The Aftermath

For more than 300 years during the Late Bronze Age—from about the time of Hatshepsut’s reign beginning about 1500 BC until the time that everything collapsed after 1200 BC—the Mediterranean region played host to a complex international world in which Minoans, Mycenaeans, Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Mitannians, Canaanites, Cypriots, and Egyptians all interacted, creating a cosmopolitan and globalized world system such as has only rarely been seen before the current day.

This very internationalism that contributed to the apocalyptic disaster that ended the Bronze Age. The cultures of the Near East, Egypt, and Greece seem to have been so intertwined and interdependent by 1177 BC that the fall of one ultimately brought down the others, as, one after another, the flourishing civilizations were destroyed by acts of man or nature, or a lethal combination of both.

However, even after all that has been said, we must acknowledge our inability to determine with certainty the precise cause (or multitude of causes) for the collapse of civilizations and the transition from the end of the Late Bronze Age to the Iron Age in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean, or even to definitively identify the origins and motivations of the Sea Peoples. Nevertheless, if we pull together the threads of evidence that have been presented throughout our discussions, there are some things that we can say about this pivotal period with relative confidence.

For instance, we have reasonably good evidence that at least some international contacts and perhaps trade continued right up until the sudden end of the era, and possibly even beyond (if recent studies are any indication).1 This is shown, for instance, by the last letters in the Ugarit archives documenting contacts with Cyprus, Egypt, the Hittites, and the Aegean, as well as by the gifts sent by the Egyptian pharaoh Merneptah to the king of Ugarit just a few decades, at most, before the city was destroyed. At the very least, there is no evidence of a discernible decrease in contact and trade—except perhaps for momentary fluctuations in intensity— across the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean until the troubles began.

But then, the world as they had known it for more than three centuries collapsed and essentially vanished. As we have seen, the end of the Late Bronze Age in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean regions, an area that extended from Italy and Greece to Egypt and Mesopotamia, was a fluid event, taking place over the course of several decades and perhaps even up to a century, not an occurrence tied to a specific year. But the eighth year of the reign of the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses III—1177 BC, to be specific, according to the chronology currently used by most modern Egyptologists—stands out and is the most representative of the entire collapse. For it was in that year, according to the Egyptian records, that the Sea Peoples came sweeping through the region, wreaking havoc for a second time. It was a year when great land and sea battles were fought in the Nile delta; a year when Egypt struggled for its very survival; a year by which time some of the high-flying civilizations of the Bronze Age had already come to a crashing halt. In fact, one might argue that 1177 BC is to the end of the Late Bronze Age as AD 476 is to the end of Rome and the western Roman Empire. That is to say, both are dates to which modern 235 scholars can conveniently point as the end of a major era. Italy was invaded and Rome was sacked several times during the fifth century AD, including in AD 410 by Alaric and the Visigoths and in AD 455 by Geiseric and the Vandals. There were also many other reasons why Rome fell, in addition to these attacks, and the story is much more complex, as any Roman historian will readily attest. However, it is convenient, and considered acceptable academic shorthand, to link the invasion by Odoacer and the Ostragoths in AD 476 with the end of Rome’s glory days. The end of the Late Bronze Age and the transition to the Iron Age is a similar case, insofar as the collapse and transition was a rolling event, taking place between approximately 1225 and 1175 BC or, in some places, as late as 1130 BC. However, the second invasion by the Sea Peoples, ending in their cataclysmic fight against the Egyptians under Ramses III during the eighth year of his reign, in 1177 BC, is a reasonable benchmark and allows us to put a finite date on a rather elusive pivotal moment and the end of an age. We can say with certainty that the far-reaching civilizations that were still flourishing in the Aegean and the ancient Near East in 1225 BC had begun to vanish by 1177 BC and were almost completely gone by 1130 BC. The mighty Bronze Age kingdoms and empires were gradually replaced by smaller city-states during the following Early Iron Age. Consequently, our picture of the Mediterranean and Near Eastern world of 1200 BC is quite different from that of 1100 BC and completely different from that of 1000 BC. We have firm evidence that it took decades, and even centuries in some areas, for the people in these regions to rebuild and reclaim their societies, and to forge new lives that would bring them back up out of the darkness into which they had been plunged. Jack Davis of the University of Cincinnati has pointed out, for instance, that “the destruction to the Palace of Nestor ca. 1180 BC was so devastating that neither the palace nor the community subsequently recovered…. The area of the Mycenaean 236 kingdom of Pylos remained, as a whole in fact, severely depopulated for nearly a millennium.”2 Joseph Maran, of the University of Heidelberg, has further noted that, although we don’t know how contemporaneous the final destructions actually were in Greece, it is clear that after the catastrophes were over, “there were no palaces, the use of writing as well as all administrative structures came to an end, and the concept of a supreme ruler, the wanax, disappeared from the range of political institutions of Ancient Greece.”3 In terms of literacy and writing, the same holds true for Ugarit and the other entities that had flourished in the Eastern Mediterranean during the Late Bronze Age, for with their end came also the end of cuneiform writing in the Levant, replaced by other, perhaps more useful or convenient, writing systems.4 In addition to the artifacts, it is through writing that we have tangible, concrete evidence for the interconnectedness and globalization of these regions during those years, particularly in terms of explicit relationships between the specific individuals named in the letters. Especially important are the archive of letters at Amarna in Egypt, from the time of the pharaohs Amenhotep III and Akhenaten in the mid-fourteenth century BC, the archives at Ugarit in north Syria during the late thirteenth and early twelfth centuries, and those at Hattusa in Anatolia during the fourteenth–twelfth centuries. The letters in these various archives document the fact that numerous types of networks were in simultaneous existence in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean region during the Late Bronze Age, including diplomatic networks, commercial networks, transportation networks, and communication networks, all of which were needed to keep the globalized economy of that time functioning and flowing smoothly. The cutting, or even partial dismantling, of those related networks would have had a disastrous effect back then, just as it would on our world today. 237 However, as was the case with the fall of the western Roman Empire, the end of the Bronze Age empires in the Eastern Mediterranean was not the result of a single invasion or cause, but came about because of multiple incursions and manifold reasons. Many of the same invaders responsible for the destructions in 1177 BC had been active during the reign of Pharaoh Merneptah in 1207 BC, thirty years earlier. Earthquakes, drought, and other natural disasters had also ravaged the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean for decades. Therefore, no single incident can really be imagined to have brought about the end of the Bronze Age; rather, the end must have come as the consequence of a complex series of events that reverberated throughout the interconnected kingdoms and empires of the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean and eventually led to a collapse of the entire system, as we have seen. In addition to the loss of populations and the collapse of ordinary buildings and palaces alike, it seems likely that there was a loss, or at least a significant decline, in the relationships among the various kingdoms of the region. Even if not all of the places crashed and collapsed at exactly the same time, by the mid-twelfth century BC they had lost their interconnectedness and the globalization that had existed, especially during the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries BC. As Marc Van De Mieroop of Columbia University has said, the elites lost the international framework and the diplomatic contacts that had supported them, at the same time as foreign goods and ideas stopped arriving.5 They now had to start afresh. When the world emerged from the collapse of the Bronze Age, it was indeed a new age, including new opportunities for growth, particularly with the demise of the Hittites and the decline of the Egyptians, who, in addition to ruling their own regions, had also between them controlled most of Syria and Canaan for much of the Late Bronze Age.6 Although there was a certain amount of continuity in some areas, particularly with the Neo-Assyrians in 238 Mesopotamia, overall it was time for a new set of powers and a fresh start with new civilizations, including the Neo-Hittites in southeastern Anatolia, north Syria, and points farther east; the Phoenicians, Philistines, and Israelites in what had once been Canaan; and the Greeks in geometric, archaic, and then classical Greece. Out of the ashes of the old world came the alphabet and other inventions, not to mention a dramatic increase in the use of iron, which gave its name to the new era—the Iron Age. It is a cycle that the world has seen time and time again, and that many have come to believe is an inexorable process: the rise and fall of empires, followed by the rise of new empires, which eventually fall and are replaced in turn by even newer empires, in a repeated cadence of birth, growth and evolution, decay or destruction, and ultimately renewal in a new form. One of the most interesting, and fertile, fields of current research on the ancient world lies in the consideration of what happens after civilizations collapse, “beyond collapse,” but this is a topic for another book.7 An example of this research is the work of William Dever, professor emeritus at the University of Arizona and Distinguished Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology at Lycoming College, who said of the ensuing period in the region of Canaan: “Perhaps the most important conclusion to be drawn about the ‘Dark Age’ … is that it was nothing of the sort. Gradually being illuminated by archaeological discovery and research, [this period] emerges rather as the catalyst of a new age —one that would build upon the ruins of Canaanite civilization and would bequeath to the modern Western world a cultural heritage, especially through the Phoenicians and Israelites, of which we are still the benefactors.”8 Moreover, as Christopher Monroe has stated, “all civilizations eventually experience violent restructuring of material and ideological realities such as destruction or re-creation.”9 We see this in the constant rise and fall of empires over time, including the Akkadians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Hittites, Neo-Assyrians, 239 Neo-Babylonians, Persians, Macedonians, Romans, Mongols, Ottomans, and others, and we should not think that our current world is invulnerable, for we are in fact more susceptible than we might wish to think. While the 2008 collapse of Wall Street in the United States pales in comparison to the collapse of the entire Late Bronze Age Mediterranean world, there were those who warned that something similar could take place if the banking institutions with a global reach were not bailed out immediately. For instance, the Washington Post quoted Robert B. Zoellick, then the president of the World Bank, as saying that “the global financial system may have reached a ‘tipping point,’ ” which he defined as “the moment when a crisis cascades into a full-blown meltdown and becomes extremely difficult for governments to contain.”10 In a complex system such as our world today, this is all it might take for the overall system to become destabilized, leading to a collapse. WHAT IF? The period of the Late Bronze Age has rightfully been hailed as one of the golden ages in the history of the world, and as a period during which an early global economy successfully flourished. So we might ask, would the history of the world have taken a different turn, or followed a different path, if the civilizations in these regions had not come to an end? What if the series of earthquakes in Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean had not taken place? What if there had been no drought, no famine, no migrants or invaders? Would the Late Bronze Age have eventually come to an end anyway, since all civilizations seem to rise and fall? Would any of the developments that followed have eventually come about no matter what? Would progress have continued? Would additional advances in technology, literature, 240 and politics have been made centuries earlier than they actually were? Of course, these are rhetorical questions, and ones that cannot be answered, because the Bronze Age civilizations did come to an end and development did essentially have to begin completely anew in areas from Greece to the Levant and beyond. As a result, new peoples and/or new city-states like the Israelites, Aramaeans, and Phoenicians in the Eastern Mediterranean, and later the Athenians and Spartans in Greece, were able to establish themselves. From them eventually came fresh developments and innovative ideas, such as the alphabet, monotheistic religion, and eventually democracy. Sometimes it takes a large-scale wildfire to help renew the ecosystem of an old-growth forest and allow it to thrive afresh. 241 DRAMATIS PERSONAE (Listed in Alphabetical Order) The chronology for Egyptian regnal dates follows the most commonly accepted scheme, for which see, for example, Kitchen 1982 and Clayton 1994. The following list does not include all names mentioned in the text, but rather those of the major rulers and related personnel. Adad-nirari I: King of Assyria; ruled 1307–1275 BC. Conquered kingdom of Mitanni. Ahmose: Egyptian queen, Eighteenth Dynasty; ca. 1520 BC. Wife of Thutmose I and mother of Hatshepsut. Ahmose I: Pharaoh and founder of the Eighteenth Dynasty; ruled 1570–1546 BC. Responsible, along with his brother Kamose, for expelling the foreign Hyksos from Egypt. Akhenaten: Heretic pharaoh, Eighteenth Dynasty; ruled 1353–1334 BC. Banned all gods and goddess except for Aten; possible monotheist. Husband of Nefertiti; father of Tutankhamen. Amenhotep III: Pharaoh, Eighteenth Dynasty; ruled 1391–1353 BC. Extensive correspondence with fellow royal rulers found at the site of Amarna; established trade connections as far away as Mesopotamia and the Aegean. Ammistamru I: King of Ugarit; ruled ca. 1360 BC. Corresponded with the Egyptian pharaohs. Ammistamru II: King of Ugarit; ruled 1260–1235 BC. In charge during the time that Sinaranu sent his ship from Ugarit to Crete. Ammurapi: Last king of Ugarit; ruled ca. 1215–1190/85 BC. Ankhsenamen: Egyptian queen, Eighteenth Dynasty; ca. 1330 BC. Daughter of Akhenaten and wife of Tutankhamen. 242 Apophis: Hyksos king; ruled in Egypt ca. 1574 BC as part of the Fifteenth Dynasty. Quarreled with Seknenre, the Egyptian pharaoh ruling simultaneously elsewhere in the country. Assur-uballit I: King of Assyria; ruled 1363–1328 BC. Corresponded with Amarna pharaohs; major player in the world of realpolitik. Ay: Pharaoh, Eighteenth Dynasty; ruled 1325–1321 BC. Military man who became pharaoh by marrying Ankhsenamen after the death of Tutankhamen. Burna-Buriash II: Kassite king of Babylon; ruled 1359–1333 BC. Corresponded with Amarna pharaohs. Hammurabi: King of Babylon; ruled 1792–1750 BC. Renowned for his law code. Hatshepsut: Egyptian queen/pharaoh, Eighteenth Dynasty; ruled 1504–1480 BC. Came to the throne as regent for her stepson Thutmose III; ruled as pharaoh for approximately twenty years. Hattusili I: Hittite king; ruled 1650–1620 BC. Probably responsible for moving the Hittite capital to Hattusa. Hattusili III: Hittite king; ruled 1267–1237 BC. Signed peace treaty with Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II. Idadda: King of Qatna; presumably defeated by Hanutti, commander in chief of the Hittite army under Suppiluliuma I, ca. 1340 BC. Kadashman-Enlil I: Kassite king of Babylon; ruled ca. 1374–1360 BC. Corresponded with Amarna pharaohs; daughter married Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III. Kamose: Pharaoh; last king of the Seventeenth Dynasty; ruled 1573–1570 BC. Responsible, along with his brother Ahmose, for expelling the foreign Hyksos from Egypt. Kashtiliashu IV: Kassite king of Babylon; ruled ca. 1232–1225 BC. Defeated by TukultiNinurta I of Assyria. Khyan: Hyksos king, Fifteenth Dynasty; ruled ca. 1600 BC. One of the best known of the Hyksos kings; items with his name inscribed on them have been found in Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and the Aegean region. Kukkuli: King of Assuwa in northwestern Anatolia; ruled ca. 1430 BC. Initiated Assuwan Rebellion against the Hittites. Kurigalzu I: Kassite king of Babylon; ruled ca. 1400–1375 BC. Corresponded with Amarna pharaohs; daughter married Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III. 243 Kurigalzu II: Kassite king of Babylon; ruled ca. 1332–1308 BC. Puppet king who was placed on the throne by Assur-uballit I of Assyria. Kushmeshusha: King of Cyprus; ruled early twelfth century BC; a letter from this king was found in the House of Urtenu at Ugarit. Manetho: Egyptian priest who lived and wrote during the Hellenistic period, in the third century BC. Merneptah: Pharaoh, Nineteenth Dynasty; ruled 1212–1202 BC. Best known for his stele mentioning Israel and for fighting the first wave of the Sea Peoples. Mursili I: Hittite king; ruled 1620–1590 BC. Destroyed Babylon in 1595 BC, bringing an end to Hammurabi’s dynasty. Mursili II: Hittite king; ruled 1321–1295 BC. Son of Suppiluliuma I; wrote Plague Prayers and other historically important documents. Muwattalli II: Hittite king; ruled 1295–1272 BC. Fought against Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II at the battle of Qadesh. Nefertiti: Egyptian queen, Eighteenth Dynasty; ruled ca. 1350 BC. Married to Akhenaten, the heretic pharaoh; may have been a power behind the throne. Niqmaddu II: King of Ugarit; ruled ca. 1350–1315 BC. Corresponded with the Egyptian pharaohs during the Amarna Period. Niqmaddu III: Penultimate king of Ugarit; ruled ca. 1225–1215 BC. Niqmepa: King of Ugarit; ruled ca. 1313–1260 BC. Son of Niqmaddu II and father of Ammistamru II. Ramses II: Pharaoh, Nineteenth Dynasty; ruled 1279–1212 BC. Opponent of Hittite king Muwattalli II at the battle of Qadesh and later cosignatory of peace treaty with Hattusili III. Ramses III: Pharaoh, Twentieth Dynasty; ruled 1184–1153 BC. Fought against the second wave of Sea Peoples; assassinated in a harem conspiracy. Saushtatar: King of Mitanni; ruled ca. 1430 BC. Expanded the Mitannian kingdom by attacking the Assyrians and may have fought against the Hittites. Seknenre: Pharaoh, Seventeenth Dynasty; ruled ca. 1574 BC. Probably killed in battle, with at least one mortal head wound visible. Shattiwaza: King of Mitanni; ruled ca. 1340 BC. Son of Tushratta. Shaushgamuwa: King of Amurru, on northern coast of Syria; ruled ca. 1225 BC. Signed treaty with Hittites in late thirteenth century BC, mentioning Ahhiyawa. 244 Shutruk-Nahhunte: Elamite king in southwestern Iran; ruled 1190–1155 BC. Related to the Kassite dynasty ruling Babylon, he attacked the city and overthrew its king in 1158 BC. Shuttarna II: King of Mitanni; ruled ca. 1380 BC. Corresponded with Amarna pharaohs; daughter married Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III. Sinaranu: Merchant in Ugarit; ca. 1260 BC. Sent ship(s) to Minoan Crete; exempt from taxation. Suppiluliuma I: Hittite king; ruled ca. 1350–1322 BC. Powerful king; expanded Hittite holdings throughout much of Anatolia and down into northern Syria. Corresponded with Egyptian queen who requested one of his sons as her husband. Suppiluliuma II: Last Hittite king; ruled ca. 1207 BC onward. Fought several naval battles and invaded Cyprus during his reign. Tarkhundaradu: King of Arzawa, in southwestern Anatolia; ruled ca. 1360 BC. Corresponded with Amarna pharaohs; daughter married Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III. Thutmose I: Pharaoh, Eighteenth Dynasty; ruled 1524–1518 BC. Father of Hatshepsut and Thutmose II. Thutmose II: Pharaoh, Eighteenth Dynasty; ruled 1518–1504 BC. Half brother and husband of Hatshepshut; father of Thutmose III. Thutmose III: Pharaoh, Eighteenth Dynasty; ruled 1479–1450 BC. One of the most powerful Egyptian pharaohs; fought the battle of Megiddo during the first year of his reign. Tiyi: Egyptian queen, eighteenth Dynasty; ruled ca. 1375 BC. Wife of Amenhotep III; mother of Akhenaten. Tudhaliya I/II: Hittite king; ruled ca. 1430 BC. Put down the Assuwan Rebellion, dedicating Mycenaean sword(s) at Hattusa afterward. Tudhaliya IV: Hittite king; ruled 1237–1209 BC. Responsible for the sanctuary at Yazlikaya, near Hattusa. Tukulti-Ninurta I: King of Assyria; ruled 1243–1207 BC. Tushratta: King of Mitanni; ruled ca. 1360 BC. Son of Shuttarna II; corresponded with Amarna pharaohs; daughter married Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III. Tutankhamen: Pharaoh, Eighteenth Dynasty; ruled 1336–1327 BC. Famous boy king who died young, with fabulous wealth placed in his tomb. 245 Twosret: Egyptian queen, last ruler of the Nineteenth Dynasty; widow of Pharaoh Seti II; known to have ruled 1187–1185 BC. Zannanza: Hittite prince, son of Suppiluliuma I; lived ca. 1324 BC; promised in marriage to widowed Egyptian queen but assassinated while en route to Egypt. Zimri-Lim: King of Mari in what is now modern Syria; ruled 1776–1758 BC. Contemporary of Hammurabi of Babylon and author of some of the “Mari Letters,” which give insight into life in Mesopotamia during the eighteenth century BC. 246