1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed (Turning Points in Ancient History) (3 page)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I
have been wanting to write a book like this for a long time, and so, first and foremost, my heartfelt thanks go to Rob Tempio, who got this project going and then actively helped to shepherd the manuscript through the usual growing pains and into press. He also exhibited tremendous patience in waiting for the final manuscript to be submitted, somewhat past the original anticipated deadline. I am very pleased to have it chosen as the first book in the new Turning Points in Ancient History series published by Princeton University Press, under the direction of Barry Strauss and Rob Tempio.

I am also indebted to the University Facilitating Fund of The George Washington University for summer stipend money, and to numerous friends and colleagues, including Assaf Yasur-Landau, Israel Finkelstein, David Ussishkin, Mario Liverani, Kevin McGeough, Reinhard Jung, Cemal Pulak, Shirly Ben-Dor Evian, Sarah Parcak, Ellen Morris, and Jeffrey Blomster, with whom I have had rewarding conversations about relevant topics. I would also like specifically to thank Carol Bell, Reinhard Jung, Kevin McGeough, Jana Mynářová, Gareth Roberts, Kim Shelton, Neil Silberman, and Assaf Yasur-Landau for sending materials upon request or providing detailed answers to specific questions, and Randy Helm, Louise Hitchcock, Amanda Podany, Barry Strauss, Jim West, and two anonymous reviewers for reading and commenting upon the entire manuscript. Thanks also go to the National Geographic Society, the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Egypt Exploration Society for permission to reproduce some of the figures that appear in this book.

Much of the material in this book represents an up-to-date and accessible rendition of my research and publications on international relations during the Late Bronze Age that have appeared over the course of
the past two decades or more, in addition to presenting, of course, the research and conclusions of many other scholars. Grateful thanks therefore also go to the editors and publishers of the various journals and edited volumes in which some of my previous relevant articles and publications have appeared, for their permission to reproduce that material here, albeit usually altered and updated. These include especially David Davison of Tempus Reparatum/Archaeopress, as well as Jack Meinhardt and
Archaeology Odyssey
magazine; James R. Mathieu and
Expedition
magazine; Virginia Webb and the
Annual of the British School at Athens
; Mark Cohen and CDL Press; Tom Palaima and
Minos
; Robert Laffineur and the Aegaeum series; Ed White and Recorded Books/Modern Scholar; Garrett Brown and the National Geographic Society; and Angelos Chaniotis and Mark Chavalas, among others. I have made every attempt to clearly document within the endnotes and bibliography the publications in which my previous discussions of the data presented here may be found. Any phrasing or other borrowing, from either my own previous publications or those by any other scholar, that remains unattributed is purely unintentional and will be rectified in future editions, as necessary.

And last, but certainly not least, I would like to thank my wife, Diane, for many stimulating conversations about aspects of this material. Among other contributions, she introduced me to the topics of social network analysis and complexity theory, and created some of the images used here. I would also like to thank both her and our children for their patience while I worked on this book. As always, the text has benefited from the firm editing and critical feedback of my father, Martin J. Cline.

1177
B.C.

PROLOGUE

THE COLLAPSE OF CIVILIZATIONS:

1177
BC

T
he warriors entered the world scene and moved rapidly, leaving death and destruction in their wake. Modern scholars refer to them collectively as the “Sea Peoples,” but the Egyptians who recorded their attack on Egypt never used that term, instead identifying them as separate groups working together: the Peleset, Tjekker, Shekelesh, Shardana, Danuna, and Weshesh—foreign-sounding names for foreign-looking people.
¹

We know little about them, beyond what the Egyptian records tell us. We are not certain where the Sea Peoples originated: perhaps in Sicily, Sardinia, and Italy, according to one scenario, perhaps in the Aegean or western Anatolia, or possibly even Cyprus or the Eastern Mediterranean.
²
No ancient site has ever been identified as their origin or departure point. We think of them as moving relentlessly from site to site, overrunning countries and kingdoms as they went. According to the Egyptian texts, they set up camp in Syria before proceeding down the coast of Canaan (including parts of modern Syria, Lebanon, and Israel) and into the Nile delta of Egypt.

The year was 1177 BC. It was the eighth year of Pharaoh Ramses III’s reign.
³
According to the ancient Egyptians, and to more recent archaeological evidence, some of the Sea Peoples came by land, others by sea.
⁴
There were no uniforms, no polished outfits. Ancient images portray one group with feathered headdresses, while another faction sported skull-caps; still others had horned helmets or went bareheaded. Some had short pointed beards and dressed in short kilts, either bare-chested or with a tunic; others had no facial hair and wore longer garments, almost like skirts. These observations suggest that the Sea Peoples comprised diverse groups from different geographies and different cultures. Armed with sharp bronze swords, wooden spears with gleaming metal tips, and bows and arrows, they came on boats, wagons, oxcarts, and chariots. Although I have taken 1177 BC as a pivotal date, we know that the invaders came in waves over a considerable period of time. Sometimes the warriors came alone, and sometimes their families accompanied them.

Fig. 1. Sea Peoples portrayed as captives at Medinet Habu (after
Medinet Habu
, vol. 1, pl. 44; courtesy of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago).

According to Ramses’s inscriptions, no country was able to oppose this invading mass of humanity. Resistance was futile. The great powers of the day—the Hittites, the Mycenaeans, the Canaanites, the Cypriots, and others—fell one by one. Some of the survivors fled the carnage; others huddled in the ruins of their once-proud cities; still others joined the invaders, swelling their ranks and adding to the apparent complexities of the mob of invaders. Each group of the Sea Peoples was on the move, each apparently motivated by individual reasons. Perhaps it was the desire for spoils or slaves that spurred some; others may have been compelled by population pressures to migrate eastward from their own lands in the West.

On the walls of his mortuary temple at Medinet Habu, near the Valley of the Kings, Ramses said concisely:

The foreign countries made a conspiracy in their islands. All at once the lands were removed and scattered in the fray. No land could stand before their arms, from Khatte, Qode, Carchemish, Arzawa, and Alashiya 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 forward toward Egypt, while the flame was prepared before them. Their confederation was the Peleset, Tjekker, Shekelesh, Danuna, and Weshesh, lands united. They laid their hands upon the lands as far as the circuit of the earth, their hearts confident and trusting.
⁵