The bronze age and the Celtic world - Universal History Library

114 THE BRONZE AGE AND THE CELTIC WORLD
of Ares. Now Ares was the god of the Thracians, or of some group of people inhabiting
Thrace.*' It would seem then that some, probably most, of the " Achaeans " came
from the Thraco-Phrygian stock, though whether they started on their way from Thrace,
or left the main body before it had reached that country, is a matter of relatively small
importance. When the archaeology of Macedonia and Thrace is better understood, we
shall doubtless be able to clear up this point.
It is unfortunately not possible to date these swords with precision from their
associations, as there are difficulties in ascertaining the exact position in which they were
found, or in identifying the potsherds and other objects found with them. They are
believed to date from the third Late Minoan period, that is to say, sometime after
140D or 1350 B.C. It is here that our Egyptian evidence helps us.
We learn from the Egyptian records that^° in the fifth year of Merneptah,
1220 B.C., the Delta was attacked by Meryey, king of the Libyans, who brought with him
a host of Tehenu, who had been Uving in the country behind Alexandria. He had also
numerous oversea allies, pirates and traders, who came in search of loot. These Were
the Sherden, Shekelesh, Teresh and the Ekwesh. If the three first have been rightly
identified, they were the people of Sardinia and Sicily and the Tyrsenians, who we know
later as the Etruscans ; whether these identifications are correct has been much
disputed, but it is significant that all three represent areas or peoples which we have
already identified with Prospector activities. On the fourth the Ekwesh, there is more
general agreement, and I believe all authorities unite in seeing in this name the word
" Achaean." If this be so, our Nordic intruders, who had made themselves lords of
the trading cities in Greece, had taken to the sea, Hke their fellows in the Baltic, and were,
with Prospector allies, attacking and plundering the rich lands of the Delta.
It is to this expedition that I attribute the two swords already described, as
indeed was suggested some years ago by Professor Peet.^^ One is unquestionably of
Type D, the type which has been most commonly found in Greek lands, while the other
seems, as far as can be judged from its damaged hilt, to be also of the same type. The
latter is engraved with the name of Seti II., who reigned from 1209 to 1205 B.C., and
»9 Ridgeway (1901) 339, 380.
3» Breasted (1912) 467 ; Hall (1913) 70, 377, he gives the date as 1230 B.C.
3' Peet (1911-12) 282.