Tiryns

Just a few kilometers from Mycenae, the excavations at Tiryns in the Argolid region of mainland Greece have been ongoing since the days of Heinrich Schliemann in the late 1800s. Evidence for destructions at the site has been recorded by most of the excavators, but most recently by Joseph Maran, of the University of Heidelberg.

In 2002 and 2003, Maran continued the excavation of two structures, known as Buildings XI and XV within the Lower Citadel at the site, portions of which had been excavated by his predecessor Klaus Kilian. They are believed to have been in use for only a very short time before being destroyed. In destruction debris dated to ca. 1200 BC or just after, he found a number of very interesting artifacts, including a small ivory rod with a cuneiform inscription, which was either imported or made/used by a foreigner living at Tiryns during this tumultuous period.110 Maran reports that this destruction was the result of a “catastrophe that struck Tiryns … [and which] destroyed the palace and the settlement in the Lower Citadel.” He further notes, as Kilian had already suggested, that based on “undulating walls” visible in some buildings, the probable cause of the destruction was a strong earthquake, and that “recent excavations in neighboring Midea have [now] supported this interpretation.”111 Kilian had long argued that an earthquake destroyed Tiryns and also affected several other sites in the Argolid, such as Mycenae; other archaeologists are now in agreement with this hypothesis.112 Kilian wrote, “The evidence consists of building remains with tilted and curved walls and foundations, as well as skeletons of people killed and buried by the collapsed walls of houses.”

Mycenae suffered a major destruction, ca. 1250 BC, which was probably caused by an earthquake. As described in more detail below, there is substantial evidence for one or more earthquakes severely impacting numerous sites in Greece at about this time, and not just Mycenae and Tiryns in the Argolid.

However, archaeological evidence from the ongoing excavations has conclusively shown that Tiryns was not completely destroyed. The city continued in use for another round of occupation lasting several more decades, with significant rebuilding in some portions, especially in the lower city.114

DESTRUCTIONS IN CYPRUS

In the Eastern Mediterranean, the Sea Peoples have been blamed for the Bronze Age disruptions on Cyprus, ca. 1200 BC, as well. It used to be thought that the case was pretty clear-cut. Thirty years ago, Vassos Karageorghis, then the director of antiquities on the island, wrote: “The peaceful conditions … were to change towards the end of Late Cypriot II [i.e., ca. 1225 BC]. Although we may not accept as entirely accurate the boastful assertion of the Hittites that they exercised control over Cyprus … we cannot ignore the fact that during the reign of Shuppiluliuma II conditions in the East Mediterranean could not have been calm.”

Karageorghis went on to suggest that “large numbers of refugees” left mainland Greece when the “Mycenaean empire” (as he called it) collapsed, and that they became plunderers and adventurers, who eventually reached Cyprus in the company of others, ca. 1225 BC. He attributed to them the destructions on Cyprus at this time, including the major sites of Kition and Enkomi on the eastern coast, as well as activity at other sites such as MaaPalaeokastro, Kalavasos-Ayios Dhimitrios, Sinda, and Maroni.

The small site of Maa-Palaeokastro is especially interesting, as it was built specifically during this period of troubles, that is, toward the end of the thirteenth century BC. Karageorghis, who excavated the site, described it as “a fortified [military] outpost on a headland of the western coast.”

As he pointed out, it was naturally fortified by the steep sides of the headland and surrounded on three sides by the sea, so that it needed to be fortified only at the point where it joined the mainland. He believed that this outpost was established by the invaders from the Aegean, who then raided Enkomi and Kition from this enclave, only to be destroyed in turn by a second influx of settlers from the Aegean, probably ca. 1190 BC, who then established permanent residency on the island.

Karageorghis believed that other similar foreign enclaves or outposts had been established at Cypriot sites like Sinda and PylaKokkinokremos. For example, he noted that the fortified settlement of Sinda, which is located just inland and to the west of Enkomi, was violently destroyed ca. 1225 BC. New floors were then laid and new buildings constructed directly on top of this burned destruction layer, possibly by the invaders from the Aegean.

These destructions, and constructions, however, are probably too early to fit the dates of incursions of the Sea Peoples—at least those described by Merneptah in 1207 BC or Ramses III in 1177 BC. Consequently, Karageorghis suggested that an earlier wave of bellicose peoples from the Aegean had arrived on Cyprus even before the Sea Peoples, by ca. 1225 BC at the latest. The subsequent arrival of the Sea Peoples could be seen in the excavations at Enkomi, on the coast of Cyprus, which “revealed a second catastrophe … associated by some scholars with the raids of the Sea Peoples.” This second level of destruction, he said, dated to ca. 1190 BC.

There is, however, no real evidence to identify who was to blame for any of the destructions of 1225–1190 BC at any of these sites on Cyprus. It is quite possible that Tudhaliya and the Hittites —who, after all, did claim to have attacked and conquered Cyprus at this approximate time—caused at least some of the destructions ca. 1225 BC. Furthermore, we have already seen that another Hittite attack on the island also reportedly took place during the reign of Suppiluliuma II (who came to the Hittite throne ca. 1207 BC), as he claims in his records. Thus, it may be that it is the Hittites, rather than the Sea Peoples, who were responsible for most of the destructions on Cyprus during this turbulent period.

There is even one text, sent by the governor of Cyprus (Alashiya), which seems to indicate that ships from Ugarit may have caused some of the damage, as well as a possibility that at least some of the devastation could have been caused by an earthquake or earthquakes. At Enkomi, the excavators discovered the bodies of children who had been killed by falling mud-bricks from the superstructure of the building, which would seem to indicate the hand of Mother Nature rather than that of humans.

The scenario envisioned by Karageorghis has now been amended to form a more complex view of the proceedings on Cyprus during this period at the end of the Late Bronze Age. Even Karageorghis had been quickly persuaded that, at each of the sites in question, there was only one set of destructions, and not two; and that they ranged from as early as 1190 BC to as late as 1174 BC, rather than from 1225 BC onward.121 A more recent history of the period, written by British scholar Louise Steel, states that the “traditional view of the … period is of a Mycenaean colonization of Cyprus (and the southern Levant) following the collapse of Mycenaean palaces. However … there was no simple imposition of Mycenaean culture on the island. Instead, the … material demonstrates a syncretism of influences that reflect the cosmopolitan nature of the [Late Cypriot] cultural identity.

Mycenaean (or Aegean) culture is not simply transposed from the Aegean to Cyprus but merges with the indigenous Cypriot culture.”122

Steel also calls Karageorghis’s conclusions, and the conventional view of the Aegean colonization of Cyprus, into question. For instance, rather than seeing sites such as MaaPalaeokastro and Pyla-Kokkinokremos as foreign or Aegean “defensive outposts,” she states that the evidence seems to better support identification of these as local Cypriot strongholds, with the latter established, for example, “to ensure movement of goods, in particular metals, between the harbour towns … and the Cypriot hinterland.”123 She states further that “the conventional interpretation of Maa-Palaeokastro as an early Aegean stronghold has yet to be rigorously tested,” and suggests that both MaaPalaeokastro and Pyla-Kokkinokremos might actually be examples of indigenous Cypriot strongholds, analogous to the defensive settlements built at approximately this time on the island of Crete.

Other scholars, including Bernard Knapp of the University of Edinburgh, have now suggested that the so-called Mycenaean colonization so prevalent in earlier scholarly literature was neither Mycenaean nor a colonization. Instead, it was more probably a period of hybridization, during which aspects of Cypriot, Aegean, and Levantine material culture were appropriated and reused to form a new elite social identity.125 In other words, we are looking once again at a globalized culture, reflecting a multitude of influences at the end of the Bronze Age, just before the collapse. On the other hand, we still have Paul Åström’s comments about his excavation at the site of Hala Sultan Tekke, on the coast of Cyprus near the modern city of Larnaka, which he described as “a town partly destroyed by fire and deserted in haste.”

Here, sometime around or after 1200 BC, “loose objects were left abandoned in the courtyards and valuables were hidden in the ground. Bronze arrowheads—one of them found stuck in the side of a wall of a building—and numerous lead sling bullets scattered all over the place are eloquent proof of war.”126 This is one of the few clear instances of enemy attackers, and yet they did not leave a calling card, either here or anywhere else for that matter. There is also now recent scientific evidence from the lagoon at Hala Sultan Tekke that the region was quite possibly suffering from the effects of a severe drought at this same time, as we shall discuss below.

Thus, we are now faced with a situation in which our current knowledge is being reassessed and conventional historical paradigms are being overthrown, or at least called into question. While it is clear that there were destructions on Cyprus either just before or after 1200 BC, it is by no means clear who was responsible for this damage; possible culprits range from the Hittites to invaders from the Aegean to Sea Peoples and even earthquakes. It is also conceivable that what we see in the archaeological record is merely the material culture of those who took advantage of these destructions and settled into the now fully or partially abandoned cities and settlements, rather than the material culture of those who were actually responsible for the destructions.

Regardless, Cyprus seems to have survived these depredations essentially intact. There is now every indication that the island was flourishing during the remainder of the twelfth and into the eleventh century BC; evidence includes Egyptian texts such as “The Report of Wenamun,” concerning an Egyptian priest and emissary who was shipwrecked on the island ca. 1075 BC.128 However, Cyprus’s resilience came about only as a result of the rather dramatic restructuring of its political and economic organization, which allowed the island and its polities to last until the end finally came, ca. 1050 BC.