The Mediterranean in the Ancient World

by Fernand Braudel

  The evidence from Egypt is the clearest and the most uninterrupted, but not necessarily the best. Let us start with it, however, because it is the easiest to interpret.

  The long periods of political collapse are unambiguously signalled in Egypt by the term ‘intermediary periods’. The first of these, between the Old and the Middle Kingdoms, ran from about 2280 to 2050. The second, between the Middle and the New Kingdoms, ran from 1785 to 1590. It was during this very long interval that the well-attested episode of the Hyksos took place. These ‘foreigners’ were a pastoral people who settled in the eastern part of the Delta, where they built their capital, Avaris. Their rulers played the role of pharaoh so well that they became the titular holders of the fourteenth and fifteenth dynasties. The third and last intermediary period, which did not ever really end, ran from the eleventh century BC until the seventh and beyond. The Saite period (663-523) was only a short-lived interlude. All in all then, we can see Egypt as on a rising curve until 2280 BC, then a downward one until 2050; rising again from 2050 to 1785, before a downturn from 1785 to 1590; it then witnessed a very pronounced upturn in the age of glorious victories of the New Kingdom before it declined into the endless morass which affected the whole of the Middle East after the convulsions of the twelfth century BC.

  Of these three long periods of breakdown in Egyptian history, the first – a sort of cultural revolt, emerging from the depths of the country’s interior, accompanied by an Asiatic invasion and a total breakdown of trade with Byblos on the one hand and the gold-producing countries on the other – was much more pronounced than the second. The Hyksos episode did not produce quite such extensive collapse: the incomers appropriated the economic activity of Lower Egypt without destroying it. Little is known about this activity but we do know that the Delta under Hyksos domination maintained its former links with Syria, Crete, the Levant coast and even with the Hittites. The final and third breakdown, however, spelled the end of an era.

  The periods of rising prosperity correspond to the many hundreds of years of success of the three successive Kingdoms. Let us take the example of the Middle Kingdom (2040-1786): order had been restored in the Nile valley, the regime of monarchs and interdependent temples had been suppressed, the country had once more recovered its cruising rhythm and a certain prosperity. It was then that the pharaohs created a standing army – a bottomless pit of expenditure; not only that but burial tombs, ever more numerous, were no longer confinedto the royal dynasties, yet they became more richly equipped than ever: frescoes, statues and precious objects accompanied the dead, while wooden statuettes provided them with the army of servants without which no grandee could live in this world or the next and be happy. Luxury in all its forms entered Egyptian life: the luxury of clothes, jewels and perfumes; of festivals at which young women in rich finery sat listening to musicians, attentive slaves offered guests lotus flowers and bunches of grapes or a costly perfume cone, to be set like a white diadem on their dark tresses.

  That said, if one compares the threefold Egyptian pattern with the ups and downs of Mesopotamia (se^c Table i), it is by no means a perfect match, and that ought to reassure us, since the indicator being followed here is essentially political; it cannot be applied with any precision to economic change. What is more, the secular trends do not fit the different regions at exactly the same time. So we are faced with only very broad correspondences, for which the imperfect chronologies at our disposal can legitimately be used.

  Let us call the three Egyptian crises A, B, and C; and the three Mesopotamian crises which ought to correspond to them A(i), B(i) and C(i). The correlation between A and A(i) is satisfactory: the Akkadian Empire, founded in about 1340, came to an end in about 2230, and the Old Kingdom in Egypt collapsed in about 2280; the Middle Kingdom emerged in 2050 and the third dynasty of Ur in about 2100. So A = A(i), or near enough. For B and B(i) there is an even more clear correlation: the disorder on the Nile began again in about 1785, lasting until about 1590; in Mesopotamia, we can suggest the dates of 1750 (the death of Hammurabi) and 1595. The third dynasty of Ur lasted only a century perhaps, but it was followed by the Larsa dynasty and the powerful state of Mari, and then by the Babylonian dynasty, with the Amorite Hammurabi who conquered both Larsa and Mari and re-unified Mesopotamia. This complicated history once more corresponds to rivalries between cities, but at no time seems to have affected a thriving trade, which is known to us through abundant written records. The fragmentation which followed the death of Hammurabi, on the other hand, corresponded to a social explosion, hitherto contained: private property and interests now came into conflict with the organization of the state. Hammurabi’s code had been an attempt

  Table 1 Chronological table showing comparative fortunes of Egypt and Mesopotamia

  EGYPT MESOPOTAMIA

  C. I7OO BC

  Old Kingdom (third to fourth dynasty); Cheops, Chephren and Mykerinos (fourth dynasty); establishment of power of pharaohs. c. 2700 BC

  Sumerian power in southern Mesopotamia; foundation of the dynasties of Uruk, Ur and Lagash (c. 1490); foundation of Akkadian Empire by Sargon the Elder (c. 2340).

  C. 2280 BC

  First intermediary period (seventh to ninth dynasty); various royal families; decadence of the central power; hegemony of the nomarchs. c. 2230 BC

  Decline of Akkadian Empire (2230) weakened by raids of the Guti, who occupied Babylon.

  c. 2050 BC

  Middle Kingdom (twelfth dynasty); Ammenemes I founds a new dynasty (c. 2000); the country is brought under control; administrative reform of Sesostris II (c. 1950). c. 2100 BC

  Sumerian renaissance; third Ur dynasty; Mari and Larsa states conquered by Hammurabi who creates the first Amorite dynasty in Babylon and unifies Mesopotamia.

  c. 1785 BC

  Second intermediary period (thirteenth to seventeenth dynasty); the Hyksos invade the Delta and make Avaris their capital (c. 1750); political and social disturbances. c. 1750 BC

  Death of Hammurabi; Babylon captured by the Hittites and end of the first dynasty of Babylon; Kassite raids in Mesopotamia from 1740.

  c. 1590 BC New Kingdom (eighteenth to twentieth dynasty); Amenophis unifies the kingdom (c. 1590); Ramses II begins reign of 67 years (c. 1300); policy of conquest and alliances. c. 1594 BC Kassite dynasty established in Babylon for treaty of alliance with Egypt; expansion of Syrian cities and Hittite Empire (apogee from 1380 on); futher alliance with Egypt.

  c. eleventh century BC Third intermediary period (1070); weakness and decline of the Egyptian kingdom. c. eleventh century BC General crisis in Middle East. Babylon destroyed by Assyrians (1087); end of Hittite Empire.

  at compromise, seeking to satisfy aspirations while channelling them, and preserving a strong state. But the attempt was a failure and the famous code remained a dead letter. Restoration of order came only with the Kassite dynasty in 1595. We may conclude then that B = B(i). And C = C(i), beyond a doubt, since the twelfth-century crisis was widespread, sparing no region either in the Middle East or in Greece, now under Mycenaean control.

  These six periods – three ages of decline and three ages of comparative good health – allow us to locate certain events. If we call the ‘euphoric’ periods (a), (b) and (c), we will note that the Hittite Empire, formed in about 1600 and lasting until izoo, coincided with a long upward movement (c), which also benefited the Babylon of the Kassites (not as prosperous as all that, however), the New Egyptian Kingdom, and its ally the Mittani state which was occupying northern Mesopotamia. In Crete this corresponds to the so-called second palace period; finally, the fourteenth century saw the rise of Assyria. Working back-wards, the (b) period coincided on one hand with the Middle Kingdom, and on the other with the two or three striking attempts at Mesopotamian unification, coming to grief after the death of Hammurabi; it also corresponds to the first palace period in Crete. The (a) period is probably the most remarkable of all: this was the age of the Akkadian successes and the first prosperity arising from mining metals, acros
s a wide band covering the whole of Asia Minor from Iran and the Caucasus to the Aegean and beyond. Egypt experienced these changes in fortune less dramatically, since prosperity had long been established there. But Egypt was such a large presence that everything seemed to start or finish there.

  A cosmopolitan culture

  The parallels to be observed between the economic fortunes of Egypt and Mesopotamia are the more interesting since, apart from a few caravans of pack-animals travelling between Sinai and the Euphrates, these two great civilizations had little direct contact. But impulses were communicated between the two via the great turntable formed by the Syria-Lebanon region. Whenever the economic climate favoured its powerful neighbours, this intermediary region took advantage of the general wave of prosperity and active trade which invigorated the whole of the Middle East. Gradually this whole area of the Mediterranean therefore became a unified economic zone, throughout which all kinds of exchange were possible: artefacts, techniques, fashions, taste, and of course people. Art bore witness to the cosmopolitan culture which W. S. Smith’s fine book (1965) dates from about 2000 BC. He distinguishes two main periods of cultural contact: the twentieth to nineteenth centuries and 1500-1100 (very broadly corresponding to the second and third periods of economic prosperity).

  This unified civilization affected only half the Mediterranean, but it was already going beyond the Middle East in the strict sense. There could be no better vantage-point from which to observe both the gradual unification and the extension of this civilization than the island of Crete. Crete was a newcomer, entering the game for a few centuries only, but to dazzling effect.

  II Crete: a new player in the cosmopolitan civilization of the Mediterranean

  Pre-Hellenic Crete, known to us as Minoan from the name of its legendary kings (the term Minos was used like that of pharaoh) offers a fascinating and enigmatic spectacle. We are told on good authority that no prehistoric society is better known than Crete; yet it is what we do not know about it that perplexes us, since our curiosity has been so whetted by what we do know.

  Since 1953, when Michael Ventris first deciphered Linear B, the third and final form of script used on the island, the problem has changed in character but has become no easier to solve. Some people have even argued, seriously or otherwise, that it has actually become more obscure. We certainly have a choice of narratives about Crete. Archaeologists have suggested two or three versions and the day someone deciphers Linear A, another will no doubt emerge. All we know for the present is that the earliest Cretan language is not an Indo-European language.3

  The earliest civilization in the Aegean

  Ancient Crete was an island marooned in a desert of salt water in the southern Aegean. Large and mountainous, it was bisected by plains (the Messara plain in central Crete is sizeable: 40 km long, 6 to 12 across), and bristling with limestone mountains which acted as water-towers, culminating in Mount Ida, almost 2,500 metres high. So one finds here in microcosm the familiar Mediterranean contrast between sea-level and mountain tops. Yet although the Cretan high-lands seem to have been cut off from the foreign influences which caused such upheavals lower down, they apparently posed no particular threat in prehistoric times to the plains, cities and palaces of the lowlands. Transhumance of flocks was practised, but it seems to have been uneventful and provoked little comment. In short, ancient Crete was nothing like its later incarnation as Candia, under Venetian rule, when the mountains contained a wild, dangerous and menacing population. Should we deduce that Minoan Crete, existing so peacefully within its own limits, was actually under-populated for a long time in relation to its potential?

  The strongest and most unexpected contrast is one which became established between the north- and south-facing coasts of the island: the former looking to the nearby coasts and islands of the Aegean, the latter looking out towards distant Africa, Cyrenaica and above all Egypt. The former is like many other Mediterranean seaboards, the latter a kind of climatic curiosity, with something tropical about it, reminiscent of the Spanish coast around Malaga. Swallows come there to winter, as they do in Egypt.

  An island is always a self-contained world. In Crete there were scarcely any native animals, apart from mountain goats, badgers, wild cats and ferrets which were kept as domestic pets to control the mice. There were no foxes, wolves, eagles or owls, few harmful creatures at all if we except scorpions, vipers and a poisonous spider unknown on the mainland. The Greeks were later to say that ‘the island of Zeus’ had been protected from natural scourges by the king of the gods or by Herakles. The real reason was the protection provided by many miles of sea. And this isolation did indeed offer advantages to Crete in the early days. Other islands, almost as large, like Rhodes, or even larger, like Cyprus, were just as well situated for sea-routes and better connected to the mainland. Yet Crete was the one which stood out.

  Crete had played only very a modest role, however, in the very first Aegean or quasi-Aegean civilization: the Cyclades and Troy, south of the Hellespont, were the stars in this galaxy. Like the rest of the Aegean, Crete had seen its earliest settlers and its first forms of agriculture arrive from Asia Minor, in about the seventh millennium. Several waves of later immigrants had introduced pottery and eventually, in the course of the third millennium, metal-working reached the island. Yet if we can believe the archaeologists, whose diagnosis is based on pottery, in the early days Crete lagged well behind regions like Argos and Thessaly, which were more closely linked to Anatolia. It even lagged behind the island of Syros, which is known for the pots familiarly described by archaeologists as ‘frying-pans’: flat-bottomed receptacles, no doubt for ritual use, decorated with white reliefs in the form of spirals, triangles, stars, suns, boats and fish. The first Helladic civilization, like that in Anatolia, had as its symbol the omnipresent earth-mother goddess, represented in the neolithic age by naturalistic statuettes like those of the Asian mainland; and later in the early bronze age, by the strange so-called Cycladic idols, which may be less ethnically Aegean than has been suggested. The ‘violin-shaped’ figurines for example, which seem to have been carved out of marble or clay slabs, are found not only in Troy, at practically all levels from I to VI, and in Crete, but also in Thessaly; on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus; and at Tel Eilat Ghassul (north of the Dead Sea). Similar little silhouettes, cut out from gold leaf, have been found in certain tombs in Alaca Hoy Ilk. From Crete, these artefacts travelled westwards – to Sardinia, where they inspired many of the local statuettes made of stone or marble (early second millennium), and in the sixteenth century BC to Malta, where we find stylized equivalents in the shape of violins, or flat discs. In Spain, in the megalithic tombs of Purchena and Los Millares, they are one of the many signs of eastern Mediterranean influence.

  The eastern edge of the Aegean, and the coast of Asia Minor with ports at the mouths of the valleys running down from the plateau, served as staging-posts in the cultural current which for several millennia flowed from Anatolia towards the Aegean and Greece. The brilliant career of Troy, on the slopes of Mount Hissarlik, not far from theHellespont, which began in about 3000 BC, is the story of one such staging-post. Nine successive cities were discovered by Schliemann (in 1870) on the site which until then had been thought legendary. The oldest of all, Troy I, was a very small settlement, but already undeniably a town, with walls and a princely palace on the safest site inside the fortress. Hand-thrown pots were made there, grey and black, incised and encrusted with white, and so were many stone implements (an unsurprising survival of the past). But the presence of copper reveals that an early form of metallurgy was not unknown. The inevitable Earth Mother turns up here too of course. Troy II, on a larger site, lasted only two hundred years, 2500-2300, and disappeared in a fire – as, about a thousand years later, did Troy VII, the city of Priam and Hector, after a long siege by a Greek army. But during those two centuries, Troy II played an important role in the spread of metallurgy throughout the Aegean. Excavations have discovered a mass of precio
us objects there, made of gold, silver, lead, electrum, even iron, daggers with silver and bronze blades and handles of carved rock-crystal, and sophisticated goldsmith’s work, using techniques of filigrane, cloisonne and beading. All these precious things show signs of having been buried hastily, possibly just before a moment of great danger. There are the remains too of turned pots alongside hand-made ceramics.

  In that second half of the third millennium, Troy was evidently in touch with Mesopotamia (as we know from the cylinders and seals of Jemdet Nasr), with the Anatolian plateau, Thessaly, Macedonia, the Aegean, Egypt and even with the Baltic, via the Danube (since amber of Nordic origin has been identified by chemical analysis). The variety of materials in use, semi-precious stones in particular, indicates that these were not just fleeting contacts.

  It would be rash to generalize, to judge the early civilization of the Aegean from one, perhaps exceptional example. But it serves to alert us to what may be the case: by now sufficient traces of authentic cities and even palaces have been discovered on the Greek mainland and islands to suggest that an active civilization, nourished by early seaborne trading, had spread through the whole of the Aegean by the third millennium.

  This civilization was dramatically snuffed out by the Indo-European invasions around the twenty-fourth century BC. The Troad, Anatolia, the Greek mainland, and many islands in the Aegean were invaded by peoples far less advanced than they were – probably the ancestors of the Mycenaeans in Greece, and of the Hittites and Louwites of Anatolia. All the Aegean cities and their palaces went up in flames. Troy, Haghios Kosmas (near Athens), Lernos and Tiryns in Argos, Poliochni on the island of Lemnos. The general economic and cultural level of the Aegean fell drastically. Thessaly reverted to barbarism. All the lights went out – except in Crete. Less accessible, saved by its remote location, the island was not invaded. This was probably its first stroke of luck.