first for discovering Hissarlik—the hillside in modern-day Turkey—and then for unearthing much of the Mycenaean civilization on the Greek mainland.
Is there a reason why so many great archaeological discoveries were made during the nineteenth century?
Literary scholars—who study the Old Testament and the works of such authors as Homer and Hesiod—led the way, but it was the men with their hands in the dirt—the nineteenth-century archaeologists—who made the most astonishing discoveries. A Frenchman found the ruins of ancient Assyria, an Englishman deciphered the Old Persian inscriptions on Darius’ rock in present-day Iran, and a German found what may have been the city of Troy and what was most certainly Mycenae.
At Mycenae, Schliemann unearthed enormous tombs, a throne room, and a suggestion of just how impressive the Mycenaean civilization was. His discoveries, naturally, led to another question: What happened to Mycenae and its people? To the best of our knowledge, they were overthrown by wild men from distant places: the barbaric folk that we often call the Sea Peoples.
What these men—and perhaps a score of others from that time—had in common was a classical education and a lot of time. Some were men of leisure and others had acquired their wealth the hard way, but they all believed the ancient world more fascinating than their own and were determined to ferret out its most remarkable ruins. Today there are far more archaeologists in the field, but few of them get to experience the amazing discoveries available to nineteenth-century amateurs, who literally turned studies of the ancient world on their heads.
How was bronze superior to copper, which was previously the preferred material for the making of weapons?
Bronze was much tougher. Perhaps around 7,000 years ago—or 5000 B.C.E.—people in the Middle East began to forge bronze by adding small amounts of tin to copper. The new technology spread slowly, but about 5,000 years ago, practically all the new civilizations—especially those along the river Nile and in the region we now call Iraq—were using bronze. As a result, the weapons of the new civilized peoples were quite impressive. The Egyptian army even had some early form of uniforms with the shafts of their spears being forged alike, displaying the same colors on their banners. For a time, the use of bronze gave the settled peoples an edge over their nomadic foes. This changed, however, when the nomads began using chariots.
How long have chariots been around?
Both chariots and the use of horses in battle are relative newcomers to the stage. The earliest horses of whom we have certain knowledge were too small—and weak in the back—to support human riders. Horses were “bred,” however, and by about 2000 B.C.E. they appeared on battlefields, usually on the side of the nomads.
The civilized people in these battles—the Egyptians, Babylonians, and so forth—were able to capture horses and learn the equestrian arts, but it took them a long time to catch up to the nomads in terms of the use of chariots. Chariot warfare came naturally to nomadic folk, who sent down rains of arrows against their more civilized foes. Even Egypt, which is often credited with pioneering the chariot, borrowed the original idea from a nomadic group.
How large were the armies of the Late Bronze Age?
They were quite small by modern standards. Egypt may have possessed an army of 50,000, but it is unlikely that any Pharaoh could mobilize, much less feed, one-fifth of that number at any one time. Sumer, and later Babylonia, possessed around the same average range of numbers.
What we would call modern-day methods of military conscription and large-scale armies had to wait until the turn of the first millennium B.C.E. Even then, feeding the men remained a large problem.
What happened to the Late Bronze Age societies?
Nearly all of them either perished or were greatly reduced in importance and strength. Around 1175 B.C.E., a series of invasions took place which brought low the Assyrian kingdom, the Hittites, and quite possibly the Mycenaeans too. Lacking any records from the other side, we have to use the expression “the Sea Peoples” to describe the impact of these invaders on the civilized part of the eastern Mediterranean.
The Sea Peoples may have come from Sicily and Sardinia; it’s equally possible that they came from the Black Sea and some of the Greek islands. In either case, the Sea Peoples came like a rush against the Hittites, Minoans, Assyrians, and even Egypt. The only remaining visual record of these peoples is contained in a bas-relief in Egypt.
Who was Ramses and why do we remember his reign so well?
The Pharaoh Ramses III (1186–1155 B.C.E.)—not to be confused with his more famous grandfather, Ramses II—left a telling set of inscriptions on a bas-relief in Egypt, including both an account of the invasion of the Sea Peoples and a pictorial representation of them. They seem “otherworldly” in the sense that aliens (in our movies and books) do today. Ramses III shows the Sea Peoples humbled by a valiant defense in the Nile River Delta. What he does not show is equally interesting: it may have been a close, near-run thing.
That the Sea Peoples nearly conquered Egypt demonstrates their strength and ferocity. On the bas-relief, Ramses III describes how the various Sea Peoples—he names six of their groups—attacked practically all the civilizations and how all except Egypt were laid low. Even in the case of Egypt, historians believe that the kingdom was badly damaged by their attacks and would not be strong again for several centuries.
Were the Sea Peoples alone responsible for all the devastation of the Late Bronze Age?
We think not. Ferocious as they were, the Sea Peoples were a passing phenomenon. Their actions, and the subsequent destruction, may have taken place over one or two generations. By contrast, the eastern Mediterranean was wracked by natural disaster and a fair amount of climate change, both of which likely contributed to the general breakdown of that part of the civilized world.
The ruins of the Grand Staircase at King Minos’ palace in Crete stands as a reminder of a once-great civilization that likely collapsed, in part, because of climate changes.
The Minoan civilization on Crete—named for the legendary King Minos—had already suffered cataclysmic destruction following the eruption of the volcano of Santorini on the Island of Thera. Scholars believe that this eruption, which happened around 1627 B.C.E., was so destructive that the tsunami which followed may have given rise to various tales of the Great Flood.
How low did the various civilizations fall?
Israel—or the twin kingdoms of Israel and Judah—survived the destruction fairly well. Egypt was staggered by the changes, but it remained the most stable place in the Middle East. Other areas—such as central Turkey and inland Greece—may have been set back by as much as 300 years.
Greece, perhaps most notably, fell into a period we now call a Dark Age. Very likely, good things were happening under the surface, but they were not visible. When Homer sang and played on his lyre, he did so about the heroes of the Mycenaean Age, a time which had come and gone. He did not expect that Greece would soon rise again.
Why do we sometimes call them the Hebrews and sometimes the Jews?
There is yet another name: the Israelites. Each of the names refers to the same people at different times in their history. What unites the three names is the religious element.
By around 1800 B.C.E., the Hebrews were one of the smaller, less warlike peoples of the Middle East, occupying sections of the land that is now the State of Israel. By around 1000 B.C.E., they called themselves Hebrews or Israelites with equal certainty, because they had established the Kingdom of Israel. The name Jews came a bit later.
Who represented the greatest threat to the Kingdom of Israel?
The