the Bronze Age (London: Duckworth, 1987), 162.

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the settlement as a measure to combat flooding after having built works to protect themselves against and control the rising waters, which evidently had not been of much use. Therefore, they abandoned the southern, submergible areas.2 A new phase of adaptation followed. “Mycenaeanization” can also be spoken of in relation to the “second city” of Seraya on Kos, which flourished in the Late Helladic IIIA:1 (1420/10–1390/70), contemporaneously with Trianda IIB. It is a more pervasive process than the preceding “Minoanization” and is destined to last much longer. It is particularly evident in rituals, burial practices, and religious beliefs. See the chamber tombs in the cemeteries of Eleona and Langada, southwest of the city, as well as the rare domed tombs and the rich grave goods.3 Ultimately, after 1450, the Mycenaeans have not only the Palaces of Crete under their control but also what used to be the overseas commercial bases of the Minoans. They no longer engage in trading in partnership with the Minoans; they have rid themselves of their “business associates” and are now the sole Aegean representatives of the Pharaoh and the potentates of the southern Levant.

Trade with the Troad and the islands of the eastern Aegean Painted pottery circulating in Chios, Lemnos, Mytilene/Lesbos, and Troy VI, particularly Thessalian but also Peloponnesian, documents the trade between the Mycenaeans and the inhabitants of the islands of the northeastern Aegean and northwestern Anatolia in the Late Helladic II and III. In the Late Helladic III, the volume of these imports increases. In this phase, Mycenaean materials arrive in Maşat Höyük (ancient Tapigga), a settlement in northwest Anatolia, around 100 km northeast of Ḫattuša (Boğazkale, formerly Boğazköy, in Turkey), capital of the Kingdom of Ḫatti and the Hittite Empire. Maşat Höyük is located on the edge of the Pontic region inhabited by the Kaskians, very bellicose nomadic tribes, historical enemies of the Hittites. It is a border post in an area racked by significant tensions and which is the scene of incidents of encroachment, raids, and fighting. However, the conditions of political instability in the surrounding area did not prevent it from becoming a thriving center. Thanks to its trade with the Mycenaeans, the elders of Maşat Höyük came into possession of objects of exotic manufacture: globular flasks and stirrup jars of Mycenaean production, Cypriot and Levantine pottery, and bronze objects, including a trident, of a type also known in

  T. Marketou, “Excavations at Trianda (Ialysos) on Rhodes: new evidence for the Late Bronze Age I Period,” Atti dell’Accademia nazionale dei Lincei: Rendiconti 9 (1998): 39–82, esp. 61. 3   The local residents will participate in the Trojan War. Homer, Iliad XIV.225. 2

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Ugarit and Cyprus.4 After 1450, Mycenaean pottery, Mycenaean pottery also circulates in Cilicia (southeastern Anatolia), especially in Tarsus, Mersin, and Kazanlı.

Exchanges with Syria and Palestine The Mycenaeans, in the Late Helladic IIB (end date: 1420/10), frequented Syria regularly: not just Ugarit III and Tell Sukas, which are located on the coast or very close to it, but also Tell Atchana inland. Ugarit is the port that goods that are bound for Cyprus and those that are bound for Mesopotamia, including Cypriot exports, pass through. Among the latter, worthy of note are White Slip Ware and Base Ring Ware, which will remain in production for over 400 years and will also become very popular abroad. The Mycenaeans also have contacts and exchanges with the indigenous communities of the Palestinian coastline, including those of Mount Sinai, Lachish, and Kom Rabia. Moreover, in the Late Helladic IIB, Mycenaean pottery arrives in Tell Abu Hawam, Ashdod, Tell el-Ajjul, and Sarepta, as well as, sporadically, in the inland valleys of Jordan (Gezer, Tell ed-Duweir, Tell Sera’) and Esdraelon. The same can be said for the Transjordan plateau (for example, in a sanctuary in the area of the future airport of Amman). These ceramics are manufactured primarily in the Argolid, less frequently in Boeotia, and occasionally in Crete. The frequentation of the southern Levant by the Mycenaeans will continue in the Late Helladic IIIA:1, IIIA:2, and IIIB. Mycenaean pottery will circulate in the Orontes Valley and inland, further south, along the valleys of Jordan and Esdraelon. Amphoroid cups and kraters for ceremonial and ritual use, containers of scented oils or unguents, like stirrup jars, alabastra, and other ceramics, which imitate Helladic prototypes, will be marketed in numerous sites, including Hama, Qatna, and Qadesh/Tell Nebi Mend.

Relations with Egypt Evidence of the persistence of relations between Egypt and Crete after the Mycenaean conquest of the island is provided by the fact that, in a horseshoeshaped tomb carved into the rock at Poros-Katsambas, the deceased was interred in a sarcophagus of blue-colored wood together with some stone vases of Egyptian manufacture, one of which is a beautiful alabaster jar bearing the cartouche of Thutmose III (1457–1425), the sixth pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty. It should be added

  During the reign of the Hittite king Tudḫaliya III (early 14th century), Maşat Höyük will become the seat of an impressive Palace, which in the 13th century, however, will be replaced by a modest administrative structure. 4

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that some Linear B tablets, written in Knossos, mention some individuals who may be Egyptians. Relations between Egypt and the islands of the Aegean Sea continue during the reigns of the rulers of the 18th Dynasty after Thutmose III. This is demonstrated by the objects of Egyptian manufacture present in some Aegean Bronze Age contexts: mainly scarabs bearing the cartouches of Amenhotep II (1424–1398), Amenhotep III (1386–1349), and their consort, Great Royal Wife Tiye. It is also demonstrated above all by the mention of 15 cities and localities of mainland Greece, Crete, and the Cyclades in the Aegean List in connection with the terms keftiu (meaning Crete, Cretans)5 and tanaja (which probably means the Greek mainland). These locales include, among others, Mycenae, Nauplia, Knossos, Amnisos, Phaistos, Kydonia, Cythera, and possibly Thebes.6 The Aegean List is an inscription on the base of a colossal statue in the Mortuary Temple of Amenhotep III, on the west bank of the Nile, near Thebes (Kom elHettân, near the Valley of the Kings and the modern city of Luxor). It perhaps attests to the dispatch of an Egyptian emissary to the Aegean world, which took place during the reign of Amenhotep III, with a view to consolidating the ancient relations with the Minoans, their long-standing trading partners, and establishing relations with the new hegemonic power in the Aegean regions, the Mycenaeans.7 The reign of Amenhotep III is a time of unprecedented artistic prosperity and splendor. By this time, Egypt has reached its apogee of power, wealth, artistic refinement, and international prestige. Except for a revolt in Nubia after his accession to the throne that was soon quelled, it is a period of peace, one of the most serene and fruitful in Egyptian history. The continuation of relations between Crete and Egypt during the reigns of the 18th Dynasty rulers (1543–1292) is also documented by the keftiu portrayed in the paintings that decorate the tombs of some high-ranking officials of the Pharaonic State—Senenmut, Useramen, Rekhmire, and Menkheperreseneb—all located in Thebes. In particular, the tomb of Rekhmire, sealed during the reign of Thutmose III, the keftiu appear in one of the processions of foreigners frescoed on one of the walls of the transverse chamber. The foreigners bring gifts and tributes and occupy five overlapping registers. The first two registers, at the top, are inhabited by the peoples of Punt and by keftiu, free peoples, with whom Egypt is on equal terms diplomatically 5   The term kft(i).w (kheftiu/keftu) recurs in various Egyptian text in reference to the iww Hrii-ibw nw wAD-wr, “Isles in the Midst of the Great Green,” understood to be the islands of the Aegean Sea, and in relation to the fact that some kheftiu traded in the Nile Delta and/or parts of the Nile Valley that became islands whenever the river flooded. This term also recurs in the Near East: in Akkadian, it becomes kaptaritum; in Ugaritic, kptwr, kptr. 6   Amnisos, therefore, recovered from the destruction it underwent in 1450. This fact is confirmed, other than by the inscription in the Mortuary Temple of Amenhotep III, by the fact that its name often appears in the Linear B tablets found at Knossos. 7   E. H. Cline, 1177 a. C. Il collasso della civiltà (Milan: Boringhieri, 2014), 71.

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and commercially. The people of Punt bear incense trees, elephant tusks, baboons, monkeys, other animals, and foodstuffs. The keftiu carry baskets, artistic pottery, furnishings, and “ox-hide” ingots. A basket contains gold rings. The pottery is partly in terracotta, partly in gold. Even the furnishings are in clay or precious metal. One of the bearers carries an “ox-hide” ingot on his left shoulder. Among the vases, a conical rhyton with a handle, typical of Minoan wall paintings, another rhyton in the shape of a bull’s head, which rests on a stack of “ox-hide” ingots, and a jar with a lid in the form of a kri-kri (Cretan goat) stand out. The objects brought by the people of Punt and by the keftiu are not tribute in the literal sense of the term but gifts, unlike the objects brought by the bearers depicted in the third and fourth registers, belonging to the Nubian and Syrian populations, who are Egyptian vassals, or those in the fifth register, brought by bearers belonging to populations subject to Egypt. The Nubians bring animals from equatorial Africa—giraffes, leopards, baboons, monkeys—as well as oxen, dogs, elephant tusks, and tanned hides. The Syrians bring animals, chariots, horses, foodstuffs, and containers for liquids (oil or wine). Among the animals are a baby elephant and a bear. The tribute of the subjugated populations is represented by slaves (adult males and females, children). The relations between Crete and Egypt remain intensive until at least the 19th Dynasty (1292–1189). Proof of this is that an Egyptian-made scarab bearing the name of Ramesses II (1279–1213) will be found in an Aegean context,8 and that the term kheftiu also occurs in the Ipuwer Papyrus9 in relation to the inhabitants of the iww Hrii-ibw nw wAD-wr, “Isles in the Midst of the Great Green.”10 By now, however, they no longer want to refer to the Minoans, or to the Minoans and Mycenaeans, but only to the Mycenaeans.

The Mycenaeans and Cyprus At the start of the Late Helladic IIIA:2 (1390/70–1330/15), the Mycenaeans import copper in particular from Cyprus, but also agricultural products contained in pithoi, as well as fine ceramic tableware, and they export painted pottery made in Aegina or the Peloponnese to Cyprus, where it is highly valued and often ends up being part of

  Among the finds documenting the relations between Egypt and Crete, we note here the Kamares Ware found in Egypt (el-Lisht, Haraga, Kahun, Abydos, Aswan) and the Egyptian artifacts dating from the 18th Dynasty found in Crete. Vases with depictions of cats and sphinxes and a sword with an acrobat were found in Malia. A small temple with a cat figurine was discovered at Monastiraki. An Egyptian statuette bearing the name User appeared in Knossos. A gold pendant with bees was discovered in Chryssolakkos. 9   A papyrus written in hieratic, containing the Admonitions of Ipuwer, an incomplete literary work whose original composition is dated no earlier than the late 12th Dynasty. It is now held in the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden in the Netherlands. 10   However, the fact remains that, in the reliefs of the Temple of Hatshepsut in Deir el-Bahari, the term wedj wer, “Great Green,” is used in reference to the sea that bathes the Land of Punt, which can be located in Somalia, therefore referring to the Red Sea. 8

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grave goods (two tombs in Morphou-Toumba tou Skourou and a tomb in Palaikastro are relevant in this respect). Mycenaean pictorial-style pottery is very popular in Cyprus, and therefore it is exported there in large quantities and paid for in copper ingots, and it decorates the tables of the ruling élites. Typical of this style are the amphorae and kraters decorated with processions of chariots, bulls, and birds. Sometimes, they are true masterpieces. See, for example, a krater from Enkomi, datable to the 14th century, decorated with a scene in which Zeus holds the scales of fate before two warriors on chariots. This will remain the case in the 13th century as well. Mycenaean pictorial-style pottery also arrives in a metallurgical workshop in Kition and some villages in the mining region of Apliki in the north of the island. In the Late Minoan IIIB (1330/15–1200/1190), the Cypriots also import ceramics made in Kydonia from Mycenaean Greece, which they then, in part, resell along the Syrian-Palestinian coastline, mainly in Ugarit. These are amphoroid kraters, large stirrup jars, and various types of cups. The stirrup jars are used for the transport of oil or wine. Almost all of them bear signs engraved in Cyprominoic writing on the handles. Pottery of this type and provenance circulates in Kition and Hala Sultan Tekke. In turn, Cyprus exports products to Crete. Most of the pottery that arrives in Crete from southeast Cyprus in the 14th and 13th centuries circulates in the west because it is imported by the Palace of Kydonia. It should also be stressed that Mycenaean exports to Cyprus are still, on the whole, modest. It is possible that relations between Cyprus and the Mycenaean world, and vice versa, are fostered and, to some extent, induced by the stable presence on the island of groups of Mycenaean merchants and artisans. In this case, the Mycenaeans, after a long period of frequenting Cyprus, have started to settle on the island, as they have already done in other areas rich in metals, such as the Troad.11 This hypothesis is supported by the fact that, at this stage, the first Cypriot imitations of Helladic pottery are being manufactured in Enkomi. An influence of Mycenaean art on Cypriot art is also reflected in the goldsmithing, metallurgical, glyptic, and other lesser art forms of the 14th and 13th centuries. In turn, the art of the East influences the art of the Mycenaeans, who come into contact with it in Cyprus, especially with regard to the enrichment of motifs and compositions. The items of jewelry made in Cyprus in the last decades of the 13th century are mainly silver cups, gold diadems with embossed decorations, objects in ivory and glass paste, cylinders, bronze and alabaster vases, etc. The style of these creations combines some eastern elements with Mycenaean art, which can undoubtedly be explained by the product’s destination being the markets of the Near East. The most numerous and beautiful examples of this Aegean-Eastern art are made in Enkomi, perhaps by Mycenaean goldsmiths.   At present, the Mycenaeans are not yet a dominant force in Cyprus. They will become so around 1100, when the first Mycenaean tombs will appear on the island, with wide corridors and rectangular chambers. 11

Chapter 16 The pre-colonization of the West

Not only Mycenaeans, but also Cypriots and Levantines Numerous Mycenaean, Cypriot, and Levantine navigator-merchants, in the Late Helladic IIIA:1 (1420/10–1390/70) and IIIA:2 (1390/70–1330/15), frequent the Western Mediterranean. Setting sail from the ports of the Eastern Mediterranean, they stop at Cyprus, Rhodes, and Crete, continue to the Nile Delta, skirting westward along the Egyptian coastline until they reach Libya, where they stop at Mersa Matruh. After reaching Malta, they can choose from various destinations. Some continue north, up the eastern coast of Sicily toward the Strait of Messina and the Tyrrhenian coasts of mainland Italy. Others hug the southern and then western coastlines of Sicily, from where they can continue for Sardinia and, from there, the Iberian Peninsula. Ships navigating the Strait of Sicily can stop at various places on the coast of Agrigento and, further west, at the mouth of the Modione, where the Greek city of Selinon (Selinunte) will be founded in 650.

Sicily In Sicily, the navigator-merchants stock up on sulfur, alum, and slaves. In exchange, they sell ceramics, textiles, and metal tools and weapons. To procure the goods that interest them, create landing points, and sort their goods for exportation inland, they found some emporiums in pleasant positions, which are generally not chosen on the basis of defensive criteria. One of these logistical bases is established in Thapsos, on the small peninsula of Magnisi (southeastern cusp of Sicily, north of Syracuse), on the edge of a village of circular huts, which will become the center of irradiation and eponymous site of a culture of the Sicilian Bronze Age (Thapsos Culture). The huts of Thapsos are arranged in stone enclosures, inserted in a poorly organized grid of internal streets. The newcomers exercise a level of cultural influence over the locals. This can be seen from the latter’s adoption of a building type that encloses quadrangular rooms that open onto a central courtyard and which presupposes a certain level of planning and an embryonic urbanistic form. This element is also known from Enkomi. This is not the only thing that makes it possible to identify

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Cyprus as the origin of those who run the emporium at Thapsos. There is, in addition, an imitation of Cypriot ceramics and the use of cylindrical seals that emulate models of Cypriot manufacture. They also import Maltese and Mycenaean pottery and bury their dead in chamber tombs carved into the rock. One of the communities of the hinterland with which the overseers of the Thapsos emporium have contacts and exchanges is the hut village of Pantalica, which rises at the confluence of the Anapo and Calcinara rivers (southeast of Syracuse, near Sortino), on a vast and barren limestone ridge, bordered on three sides by precipitous cliffs and connected to the nearby uplands by a thin land bridge, fortified by a wall and a fosse. The sides of the rock are pierced by thousands of tombs of various shapes and sizes carved into the rock. The influence of the Mycenaean civilization on the local culture is reflected in the village’s only stone structure: a building in cyclopean style (anaktoron, “house of the leader”), connected to terraces and defensive walls and to a protruding tower. The anaktoron of Pantalica is a structure that encloses a series of quadrangular rooms, the largest of which will be added later. One of the rooms is probably a metallurgical workshop where metal is melted and worked.

Ionian and Adriatic coasts of the Italian Peninsula The navigator-merchants who go up the eastern coast of Sicily and reach the Capo Schisò (Giardini-Naxos) can choose whether to continue to the Strait of Messina and beyond or whether to deviate toward Ionian Calabria, up the Apulian coast of the Gulf of Taranto and Brindisi, and continue up the Adriatic coast of Italy as far as the Po Delta. In Calabria, they frequent locations such as Broglio di Trebisacce and Torre Mordillo, both located inland but within sight of the sea. Aegean materials found in these places are Mycenaean pottery, made on the Greek mainland and Crete, and a form of Aegean-type pottery, made of purified gray clay and worked on the lathe. A work of gray ceramic, made on the lathe and known as Pseudo-Minyan ware, and a class of large vessels, which are inspired by Aegean cordoned dolii but are of local or regional manufacture, are present in Cassano allo Ionio in the Sibaritide. Other Aegean materials reach Termitito (near Metaponto in Basilicata), Scoglio del Tonno (Gulf of Taranto), and Roca Vecchia (Melendugno, Lecce). Imports of Aegean ceramics will continue in these places until the Late Helladic IIIC (1200/1190–1075/50). Commerce is now combined with considerable technological transfers. This feeds some production centers in Calabria, Basilicata, and Puglia, where Aegean ceramics are gradually replaced by local imitations of Aegean-type pottery, perhaps by artisans of Aegean provenance and training (the same can be said to occur in Sardinia and in some areas of central Italy). The navigator-merchants who sail up the west coast of the Adriatic Sea pass the site of Tolentino in the Marche and Fratta Polesine in Veneto. Fratta Polesine is the

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southern end of the “Amber Road,” a commercial route that reaches the Po Delta from the coasts of the Baltic Sea via central-eastern Europe, which we have already discussed.1 From here, the materials sold to the locals are distributed further into the interior, such as to Lovara, Bovolone, and Terranegra, which are localities in the region of Verona.

Aeolian Islands The cultural alteration that takes place in the Aeolian Islands at the beginning of the Late Helladic IIIA:1 (1420/10–1390/70) is closely linked both to the archipelago’s inclusion in the diffusion area of the Thapsos Culture, dominant in Sicily at this time, which took its name from the site of Thapsos near Syracuse (this ambit is also attested in Tropea in Calabria), and to the Mycenaeans’ stopovers. This is confirmed when the most typical elements of the Capo Graziano Culture disappear and new shapes and decorations in the pottery sphere (such as the terracotta hook, which allows a pot to be suspended over a hearth) and new symbols (such as clay horns, which have an apotropaic value) emerge in their place. The new elements evince the presence of a culture that is entirely alien to local tradition, which will take its name from the site of Capo del Milazzese on Panarea, a rocky promontory in the shape of a sickle with steep cliffs, connected to the hinterland by a narrow isthmus. As we saw earlier, the Capo del Milazzese Culture represents an extension of the Thapsos Culture. However, since it differs from it in some ways, it is called the Thapsos-Milazzese Culture. The most characteristic ceramic form of Thapsos-Milazzese Culture is the cup on a very high tubular base. Also typical in this sphere are the six-handled pithoi, the tureens with funnel-shaped rims decorated with relief ribbing, and richly decorated single-handled bottles. Most of the ceramics bear an engraved marking, which could have a meaning such as “this vessel was made by …” or “this is the property of ….” Analogous markings appear on other fictile objects, such as fuseruole, votive horns, etc. The settlement model of the Thapsos-Milazzese Culture is marked by large villages in a very strong, high, dominant position, naturally defensible, in some cases remote or even inaccessible, built on small plateaus of rocky promontories or on steep hills, and sometimes equipped with man-made defenses, such as a boundary wall or a tower. This testifies to the existence of a threat to collective security, hence the intent to make their position unassailable. Let us have a look at the following villages: Castello di Lipari, Punta Milazzese on Panarea, Montagnola di Capo Graziano on Filicudi, and Portella di Salina. Castello and Capo Graziano rise on the same sites as preexisting villages, without any continuity, while Punta Milazzese and Portella are new settlements. Stromboli is uninhabited at this point. 1   L. Vagnetti, “Western Mediterranean,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Bronze Age Aegean, ed. E. H. Cline (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 895.

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The village of Castello is formed of at least 19 huts, some of which may be the result of the renovation of a preexisting hut. The village of Montagnola reuses numerous huts from the bygone era and encloses an open space, purposefully created, perhaps a “piazza,” and which is therefore a meeting place. The village of Punta Milazzese extends across the entire plateau on the summit of the promontory, right up to its end. It is protected by a square-plan tower, built using dry stone construction technique with different sized stones and placed to guard the only access point to the village at the base of the promontory. One of the huts is a sanctuary, or a public building, home to the village’s leader. The village of Portella extends on a precipitous ridge between two steep valleys and exists from 1540 to 1320. The choice of the site seems to have depended, at least in part, on its suitability for collecting rainwater, which can be guided through small channels due to the slopes and the impermeability of the rock, which favors the flow of the water. The village consists of a few dozen circular huts with dry stone walls and a conical roof made of perishable material. 2 Some channels guide rainwater into large terracotta pots, placed in the huts, each of which has a capacity of a few hundred liters, as can also be seen in other Aeolian villages of the same age, albeit not to the same extent. Here, too, one of the huts could be the home of the village chief, where representatives of the inhabitants (a council of elders?) meet to take decisions on matters of common interest, using the stone seats provided. The residential architecture is now more advanced than in the past: the huts continue to be oval-shaped and with a stone base, but they are built better than the older ones and are almost always elevated, except in Portella, where they are often built into the rock. The base is now made of squared blocks rather than pebbles from the beach. The plan is also often more complex than in the past. The internal floor is either gravel or stone. Each area has a different intended use. Food is stored in appropriate spaces. The aggregation of several buildings with similar or complementary functions (distribution scheme for the compound) denotes the presence of kinship groups. The fact that some huts differ from others and that there are privileged areas indicates that some of these groups arise over others for economic and social prestige reasons. The Aeolian metalworking of this era is recorded by a bronze sword, a bronze clamp, and three casting molds. The sword, the bronze clamp, and two casting molds come from the village of Portella. The first comes from a cleft underneath the floor of the   Part of the village has collapsed and no longer exists. There are 25 surviving huts. It has therefore been hypothesized that there was a population of at least 100 people, divided into at least five or six family groups. Perhaps, originally, there were around 50 huts. In that case, the local population could have numbered about 200 people, divided into about 10/12 family groups. M. C. Martinelli, Isole vicine. L’arcipelago delle Isole Eolie e le comunità umane nella preistoria mediterranea (Ragusa: Edizioni di storia e studi sociali, 2020), 140. 2

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supposed chieftain’s house, where it had been carefully concealed. It is a weapon of war, belonging to the so-called Pertosa type, widespread mainly in central-southern Italy but also in Sicily. The clamp is a small bar folded over at the ends and made of bronze or iron that is used to connect ashlars of stone, wood, etc. or to fix stone or marble cladding to walls or door and window frames to the walls. The Aeolian one we are referring to is made of bronze. It was kept in hut R2 to make use of it in due course as a raw material, that is, to melt it down and work it into something useful, whether a work tool or a weapon. The casting molds from the village of Portella are used to manufacture sickles. The third casting mold is used in Punta del Milazesse to obtain bands for bracelets. The uncertain nature of the times does not hinder maritime trade. The Aeolians of this age not only import an abundant quantity of Late Helladic IIIA:1–2 ceramics and pottery belonging to the Phylakopi style but also establish relations, for the first time, with the diffusion area of the Apennine civilization (central Italy, Campania, northern Calabria) for the importation of good quality clays and ceramics. The persistence of the contacts and exchanges with the Mycenaeans is evidenced by the presence of a small Mycenaean idol of the proto-phi type and another small idol, an imitation of the first, in a hut at Castello di Lipari (Gamma I–IV), as well as of a Mycenaean vase on the same site. The supposed house of the village chief at Punta Milazzese has some beautiful Mycenaean pottery inside. Some of the vessels for collecting rainwater at Portella come from Cyprus. Numerous faience and carnelian beads, and one or more necklaces or bracelets, have been found at the same Aeolian settlement. It seems probable that some ceramicists from the Italian mainland live and work in the Aeolian Islands at this time, maybe even some metallurgists. Around 1250, all the Aeolian villages of the Thapsos-Milazzese Culture—not just the Aeolian ones but also those at Tropea in Calabria—are destroyed by fire. The end comes suddenly, and the settlements are razed (they will not be rebuilt). The inhabitants, fleeing, take nothing with them, not even precious objects, which thus remain in the houses, warehouses, and closets where they have been hidden. The sites will remain abandoned and deserted, and the Aeolian Islands will become less populated. Perhaps the Aeolian refugees go to Ustica, where the village of Faraglione belongs to the Thapsos Culture and which, in its third phase of evolution, will become a proto-urban center, defended by a boundary wall, reinforced by numerous towers.

Vivara (Campania) One of the nodes in the network of commercial ports that connect the regions around the Tyrrhenian Sea to each other is Procida, a volcanic island located in the Bay of Naples. There have been several settlements here since the 17th century, including the village of huts of Punta d’Alaca (Vivara), and Mycenaean imports are

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disseminated from here through the Campanian hinterland.3 At a later point in the Late Helladic IIIA:2, Vivara’s commercial activity will be reduced to the point that it ceases altogether, as a consequence, perhaps, of a state of war between the Mycenaean states of the Peloponnese. The navigator-merchants who continue their journey beyond Vivara skirt around Lazio, stop over in Tuscany—where the Metalliferous Hills and the island of Elba are rich in metals, including iron and copper—and sail from there to Sardinia, where they enter into contacts and exchanges with the Nuragic aristocracy.

Sardinia The Nuragic civilization, the main culture on Sardinia in the Bronze Age, began to take shape in its fundamental aspects in the 18th century, when the Bonnanaro Culture was about to fade away, but its characteristics only became explicit later on, especially between 1500 and 1200. One of its peculiarities, which already manifested itself in its initial evolutionary phases, is the subdivision of the territory into districts (cantons), of varying sizes, with large, fortified complexes and a network of isolated towers (nuraghes) that protect the access roads. Another is the custom of multiple deposition of the dead in long, narrow stone tombs with an exedra façade, called “the giants’ graves.” The Nuragic aristocracies control access to the island’s metalliferous resources and manage both the extraction of the metal and its processing by themselves. The Mycenaean, Cypriot, and Levantine navigator-merchants and metallurgists establish relations with them from the Late Helladic IIIA:1, that is, between 1420/10 and 1390/70. They buy copper, argentiferous lead, iron, and other metals, including tin (Sardinia plays an intermediary role on the western tin route, which comes from Great Britain via France). In turn, they provide the Nuragic people with ideas, raw materials, services, and technical skills related to metallurgy, including the know-how necessary for the application of metallurgical technology and for the development of artistic craftsmanship. Mycenaean imports to Sardinia consist of ceramics, bronze artifacts, and faience necklace beads. The oldest date back to the Late Helladic IIIA:1–2. Among others, there is an ointment holder of Peloponnesian manufacture, ritually broken, which has been attributed to the Late Helladic IIIA:2. It is a painted angular alabastron, manufactured in the Argolid, and comes from the foundation layers of Nuraghe Arrubiu, near Orroli in the province of Nuoro. Nuraghe Arrubiu controls the access route to the copper mines of Fontana Ruminosa, which are the most important in Sardinia. A fragment of Mycenaean pottery dating to the 15th–14th century also comes from this structure. 3

  The Mycenaean materials found in Afragola, near Naples, probably came from Vivara.

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Later, it is the southwestern part of the island in particular that has contacts and exchanges with eastern ships, mainly communities on the coast, but also those inland. A necklace with glass paste (faience) beads is imported in the Late Helladic IIIA:2 to Gonnosfanàdiga-San Cosimo, located in Iglesiente, a region with a high concentration of metalliferous lead mines. It will become part of the grave goods of a “giant’s tomb.” The subsequent finds—both ceramic and non-ceramic—pertain to the Late Helladic IIIB or IIIC and are imported or locally produced. Imported pottery include products from Aegean-Levantine and Cretan workshops of the Late Helladic IIIB in particular, as well as products from workshops in the Peloponnese, perhaps from the Argolid. A plate of hippopotamus ivory, bearing the representation of the head of a warrior with a characteristic Mycenaean “boar’s tusk” helmet, arrives in Mitza Purdia, near Decimoputzu in the province of Cagliari, in the Late Helladic IIIB. Made in a palace workshop in mainland Greece and originally used as part of a covering for a small wooden casket, it is comparable with similar Peloponnesian attestations from the Late Helladic IIIA:2 and IIIB (this period, in the chronology of Sardinian prehistory, corresponds to the transition from the Middle Bronze Age to the Late Bronze Age). Mycenaean ceramics with floral and spiral-shaped motifs reach the hill of Muru Mannu (overlooking the area of Tharros, near Cabras, in the province of Oristano). Mycenaean pottery arrives in Orosei in the Late Helladic IIIB. Late Helladic IIIC ceramics will reach Medau (Lais-Tratalias), Is Baccas-Pula (Nora), and Sa Domu e S’Orcu (Sarroch). There are also local imitations of Mycenaean pottery in various sites across Sardinia. The Nuraghe Antigori stands on the rocky peak of the same name in the comune of Sarroch (Cagliari) at the southwestern edge of the Gulf of Cagliari, and consists of several towers with a tholos roof, connected to one another by a walled enclosure. A small village huddles around it. This settlement is one of the main sorting points for eastern products heading inland that are used as goods to be traded in exchange for metals. It is for this reason that Cycladic and Mycenaean pottery and a small doublebladed axe in lead are found there. The Cycladic pottery is from the Late Cycladic II (1625/00–1420/00) or the Late Helladic IIIB:2 and IIIC (14th–13th century and 13th–12th century). The Mycenaean pottery was made in the Argolid, on Crete, and/or Cyprus. They are associated with Aegean-type ceramics but are of local production. The items in question are kraters, stirrup jars, rhyta, pithoi, amphorae, and other vessels that recall the corresponding forms of Greek, Cretan, and Cypriot contexts. The pottery that imitates Aegean models attests to the presence in loco of a stable nucleus of foreign artisans capable of passing on their technological heritage to the Nuragic

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populations. The Cypriot vessels date back to the Late Cypriot II and are primarily pithoi with wavy bands.4 Some ingots of Cypriot copper, with their characteristic “ox-hide” shape, also reach the Nuraghe Antinori, as well as, before 1200, a piece of Cypriot iron (the oldest worked piece that has yet been found in the western Mediterranean). A small quantity of Cypriot ceramics completes the grave goods of a tomb at Su Fraigu (San Sperate in the province of Cagliari), together with a cylindrical seal in carved green stone, also originating from Cyprus, where it was made around 1250. Copper oxide ingots in the shape of ox hides also reach other parts of Sardinia (at least 37 sites). These all come from mineral sources in Cyprus, particularly from Apliki.5 Some bronze objects found on the island are also apparently of “Cypriot type”: weapons, tripods, double axes, four hammers, nine pliers, and three shovels for coal. There is also a shovel mold. All date back to the 12th-11th century, except for the rattail tanged daggers, which instead date back to between the 15th and 14th centuries. The miniature tripod stands date back to the Iron Age.6

The Iberian Peninsula Sardinia is not only a source of copper but also a stop on the journeys of the Mycenaean, Cypriot, and Levantine navigator-merchants and metallurgists who have a more distant destination on the horizon: the Iberian metal deposits of the Sierra de Guadarrama and the mountain range of Toledo, located in the central-western part and the Atlantic coast of the Iberian Peninsula. It is possible that it was the Nuragic peoples who showed these navigators the way and introduced them to the environment of the final phase (14th–12th centuries) of the El Argar Culture. This idea is supported by the fact that Iberian- and Atlantic-type bronze artifacts, attributed to the Late and Final Bronze Age periods, also circulate in Sardinia.7 4   Petrographic analysis of these finds has revealed that only the pithos with wavy bands can be identified with Cyprus, while the origin of the others cannot be definitively proven. A. Vianello, Late Bronze Age Mycenaean and Italic Products in the West Mediterranean: A Social and Economic Analysis (Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 2005), 165; F. Lo Schiavo, “Sardinia between east and west: interconnections in the Mediterranean,” in ΠΛΟΕΣ. Sea Routes. Interconnections in the Mediterranean 16th–6th Centuries B.C. Proceedings of the International Symposium held at Rethymnon, Crete, September 29–October 2, 2002, ed. N. Stampolidis and V. Karageorghis (Athens: University of Crete and the A. G. Leventis Foundation, 2003), 16–17. 5   These imports are hotly debated among archaeologists. 6   P. van Dommelen, “On colonial grounds: a comparative study of colonialism and rural settlement in the first millennium BC in West Central Sardinia” (PhD diss., University of Leiden, 1998), 75; G. S. Webster, The Archaeology of Nuragic Sardinia (Monographs in Mediterranean Archaeology 14) (Sheffield: Equinox Publishing, 2015), 204. 7   Evidence of the Mycenaean, Cypriot, and Levantine presence in the Iberian Peninsula is anything but abundant. It is, moreover, from more recent periods. We are talking about two imported pottery fragments from the Late Helladic IIIA:2–IIIB Period, molded with clay from the Argolid, found at the Late Bronze Age site of Llanete de los Moros in the Middle Guadalquivir (Montoro, Córdoba). It is interesting to note that this site is located on the road that connects the coast to the Andalusian hinterland, which is rich in copper.

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The El Argar Culture (or Argaric, from the homonymous site near Antas, Almería) flourished in the southeast of Spain between 2300 and 1500. It has its roots in an indigenous substratum (it evolves from the culture of Los Millares, emanating from the site of Lorca, Murcia) and, since it aims to acquire control of the agricultural and mineral resources of a vast area, expands territorially over time, spreading southward to the province of Almería, northward until it encompasses almost all of Murcia, and westward to within the province of Granada, while also pushing its cultural influence even beyond these geographical boundaries. Agaric communities for highly hierarchical societies, dominated by a warrior and slave-owning aristocracy, and are organized in an archaic state. They live in villages of modest size (from 300 to 500/600 inhabitants), situated on easily defensible plains or hills. They base their economy on agriculture and rearing livestock, principally sheep, goats, pigs, cattle, and horses. They work linen and wool and make fabrics from them. They produce inornate pottery. They extract copper, silver, and gold from the ground and work them to make weapons and personal ornaments. The weapons produced are halberds, swords, daggers, spearheads, and axes. The fact that they are made of arsenical copper gives the Argaric peoples a competitive advantage over their neighbors. Their jewelry is in silver or gold. The lifespan of this culture can be divided into two main phases: A (2300–1800) and B (1800–1500). The warrior aristocracy, in Phase A, moves on from the traditional custom of collective burials in tholos tombs to that of individual burials, carried out within the settlement area, in the bare earth or in cist tombs, with a set of halberds and daggers (for the men) or awls and daggers (for the women). In Phase B, male members of this same élite are buried within a pithos, along with large bronze swords, while female members of the same circle are buried with diadems. Grave goods are also deposited in the tombs of children. The Argaric Culture declines from 1650 and collapses around 1500. In the meantime, it has come into contact with elements of Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean cultures.

Chapter 17 Kingdoms and city-palaces

The states and the cities The Mycenaeans have the same business sense as the Minoans but a very different spirit, being less creative, less elegant, and more prone to war and local conflicts. This is reflected, for example, in the general layout of their cities, which often are strongholds sited atop a high, precipitous location, towering over a small fertile plain, surrounded by high, rugged mountains. Other Mycenaean cities, such as Iolcus, Pylos, and Thebes, are built on low hills and are not well defended. Tiryns is strongly fortified, but its site is only a few meters in elevation above the surrounding plain. It should be emphasized that the walls of most Mycenaean cities are often heavily fortified. In such cases, they are made up, on both sides, of cyclopean walls with an infill of earth and stones inside. The cyclopean walls are made up of huge blocks, resting on ballast stones and put together without mortar. The blocks are either squared, partially worked, or not worked at all. In the first case, the alignments of the cyclopean walls are more regular and more horizontal. The fortified walls of the cities of the Argolid are extremely strong. Some cities are the capital of an archaic state, understood as a territory organized in a system of hierarchically ordered settlements ruled by a sovereign, who has the title of wa-na-ka. The king is based in a Palace, lives surrounded by a court of dignitaries and officials, has an army, and often contends with his counterpart from a neighboring state. The Mycenaeans may have learned about the organization of polities into archaic states from the Minoans, just as it is also possible that the archaic states of Mycenaean Greece are the point of arrival of a local evolutionary process. In any case, the fact is that, in the 14th century (Late Mycenaean IIIA:2), there are at least nine Mycenaean states, understood as kingdoms: Messenia, Laconia, Attica, Thessaly, three in the Argolid, and two in Boeotia.1   On the Mycenaean kingdoms: M. Cultraro, I micenei. Archeologia, storia, società dei Greci prima di Omero (Rome: Carocci, 2006), esp. chap. 6, 115–133; R. Castleden, I micenei e le origini dell’Europa (Genoa: EGIC, 2005), esp. chap. 2, 13–30. 1

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The existence of a tenth Mycenaean kingdom is suggested by the fact that some Hittite sources from the 14th and 13th centuries use the term Ahhiyawa or Akhkhiyawa to refer to the Mycenaeans. This name has an assonance with the Greek ethnonym Άχαίϝοι, that is, Achaiwoi. This might be identified with a kingdom in the Dodecanese, based in Rhodes and extending onto the Anatolian coast, founded by Mycenaeans who had emigrated to the Aegean coast of Anatolia and the islands opposite in the 15th–14th century. However, it is also possible that it simply designates the Achaean kingdoms in their entirety, i.e., Mycenaean Greece as a whole. Messenia Messenia (2,000 km2) is a geographical region of the western Peloponnese. To the north, it extends as far as the valley of Neda, if not as far as the Alpheus River; to the east, as far as the Taygetos massif, where it borders Laconia. There are at least 200 inhabited centers, including cities, villages, and other settlements. The villages and small hamlets have an average population of 250 inhabitants. The wa-na-ka resides in pu-ro (henceforth: Pylos). This city is located on a hill, 150 m a.s.l. (near the modern village of Epano Englianos, 4 km south of Chora and 17 km north of the modern city of Pylos), and is surrounded by a landscape of rolling hills filled with olive trees. From here, you can enjoy a fantastic view over the Bay of Navarino, with the flat island of Sfaktiría, which almost seems to be joined to the coast to the north and south, leaving only two narrow passages. Beyond Sfaktiría is the expanse of the Ionian Sea.2 Pylos was formed in the Early Helladic.3 In the Late Helladic IIIA:2, it is a town of 3,000 inhabitants with a Palace. The port of Pylos is ro-o-ewa (Volomidia?). Near this is another city, which is called pa-ki-ja-na and is an important cult center, home to a sanctuary of Poseidon, which receives rich offerings. Among the inhabited centers, there are also to-mi-to-a-ko (Nichoria), Leuktron (Thouria), a-te-re-wi-ja (Peristeri), and a further one, which rises on the hill of Mouriadha. The kingdom of Messenia has a population of about 50,000,4 of whom over 11,000 pay some sort of tax, as can be deduced from some archival documents from the 2   Proof of its antiquity is given by some burials from a settlement of the Early Helladic and a tholos tomb from the end of the Middle Helladic. 3   Three cities with the name of Pylos have succeeded one another over time in the Peloponnese: the Mycenaean one on the hill of Epano Englianos, the one founded by refugees from Pylos in Triphylia (a region of the Peloponnese that Messenia borders to the north), and the one founded by exiles toward the middle of the 11th century on the Koryphasion promontory, which marks the northern boundary of the Bay of Navarino, a few kilometers away from the ruins of the Mycenaean Pylos. The latter was inhabited throughout antiquity. A fresco preserved in the Archaeological Museum of Chora comes from Pylos in Triphylia. It depicts a clash between two ranks of armed men. On one side are Mycenaean warriors with helmets and kilts, and on the other are men dressed in animal skins, probably Arcadians. In the background is a curvilinear decoration, which evokes the flow of a river. 4   R. Castleden, I micenei e le origini dell’Europa (Genoa: EGIC, 2005), 88, echoing J. Chadwick, The Mycenaean World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 68.

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Palace of Pylos. It is organized into two provinces, separated by the Aigaleon massif. Each province has its own capital and is divided into districts. Each district hinges on a major center, which is the seat of administration and a production center, to which the rural villages belong. One province is divided into nine districts, and the other into seven. Each province is governed by a da-mo-ko-ro. Each district is administered by a ko-re-te and his second-in-command.5 The da-mo-ko-ro and the ko-re-te are directly dependent on one of the wa-na-ka, and everyone else is dependent on the da-mo-ko-ro. One province is called Iklaina. Originally, it was an independent and sovereign kingdom. Its homonymous capital was located on some low hills around 10 km northeast of Pylos. Its Palace stood on a terrace of cyclopean masonry and consisted of a large architectural complex on two or three floors, formed by three wings around a central, rectangular courtyard. Toward the end of the 15th century (Late Helladic IIB/ IIIA:1), the kingdom of Iklaina clashed with the kingdom of Pylos at Epano Englianos, came off second-best, and was incorporated into the victor’s territory. The Palace 5   On the figure of the ko-re-te: M. Cultraro, I micenei. Archeologia, storia, società dei Greci prima di Omero (Rome: Carocci, 2006), 117.

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of Iklaina was saved from ruin and is currently the seat of the province’s da-mo-koro. One of the frescoes that decorates the rooms depicts a ship with three men and some dolphins, and some women in procession. The Palace of Iklaina also contains an archive of Linear B tablets, bearing inscriptions on both sides, referring to the period 1450–1400. It will be completely destroyed in the 14th century and will not be rebuilt. Laconia Laconia is the name for the southeastern Peloponnese. It is bathed to the west by the Ionian Sea and to the east by the waters of the Aegean Sea, while to the south two peninsulas extend into the Laconian Gulf. To the north, it extends as far as the Profitis Ilias/Taygetos massif, which separates it from Messenia, and the Parnon mountain range, which separates it from Arcadia. The space between the two mountain ranges is occupied by a large plain. This is called the Plain of Sparta (named after its most important classical city, called Lakedaimon in the Mycenaean age), and it is crossed by the Eurotas, a river that flows into the Gulf of Laconia. The landscapes of this region range from high and steep mountains, covered with pine, chestnut, and walnut forests, marked by deep gorges and natural cavities, to more modest hills, green with Mediterranean scrub and fragrant with aromatic plants, to vast plains, cultivated with cereals, vines, olive trees, fruit trees, and vegetables, to the bays and beaches of fine sand. The Mycenaean state of Laconia embraces both Laconia and western Arcadia. Among its most important inhabited centers are those of the upper valley of the Eurotas, those on the shores of the Gulf of Laconia, those in the Taygetos and Parnon mountains, and those on the Mani Peninsula. The residence of the sovereign, in the Late Helladic IIIA:2, is Agios Vasileios (about 12 km from Sparta). It is located on a steep hill that looks out over the highest peak of the Peloponnese (2,404 m), which is part of the Taygetos massif. Taygetos is the mountain off which, in historical times, the Spartans will throw children who are not suitable to become warriors because they are weak in constitution or have been born deformed. The other major centers of the Mycenaean state of Laconia are Agios Stephanos, Menelaion, and Pellana. Agios Stephanos is a saddle that joins the mainland to a headland on the western edge of the Helos plain, bathed by the waters of the Gulf of Laconia, with beaches suitable for boats to be stationed, land, and pulled ashore.6 In the Bronze Age, there was an inhabited structure there that overlooked a landing point below, which served as a commercial port, and maintained close relations with Crete via Cythera. Agios Stephanos is the port of Agios Vasileios. At the end of the Early Helladic II, it was abandoned and remained deserted until the end of the Early Helladic III. At the 6   The nature of the landscape has changed over time due to the withdrawal of the shoreline caused by alluvial deposits from the Helos plain. Today, Agios Stephanos is located 2 km from the sea.

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start of the Middle Helladic I, it was reborn in the broader context of a considerable increase in the number of settlements across Laconia. In this phase, the old rectangular houses were replaced by apsidal houses, and the settlement took on a “Minoan” appearance. In the Late Helladic IIIA, the locals import a large amount of Minoan pottery and fashion their own Minoanizing ceramics. Some draft texts in Linear A. The local economy is based on maritime trade using coastal navigation, fishing, metallurgy, and the exportation to Crete of blocks of lapis lacedaemonius, an ornamental green stone found only in Laconia. Menelaion dominates the Chrysapha valley, rich in gold and copper, from a height. It is an important political and administrative center with a considerable capacity for storing and redistributing goods. A little further south of Menelaion is Vapheio (near the village of Palaiopyrgi), another major center of the region. In the Late Helladic IIA, it was the seat of a dynasty that had relations with the Minoans (through which it came into possession of two beautiful, embossed gold cups) and buried its dead in a large tholos tomb. Lakedaimon is a site of uncertain location. Perhaps it corresponds to Pellana, perhaps to Therapne. Pellana (the ancient name of modern Palaikastro) is a small center south of Sparta, on the slopes of Taygetos, enclosed within a 2 km long cyclopean wall. Within it is a monumental street and, right in the center of the town, a building 42 m long and 12 m wide, surrounded by shops and warehouses. Therapne is situated on the east bank of the River Eurotas, opposite Vapheio (around 7 km south of ancient Sparta). In the 17th century (Late Helladic I), both Menelaion and Vapheio were abandoned, coinciding with a more general depopulation of Laconia. In the Late Helladic IIIA:2–IIIB:1, the site of Menelaion was reoccupied and became the site of a monumental building in which there was administrative activity, evidenced through nodules and seals. The Argolid The Argolid is the geographical region that occupies the northeastern Peloponnese and is bathed by the waters of the Gulf of Argolis. The heart of the kingdom of Mycenae is in this region, which extends north to Koraku (Corinth) and also includes the plain of Tegea (Arcadia). There are roads, bridges, rest stations, and guard posts. Besides Mycenae, the major cities are Argos, Tiryns, Midea, and Asine. Each of them is both an administrative center and a production center and also includes areas reserved for worship. The population relies upon the agricultural produce of the surrounding plain and on maritime trade. The plain of Argos is closed to the north by a gentle landscape that alternates between hills and valleys and ends to the south on the shores of the Gulf of Argolis. Argos is located in the center of it, on the hill of Larissa and on the primary communication route that connects the Peloponnese to Attica and Boeotia. It began to form around 2000 and consists of an acropolis and a “lower city.” The nearby hill of Aspis is home to temples to Apollo Lyceus, Diomedes, and Athena.

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Fig. 7. Argolis (northeastern Peloponnese, Greece) in the Middle and Late Bronze Age Mycenae is located in the northeastern corner of the plain of Argos, about 12 km from the sea and 9 km from Argos. It rises on a rocky knoll between two hills. This position allows its inhabitants to exploit both the pastures of the hills and the fertile soils of the uplands above and the plain below, and it also protects them from attacks from the sea. Furthermore, it is on a junction, where roads leading in all directions intertwine. The site was first occupied a few millennia before the Bronze Age. A population of 6,000–6,500 people lived there in the Early Helladic Period when a “corridor house” like those of Lerna and Tiryns (Building I) rose at the top of the citadel, and there were several small or small–medium settlements in the environs. The site was occupied in the Middle Helladic and thereafter. At the end of the Late Helladic IA, the population of the place—or, more accurately, the local ruling élite— grew in wealth and power and began to import goods from abroad (from the Cyclades, the north of Greece, and Crete), while metalworking and the production of pottery reached a very high standard, as evidenced in the tombs of Grave Circle B, which we will look at later. In this period, Mycenae becomes one of the most important settlements in the Argolid, an area in which the rulers of Mycenae now enjoy clear preeminence. About 30,000 people live there. By this point, Mycenae already consists of an upper part (acropolis) and a lower part; in addition, there are structures outside the city walls, as well as tholos tombs

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and chamber tombs nearby.7 The acropolis extends for 30,000 m2 in the shape of an irregular triangle, the base of which faces north. Among other things, it contains the Palace (Building II), a temple, a granary, a tower, and Grave Circle A. Only the king, the priests, the priestesses, and their servants live there. A source of drinking water can be found on the western side. This is fed by a conduit that draws from the water table, 35 m underground. The acropolis was fortified for the first time in the Late Helladic IIIA:2.8 At the end of the construction work, the walled enclosure is a continuous fortification, 12.5 m in height and 7.5 m in width, formed by a double-facing wall and an internal filling of gravel and clay. It is very imposing because the weight and size of the irregular stone blocks seem to defy human strength, and the walls instead appear to be the work of giants. The Lower Town is made up of public buildings, homes of the aristocracy, more modest houses, and the shops of perfumers, dyers, blacksmiths, and potters. The artisan district is separated from the rest of the settlement both because people work with fire there, which could pose a danger if it spreads, and because it produces fumes, noises, and nasty smells. North of the acropolis, on the road to Corinth, there are some (probable) inspection stations for traffic and trade. To the southwest, there is a (probable) royal storeroom. Some structures were built in the area of Pezoulia after this had fallen into disuse as a burial place and had been terraced. One is the Petsas House, and another is the House of the Shields. The former is a complex of studios for the storage and distribution of ceramics. The latter is the house-workshop of an ivory carver, who is not in the service of the Palace but does carry out orders on behalf of the Palace, from which he receives his raw material. Tiryns is located in the southeastern part of the plain of Argos, about 15 km south of Mycenae and 7 km southeast of Argos. Unlike Mycenae, which is situated inland, it is near the coast (on the shore of the Gulf of Argolis), closer to the sea than it will be in the future.9 It was built on a long, rocky, narrow ridge, 18 m above the plain below and extending for 25 ha. The acropolis is made up of a higher part and a lower part (the difference is about 8 m). Both have been inhabited since the Neolithic. The first Mycenaean acropolis appears around 1400 in the southern part. The port of Nafplio serves both Mycenae and Tiryns. It makes use of both sides of a rocky peninsula connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus. It is one of the most important structures of its kind of its time and plays a significant part in the long-distance exchange network. 7   At the beginning of the 13th century, the citadel of Mycenae was the one that can still be seen today. Unfortunately, all that remains of almost all the buildings that existed then is little more than the foundation walls. 8   It is uncertain whether Mycenae was equipped with city walls or not in the Late Helladic I. 9   Some detailed surveys have shown that in the Early and Middle Bronze Age, the coast was much closer to Tiryns than it is today and that the entire lower part of the plain was marshy. It also seems possible that the marshy area extended much further to the north during the Neolithic Period. The paleogeographic data seems to be in harmony with what was observed by Aristotle, who noted that the fields of Argos were much more fertile in his day than at the time of the Trojan War, when they were inundated with swamps, while those of Mycenae, once fertile, had become barren and uncultivated by his time.

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Midea is found on the eastern fringe of the plain of Argos, southeast of Mycenae and about 6 km east of Argos. It stands on a cone-shaped hill, 270 m a.s.l. and 170 m above ground level, in a strategic position with unrestricted views all around. The site’s topographical location allows its inhabitants to monitor the entire plain and the Gulf of Argolis, and this explains the settlement’s importance and prosperity. Its acropolis extends for 2.4 ha. Workshops and storehouses can be found there. A cyclopean wall encloses and protects both the acropolis and the lower northeast and northwest terraces on the hill.10 Two gates open onto it, facing each other, on the east and west sides of the fortification. One is protected by a bastion. As at Mycenae and Tiryns, a protected underground water source ensures a constant water supply. There are also sewer pipes and a cistern. The city is in contact with other centers in the Argolid, in the wider Aegean, and in the east. Its inhabitants use the nearby site of Dendra as a cemetery (some chamber tombs have been found here). Attica Attica is a geographical region of central-western Greece. Its soil is stony and therefore unsuitable for agriculture, but it is rich in mineral resources. Consider, for example, the silver of Laurion. The capital of the Mycenaean state of Attica is Athens. The origins of this city are shrouded in the mists of legend. According to one tradition, it was founded in 1500 by the gods Poseidon and Athena. Immediately afterward, they argued because each wanted to give their own name to the city and become its tutelary deity, and so they asked for the arbitration of the Athenians. Poseidon, to ingratiate himself with the judges, gave them salt and a bull, and promised them his support in battle. In turn, Athena offered the judges a magnificent olive tree and promised them the gift of wisdom, intelligence, and peace. The Athenians, after extensive discussions, decided to entrust themselves to Athena and renamed their city “Athens.” Athena named the Egyptian Cecrops, a being who was part human and part serpent, as the first king of Athens. The historian and geographer Strabo of Amasia (c. 60 BC–c. 24 AD), citing the Athenian historian Philochorus (340–262/61),11 will report in his Geography that Cecrops founded 12 cities in Attica, one of which was called Cecropia. Cecropia is said to have been the primitive nucleus of Athens,12 positioned on the top of a rock on its northern side (Mycenaean Athens stood in the

10   Masonry in unworked boulders is called cyclopean work in reference to the legend according to which the walls of Mycenae were built by cyclopes, by order of Perseus, as reported by Pausanias (2nd century AD) in his Periegesis. 11   Philochorus was the author of the Atthis, a historical work in 17 books, which told the story of Attica from its mythical origins to the present day of the author, but this is now incomplete (only 171 fragments of it have been preserved). In the first two books, Philochorus dealt with the mythical rulers, from Cecrops onward. 12   However, the term “Cecropia” is also used to describe Attica as a whole. Cecrops was the first king of Athens. After him, there would be another 14 kings—eight before Theseus and then another five before the arrival of the Dorians—and then other sovereigns, all men of flesh and blood.

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same place that would be occupied by the acropolis of the city of the Classical Age).13 Significant building activity is recorded on the rock starting from the Late Helladic IIIA:1, when Athens begins to exercise political control over the east part of Attica. The city is surrounded by fortification walls and terraced in the Late Helladic IIIA:2, coinciding with its political reshaping (as a consequence of the expansion of Thebes into Attica?) and a simultaneous strengthening of the local ruling élite. A source of drinking water, fed by a conduit that draws from the water table 35 m underground, on the western side of the rock, ensures its water supply.14 Boeotia Boeotia is a geographical region in central-western Greece, north of Attica. The Mycenaean states that divide (and challenge each other over) the territory are those of Thebes and Orchomenos, which have always competed with each other. The kingdom of Thebes (called te-qa-i in Linear B tablets) borders the kingdom of Orchomenos to the north, from which it is separated by Lake Copais. In the Late Helladic IIIA, it controls the main alpine passes of Parnitha and Cithaeron as well as the following territories: Euboea, where Karystos is located (perhaps the future Amarynthos); the region that extends down the shores of the Gulf of Aulis, where there is a citadel (near the modern village of Dramesi); the area of the salt lakes of Hylike and Paralimni, where there is a major center called e-re-o-ni (Heleon); and the region of Oropos. The main mountain passes of Parnitha and Cithaeron are defended by forts, including that of Panakton. It seems that the area north of Mount Hymettos and the coast of Opuntian Locris also falls within the Theban sphere of influence. Thebes is a city located in southern Boeotia. It has a long history, punctuated by frequent disasters, from which the local community has always recovered. A fire devoured most of it around 2300 (transition from the Early Helladic II to the Early Helladic III).15 Another fire signaled the local end of the Early Helladic III (2300–2000). In the Late Helladic IIIA:2, Thebes is the capital of one of the richest and most powerful Mycenaean kingdoms, and things are running in full swing. There are structures everywhere, but especially on the eastern slopes of the hill. The major buildings are solid and splendid constructions. They are often decorated with frescoes and contain works of art. The city is part of a complex network of external relations (it imports worked ivories, cylindrical seals, and lapis lazuli from Syria, and wine and oil from   The Greek philosopher Plato (427–347) tells us about the fortification of the acropolis of Athens in one of his 25 philosophical dialogues, specifically in his incomplete Critias, which contains a detailed account of the victory of the Athenians over the empire of Atlantis (a continent located to the west of the Pillars of Hercules that will sink into the sea), which Plato has already spoken of in his previous dialogue, the Timaeus. Plato provides us with an interesting detail: he specifies that the acropolis was only inhabited on its north side. 14   This water source became inaccessible after an earthquake in the third decade of the 13th century (Late Helladic IIIB:2). 15   Some structures that represent a transformation from the “corridor house” of the Helladic tradition date back to the Late Helladic I or, at the latest, to the Late Helladic II. 13

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Crete). Its outlet to the sea is the port of Kreusis, to which it is connected by a road that runs through the Helicon valley and the valley of Thespiae via the fortress of Eutresis. Unlike Thebes, which is in the south of Boeotia, Orchomenos is in the north, beyond Lake Copais and the hills surrounding this basin to the southeast. It was formed in the Neolithic. In the Late Helladic IIIA:2, it is a walled city, with a Palace with frescoes on the acropolis and a megaron complex at the foot of the hill, not far from a large tholos tomb. The main seaport used by the kingdom of Orchomenos is Larymna (the future Kastri) on the Euboean Gulf (the other seaport is Corseae). A road suitable for wagons connects Orchomenos to Larymna and is defended by military outposts. The first king of Orchomenos seems to have been Minyas, the son of Aiolos, son of Hellen and the eponymous founder of the Aeolians. Other genealogical trees suggest that Minyas is descended from Aiolos through his daughter Tritogeneia or that he is a descendant of Almus, son of Sisyphus. Minyas is said to have been immensely rich. He was the one to have endorsed the reclamation of Lake Copais, a huge undertaking. Homer, while recalling Orchomenos as the homeland of the Minyans, will report that they are descended from immigrants who arrived from the island of Lemnos. Thessaly Thessaly is a geographical region in central-eastern Greece. It extends from Mount Olympus in the north to the valley of Spercheios in the south and consists of large plains surrounded by mountains (the mountain ranges of Pindus and Othrys, Mount

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Pelion, and Mount Ossa). The plains that make up Thessaly are the catchment basins of the Pineios and its tributaries. They are ideal for cultivating cereals and breeding horses, and they are divided into four subregions: Pelasgiotis, Phthiotis, Thessaliotis, and Histiaeotis. The mountainous areas are more suitable for pastoralism. The shores of the Pagasetic Gulf, or the Gulf of Volos, in the southeast of Thessaly, are the outlets to the sea of this region. Mycenaean Thessaly is called Aeolis, and it is only the western part of the region that in future will be called Thessaly. Its inhabitants, the Aeolians, are descended from and named after Aiolos, a son of Hellen. It will change its name when it is invaded and permanently occupied by the Thessalians, a tribe originating from Cichyrus in Thesprotia, led by the Heracleidae (the sons of Heracles/Hercules and their descendants). The mythology of the Greeks and Homer will make Thessaly the homeland of Jason, the Centaurs, the Lapiths, the Phlegyans, and Achilles and the Myrmidons. The main cities of the kingdom of Thessaly are Iolcus (near the village of Dimini and the modern city of Volos) and Pherae. In Iolcus, there is a Palace, which contains an archive of tablets in Linear B.

Monumental architecture The Mycenaean conquest of Crete and the supplanting of the Mycenaeans over the Minoans in maritime trade on a Mediterranean-wide scale explain the enrichment of the ruling élite recorded in Mycenaean Greece for 250 years, starting from the Late Helladic IIB. This is reflected in both the intense building activity that is recorded in many places (there is a tendency to occupy all the space available in the citadels, so much so that some structures, even important ones, must be placed outside) and in the appearance of monumental architecture. The latter takes place around 1350 (Late Helladic IIIA:2) and relates to the Palaces, Intermediate Buildings, and Royal Tombs. The wa-na-ka lives in the Palace with his wife, his legitimate children, any illegitimate children born from his affairs with slave concubines, his guards, his servants, and, on occasion, his daughters- and sons-in-law. The place where he eats his meals, receives guests, and hosts banquets is the megaron. It is customary for him, his wife, his other relatives, and any guests to sit at the foot of the columns opposite the hearth and for the others present to sit along the walls or in the spaces between the columns. Each megaron can contain up to around 50 people. Together with the wa-na-ka and his family, one or more outside the royal family also live in the Palace. These are people who are confidants of the sovereign, who are employed in the government or administration of the state, or who are in charge of the army, the economical use of the means of production owned by the crown, in the transformation of raw materials, or in the management of stockpiles. The ra-wa-ke-ta, the senior army official, however, lives elsewhere, as we will see. There are, therefore, a lot of Palaces, as many as there are states. There are also one or more Intermediate Buildings for each state. Both the Palaces and the Intermediate Buildings are administrative centers and a center of artistic and artisanal production, with spaces also reserved for cult practice.

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The Palaces and the Intermediate Buildings will last for around 150 years—until 1200/1190 (the end of the Late Helladic IIIB)—notwithstanding various processes of destruction and reconstruction. There is evidence of destruction and reconstruction, for example, at the Palace of Pylos and the Palace of Agios Vasileios.16 The Palaces The Mycenaean Palaces are large structures with a complex layout and result from the spatial and volumetric expansion of a leader’s residence, obtained through the addition of workshops and storerooms. They enclose living quarters, storerooms, archives, workshops, kitchens, and rooms for cult practice or representation. They are similar to each other, but each of them presents one or more unique architectural features. In terms of size, architecture, and functions, they imitate the Minoan Palaces and reproduce some of the latter’s architectural elements, such as the façades in regular stone blocks, the stucco floors, and the large cycles of frescoes. Unlike the Minoan Palaces—which can be three or four stories high, rise in the middle of the city, are focused around a central courtyard, and are not fortified, except for the checkpoints— the Mycenaean Palaces are a maximum of two stories high, have the megaron at their heart, and are almost always enclosed within a strongly fortified acropolis. The megaron is a structure of Meso-Helladic derivation. It consists of a rectangular room, preceded, on one of its short sides, by a vestibule, which in turn is preceded by a colonnaded portico. It is about 10 meters wide and about a dozen long, with three blind walls, along which runs a continuous seat, a main entrance flanked by two secondary doors, and a paved floor. At the center of the megaron is a large, round hearth, inserted in a square base, at the corners of which rise four tall, sturdy wooden columns, which support the central part of the ceiling and rest on circular stone bases. The smoke from the lit brazier rises through an opening in the roof, which is covered by a skylight, protecting the fire from the rain. Various rooms are arranged around the megaron, detached from it by corridors. Any other room at the back of this room with the hearth is used as a storeroom and has a separate entrance. The Palace is where sovereignty is exercised, from where the territory is controlled. Therefore, it is the epicenter of political power. However, it also has an economic function because it is where the wa-na-ka collects taxes and stores the income received from these and where he fosters the production of necessary or luxury goods. The Mycenaean Palaces, on the other hand, are not a place where rites and ceremonies of public importance take place (i.e., those performed with the participation of the citizenry). The numerous and capacious storerooms of the Palaces contain a wide variety of goods: general foodstuffs, spices for culinary purposes or for perfumery, oils perfumed with various spices, raw materials, tailored garments, vases, furniture, wagons, 16   It seems that there was another Palace within the acropolis of Kakovatos in Messenia and that a further one has been located in Asine (House D).

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weapons, and military equipment. Among the general foodstuffs, there is grain, oil, wine, barley, fruit, milk, cheese, and preserved vegetables, meat, and fish. Among the spices, sage and tiger nut. Among the raw materials, hides, raw wool, pieces of wool or linen, wood, metals, sulfur, alum, bitumen, and semiprecious stones. Among the weapons, bows and arrows, slings, daggers, spears, and swords. Among the military equipment, shields, helmets, and breastplates. The wa-na-ka draws from the Palace’s storerooms to satisfy his personal needs and those of his family, but also for other reasons: to reciprocate the gifts received, to maintain the Palace and the court, to supply his artisans with raw materials, and to repay in kind all those who work for him in one way or another. For the management of the storerooms and, more generally, for the purposes of administration, he makes use of officials, who work in the Palace and in the regional offices, or who are itinerant (messengers, heralds, commissioners, inspectors, procurators, tax collectors, etc.). Among the former, there are those who monitor ingress to and egress from the storerooms and livestock pens, as well as those who are variously responsible for the accounting of receivables and payables, determining the headcount of taxpayers and the taxable income being levied, carrying out a census of the population and livestock, and assigning jobs to male and female workers. These administrators are distributed across numerous offices, operate in a specific way on the basis of a government or management assignment, conferred by the wa-na-ka, and use seals and the Linear B writing system. They can be differentiated from one another not only by the functions and tasks performed but also by the rank they hold, the insignia they bear, and the clothing they wear. They have a high standard of living. Some benefit from a reduction in taxes due, they can reduce the tax burden on others, and they can even exempt individuals or entire communities from paying levies and fees. The scribes record everything that concerns assets and their management on tablets. For example, the names of shepherds who have custody of the flocks of the wa-na-ka and are required to take them to pasture, substitute new heads for missing or old sheep, and produce certain quantities of wool each year, according to the plans laid out by the Palace. The flax industry is controlled by the Palace, as is the wool industry, but their products are appropriated by the wa-na-ka in the payment of taxes. This industry is managed both by skilled laborers and other workers, probably on behalf of members of the aristocracy, the owners of the weaving workshops. Each Palace processes dozens of tons of wool each year and employs hundreds of people, men and women, both skilled and unskilled. Organized in local groups and overseen by trusted deputies of the wa-na-ka, the workers wash the raw wool and dry it, spin it, weave it, and make items of clothing. The dying operations are reserved for male workers. The finished products are of high quality and are used as customary donations to the guests of the wa-na-ka or to replenish the wardrobes of the wa-na-ka himself, of each member of his family, and of the aristocracy. Some robes are woven with threads of raw silk imported from the Near East. The textile industry is very important in Pylos and Knossos.

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Unlike the weaving workshops that are dependent on the Palace and scattered throughout the territory, the palatine workshops are concentrated within the Palace or around it and deal with the raw materials delivered to their managers by Palace officials. The blacksmiths melt copper and tin, bind them together, and work the bronze thus obtained into semi-finished or finished products: work tools, combat weapons, military equipment, furnishing ornaments, and rims and joints for wagons. This industry is vital in the Palace of Thebes. It is important to note that metallurgical activity also takes place, other than in the workshops of the Palaces, in sacred caves, as there is a link between the activities of the bronzesmiths and the sphere of the sacred. Other artisans produce perfumed oils, vases in stone, glass paste, colored glass, or metal, worked ivories, seals, magnificent jewelry, and gold masterpieces. The most significant studios, with highly skilled artists, are those of the Palace of Mycenae and the Palace of Thebes. The ivory used by Mycenaean artisans comes from elephants, hippopotamuses, and wild boars; that of the elephants and hippos comes from the Orontes Valley in Syria. At first, the ivory artifacts in circulation in the Mycenaean world were imports from Crete or products of the activity of specialist Minoan workers, inserted into the Mycenaean social structure. Later, the Mycenaeans learned the art of intaglio and practiced it in the Palaces of Thebes, Mycenae, and Knossos to produce engraved or relief decorations. These decorations are intended to adorn a variety of places: the sides of wagons, beds, and tables; seats and chests, caskets and footrests, jewelry boxes, game tables complete with pieces; die and knuckle bones; jewelry, amulets, statuettes, heads and limbs that can be detached or joined by means of a pin to large, gilded statues; cylindrical pyxes, mirror handles, combs, figurines. The finished product is painted in red, blue, or gold. The Palace of Pylos is located outside the city but close to it; more precisely, it is at the top of the hill of Epano Englianos, quite far from the coast, from where you can enjoy a vast panorama over the plain of Gargalianoi, dotted with villages, hamlets, and isolated farms, and over the coast. The fact that it is located outside the city is a peculiarity of the site. Homer, in the Odyssey, will say that the Palace of Pylos appears from the outside to be an imposing citadel. In fact, in the Early Helladic Period, the Palace was equipped with a fortifying stone wall and a gate flanked by towers. By the Late Helladic IIIB, that wall has lost its defensive function as the kingdom has expanded beyond the Taygetos mountains and as far as Aigolaion, and it has since been considered safe from enemy attacks.17 The Palace was built in the Late Helladic I as a complex of rectangular rooms, similar to the Menelaion of Sparta. It was ravaged by a fire in the 14th century (Late Helladic IIIA:2) but has been repaired. Helladic in area and plan, it is one of the best examples of Mycenaean palatine architecture.18 However,   See R. Castleden, I micenei e le origini dell’Europa (Genoa: EGIC, 2005), 32. It is uncertain whether, around 1250, the wall was still standing or if it had been partially dismantled. 18   L. Godart, Da Minosse a Omero. Genesi della prima civiltà europea (Turin: Einaudi, 2020), 190 with n. 19, 227. 17

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it has an outer façade in blocks and stucco floors in the Minoan style. It consists of four nuclei: the Main Building, the Southwest Building, the Northwest Building, and the Wine Cellar. Each nucleus contains an assortment of spaces intended for different uses: reception rooms and other spaces that combine representation functions with cultural purposes, workshops and storerooms, service rooms, a central archive, and residential districts of varying levels of quality. The Main Building is the most important nucleus. It is spread over two floors, connected by an internal staircase. It is accessible through a propylaeum with a central column on a stone base and encloses a large square courtyard, the king’s megaron, the queen’s megaron, some rooms for the guards, some archive rooms, corridors, and some storerooms and service rooms. The royal apartments, with a bathtub, are on the first floor. The “bathtub” is not used for personal hygiene but for ritual ablutions. The king’s megaron is the fulcrum of the entire complex. It is a room 12 m long and just over 11 m wide, preceded by a double vestibule and with a hearth between the columns in the center. A stone throne rests against a wall. The floor is of colored stucco. The walls are decorated with wavy lines, other polychrome motifs, and fresco scenes that explain the wealth and religious and political importance of the lord of the house with increasing intensity. One panel depicts a lyre player who is sat watching the flight of a bird with a bull and some other people, who are drinking, next to him. The scene portrays a banquet offered by the sovereign, during which a court singer entertains the guests. Manufacturing activities take place in one part of the palace. There, artisans and workers produce and repair bronze objects, wheels for light war chariots, and perfumed oils.19 The Palace imports metals and exports finished goods. One of the metals worked in it is gold. The Palace of Pylos will be destroyed by an earthquake and the subsequent fire around 1250 (that is, mid-Late Helladic IIIB). The fortunes of the Palace of Agios Stephanos depend on those of its major trading partner, the Palace of Knossos. The structure was built in the 17th–16th century (Early Helladic I or IIA). It flourished in the Early Helladic IIA before declining, but it was rejuvenated in the Late Helladic IIIA:1. It encompasses a large central courtyard with colonnaded porticoes along the sides, and it is adorned with frescoes that imitate Minoan ones. At least some parts will be destroyed by fire between the end of the 15th century and the start of the 13th century (beginning of the Late Helladic IIIA:2).20 In the 17th century (Late Helladic I), a very large palace was built on the hill of Agios Vasileios (on the plain of Sparta, near the modern village of Xirokampi), then rebuilt in the Late Helladic IIB–IIIA:1 (late 15th–early 14th century), on the site of preexisting buildings destroyed by fire. It develops around a large central courtyard, with a pillared portico on the south and west sides. It contains at least 10 rooms and is decorated with 19   In the Late Helladic IIIA:2, there were also some groups of laborers from western Anatolia and the islands off the coast (Halicarnassus, Cnidus, Miletus) who worked in the Palace, perhaps even some from Lemnos, a city in Lydia. The men worked in the workshops of the bronzesmiths. The women wove cloth, blankets, and carpets, made dresses, short tunics, and shawls, and carried out domestic chores. 20   The site was reoccupied in the Byzantine era between 1250 and 1320.

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frescoes. A second structure on the site is also adorned with frescoes, while a sanctuary, located east of the courtyard, contains numerous objects of worship or associated with ritual. Among these objects, worth noting are the clay bovine figurines, an ivory statuette representing a person leading a calf or a bull, a large rhyton in the form of a bull’s head, and a stone pitcher. Among other artifacts in use in the Palace, there are some decorative elements, stone seals, and Egyptian scarabs, and dozens of bronze swords. An archive of texts in Linear B consisting of tablets, labels, and seal impressions is housed in the west wing of the portico. The tablets bear the names of men and women as well as toponyms. There are other records of financial reports and votive offerings. All this indicates the presence of some form of administration. This Palace was devastated by a fire in the Late Helladic IIA (14th century), but it was rebuilt. It will be razed to the ground by another fire in the Late Helladic IIIA:1. The first form of the Palace of Mycenae is Building I and is a “corridor house,” like those at Lerna and Tiryns. Building II stands on the highest part of the knoll, in the same place as the preexisting Building I. It is perhaps surrounded by a defensive wall and is adorned with painted murals. Near to this are some other important buildings, which are perhaps dependent on it. We refer here to the House of the Oil Merchant and the House of the Wine Merchant. These structures—of a large surface area (one measuring 282 m2, the other 200 m2)—appear about 150 m from Grave Circle A, on the edge of a burial area with isolated chamber tombs. The expansion of the city walls in the Late Helladic IIIA:2 suggests a general reorganization of the urban planning of both the citadel and the Lower Town. It is within this context that Building I is demolished and rebuilt in new forms (Buildings II and III). When the works are complete, the new Palace will be composed of a megaron, a vestibule, a portico, and a courtyard in front of the portico. The seat of the ko-re-te of Tiryns is about as large as the Palace of Pylos, but, unlike the latter, which is isolated, it is enclosed in the fortified acropolis of the city. It was built in the Late Helladic IIIA:1 and was enlarged in the Late Helladic IIIB. It will remain in use until the end of the Late Helladic IIIB:2, going through successive phases of destruction and reconstruction.21 The Palace of Athens is built on a terrace in the northern part of the flat top of the acropolis, in the same place where, in the Classical Age, the Temple of PoseidonErechtheus (named after a legendary king of Attica), then the Temple of Athena Polias, then, later (in the Athens of Pericles, between 421 and 407), the elegant Erechtheion, with its Caryatid Porch, will be built. The first Palace of Thebes was entirely destroyed by fire at the start of the Late Helladic IIA. A second Palace was built in the Late Helladic IIIA:1. This too was destroyed. A third Palace was constructed in the Late Helladic IIIA:2 on the ruins of the second. This one is made up of various buildings that densely occupy the entire acropolis; it encompasses workshops and storerooms and is embellished with frescoes.   The remains of more ancient structures and fragments of frescoes have surfaced from under the Palaces of Mycenae and Tiryns, attributed to the Late Helladic III. 21

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It is larger than the previous one—it occupies an area of 800 × 500 m—and is the beating heart of the city. Some of the sanctuaries are outside the city boundaries. The most important is that of Potniae. The Intermediate Buildings The Intermediate Buildings are so-called because they are typologically located between the Palace and the simple residential houses. Echoing the Palace on a smaller scale, they include living quarters, storerooms, and other rooms dedicated to daily life and to the performance of special functions, such as shrines. In the part intended for residential use and the performance of representative functions, it has particularly well thought-out architecture and decoration, with columns, wall paintings, and colored floors. The Intermediate Building is the residence of a member of the ruling élite and his family, such as the ra-wa-ke-ta or the ko-re-te. In Menelaion (Phase II), Tyrins, Pylos, and perhaps also Mycenae, the seat of the ra-wa-ge-ta is the smaller of the two megaron-shaped buildings. The seat of the ko-re-te of Midea is a large rectangular building located on the lower northeastern terraces of the acropolis. A megaron structure with frescoes is also present in Iolcus.22 The royal tombs The landscape surrounding the Palace and the city of Pylos is characterized by the presence of some domed tombs (tholos) that the local ruling élite use to bury their dead, who are accompanied by rich funerary objects. The desire of the builders to proclaim their supremacy, wealth, and power to the world shines through these structures and their lavish grave goods. One tholos can be reached by a road that descends down the hill and passes through the gate that opens in the perimeter wall mentioned above. This is probably the “family tomb” of the rulers of Pylos, where, sometimes, even outsiders of the ruling dynasty but who are nonetheless members of the élite are buried. Pellana (Palaikastro), in Laconia, is home to Mycenaean tombs and a grand tholos tomb from the Late Helladic IIA–B. Around 1330, a monumental royal tomb was built in Mycenae, on the heights of Panagia, in the southwestern part of the acropolis (Tomb of Agamemnon, or of Atreus). It is covered by a mound and is accessible through an open-air corridor, dug into the tumulus, 36 m long and 6 m wide, which ends at the foot of a high façade, covered with sculpted colored marble, into which an impressive doorway has been placed, framed by columns with pulvino capitals. On the façade, above the lintel, a triangular space acts as a relieving arch (it has the function of lightening the superincumbent weight). The actual tomb consists of a circular space covered by a dome with rows of overlapping stone blocks that gradually protrude inward as they rise and end up meeting, forming a false vault (tholos). On the curved wall within, to the north,   Some walls have been found at the foot of the acropolis of Iolcus (Thessaly) that could belong to a Palace from the Late Helladic I or Late Helladic II. 22

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opens a double door, equipped with a frame, leading into a small room. The side room is carved into the rock, has a square shape and a flat ceiling. In the floor are two pits, which are used to store the tombs removed from the main chamber when it is necessary to make room for new ones. A tholos tomb can also be found in Iolcus, near the megaron.

Pottery production Mycenaean pottery in the Late Helladic IIA and IIB reflects an enduring Minoan cultural influence. In particular, it recalls the floral style that was in vogue in the Palace of Knossos in the Late Minoan II, and hence is called Palace Style. A characteristic form of production of this style is the jar. Other pottery produced during the Late Helladic II is the Ephyraean Style (which took its name from Ephyra, whose mythical founder was Sisyphus and whose supposed territory was the place in which it was found for the first time). This represents the elaboration of a typical decorative motif of Minoan pottery: a stylized flower, painted on one face of the vessel, usually a tall goblet with a stem. This type of pottery derives from the repertoire of forms of the Middle Helladic and will be replicated throughout the Late Helladic, during which it will evolve stylistically while always remaining faithful to itself. The stem, from being very short on a wide base, becomes thin and, often, as tall as the bowl or even taller. Often, in present terminology, it is called a kylix, like the analogous cup that will be produced in Greece in historical times. All the forms of the Ephyraean Style are taken from the Middle Helladic repertoire, except for one: the stirrup jar, originally from Crete, in its Mycenaean version.23 This is produced in all sorts of sizes: the largest, of coarse clay and simply decorated, are used to transport wine or olive oil. The smaller ones, tastefully decorated, are used to hold ointments or perfumes. In the Late Helladic IIIA:2, various centers of mainland Greece—one of which is Barbati in the Argolid—produce ceramics decorated with figurative scenes of a military nature (human figures, light war chariots), distributed in an orderly and symmetrical manner across the surface of the vase, especially kraters and large amphorae, and which are therefore tableware (Pictorial Style). With Pictorial Style, Mycenaean pottery ceases to imitate Minoan trends and creates, or rather begins to reflect, an independent, Mycenaean trend. These are vessels modeled on the lathe, of excellent workmanship, and of well-proportioned shapes; the surfaces are generally yellowish, and the paint is shiny and ranges in tones from red-orange to black-brown. In the Late Helladic IIIB, the decoration of ceramics in Pictorial Style will be less complex, and a preference for scenes with animals (cows, birds) will emerge. Many Pictorial Style ceramics are exported to Cyprus. Geometric motifs also reappear in this period.   The stirrup jar is so-called because its false neck with handles on two sides resembles a stirrup. The fact remains, however, that the stirrup had not yet been invented by the time of the Late Helladic, nor would it be for another thousand years. 23

Chapter 18 Crete in the age of Minos I

Europa and the bull We have already met Cretheus: he is the son of Aiolos, who, in turn, was the son of Hellen, and he was the founder and first king of Iolcus, the city of Thessaly where he established his residence. Three daughters were born from his marriage to Tyro. Two were called Astydameia and Myrina. The name of the third is unknown. This latter one is the consort of Teutamus, with whom she had Asterion. He will succeed his father on the throne of Knossos and marry Europa. Europa is a young princess, daughter of Agenor, king of Tyre, a city situated in coastal Canaan (Phoenicia). She is gathering flowers on the coast near Tyre with her handmaids. Zeus observes her from the height of Mount Ida on Crete. Burning with a desire to have her, he turns into a bull and crosses the sea. The young girls suddenly realize they have been surrounded by a herd of bulls, which have emerged from the sea. The largest and finest animal has a pure white coat and long, curved horns. Europa is drawn to it, so she approaches it and, finding it meek, caresses it and hops on its back to play with it. Suddenly, the white bull leaps into the sea. It will swim to Crete, with Europa on its back, who is holding on by the horns. On Crete, the animal transforms into a man, and the two have sex in the Gortyna countryside. From then on, the leaves of the plane trees that shaded the scene will remain evergreen. Then Zeus turns into an eagle and takes flight. Before disappearing, he bestows gifts on his beloved: a bronze giant named Talos, the hound Laelaps, the realization of Sirius, the brightest star in the heavens (the animal has a star on its tongue and another on its forehead), and a spear with a golden tip, which never misses its mark. All these gifts are distinctively royal insignia that serve to identify and/or symbolize monarchy. Talos is a symbol of strength: he will become the guardian of Crete in the service of its reigning sovereign. The stars of Laelaps are a source of knowledge and power and symbols associated with the sphere of the sacred. The spear is a sign of command. Now pregnant, Europa gives birth to triplets: Minos, Rhadamanthys, and Sarpedon. Then she marries Asterion, king of Crete, who will recognize her children as his own.1 1

  Diodorus Siculus, Library of History IV.60.2.

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If we consider, for the sake of argument, that Asterion was a real person, he may have reigned around 1420/10 (transition from the Late Minoan II to Late Minoan IIIA:1). This is a troubled period, during which a new catastrophe, or a series of fresh calamities, hits Crete: perhaps an earthquake followed by social uprisings; perhaps one or more attacks launched by Mycenaeans from mainland Greece; or perhaps one or more raids by pirates from the Cyclades. The Mycenaeans, we recall, took control of the Cyclades around 1420/10 (start of the Late Cycladic III). The cultural influence that they exercise on the Cyclades is evident in Delos (on the island of the same name), Phylakopi (Milos), and Agia Irini (Kea).

The repopulation of Santorini Two hundred years after the volcanic catastrophe of 1615, Santorini has returned to being a place where agriculture can be practiced and livestock can be raised, but the landscape has changed profoundly. The island is no longer lush with olive trees, palm trees, and cypresses but arid and almost completely devoid of trees. The Mycenaeans repopulate it in the Late Helladic IIIB:2 (last decades of the 14th century–13th century), founding Monolithos on its east coast. The settlement extends in a radius of 100 m around a rocky knoll rising about 30 m above ground level on a fertile plain, bordered by a sandy beach, which ensures good mooring. The face of the area has changed due to the eruption. Before this, the knoll mentioned above was an islet emerging from the sea just off the coast. A change in the local morphology can also be observed in Phylakopi (Phase F). Originally, this site could be found on a promontory and dominated a landing point. Later, it found its position had retreated due to the advance of the coastline. In the Late Cycladic III (from 1420/00 onward), the city is under the control of the Mycenaeans. Proof of this is that Mycenaean pottery is now predominant and that a 15 m long building has been erected, with an internal megaron and a sanctuary with Mycenaean figurines. The megaron, we recall, is an architectural feature characteristic of the Mycenaean Palaces of mainland Greece. The city is equipped with a double stone wall, with protruding bastions, recesses, and walkways, accessible via stone steps. The western section of these walls blocks access to the promontory from the landward side. It consists of two parallel walls, spaced 2 m apart, each of which is 2 m thick and more than 4 m high. The intermediate space is filled with gravel. There are several points at which a space has been opened up inside the wall. Works on the city walls at Agia Irini are also recorded at this time. The double enclosure of stone walls, with gates and protruding square-plan towers, of this city are enlarged so as to incorporate a spring. The adoption of the protection measures mentioned above indicates the presence of an impending threat to collective security. For as long as anyone can remember, on the Cyclades, this can mean only one thing: pirates!

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The Aegean pirates The pirates of the Cyclades are the Carians.2 The Mycenaeans link them with the Canaanites of the coast and call them Phoinikes, “Phoenicians,” because, like them, the Carians are in the habit of painting their bodies red (see the red powder contained in some vessels discovered in the Carian huts on Mount Cynthus on Delos). In the future, the Ionians and Dorians will drive the Carians out of the Cyclades, and the latter will move into the southwest corner of Anatolia, which will be named Caria after them. However, it is not certain that, prior to their expulsion from the Cyclades, the Carians were not already present in southwest Anatolia. At that point, the Carians will acquire their own ethnic and cultural autonomy (as early as the Iliad, the ethnonym Phoinikes is already being used to refer exclusively to the Canaanites of the coast, that is, the Phoenicians). The Carians attack trading ships to plunder their cargo and urban centers without walls and coastal villages to sack them and kidnap people to be enslaved. This occurs not only in the Aegean Sea but in the wider Eastern Mediterranean. Pirates are particularly rampant in the Cyclades because the island communities enjoy considerable material prosperity and apparent political stability (the rich grave goods of the necropolis of Grotta on Naxos, Kamini, and Aplomata reflect the prosperity of a community that is integrated into an extensive network of commercial relations). The danger they represent seriously harms maritime trade (see the sharp drop in imports at Agia Irini and Phylakopi) and drives island communities to move to safer places. If the site is indefensible, its occupants abandon it and move en masse to an existing fortified site or to a naturally defensible site. Therefore, fortifications are expanded to protect the new residential quarters, and new permanent, fortified settlements arise in naturally defensible positions, such as at Agios Spyridon (Milos) and To Froudi tou Kalamitsou (Sifnos). The strongly defended citadel of Agios Andrea (Sifnos) reveals that a particularly wealthy community must defend itself against possible raids in sad or painful circumstances caused by political instability. It is located at a height quite distant from the sea, which was already frequented at the end of the Neolithic or the start of the Bronze Age (early 4th millennium). Its defensive apparatus consists of a double curtain wall in cyclopean masonry, filled with gravel, reinforced by eight rectangular towers. This wall encloses numerous houses, including residential homes and a large sanctuary, separated by internal streets. As in Phylakopi, a high wall bars the narrow access road to the site. The settlement will last for a hundred years until around 1200.

2   Thucydides writes that in the Aegean, “the islanders, too, were great pirates. These islanders were Carians and Phoenicians, by whom most of the islands were colonized” (The Peloponnesian War I.8.1) and adds that the oldest inhabitants of the islands of the Aegean (referring to the Carians) actively dedicated themselves to piracy and the organized trafficking of slaves (The Peloponnesian War I.5).

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But it is difficult to say whether a fortified place is the seat of a community that has been the victim of piracy or whether it is itself a pirate den. Such a doubt can be raised with regard to the site of Koukounaries. Koukounaries is a settlement on a low hill in the northwest part of Paros. It is divided into three natural terraces, supported and fortified by retaining walls. The lower shelf is located at a height between 40 and 50 m. The middle shelf, between 60 and 65 m. The upper one, at the top of the hill, at 75 m a.s.l., from where the view extends over both the surrounding countryside and the Bay of Naousa and as far as Naxos. The upper and lower terraces of the site were occupied in the transition period between the Final Neolithic and the Bronze Age, up to the Early Cycladic II (2650–2500). In the Late Cycladic, buildings are constructed on all three terraces. The main one stands on the top one. It is 22 × 6.5 m in area and has at least one raised floor. The rooms on the ground floor are used as a warehouse. One of the rooms on the first floor may be a megaron. It may be that there is a “throne” with ivory inlays there. In another room on the first floor, there is a clay bathtub. The inhabitants use an abundant quantity of supply jars and fine ceramics. They also use obsidian blades, terracotta spindles, and weapons of war. A piece of rock crystal, pearls, buttons, gems, and some luxury goods, including a bronze pony, will also be found on the site. Perhaps the occupants of the site are pirates, and the valuables stored in the house are part of the loot they have accumulated during their raids. The building in question, on its southern side, is set against a retaining wall about 9 m high, formed by two parallel walls of rather large and irregularly shaped blocks, set on top of one another without mortar, with a gravel filling. This wall plays not only a support function but also a defensive one as it blocks the way that leads to the top of the hill, allowing passage only through two narrow entrances.

Minos I On the death of Asterion, Minos wants to demonstrate to his brothers that he enjoys the favor of the gods and that this gives him the right to claim the throne. To this end, he builds an altar and invokes Poseidon to make a bull emerge from the waves, promising him that he will offer the animal in sacrifice to him. Immediately, a magnificent white bull rises out of the sea. The miracle is, unquestionably, what hands power to Minos. He divides the kingdom into two parts. He keeps one for himself and chooses to reside in Knossos. He gives the other to Rhadamanthys, who decides to live in Phaistos and will be remembered as the one who “gave the Cretans their laws.”3 Minos I wanted to give part of the kingdom to Sarpedon too, but the latter gave up his share of the inheritance due to an affair of the heart. More than the crown,   Diodorus Siculus IV.60.3. This is all recorded by Diodorus, a Greek writer from Sicily, who also distinguishes between Minos I and Minos II and adds various details.

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he cared about Miletus, a beautiful young man, born from the union of Apollo and a daughter of Minos I called Acacallis, with whom his grandfather (Minos I) also fell in love. He left Crete in the company of his beloved, heading for southwestern Anatolia, where he founded Miletus, a city at the mouth of the Meander (Büyük Menderes). He will reign over the Miletans for three generations. Every myth is a compromise between the tradition that inspires it and the reality into which it falls, and all legends have a kernel of truth. The legend of Sarpedon is validated by the fact that it makes reference to a Mycenaean of Crete and that the building phases of Miletus, from 2000 (Middle Minoan I) onward, up to 1450 (Late Minoan II), signify the presence of a tight link between the local community and the Minoan civilization, so much so that Miletus, before its “Mycenaeanization,” may have been a settler colony of the Minoans. The historicity of a sovereign called Minos is attested by the Marmor Parium, an inscription in Greek that probably dates back to the period between 264 and 245, engraved on a marble slab (originally 2 m tall and 0.7 m wide), large pieces of which will be found on the Cycladic island of Paros. The Marmor Parium is a list of events in Greek history, arranged chronologically. Fragment A reports the following: From when Minos [the first] became king of Crete and settled [Apollo/Kydo]nia, and iron was discovered in Ida, by Celmis [and Damnameneus] of the Idaean Dactyls, [____ years], when Pandion was king of Athens.

The years 1506/05 are coupled to this passage. This indication is incorrect. Minos was the son of Asterion, and he, in turn, descended from Europa, consort of Tectamus, who had conquered Crete around 1450. If Minos is someone who really existed, he can be placed in the 14th century (Late Minoan IIIA:2, 1390/70–1330/15). The tablets in Linear B from the Palace of Knossos, since they mention numerous toponyms, suggest that the Lord of Knossos, at the beginning of the Mycenaean domination of Crete, controls the whole island. In addition, they indicate that he decentralized the rearing of livestock and the production of textiles into the districts of the periphery and concentrated the production of luxury goods in Knossos. The districts are probably headed by the Palace of Kydonia, the Palace of Castelli, and the monumental buildings of Agia Triada, which have taken the place of the Royal Villa. It seems that in 1350/40 (therefore, during the second half of the Late Minoan IIIA:2), the Palace of Knossos and the harbor towns of Amnisos and Poros-Katsambas, with their shipyards and/or ship sheds, suffer destruction. It is uncertain whether this is because of conflicts between Mycenae and Knossos, dynastic conflicts, attempts by people from the mainland to control Crete, an uprising on Crete, or the conquest of Knossos by Chania.4 The fact remains, however, that the Palace and the port cities   M. H. Wiener, “The fateful century: from the destruction of Crete ca. 1450–1440 to the destruction of Knossos, ca. 1350–1340,” in One State, Many Worlds: Crete in the Late Minoan II–IIIA2 Early Period. Proceedings of the International Conference held at Khania, 21st–23rd November 2019, ed. A. L. D’Agata, L. Girella, E. Papadopoulou, and S. G. Aquini (Rome: Edizioni Quasar, 2022), 104. 4

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survive, even if, after 1350/40, it seems that the Palace of Knossos no longer has the power it had before. It should also be stressed that there is no clarity in this regard, though it can be said that the Palace is at least no longer the major center of power on the island it had once been. Other centers, such as Archanes and Tylissos, are growing, and the same can be said for Agia Triada and Phaistos. It also appears that some regions of Crete bypass Knossos and engage in direct contact with mainland Greece. Let us focus here on the Palace of Castelli and the monumental buildings of Agia Triada. The Palace of Castelli and the Armeni cemetery Castelli is a town located 8 km south of Rethymnon, on the road to Spili and Agia Galini. The Palace controls the central part of the island, north of the princedom of Agia Triada. It is part of a larger settlement whose inhabitants use the Armeni cemetery for burials.5 This cemetery will remain in use from 1360 (Late Minoan IIIA:1) to c. 1200 (Late Minoan IIIB:2). Its tombs are all oriented to the northeast and Mount Vryssinas, home to a peak sanctuary. There are more than 200 of them, almost all chamber tombs and carved into the rock with an access corridor (dromos). One has a false vault (tholos). The monumental buildings of Agia Triada Agia Triada was an important center at the end of the 14th century and continued to be so until the end of the 13th century. In the Late Minoan IIIA:1 and IIIA:2, two monumental buildings are constructed there, which belong to the political and religious spheres and are arranged around an area that is probably used for ceremonial activities. The first is a megaron. It was built over the flattened ruins of the Royal Villa, destroyed by an earthquake, and it has inherited the functions of the latter. The other is a covered passage or portico for public use in an elongated rectangular building, one side of which is open and colonnaded, overlooking a square, while the other is closed by a wall (stoa). This type of building can be used as a market, exhibition space, and meeting place. One of the two buildings is embellished by the frescoes of the Small Procession and the Great Procession. The former depicts four women walking toward a seated figure while, in a lower register, other women dance. The second depicts a line of women with a vase in hand, accompanied by a cithar player. A panel will be added to this fresco later in the Late Minoan IIIA:2. It depicts a woman leading two fallow deer to an altar. The building is destroyed by fire at the end of the Late Minoan IIIA:2. A limestone sarcophagus from Agia Triada, painted on the long sides with scenes of libations and processions and on the short sides with chariots led by men and women drawn by wild goats and griffins, is also datable to the Late Minoan IIIA:2.   Some tombs in the Armeni cemetery are clearly fit for a prince. Hence the supposition that, buried somewhere in the area, there should be a Palace. Therefore, the existence of the Palace of Castelli is not documented but only presumed.

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A new pottery style, the so-called “Palace Style,” flourishes in Crete in the Late Minoan IIIA:2. Its most significant form is the Mycenaean kylix, of the Ephyraean type, decorated in the Minoan style. The import and export activities of the Palace of Knossos with Cyprus, the southern Levant, and Egypt continue during this period. Knossos is perhaps the destination for at least part of the extraordinarily rich and precious cargo of the ship that, at an indeterminate date in the transition from the Late Helladic IIIA:2 to the Late Helladic IIIB (1340/30), sails from a port in Egypt or the southern Levant, perhaps Tell Abu Hawam in Canaan; it will call at Ugarit, and it is probably bound for one or more ports in the Aegean, possibly including Trianda (Rhodes), a major distribution center. Uluburun This particular vessel is a well-built 15 m long cargo ship, its planks and keel in Lebanese cedar and oak, and with mortise and tenon joints. It carries a large load of unrefined raw materials and semi-finished and finished products. Among other things, it is loaded with ingots of Cypriot copper and Afghan tin (there are hundreds of ingots, weighing a total of 1 t and 10 t, respectively); ox-hide bronze ingots; slabs of class in various colors; amphorae full of barley, herbs and spices (1 t of terebinth resin, which is obtained from the pistachio tree and can be used in perfumery), fruit, and perhaps even wine; oil lamps and vases of Cypriot and Levantine manufacture, all of terracotta and brand new; ostrich eggs; raw ivories; Nubian ebony; stone anchors; metal tableware, including precious metal; caskets for cosmetics; and a scepter in the shape of a mace in the Balkan style. The metal transported is so abundant that it is sufficient to forge enough weapons to equip 300 men with swords, shields, helmets, and bronze armor.6 It is unknown who the owner of the ship was, who financed the voyage, and who formed part of the crew. Perhaps he is an Egyptian merchant, the pharaoh of Egypt, a Levantine monarch (most likely the latter), or an agent of the king of Cyprus who is also acting on behalf of his own private commercial interests (by now, international trade is no longer the exclusive prerogative of the potentates, who act through their agents—“independent” navigator-merchants also take part in it). The cargo stowed on the ship is 15 t of raw materials and finished products that have been assembled from various locales, some of which are a long way away from each other: Mesopotamia, Egypt, Nubia, the Syropalestinian area, Cyprus, mainland Greece, northern Europe, and Sicily. In particular, there are 10 t of copper ingots and panels, many of which are quadrangular and flat, with rounded corners, like the ox-hide style; semi-finished ivories; trunks of ebony; ostrich eggs; raw materials for cosmetic purposes; Mycenaean, Cypriot, and Canaanite ceramics containing eastern spices (terebinth, coriander, saffron); various types of weapons; metallurgical tools; ornamental seals; Egyptian scarabs; personal ornaments (some of which are in amber); a writing tablet, made of wood with ivory hinges, in the form of a diptych; comestibles (almonds, figs, eggs, pomegranates); and probably also wine. 6

  E. H. Cline, 1177 a. C. Il collasso della civiltà (Milan: Boringhieri, 2014), 97.

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Among the countless objects being transported or in use on the ship are a gold scarab with Egyptian hieroglyphs, cylinder seals from various parts of the Near East, one of which is in Afghan lapis lazuli, and some swords and daggers, one of which has a hilt inlaid with ebony and ivory. Perhaps, on board, in addition to the crew, there are passengers and well-to-do people. The boat has been placed under the protection of a Canaanite divinity, a goldplated statuette of whom is being carried on board. But her journey is not a fortunate one, nor is it for all those who are part of it and who are involved in it in one way or another. In fact, the ship will never reach its port of destination. Once it reaches the southwest coast of Anatolia (near the village of Uluburun, around 10 km southeast of Kaş, Turkey), it is damaged, begins to take on water, and sinks before finally settling at a depth of about 50 m. The fact that one of the innumerable objects on board—the golden scarab—bears the name of Queen Nefertiti, consort of the pharaoh Amenhotep IV-Akhenaten (r. 1351–1334/33) and mother of his successor Tutankhamun (r. 1333–1327), suggests that the shipwreck occurred toward the end of the Amarna Period, when Akhenaten moved his personal residence to the new city of Tell el-Amarna and instigated his great religious reform, which introduced the worship of a single god, Aten, the sun disc, in place of the cults of Amun and the thousand other divinities of traditional Egyptian religion (a reform that was received badly by the clergy, which fomented social unrest for political purposes). This is significant in relation to the multiplicity of goods carried by maritime trade that we see toward the end of the Late Minoan/Helladic IIIB:1. Maritime trade is a source of income and riches for many. But this venture is not always successful. Not only because the sea is a treacherous environment and the threat of shipwreck is ever-present, but also because the pirates are lurking. It is here that a doubt arises. Did the ship of Uluburun sink because of stormy seas, because it hit something underwater and foundered, or was it sunk by its own crew to prevent it from falling into the hands of a band of pirates, who had intercepted it, pursued it, and were about to board her? We will never know.

Lycastus Minos I married Itone, daughter of Lyctius, and from this marriage, Lycastos was born.7 The latter will inherit the kingdom of Knossos and marry Ida, daughter of Corybas,8 with whom he will have a son, Minos II. On Lycastos’ death, Minos II will inherit the throne.9   Lycastos will give his name to a Greek city on Crete, located about 10 km south of Knossos (Visala? Kyparissos? Kanli Kastelli?). A contingent of armed men, made available by this city, will take part in the Trojan War. This will be mentioned by Homer in the Catalogue of Ships. Homer, Iliad II.647. 8   Corybas, son of Iasion and the goddess Cybele, will give his name to the Corybantes, the dancing priests of Phrygia, a region in the interior of Anatolia. The Corybantes are associated with Orpheus, son of Apollo, and a certain Mousa, the founder of the Orphic Mysteries. 9   Diodorus Siculus, Library of History IV.60.3. 7

Chapter 19 Minos II

“A fair, rich land, begirt with water, and therein are many men, past counting, and ninety cities” The rediscovered power of Mycenaean Crete can be deduced from a famous passage in the Odyssey, which describes the general situation of the island: There is a land called Crete, in the midst of the wine-dark sea, a fair, rich land, begirt with water, and therein are many men, past counting, and ninety cities. They have not all the same speech, but their tongues are mixed. There dwell Achaeans, there great-hearted native Cretans, there Cydonians, and Dorians of waving plumes, and goodly Pelasgians. Among their cities is the great city Cnosus, where Minos reigned when nine years old, he held that converse with great Zeus, and was father of my father, great-hearted Deucalion.1

The voice of the narrator is that of Odysseus/Ulysses, who, in disguise, is speaking to his wife Penelope on his return to Ithaca after serving in the Trojan War and completing a long, tormented return to his homeland. Odysseus is the king of Ithaca, a tiny kingdom in the Ionian Islands. The character he is pretending to be is Aethon, son of Deucalion (himself the son of Minos II) and brother of Idomeneus. Idomeneus is the ruler of Crete who contributed 80 armed ships to the formation of the army and fleet of the Achaean coalition, led by Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, who triggered the conflict with Troy. To avenge the honor of his brother Menelaus, who had been betrayed by his wife Helen, who had fled with the Trojan prince Paris, Agamemnon besieged Troy for 10 years, eventually managing to take the city thanks to a ruse (the deception of the Trojan Horse) suggested by Odysseus. The false Aethon tells Penelope about Crete, interpreted as the kingdom of his grandfather Minos II, a beautiful and rich island where a large, multiethnic, and multilingual population lives. The Kydonians inhabit the west of Crete and the Eteocretans the east. In the middle are the Achaeans, the Dorians—divided into three

1

  Homer, The Odyssey XIX.172–180.

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lineages—and the Pelasgians. There are 90 inhabited centers. The main one is the “great city” Knossos. Minos II governed wisely and with justice, observing the laws that “his friend” Zeus dictated to him every nine years in the Diktaion Antron. After his death, for the sense of justice that he demonstrated during his life, Zeus made him one of the judges of the underworld. It is not clear why, when referring to Crete, Odysseus describes the situation of the island as it was two generations before the Trojan War instead of referring to the current situation, that of the first few years following the conflict. The situation depicted is therefore that of about 70 years before the Trojan War, which, according to one tradition, is said to have ended around 1184. The reign of Minos II should therefore be placed around 1250. The legend of Minos II tells that he married Pasiphaë, daughter of Helios (the sun god) and Crete, half-sister of Circe and Medea, and herself a sorceress. Eight children would be born from that marriage: four sons (Deucalion, Catreus, Androgeus, and Glaucus) and four daughters (Acacallis, Ariadne, Xenodice, and Phaedra).2 The family of Minos II was at the center of multiple tragedies. Pasiphaë hung herself in prison. Ariadne and Phaedra followed suit at different times and for different reasons. Androgeus and Catreus were killed. Glaucus was the most fortunate: at an early age, he fell into a large jar full of honey and died from suffocation, but Asclepius, the god of medicine, or the seer Polyidus, used a magical herb to bring him back to life. Minos was an unfaithful spouse and an evildoer. The sources we have about him also attribute to him a war against pirates and the conquest of the Cyclades. We refer here to the stories that focus on Minos’ adulterous love interests, the Minotaur, Daedalus and the Labyrinth, and the Cretan thalassocracy of the Bronze Age.

The adulterous loves of an unrepentant cheater During his marriage, Minos II sleeps with the nymph Pareia (becoming the father of Eurymedon, Chryses, Nephalion, and Philolaus), the Telchine Dexithea (with whom he had a son, Euxanthius), Procris, and Scylla. Women do not know how to resist his charm and do not turn their noses up at his gifts, which sometimes, in fact, they solicit. Let us consider, for example, the case of Procris. A very young and beautiful huntress, she, after many casual loves, marries a hunter, Cephalus, who is very handsome himself, who is kidnapped and imprisoned by the goddess Eos. She goes from Athens to Crete to escape a twofold scandal, aroused by having, as a girl, shared a bed with her father and, as a young woman, cheated on Cephalus with Pteleon, in both cases in exchange for gifts. There she met Artemis,   In addition to the epic poet Homer (7th century) in Canto XX of the Odyssey, the historian Thucydides (460–404), the historian Diodorus Siculus (90–27) (Library of History IV.60.3–4), the biographer, historian, and philosopher Plutarch (46/48–126/127 AD), and the Marmor Parium also speak of Minos II. 2

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goddess of the hunt, and learned of the plans that she had for her. Then she met Minos II and slyly looked him in the eyes. Once again, in exchange for love, Procris received something. These are nothing less than the gifts that Zeus gave to Europa after having made love to her under the plane trees of Gortina: an incomparable gift, a godly gift. Procris is a princess, but she behaves like a woman of ill-repute. She gives herself to men at every opportunity, especially if this causes inconvenience, and does so more willingly if in exchange for gifts. If anything, after making love for the first time, it is Minos II who feels embarrassed after having recognized her as a daughter of King Erechtheus. It is Procris who frees Minos II from the “curse” that Pasiphaë placed on him because she was inflamed by his infidelity. Minos II, in fact, when he beds a woman other than his wife, spills in her not semen but serpents, scorpions, and centipedes that cause untold harm to the woman’s insides. On hearing of that witchcraft, Procris does not become flustered but makes Minos II ejaculate into a goat’s bladder placed in a woman’s vagina. Then, to break the cruel spell, thus reciprocating the gifts of the king of Crete, she gives him a miraculous herb: the “root of Circe,” grown from the black blood of the giant Picolous (who had tried to chase Circe from her island). Only one woman manages to escape the desires of Minos. This is Britomartis of Gortyna, daughter of Zeus and Carme, and an inseparable companion of Artemis, with whom she goes hunting, dressed like her and surrounded by a pack of dogs. She has a reputation as a “sweet virgin” as she shuns men and prefers solitude. Minos II is aflame with desire to have her. Britomartis recoils from the sovereign’s amorous advances and tries to escape him, but he chases her for nine months, over mountains and through valleys. Having arrived in the Samaria Gorge, Britomartis is about to be caught, but she calls on Zeus to save her and he intervenes, transforming her into a spring. According to another tradition, Minos chases after Britomartis and catches her. He is about to grab her by her dress when she, to escape his clutches, seeks her own death, throwing herself off a cliff into the sea, but she becomes entangled in the nets of some fishermen, who pull her to safety. As such, she became known as Diktynna, “Lady of the Nets.” A third version of the legend of Britomartis links the nickname of Diktynna to the fact that she invented the nets that are used for hunting.

The Minotaur, Daedalus, and the Labyrinth Minos II kept the marine bull for himself and tried to deceive Poseidon, to whom he had promised the animal, by sacrificing another bull from his herds. The god was offended and decided to take revenge with the help of the sculptor, architect, and brilliant inventor Daedalus. Daedalus had been banished from his city, Athens, for having killed his nephew, Talos, for fear that he might exceed him in ingenuity and fame (Talos had invented the saw, the lathe, and the compass). At first, he found refuge in one of the damoi

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of Attica. Later he went to Crete, where, in view of his fame and his talent, Minos II took him into his service. Daedalus builds a hollow model of a cow for Pasiphaë to climb inside, and it looks almost real. Then Poseidon arouses a deep passion in Pasiphaë for the marine bull, and she lets herself be mounted by the animal. The result of that unnatural union is a monstrous being, half man and half bull: the Minotaur. Outraged by his wife’s betrayal and somewhat horrified by the Minotaur, Minos II orders that the adulteress and her son be imprisoned. To banish the Minotaur, he orders Daedalus to design a special prison, so the latter plans and directs the construction work on the Labyrinth, a building whose layout is so complicated and devious that it makes it almost impossible to orient oneself and find the exit.

The thalassocracy The legend of Minos II and the fantastical narratives related to it reflect the cultural, economic, and perhaps even political hegemony exercised by Crete over the Cyclades and Attica, which is of varying characters and degrees. In the Bronze Age, we recall, the Cyclades were inhabited not only by the Cycladics but also by the Carians,3 who actively engage in piracy and the organized traffic of slaves, to the detriment of the former and of foreign ships sailing through the southern Aegean Sea. Minos II sends out a fleet to quash the Carians, both because the threat of pirates to the trade routes requires them to be secured and because Minos II wants the tributes paid by the people of the Cyclades to be sent to him rather than to the Carian pirates. He defeats the Carians and subdues them, but he exempts them from the obligation to pay him tribute, except for the requirement that they provide him with crews for his ships whenever he needs them.4 From now on, thanks to the Cretan thalassocracy, the Cycladics will be able to enjoy a less precarious lifestyle and resume trading. The return of peace is accompanied by a demographic increase, which is partly the effect of the immigration of groups of Mycenaeans. As a matter of fact, the legend of Minos II says that he founded some colonies on the Cyclades and placed his sons in charge of them.   What Thucydides does not clarify is whether the architect of the Cretan thalassocracy to which he refers is Minos I or Minos II. Diodorus Siculus provides a clearer indication: “… Idê, the daughter of Corybas, begat the second Minos, who, as some writers record, was the son of Zeus. This Minos was the first Greek to create a powerful naval force and to become master of the sea.” Diodorus Siculus, Library of History IV.60.3. 4   According to Herodotus, “the Carians have come to the mainland from the islands; for in the past they were islanders, called Leleges and under the rule of Minos, not (as far as I can learn by report) paying tribute, but manning ships for him when he needed them. Since Minos had subjected a good deal of territory for himself and was victorious in war, this made the Carians too at that time by far the most respected of all nations. … Then, a long time afterwards, the Carians were driven from the islands by Dorians and Ionians and so came to the mainland.” Herodotus, The Histories I.171.2–5. 3

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In the end, during the reign of Minos II, the Cycladics live in fortified cities, assured of good income thanks to the king of Crete, and are ruled by his sons. The king likely extends his dominion as far as the island of Kea, located about 20 km southeast of Cape Sounion at the southern end of Attica, the region of Athens. At the same time that Minos II is on the throne in Crete, the king of Athens is Aegeus.

The myth of Theseus and the Minotaur Aegeus had seized the throne of Athens after the sons of Metion deposed his father Pandion and expelled him from the city. He fears that Androgeus, the son of Minos II and Pasiphaë, will become an instrument of his father’s imperialism by supporting the Pallantidai, who are trying to recover the throne. The Pallantidai are the 50 sons of Pallas, who is the son of Pandion and the brother of Aegeus. They are therefore Pandion’s nephews. Androgeus has just covered himself in glory for his athletic skills during the Panathenaic Games when, on the way to Thebes, near Oenoe in Attica, he is ambushed by a group of Megarians, assassins hired by Aegeus. Shocked and upset at the death of his son and eager to avenge it, Minos invades Attica, takes control of Megara, a city bordering Athens, and besieges the city of the Acropolis. As Athens resists, Minos II asks Zeus for help and manages to get a series of calamities to wrack the city. The soil of Athens becomes sterile, a plague runs rampant, and the rivers dry up.5 An oracle warns Aegeus that the divine wrath will not cease until he has surrendered. Therefore, Aegeus sends an embassy to Minos II to negotiate a peace. An agreement is reached, which commits the Athenians to send, every seven (or nine) years, a tribute of seven young men and seven young women, destined to be fed to the Minotaur in the Labyrinth. The people to be sacrificed will be selected through the drawing of lots. The Athenians send this tribute to Crete twice. When the debt is due for the third time, the young Theseus volunteers to join the other 13 drawn. Theseus is the son of Aegeus and Aethra (the latter slept with the god Poseidon during her marriage, so it cannot be said with certainty that Aegeus is the son of Aegeus) and has been nominated by Aegeus to succeed him on the throne. His purpose is to kill the Minotaur and free his homeland from bondage. Before leaving, the 14 youths go to the Prytaneion6 to beg for Apollo’s help by offering him a branch from the sacred olive tree, wrapped in white wool. They then

  Diodorus Siculus, Library of History IV.61.1.   The Prytaneion was a building in the cities of ancient Greece in which the sacred fire was kept and communal sacrifices were made. Ambassadors and particularly deserving citizens were also welcomed there for banquets. 5 6

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go to the Delphinion.7 Finally, they board the ship that will take them to Crete. The ship hoists a black sail, since their voyage is fated to be a tragic one, but its helmsman, Phereclus, has been given a white (or red) sail by Aegeus with the instructions to hoist it on the return journey home if the undertaking has been a success. Once in Crete, Theseus seduces Ariadne, daughter of Minos II, and convinces her to help him: Ariadne gives him a ball of thread, which she received from Daedalus, and by unraveling it, Theseus will be able to orient himself among the twists and turns of the Labyrinth. Theseus enters the dark prison, runs into the monster deep within it, and, after a fierce fight, is able to kill it. Then, by following Ariadne’s thread, he retraces his steps. Theseus embarks on the same ship used for the outward journey and leaves Crete in haste, in the middle of the night, to return to Athens, together with the other 13 youths and Ariadne, whom he had promised to marry. Why he brings Ariadne with him is unclear. Perhaps he fell in love with her, perhaps the goddess Athena commanded him to do so. During the voyage, Theseus orders Phereclus to make a stop at Naxos. He goes ashore onto the island together with Ariadne, then leaves her while she sleeps. Upon awakening, Ariadne finds herself alone and abandoned. At this point, the traditions diverge. According to one, Ariadne hangs herself out of despair and shame. According to another, Dionysos, the Greek god of the vine, wine, and mystical delirium, appears to Ariadne on a chariot drawn by panthers, followed by a festive procession. Dionysos is the son of Zeus and the mortal Semele and ascended to the heavens after establishing the ascendancy of his cult over all the Earth. He adorns Ariadne with a golden diadem, the work of Hephaistos, and leads her to Mount Olympus, where he will marry her and get her pregnant. After Naxos, Theseus’ ship stops at another of the Cyclades, Delos, in order to consecrate a statue of Aphrodite, a gift from Ariadne, in the sanctuary of Apollo there. Theseus establishes a festival on Delos and performs the Crane Dance, a ritual dance, the name of which evokes the coupling of cranes and whose articulated movements recall the spiraling maze that Theseus had to navigate in the Labyrinth in order to kill the Minotaur.8 After this, Theseus and his companions continue on their voyage. When the ship hoves into view of Attica, Phereclus forgets to replace the black sail with the one given to him by Aegeus. The king of Athens spots the return of his son from the cliffs of Cape Sounion. At the sight of the black sail, he is convinced that the attempt has failed and—because of the pain and desperation of having lost his son—he commits suicide, throwing himself from the top of the cliffs. The sea that swallows up his body will be called the Aegean Sea in his memory.   The Delphinion was an Athenian court, which took its name from the fact that it was convened in the sanctuary of Apollo Delphinios. Its members were charged with hearing about killings in self-defense and other “justifiable homicides.” These were crimes that were considered excusable and not punishable, regardless of whether they had been committed voluntarily or involuntarily, unless the killer was found guilty of an excessive use of force. 8   This is spoken of by Bacchylides in one of his poems and by Plutarch in his Life of Theseus. 7

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These myths are not to be taken literally. Any interpretations made of them are merely illustrative. Nonetheless, there may be a grain of truth to them. In the case of the legend of Theseus and the Minotaur, this grain consists of the liberation of Athens from its obligations to Minos II. However, this explanation does not consider that Ariadne, with the collaboration of Daedalus, helped Theseus. Does this detail of the story mean that some of the Cretans (Ariadne) and some Athenians residing in Knossos (Daedalus) supported the attempt of Athens to wrest itself free from the control of Minos II? Another tradition reports that the youths of Athens are fated to be given as a prize, as slaves, to the winners of the games established by Minos II in honor of Androgeus.9 Theseus succeeded in being able to compete and managed to defeat all his opponents, including the strong Taurus, one of Minos II’s generals, whom the vox populi claimed had had a relationship with Pasiphaë. Pleased that Taurus had been beaten and humiliated, Minos II abrogated the tribute from Athens and allowed the youths to go free. As for the date of Ariadne, it is said that, after being loved by Dionysos, she was then killed on Dia. Dia is an island that emerges out of the southern Aegean Sea around 6 nautical miles (10 km) off the coast of Crete, north of Heraklion. Its coasts are mainly high, rocky, and steep. Some small coves, fringed with some charming beaches and well sheltered from the wind, dot the southern coast. That of Agios Georgios is suitable for ships to weigh anchor, land, and be pulled ashore, and it is the site of a Bronze Age settlement. Theseus becomes Aegeus’ successor on the throne of Athens and will be remembered as the hero-founder of the Ionians, as the reformer of the Athenians, and as the father of the Athenian homeland and of democracy in the West (though it is not certain whether a person with this name ever even existed). The foundation of the Ionians, which Theseus is said to have fostered, is linked to the fact that in the 14th century (Late Helladic IIIA:2) all the peoples of Attica came together in a federation and concentrated themselves in Athens, becoming a single civic body. Athens thus becomes the only city in the region and the seat of the federation. The synoecism of Attica is not an isolated phenomenon. At the same time, including in Mycenae and Thebes, various clusters of peoples of diverse origins come together to form a single urban community while simultaneously preserving their own distinctness. This is seen through the plural forms of city names—Athenai, Mykenai, Thebai—as well as the fact that the lower part of each of these cities is an ensemble of little towns around the foot of the hill of the upper part and/or on the surrounding hills. In the Late Helladic IIIA:2, the intensive farming in the hills and foothills of Mycenaean Greece is in full swing, and this, together with the tendency of the peoples 9

  Diodorus Siculus, Library of History IV.60.4–6.

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of the time to centralize, leads to the formation of populous smaller centers, without there being any organization of the defined space. Among these centers, worthy of note are Tsoungiza in the Argolid and Korakou near Korinth.

The death of Minos II in Sicily Minos II, after the slaying of the Minotaur and the departure of Ariadne and the Athenians, imprisons Daedalus in the Labyrinth (the prison that Daedalus himself had designed and built), together with his son, the young Icarus. The accusation is that he had helped Theseus to kill the Minotaur. But a supplementary point to this accusation may be that Daedalus, like Theseus, is an Athenian. Both father and son manage to escape. The astute architect—after attaching a pair of wings to his back with wax and attaching a pair to Icarus as well—takes flight (evidently, the Labyrinth is an open-air prison). Icarus flies higher than Daedalus, so much so that he gets close to the sun. The wax on his wings melts from excessive heat and he plunges down into the central-eastern Aegean Sea near the island that will be named Icaria after him. Icaria is located in the southern Sporades, 19 km southwest of Samos. Daedalus continues his flight and arrives in Italy. He lands in Cumae in Campania and, from there, arrives in Sicily, where he is warmly received by Kokalos, king of the Sicani, for whom he will carry out some significant works, including the impregnable stronghold of Kamikos (Sant’Angelo Muxaro? Heraclea Minoa?) (where Kokalos will take up residence, depositing all his wealth there), a water drainage system at the mouth of the River Alabone, near Megara, hot baths in the area of Selinon (Selinunte), and a terrace and a golden ram for the Temple of Aphrodite on Mount Eryx. On hearing that Daedalus had found shelter and protection in Sicily, Minos II appoints his son Catreus as regent, leads a military fleet across the Mediterranean, and lands on the southern coast of Sicily.10 The king of Crete accepts the hospitality offered to him by Kokalos, surreptitiously identifies Daedalus, and asks Kokalos to hand him over to him. Kokalos orders his daughters to set a deadly trap for him with the help of Daedalus, and Minos II drowns while taking a bath. The other Cretans who followed Minos to Sicily ask Kokalos to account for the death of their king. Kokalos attributes it to an accident and returns the body to them. The deceased is buried in a funerary temple built specifically for him in Heraclea Minoa, a site located in southwestern Sicily (on the coast between Agrigento and Selinunte, near the Platani River and a promontory of white rock). Afterward, the Cretans, now that they are leaderless, quarrel among themselves, after which, and seeing that their ships had been burned by the Sicani, they resign   The myths that abound around the figure of Minos II also suggest, albeit indirectly, the spread of the Mycenaeans of Crete into Sicily and the southern Italian mainland. Homer, Hesiod, Thucydides, Herodotus, Apollodorus, Bacchylides, Plutarch, Pindar, Pausanias, and Diodorus Siculus all speak, though accentuating it to varying degrees, of a military expedition conducted by the Cretans in Sicily, during which Minos II is said to have met his end.

10

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themselves to the idea that they will never see their homeland again and variously settle in Heraclea Minoa or in northwestern Sicily, where they will found the city of Engyon (Gangi? Troina?) and the Temple of the Magna Mater.11 Meanwhile, Daedalus was called to Sardinia by Iolaus, the nephew and charioteer of Heracles, and carried out new and magnificent works for him.12 The tradition that recounts the expedition of Minos II to Sicily and the death of the king of Crete in Kamikos has found confirmation in archaeological findings that attest to Mycenaeans’ visits there in the context of their strategic searches for raw materials. Indeed, Mycenaean and Cypriot ceramics were sold in Pantalica (southeastern Sicily), Milena, and Cannetello (a short distance inland from the southern coast of Sicily, east of Agrigento). See in particular the krater found in Milena, which was probably made in Crete in the Late Helladic IIIB (1330/15–1200/1190). Cannatello is a fortified settlement with structures with a rectangular plan, from where imported goods, their provenance perhaps Cyprus, are distributed inland. There is Minoan and Mycenaean pottery (from the Late Helladic IIIA:2 [1390/70–1330/15] onward), Cypriot- or Levantine-made products, and even imported Nuragic material. Among the Cypriot pottery, the large supply jars are worthy of note. These containers are of the same type that were used to store the cargo of the sunken shipwrecks at Uluburun near Kash (southwest Anatolia) and Cape Iria (the Argolid), as well as those that, in the same period, are unloaded in the Minoan port of Kommos on Crete and in Sardinia. The finest Cypriot pottery is represented by the White Slip II Ware and Base Ring II Ware. Some amphorae are engraved with Cypro-Minoan signs. The fact that Levantine navigator-merchants frequented Sicily is confirmed by an incident that took place in the waters beyond the mouth of the Modione (southwest coast of the island, west of Agrigento, in the area where, in 650, the Greek colony of Selinon will rise up), when a 36 cm tall copper statuette falls into the sea or is thrown overboard by a passing ship. It depicts Resheph, the Phoenician god of plague and war, in the act of holding a mace in his raised right hand while he throws lightning or brandishes another mace in his left hand. It was manufactured in the Orontes Valley in Syria in the 14th or 13th century, and therefore it cannot have ended up at the bottom of the sea any earlier than the 14th century. Pottery from the Late Helladic IIIA:1,2 and IIIB also reaches a site near Erbe Bianche (Campobello di Mazara, province of Trapani). Traces of the Mycenaeans can be found in Sant’Angelo Muxaro (a town situated on the middle course of the Platani, in the province of Agrigento), specifically in the rock tombs, grave goods, earthenware pottery, and some imports (gold rings and cups, perhaps also ceramics) of eastern manufacture (Rhodes? Cyprus?). The rock tombs in question are mostly two-chambered, carved into the rock, and bear a resemblance to 11 12

  Diodorus Siculus, Library of History IV.79.   Ovid, Metamorphosis VIII.

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the tholoi of the Mycenaeans. The grave goods left within them reveal a Mycenaean influence, at least as regards the gold rings and cups, which evoke Cretan models. The earthenware pottery differs from contemporary forms found elsewhere in Sicily, with decorative motifs characteristic of the Mycenaean figurative tradition. The ceramics are very similar to those that characterize another site in the area of the Sicani: the cemetery of Polizzello, near Mussomeli. The Sicani are a people of uncertain origins (autochthonous? originally from Lazio?). They occupy all of Sicily prior to the arrival of the Siculi from Lazio, after which they will be pushed out to the southern and western parts of the island, beyond the River Salso (the ancient Himera). They live in villages and build fortresses on steep hills to defend themselves from raids. As well as the name of Kamikos, the historical record preserves the names of other Sicani settlements, about which, however, we only know their names: Inykon, Hykkara, Omphake, Indara, Crasto, Uessa, Miskera. Unlike Heraclea Minoa, which is a coastal town situated on the Strait of Sicily, Sant’Angelo Muxaro is a town located inland. Another settlement in the lands of the Sicani is Makara. This is said to have been founded by the Mycenaeans of Crete who came to the island after Minos II and besieged Kamikos, which we will look at later. One of the architectural works attributed to the genius of Daedalus—one of those that the Athenian built for his host and protector Kokalos—is the retaining wall of the Temple of Aphrodite on Mount Eryx in western Sicily. The “mountain” in question rises to 666 m a.s.l. (and is, therefore, little more than a hill), standing isolated in undulating countryside. It cannot be ruled out that, during the Late Bronze Age, the Sicani established a settlement there, perhaps one of those of which we only know the name. The construction of the retaining wall may have been carried out by the Sicani through the application of a technique learned from the Mycenaeans.

Deucalion Deucalion is the eldest son of Minos II and his direct successor on the throne of Crete. He makes an alliance with Theseus, king of Athens, to whom, to seal the pact, he gives his own sister Phaedra in marriage. She falls in love with Hippolytos, the son of Theseus with the Amazon Antiope, but he rejects her. To take her revenge, she accuses her stepson of having raped her. Theseus, outraged, implores Poseidon to shorten the life of Hippolytos, and the latter, with the god’s intervention, dies after falling from his horse. But Phaedra loves Hippolytos. Since she feels guilty for his death, she hangs herself out of remorse and despair.13 In the meantime, all the Cretan cities, except for Polichna and Praesus, have joined forces and launched a military expedition against Kokalos to avenge the death of Minos II. The army lands at the mouth of the Platani and surrounds Kamikos. The siege goes 13

  Diodorus Siculus, Library of History IV.62.1.

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on for five years but to no avail. In the end, the Cretans abandon it and head back, but they are shipwrecked on the coasts of Iapygia (Salento in Puglia). The survivors of the disaster give up on returning to Crete and will settle permanently in Salento, where they will found Hyria (Oria, near Brindisi) and other colonies.14 The outcome of the naval enterprise just described is so disastrous that Crete, due to having lost so many of its children, will become depopulated (but it will recover). Even in the case of Deucalion, it is uncertain whether we are dealing with a real person, but it is possible that the myths surrounding him are not misleading. The events narrated therein, if they really happened, should be placed in the Late Minoan IIIB. It seems that, during the reign of Deucalion, the officials of the Palace of Knossos who are based in the Palaces of Kydonia, Castelli, and Malia, and in the monumental buildings of Agia Triada, take advantage of the chaotic situation and fraying relations between the center and periphery to seize independence from their king and each establish their own king. Let us focus here on the Palace of Kydonia. Kydonia Unlike in the past, when it was a peripheral power center and ran a swathe of territory of the island under a mandate from the Palace of Knossos, or a “delocalized” part thereof, in some way autonomous, the Palace of Kydonia is now an independent center of political and economic power, with its own wa-na-ka, its own artisanal workshops, and its own role in the maritime trade. Production and exportation activities take place under the supervision of the Palace administration, whose scribes use Linear B. Exports consist of agricultural and aromatic products, contained in terracotta stirrup jars. Before being shipped, an employee ties a tag around the necks of the jars in which the contents, place of origin, and destination are noted. Some jars are destined for ku-ti-ra (Cythera). Others, to the palatine centers of mainland Greece: mi-da-na (Messenia), mu-ha-nw (Mycenae), nu-pi-li-ja (Nauplia, or rather Tiryns), d-q-j-s (Tegea in Arcadia?), bi-sa-ja (Pisa in Elis?), and w-i-la-ja (Elis in Laconia?). Stirrup jars will be found in the destruction layers of the Late Helladic IIIB in the Mycenaean Palaces of Tiryns, Eleusis, and Thebes. It is certain they come from Kydonia because they use a type of clay typical of this area, they have lettering painted on the belly or the neck that mention locations found mostly in the central-western part of Crete, and there is common handwriting with at least one scribe with corresponding vessels from Kydonia.15 This lettering, in some cases, contains the words wa-na-ka-te-ro or wa, an abbreviated form of wa-na-ka-te-ro, which means

14   According to Herodotus, Hyria was founded by the Messapians (who according to Herodotus were originally Cretans) sometime after the unsuccessful siege of the Sicani city of Camicus. Herodotus, The Histories VII.170.1–2. 15   L. Godart, “La caduta dei regni micenei a Creta,” in Le origini dei Greci. Dori e mondo egeo, ed. D. Musti (Rome-Bari: Laterza, 1991), 175.

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“belonging to the king” and is also found in a series of tablets from Knossos and Pylos. The wa-na-ka who is referred to here can only be that of Kydonia. The Palace of Kydonia, in addition to being the capital of a kingdom, an administrative center, a manufacturing center, and a cultural center, is also a seat of worship as it houses a sanctuary of Zeus and Dionysos (Mount Ida). Its Lord is supported by trusted men spread around various locations in western Crete. The tablets and inscriptions from Kydonia are comparable with the Linear B inscriptions found among the ruins of the Cadmeion in Thebes in Boeotia, in Mycenae and Tiryns in the Argolid, and in Eleusis in Attica. Indeed, they have in common the hand of at least one scribe; moreover, some toponyms cited therein are Cretan, mostly from the central-western area of Crete, west of Mount Psiloritis (Cretan Ida), probably in the Amari Valley, along the road that connects the Messara to the northern coast. In this case, it would follow that the Palace of Kydonia controls the entire western region of Crete between Kydonia and the western slopes of the Ida.

Chapter 20 The catastrophe of Pylos. The Sea Peoples: Part I

The seismic crisis of 1250 In the early spring in a year around 1250, in the Palace of Pylos, the seat of the wana-ka of Messenia, there is an air of normality, cheered by the impending arrival of the warm season. The cicadas sing incessantly in a quiet, still, timeless atmosphere. The silent activity of record-keeping is underway in the two rooms that form the Palace’s archive, in which most of the documents drawn up by the local administration are kept, in wicker baskets lined up on shelves. These documents were drawn up in Linear B on unfired clay tablets by at least 26 scribes being dictated to by officials and bear entries regarding men and women, sheep, wool, clothes, carts, grain, and wine, and they mention the names and activities of 900 individuals, among whom are shepherds, blacksmiths, laborers, landowners, functionaries, and officers.1 Some tablets have only recently been written and left to dry before being put away. Five of these2 record that the wa-na-ka is preparing to celebrate—like every year—the resumption of maritime trade after its annual suspension caused by the winter season and that he has just sent 800 men to patrol the coasts to monitor the entry and exit of state goods, to collect excise duties, and to crack down on smuggling.3 These men are called o-ka. The records say of them that they are organized hierarchically and that, in order to move around quickly, they use an i-qi-ja, a light vehicle of a similar type to war chariots. Further annotations concern two affairs of state recently dealt with by the wa-na-ka: specifically, the removal of a quantity of bronze from provincial sanctuaries (it seems that supplies of metal from the Eastern Mediterranean have been 1   The archival documents discovered in the ruins of the Palace of Pylos consist of tablets, labels, and seals. In terms of number, length, and state of preservation, they are second only to those of Knossos. Despite their importance to the reconstruction of the Mycenaean world, the fact they were discovered in the now distant 1939, and the fact they were transcribed and published for the first time in 1951, they have not yet been the subject of a complete edition. See E. L. Bennett Jr., The Pylos Tablets: A Preliminary Transcription (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1951). 2   A. Schnapp-Gourbeillon, Aux origines de la Grèce (XIIIe-VIIIe siècles avant notre ère) (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2002), 40. 3   See A. Schnapp-Gourbeillon, Aux origines de la Grèce (XIIIe-VIIIe siècles avant notre ère) (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2002), 40; L. Godart, Da Minosse a Omero. Genesi della prima civiltà europea (Turin: Einaudi, 2020), 220.

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in short supply for some time)4 and the offering to the gods of some gold vessels and ten victims, of whom eight were women and two were men.5 All of a sudden,6 the orderly and peaceful daily lives of those who live and work in the Palace are rocked. The entire architectural complex sways and shudders from the tremors of a violent earthquake, and blocks fall to the ground, sending up clouds of dust that obscure the sight of those who have survived the collapses and are trying to find an escape route. All parts of the Palace are already heavily damaged when coils of flame and smoke spiral up among the rubble, kindled by the flames of the hearths, braziers, and oil lamps that have overturned due to the vibrations and spilled out over the ground. The fire spreads rapidly and gradually consumes all the combustible materials it encounters, becoming a raging, uncontainable, irrepressible inferno. The main building burns with such violence that, in many places, the internal walls melt into shapeless masses and the stone calcifies.7 In the storerooms, the clay containers melt. The roof of the archive falls to the ground with a crash, like a cascade of fire, sending sparks flying. The fire devours the baskets and shelves, as well as whatever else is able to feed it, while the archival documents that have been left to dry are baked. The entire Palace falls prey to the flames. The raging inferno is visible from the sea. During the day, its glow is added to that of the sun. At night, it brings a sinister look to the landscape and attracts moths, which perish in it. The crackle of burning wood will remain in people’s ears for a long time, like the sound of the sea in a shell. In the end, nothing will remain of the structure except for a pile of smoldering, ash-covered ruins. In the meantime, the seismic wave has spread out in concentric circles, causing damage to other places in mainland Greece as well. First of all, to the city of Pylos. This is destroyed and becomes uninhabitable, and thus it is evacuated and will remain abandoned and deserted for a long time. The blow to the local community is deadly, unstoppable, and non-absorbable. In Mycenae, Buildings II and III and the Great Hall in the western part are destroyed, as are the Ramp House (situated immediately southeast of Grave Circle A), the House of the Oil Merchant, the House of the Wine Merchant, the House of the Sphinx, and the Petsas House. In Tiryns, the earthquake deforms, bends, tilts, and topples walls, after which there is a catastrophic flood that will engulf some parts of the Lower City (outside the cyclopean walls) with a 5-m-thick layer of detritus. The collapse of houses kills and buries a number of people. The bodies of a woman and a child will be found under   L. Godart, Da Minosse a Omero. Genesi della prima civiltà europea (Turin: Einaudi, 2020), 220.   We refer here to tablet Tn 316 from Pylos, written perhaps by several hands and at different times, which speaks of ritual ceremonies performed during the so-called “navigation month” between March and April. 6   See L. Godart, Da Minosse a Omero. Genesi della prima civiltà europea (Turin: Einaudi, 2020), 222. 7   C. W. Blegen and M. Rawson, The Palace of Nestor at Pylos in Western Messenia: The Buildings and their Contents, Part I: Text (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1939), 421–422. 4 5

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the rubble of Building X. Another victim will be found under the collapsed walls of a house from the early Late Helladic IIIB. Two more bodies will be found under the rubble of the fortification wall. In Midea, too, rescuers will find collapsed, deformed, bent and tilted walls and bodies buried under the rubble. A young woman was caught under the collapse of the East Gate, and the debris that falls on top of her fractures her skull and pelvis. A fire completes the destruction initiated by the earthquake. Among the buildings destroyed by the fire, some are located inside the acropolis and to the left of the West Gate. The retaining wall of a terrace in the area of the Menelaion near Sparta collapses on top of an individual and crushes a building that was under the terrace itself. The Palace of Agios Vasileios is shaken by the earthquake and consumed by a fire. It is worth dwelling on this structure because it was one of the most significant of its time. It extended over 3.5 ha and reflected a considerable Minoan influence. The site can be found in Laconia, on the plain of Sparta (near the hill of Agios Vasileios, near the village of Xirokampi). It has been occupied since the transition from the Middle Helladic to the Late Helladic (17th–16th century). This is demonstrated by the cemetery at the top of the hill, which is made up of cist graves and shaft graves. The settlement has undergone several building phases, the first of which began at the same time as Grave Circles A and B at Mycenae (12th century) and ended traumatically in the Late Helladic IIB–IIIA:1 (late 15th–early 14th century), possibly due to a fire. Later, it was rebuilt in the form of several buildings arranged around a large central courtyard, on the south and west sides of which there developed a stoa with a pillared colonnade. One of the buildings on the east side of the courtyard—Building A—was associated with ritual practice. Building B and a storeroom located in an undeveloped area were decorated with typically Mycenaean frescoes. In one room on the upper floor on the west side of the aforementioned courtyard, above the portico, there was an archive of texts written in Linear B, written on clay materials (rectangular tablets, palm-leaf-shaped tablets) or on labels, as well as seals, which refer to the supply of goods to one or more shrines, to male and female persons, and to various places. In these texts, mention is made of the title άναξ (in the genitive, άνακτος). Ten other rooms contained many cult objects and vessels: clay figurines of bovids, an ivory statuette of a man holding a young calf or bull, a large clay rhyton in the shape of a bull’s head, a stone jug with a double border, two great tritons, etc. There were also “seal-stones,” Egyptian scarabs, etc. In one room, there were 21 bronze swords. Under the floor of another room was a thick layer of animal bones, pottery, and valuable miniature objects. Zygouries, one of the most important settlements in the Peloponnese, situated in the valley of Cleonae between Corinth and Argos (Corinthia, northeastern Peloponnese, west of Agios Vasileios, 25 km south of Corinth), is destroyed by fire. It was heavily populated in the Early Helladic II and resettled at the end of the Middle Helladic. It too will remain abandoned and deserted.

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The earthquake sowed grief and destruction on Crete as well. Here, the most prominent victim was the Palace of Kydonia. It is probably on this occasion that the invocations to the divinities of the underground are accompanied by the sacrifice of a young woman in an effort to appease their anger. The ritual sacrifice of young maidens is a frequent recurrence in Greek mythology. They are performed in times of famine or in other exceptional circumstances marked by catastrophe, as they are understood as acts of profound submission and devotion to the divine and of awe and purification, and they represent the price due in the context of a kind of negotiation between a community of mortals, on the one hand, who are asking for grace, and one or more deities, on the other, who are able to grant it. In reality, it is uncertain whether we are dealing with a single earthquake of a very high magnitude here or a series of strong earthquakes that lasted for a long time. What is certain, however, is that the seismic crisis caused damage to a geographical area that went far beyond the Aegean region, even as far as the southern Levant. Ugarit is one such center that has suffered the costs. Here, too, there are collapsed walls, bodies buried under the rubble, toppled pillars and columns lying next to one another, keystones shaken from their place above arches and doorways, and walls slanting to one side. The city has been damaged, but not so badly that it was completely destroyed.

Mycenae: the twofold enhancement of the walls The subsequent reconstruction of the acropolis of Mycenae records, among other things, the replacement of the destroyed Buildings II and III with Building IV, the reconstruction of Petsas House,8 the (re)construction of the Granary and some other structures (Tsountas House, the House of the Idols, the Ramp House, the House of the Warrior Krater, and the South House), and the expansion of the fortifying walls. Building IV consists of three blocks of buildings separated by long corridors, with warehouses and cellars in the northern part, state rooms in the central part (portico, central courtyard, megaron of the king with a hearth between four columns), and a Great Hall in the western part. This Palace will remain in use until 1200/1190 (transition from Late Helladic IIIB:2 to Late Helladic IIIC:1), with an extension, socalled Building V, which we will consider later. A two-story building, built against the walls, with a staircase that provides access to the ramparts’ walkway, houses the guardhouse. It will become known as the Granary because some pithoi with the carbonized remains of vetch, barley, and wheat will be found on the ground floor inside.

8   Some of the archival documents discovered and written in Linear B come from this house and others of Mycenae destroyed after 1250.

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The expansion of the walls aims to enclose Grave Circle A and some houses and involves the opening of a new monumental gate, one of the strongest and most impressive structures of pre- and proto-historical Greek architecture. This city gate is formed of four large monoliths, connected without mortar, and is protected by a bastion, which stands on its right and protrudes out from the walls by a few meters. The doorway is 4.65 m tall, 2.31 m wide, and 0.88 m deep, and it is equipped with horizontal grooves to prevent animals passing through it from slipping as well as channels perpendicular to these to facilitate the drainage of water and the transit of wagon wheels. The architrave is over 4.5 m long and almost 2 m wide, and it weighs over 100 t. It is surmounted by a shaped block (relieving triangle) 3.3 m high and 3.9 m at the base, carved in bas-relief with two lions or lionesses (or sphinxes) facing each other, between which is a column with a capital that is resting on two altars, the symbol of the Palace. The relief is the heraldic symbol of the ruling dynasty, the Atreidae. The act of having two animals facing the column could allude to the unification of two royal houses.9 The two jambs are 3.10 m high and 1.74 m wide. The opening in the gateway is as high as the jambs and almost 3 m wide, slightly narrowing toward the top. The gate has two doors, in wood, with bronze cladding.10 These are secured by barring it from the inside with a heavy iron bar.11 Upon entering the acropolis, if you enter through this gate—the Lion Gate—you immediately take the Great Ramp, or the Processional Way, which is supported by a cyclopean terracing wall. The Great Ramp leads to an open space, from which, via the Grand Staircase, you climb up to the Palace. To the right of the Lion Gate, facing the Palace, is the Granary. In front of the Granary and to the right of those heading toward the Palace is Grave Circle A. South of the Granary are the Ramp House (situated immediately southeast of Grave Circle A), the House of the Warrior Krater,12 the South House, Tsountas House, and the House of the Idols.13 The first four houses have all developed in the same   Unfortunately, the heads of the felines, made of bronze or steatite, have not survived. On the hypothesis according to which the relief could allude to the unification of two royal houses: M. Cultraro, I micenei. Archeologia, storia, società dei Greci prima di Omero (Rome: Carocci, 2006), 112. 10   This is evidenced by the presence of holes for the pins in the architrave. 11   The holes for this can be seen in the jambs. 12   The House of the Warrior Krater took its name from a terracotta krater found there, perhaps the sign of a burial, to which two bronze vases and a tripod also seem to refer. The krater in question was not found inside the house but above the destruction layer of the Late Helladic IIIB:2 that sealed the house itself, and it has been attributed to the Late Helladic IIIC:2. This item is decorated with painted scenes belonging to the last phase of production of figured ceramics. One of the scenes depicts six long-nosed warriors, lined up and preparing to march after taking their leave of a woman, who is depicted behind them, where she is waving goodbye. The soldiers are armed with spears and equipped with a helmet with horns and a plume, a shield, and greaves. On the opposite side of the vase are other warriors, whose helmets are decorated with spikes, like the quills of a hedgehog. 13   The House of the Idols, situated opposite Tsountas House, took its name from the fact that some statuettes of divinities and serpents were found inside. 9

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planimetric and architectural fashion, which reproduces the layout of the Palaces on a smaller scale. Their plan is organized around a central courtyard and contains a megaron room with adjoining apartments and underground rooms, used as a cellar and a storeroom. To the east of the Palace are the Artisans’ Quarter, with some shops, and the House of Columns, which may be the home of a senior official in the Palace administration. The buildings that rise up in this part of the acropolis might be satellites of the Palace. The section added to the walls slices apart a large necropolis, which extends at least as far as Grave Circle B and the area of the Tomb of Clytemnestra. This tomb has a 37 m long access corridor, a circular vaulted chamber, 13.5 m in diameter, and a beautiful façade with gypsum semi-columns and decorated slabs adorning the relieving triangle above the entrance.14 In the Late Helladic IIIB:2, a further expansion of the city walls will involve the extension of the circuit to the northeast to encompass an underground cistern and safeguard access to it (Secret Cistern). On this side of the acropolis (the northern one), west of the Secret Cistern, to which it leads, is the North Gate, 2.3 m high and 1.4 m wide. The second expansion of the walls takes place at a time when the inhabitants of various Mycenaean cities feel a sense of growing insecurity and the need to consolidate their defensive works. Perhaps they fear a siege. In Tiryns, the northern terrace is fortified, while the Lower City is rebuilt and equipped with underground cisterns, intended to collect rainwater. The acropolis of Athens is fortified for the first time and in turn connected to an underground cistern. The undertaking of building a fortification wall across the Isthmus of Corinth also begins (though it may never be completed). All this makes it clear that there is the risk of external attacks, that the Mycenaean fortresses are taking preventive measures against this resulting risk, and that, in some cases, the attacks are successful because their target is destroyed. The problem to be solved is that of understanding where the attacks are coming from. Are there wars between the Mycenaean states? It seems that a foreign invasion can be ruled out. There is no trace of this. Unless we are dealing with lightning-fast attacks by groups of predators who, having wreaked destruction and engaged in looting, retreat and disappear. Even so, the Mycenaean city-palaces are very well stocked, can count on vast amounts of well-trained, well-armed, and well-equipped warriors to defend them, and on strong economic structures. If this happened, there is no evidence that one or other of these cities ended up in the crosshairs of bands of marauders who, after breaking through their defenses with surprise attacks, stayed there only for the time necessary to pillage before withdrawing. The fortress of Gla is destroyed at this time or shortly thereafter. This was one of the military outposts of the state of Orchomenos and was located on a small island 14

  The tomb has been preserved, although its structure is now plain and its vault has been rebuilt.

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in Lake Copais. It had only recently been built—between 1350 and 1300 (Late Helladic IIIA:2)—together with other citadels in the area. Large in size (200,000 m2), it consisted of two buildings that enclosed artisan workshops and storerooms and bordered a large rectangular courtyard, used for the storage and sorting of large quantities of agricultural products. Gla may have been the victim of a sudden burst of violence between the neighboring states of Orchomenos and Thebes.

Trade with Cyprus Alashiya (Cyprus), “the island of copper,” is currently at the center of the trade routes that cross the Eastern Mediterranean. Its relations with Egypt and the Mycenaeans are intense and long-lasting. The relations between Cyprus and the peoples of the central Anatolian plateau are anything but intense. It could not be otherwise, seeing as there is bad blood between the King of Alashiya and the Great King of Hatti. There are few Hittite-made products in circulation in Cyprus; perhaps they were introduced to the island by Cypriots returning from Anatolia. One is a silver statuette depicting a Hittite deity with a short kilt, a high conical headdress, and shoes with curved tips, standing on the back of a deer. This figurine will be placed in a tomb at Kalavasos-Agios Dhimitrios in Tamassos. A gold ring with an inscription in Hittite hieroglyphics and a terracotta bull’s head, which belongs to a fairly large statue, will be placed in a tomb from the Late Cypriot II (1450–1300) in Nicosia-Agia Paraskevi. The 13th century (Late Cypriot IIC, corresponding to the 19th Dynasty in Egypt, 1295–1186, and the Late Minoan/Mycenaean IIIB, 1330/15–1200/1190) is the golden era for Cypriot trade. The island imports a variety of goods from Greece, Egypt, Syria, and Palestine and exports primarily copper as well as grain, fabrics, and good-quality lumber. Cypriot exports reach the Syrian hinterland, Mesopotamia, Palestine, and Egypt via Ugarit. The building phase of Enkomi II, with many subphases, covers the complex expansion of the settlement in the 14th and 13th centuries. This process will end with its calamitous destruction around 1220. Enkomi IIB will be the victim of a catastrophic fire, but it will be extensively rebuilt across an area of 400 × 350 m and equipped with cyclopean fortifying walls, monumental sanctuaries, and a Palace. The new urban layout (Enkomi III) is a grid of 10 parallel streets, with one perpendicular street and a paved public square. The new walls are 2.5–3.5 m thick and consist of a few layers of blocks, intended as foundations, and an elevated part in unfired brick, interspersed with numerous towers. There are four city walls, one on each side of the city. There are three monumental sanctuaries, the largest of which is to the god with horns, protector of shepherds and cattle; this sanctuary houses a bronze statue of the god. Enkomi III is a city of Mycenaean culture. Its building history goes through three subphases, the first two of which are Enkomi IIIA and IIIB. These relate to a city built with right-angled streets and a central square with stone paving; a palace and

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three sanctuaries overlook the main north–south road. The city has 12 workshops specializing in the working of copper. It is fortified with a wall about 400 m long and built with stone blocks. The city is destroyed around 1125. At the same time, there are some significant building interventions concerning the buildings and walls of Kition IV, a thriving port city on the southwest coast. Cyclopean walls replace the old ones in unfired bricks. The buildings of the previous phase are architecturally transformed. The new Kition has four temples in which a close link between metallurgy and worship is evinced.

A mass migration toward Egypt The inscriptions that cover the mortuary temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu explicitly speak of sudden destruction, fires, earthquakes, and a gigantic tidal wave that submerged cities and villages. The biblical book of Exodus, conversely, speaks of the Seven Plagues of Egypt, the curses inflicted on Egypt by Moses. Moses, we recall, was the one who freed the Jewish people from oppression, brought them out of Egypt, and led them to a “good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.” These references seem to provide elements capable of legitimizing the hypothesis that, in the last decades of the 13th century, a large-scale natural disaster struck the Nilotic region. A celestial body may have plummeted into the Eastern Mediterranean, causing a tidal wave that then poured over the coasts of North Africa, causing a plurality of disasters, including the reversal of the current of the Nile, which in turn would have caused disasters. One of the effects would have been the land drying up. It would have undermined agriculture and caused a famine. The affected populations, driven by hunger, would have set out in search of a new homeland. Indeed, in the fifth year of the reign of Merneptah (1213–1203)—the thirteenth son of Ramesses II (1279–1213) and the Great Royal Wife Isetnofret, and the fifth pharaoh of the 19th Dynasty—a famine prompted several peoples to move en masse from Libya toward the Nile Delta. Men, women, and children set out eastward, traveling on foot, on horseback, or on a wagon. We refer here to the Libu, who lived in Libya; the Weshesh, who lived in North Africa (that is, further west than Libya); the Eqwesh, or Akwasha (the most numerous group); the Lukka; the Shekelesh; the Sherden, or Shardana; and the Teresh, or Tursha. This piece of information can be gleaned from Egyptian sources from the late 13th century. An inscription from the temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu, conversely, says that the foreigners (referring to non-Libyans) moving toward Egypt, collectively called the Haunebu, “came from the lands and the islands in the middle of the sea,” or from “beyond the islands,” meaning, in all probability, that they had arrived in Libya from the north, perhaps from Anatolia and/or Cyprus, via Crete.

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The identification of the Haunebu is not an easy exercise, and its results are tinged with uncertainties. The Eqwesh are, perhaps, the Ahhiyawa of Hittite texts and the Achaiwoi (Achaeans) of the Greek tradition (contra the fact that they practiced circumcision, and this custom was foreign, if not to the Ahhiyawa, then at least to the Achaiwoi). The Lukka (Lu-uk-ki) are a seafaring people. They are mentioned as allies of the Hittites in the Hittite texts on the Battle of Qadesh and in a diplomatic letter from the king of Cyprus to Pharaoh Amenhotep IV-Akhenaten (1375–1334) found in Tell el-Amarna. The sender of the letter complains that the Lukka carry out raids on the coasts of his country every year. It is probable that Lu-uk-ka can be read as Lycia, the ancient name of the region of southwest Anatolia that overlooks the sea. In another diplomatic letter, which has the king of Ugarit as its sender and is addressed to the king of Cyprus, we read that the bulk of the armed forces of Ugarit is abroad: the army is in the Kingdom of Hatti (the Hittite state), and the fleet, in Lu-uk-ka. The Shekelesh may be the ancestors of the inhabitants of the region of Sagalassos, a city in Pisidia (the ancient name of a region of southern Anatolia, located northeast of Lycia and north of Pamphylia), which flourished in the 1st millennium. The hypothesis according to which these are the sikeloi, “Siculi,” seems less likely, given that the Siculi only appear in the historical record after the end of the 13th century, unless we consider Sicily not as the area where the Shekelesh originated but as the one where they settled after the defeat they suffered at the Battle of the Delta, which we will consider shortly. The Sherden are fine navigators and very aggressive pirates. After being defeated and subjugated by Ramesses II (see the Sherden Stele), the best of them were enrolled in the Egyptian army and fought at the Battle of Qadesh (1274). They later continued to serve Pharaoh as mercenary soldiers in various places. They are known in Gubla/Byblos (letters of Rib-Hadda) and Ugarit. Their area of origin is uncertain (Sardinia?). A statuette of a divinity from Enkomi (the “Ingot God,” 13th century) wears a helmet with horns and a round shield, which recall homologous examples among the Sherden and may attest to the settlement of the Sherden on Cyprus. The horned helmet is a divine attribute that the Syro-Palestinian civilizations imported from Mesopotamia. Egyptian sources name and sometimes depict the Sherden. In certain relief representations, the Sherden wear a helmet surmounted by a kind of globe or disc, which makes them stand out. The Teresh, or Tursha, perhaps originate from Tarsus in Cilicia or from the lands of northwestern Anatolia that the Hittites call Taruisha and the Greeks will call the Troad. It is possible that their descendants are those Tyrsenoi, “Tyrsenians” or “Tyrrhenians,” of the Greek tradition, that is, the Etruscans, who Herodotus reports as originating from Lydia (the Etruscans enter the historical arena several centuries after the reign of Merneptah).

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Meryey, the chief of the Libu, who is leading the mass migration, has decided to avail himself of the Haunebu to transform the mass migration into the conquest of territories where his people and other migrants can settle permanently.

The First Libyan War The troops stationed on the Egyptian borders are already familiar with the Sherden after having countered their raids during the reign of Ramesses II (1279–1213), the predecessor of Merneptah, to the extent that, both for deterrence and to defend themselves in the event of aggression, they have built some fortresses along the coast, west of the Canopic branch of the Nile and south of the marshes of Mareotis (Mariout) in the area where Alexandria will be built. Nonetheless, the attack by the Libu, the Qeheq, the Weshesh, and the Hau-Nebut takes them by surprise. They panic and abandon their positions. The attackers sack the border fortresses, penetrate deep into the Fayyum region, and besiege the city of Memphis. In addition, they occupy Farafra, the smallest oasis in the Western Desert of Egypt, situated halfway between the oases of Dakhla and Bahariya, 45 km south of the White Desert (al-Ṣaḥrāʾ al-Bayḍāʾ), which is known for its chalk formations, molded by sandstorms into strange shapes. Meryey’s illusion that he has defeated Merneptah lasts for a month, just long enough for the Egyptian army to regroup and launch a counter-offensive. Merneptah confronts the invaders, defeats them, and sets them on the run for Perire, a town located in the western part of the Delta. The battle lasts for six hours, involves a considerable number of fighters, and results in a high number of casualties. The texts of Medinet Habu report that Meryey fled, taking advantage of the darkness, after his wives had been taken prisoner and the enemy had seized his food and water supplies. This threw the migrants into chaos. Meryey’s brothers swore to kill him, the military leadership fought with one another, and the camps burned. An inscription on the walls of Karnak about the Battle of Perire reports that “the enemy lay in their own blood like mountains of corpses.” In fact, the victors record the enemy’s losses as follows: more than 8,000–9,000 dead, including more than 6,000 of the Libu and 2,000–3,000 of the Libu’s allies. In addition, it speaks of more than 9,000 prisoners of war. However, one wonders how much truth there is in this official account and how much is propaganda. Merneptah is an old man, in his 70s, of average height (1.75 m), and is suffering from arthritis, atherosclerosis, and hydrocele. He knows that his reign will be a short one. Therefore, he has already begun to build his mortuary temple on the edge of the desert, on the west side of Thebes, and his tomb in the Valley of the Kings (KV8), reusing materials taken from the mortuary temple of Amenhotep III in Thebes. Since 1552, the Valley of the Kings has been home to the tombs of the rulers of the New Kingdom of Egypt, which began with the 18th Dynasty. It is located near Thebes

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(known to the Egyptians as Waset, or Uaset, and today as Luxor), less than 3 km from the west bank of the Nile. Merheptah dies after nominating his eldest son Seti Merneptah as his successor. The latter has already turned 40 by the time he ascends the throne with the regnal name of Seti II. However, the other children of Ramesses II, who are all adults and have spawned many collateral branches of this now extensive family tree, and various members of the same family lines simultaneously aspire to the succession and are intriguing against each other. Seti II is overthrown in the second year of his reign by a rival prince from another family line called Amenmesse, the son of Takhat (perhaps a concubine in the royal harem, or the daughter of one of Ramesses II’s daughters), who will take his place on the throne. Amenmesse marries Tiya, a Syrian concubine of Seti II, with whom he has a son, Siptah. He reigns for five years and credits himself with the construction of buildings for which others were responsible. Upon his death, he is buried in an unfinished tomb in the Valley of the Kings (KV10). With the death of Amenmesse, Seti II recovers the throne and condemns the memory of the usurper to eternal damnation, and therefore the name of Amenmesse is removed from reliefs and inscriptions, and his tomb is purposefully damaged. He reigns for another six years, maintaining order in the country, and he links his name to further building works. Seti II’s successor is Siptah, the very young and seriously ill son of Amenmesse (he has infantile spinal paralysis), as he had become the legitimate heir after the death of Seti Merneptah, having the best claim to succeed the late pharaoh as the son of the second Great Royal Wife, Twosret. Since Siptah is not capable of governing, Twosret reigns for him, supported by the royal scribe Bay. Over the following six years, Bay tries unsuccessfully to oust Twosret, who has him executed. In the sixth year of Twosret’s regency, Siptah dies and is buried in an unfinished tomb in the Valley of the Kings (KV47). Twosret assumes the royal title, as Hatshepsut had done before her. The two years of her reign as queen-pharaoh are years of unrest and anarchy, during which Egypt descends into chaos. Eventually, a new man, Setnakhte, emerges from the confusion. He restores order, seizes the throne from Twosret, reorganizes the state and the country, and founds the 20th Dynasty. His reign will also last just two years, but he will be succeeded by his son, Ramesses III. Ramesses III ascends to the throne in 1184, the same year in which, according to one tradition, the city of Troy fell.

Chapter 21 The Trojan War

The oldest epic poems Greek literature was born between the 9th and 8th centuries, when alphabetic writing was introduced to the Greek world and the heritage of memories, traditions, and knowledge common to all Hellenes, previously handed down orally, was, at least in part, recorded in writing on sheets of papyrus. Born in the proto-Achaean dialect of Mycenaean Greece, that legacy had been maintained among the Aeolians of northwestern Greece, conveyed to Asia Minor around 1000, and adopted by the Ionians around 900. The literary compositions brought together an assortment of episodes to form a single more or less organic construct, articulated to a greater or lesser extent, and were written in verses consisting of six long or short syllables. Accordingly, the oldest preserved form of Greek literature is the epos, or epe in the plural, “word” or “song,” understood as epic poetry. The first epic poems handed down, possibly in reworked form, ancient oral traditions that spoke of gods and men, of the origins of the world or of lineages, or of the foundation of cities, or focused on agriculture, navigation, oracles, discoveries, or adventured that took place on land or at sea. In other cases, they sang of the lives and deeds of greater, stronger, more courageous, and even more beautiful men than any other, born from the union of gods and mortals, in whose daily lives the gods often interfered. In reference to their content, these latter poems are called “heroic.” Bards and rhapsodes practiced the epic poems composed either by themselves or by others in order to sing or recite them in front of an audience, from memory, with or without musical accompaniment. They performed in the palaces and houses of the rich, in sanctuaries and squares, in front of an attentive audience, who are described from time to time. They chose the theme on their own initiative or went along with the audience’s requests and drew inspiration from the Muses or Apollo in his guise as the god of music. The performances took place with an acting style, and individual episodes, which had been composed according to a particular syntactic, lexical, and stylistic structure, were designed to facilitate immediate understanding. Epic poems were, moreover, sources of inspiration for other poets. Those that were destined to remain most famous regard the Theban Wars and the Trojan War.

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Those that relate the Theban Wars are the Seven Against Thebes (or the Thebaid) and The Epigoni and are of uncertain authorship.

The Trojan Cycle The Trojan War is narrated in eight epic poems by various authors, two of which were composed in the Greek Dark Ages (1150–750), while the other six were composed in the Archaic Period (750–450). The former two are the Iliad and the Odyssey. The others are Cypria, Aethiopis, Little Iliad (Ilias mikra), The Sack of Troy (Iliou persis), Returns (Nostoi), and Theogony. The compositions of the Trojan Cycle, as a whole, constitute the main narrative strand of archaic Greek poetry. They are arranged in terms of content around a central theme, namely the Trojan War, and variously provide extensive narrations of the historical background before the outbreak of the war, the war itself in its entirety, its ending, and the sequences of events that the most famous Greek or Trojan heroes faced during or after their return to their homeland after the war or during their search for a new homeland. The 24 books of the Iliad recount a series of episodes from the Trojan War that followed each other in a short period of time, a few dozen days, about 50 in all, before the fall of the besieged city. To make the audience more engaged, Homer makes the story of the conflict not only one of arms but also one of love, hence the purported kidnapping of Helen, the humiliation of Menelaus, the betrayed husband, and Agamemnon’s fury, aimed not only at avenging the honor of the Atreidae but also at recovering the treasures that Helen took from the Menelaion and carried away with her as she and her lover Paris took flight. The Odyssey narrates the troubled return of Odysseus to his homeland and adds a few details about how the Trojan War unfolded (we will look more extensively at this poem in a later chapter). The Cypria deals with events that occurred before the outbreak of the Trojan War and the exploits of the heroes narrated by Homer in the Iliad and the Odyssey. The Aethiopis focuses on the Ethiopian allies of the Trojans and on the Amazons. The Little Iliad describes the events that took place after the death of Achilles, including the building of the Trojan Horse. The Sack of Troy describes the conquest and destruction of Troy by the Achaeans. Returns tells the story of the tumultuous returns of some of the victorious heroes to their homeland, mainly that of Agamemnon. Theogony is a continuation of the Odyssey. A ninth epic poem, the Posthomerica by Quintus Smyrnaeus (possibly active between the 2nd century BC and the 4th century AD), also refers to the Trojan War. In its 14 books, it narrates the events that took place in the decade between the death of Hector—the event with which the Iliad ends—and the return of Odysseus, the protagonist of the Odyssey, to his homeland.

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The Homeric poems The only archaic poems that have survived the shipwreck of archaic Greek literature are the Iliad and the Odyssey. The original texts of the others have all been lost, other than for a few fragments, but it is possible to glean an idea of them through the collection that was put together by the Greek Neoplatonist Eutychius Proclus (2nd century AD) in the Chrestomathy, a literary manual in probably four books, two of which were later summarized in the Bibliotheke (Library) of the Byzantine scholar Photius (c. AD 810–891). The Iliad and the Odyssey narrate the deeds of heroes such as Achilles, Agamemnon, Menelaus, Odysseys, the two Ajaxes, etc., these having already become the stuff of legend. From the point of view of their content, these poems represent a “stitching” of materials belonging mostly to the sphere of heroic poetry of oral origins and traditions, the oldest of which date back to the Bronze Age, if not earlier. Orally handed down from generation to generation, these most ancient materials would have survived the collapse of the Mycenaean civilization thanks to the contact, perhaps uninterrupted, between certain areas of Mycenaean culture on the Greek mainland (Attica and perhaps Arcadia, not affected by the Dorian invasion) and the Mycenaean and sub-Mycenaean communities of Asia Minor. It is uncertain whether this compilation initially gave rise to a written text or a new oral poem. It cannot be ruled out that the two poems were only partially composed orally, although it is very difficult to say which parts were composed orally and which were composed in writing. They may be the result of one or more written editions, between which not only may emphasis have shifted with regard to epithets and formulae but even entire sections may have been altered in terms of the form in which they had been established in the previous period of oral transmission. It seems likely that the transcription into written form took place in the Greek diaspora in the east, most probably in Miletus in Ionia, over the course of a generation, or between one generation and the next, but in any case, between the middle of the 8th century and the start of the 7th century. The first texts would have undergone alterations, additions, and modifications before its definitive systematization which took place in the Athens of Peisistratus (525–500), when they were recited continuously at the festivals in honor of Athena, tutelary deity of Athens, by rhapsodes alternating in shifts. Homer The authorship of the poems in question here is uncertain. There are two opposing theses in this regard, the “unitary” argument (one single author) and the “separatist” argument (multiple authors). However, there may not even be an author in the sense that, in each case, we could be dealing with a collective work, or possibly the heavily revised work of an individual, whose personal contribution is thus impossible to ascertain. The ancients believed that the author of both poems was Homer. The Iliad

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and the Odyssey are attributed to Homer, perhaps a real person, who was a singer “by trade.” According to one tradition, Homer was born around the middle of the 9th century in Smyrna in Aeolis, Asia Minor. The unknown author of the Hymn to Apollo, however, places Homer’s birthplace in Chios,1 a Greek island in the eastern Aegean, which is also associated with Homer for having been the seat of the Homeridae, a clan of rhapsodes who professed to be his heirs. In addition, other places in Ionia (Erythrae, Colophon), and even Numa in the Aeolian Islands, lay claim to the honor of being the birthplace of Homer. According to the author of the Hymn to Apollo, moreover, Homer was blind (though it is not said that he really was), perhaps because many bards of the Archaic Period were blind, like the two in the Odyssey: Demodocus, who belongs to the court of Alcinous, king of the Phaeacians, and Phemius, who lives in Odysseus’ kingdom and, in the absence of his sovereign, is forced by the suitors of Penelope to cheer their banquets with his songs. The bards moved from one princely court of the time to another, where they sang of the deeds of the ancestors of the ruling family. Among the courts frequented by Homer must have been that of the Aeneades of the Troad (the descendants of the Trojan prince Aeneas) and that of the Glaucids (the dynasty of the city of Xanthos, capital of Lycia). These are rich and powerful people, capable of unleashing war and equipping themselves suitably to do so and of trading with far-off lands, such as southern peninsular Italy, the Phlegraean Islands, and the Sicilian archipelago. In the end, Homer died and was buried on Ios, the island in the Cyclades that was the birthplace of his mother, Clymene.2 The Iliad According to Homer, Troy was founded by the hero Dardanus, son of Zeus and Electra, and the genarch and eponym of the Dardanoi. It is said to have taken its name from Tros, Dardanus’ grandson, and was fortified by Poseidon and Apollo. Its last king was Priam, son of Laomedon, the husband of Hecuba, and the father of 50 sons and many daughters, some of whom he had with Hecuba, the rest with other wives and concubines. Priam’s eldest son is Hector, the crown prince. The youngest son is Paris. When Paris was born, Priam refused to recognize him as his son because it had been prophesized that he would cause the downfall of Troy. Paris was left to die on Mount Ida in the Troad but was saved by a couple of passing shepherds, who raised him. Over time, he became a handsome and strong young man, though perhaps a little naïve. Having been chosen as a judge by the goddesses Aphrodite, Hera, and 1   “Whom think ye, girls, is the sweetest singer that comes here, and in whom do you most delight?” Then answer, each and all, with one voice: “He is a blind man, and dwells in rocky Chios: his lays are evermore supreme.” Pseudo-Homer, Hymn 3 to Apollo 169–173. 2   It is still possible to visit a landmark called Homer’s Tomb on Ios. It is found in the northernmost part of the island on the hill of Psathopyrgos, near the small village of Plakotos.

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Athena, who were competing for the status of being the most beautiful, he chose Aphrodite, who had promised him, if chosen, the love of a beautiful woman: Helen, wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta. The judgment angered Hera, who swore eternal hatred toward Paris and all Trojans. Menelaus is the son of Atreus and Aerope and the younger brother of Agamemnon. The two are called the Atreidae because they are the sons of Atreus, and they will pay for the curse placed on their father by his brother Thyestes. Thyestes had seduced the wife of Atreus, who exiled him but then pretended to want to be reconciled with him. He called him back to his homeland, invited him to a banquet, and then served the flesh of his own sons to him on a plate. Realizing with horror that he had eaten the flesh of his kin, Thyestes fled in despair, invoking divine wrath on Atreus and his family. Therefore, just as Myrtilus had cursed Pelops and his descendants, so Thyestes set a curse on Atreus. The gods’ fury fell upon Atreus to punish him for his heinous act, and it would be his sons Agamemnon and Menelaus who would pay for it. Indeed, Thyestes and his son Aegisthus exiled them. The Atreidae found refuge and protection with Tyndareus, king of Laconia. Later, each of them married one of Tyndareus’ daughters. Agamemnon wedded Clytemnestra, with whom he had one son (Orestes) and three daughters (Chrysothemis, Laodice, and Iphigenia), and, with the help of his father-inlaw, managed to recover the throne he had lost (he will become the king of Mycenae). Menelaus married Helen and, after the death of his father-in-law, became king of the Lacedaemonians, that is, the Spartans. Hera finds that the time has come to take revenge on Paris when he comes to visit the palace of Menelaus, who is away on a trip to Crete. The goddess kindles the flames and drives Paris to seduce Helen, who loses herself in his arms, and take her away with him. Menelaus and Agamemnon cannot tolerate the insult because—they say—it affects not only the house of Menelaus but all his family and all the Hellenes (to be understood as the Mycenaeans; the story is set in the Mycenaean period, and therefore in the Pre-Hellenic era). Menelaus is the king of the Mycenaean state of Laconia and has his palace in Lakaidemon. In short, Agamemnon and Menelaus, the sons of Atreus (himself the son of Pelops), are the kings of the Argolid and Laconia, respectively. The former lives in Argos, or Mycenae, and the latter in Lakaidemon, or Pellana. Both are faced with a curse, the one that was inveighed by Thyestes against his brother Atreus, king of Mycenae, and his sons, and which itself is tied to the one that Myrtilus inveighed against Pelops and his descendants. Agamemnon appears in the Iliad as a greedy, authoritarian, and prevaricating king, a “lord of men,” a valiant warrior, and the supreme commander of the expedition against Troy. According to Homer, he is the king of Laconia. In another part of the Iliad, however, Agamemnon is spoken of as the lord of Mycenae and Corinth. The

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Greek historian Herodotus also places Agamemnon’s kingdom in Laconia. In reality, he is the king of Argos, the richest and most powerful Mycenaean city-state, which became such after defeating the city-state of Thebes in battle before sacking and burning it (1250/40). Its ruler’s domain stretches from the Argolid to the islands of the Saronic Gulf. Homer says that Agamemnon, to avenge the honor of Menelaus and bring Helen back home, places himself at the head of a coalition of Achaean princes, among whom are fighters from all over Greece (called Achaeans in the poem), and leads them to attack Troy. Hera does not remain impartial and sides against Troy. Nor does Aphrodite, who takes the side of the Trojans. The decision to wage war is not taken impetuously (how could it be otherwise? War is an expensive business with unpredictable outcomes) but only after Menelaus and the king of Ithaca, Odysseus (Ulysses), tried without success to resolve the dispute peacefully. The two went to Troy and made every effort to obtain Helen’s return, but Priam and the assembled court refused. As such, they returned home empty-handed. The failure of diplomacy gives way to war. The Achaean leaders begin to set out their plans of attack, the army is mobilized, and a large fleet is put to sea. Thus war breaks out between the Trojans and the peoples of Greece. This will go down as a decisive moment for Greece, a landmark in the history of all Hellenes. Its fame will be amplified by the Greek bards and epic poets, particularly by the authors of the Trojan Cycle. The coalition’s fleet consists of 1,186 ships, each having a crew ranging from 50 to 200 men. This carries an army of 100,000 men belonging to 22 contingents and is led by Achilles, the strongest Achaean fighter, son of Peleus, king of Phthia in Thessaly, and the Nereid Thetis. The most numerous contingents are those of Argos and Mycenae (100 ships), led by Prince Diomedes, that of Pylos (90 ships), led by King Nestor, and that of Knossos, Gortyna, Lyktus, Miletus, Lycastos, Phaestos, and Rhytium (80 ships), commanded by Idomeneus, king of Crete. Achilles contributes a contingent of 50 ships and numerous warriors called Myrmidons to the coalition. A first attempt to land on the Troad coastline fails. But the Achaean ships regather themselves, assembling in Aulis, the port of Thebes, in Boeotia. Everything is ready, the arrow is nocked, ready to be let loose from the bow. The warriors quiver at the thought of revenge and the loot that awaits them (worked bronzes, gold, women). But the weather conditions do not allow the ships to set sail: there is a constant headwind blowing. The wait for an opportune time is long and unnerving. Eventually, it emerges that the adversity is due to a grudge held by Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, born from the fact that an Achaean, possibly Agamemnon, killed a deer in her sanctuary and then boasted of the feat. On the advice of the prophet Calchas, Agamemnon, to mollify the goddess, sends Odysseus to collect Iphigeneia, his youngest daughter, and then sacrifices the girl on an altar, sinking a blade into her neck after gagging her so that she could not cry out. The unfortunate girl looks at her father with innocent eyes before her vision darkens. Immediately after the sacrifice has been made, the weather changes and the ships can fill their sails with the wind and head for Troy.

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The army lands near Troy, camps on the banks of the Scamander, and lays siege to the city. The fortress of Priam will resist for a long time, 10 years, during which there will be continuous fighting, whether below the city walls, on the Scamander plain, or on the beach. During the war, Agamemnon’s role as supreme commander of the expedition will often be overshadowed by the emergence of arguments and rivalries. He is, in fact, a simple leader of an equal coalition whose members (the other commanders of the various Greek contingents) make decisions and act with a substantial amount of autonomy. One of the most serious challenges to his autonomy is the conflict that arises between him and Achilles for his desire to take the slave Briseis from him in retaliation for having had to free another slave, Chryseis, to alleviate the plague sent by Apollo. Achilles reluctantly consents but indignantly withdraws from the fight. The massacre will continue without him and, it is assumed, without the Myrmidons, who followed their king to war. The Iliad narrates only one part of the long conflict, a segment of about 50 days: specifically, it tells the story of the dispute that broke out between Agamemnon and Achilles for possessing Briseis and the withdrawal of the son of Peleus from the fight. Between the beginning and the end of this clash of titans, there is a mass of clashes and duels, during which many fighters on both sides are killed or wounded. The gods watch the fighting from Mount Olympus, some siding with the Trojans, others with the Achaeans. Zeus intervenes to tip the balance in favor of the Trojans to provoke Achilles and make him return to the field: the Trojans attempt a sortie, arrive at the fortifying wall of the opposing camp, cross it (Book XII), and set fire to the ships (start of Book XVI). The Achaeans are about to be overwhelmed when Patroclus, son of Menoetius and a particularly close friend of Achilles, is killed by Hector (Book XVI). Achilles, on hearing the news of his companion’s death (Book XVII), goes mad with grief, then he decides to avenge him. He obtains, through his mother Thetis, new weapons made by the god Hephaestus, which include his famous shield (Books XVIII–XIX), then reconciles with Agamemnon (Book XIX), fights like a lion, killing scores of enemies, before dueling Hector, striking a fatal blow before mangling his body (Book XXII). This is followed by the funeral of Patroclus, with games in his honor and the ritual killing of prisoners (Book XXIII), and in Book XXVI (the final one), Achilles consents to return the body of Hector to his elderly father. The poem ends with the solemn funeral of Hector in Troy. The Iliad does not tell us how it ended, but we know the war’s outcome through two other poems from the Trojan Cycle: the Little Iliad and The Sack of Troy. The first poem presents the events following the death of Hector, up to the delivery of the great wooden horse, inside which are hidden hand-picked Greek warriors, to the gates of Troy. The latter contains the discussions of the Trojans on what to do with the horse and the description of that final fateful night.

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The Achaeans break into the city at night through the Scaean Gate. The fighting rages through the streets and squares of the beset city, house by house, and in the Palace of Priam. The defenders are massacred. Troy is brutally sacked and set on fire in an orgy of violence and rapine that does not even spare the temples and the defenseless population. To recap, an ancient oral tradition, set down in writing in the 8th or 7th century, narrates that a coalition of Mycenaean states under the command of Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, attacked Troy, capturing it after a 10-year siege. The fall of the city was accompanied by an immense massacre. Troy was sacked and burned. It is commonly believed among scholars that this myth has a kernel of truth to it and that this is to be found in the stratigraphic layers of Hissarlik, which, we recall, is formed of at least 43 layers, ranging from the early Bronze Age to the Byzantine period, and correspond to nine walled cities (Troy I–IX). The early layers (Troy I–VIh/VIIa) testify to the existence of as many walled cities, all of which were leveled by an earthquake, an indomitable fire, or hostile activities. The last two (VIII, IX) belong to the Greek city of Ilion and the Roman city of Ilium. What remains to be determined is whether the city of Priam is Troy VIh or Troy VIIa. In the next chapter, we will retrace the history and archaeology of the site of Troy and explain the reasons that support the identification of the city of Priam with one or other of these building phases.

Chapter 22 Which Troy?

The site of Troy When, around 3000, a group of settlers occupies the site of Hissarlik, this is not a hill that rises, isolated, above the coastal plain of the Troad, 5 km from the sea, as it will appear in the future (we are talking about a modest rise, 200 m long, 150 m wide, and 40 m above the plain) but a coastal headland, on the sides of which flow two rivers, the Meander (the modern Karamenderes) and the Scamander (Menderes Suyu). The changing state of the site will be due to the transport of silting material by those rivers and the consequent advancement of the coastline. The settlers fenced off a roughly circular space of 90 m in diameter and built a village of huts within it. These are shepherds, woodcutters, wood craftsmen, metallurgists, fishermen, and sailors. They bury their dead on the slopes of the promontory or at its base. The necropolis is reserved for adults. The little bodies of children are buried under the floors of the dwelling houses or in their vicinity, placed on the bare ground or within a large terracotta jar. After being laid down, the pit is covered with soil and stones. Over time, the settlement grows and develops. First it becomes a proto-urban center, then the urban nucleus of a city-state. The Greeks will call this city Ilion, while the Romans will call it Ilium. From now on, we will call it Troy. Troy will exist for several millennia, becoming rich and powerful, rising from its ashes every time it is destroyed by war or an earthquake. For this reason, an enormously thick deposit will be formed by the successive layers of sedimentation on the rock layer that forms the base of the site. When the site is abandoned for the final time, the stratigraphy of the Trojan site is composed of at least 43 layers, ranging from the early Bronze Age (3rd millennium) to the Byzantine period. The levels that refer to the city of Troy are the first nine (Troy I–IX). Level VIh or VIIa corresponds to the city destroyed by the Achaeans, which is spoken of in the Homeric Iliad. Level VIII corresponds to Ilion and level IX to Ilium. The long-lasting human presence on Hissarlik is explained by the advantages related to its geographical position. The occupants of the site (henceforth: the Trojans) are able both to economically exploit the pastures, woods, and metalliferous minerals (silver, copper, zinc) of nearby Mount Ida and to control the naval traffic at the western end of the Strait of the Dardanelles,

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which is a maritime route of vital importance because it leads from the Aegean Sea into the Turkish Straits. These straits are the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, the first of which joins the Sea of Marmara with the Aegean Sea, and the latter, the Sea of Marmara with the Black Sea. Therefore, the Trojans can levy a toll from the ships in transit nearby or board them to rob them of their cargo. But there is more. Navigating the Strait of the Dardanelles, in the direction of the Sea of Marmara, is made difficult by a surface current and the northeast wind that sometimes strengthens it. It is only possible between May and September, when the wind is favorable and more regular. In the other months of the year, ships have to stay sheltered in ports. Ships heading for the Sea of Marmara and beyond often have to stop at the mouth of the Strait to wait for favorable weather and sea conditions. In this case, they can find shelter in a port on the Aegean to the west of Troy, for which they pay a toll to the Trojans. The Trojans can even guarantee themselves some not insignificant income by taking responsibility for carrying out the transshipment of goods from the Troadic ports on the Aegean to another port controlled by them on the shores of Marmara. And that is still not all. The maritime importance of the site and the presence of economically exploitable mineral resources in its vicinity allow the Trojans to participate in long-distance exchange, particularly in terms of the trade between the islands and the mainland coasts of the Aegean Sea, the shores of the Sea of Marmara, and the steppes and mountains around the Black Sea. The Trojans import cereals and raw metals and export worked metals, textiles, and decorated ceramics. A millennium after the birth of Troy I, the site is occupied by Troy V (1900–1750), born out of the complete reconstruction of Troy IV (2300–1900). Again, as before, there is a fortified acropolis, measuring 18,000 m2. The surrounding walls are typologically the same as those of Troy I–IV, but the urban area is organized more regularly. The houses have the same roof as those of Troy IV, but they are a little bigger and better finished. One comprises several rooms and is organized around an audience hall of around 50 m2. Some houses are found east of the acropolis. This means that the city, as it grows, is overflowing out of the citadel. If Troy IV represented a regression compared to what was achieved by Troy I–III, Troy V records an improvement to the condition of the inhabitants in a general context of cultural continuity with Troy IV. The local community eats better than in the past (it also consumes venison, a sign that it has improved its hunting techniques and has more efficient weapons), makes bronze tools and weapons as well as tools in stone, wood, and bone, fashions pottery on the wheel, and is involved in contacts and exchanges with the Cyclades and Cyprus. One type of bowl (Red-cross bowl) seems to be the product of an Anatolian influence, which can also be said of the dome oven at the time of Troy IV. The first Minoan imports also appear at this time. The life of the city evolves through four building phases (Troy Va–Vd) and is dramatically curtailed around 1750, when Troy Vd ceases to exist due to a catastrophic fire, an earthquake, or a fire (though an epidemic of a disease such

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as malaria cannot be ruled out either).1 The disaster marks the end of the Early Bronze Age III in northwest Anatolia.

Troy VI The site of Troy is occupied once again after a long period of abandonment with the birth of Troy VI. This city extends over 27 ha. It is the largest prehistoric settlement in western Anatolia. It will persist from the Middle Helladic I to the Late Helladic III, passing through eight building phases (Troy VIa–VIh), which can be grouped into three periods: Early, Middle, and Late. Troy VI is the urban center of a small archaic state, not organized in a particularly complicated way. The city occupies both the top of the hill and its slopes and is stretching out and expanding onto the surrounding plain. Its population is made up of about 5,000–10,000 people per generation. Its acropolis has a diameter of 220 m and occupies an area of about 20,000 m2, practically the entire summit area of the hill of Hissarlik. It is the largest inhabited structure that has yet occupied the top of the relief, approximately 2,000 m 2 larger than the maximum surface area previously occupied. The walls surrounding the acropolis are built in large, squared stone blocks up to a height of 7 m and in mud bricks for another 4 m in height, are crenelated, and are reinforced by protruding towers. They appear mighty yet still spectacular. They will be expanded three times with the application of different though nonetheless first-class construction techniques. After the third extension, they will be 550 m long, 10 m tall, and 4–5 m thick. The northeast bastion is incredible. It is 13 m high, protrudes out by 20 m, and descends a long way down the slopes and contains a well dug into the rock. There are five access routes, including monumental and postern gates. The town planning and architecture of the acropolis of Troy VI are entirely different from those of Troy V. The building area is distributed over three concentric terraces. There are large, wide buildings with a trapezoidal plan, with megarons, sometimes with two floors or more than one room. One structure is 26 m long and 13 m wide and is spread over two floors; some stone pillars support the upper floor. Its occupants must practice weaving because there are looms there. At the center of the acropolis are the Palace and the religious district (the renovation works of Troy IX will erase all traces of this). The Lower City extends down the slopes and around the foot of the hill, and it is preceded by a defensive structure around 450 m south of the acropolis. Its inhabitants live in stone and mudbrick houses, separated by streets and alleys. In this part of the city, the houses are built in the same way as those of the acropolis, but they are much smaller. Often, they are not made of stone but mudbrick and perishable materials (clay, wooden beams, intertwined branches, straw). 1

  B. Brandau, H. Schickert, and P. Jablonka, La misteriosa storia di Troia (Rome: Newton Compton, 2004), 36.

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The community of Troy VI belongs to a different social culture from that of Troy IV–V, makes extensive use of bronze weapons and light war chariots, drawn by horses, and is a repository of knowledge of advanced construction techniques, which it applies as much to military constructions as to civic buildings. There is no doubt that this city dominates the entirety of the Troad. An élite rules over the rest of the population, from which it keeps its distance. It is made up of the sovereign, his family, and by members of the aristocracy; they live in the acropolis and use a specific area for burials, located northwest of the acropolis, that is reserved for them alone. This section of Trojan society lives on the acropolis. The rest of the population—shopkeepers, traders, artisans, day laborers, and slaves, perhaps even stockbreeders and farmers—live in the Lower City. Families belonging to the “middle class” live as close as possible to the walls of the acropolis, while the poorer families live farther away from it. As the distance from the acropolis increases, the buildings become less dense and the construction techniques and building materials become poorer, a sign that the poorer one is, the farther from the acropolis they live. Of the two necropolises used by the masses, one is located southeast of the city and is reserved for the poor, while the other can be found at the foot of the southeastern slope of Beşiktepe/Yassıtepe. The funerary custom practiced in Troy VI is cremation, but there are various types of tombs. These range from the simple burial of an urn with ashes to the pithos tomb. There are also circular tombs and tombs in the shape of a dwelling (single-roomed house or a megaron). The urns are made of terracotta and contain the ashes and bone fragments of adult individuals. The stone sarcophagi, on the other hand, contain skeletal remains. Children are buried elsewhere, possibly under the floor of residential dwellings, in the ancient custom, attested at Neolithic sites in Anatolia. Troy VI has rich agricultural land, is famous for horse breeding, and is an important textile center. It has possession of silver and copper deposits and is specialized in the processing of gold, silver, copper, arsenical bronze (= alloy of copper and arsenic), and lead. Taken together, its goldsmith workshops form one of the major centers of jewelry production in the Aegean-Anatolian region. The city is also one of the western termini of the Afghan tin trade. The wagonloads of that metal reach Troy VI, together with lapis lazuli and gold from Afghanistan, via the caravan routes that originate in central Asia and wind across the Iranian plateau, Mesopotamia, the Taurus Mountains, and central Anatolia. Arriving in Troy VI in particular from the east and the north are metals such as copper, gold, and tin, precious gems, amber (found only on the shores of the Baltic Sea), the highly sought-after carnelian (widely available in the Caucasus), foodstuffs, slaves, and horses. From the south and west, on the other hand, Troy VI receives highly prized resins and perfumes, good quality lumber, oils, fabrics, weapons, jewels, and decorated ceramics originating from the Aegean world (especially from the Cyclades and Crete), Egypt, and Mesopotamia. Among other things, Troy VI imported two spools with Linear A inscriptions and some stone oil lamps from Crete.

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The ruler of Troy VI controls the merchant traffic from the Aegean ports to those of the Black Sea and vice versa; he charges mariners a toll, perhaps in the form of a fare for a pilotage service; and provides them with technical assistance for passing through the Strait, for a fee. Moreover, as he has donkeys and horses, which can be used as draft animals and pack animals (to greater benefit than ox-drawn carts), he rents them out for the transport of goods by land from a Trojan port on the Aegean Sea to another port controlled by the Trojans on the Sea of Marmara. Troy VI is linked to the Hittite Empire and is the main Anatolian interlocutor of the Mycenaean states of mainland Greece. What does this mean? The answer to this necessitates that, first, we look at the peoples who inhabited Anatolia at the time of Troy VI, with particular reference to the Hittites, the Luwians, and the Ahhiyawa.

The Hittites The Hittites—an Indo-European people—are the inhabitants of a vast region between northern Cappadocia and the Black Sea. Their origins are obscure. It is unknown whether they are immigrants or are an Anatolian ethnos distinct from the Hattian ethnos, who will be discussed later. If they settled in Anatolia as a result of mass migration, the further problem of identifying the area of origin of the migrants would arise. There are two working hypotheses: they could have passed into Anatolia from the Caucasus, or they could have come from Thrace across the Dardanelles. The hypothesis of their Anatolian origin is tied to a broader conjecture: that according to which the “ancestral cradle” of the Indo-Europeans is Anatolia. The distribution area of the Hittites in Anatolia is the same geographical area that, in the Early Bronze Age II and the Early Bronze Age III of Anatolia, constituted the diffusion area of the Hatti culture and which, at the time the Hittites arrived, is populated by the Hatti. At first, the Hatti and the Hittites lived alongside each other, or perhaps it would be better to say they coexisted since there were conflicting relations between them. Later, they integrated with each other and became one people. They were distributed over more than 15 archaic states, each of which was ruled by an independent king, a vassal ruler, or a Great King (king and emperor), to whom other kings were subject, following a fairly common model in the ancient Near East. Among the cities of the Hatti, there are Hattush, Kanesh/Nesha, Kussara (perhaps Alişar Hüyük, or a place in the region of Divriği, near the Euphrates), Burushattum/ Purushanda (on the site of Acemhöyük), Zelpa, on the coast of the Black Sea, Wahshushana and Ankuwa (Alişar Hüyük?), both of which are to the west of the AntiTaurus Mountains. The other cities of the Hatti and the Hittites—such as Mama—rise in the mountains of southeastern Anatolia. The Hatti are organized into a kingdom—the Kingdom of the Hatti—which is the heart of the Hittite Empire. This empire encompasses all the lands between the central Anatolian plateau and north Armenia and between the Black Sea coast and the mountains of Pontus to the Mediterranean region, also extending into

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the Syrian-Palestinian region as far as the Damascus-Byblos line. In other words, it occupies the entire central Anatolian plateau and as far as the Anti-Taurus Mountains and the Upper Euphrates. Its historical capital is Hattusha. Muwatalli II (1295–1272), king of Hatti, however, moved his residence, the court, and the state offices to Tarḫuntašša, a city located south of Hattusha on the Konya Plain (south-central Anatolia). This happened before Ramesses II waged a war against the Hatti to recover Egypt’s political supremacy in southwest Asia. South of Caesarea, near Mount Erciyes (Cappadocia, not far from modern Kayseri), it borders the lands of the Luwians.

The Luwians The Luwians, like the Hittites and probably the Hurrians, who we will look at later, belong to the Indo-European linguistic stock. They speak a language similar to but different from that of the Hittites. They are distributed in the west of the Lakes Area (Isparta, Burdur) to the borders of Lycia-Pisidia. Unlike the Hittites, who are organized politically into a unitary and centralized state, the Luwians are organized in city-states. One of the political organizations forming part of the Luwian diaspora is the Kingdom of Kizzuwatna, which is inhabited by the Hurrians (who speak Luwian).2 Its capital is the city of Kummanni, a religious center where Teshub, the Hurrian god of storms, is venerated, and it controls the silver mines of the Taurus and other fertile agricultural lands. The Kingdom of Kizzuwatna is located in southeastern Anatolia, between the Hatti and the Hurrians, stretching down the belt that goes from the Euphrates to the Mediterranean (Cilicia) in the foothills of the Taurus Mountains, on the banks of the Ceyhan and Seyhan rivers (Cilicia, modern Turkey). In that part of Asia, the diffusion area of the Luwians overlaps that of the Hurrians, and therefore there is some level of coexistence between the Luwians and the Hurrians. The first traces of the Hurrians are found in northern Mesopotamia, where, in the middle of the 3rd millennium, there were several Hurrian city-states. A document from the period, in Hurrian, reports that Tishadal, king of Urkish (a city-state in the area of Mardin) tried in vain to incorporate those cities. Later, new attempts at unification were made by the king of Nawar and by Shamshi-Adad, king of Akkad. Sumerian and Akkadian sources mention the Hurrians as a people who resided in the area of the Upper Khabur until the end of the 3rd millennium. Around 2000, the Hurrians increased their presence in northern Mesopotamia. 2   The Hurrians speak an agglutinative language that is only close to that of the inscriptions of the future Kingdom of Urartu, which will flourish in the 9th–8th centuries in the region of Lake Van (Armenia).

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At the start of the 2nd millennium, the Kingdom of Kizzuwatna lay on the trade route between Assyria and the city of Kanesh. It became an independent state with the decline of the Old Kingdom of the Hittites around 1500. The earliest known king of Kizzuwatna is Ishputahshu (1530–1500), which is a Luwian name. He is the son of Pariyawatri and signs a treaty of alliance with the Hittite king Telepinu (1525–1500) against the Mitanni. The treaty is also honored by his successor, Paddatishu. The Mitanni defeat the coalition and, during the reign of Pilliya, around 1460, Kizzuwatna allies with the king of Alalakh, Idrimi, under the aegis of the Mitanni king Baratarna. Starting with the name of Pilliya, the rulers of Kizzuwatna have Hurrian names, indicating, perhaps, a change in dynasty. At present, the Kingdom of Kizzuwatna stretches between the Kingdom of Hatti and the Mitanni Empire. It reaches the Mediterranean when it annexes the Kingdom of Adaniya (present-day Adana). Later, it once again passes under Hittite rule after the reign of Šunaššura I, but then it returns to the Mitanni around 1440 with the next king, Talzu, who submits to King Šauštatar. Around 1420, Šunaššura II signs a new treaty with the Hittite king Tudḫaliya I/II. The next Hittite king, Arnuwanda I, annexes Kizzuwatna, placing a Hittite prince in power. The kingdom then remains under Hittite rule as one of the most important regions of the empire, which perhaps gave birth to the dynasty of Tudḫaliya I. It influenced the New Kingdom of the Hittites with Hurrian elements. The Hittite king Ḫattušili III marries a high priestess from Kizzuwatna, Queen Puduḫepa, who will play a significant role in the Hittite court during the reigns of her husband and her son, Tudḫaliya IV. A corpus of religious texts called the Kizzuwatna Rituals will be unearthed in Ḫattuša. Other cities where Luwian is spoken are those that form the Arzawa Confederation (henceforth: Arzawa), a federation or confederation that forms part of the Hittite Empire, which maintains some military forces there. Arzawa occupies an area of northwest Anatolia (in the future, the region it occupies will be called Lydia). To the north, it borders the city-state of Wilusa/Troy. To the south, it borders the city-state of Milawata (Miletus), from which it is separated by the Meander. To the west, it is bathed by the Aegean Sea. To the east, it borders the Hittite lowlands in the region of Hapalla. It includes, among others, the Kingdom of Mira and the Kingdom of Seha. The federation or confederation is dominated by the king of Mira and is a vassal state of the Hatti. The location of the Kingdom of Seha may correspond with the valley of the Temnos and perhaps the valley of the Kaikos, or with the valley of the River Meander. Arzawa is largely, if not entirely, inhabited by Luwian populations—the proper names of Arzawa are similar to those of the Luwians, and the Arzawa worship Luwian deities, such as Arma (the moon god) and Tarḫunz (the weather god). Its capital is at Apasa (Ephesus?) in the far southwest. Arzawa borders the lands of the Ahhiyawa in the area of Lycia-Pisidia.

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The Ahhiyawa When the Mycenaeans took over the maritime trade along the eastern routes from the Minoans, they did not limit themselves to trading with Troy VI but founded new centers with foreign populations. This is demonstrated by the small tholoi of Menemen/Panaztepe in the Troad, which date to the Late Helladic IIIA:1,2, revealing a derivation from Mycenaean funerary architecture. But what matters most to us here is that they also founded a vast kingdom, which the Hittites call Ahhiyawa and has its capital at Wilusa (Troy VIh, Troy VIIa, Troy VIIb1), the same city that the Greeks will call Ilion and the Romans Ilium. Ahhiyawa is a term mentioned in some texts from the 14th and 13th centuries, stored in archives at Ḫattuša (Boğazkale, formerly Boğazköy, in Turkey), the capital of the Hatti Empire, where the King of Ahhiyawa is called the Great King, and who is therefore considered of equal rank with respect to the most important rulers of the ancient Near East: those of Egypt, Babylon, and Assyria. It is uncertain whether Ahhiyawa refers to all the Mycenaeans or to only some (those of the areas of Mycenae and Thebes? Those of the acropolis of Rhodes? Those of the southwest coast of Anatolia, between Milawanda/Miletus and Iasos? Those of the Troad and some of the Aegean islands?), not to mention the fact that they could alternatively have been found in Cilicia, Cyprus, Pamphylia, or even Crete. The Greeks of the Classical Age will call the Mycenaeans Achaeans, Argives, Danaans, or Hellenes. Perhaps the Achaean ethnonym, used by Homer in his epic poem The Iliad to indicate the coalition of Greek states fighting against Troy in the Trojan War, derives from Ahhiyawa. This hypothesis is supported by the linguistic assonance.

Wilusa Troy VIh is probably the state that is referred to as Wilusa, or Wilusiya, in some Hittite texts (the Alaksandu Treaty, datable to around 1280, and the letter of ManapaTarhunta, written around 1300). Wilusa, or Wilusiya, can be found near the Arzawa Confederation, or the Kingdom of Mira and the region of the River Seha. It is sometimes associated, by assonance, with that Ilios/Ilion that is encountered only once in the Iliad and which is suspected of having an older form, Filios, in which the F is pronounced like a W: therefore, (W)Ilios, (W)Ilion.

Troy VIIa Around 1330 (Late Helladic IIIB, 1330/15–1200/1190), one of the earthquakes that frequently shake the island and mainland coasts of the Aegean Sea devastates the Troad (northwest corner of Anatolia). Long stretches of the walls of Troy VIh collapse, the towers are damaged, violent fires break out, and there are numerous victims and enormous material damage. The catastrophe makes it seem to the Trojans that the gods have withdrawn their support for the sovereign and the aristocracy, and this

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causes political and social tensions, perhaps latent for some time, to explode. This social upheaval causes the execution or expulsion from the city of a part of the ruling élite and leads to the division of power between what remains of this élite and the emerging “middle class.” Thus ends the era of Troy VIh, 500 years after the start of Troy VI. The city is rebuilt. To this end, large-scale repair, restoration, renovation, or reconstruction works are carried out, making extensive use of the stones of Troy VIh. The rubble is cleared, the damage is repaired. The surrounding walls are restored and reinforced in certain sections, especially in connection with the monumental gates. Streets and squares are paved. New structures are built, as well as warehouses with underground pithoi. Thus begins the era of Troy VIIa. Troy VIIa is a walled city of 4,000–10,000 inhabitants, formed by an acropolis on top of a hill that stands isolated in the Troad, in view of the western mouth of the Strait of the Dardanelles, and by a Lower City that extends down the slopes and around the foot of the same rise, for a total occupied area of 200,000 m2. Distinct fortification systems enclose the two parts of the city.3 Numerous small buildings, mostly with a rectangular plan and a single room, rise up around the ring road and at the height of the defensive walls. It is noteworthy that the “middle class,” who lived immediately outside the acropolis in Troy VIh, now lives inside it, probably because the ruling élite had been decimated in the meantime, first by the earthquake and then by the social upheaval. Indeed, the space inside the walls of the acropolis is more densely built-up than before, even immediately behind the walls. Furthermore, the interiors of the large houses of Troy VIh (those that survived the earthquake) are now divided by partitions and house numerous families when in the past only one family lived in them. There are also structures outside the acropolis. It is unknown whether the Lower City of Troy VIIa is as extensive as the acropolis of Troy VIh was and if, consequently, the population of Troy VIIa was larger, smaller, or the same as that of Troy VIh. Certainly, there are now far more people living in the Upper City of Troy VIIa than there were in the previous period. The pottery of Troy VIIa is the same as that of Troy VIh, with few new forms, but it is produced in smaller quantities. It is often of inferior quality. It is almost always decorated with matte paint. Agriculture remains the basis of the economy. Traditional relations with the Mycenaean world have been re-established. Overall, the material culture of Troy VIIa is the same as that of Troy VIh, but the quality of life has regressed, external relations are less intense,4 the building techniques used are simpler, and the houses are smaller and less solid.

  Proof in this regard for the Lower City is given by a rampart discovered at the foot of the citadel.   This is suggested by the number of Mycenaean pottery fragments found in Troy VIIa being significantly lower than the figure for Troy VIh.

3 4

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Wilusa becomes part of the Hittite Empire Around 1280, western Anatolia becomes a theater of war due to Piyama-Radu’s attempt, supported by the Ahhiyawa, to carve out a kingdom for himself at the expense of Wilusa and Arzawa. It seems likely that Piyama-Radu is a descendant of Uhha-Ziti, who, after having usurped the throne of Arzawa, was overthrown by the Hittite Great King Muršili II (1321–1295) and fled to Ahhiyawa. The threat of Piyama-Radu catches Alaksandu, king of Wilusa, at a time when he is weakened by internal problems. He calls on the king of Seha for aid. He does not receive the help requested because the king of Seha is forced onto the defensive by Piyama-Radu, who has already seized the island of Mytilene/Lesbos from him, but he is rescued by the king of Hatti, Muwatalli II (1295–1272), son of Muršili II, and by the king of Mira. Piyama-Radu is conclusively defeated in battle by the combined forces of Alaksandu, Muwatalli II, and the king of Mira and is forced to retreat and give back Mytilene. In the meantime, the king of Seha—before the final battle, in which he did not want to participate out of cowardice—abdicated in favor of his son. Alaksandu, in thanks for the help received, submits to Muwatalli II. Wilusa thus becomes a vassal state of Hatti, practically becoming part of the Hittite Empire. From now on, it will be part of Arzawa. The alliance between Hatti and Wilusa is put to the test during the war between the Hittite Empire and the Egyptian Empire, but the pacts will be respected. Wilusa’s soldiers and light war chariots will fight alongside the Hittites and against the Egyptians at the Battle of Qadesh in 1275. In turn, the Hittites send military aid to Wilusa on at least two occasions between 1250 and 1200.

The real cause of the Trojan War The Trojan War—if it ever even took place—should be placed within the broader context of the political instability that arose in Anatolia after the collapse of the Hittite Empire. The real cause of the conflict may, therefore, have been the following. Troy VIIa controlled the western mouth of the Dardanelles. Strategically located, rich, and powerful, it could block the expansion of the Mycenaeans of mainland Greece toward the coveted regions of the Black Sea, rich in metals. Its removal would have opened up the Hellespont, the Turkish Straits, and the Black Sea and allowed Mycenaean trade to penetrate them. This removal is what the Lords of the Fortresses would have done, taking advantage of the chaotic situation that had arisen in Anatolia with the breakup of the Hittite Empire. This happened around 1184, the date indicated by Eratosthenes. But our ability to solve the puzzle of whether the Trojan War was fought before or after the fall of the Lords of the Fortresses on the Greek mainland depends on the preliminary elucidation of another mystery: the exact date of the destruction of the Palace of Pylos. Homer says that Nestor, a veteran of the Trojan War, despite already being old at the time he left to go to war, though still full of physical and intellectual

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vigor, lived and ruled in Pylos for a number of years after the conflict. This suggests that, on his return home, he found his Palace intact. However, archaeologists have shown that the Palace of Nestor was in ruins in 1250, a few decades before the date of the destruction of Troy VIIa that is commonly held today to be the most likely one. A comparative examination of the historical and archaeological sources and of the speculations of contemporary authors allows a hypothetical reconstruction of what happened, which is as follows. Troy VIIa is the capital of a city-state on the northwest coast of Anatolia, which is called Wilusa by the Hittites and is part of the Confederation of Arzawa, or the Land of the River Seha, ruled by a state called the kingdom of Mira. In practice, it is a vassal state of Hatti, part of the Hittite Empire. Between 1209/08 and 1190, or more likely in 1184, Wilusa is attacked by an army of 10,000 soldiers, some of whom arrived by sea (the rest were recruited locally), aboard a substantial fleet, albeit one that was much smaller than the 1,200 ships mentioned by Homer.5 The act of aggression in question is just one episode in a wider war that broke out between the Hittites and Mycenaeans, or rather, between the Confederation of Arzawa, part of the Hittite Empire, and either that polity called Ahhiyawa by the Hittites and which can be identified with the city-state of Mycenae or a coalition of Mycenaean states, perhaps led by Mycenae. The conflict was preceded by insurrections in the Confederation of Arzawa by Ahhiyawa, fomented by a local faction led by Piyama-Radu, an Anatolian emissary or ally of Ahhiyawa, who the sender of the Tawagalawa Letter, the Hittite sovereign Hattušili III (c. 1267–1237) or Muwatalli II, calls a “troublemaker and adventurer.”6 The Tawagalawa Letter is a letter in the Luwian/Hittite language, dated to the first half of the 13th century, in which one or other of the aforementioned sovereigns complains about the support given by Ahhiyawa to the activity of Piyama-Radu, aimed at causing collective uprisings of armed revolt in the Confederation of Arzawa; asks his opposite number in Ahhiyawa to stop Piyama-Radu, or, if mediation fails, to hand him over to the Hittites; and, in the event that none of this happens, hints at the possibility that the Hittite Empire will intervene militarily to assist the Confederation of Arzawa, against Piyama-Radu and the political organization that uses him as its tool, that is, Ahhiyawa. Wilusa, like all the other states in the region, has been affected by the political instability and military turmoil of the Hittite Empire, which began with the economic crisis that is causing it to disintegrate rapidly (which we will look at in more detail 5   We refer here to the Catalogue of Ships recounted in Homer, Iliad II.484–760. On the number of ships (far fewer than 1,200) and the duration of the siege (at most 6 months rather than 10 years), see the observations and considerations expounded on in T. Bryce, “The Trojan War,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Bronze Age Aegean, ed. E. H. Cline (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 475–482, esp. 476. 6   KUB 14.3. The full text of this document in its original language, with an English translation and commentary, is available in G. M. Beckman, T. Bryce, and E. H. Cline, The Ahhiyawa Texts (Leiden: Brill, 2012).

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in the next chapter), followed by periods of political instability and military strife, in the sense that it has been beset by disputes and riots, and therefore it has been weakened, unable to cope with the threats that are caused to its safety. Moreover, due to the struggles tearing the empire apart from within, it cannot count on the help of friendly powers. Placed under siege, it defends itself valiantly before falling into the hands of the enemy (it is out of the question that it could have resisted for more than 6 months, let alone the 10 years that Homer invents). But the story of Troy VIIa does not end here. The army of Ahhiyawa, after conquering Wilusa, retreats, leaving Piyawa-Radu to occupy the city. Later, the Hittite general Kassu retakes Wilusa. The king of Arzawa, Manapa-Tarhunta (1322–1280), a vassal of Muwatalli II, informs the latter of this by letter.7 The city is liberated and returned to Hittite control. Whether the Trojan War was a real or imaginary event is therefore an open question. Those who support the historicity of the episode base their arguments on objective evidence, both geographical and archaeological, contained within the events narrated in the Iliad. Dissenters argue that the Trojan War was invented from scratch to provide a starting point for the development of known legends in the classical and medieval world.

The Trojan War: the chronology of the ancient thinkers The Greek tradition considers the Trojan War an actual event and places it between 1334 and the 10th century. Specifically, Duris, tyrant of Samos, places it 1,000 years after the arrival in Ilion (Troy VIII) of Alexander III of Macedon, Alexander the Great (356–323), and therefore it would have begun in 1334.8 The Greek historian Herodotus of Halicarnassus (484–425) places it 800 years before his birth, therefore in about 1280.9 The Marmor Parium—an inscription that reports numerous events in Greek history, engraved between 264 and 245 on a marble slab found on the Cycladic island of Paros—places it in 1209/08.10 Eratosthenes (276–194) puts it 407 years before

  The Manapa-Tarhunta Letter, a tablet in Luwian/Hittite script written around 1285. The full text of this document in its original language, with an English translation and commentary, is available in G. M. Beckman, T. Bryce, and E. H. Cline, The Ahhiyawa Texts (Leiden: Brill, 2012). 8   FGrH 76 F41. A scholar in various fields, Duris of Samos (340–270) wrote various historiographical works, of which fragments have survived. These include the Homeric Problems, in at least two books, of which six fragments survive, containing a series of observations on the Iliad. 9   Herodotus, Histories II.145. 10   The Marmor Parium was written on a marble slab that was originally 2 m high and 70 cm wide. Large fragments of this document have been preserved. The text was to begin with the reign of Cecrops (which began in Athens in 1581) and go up to 263, the year in which Diognetus was archon in Athens. Therefore, it makes reference to a timespan of 1,318 years. 7

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the first Olympiad (776), that is, in 1184.11 In any case, ancient Greek authors speak of the Trojan War as an actual event that occurred after the appearance of Linear B (this writing system was in use from 1450 to around 1180), but many generations before the first written texts of Archaic Greece. In the Hellenistic Age (323–27), the date of the destruction of Troy that received the most credit was that of Eratosthenes (1184), perhaps because he was a man with a reputation for being studiously obedient to order and accuracy. Eratosthenes was the first person to measure the Earth’s circumference with almost absolute precision and calculate the inclination of the Earth’s axis; it seems that he also calculated the distance between the Earth and the Sun and invented the leap year.

Reasons for the identification of the City of Priam with Troy VIh The dating of Herodotus (1280) is very close to the date of the destruction of Troy VIh, which occurred around 1300 due to an earthquake and a violent fire. The German archaeologist Wilhelm Dörpfeld (1853–1940)—who worked on the excavation of the ruins of Troy together with the German businessman turned archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann from 1882 until after the latter’s death in 1890— and the American archaeologist Carl Blegen (1887–1971), famous for the discovery of the Palace of Nestor in Pylos and his own excavations near Troy, found that, in the upper level of the stratigraphic sequence of Troy VI (specifically, Troy VIh), there is evidence of the collapse of parts of the fortification walls and of the walls of houses, as well as traces of fire. Dörpfeld saw in this evidence the proof of a fierce struggle in which many Trojans had been killed, despite the absence of weapons and human remains that bore signs of a violent death, and identified Troy VIh with the Fortress of Priam. Blegen, on the other hand, saw the effects of a violent earthquake, followed by a raging fire, which would have completed the destruction, at least in certain districts of the city. The inhabitants, upon the first signs of the earthquake, saved themselves, taking their most precious belongings to safety, including their weapons, which were made of metal and were therefore of great value. This would explain the absence of weapons and human remains from the destruction layers. Blegen dated the event around 1270, based on the pottery found in the destruction layer. Later, Manfred Korfmann (1942–2005), from the University of Tübingen, who worked on Hissarlik from 1989 until his death, dated the destruction of Troy VIh to around 1250. Further dating placed it around 1200 and even in the 12th century. Recently, an examination of the local ceramics led Penelope Mountjoy to place the destruction of Troy VIh around 1300. This dating, we may observe, recalls that of Duris of Samos (1334). 11   FGrH 241 F1, 244 F61. Eratosthenes of Cyrene was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, poet, philologist, and philosopher. Tutor of Ptolemy IV Philopator and third chief librarian of the Library of Alexandria, he wrote works on philology and literary criticism, astronomy and mathematics, and mythology, history, and geography.

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However, Dörpfeld’s interpretation and that of Blegen are incompatible. Moreover, Homer reports that, during the reign of Laomedon, the father and predecessor of Priam, an army of Greeks, led by Heracles, arrived in Troy aboard six ships before taking and plundering the city (a much quicker enterprise than the 10-year siege mentioned in the Iliad).12 The idea that this occurred is supported by the fact that, in the Late Bronze Age, armed clashes were frequent. The dating of Duris of Samos may therefore refer to a local war prior to the Trojan War, not necessarily to this episode concerning Heracles. Nor should it be overlooked that Duris’ reliability has been questioned. Plutarch, in his Parallel Lives, refutes his assertions, saying of him that “it is not the wont of Duris, even in cases where he has no private and personal interest, to hold his narrative down to the fundamental truth.”13 A critical opinion of Duris was also expressed by Didymus of Alexandria, also known as Didymus Chalcenterus (63 BC–10 AD), a Greek grammarian and philologian.14 However, not all ancient authors who referred to him agree that Duris is an unreliable source. Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43), the Roman judicial orator, magistrate, writer, and philosopher, defines Duris of Samos as homo in historia diligens, “a scrupulous historian.”15

Reasons for the identification of the City of Priam with Troy VIIa The city was rebuilt with the same stones and on the leveled ruins of Troy VIh, thus giving birth to Troy VIIa. This took place in a general context of regression in quality of life, evidenced by the increase in population density in the acropolis, the smaller size of the houses compared to those of Troy VIh, the simpler building techniques, and the reduction of imports (Mycenaean ceramics is present in smaller quantities and is of lower quality than in the past). Moreover, it seems that the social structure has changed in the transition from Troy VIh to Troy VIIa with the disappearance of the ruling élite and their replacement by the emerging “middle class.”16 Troy VIIa is also destroyed by a large, furious, and unstoppable fire that incinerates everything that can burn over a much larger area than that affected by the fire of Troy VIh. The acropolis and the Lower City are devastated. The destruction layers will be made up of heaps of charred timbers, burned bricks, and stones calcified by the heat. The finds indicate that a 16- or 17-year-old girl, her feet burned by fire, was hastily buried in the large courtyard of a housing complex before the destruction layer formed. Moreover, a twisted human body, with head wounds and a broken jaw, was found on the slope outside the southwestern wall.

  Homer, Iliad V.638–642.   Plutarch, Life of Pericles XXVIII.3. 14   Didymus, On Demosthenes XII.50. 15   Cicero, Letters to Atticus VI.1.18. 16   D. Hertel, Troia (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2003), 61–62. 12 13

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In addition, arrowheads, javelins, and spears were discovered, all of bronze, both in the acropolis and the Lower City, as well as three deposits of various sizes of small, round, flint stones (slingshots) in a square outside the southwestern gate. These finds were associated with imports from the Late Helladic IIIB:2 (1250–1200/1190). The Late Helladic IIIB:2, we recall, is the same period in which the dating of the Marmor Parium falls (1209/08). Furthermore, its end is very close to the dating of Eratosthenes (1184). The evidence discovered led Korfmann to believe that Troy VIIa could have been taken amid an immense massacre and set on fire after a siege and that the city of the Trojan War was Troy VIIa, not Troy VIh, following a hypothesis previously set out by Blegen.17 Korfmann also located and partially excavated a necropolis from the 13th century on the plain of Troy, near the coastline of the Late Bronze Age, bringing to light around 200 tombs testifying to the existence of different funerary customs. There were no traces of habitation; the only building remains found near the cemetery indicated the presence of huts. According to Korfmann, this could have been the camp of the Achaeans besieging Troy. Blegen thought that Troy VIIa existed from around 1275 to 1240. The subsequent discovery of Mycenaean imports from the start of the Late Helladic IIIB (1330/15– 1200/1190) and the Late Helladic IIIC (1200/1190–1075/50) forced these boundaries to be revised: the former to c. 1300/1280 and the latter to c. 1180. According to the archaeologist Carl Nylander (1932–present), the end date of Troy VIIa should be placed around 1200–1190. For Christian Podzuweit, it dates to later than 1190. These scholars are inclined to believe that Troy VIIa was born between 1300/1280 and 1240 and was destroyed between 1230 and 1180, therefore in the second half of the Late Helladic IIIB:2 (1250–1200/1190), more toward the lower limit of this period than the upper limit, more specifically, between about 1209/08 and 1190, shortly before the collapse of the structures and centralized system of the palaces in mainland Greece.

Conclusions Considering that the last word regarding the historicity of the Trojan War has yet to be said, it is prudent to limit ourselves to saying the following: if the hill of Hissarlik is the site of Homer’s Troy, as is claimed by Blegen, Dörpfeld, Schliemann, and other scholars; if the Greek myth of the Trojan War, which inspired Homer and the authors of the epic poems of the Trojan Cycle, isn’t a mere invention but a historical event;   On the identification of Homeric Troy with Troy VIIa, see C. W. Blegen, J. L. Angel, J. L. Caskey, M. Rawson, and C. G. Boulter, Troy: Excavations Conducted by the University of Cincinnati, 1932–1938, 4 vols. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1950–1958). 17

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and if Wilusa really was the city that dominated the western mouth of the Dardanelles from the hill of Hissarlik and is not to be placed elsewhere, such as in the region of Smyrna … then the city of the Trojan War is the one whose ruins are contained within the upper stratigraphic level of Troy VI (VIh) or in the lowest stratigraphic level of Troy VII (VIIa).

Chapter 23 The decline of the palace-cities

Another seismic crisis After the destruction of the Palace of Nestor in Pylos (1250), the Libyan Wars (1208, 1188), and the Trojan War (1184?), a new seismic crisis, of unprecedented violence and duration, strikes the entirety of mainland Greece with the usual accompaniments of casualties and ruination. There is extensive destruction in the Peloponnese—Messenia (Nichoria), the Argolid (Mycenae, Tiryns, Midea, Katsingri), Corinthia (Koraku, Iria), Laconia (the Menelaion of Sparta), Achaea (Teichos Dymaion), Attica (Agios Stephanos, Brauron), Boeotia (Thebes, Orchomenos, Gla), Euboea (Lefkandi), Phocis (Crissa), and Thessaly (Kastanas). The acropolis and the Lower City of Mycenae—which had been rebuilt after the earthquake and fire of 1250—were devastated by the earthquake and incinerated by a subsequent fire, which blackened the walls of the Palace’s megaron. The place of worship, Tsountas House, some parts of the southwestern section of the citadel, Panagia House II, etc. end up in rubble. There are piles of calcified stones, ash, burned mud bricks, and charred beams everywhere. Two hundred meters north of the citadel, the collapse of a house buries three adults and a child under the rubble. A middleaged woman is flattened under a boulder in a doorway between the main room and the entrance of a house on the rise of the north ridge of the Treasury of Atreus. The city is evacuated and remains abandoned and deserted, albeit temporarily. Tiryns also suffers extensive destruction in the Late Helladic IIIB, both in the acropolis and the Lower City, due to a violent earthquake and a subsequent fire. This new seismic crisis brings it to its knees again. A woman and a child are buried in the collapse of Building X, located in the acropolis. Two other people are caught in a collapse near the fortification walls. In Midea, the tremors contort walls and foundations. The acropolis and its fortification walls, including the Palace, suffer extensive damage. A girl is killed when a building falls apart near the eastern gate. The site is abandoned, though again only temporarily. Seals, archival documents (Linear B tablets, labels, seal impressions), cult vessels, clay and ivory figurines, 20 bronze swords, and Egyptian scarabs are buried under the remains of the Palace of Agios Stephanos (Laconia), a port city actively involved in the trade between Crete and mainland Greece.

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The scribes at work in a room in the archives of the Palace of Thebes are overwhelmed by the sudden collapse of building materials from the upper floors, while fires break out in various parts of the city, including near the Electra Gate. The seismic wave spreads through the Aegean Sea and reaches Crete, Anatolia, Cyprus, and the southern Levant. The Cyclades At the same time, or in any case in the same period, a devastating fury strikes the Cyclades Islands. At Phylakopi, the megaron and the sanctuary built in the Late Cycladic IIIB along the inner walls of the old perimeter wall of the acropolis are destroyed, and the site is abandoned. Agia Irini decays. Here, as in many other islands of the Cyclades, water has always been available only in limited quantities. Before the earthquake, it was provided by a single source, which fed an underground cistern (Spring Chamber), which was located on the coastline, slightly above sea level. The earthquake also caused coastal subsidence, resulting in freshwater being contaminated with seawater. Since the spring could no longer be used as a water supply, most of the inhabitants left. The Spring Chamber will become a place where the few remaining inhabitants dump their refuse. It is possible, however, that the cause of the destruction of the site of Koukounaries, a rocky peak overlooking the Bay of Noussa on the island of Paros, is not natural but human.1 At the end of the 13th century, there is a large “house” there with two corridors, together with a fortification wall in cyclopean work. In the Late Helladic IIIC, this “house” is destroyed by a fire. The disaster occurs suddenly and results in material damage and numerous victims. The bodies of men and animals are abandoned in the rubble inside the building and in the corridor leading to its north entrance, while multiple bodies of children will be found where it leads down to the basement at the south.2 The cause of the destruction may have been an assault by armed men—perhaps “warrior sailors” from the coast of Thessaly and/or Achaea Phthiotis,3 perhaps Mycenaean refugees, or perhaps the neighboring Naxians4—who, after taking the building after a siege, killed the inhabitants and set fire to everything,   It cannot be ruled out that the settlement of Koukounaries was a pirate base and that the precious artifacts contained in its Palace constituted the booty from pirate raids. 2   D. Schilardi, “Paros and the Cyclades after the fall of the Mycenaean Palaces,” in Mykenaïka. Actes du IXe Colloque international sur les textes mycéniens et égéens organisé par le Centre de l’Antiquité Grecque et Romaine de la Fondation Hellénique des Recherches Scientifiques et l’École Française d’Athènes (Athènes 2–6 octobre 1990), ed. J.-P. Olivier (Paris: De Boccard, 1992), 621–639, esp. 635–636. 3   R. Drews, The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe ca. 1200 B.C. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), 26; V. Karageorghis, “Mycenaean ‘Acropoleis’ in the Aegean and Cyprus: some comparisons,” in The Aegean and the Orient in the Second Millennium: Proceedings of the 50th Anniversary Symposium, Cincinnati, 18–20 April 1997, ed. E. H. Cline and D. Harris-Cline (Liège: Université de Liège, 1998), 221–222. On the localization of dens of “marine warriors” in Thessaly and Achaea: M. Kramer-Hajos, Mycenaean Greece and the Aegean World: Palace and Province in the Late Bronze Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 149–165. 4   D. Schilardi, “The LH IIIC Period at the Koukounaries Aacropolis, Paros,” in The Prehistoric Cyclades: Contributions to a Workshop on Cycladic Chronology, ed. J. A. MacGillivray and R. L. N. Barber (Edinburgh: Department of Classical Archaeology, 1984), 184–205, esp. 202–203. 1

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disappeared without a trace.5 This hypothesis, however, is contradicted by the valuables being left in place, which instead supports the conjecture according to which the site of Koukounaries was destroyed by an earthquake (even if there is not any clear evidence of collapsing stones or masonry). The tremors would have caused oil lamps to overturn or embers from cooking fires to be scattered, stoking the flames. The site will remain abandoned and deserted for a few decades.6 Part of it will be inhabited again in 1100 for a short time.7 The fortified citadel of Agios Andreas is located on the top of the homonymous hill on the island of Sifnos in a dominant and strategic position. It stands on top of a site that has already been frequented since the end of the Neolithic/start of the Bronze Age (early 4th millennium). It is surrounded by a wall, reinforced by eight towers with a rectangular plan, and contains what are probably dwelling houses, a large sanctuary, and other buildings and internal streets. Around 1200, it is abandoned. Its defenses—a particularly sophisticated and complex example of defensive architecture, which represent a unique instance in the entire Aegean—will constitute a very strong incentive for the reoccupation of the site in the second half of the 8th century (Geometric Period), when another large tower will be added and two gateways were opened. The site will continue to be inhabited until the Hellenistic Era (323–27). The general situation is seriously compromised. The occupation of the Cyclades, from the mid-11th century to the end of the 10th, will be very feeble, but, in the end, life will go on. In the Archaic Era, it will flourish once again. Crete Around 1200 (transition from the Late Minoan IIIB:2 to the Late Minoan IIIC), there was destruction in various places on Crete. The Palace of Kydonia, which had been repaired and started to be used again after its destruction in the Late Minoan IIIB:1, is destroyed again, this time for good. The whole city is hit by yet another hard blow. But it will be reborn, albeit without the Palace. A grandson of Minos I, called Cydon, born from the union of the god Hermes and Acacallis, will refound it (on the hill of Castelli, in the heart of the old town of Chania) at a point when three Cretan cities will be born (or reborn).8 The port of Amnisos ceases to function; here, only the “temple” will survive. The necropolis of Armeni, in use since the Late Minoan IIIA:1, is abandoned. 5   A. G. Vlachopoulos and X. Charalambidou, “Naxos and the Cyclades,” in A Companion to the Archaeology of Early Greece and the Mediterranean, vol. 2 (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2020), 1007–1027, esp. 1010. 6   R. Drews, The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe ca. 1200 B.C. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), 26; V. Karageorghis, “Mycenaean ‘Acropoleis’ in the Aegean and Cyprus: some comparisons,” in The Aegean and the Orient in the Second Millennium: Proceedings of the 50th Anniversary Symposium, Cincinnati, 18–20 April 1997, ed. E. H. Cline and D. Harris-Cline (Liège: Université de Liège, 1998), 131. 7   A new settlement, including a Temple of Athena, will be built on the site in the Geometric Period (10th–8th centuries). 8   Diodorus Siculus, Library of History V.78.2.

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The pirates of the Aegean are ready to take advantage. Pirate raids cause the populations of Palaikastro, Gournia, and Malia to abandon the coast and move to sites that are naturally defended, sometimes almost inaccessible, in the mountains. Among the new settlements are Karphi, located on a rocky spur in the mountains above the Lasithi Plain at 1,330 m a.s.l., northeast of Palaikastro; Vrokastro and Kavousi Vronda, among the hills that dominate the Gulf of Mirabello; and Kephala Vasilikis. These will persist until the Archaic Age. Among the mountains in the eastern region of Crete, near the Gulf of Sitias, expands the site of Praisos, the capital of the Eteocretans. There is evidence here of a Mycenaean settlement with a megalithic house and domed tombs (tholoi) with circular, ovoid, and square plans, preceded by a dromos. Miletus In the Late Helladic IIB, Minoan Miletus (Miletus IV) became Mycenaean (Miletus V), as suggested by the pottery of the Late Helladic IIIA:1 and Late Helladic IIIA:2. The change was not traumatic.9 Miletus VI corresponds to the Millawanda of Hittite sources. In the Late Helladic IIIA:2, specifically in the 14th century, the settlement was set aflame, perhaps by the army of the Hittite king Muršili II. In the Late Helladic IIIB and IIIC, Miletus VI is a fortified settlement. The city wall, perhaps built by the Hittites, is almost 1.1 km long, with bastions every 15 m. It encompasses an urban area of around 5,000 m2. The houses of this period are typologically the same as in the previous period. Alongside materials of Hittite manufacture, the inhabitants make use of Mycenaean and Near Eastern imported goods.10 The necropolis of chamber tombs on the hill of Değirmentepe, southwest of the Temple of Athena, belongs to this period. Miletus VI is destroyed in the Late Helladic IIIC. The site remains abandoned and deserted until the arrival of the Greek colonists. There is also destruction at Troy, Karaoğlan, Ḫattuša, Enkomi, Ugarit, Megiddo, Ashdod, and Acre. Depopulation and the diaspora Many areas are depopulated, with catastrophic effects on the economy, the political system, and the entire administrative structure. This demographic impoverishment is particularly considerable in Laconia, Messenia, and Triphylia (southern and southwestern regions of the Peloponnese), but also in the Argolid and Corinthia (northwestern Peloponnese), as well as in Phocis, Locris, western Attica, Boeotia, and Thessaly. Laconia, Messenia, and Triphylia become a desert. Messenia is the region most affected by the exodus: it loses 90% of its inhabitants! Menelaion (Laconia)   Only two houses and seven kilns for pottery, of three different types, have been well preserved from this layer (Miletus V). The pottery produced here is partly Mycenaean, partly that of the Minoan tradition. There are also some Mycenaean-type figurines. 10   The pottery is partly Anatolian, partly Mycenaean, but the Mycenaean component is significant. Two fragments of pithoi bear two engraved signs, which could belong to Linear B. Imported goods, Hittite and/or Near Eastern in origin, and some small statuettes of female deities have also been found. 9

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declines and is partially abandoned. The situation in the Argolid is not very different to that of Messenia—abandonments affect 86% of the inhabited sites—although there is the difference here that the population does not emigrate to other regions but concentrates around Mycenae, Argos, Tiryns, and Asine, where it will remain until at least the end of the Late Helladic IIIC. In Phocis and Locris, the number of inhabited sites drops in the Late Helladic IIIC to just over 50 from the 200 that there were in the Late Helladic IIIB:2. Among the surviving centers in Phocis, the main one is Delphi. The sites of Berbadi, Prosymna, Zygouries, Gonia, and Tsoungiza, all in the Argolid and Corinthia, as well as Agios Stephanos (Laconia), Eutresis (Phocis), Iolcus, and Dimini (Thessaly), among others, are abandoned. One of the causes of this depopulation is the fact that numerous contingents of the population emigrate, pressured by the desolation of their lands. This is not a temporary phenomenon: the migrants will never return to their areas of origin. Many groups of migrants head north, albeit remaining within mainland Greece. This is demonstrated by the increase in population of Achaea and Cephalonia, documented by the four cemeteries of Cephalonia, used since the transition from the Late Helladic IIIB:2 to the Late Helladic IIIC; the contemporary necropolises of Achaea, which are much more numerous; and the major coastal center of Teichos Dymaion, located on the border between Elis and Achaea. Many other groups of migrants head east, dispersing themselves in the islands of the Aegean Sea (Cyclades, Crete), the Aegean and Mediterranean regions of Anatolia, Cyprus, and the southern Levant. The consequent political instability on the islands and mainland coasts of the Aegean Sea results in the emergence of problems regarding collective security. In the Late Helladic IIIC, groups of migrants from mainland Greece land on Crete, and there is a recovery of the ancient cities of Knossos, Phaistos, Agia Triada, and Kydonia, which show signs of population growth and the construction of new buildings. This building activity is accompanied by signs of a new, strong Mycenaean influence, evident in the pottery and terracotta statuettes of a type that echoes the Greek mainland, found in Phaistos and Agia Triada. This is probably the result of the physical and cultural osmosis of groups of immigrants from mainland Greece with the local people. The community of Mycenae is now trading with people from the Balkan region or southern Italy who have perhaps settled in the city. The settlements of Gortyna, Prinias, and Lyctus are born, as well as that of the Patela of Prinias, on the west slopes of the Psiloritis. The area of Mochlos is occupied once again after many sites on Crete had been abandoned. Since the Late Minoan III finds are of high quality, it is possible that the settlement on this part of the coast had its own ceramics workshop and has ongoing links with mainland Greece. In the Gorge of the Dead at Zakros, the fortified settlement of Kato Kastello arises. In the western region of Crete, the settlement of Thronos-Kephala is formed, the precursor to the Greek and Roman city of Sybrita, situated at the top of the hill of

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Kephala in the central-western part of Crete. The settlement is concentrated on the northern plateau and in the central area. Each of the new centers of life has a building with a public nature, the seat of ceremonial activities. Some extra-urban sanctuaries are added to the old cult sites. In the meantime, the island society has been divided up into small nuclei, linked by close bonds of kinship or of belonging to a clan, as demonstrated by the spatial dispersion of the burial areas, the restoration of the custom of collective burials, and the use of small tholoi. Many skilled artisans work for the new élites. Among the artisans who live in the large centers, some, mostly those in Knossos, come from Cyprus or the Levant. By now, iron has replaced bronze as the raw material for manufacturing metal artifacts. The habit of writing has been reinstated with the use of an alphabetical form that sets the Eteocretan language, mentioned in the Odyssey, down in writing. Some local dialect phonemes and myths are similar indications of Mycenaean settlements in the Mediterranean region of southern Anatolia after the Trojan War. One of the myths in this respect preserves the name Mopsus, the founder—together with Amphilochus—of various cities in Cilicia, where he led groups of migrants (Mopsuestia, Mallos, etc.). Archaeologists have found confirmation of the presence of Late Helladic peoples in Cilicia. In the Danuna mentioned in an inscription found at Karatepe, one can recognize the Danaans of Greece. An abundant amount of pottery from the period of transition from the Late Helladic IIIB to the Late Helladic IIIC is in circulation in Tarsus. Since, at this site, during the Hittite occupation, Mycenaean pottery is very scarce, its increase from a later point of the Late Helladic IIIB can only be due to the arrival of large groups of Mycenaeans. A migratory current must have arrived in Cyprus from the Argolid in the Late Helladic IIB. Another arrived there from Crete in the Late Helladic IIIA. In the Late Helladic IIIC, further groups of emigrants arrived on the island from various parts of the Aegean, establishing the nuclei of permanent settlements. The phenomenon is of vast proportions. The newcomers settle not only along the coasts—at Enkomi, Kition, Palaepaphos, Maa-Paleokastro, and Sinta—but also in the interior, as far inland as Mesoaria. Some Cypriot cities from the Late Helladic IIIC have foundation myths that link them to great Achaean heroes returning from the Trojan War. One tradition preserves the name of Teucer, son of Telamon, king of Salamis Island, and Hesione, and the halfbrother of Ajax, with whom he fought in the Trojan War, distinguishing himself as an archer. Upon his return to his homeland after the war, Teucer was disowned and exiled by his father, but he received help to found the city of Salamis from Belus, king of the Sidonians and founder of Kition, a Phoenician colony on Cyprus. A similar myth is that of the foundation of Paphos by Agapenor, king of Tegea and the leader of the

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Arcadians during the Trojan War. The city of Agapenor could be Maa-Paleokastro, a fortified city where ceramics from the Late Helladic IIIC have been found. The migrants’ settlement takes place peacefully, except, perhaps, at MaaPaleokastro. Indeed, it seems that Maa-Paleokastro, as well as contemporary Sinta, which we will look at later, is a settlement that did not exist for long. It was founded on a small peninsula, to which the settlers barred access from the landward side, and it was surrounded by thick fortification walls. These protection measures may mean that the indigenous population did not welcome the arrival of the Mycenaean settlers, maybe because those migrants were not peaceful people but instead belonged to the Sea Peoples. It must also be said, however, that at the beginning of the Late Helladic IIIC, two large administrative buildings are abandoned at Kalavasos-Agios Dhimitrios and at Maroni-Vournes, the former of which occurred after a fire. At the same time, destruction occurs at Hala Sultan Tekke, Sinta, Palaepaphos, Myrtou-Pigadhes, and Apliki. The immigrants bring their customs, technology, and even religious beliefs to Cyprus. Their arrival induces a series of cultural changes, though these do not substantially alter the cultural identity of the island. One of these innovations consists of the appearance of fortified cyclopean walls and the “dogleg” style city gate. Another, more important one takes the form of the appearance of cults of new male divinities, considered more important than female ones. One of the new gods on Cyprus is the god of Kition, represented in effigies as a young man dressed in a loincloth supported by a belt, wearing a horned helmet on his head. The horned god of Kition corresponds to a divinity worshipped by the inhabitants of the Greek region of Arcadia. At this point, the Palace of Alassa-Paliotaverna is enriched with a large megaron with a central hearth and a bathroom, while fortified settlements rise up on virgin soil at Pyla-Kokkinokremos, on the eastern coast, east of Kition, and Maa-Paleokastro, on the west coast, north of Paphos. The town of Sinta, located in the center of the Mesoaria Plain, about 15 km west of Enkomi, is rebuilt after the destruction it suffered at the end of the Late Cycladic IIC. Here, as in other sites of the Late Helladic IIIC, metalworking is highly developed (as shown by the discovery of an important set of bronze artifacts). Hala Sultan Tekke, on the west coast of the Larnaca Salt Lake, near the southwest coast and the mines of Kalavasos and Troulloi, recovers quickly from its wounds suffered at the end of the Late Helladic IIC, resumed its life as a flourishing port center in contact with Egypt, Anatolia, the Aegean, and the Levant, and continued as such throughout the Late Helladic IIIA. A temple related to metallurgy stands in Athienou, on the route along which copper ore is taken to Kition. The area of Paleopaphos, inhabited since the Late Helladic I≠II, is also a metalworking region, the raw material needs of which are met by exploiting the cupriferous deposits nearby. There is a sanctuary dedicated

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to a goddess of fertility, whose architecture—columns, horns of consecration, and washbasin for purification—denotes the transposition of Aegean cultural elements.11 It seems likely that there was an affinity between Cyprus and Athens around 1050. Enkomi IIIC records a decrease in its number of inhabitants. Around 1050, it is hit by an earthquake and is abandoned for good.

The irreversible crisis of the palace structures and the centralized system of government The last seismic crisis broke a trend of growth and development that had lasted for 300 years in mainland Greece, for 200 years on the islands, and for just a few years in the Dodecanese, the Aegean coastline of Anatolia, Sicily, southern Italy, Egypt, and Palestine. The trauma caused is unsustainable, not just for the well-built citadels, each of which was the fulcrum of the expansion and vitality of a proud and enterprising people, but also for the political organization and economic model of the time. Toward the end of the Late Helladic IIIC, agricultural productivity plummets, trade routes become unsafe, and internal conflicts are aggravated. The population dwindles, and the élite irretrievably lose wealth and power. All this translates into a poorer economy, and trade is no longer able to provide it with adequate support due to the drastic reduction in relations with the outside world. Mycenaean Greece—the vast “planet” that stretches from mainland Greece to the islands of the Aegean Sea and areas dotted around Anatolia and the eastern Mediterranean—has entered a dark tunnel, which it will take a century to pass through, and the time this takes will be one long, slow agony. Indeed, from now on, the societies of the Palaces will no longer be able to function as they once did due to the weakness or inability of their leaders to cope with difficulties as well as other causes, both natural and human, such as hostile invasions, raids for the purpose of plunder, wars between states, civil wars, riots, maritime trade crises, earthquakes, droughts, crop failures, famines, and epidemics. It is difficult to identify the primary cause among all these. The overall result of their effects is a systemic failure. But the irreversible crisis of the Mycenaean civilization is just one aspect of a more general acute malaise, which also encompasses the rest of Anatolia, the southern Levant, and even Egypt. The outlook is bad. Natural disasters of various kinds, critical internal circumstances, and problems regarding public safety, born from the arrival of groups of migrants who have nothing to lose and are therefore willing to do anything, are about to cause the collapse of the Hittite Empire, the Kingdom of Cyprus, and princedoms of the southern Levant, as well as a serious security problem for Egypt.   The site of Paleopaphos and the surrounding area are linked to an ancient cult associated with the “Great Goddess,” the goddess of fertility, worshipped in Cyprus since the Neolithic Period. The Mycenaeans, who settled on the island in the early 12th century, adopted the local fertility goddess and built a sanctuary in her honor. According to tradition, Cinyras, the legendary local king, was the founder and first high priest of the sanctuary. Another myth, however, identifies the founder of the city and the sanctuary with Agapenor, the king of Tegea in Arcadia (Peloponnese, Greece).

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Chapter 24 The Sea Peoples: Part II

The last days of Hatti Only a few years after the collapse of the Palace structures and the centralized system of administration in Mycenaean Greece, the city of Ḫattuša, the capital of the Kingdom of Hatti and the Hittite Empire, is abandoned by King Šuppiluliuma II and his court. The incident is the culmination of a process of rapid disintegration, which originated out of an economic recession, attacks by its neighbors, and a dynastic crisis. With the conquest of all Anatolia by the Hittites, the wars of conquest ceased and, consequently, the accumulation of spoils of war from which the country derived the majority of its resources ceased. Moreover, the armed conflicts with Egypt and Assyria, which saw the Hittites defeated at Qadesh and Niḫriya, were very expensive, both in terms of human resources as well as in terms of financial resources. It is into this context, already critical in itself, that the conflict between Muršili III and his uncle Ḫattušili III must be inserted. Recently, the attempted coup d’état by Ḫattušili III aggravated the general situation. The political instability began during the reign of Tudḫaliya IV. He tried to remedy it by tying the ruling class as closely to himself as possible (see the oaths of loyalty given by numerous dignitaries) and carrying out two military campaigns, one in the southern extremities of the empire, the other against the Kingdom of Alashiya/Cyprus (the latter is attested by two inscriptions in hieroglyphics found in the upper city of Ḫattuša, perhaps within an anti-pirate and anti-Sea Peoples scope). The expedition against Cyprus ended with the drawing up of an international treaty. Arnuwanda III, king of Hatti, succeeded Tudḫaliya IV. On his death, his brother Šuppiluliuma II ascended to the throne. He briefly governs an empire in crisis. Its division into two distinct, mutually hostile areas—Hatti and Tarḫuntašša—weakens it. The main difficulties of Šuppiluliuma II stem from the secession of Tarḫuntašša, the deep divisions that remain in the court and the country after the end of the civil war, the enormous expenses incurred for the building projects of Tudḫaliya, the continuous wars, epidemics, and, finally, a persistent famine.

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The hunger caused by the famine is one of the most severe aspects of the crisis. In fulfilling the agreements to provide mutual assistance in force between the Pharaonic State and Hatti, Merneptah, the son and successor of Ramesses II, sent shipments of grain to the Hittite government, but this gesture of solidarity only managed to alleviate the pain, not cure the disease. The overall situation is aggravated by the fiscal policy of the Hittite government, which benefits court dignitaries—who are large landowners, penalizes small landowners, and is the cause of widespread discontent; and by the sense of superiority and detachment with which the ruling élite emanate in their dealings with the rest of society, which precludes social cohesion. The atmosphere around the dynasty is gloomy, and there is suspicion about everything and everyone. In addition, the Kaskians (a people devoted to banditry and pillage and who represent a constant threat to the whole of northern Anatolia) are constantly carrying out raids in the Hittite mountains beyond the Pontic Mountains. This requires a heavy presence of the Hittite army on the northern frontier, but Šuppiluliuma is distracted by the internal problems of the state and does not attend to those that arise from pressures on his borders by external enemies. There are similar situations elsewhere in Hatti, such as on its borders with Lycia. Major problems also afflict Hatti’s allies. Around 1200, Šuppiluliuma II writes a letter to the ruler of Mira in which he refers to the new dynastic quarrels of the Kingdom of Wilusa. He calls him “Great King,” undoubtedly due to his hegemonic role within the context of the Confederation of Arzawa. The Hattian ruling class and the vassal states of Hatti no longer believe in the capacity of the reigning sovereign to deal with the crisis effectively. Therefore, they gradually distance themselves from the Hatti, demanding forms of autonomy. The empire begins to dissolve in the south of Anatolia with the formation of neo-Hittite potentates, who, from now on, will no longer use cuneiform writing and the Hittite language but a hieroglyphic script and the Luwian language. One of these princedoms is Carchemish. It will take great advantage of the situation, becoming one of the major political centers of the region. The crisis relentlessly gets worse and worse. The emigration-invasion of the Sea Peoples worsens the political instability on the Mediterranean fringes of the empire. The Sea Peoples we are talking about here are a different group from the one that attacked Egypt together with the Libyans around 1228 or 1218 (the First Libyan War). These are mixed peoples, variously coming from the islands of the Aegean Sea (and if not from these, then they at least transited through them), southeastern Anatolia, Crete, and perhaps even Cyprus. More precisely, they are the Shekelesh, the Danuna or Denye(n), the Peleset, the Tjeker, and the Weshesh. Other than the Weshesh—who have already fought against Egypt in the First Libyan War in a coalition with the Eqwesh, the Lukka, the Sherden, the Shekelesh, and the Teresh—these peoples now come to the fore for the first time in history, emerging from anonymity. Let us familiarize ourselves with them.

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The Denyen, the Peleset, and the Tjeker will be portrayed in the Medinet Habu inscription with upward-flaring headdresses made of feathers, grasses, or hair from the mane or ponytail and secured by a thin strip fixed to the bottom of each side, which is then pulled down and passed under the chin. The name of the Denye(n) (da-nu-na) evokes that of the Danuna, who appear in a letter from Tell el-Amarna as inhabitants of an area north of Ugarit, perhaps the Adanya of the Hittites (modern Adana), where the bilingual (Luwian, Phoenician) inscription of Karatepe mentions they are still present in the 8th century. The Palaset are either the Pelasgians of the Homeric tradition or an Indo-European people from the Illyrian city of Palaeste. Their name in Hebrew is Pelishti, while in Assyrian it is Plishtu or Palashtu, whence derives the future geographical term of Palestine. Unlike an Egyptian text, according to which they come from the middle of the sea, the Old Testament identifies their area of origin as Caphtor (Crete).1 As for the Tjeker, these could be the Teucrians of the Troad, who, after the fall of Troy, emigrated to Cyprus under the leadership of Teucer and founded the city of Salamis there. Alternatively, they could be the inhabitants of the country or town of Sikila, the Sikalayu, who live on boats. However, it may also be that they are the inhabitants of the region of Dor, located in Palestine, south of Mount Carmel, who make a living off seafaring activity. The Weshesh are indicated in an Egyptian source (Harris Papyrus) as coming from the sea. This is all that can be said about them, other than that their name evokes Anatolian languages. The Shekelsh, Danuna, Peleset, Tjeker, and Weshesh would have been pushed to migrate by the “domino effect” produced by the collapse of the Mycenaean system on neighboring states. The Sea Peoples sow death and destruction across a vast area, which extends from the Anatolian coast to the Syrian-Palestinian coast and the Mediterranean coast of Egypt. But it is not the Sea Peoples who tip the already lopsided scales irretrievably against the Kingdom of Hatti and determine its collapse. Instead, this comes from a two-pronged attack by the Kaskians and Arzawa (Arzawa has rebelled against the Hatti Empire, of which it forms a part). The former march on Ḫattuša from the north. The latter attack it from the south, supported by Phrygians who invaded western Anatolia from Thrace. The imperial army fails to resist in a sufficiently steadfast way, and the Kingdom of Hatti comes crashing down. The court, the Palace servants, and the religious officials leave Ḫattuša shortly before it is invaded and destroyed.2 The Hittite Empire ends up in pieces.   Deuteronomy II.23; Amos IX.7; Jeremiah XLVII.4.   J. Seeher, “Die Zerstörung der Stadt Hattusa,” in Akten des IV. Internationalen Kongresses für Hethitologie (Studien zu den Boğazköy-Texten 45), ed. G. Wilhelm (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2001), 623–634. 1 2

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Meanwhile, the migration-invasion of the Sea Peoples has caused the collapse of Kizzuwatna, former vassals of the Hatti. From now on, this kingdom will no longer be referred to as Kizzuwatna but as the Neo-Hittite kingdom of Quwê, or Hiyawa. Leaving a trail of ruins in its wake, the migration-invasion of the Sea Peoples continues with the destruction, one by one, of the Kingdom of Alashiya (Cyprus), the Kingdom of Amurru (Syrian coast), the Kingdom of Ugarit (Syrian coast), and the Kingdom of Emar (inner Syria), the latter perhaps being a victim of an attack by a Hurrian king, though more probably by refugees or stragglers, as well as the raids in the upper and middle Euphrates valley (northern Syria), to the detriment of the Kingdom of Mitanni, and in the land of Canaan (Lebanon).

The last days of Alashiya, Ugarit, Mitanni, Emar, Amurru, and Canaan The sequence of events of the final years of existence of the Hatti and its vassals is not clear, but it seems that the danger that threatened the kingdom’s survival required the dispatch of allied troops and that this measure left Ugarit’s defenses open. Indeed, Ammurapi reminds the king of Alashiya that his soldiers and light war chariots are in Hatti. Therefore, it seems likely that the collapse of the Hittite Empire preceded, albeit only just, the destruction of Ugarit. Previously, during the reign of Ibiranu IV, who reigned in Ugarit before Niqmaddu IV, the Sea Peoples had already threatened the city’s peace and prosperity. The situation becomes much more serious during the reign of Ammurapi III, who succeeded Niqmaddu IV around 1195. Two letters, one in response to the other, exchanged between Ammurapi III, the last king of Ugarit, and the king of Alashiya refer to the arrival of the Sea Peoples on the horizon of the coastlines of Cyprus and Syria. The first presupposes a previous letter, which has not survived, in which Ammurapi III informs the king of Alashiya that enemy ships have been sighted sailing down the Syrian coastline. The king of Alashiya replies to reassure Ammurapi: “… remain firm,” he says. “Surround your towns with ramparts. Have your troops and chariots enter there, and await the enemy with great determination.” In the second letter, Ammurapi reports: “… the enemy’s ships came; my cities were burned, and they did evil things in my country.” Then he adds that all his troops are in Hatti and all his ships are in Lycia, that many ships attacked him, and that they did much damage, and finally he asks him to keep him informed of the arrival of any more enemy ships. Then the situation worsens. Seventy-one letters were found in an oven for baking tablets in which they were abandoned at the time of the final destruction of Ugarit. One of these contains a heartfelt appeal from Ammurapi III to Šuppiluliuma II, Great King of Hatti. Ammurapi urges the sending of food aid, also making a clear, albeit implicit, reference to the invasion of his country by the Sea Peoples: “The tablet (concerning) grain I have sent to the Sun, your lord, because there is no grain in your land … The enemy has

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overwhelmed us, and there is no number … Whatever is available, look for it and send it to me.” Another tablet from Ugarit contains the name of one of the Sea Peoples, the Sikalayu (the same people are called Tjeker in Egyptian inscriptions), explicitly indicating them as an “enemy” who are equipped with many ships, which serve as dwellings as well as their means of transport. The aid requested by Ammurapi from Šuppiluliuma will never arrive. After all, it is no longer needed. Ugarit III is brutally attacked by the Sea Peoples. Fighting, devastation, and looting follow. In the end, the city is taken and set aflame, and it is reduced to a field of ruins. It will not be rebuilt: the site will remain deserted and abandoned forever. When they advance down the Syrian-Palestinian coast, the Sea Peoples leave not only the still-smoking ruins of Ugarit behind them but also those of Ambi, Shigata, and Ullaza. Also tragically involved in the crisis unleashed by the Sea Peoples is the Kingdom of Mitanni, or Mittanni (called the Naharin by the Egyptians, Hurrians by the Hittites, and the Hanigalbat by the Assyrians), located in the north of Mesopotamia, which, at the height of its power (that is, between 1450 and 1350), extended from the Zagros Mountains to Lake Van and the borders with Assyria, but which, in c. 1200, is limited to the Khabur Valley and is subservient to Assyria. Mitanni is mainly inhabited by Hurrians. Its capital is Waššukanni (Tell Fekheriye in Syria). Its consistent growth and development ended with the military defeat it suffered at the hands of the Hittite army led by King Šuppiluliuma I and his son Piyassili, regent of Carchemish. It is possible that the situation of instability caused in the region by the Sea Peoples also claimed the city-state of Emar (Tell Meskene) as one of its victims, an Amorite city located on a large bend in the middle of the River Euphrates (today on the shores of Lake Assad).3 It is an important commercial center, thanks to its position between the centers of power of Upper Mesopotamia and Anatolia-Syria. It falls in 1187. A tablet from Emar references an attack on the city by the forces of a “king of the Hurrian people.” This phrase is suggestive of a people who were not part of a state and thus in which it is perhaps possible to see, if not the Sea Peoples, then at least a coalition that was in some way similar. Emar is strategically positioned as a trading post where goods are picked up from the Euphrates and disseminated over land routes. In the middle of the 3rd millennium, it fell under the influence of the kings of Ebla, in whose archives one can find mentions of the city. In texts from Mari from the 18th century, Emar is under the influence of the 3   Numerous clay tablets with cuneiform writing have been found in Emar, making it one of Syria’s major archaeological sites, along with Ugarit, Mari, and Ebla. The texts are dated between the 14th century and the fall of Emar in 1187. Unlike the other cities, the tablets from Emar, many of which are in Akkadian and date back to the 13th century, are not royal or official but records of private transactions, legal registrations, real estate transactions, weddings, last wills and testaments, and formal adoptions. Contained in a chest belonging to a priest is a library containing literary and lexical texts on Mesopotamian traditions and ritual texts for local cults.

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nearby Amorite state of Yamhad. There is no tradition of kings in Emar. From the 13th to the 11th century, there are written documents from Emar itself, many of them in the Akkadian language, as well as references about it in contemporary texts held in Ḫattuša, Ugarit, or the archives of Assyria. At this stage, Emar is within the Hittite sphere of influence, the subject of the king of Carchemish, himself subject to the Hittites. It is the capital of the local Hittite province known as the Land of Astata. The final date of the site’s destruction is 1187, the second year of the reign of King Meli-Šipak II of Babylon. The Kingdom of Amurru is one of the kingdoms that arose between the Amarna Period and the end of the Late Bronze Age. It is the result of the political union of the Amorites, western Semitic populations, accomplished by Abdi-Ashirta in the first half of the 14th century. This king rescued the Amorites from the yoke of Egypt as a result of his military victories over the Phoenician kingdoms, vassals of Pharaoh, including that of Byblos. Abdi-Ashirta was assassinated by Amenhotep III. His immediate successor, his son Aziru, continued the fight with Egypt. During the reign of the Hurrian king Tušratta, the Kingdom of Amurru suddenly passed into the political orbit of the Mitanni, but when King Shaushgamuwa (a clearly Hittite name) ascended to the throne of Amurru, this kingdom entered the orbit of the Kingdom of Hatti. Before collapsing under the impact of the Sea Peoples, Amurru was thus a kingdom on the Syrian coast that was part of the Hittite Empire, just like the Kingdom of Ugarit, among others. Canaan is a name that appears in the texts of Proto-Syrian Ebla, dating back to the 3rd millennium, and is found toward the middle of the 2nd millennium in the texts of the Mesopotamian city Nuzi, where it is used to refer to Syria and Palestine, including the Canaanite coast, what would become Phoenicia (Lebanon). It seems likely that the Sea Peoples allied themselves with the Canaanites of the coast to find—with their help—new lands in which to settle; for this reason, while moving through the Land of Canaan, they give respect to its cities and the country. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that Byblos and Sidon are spared. The migrants/invaders march on toward Egypt, along the Way of Horus, from the Land of Canaan and from the sea. There are hundreds of thousands of them, comprising warriors, wives, children, and the elderly. Many are being carried by wheeled carts pulled by oxen. A fleet of ships decorated with the heads of birds on their prow follows behind, sailing down the coast and keeping only a short distance from the shore.

The Battle of the Delta As we can see, this time Egypt is not being attacked by the Sea Peoples from the west, across the Libyan Desert, as was the case in the First Libyan War, but from the northeast, that is, from the Syrian-Palestinian region. This occurs three years after the pharaoh Ramesses III (1186–1155) defeated the Libyans for a second time after they had returned to threaten Egypt in a year between the fifth and eighth years of his reign, 20 years after the defeat inflicted on the Libyan migrants/invaders at the Battle of Perire.

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Ramesses III repelled the Libyans, capturing many of them (Second Libyan War). Prisoners deemed suitable in terms of military aptitude and prowess in battle were used as mercenaries in the Fayyum region and in the Nile Delta. The Sea Peoples thus reach the shores of the eastern Delta after having wreaked havoc in southeast Anatolia, Cilicia, and the southern Levant. The Egyptian army, which has many strong infantry units and light war chariots, waits for them on the borders of Canaan, together with local princes, the commanders of the garrisons, and maryannu (Asiatic nobles: mercenaries or allies?). Ramesses III himself is in command. The Pharaoh has issued specific orders. The army will block the invaders’ way with a chariot charge, which the infantry will remain behind. The plan succeeds, and the enemies turn and flee, running away on foot or on their wagons. As for the foreign countries, they made a conspiracy in their isles. Removed and scattered in the fray were the lands at one time. No land could stand before their arms, from Hatti, Kode, Carchemish, Yereth …. Their confederation was the Peleset, Theker, Shekelesh, Denye(n), and Weshesh, lands united. They laid their hands upon the lands to the (very) circuit of the earth, their hearts confident and trusting: “Our plans will succeed!” Now the heart of this god, the Lord of the Gods, was prepared, ready to ensnare them like birds. He made my strength to exist, while my plans succeed.4

The Sea Peoples’ advance on land is thus blocked at the Battle of Djahy, but they manage to penetrate the Delta from the outlets to the sea of the eastern branches of the Nile. Ramesses III has numerous warships, loaded with soldiers, lined up across the mouth of the river like a wall. The Sea Peoples are caught in a vice: on the one side, the Egyptian fleet, which is keeping their ships hemmed in, while on the other are the Egyptian archers, who are shooting at them from the shore. “Then [Ramesses III’s] glory and the fear of him penetrated into their bodies; they were disheartened and destroyed on the spot; their hearts were seized, their ‘ba’ taken away, their weapons thrown into the Great Green—for his arrows hit whomever among them he intended to hit, while those who tried to escape fell into the water.” The prisoners are rounded up and the officials bring them before the king. Some are branded on their shoulders. It is the eighth year of the reign of Ramesses III (1178). Shortly thereafter, this pharaoh will immortalize his triumphs by having them narrated in great detail on the façade of the first column of his mortuary temple at Medinet Habu, a town located in Upper Egypt, opposite Luxor.5 The Sea Peoples will disperse. As for the Sherden, it seems that they found a safe haven in Sardinia, which appears to be deducible from the oldest mention of the name of this island, srdn, contained in the Phoenician inscription of the Nora Stone (9th century). Some, therefore, associate the Sherden with the Sardi of Sardinia, with the people of Mount Sardenos in Lydia, and with those of Mount Sardessos in Mysia. 4   W. F. Edgerton and J. A. Wilson, Historical Records of Ramses III: The Texts in Medinet Habu, vol. I (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1936), 53–54. 5   The mortuary temple of Medinet Habu was probably inaugurated in the twelfth year of the reign of Ramesses III.

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It should be added that warriors represented on certain Sardinian bronzes wear a horned helmet that resembles those of the Sherden. Some Sherden would have emigrated to the Italian Peninsula, where they would have given rise to the Etruscan civilization. This hypothesis seems supported by the fact that the tombs of Populonia contain objects of Sardinian manufacture, such as bronze buttons and small votive boats. Furthermore, Strabo reports that the first Etruscan kings were Sardinians. In addition, the Etruscans will enter the historical record a few centuries later.

The Palace of Knossos: the final fall In the Late Minoan IIIC, around 1150, the Palace of Knossos is destroyed once and for all.6 This is certainly a manmade disaster, but the lack of certain pieces of knowledge and judgment makes it impossible to explain it conclusively. Perhaps the indigenous community on the island, that is, those of the Minoan tradition, rose up in arms against the despotic and avaricious Mycenaean rulers who ruled the island from the Palace of Knossos. Perhaps the former palace centers—Phaistos, Malia, and any number of others—rebelled against the Palace of Knossos, whose hegemony was badly tolerated. Perhaps the rivalries and tensions that had built up between the Palace of Knossos and that of Kydonia exploded into a war between Mycenaeans. Perhaps the Mycenaeans of mainland Greece unleashed a war whose objective was the elimination of a commercial competitor—the Lord of the Palace of Knossos—in order to become the sole interlocutors of the Egyptian economic power.7 The disaster occurs in the early summer when the flocks of sheep have just been shorn and the wheat harvest has already begun.8 The great architectural complex is attacked and consumed by flames. It will neither be rebuilt again nor repaired. A small part will remain in use as a minor cult center. The rest will remain abandoned and deserted for millennia, like a smoke-blackened and derelict skeleton, a funereal monument to the past. With the departure of the Palace of Knossos from the scene, Mycenaean power passes into the hands of the Lord of the Palace of Kydonia.   It is commonly believed among scholars that the Palace of Knossos ceased to exist as a political, economic, and administrative center (though not as a religious center) in the 14th century. Some say this occurred in 1372/70 (very end of the Late Minoan IIIA:1), others 1325/00 (start of the Late Minoan IIIB). In 1960, Leonard Robert Palmer (1906–1984), Professor of Comparative Philology at the University of Oxford, attempted to show that the final destruction of the Palace of Knossos occurred in 1150 (middle of the Late Minoan IIIC) during a military invasion of Crete by forces coming from the Greek mainland, evidenced by pottery findings. This theory received a great deal of criticism but found support from Erik Hallager in 1977. 7   L. Godart, Da Minosse a Omero. Genesi della prima civiltà europea (Turin: Einaudi, 2020), 217; L. Godart, “La caduta dei regni micenei a Creta,” in Le origini dei Greci. Dori e mondo egeo, ed. D. Musti (Rome-Bari: Laterza, 1991), 180. 8   Arthur J. Evans, the excavator of Knossos, calculated that the sacking and final destruction of the Palace of Knossos through fire occurred in the early spring, based on the wind direction. However, John Chadwick noted that the last tablets from the archives of the Palace of Knossos attest that the flocks had just been shorn and the wheat harvest had just begun. It was therefore not the beginning of spring but the start of summer. 6

Chapter 25 The recovery without the palaces and the final crisis

In search of the causes of the disasters of the Late Helladic IIIC The catastrophes that marked the transition from the Late Helladic IIIB to the Late Helladic IIIC (1200/1190) are one of the main evolutions in Aegean and Near Eastern history in the 2nd millennium, but they are also an unsolved mystery because it is not yet clear what caused them. What is clear, however, is that the cause cannot have been only human nor only natural. We must think of a set of different and concomitant causes, which differ depending on the time and place. One factor in the crisis seems to be represented by abrupt climate change.1 An alteration in the winter winds may have caused a persistent drought, the decrease in rainfall may have led to the ruin of the agricultural economy, and this may have caused the palace model to decay. The water crisis would have prompted people to stock up in order to cope with it. Indeed, the Lower City of Tiryns, after the destruction of the House of the Mosaic, was equipped with some protected cisterns, and the same can be said for Mycenae and Athens. However, it has been argued that Greece is physically too differentiated to be uniformly affected by the effects of climate change; furthermore, there is no way to tell whether such far-reaching climatic change actually occurred because it left no traces. It definitely did not happen in Attica, where the level of rainfall was half that of Messenia. Yet it is not in Attica but in Messenia that there is evidence of depopulation.2 Another factor in the crisis can be identified in the migration-invasion of the Sea Peoples. It is, however, implausible that this could have been solely responsible for all the upheavals that occurred over a period of decades—between the late 13th century and the early 12th century—in such a vast geographical area, spanning from the Aegean region of Anatolia to the southern Levant. 1   R. Carpenter, Discontinuity in Greek Civilization (The J. H. Gray Lectures for 1965) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966). 2   R. Treuil, P. Darcque, J.-C. Poursat, and G. Touchais, Les civilisations égéennes du Néolithique et de l’Âge du Bronze (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1989), 380.

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In Greece, this cause, if it ever materialized, may have had an effect in conjunction with the internal struggles that flared up as a result of popular uprisings or because of dynastic rivalries, sufficiently bitter to cause destruction and carnage. Eventually, out of desperation, many groups of refugees would have emigrated. But even this hypothesis has visible limitations when we consider that not even the most bitter of dynastic rivalries could have led to such a massive exodus as that which occurred in mainland Greece, depopulating entire regions. Another possible explanation for these disasters is that a general situation of instability in southeastern Europe, perhaps in the Balkans or Thrace, prompted a mass emigration of a northern Greek tribal group who made use of more effective weapons than bronze ones because key functional parts of them were made of iron. In 1967, the archaeologist Carl Blegen identified this group as the Dorians, based on the myth of the Return of the Heracleidae. The Dorians would have descended into the Peloponnese from the northwest regions of mainland Greece, with the result that the Doric dialect spread throughout Greece. The Heracleidae were Temenus, Aristodemus, and Cresphontes, three descendants of the demigod hero Heracles/Hercules. Legend has it that the three brothers, since they had been banished from Mycenae, returned there with the support of the Dorians to reclaim their inheritance. Later, they are said to have founded three kingdoms: the first in Argos, the second in Sparta, and the third in Messenia. According to the Athenian historian Thucydides (460–after 404 or after 399), the Return of the Heracleidae occurred 80 years after the Trojan War: For the late return of the Greeks from Ilium caused not a little innovation; and in most of the cities there arose seditions, and those which were driven out built cities for themselves in other places. For those that are now called Boeotians in the sixtieth year after the taking of Troy expelled Arne by the Thessalians, seated themselves in that country which, now Boeotia, was then called Cadmeis. … And in the eightieth year the Dorians together with the Heracleidae seized on Peloponnesus.3

The generally accepted date of this event now is around 1100. Conventionally, this marks the start of a new period in the proto-history of Greece called the Dark Ages, or the Hellenic Middle Ages, which will persist until the 9th century. In terms of the archaeology, the Return of the Heracleidae is supported by the cultural developments that constitute the last evolutionary stage of Mycenaean civilization and relate to technology and funerary customs. We refer here to the appearance of “Barbarian Ware,” new weapons and buckles, which denote the common and prevalent use of iron for the manufacture of weapons and work tools, and other innovations in the fields of funerary architecture and funerary customs. Barbarian Ware is dark-colored, hand-made, painted form of ceramic production, sometimes adorned with applique cordons. It has been found at Mycenae, Aigeira, Asine, Athens, Lefkandi, Koraku, Perati, Tiryns, and Sparta. It appeared in Greece 3

  Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War I.12.2–3.

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before the fall of the Palaces, but there is no evidence that it was created by the Dorians. The “new weapons” are swords with tongue-shaped hilts and short spearheads with closed grips. These are comparable to contemporary artifacts found in the Carpathian-Danubian area, but these cannot be related to the Dorians either. The same can be said about the buckles. The cist tomb appears in a vast area, ranging from Epirus and Macedonia to the Peloponnese and the Greek islands, except for Crete, where collective burials in tombs with large chambers persist. The practice of cremations appears in Attica—particularly in Athens—as well as in Crete and the Dodecanese, replacing that of inhumation. The cremation ritual will be adopted in other areas of Greece as well, but it will never completely displace the traditional form. The movement of the Dorians does not, however, seem to have been a real migration-invasion but rather an infiltration that took place on several occasions that caused radical alterations, such as the institution of a new political, social, and economic order. John Chadwick has proposed placing the Mycenaeans within the Mycenaean world as a kind of sub-proletariat under the dominion of the Lords of the Fortresses.4 This class of exploited peoples then exploited the state of emergency that arose in the Mycenaean states due to the pirate raids of the Sea Peoples to ally with them and rebel against the authority of the Lords of the Fortresses, assault their Palaces and burn them, and overthrow them from their thrones. Therefore, the atmosphere of being on the eve of war that is recorded in the Late Helladic IIIB can be explained as follows: the first Dorians penetrated southern Greece, then they descended en masse into the south in successive waves. It is difficult to say whether this was from Epirus or through the mountainous massifs that close off Thessaly to the west (an area that had always remained outside the Mycenaean orbit) and the region of Spercheios. The invaders demolished the political, economic, and social system that centered around the Palaces, then they mixed with the local populations and the Dorian migrants who had instigated the revolution. All this may have happened after the earthquake crisis that had decimated the Mycenaean Palaces on the Greek mainland and before the final crisis, that is, in the transition from the Late Helladic IIIB:2 to the Late Helladic IIIC. Before the earthquake crisis, the Dorians would have made forays into Mycenaean Greece—in particular, into the fertile plains of Boeotia—but were repelled by the states of Orchomenos and Thebes. Then they would have taken advantage of the Mycenaeans’ weakness, caused by the effects of the earthquake, to push into the territory north of the Gulf of Corinth that took the name of Doris 4   J. Chadwick, “Who were the Dorians?” Minos 9 (1976): 62–65. Was it really the Dorians who caused the disappearance of the Mycenaean civilization? How does this sequence of events cover the Dark Ages spanning from the 12th to the 9th century? For a discussion of this, see D. Musti (ed.), Le origini dei Greci. Dori e mondo egeo (Rome-Bari: Laterza, 1991),

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after them and settled there permanently. After occupying central Greece, they moved into the Peloponnese, the heart of Mycenaean power. They overwhelmed all resistance and caused the local populations to flee. Indeed, further destruction took place at Mycenae, Tiryns, and Lefkandi in the transition from the Late Helladic IIIB:2 to the Late Helladic IIIC. Furthermore, the coastal settlements of Lefkandi, Perati, Asine, and Epidauros Limera were abandoned. Only one Ionian city of some level of importance retained its independence: Athens. Thucydides writes that the Dorians refrained from invading Attica due to the poorness of its soil. For in the days of king Deucalion it inhabited the land of Phthia, then the country called Histiaean, under Ossa and Olympus, in the time of Dorus son of Hellen; driven from this Histiaean country by the Cadmeans, it settled about Pindus in the territory called Macedonian; from there again it migrated to Dryopia, and at last came from Dryopia into the Peloponnese, where it took the name of Dorian.5

Some of the peoples of the Mycenaean culture would have been enslaved by the Dorians (those of Argos and Sparta). The rest retreated into the central mountainous regions of the Peloponnese or emigrated abroad, freeing up vast areas that would not have been occupied by the Dorians and would have remained abandoned and deserted. A migratory flow thus headed south, that is, toward the Cyclades and Crete. The Sicilian historian Diodorus Siculus (90–27) reports that, one generation after the Return of the Heracleidae, Crete was invaded by a mixed group of Dorians, Achaeans, and Pelasgians under the command of Tectamus, son of Doros. Even before the Return of the Heracleidae, however, various parts of the island had become the home of Dorian colonists from the Dodecanese. This account is erroneous. Tectamus was not a Dorian but a Mycenaean, the conqueror of Minoan Crete and the first Mycenaean king of the island. This misunderstanding arises from the fact that the area of origin of the Mycenaean invaders of Crete was the Peloponnese, and that the Dorians, after the fall of the Mycenaean fortresses, had invaded Greece and settled there permanently, including in the Peloponnese. Another group of refugees would have made their way to the Aegean coast of Anatolia and the islands opposite, as well as to Cyprus. Another destination of the Mycenaean emigrants is Palestine, a region in which one of the components of the coalition defeated by Ramesses III, the Paleset, the Philistines of the Bible, had already settled. This suggestion is supported by the fact that some Palestinian excavations have unearthed locally produced ceramics from the Late Helladic IIIC:1. If all this really happened, then it would have been a repeat of what happened around 2150 (Early Helladic III, 2250–2100/2050), when the Hellenes, descending en masse through the eastern fringes of Thessaly, central Greece, the Ionian islands and Euboea, the south of Epirus, and the Peloponnese, put an end to the Proto5   Herodotus, Histories I.56.3. The Deucalion mentioned here is the husband of Pyrrha, whose reign is placed in the late 14th century by Thucydides: History of the Peloponnesian War I.12.

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Helladic civilization. At that time, flourishing centers such as Lerna III, Asine, Tiryns, Zygouries, Agia Marina, Kirra, etc. had been destroyed, and Greece had plunged into backwardness.

The decline Whatever the truth is regarding the causes of the disasters, the result does not change: in the Late Helladic IIIC, Mycenaean Greece gradually fades away. The crisis is profound and irreversible. As well as being economic and demographic, this regression is also cultural. As there are no longer any Palaces, there is no longer any system of control over economic resources, no bureaucracy, and no specialist artisanal productions (working with ivory, semi-precious stones, or precious metals). Writing fell into disuse because it was linked to the Palace administrations. It will only begin to be used in mainland Greece again after another 500 years! The decline is reflected in the deterioration of Mycenae, the contraction of the inhabited area of Tiryns, the fragmentation of the building fabric of Argos, Mycenae, and Midea, the cessation of the use of chamber tombs in cemeteries, the appearance of simple or double burials in cist tombs, the progressive decline of art (consider the technical and artistic inferiority of the products and the absence of masterpieces), but also and above all, the absence of large structures of any type, whether civil, military, or religious. Every building is now single-story, the houses are less solid and resistant than in the past, smaller in size and with few rooms, and artisan activities take place in a new type of building, without particularly striking or specialized equipment. What happens in ceramic production indicates that the cultural uniformity of the previous Late Helladic historical-evolutionary phases has failed. The pottery produced in Attica, the Argolid, the Dodecanese, the Cyclades, and Crete in the Late Helladic IIIC is of poorer quality than in the past; the decorative motifs are initially simpler and then clearer. Usually, grave goods are sparse. Pottery, when present, is limited to one or two vessels, five or six in exceptional cases. The ceramic forms represented most frequently are the jug with a stirrup handle and the lekythos (the latter replaces the former toward the middle of the period); less frequent are the small amphorae, amphorae with handles on the neck, the oinochoe, the cup, and the goblet; while amphorae with handles on the belly in its various forms, the wide-mouthed jug, and the pyx are rare. The presence of a ring-shaped foot is common to all these forms. The decoration on the pottery essentially consists of horizontal wavy lines, vertical tremolos, variations of triangular motifs, hand-drawn semicircles, and stylized leaves.

A faint recovery A prosperous and well-organized society does not just disappear without trace, unless it is the mythical Atlantis of Plato, which sank into the sea in a single night. This axiom

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is also true in the case of Mycenaean Greece. Despite having taken been stabbed in the heart, it survives. Indeed, the decades following the Fall of the Fortresses evince a slight recovery. Some areas become more populous and experience a slight economic upturn. Moderate populations concentrate in Palaikastro (Arcadia), Pellana, and Amyclae (both in Laconia). Amyclae is an inhabited settlement that rises in the valley of the Eurotas, in a very fertile location, about an hour’s walk south of Sparta. It took its name from a hero of the Trojan War, Amyclas, son of Lacedemon and Sparta.6 He took his own troops to the Trojan War (Homer records Amyclas’ contribution in the Catalogue of Ships).7 In his sanctuary, the tombs of Agamemnon and Cassandra are made into objects of worship.8 The acropolis of Mycenae is altered by the implementation of a vast program of construction works. The walls are repaired and new buildings of excellent craftsmanship are erected, such as the “Granary,” some houses in the southwest district (Tsountas House), and the central courtyard of the last Palace. Some structures are incorporated into the Great Courtyard of the Palace. This phase of occupation of the citadel is characterized by the Granary Style. In Tiryns, the Palace has now fallen into disuse. Its megaron becomes a shrine (Building T). The acropolis has been abandoned. The local élite has moved to the Lower City, where reconstruction is underway, which is reflected in considerable building activity. The settlement at the foot of the stronghold will become a large built-up area (25 ha), designed and divided into blocks (it will be inhabited for a long time to come). The “Palace” of Midea is adapted for other purposes. The Palace of Pylos becomes a center for production. In Argos (the Argolid) and Thebes (Boeotia), the ancient necropolises remain in use, a sign that the respective inhabited centers are alive and kicking. Koraku (Corinth) is a center of some importance. It rises in a dominant position over the Gulf of Corinth, at the southern end of the isthmus (on the outskirts of the modern city of Corinth). The acropolis of Athens (Attica) and that of Iolcus (Thessaly) are inhabited. The city of Menelaion (Laconia) is extensively rebuilt in the transition from the Late Helladic IIIB:2 to the Late Helladic IIIC, perhaps by refugees from other parts of mainland Greece. The settlements on the east coast of mainland Greece, such as Perati (Attica), Lefkandi (Euboea), Asine (the Argolid), and Epidauros Limera (Peloponnese) go through a period of prosperity and develop commercial and cultural relations with Naxos, Rhodes, Kos, and Crete. Lefkandi Ia is a major inhabited center with well-built rectangular houses that enclose multiple rooms and are arranged around a regular street plan. Its destruction will not break the vitality of this center, which will be rebuilt, perhaps by different   Pausanias, Periegesis III.1.3.   Homer, Iliad II.582. 8   Pausanias, Periegesis II.16.6, III.19.6. 6 7

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people than its previous inhabitants but who are nonetheless still Mycenaean (the reconstruction will give life to Lefkandi Ib). Asine is a town located on Cape Kastraki (near the modern seaside resort of Tolo), a few kilometers away from Nafplio. The site has been inhabited since the Early Helladic, when its occupants had contact with Milos, other Cycladic Islands, and Crete. During the Mycenaean period, Asine has always been an important port. Homer indicates it as being part of the kingdom of Diomedes, king of Argos.9 In the Late Helladic IIIC, Asine becomes the region’s main terminal for merchant traffic, connected with the Dodecanese and other parts of the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean. This will remain the case in the Protogeometric Period as well. The legacy of the Mycenaeans in terms of the transmarine trading network with the western Mediterranean is continued by the Cypriots, who, following the western Mediterranean trade routes already traveled by the Mycenaeans, visit Sardinia, attracted by the island’s mineral resources. The Cypriots do not limit themselves to trading with the Nuragic communities, to which, in exchange for metals, they supply double-edged tools (double axes, pickaxes, picks) and valuable bronze objects (cauldrons for the ritual boiling of meat, tripods-thuribles, mirrors); in some cases, they arrive to settle permanently on the island. Specialist artisans from the Eastern Mediterranean thus integrate themselves with the island communities and teach the indigenous people how to imitate the Aegean-Cypriot forms of painted ceramics and apply the lost wax technique, already in use in Cyprus and the coastal region of the Eastern Mediterranean, to bronze casting. This technique will be used to produce the “Nuragic bronzes.” As part of the transmission of technologies linked to metalworking, the foreigners introduce typically Cypriot smelter’s equipment to the Nuragic communities, consisting of firing pliers, coal shovels, and hammers of various sizes. It is possible that this equipment, as well as the Cypriot basins and tripods, is a gift given to local aristocracies in the Near Eastern fashion (before establishing a political-economic relationship, the royal families of the Ancient Near East conduct an exchange of objects of high artistic value, made with rare and valuable materials, which connote both the status of the offerer and that of the recipient). If this were the case, this would also prove that, at the end of the 2nd millennium, there are aristocratic élites in Sardinia capable of engaging in relations with Cypriot merchants. Furthermore, it would explain the coexistence of objects of Cypriot manufacture and their local imitations in terms of a change of taste and conditioning at an artistic and an ideological level that occurred within the Nuragic communities. In the meantime, in Mycenaean Greece, further developments are coming to fruition independently, even though close relations persist between one region and another. We refer here to the coexistence of the Serrato Style and the following other styles: the Cretan Fringed Style, in which the decoration covers the entire surface of the vessel with generally naturalistic (octopus, birds, fish) or geometric motifs; 9

  Homer, Iliad II.560.

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Knossos, Mycenae, Troy

see, for example, the stirrup jars with octopus motifs; the Pictorial Style of Lefkandi, to which kraters with chariot and military scenes belong; and the Granary Style of Mycenae, named after the presumed use of a building located near the Lion Gate; the most typical product of this style is the two-handled cup, entirely painted in a single color or decorated with a figured panel, surmounted by a subtle wave motif.

The coup de grâce The pottery of the Late Helladic IIIC is notably present in two tomb complexes in Attica (the necropolis of Salamis and that of the Pompeion in Athens), as well as on the top of the acropolis, in the Olympieion, and in other places in Athens. Ceramics of this period have also been found in the Argolid, Elis, Corinthia, Thebes (Boeotia), and Lefkandi (Euboea). The pottery of the Late Helladic IIC shows that, throughout Greece, the places where Mycenaean civilization radiated from remain interconnected and, indeed, further connected with other regions of the Mediterranean, both western and eastern. This is the last hurrah of the Mycenaean civilization. The recovery without the Palaces can be compared to the last glimmer of light from the setting sun. Around 1050 (the very end of the Late Helladic IIIC), the citadels of Mycenae, Tiryns, and Athens undergo a new, definitive upheaval due to yet another earthquake. The Lower City of Tiryns is abandoned. In Athens, the houses of the northern part of the acropolis are abandoned and fall into disrepair (one of the reasons for the site’s evacuation is that the water supply from the fountain has dried up). The acropolis of Mycenae is destroyed for good. From now on, the site will lie abandoned and deserted. Asine is destroyed (but will be rejuvenated). Similar catastrophes hit Koraku, Prosymna, and Barbati, all in the Argolid, Lefkandi Ib in Euboea, and at least two sites in Phthiotis: Kynos and Livanates. Menelaion (Laconia) is permanently abandoned. Evidence of a fire and possibly a massacre will emerge in one part of it (some severed heads will be found in a well). In Iolcus, the megaron structure, with its frescoed decorations, is destroyed. Eutresis (Boeotia), Agios Stephanos, and other settlements, such as Tsoungiza and Nichoria, are abandoned, even though they are not destroyed. Something similar can be said for Koraku, Prosymna, and Barbati: either they are abandoned or they lose a large part of their population. For the Mycenaean civilization, all this amounts to the coup de grâce. The resulting economic crisis is the cause of poverty and hardship for the survivors and of individual and collective conflicts. In Koraku, the defenses are strengthened. The settlement of Ageira in Achaea is fortified. The necropolis of Patras is enriched with the tombs of warriors, buried with their weapons. In this phase, all the necropolises with chamber tombs are abandoned and cist tombs with one or two people interred appear. The collapse of the palatine structures of mainland Greece and of the system of centralized government also has repercussions throughout the rest of Mycenaean Greece.