T HE C OLLAPSE (~1100 BC) OF M YCENAEAN C IVILIZATION Santorini
500 yrs earlier
Slide 2
1320/1300-1050/1030 2 centuries of documented disasters:
1250-1050 bc Multiple destructions across Mycenaean world
Slide 3
F AULT L INES IN THE A REA Known tectonic Stress Features Black
dots show various Mycanaen Ruins
Slide 4
D ESTRUCTION AT M YCENAE Houses outside citadel (south of Grave
Circle B) destroyed by fire
Slide 5
Fire Accidental or Deliberate? Oil from stirrup jars poured
over floor of House of the Oil Merchant
Slide 6
Cisterns & Expanded, Strengthened Fortifications water
scarcity?
Slide 7
G LA Massive engineering project to drain Copaic Basin
Fortified granary? Drainage channels destroyed
Slide 8
T IRYNS Enclosure of lower citadel Syringes (underground water
supply)
Slide 9
F URTHER D ISASTERS : Earthquake & Fire at Tiryns, Mycenae
& Midea Mycenaean Collapse due to Natural Disasters? But Fire
(not earthquake) destroys Menelaion, Nichoria & palace at Pylos
Earthquake topples all the oil lamps???
Slide 10
POPULATION MOVEMENTS AROUND THIS TIME: Massive depopulation of
Messenia Depopulation of Argolid, Lakonia Influx in Achaia
Slide 11
SOCIAL UNREST IDEA Peasant revolt against elite? But why
abandon fertile land?
Slide 12
New fortifications due to threat from outside or inside
Mycenaean World? Watchers by the Sea => fear of piratic
neighboring Mycenaeans? Myths of Conflict post Trojan War =>
Internecine Strife? Eteocles and Polyneices: Theban vs. Argos?
Slide 13
Dendrochronology says drought in Anatolia may have destroyed
Hittite Empire Possible but Unproven for Greece But why so many
palaces destroyed at the same time?
Slide 14
In the seventh book of his History Herodotus recounts that
Crete was so beset by famine and pestilence after the Trojan War
that it became virtually uninhabited until its resettlement by
later inhabitants.
Slide 15
Sea Peoples as a disruptive Force
Slide 16
"No land could stand before their arms, from Hatti, Qode,
Carchemish, Arzawa and Alasiya on, being cut off at one time. A
camp was set up in one place in Amurru. They desolated its people,
and its land was like that which has never come into being. They
were coming toward Egypt, while the flame was prepared before them.
Their confederation was the Peleset, Tjeker, Shekelesh, Denyen, and
Weshesh, lands united. They laid their hands upon the land as far
as the circuit of the earth, their hearts confident and trusting:
'Our plans will succeed!'
Slide 17
Cut-and-thrust swords as evidence of Northern invaders?
Slide 18
Good Evidence for Sea Peoples in Egypt and swords in Greece in
good Mycenaean contexts: graves, etc.
Slide 19
Disruption of Trade Fragile palace economies pushed over the
edge by collapse of trade routes But, again, why abandon fertile
land?
Slide 20
Change in Warfare Light-armed, swift-moving Infantry with
Javelin replaces Chariot-based warfare Mycenaean, Hittite, &
other Near Eastern empires collapse
Slide 21
Confusing Possibilities (a) Internal Social Upheaval (b)
Mycenaean States at war (c) Climate Change (d) Invasion from
Outside the Aegean World (e) Changes in the Nature of Warfare
Economic Factors (f) EARTHQUAKES
Slide 22
From April 2013 Seismological Society of America conference
Hinzen etal: In the 1970s, the archaeologist K. Kilian first
published the hypothesis that several destructive earthquakes
contributed to the decline of Mycenaean palatial society,
culminating in collapse around 1200 B.C.E. Damaged buildings and
structures of the Tiryns citadel in the Argolid, Peloponnese,
Greece, formed the nucleus of the hypothesis. The ruins of the
Mycenaean center of Midea, situated 7 km east of Tiryns, also
exhibit damage. As both Tiryns and Midea were built on top of
cone-shaped limestone hills, topographic amplification of seismic
waves may have been a contributing factor to any structural
earthquake damage.
