The Ethnicity of the Sea Peoples - RePub - Erasmus Universiteit ...

8. THE RISE AND FALL OF THE MYCENAEAN GREEKS
In the history of the Greeks from the time of their formation
to that of the downfall of the Mycenaean palaces, we
can distinguish three major phases: 1. the period of the
Minoan thalassocracy (c. 1550-1450 BC), 2. the Minoan-
Mycenaean transitional period (c. 1450-1350 BC), and 3.
the period of the Mycenaean koin (c. 1350-1185 BC).
In the period of the Minoan thalassocracy, the Greek
mainland appears to have been at least partly subject to
Minoan overlords. This is suggested by the Attic tradition
according to which in the time of king Aigeus, the father of
the Athenian hero Theseus, a yearly tribute of seven young
girls and seven boys was due to the Cretan king Minos.
These girls and boys, so the story goes, were to be sacrificed
to the Minotaur of the labyrinth in king Minos’ palace
at Knossos. That Theseus, with the help of Ariadne,
the daughter of king Minos, slayed the Minotaur and freed
Athens from the ignominious yoke of Minoan domination,
does not, of course, alter the fact that the Athenians were
tributaries beforehand. 177
The period of Minoan thalassocracy ends with the for
the Minoans disastrous eruption of the Santorini volcano.
The discussion on the chronology of this event – and hence
its impact – has recently received a new impetus by Manfred
Bietak’s sensational find of tephra from the Minoan
eruption of the Santorini volcano in Tel el-Dab‘a/Avaris in
a layer dated to the reign of Tuthmosis III (1479-1425
BC). As the reign of the latter pharaoh synchronizes with
Late Minoan IB, the eruption in question can now safely
be held responsible for the massive destructions at the end
of this particular period (c. 1450 BC). 178 Having lost the
ships of their fleet because of this disaster, the Minoans
were an easy prey to the Mycenaeans of mainland Greece.
Soon after the eruption of the Santorini volcano, the
Mycenaeans, archaeologically traceable by warrior graves
of mainland type and their predilection for so-called Ephyraean
goblets, took over control of the island of Crete,
177 Woudhuizen 1992a: 55.
178 Bietak 2000: 194; this evidence now supersedes that presented
by Driessen & Macdonald 1997 (end of Late Minoan IA, c. 1500
BC) and Manning 1999 (1628 BC). For an overview of the problem
of the Santorini eruption, see Woudhuizen 1992a: 47-79.
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which they ruled from the palace of Knossos. 179 As first
pointed out by Fritz Schachermeyr, this takeover of power
in Crete has its reflection in the wall paintings of Aegean
embassies in the graves of Egyptian dignitaries. Thus, in
the tomb of Rekhmare, which was finished early in the
reign of Tuthmosis III’s successor Amenhotep II (1427-
1400 BC), the Minoan kilts with “codpieces” are replaced
by Mycenaean ones without “codpieces”, whereas in the
slightly later tomb of Menkheperreseneb a prince of the
land of Keftiu (= Crete) is depicted in altogether Mycenaean
style with a beard. 180 Further proof is afforded by the
Linear B tablets from Knossos, which are accidentally preserved
by the fire that destroyed the palace at the end of
our Minoan-Mycenaean transitional period (= Late Minoan
IIIA1/2, c. 1350 BC). Owing to the decipherment of Linear
B by Michael Ventris in 1952, we know namely that this
script was used to write Greek. 181 At the same time, however,
a Minoan rest group is allowed to continue their own
traditions in the Mesara plain, of which fact modest Linear
A archives of about 150 tablets in sum at Hagia Triada (=
HT) and two Cretan hieroglyphic inscriptions, the famous
discus of Phaistos and the double-axe of Arkalokhori, bear
testimony (see further section 12 below).
Within the frame of international politics, our Minoan-Mycenaean
transitional period can itself be subdivided
into three distinct subphases. 182 The first subphase is
characterized by the vicissitudes of the so-called Assuwian
league – a short lived coalition of forces from Troy in the
north to Lycia in the south of western Anatolia under the
leadership of the royal house of the later kingdom of Arzawa
and named after the Asios leimn “Asian field” near
the latter’s capital Apasa (= Ephesos). As indicated by a
retrospective passage in a Hittite text of later date, the influence
of this league radiated to the islands (Luwian gursawara)
of the Aegean. 183 Among these islands may well
179 Woudhuizen 1992a: 66-77.
180 Schachermeyr 1960; Schachermeyr 1980: 457-8.
181 Ventris & Chadwick 1973.
182 See on this subdivision Achterberg, Best, Enzler, Rietveld &
Woudhuizen 2004, section 8.
183 Starke 1981.