The Mediterranean and Middle East, 2000-500 BCETracy Rosselle, M.A.T.Newsome High School, Lithia, FL

The Aegean World, 2000-1100 BCE Israel, 2000-500 BCE Phoenicia & Mediterranean, 1200-500 BCE

The Aegean worldThe Aegean Sea is a pocket

of the Mediterranean Sea between Greece and Asia Minor, the Latin term for Anatolia (modern-day Turkey). This region of the world has been a real hot spot throughout world history. Two early civilizations – Minoan and Mycenaean – influenced the later Greeks.

A note on geography Southern Greece and the many islands of the Aegean have rocky, arid

landscapes, with small plains between hills limited arable land.

Rough coastlines with natural harbors and neighboring small islands sea transportation very important, fast and cheap.

Commerce is key What does the land produce? Grains, grapevines and

olive trees. Flocks of sheep and goats graze the slopes.

But with few deposits of metal and little timber, Aegean peoples had to import these commodities and other food from abroad success of societies therefore closely tied to commercial and political relations with other peoples in the region.

Minoan civilization Dominating trade in the eastern Mediterranean from about

2000-1400 BCE was the Minoan civilization, a seafaring people living on the island of Crete.

Influenced by the older civilizations from Mesopotamia and Egypt but evolving their own unique culture, the Minoans were the first Europeans to have complex political and social structures, and advanced technologies.

They had centralized government, monumental building, bronze metallurgy, writing and recordkeeping (but the writing, called Linear A, hasn’t been deciphered yet).

A bull in the basement Archaeologists named the

civilization after King Minos (MY-nuhs), who was said to have ruled a vast naval empire and to have kept the monstrous Minotaur (half-man, half-bull) beneath his palace in a mazelike labyrinth designed by the ingenious inventor Daedalus (DED-ih-luhs).

Bully for the bull

Many works of Minoan art show young men performing acrobatic leaps over the horns of angry bulls. Was bull leaping a sport? Just a “fun” activity? An initiation for young warriors? Or a religious ritual? Perhaps it was all of these things.

A fresco wall painting found at Knossos, the Minoan capital. It depicts bull leaping.

Minoan culture Minoans sacrificed bulls and other animals to their gods, and

there’s some evidence of human sacrifice.

Many artworks depict women and their role in religious ceremonies, suggesting women held a higher rank than in most other neighboring cultures.

Paintings, official seals and vases portray Minoans as graceful, athletic people who loved nature and beautiful objects, and enjoyed sports such as boxing and wrestling.

Minoan culture (cont.) Egyptian, Syrian and Mesopotamian influences can be seen

in design of Minoan palaces, centralized government and writing system.

No identifiable representations of Cretan rulers, however different conception of authority than in the Middle East?

No fortifications at the palace sites limited exposure to war?

Had high-quality indoor plumbing.

Moanin’ the Minoan decline Scholars believe Minoan culture died out when they could

not recover from natural disaster and possibly a subsequent invasion of another people, the Mycenaean (my-suh-NEE-uhn) Greeks.

In 1470 BCE a series of earthquakes rocked Crete, followed by a volcanic eruption on a nearby island … which may have spawned a tidal wave.

Unlike their recoveries from previous earthquakes, they had trouble rebuilding, and some scholars believe Mycenaeans invaded and deliberately destroyed houses and palaces.

Mycenaean civilization

Although Minoan cultural influence was extensive throughout the region, no evidence shows Cretan political control over the Greek mainland.

The first advanced

civilization in Greece is therefore called Mycenaean because Mycenae (my-SEE-nee) was the first excavated site.

MycenaeMycenae

Migrations south Most historians believe that speakers of an Indo-European

language ancestral to Greek migrated into the Greek peninsula around 2000 BCE, blending with the indigenous population to form the first Greek culture.

For centuries people there eked out a meager Stone Age living, but around 1600 BCE conditions changed suddenly.

A rich civilization flourished until about 1150 BCE, when Greek history entered a “Dark Age.”

The archaeological evidence The appearance and dating of objects such as pottery and

crafted goods suggest Cretan merchants (Minoans) pioneered trade routes throughout the Mediterranean and Middle East, then admitted Mycenaean traders, who eventually supplanted them in the 15th century BCE.

Numerous pots in the region would have carried wine and olive oil.

Other possible exports: weapons, crafted goods, slaves and mercenary soldiers.

The sea trade Mycenaean sailors (as well as Minoans before them) may

have profited by transporting trade goods of other peoples.

Imports included grains, gold (prized by rulers), copper and tin for bronze making, amber (a hard, translucent, yellowish-brown fossil resin used for jewelry) from northern Europe, and ivory carved in Syria.

Trade and piracy were intertwined: the Mycenaeans were tough, warlike, acquisitive traded with the strong, took from the weak.

Hilltop fortificationsThe Lion Gate guards the entrance to the massive fortification wall surrounding the citadel at Mycenae.

Walled community and beyond A hilltop fort, or citadel, provided refuge in times of danger:

contained palace and administrative complex, rounded courtyards, living quarters for royal family, offices, storerooms and workshops; shaft graves for rulers and leading families (and later grand beehive-shaped structures made of stone and covered with mound of earth).

Houses for the aristocracy lay just outside the walls.

Peasants lived on lower slopes and the plain below, near the land they worked.

Mycenaean government Organized and coordinated grain production. Controlled the wool industry from raw material to finished

product: recorded flock numbers, accounted for sheared wool and

allocated it to spinners and weavers. Kept account of the production, storage and distribution

of cloth articles.

We know all this because their script, Linear B, is recognized as an early form of Greek.

We know from the baked clay tablets ... More than 4,000 Mycenaean tablets have been unearthed.

They show the Mycanaeans: ran an extensive bureaucracy that kept track of people, animals and

objects in minute detail. exercised tight control over the kingdom’s economy. kept records of everything from the number of chariot wheels in

palace rooms and rations paid to textile workers, to the gifts dedicated to various gods and the ships stationed along the coasts.

But they wrote down almost nothing about individuals – not even the name of a single Mycenaean ruler – and very little about their political and legal systems, social structures, gender relations or religious beliefs.

Conflicting evidence Was the political framework of Greece organized broadly

during the Mycenaean era? There’s contradictory evidence:

Archaeological evidence and the Linear B tablets indicate independent centers of power around Greece, not just at Mycenae.

In Homer’s epic poem the Iliad (which was composed in the seventh century BCE but details the possibly real Trojan War of the 12th century BCE), Agamemnon, the king of Mycenae, leads a great expedition of Greeks from different regions against the city of Troy in northwest Anatolia.

But the plot of the Iliad revolves around Agamemnon’s troubles asserting control over other Greek leaders.

A wave of destruction Around 1200 BCE, for reasons historians do not really

understand, civilizations – including the Mycenaeans, Egyptians and Hittites – collided and began falling apart as large numbers of people were on the move.

The Egyptians and Hittites (in Anatolia) were invaded by the mysterious “Sea People” – who could be the Philistines or possibly the Mycenaeans: Invaders listed on Egyptian inscriptions include the Ekwesh, which could be a corruption of Achaeans, a term Homer used frequently when referring to the Greeks.

The Dark Age When we say the Mycenaean civilization (or just about any civilization,

for that matter) “died out,” what we’re saying is the elite lost power – their massive administrative apparatus disappeared.

Most of the people continued to carry on their ways, migrating to areas not ravaged by war, mixing and melding their culture with others’ (a thousand years later people were still worshipping gods mentioned in the Linear B tablets).

But the Greek technique of writing was apparently lost for centuries because only a few palace officials had known it … and the region as a whole entered a period of poverty, isolation and decline in artistic and technical knowledge.

Israel, 2000-500 BCE The modern Jewish nation-state of Israel was created in 1948

… but the story of its creation goes back about 4,000 years, beginning with the nomadic Hebrews (“Jews” and “Jewish” were not common terms until the ninth century BCE).

The faith practiced by Hebrews – Judaism – is generally considered to have been the world’s first monotheistic religion (i.e., the first to devote itself exclusively to the worship of one god).

Along with Christianity, which grew out of it, Judaism forms a key foundation of Western society’s ethical, intellectual and cultural legacy.

Abraham’s Covenant According to Judaic tradition, the patriarch

Abraham, who lived near the Sumerian city of Ur, entered into a covenant with the god YHWH (which may have been pronounced Yahweh but was considered too holy to say aloud, and is sometimes rendered Jehovah).

YHWH swore to make the Hebrews – if they obeyed his will – his “chosen people” and to lead them to the “promised land” of Canaan (present-day Israel).

Not yet purely monotheistic? By this time, the nomadic Hebrews had journeyed west and

were interacting with the more settled Canaanites, whose city-states took up much of Palestine.

Even after making their covenant, Hebrews may have still believed in the existence of other gods – ones to whom they hadn’t pledged loyalty.

This was going on around 1850 BCE, and it wasn’t until 1000-400 BCE that Israelite religious leaders wrote the Torah (“Teaching”), the Hebrew holy scriptures that also constitute the first five books of the Christian faith’s Old Testament.

Enthralled by history The Hebrew Bible is a book of history, myths and

laws written by Jews about their own past.

“We now have crossed a border in this story of mankind. Modern scholars wrenched the history that you have read so far out of stones and bones in digs, or scraps of writing left by folk who didn’t care about their past. But now we meet a people whose history enthralled them. They told it and retold it, no doubt making many changes, and then they wrote it down.” – James C. Davis, The Human Story

Abraham and his descendants, renewing the faith along the way Abraham Isaac (sacrifice as test of commitment)

Isaac Jacob (sees angels, ladder to heaven; name later changed to Israel)

Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – father, son, grandson – may have been real … but some scholars believe it’s more likely they were invented as a narrative device to personalize and connect events involving many long-forgotten forebears. The historical record seems alternately to confirm and fail to confirm many accounts in the Bible.

Egypt and then Exodus Around 1700 BCE, during a time of famine, Hebrews

migrated to Egypt.

Over time, became slaves of the Egyptians … until 1300-1200 BCE, when God is said to have commanded the prophet Moses to lead his people out of Egypt (this is called “the Exodus,” celebrated during Passover, the most important Jewish holiday).

Moses took the Hebrews on a wandering, decades-long journey through the Sinai Desert, heading for Canaan, where the land flowed “with milk and honey.”

They’re not called “The Ten Suggestions” While traveling across the

Sinai Peninsula, the Bible says Moses climbed to the top of Mount Sinai and spoke with God.

He carried down two stone tablets, on which YHWH had written the Ten Commandments.

The Ten Commandments represented a new Covenant and became the foundation of the civil and religious laws of Judaism.

Canaan The Bible gives conflicting

accounts, but the Israelites, under the war leader Joshua, either conquered or settled in Canaan, the land God had promised them (and the site of modern Israel and the Palestinian territories).

They were divided into twelve tribes supposedly descended from the sons of Jacob. Canaan interactive.mht

Click on the icon below for an interactive look at the Hebrew migrations and settlement in Canaan.

From judges to kings Each tribe of the “Children of Israel” installed itself in a

different part of the country, led by one or more chiefs who had limited power but saw to the welfare of the people and mediated disputes (hence, chiefs were “judges”).

They shared access to a shrine in the hill country at Shiloh, which housed the Ark of the Covenant (containing the Ten Commandment tablets).

Came into conflict with Philistines need for stronger central authority: Saul, the first king.

David and Solomon King David (Saul’s son-in-law):

united the tribes and founded a dynasty. established Jerusalem as the capital. brought ark to the city, making it a religious as well as

political center. was a skilled musician, and many of the religious songs

known as Psalms are attributed to him. King Solomon (David’s son):

made Israel extremely prosperous by taking advantage of its crossroads location in the Middle East.

built a great temple to glorify God and house the ark.

Heading for a split Solomon’s reign, however, bred discontentment:

his people were mostly poor and frugal while he sat on an ivory throne, drank from golden vessels, collected exotic animals and had 700 wives and 300 concubines (his father had only 20 in all).

his building projects required high taxes, and men were forced to spend a third of their time working on the temple.

Upon Solomon’s death (c. 922 BCE), the kingdom split in two: Israel in the north and Judah in the south.

Trouble ahead Next 200 years, Israel and Judah alternately had periods of

relative prosperity, difficulty.

The two kingdoms sometimes fought one another, sometimes united against a common foe.

In 738 BCE, both began paying tribute (peace money paid by a weaker power to a stronger) to the mighty Assyrian empire.

It didn’t work: the Assyrians soon conquered the northern kingdom and Judah subsequently fell more than a century later to the Babylonians.

The kingdom dies, but not the faith Solomon’s temple was torn down (no one knows what

happened to the ark) and the Israelites were exiled to Babylon.

When Persian empire defeats the Babylonians in 539 BCE, Persian king Cyrus the Great allows 40,000 exiles back into Jerusalem to rebuild the temple.

Most Jews by this time were already prospering well enough in Babylon that they refused the offer by Cyrus beginning of Jewish Diaspora (Greek for “dispersion” or “scattering”).

But soon other empires come to dominate the region: Alexander the Great in the third century BCE, and later the Romans in the first century BCE.

An influential idea In the face of their polytheistic conquerors, the Jews – guided

by prophets and priests (rabbis, or “teachers”) – remained true to their monotheistic worship.

And this is the major takeaway from the story of Israel: The emphasis on right conduct and the worship of one God is called ethical monotheism – a Hebrew idea that has influenced human behavior for thousands of years through Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The latter two of these, which we’ll discuss soon, are the proclaimed faiths of more than half of the world’s 6.3 billion people.

A final word on Jewish principles Talmud – collection of written Jewish laws and commentary

on them. Legal practices operated on principle of retribution: “eye for

an eye” common throughout ancient Middle East. Dietary restrictions (e.g., no pork or shellfish) and rules

governing sexual practices were very strict. Women were respected in the home but society as a whole

rigidly patriarchal. Hebrews practiced slavery on a limited scale … while

insisting on charity, social responsibility, concern for the poor.

The Phoenicians Historians refer to

a major element of the ancient population of Syria-Palestine (contemporaneous with and to the north of Israel) as Phoenicians, though they referred to themselves as Canaanites.Phoenician trading shipPhoenician trading ship

Historians know far more about Carthage and other Phoenician colonies – from Greek and Roman reports of their wars with western Phoenician communities – than they do about the Phoenician homeland.

To the sea … Many Canaanite settlements were destroyed by the

upheaval around 1200 BCE, and by 1100 BCE territory had shrunk to a narrow strip of present-day Lebanon between the mountains and the sea.

Densely populated turned to seaborne commerce and new kinds of manufacture for survival.

Encountered Greeks – who referred to them as Phoinikes, or Phoenicians – sometime after 1000 BCE.

Phoinikes could mean “red men” and refer to the color of their skin … or it could refer to the highly prized reddish-purple dye they learned to extract from murex snails.

60,000 of these needed for just one pound of dye!

Trade on me Phoenicians – searching for raw materials and trade

opportunities – established a collection of city-state colonies across northern Africa, the western Mediterranean, southeast Spain, Sicily and Sardinia.

Traded many goods, from textiles and pottery to foodstuffs and luxury goods (including artwork) …and timber, especially cedar, logs of which they could float behind their seagoing vessels.

Excellent shipbuilders and seafarers: first Mediterranean people to venture beyond the Straight of Gibraltar, they visited Canary Islands, coastal ports of Portugal, France and even the British Isles to the north … and exploratory adventures to the Azores and west coast of Africa to the south.

Around Africa?The Greek historian Herodotus skeptically related the remarkable feat of the Phoenicians sailing clockwise around Africa – 2,000 years before it was repeated!

Phoenician sailors claim it took more than two years to journey from the Red Sea back around to the Mediterranean, periodically stopping to plant and harvest crops along the way.

Carthage Little is known about the internal affairs of most

Phoenician cities. Names of kings are preserved, but the political arena

appears to have been dominated by leading merchant families.

By 500 BCE, the Phoenician colony of Carthage – in present-day Tunisia along the middle portion of the Mediterranean – was one of the largest cities in the world. Population: roughly 400,000.

Carthaginian religion Greek and Roman writers were fascinated by the

intriguing (some might say appalling) religious practices of the Carthaginians.

Like the Mesopotamians, worshipped capricious gods who had to be appeased.

Baal Hammon (BAHL ha-MOHN) was a male storm-god …

… but truly central to their beliefs was Tanit (TAH-nit), a female fertility figure.

Much worse than getting grounded Originally practiced by the

upper classes, child sacrifice in Carthage became fairly commonplace among the broader population after 400 BCE.

Romans say male children would be sacrificed in times of crisis, but some scholars argue these were premature or ill babies.

A tophet (TOE-fet) was a walled enclosure where thousands of small, sealed urns containing the burned bones of children lay buried.

Know your ABCs The most important legacy

of the Phoenicians was their phonetic system of writing (using one sign for one sound).

First two letters of Phoenician alphabet: aleph and beth!

Trade required quick and easy records … alphabet spread … Greeks adapted it, added vowels.

Phoenicians fizzle Phoenician homeland was defeated and captured by

Assyrians, then Babylonians and finally Persians.

Carthage would then engage in a long struggle with the Romans for control of the western Mediterranean in the first and second centuries BCE.

We’ll discuss the Punic Wars later when we get to the Romans – after we tackle the Greeks and Persians – but here’s a preview: Rome won.

Sources The Earth and Its Peoples: A Global History (Bulliet

et al.) Traditions & Encounters: A Global Perspective on

the Past (Bentley & Ziegler) World History (Duiker & Spielvogel) Patterns of Interaction (McDougal Littell, publisher) The Human Story (James C. Davis) AP World History review guides: The Princeton

Review, Kaplan and Barron’s