THE DARK AGE OF GREECE

by

Immanuel Velikovsky

A Technical Note
I have been asked by the compliers of the Velikovsky archive to briefly explain the present condition of Velikovskys unpublished manuscript entitled The Dark Age of Greece. Velikovsky worked on the manuscript of The Dark Age of Greece fairly intensively during the last years of his life, drawing in part on the library research of Edwin Schorr, a graduate student at the University of incinnati, whom he employed for this pupose in !rinceton for several summers in a row in the mid"seventies# $eaders of !ens%e know Schorr under his nom de plume Israel &# Isaacson, which he used to protect himself from the wrath of his professors at incinnati# 't the time that I began to work for Velikovsky in ()*+, the manuscript was still ,work in progress#.hile Velikovsky was writing and rewriting the main text, my task was to annotate the material, drawing in part on the voluminous notes and photocopies of articles prepared by Schorr and partly on my own research# In addition, Velikovsky and I co" authored certain sections/ others, written solely by me, were to have been included in a supplement to the book# Subse0uent to ()12, pursuant to Elisheva Velikovskys wishes, I moved some of these contributions from the main text into footnotes and removed the rest from the manuscript altogether# Several of them were published in Kronos VIII#3 in ()14# 'nother planned supplement to The Dark Age of Greece was to have been Edwin Schorrs work on &ycenae, Applying the Revised Chronology. 5his detailed study on the archeology of &ycenae was commissioned by Velikovsky and written specifically for this purpose# 'lthough incomplete, it is an impressive work of scholarship that deserves publication# Jan Sammer In this edition 6an Sammers annotations are distinguished from Velikovskys text by being placed in s0uare brackets and displayed in red letters# 'll such annotations should be understood as being by 6an Sammer, unless marked with the initials E&S, in which case they are by Edwin Schorr# In conformity with reliable information we have received with respect to Velikovskys plan for the book, we have included Schorrs and Sammers work as a supplement to The Dark Age of Greece# The ditors

REFACE
5he task of my few words is to ask prominent scholars to reconsider their opinions about the dark age of 7reece in the light of Velikovskys present book# &y personal difficulty is mainly caused by the fact that a short preface cannot be a scholarly treatise and therefore it is impossible to ask here all the 0uestions which arise when Velikovskys theory is applied to our special problem# 'nd as I am not an archaeologist, but a 7reek scholar, I am not able to control how far Velikovsky is right in 0uestions of stratigraphy# 8ere I depend on his 0uotations of archaeological reports and it is not possible for me to decide how far his selection of passages from these reports is sub9ective# &y difficulty is that now I have to accept the view that the period of 7eometric style overlaps, at least partially, the &ycenaean and &inoan period# 5his is new for me, but I admit that it is not impossible that two different artistic approaches can exist at the same time# :ut the most important problem in connection with the present book is how far this theory is dictated by the whole of Velikovskys chronological system and how far his results in the present study are valid independently from it# Velikovsky puts the ,true time of the events recounted in the Iliad in the second half of the eighth century and the beginning of the seventh# # # # 5he time in which the drama of the Iliad was set was "+1*/ yet the poet condensed the events of more than one year into the tenth year of the 5ro9an siege, the time of the Iliads action#- Velikovsky came to this date because he identified the description of the battle between the gods in the Iliad with a cosmic catastrophe# 8is date for the con0uest of 5roy is unusually late# 's 8omer had to live after the events he describes, the space of the time between 8omer and the classical 7reek literature seems to me personally to be too short# :ut the main 0uestion is about the interrelation between Velikovskys chronological system and the single historical facts# ;r in other words< does this system solve the concrete difficulties in our approach to ancient history= 5he present book tries to solve such a serious problem, namely, does the so"called dark age of 7reece really exist= Is the supposed span between &ycenae and classical 7reece too long= 're we not in this case victim of a false Egyptian chronology, which was invented by Egyptian patriots in order to show that the 7reeks were in comparison with the Egyptians mere children= .as the history of Egypt in reality much shorter than it is supposed today= If this could be shown, then the problem of the dark age of 7reece would disappear# ;nly open" minded specialists can re9ect or accept Velikovskys solutions# ;ne thing is clear< the new book treats a real problem# It was not its author who created it# 5he whole complex of 0uestions was re"opened by the decipherment of the >inear : script, when it was definitely shown that the &ycenaeans were 7reeks, speaking a language which was an older stage of the linguistic substrate of the Iliad and ;dyssey# It is a merit of the new book that it offers an original solution for a real problem# .ill there be a sufficient number of good specialists who are prepared to wrestle with the proposed solution= !rof. David "lusser #e$re% &niversity

The Reconst!uction o" Ancient Histo!y

5he history of the ancient East is an interwoven nexus, embracing Egypt, Israel, Syria and &esopotamia, known also as the :iblical lands# 5he interconnections extend to 'sia &inor, to &ycenaean 7reece, and to the &editerranean islands? yprus, rete, and the 'egean archipelago# 5he histories of many of these nations are, for most of their existence, devoid of absolute dates and depend on interrelations with other nations# 5he chronologies of the &ycenaean civili@ation in 7reece and of the &inoan civili@ation on rete are built upon contacts with Egypt, for Egypts chronology is considered reliable# In turn, the widespread &ycenaean and &inoan contacts and influences found in the archaeological sites of many countries are distributed on the scale of time by detailed study of &ycenaean and &inoan pottery and its development# 5his pottery is found in countries as far apart as Italy and the Aanubian region# gyptian #istory 'lthough Egypts chronology is used to determine the dates of other cultures, Egypt had no written account of its history, and the earliest surviving effort to put its past into a narrative is from the pen of 8erodotus of the mid"fifth century before the present era, regarded by modern historians as largely unreliable#( 5hough various king"lists from earlier times have been preserved, it is the list of &anetho, an Egyptian priest of 8ellenistic times, Bthird pre" hristian centuryC that served the historiographers as the basis for making a narrative out of the Egyptian past# 5he names read on monuments were e0uated, often by trial and error, with &anethonian dynasties and kings# 5he mathematics of history, it was agreed, could not be entrusted to &anetho, and is largely borrowed from the sixteenth"century European chronographers, notably 6oseph Scaliger, and his sixteenth" and seventeenth"century emulators Seth alvisius and others,3 who dated in the same tables also various mythological motifs, such as the scandals among the ;lympian gods or 8eracles heroic exploits# .ith the reading of the Egyptian hieroglyphs achieved in the nineteenth century, some selected dates of Scaliger were used by >epsius B(1(2"1DC to date the monuments and thus the reigns of the kings of Egypt whose names were on the monuments# >epsius was, for instance, of the view that $amses II was the pharaoh of the Exodus?and thus :iblical history, too, was drawn into a comprehensive scheme on which other histories could find their first foothold# Such was also the case with ,8ittite- history because of a peace treaty of $amses II with one of the 8ittite kings B8attusilisC# &anethonian mathematics, or the number of years allotted to dynasties and kings, was soon disregarded# Astronomical Dating4

Even before Eoung and hampollion first read the hieroglyphic texts in the (132s, :iot and others decided that astronomical calendric calculations could be used to ascertain the dates of the Egyptian dynasties# It was known that the Egyptian civil year consisted of 4+F days, approximately a 0uarter of a day short of the true sidereal year# 5hus the calendric dates of the Egyptians would gradually have fallen out of their proper place in relation to the seasons, and made a complete circle in 4+F x D G (D+2 years# .ith the decipherment of the multitudinous Egyptian texts, a few references to a star spdt were found, and were interpreted as recording the heliacalD rising of the southern fixed star Sirius?and if from monuments it could also be learned in which months and on what day the star rose heliacally, events could be dated within the (D+2"year" long ,Sothic cycle#- 5his made it possible to build a chronology of Egypt around the few dates so fixed?and much work was spent in such an effort# .ith this as a basis, refinement could be achieved in various ways, most notably by trying to ascertain the length of the years of a king, usually relying on the highest year of his reign found recorded on monuments# Each king counted the years from his coronation?Egypt had no continuous timetable# 8owever, in Egyptian texts no reference to calculating by Sothic observations was ever found# 'rchaeological work in Egypt showed that besides the so"called pre"dynastic times, from which the data are incomplete, the historical past was twice interrupted for centuries when the land fell into neglect# 5he Hirst Intermediate !eriod intervened between the epochs that received the names of the ;ld and &iddle Iingdoms/ the Second Intermediate !eriod between the &iddle and Jew Iingdoms/ the Jew Iingdom consists of the &anethonian dynasties Eighteen, Jineteen and 5wenty? what follows is called the >ate Iingdom# #e$re% #istory 8ebrew history has a narrative that consists of the book of 7enesis?the history of the world in which catastrophic events Bthe Aeluge, the overturning of the 5ower of :abel, the destruction of Sodom and 7omorrahC come to the fore, the latest of these coinciding with the beginning of the age of the !atriarchs which ends with the migration of the fourth generation to Egypt because of drought in anaan# 5his part of the history is considered largely legendary# Hollowing a so9ourn in Egypt, the Exodus ?the sub9ect of the other four books of the !entateuch?inaugurates the historical period# 5he historical events until the Exile to :abylon are further narrated in the books of 6oshua, 6udges, Iings, hronicles, and !rophets and the post":abylonian period in the books Jehemiah, E@ra, and of the later prophets# &any non"Scriptural books with varying degrees of historical veracity add and take over where the ;ld 5estament ceases its narrative# It was agreed since the days of 6osephus Hlavius, the 6ewish historian of the days of Emperor Vespasian, that the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt took place after the Second Intermediate period, during the Egyptian Jew Iingdom, whether at its very beginning or several generations later# 8owever, they disagree among themselves, some placing the Exodus under 5hutmose III of the Eighteenth Aynasty, others under 'menhotep III or his heir 'khnaton of the same dynasty Bthe time of the el"'marna correspondenceC, some placing it under $amses II or &erneptah of the Jineteenth

Aynasty B,Israel Stele- C, and some as late as the 5wentieth Aynasty Bafter $amses III repelled the invasion of the !eoples of the Sea, supposedly in the first 0uarter of the twelfth centuryC# So many various dates for the Exodus?a point that connects the 8ebrew and the Egyptian histories?could be contemplated because these two histories as they are usually taught are remarkably out of contact for the entire length of the Jew Iingdom, and e0ually so for the rest of their histories, down to the time of 'lexander of &acedon# The Revised Chronology &y approach to the problem of the synchroni@ation of ancient histories took the following form# Upon reali@ing that the Exodus was preceded and accompanied by natural disturbances described as plagues of darkness, of earth0uake, of vermin, accompanied by hurricanes and followed by a disruption of the sea, by volcanic phenomena in the desert and then by the prolonged ,Shadow of Aeath- of the years of wandering, I looked for similar descriptions in Egyptian literary relics and found them in a papyrus ascribed to a certain Ipuwer, an eyewitness and survivor of the events# 'dditional data I found in an inscription carved on a stone shrine found at el"'rish on the Egyptian"!alestinian frontier# 5aking the latest possible date for the events described in the papyrus Ipuwer, namely, the collapse of the &iddle Iingdom in Egypt on the eve of its being overrun by the 8yksos, the date was still centuries earlier than the earliest considered dates for the Exodus on the Egyptian time"scale# If the parallels in texts elucidated by me are not a matter of coincidence, then the test would be in whether it would be possible, in leveling the two histories by synchroni@ing the end of the &iddle Iingdom and the Exodus, to trace contemporaneity also in subse0uent generations, not yet deciding whether the Egyptian history would need extirpation of ,ghost centuries- or the Israelite history extension by the insertion of ,lost centuries#5he next clue in my work of reconstruction was in e0uating the 'siatic 8yksos Bcalled 'mu by the EgyptiansC that overran Egypt, prostrated as it was by the natural disaster described in the Ipuwer !apyrus, with the 'malekites that the Israelites met on their flight from Egypt# 5he autochthonous 'rab sources, as preserved by medieval &oslem historians, refer to a several"centuries"prolonged occupation of Egypt by the 'malekites, evicted from the 8ed9a@ by plagues of earth0uakes and vermin, while tidal waves swept other tribes from their lands# I could establish that the period of the 6udges, when the population was oppressed by the 'malekites and &idianites, was the time of the Second Intermediate !eriod in Egypt and that Saul, who captured the capital of the 'malekites Bel"'rish being the ancient 8yksos capital 'varisC put an end to the 'malekite"8yksos domination from &esopotamia to Egypt# In Egypt the Eighteenth Aynasty came into existence, thus inaugurating the Jew Iingdom# .as it ca# "(242, the time the :iblical scholars would assign to Sauls capture of the 'malekite fortress, or ca# "(F12, the time the Egyptologists would place the fall of 'varis= Iing Aavid fought the remnants of the 'malekites/ his marshal 6oab invaded 'rabia, while 'menhotep I ruled in Egypt/ Solomon accordingly had to be a contemporary of 5hutmose I and of 8atshepsut/ I could establish that this 0ueen came to 6erusalem and

had reliefs depicting her 9ourney to the Aivine >and carved on the walls of her temple at Aeir el":ahari# In 8ebrew history and legend she lives as the Kueen of Sheba who visited Solomon# 5he next generation saw 5hutmose III invade 6udea, sack the palace and temple of 6erusalem, and impose a tribute on the now"divided country# 5he furnishings of the 5emple, carried away by 5hutmose, were depicted by him on a temple wall in Iarnak# 5hese depictions match the :iblical record of some of the 5emple furnishings# 'menhotep II was identified with the king whom an ancient epic poem portrayed as leading an enormous army against the city of Ugarit, only to be pursued to the Sinai Aesert# 8e was further shown to be the alter ego of the Scriptural Lerah, whose enterprise started similarly and ended identically# 5he last three chapters of the first volume of Ages in Chaos deal with the el"'marna correspondence/ if the reconstruction is correct then the time in 6udah must be that of Iing 6ehoshaphat and in Israel of Iing 'hab# It so happened that the books of Iings and hronicles are especially rich in many details of the events that took place under these kings, and the numerous letters on the clay tablets of the el"'marna archive present a perfect ground for comparison as to persons, places, names, and events# Scores of identifications and parallels are brought forth# Aid 6ehoshaphat and his generals and 'hab and his adversaries in Aamascus exchange letters with 'menhotep III and his heir 'khnaton across the centuries= 't first we left the problem open, which of the two histories would re0uire re" ad9ustment?is the Israelite history in need of finding lost centuries, or does the Egyptian history re0uire excision of ghost centuries= Soon it became a matter of certainty that of the two timetables, the Egyptian and the Israelite, the former is out of step with historical reality by over five centuries# ' chronology with centuries that never occurred made necessary the introduction of ,Aark 'ges- between the &ycenaean and the 8ellenic periods in 7reece# 5hus the shortening of Egyptian history by the elimination of phantom centuries must have as a conse0uence the shortening of &ycenaean"7reek history by the same length of time# The Greek !ast 5he theme pursued in this volume is the basic design of 7reek history?the passage of the &ycenaean civili@ation and the intervening Aark 'ge of five centuries duration before the 8ellenic or historical age starts ca# *22 years before the present era# 5his structure of the 7reek past is sub9ected to a reexamination as to the historicity of the Aark 'ge# 7reek anti0uity is conventionally divided into three periods?8elladic, 8ellenic, and 8ellenistic# 5he 8elladic period in its later subdivision comprises the &ycenaean civili@ation# It ends not long after the con0uest of 5roy, regularly put about "(322# Its last generation is dubbed ,the 8eroic 'ge#- 't this point five centuries of dark ages are inserted into 7reek history# 5he 8ellenic period embraces the Ionian and classical ages, and stretches from ca# "*22 to the con0uest of the East by 'lexander of

&acedon# .ith his march toward the Jile, the Euphrates, and the Indus B"44( to "43*C, the culture of 7reece was spread through the ;rient and was itself modified by oriental elements/ this was the beginning of the 8ellenistic 'ge# &ycenae can be regarded as the cultural center of the >ate 8elladic period/ 'thens of the 8ellenic/ and 'lexandria of the 8ellenistic# In this scheme, as 9ust said, the five centuries of the Aark 'ge are inserted between the 8elladic and the 8ellenic or, in other nomenclature, following the &ycenaean and preceding the Ionian ages# 5he &ycenaean 'ge in 7reece and the contemporary and partly preceding &inoan 'ge on rete have no chronologies of their own and depend on correlations with Egypt# ;b9ects inscribed with the names of 'menhotep II, 'menhotep III and Kueen 5iy of the Eighteenth Aynasty, found at &ycenae, were like a calendar leaf# 5hen excavations at el"'marna in Egypt established the presence of &ycenaean ware in 'khnatons short"lived city# Such 0uantities of &ycenaean ware came to light in the course of the excavations that a street in el"'marna was dubbed ,7reek Street#- Since 'khnatons capital existed for only about a decade and a half, a very precise dating for the &ycenaean ware could be evinced, thus providing a link between &ycenaean history and the established Egyptian chronology# It was therefore concluded that the &ycenaean civili@ation was at its apogee in the days of 'menhotep III and 'khnaton of the Eighteenth Egyptian Aynasty# 5he first and most important conse0uence was a radical recasting of 7reek history# Since 'khnatons conventional date was the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries before the present era, &ycenaean ware was also ascribed to the same period# :y the end of the twelfth century before the present era, the &ycenaean civili@ation would have run its course# 5he 7reek or 8ellenic time does not start until about "*22# 5he years in between are without history on 7reek soil# 5here existed tenacious memories of the time of the tyrants who ruled in the late eighth and seventh centuries, but beyond that, there was complete darkness# 5hus by the (1)2s the 8ellenists were coerced by the evidence presented by the Egyptologists to introduce five centuries of darkness between the end of the &ycenaean 'ge and the beginning of the 8ellenic# 's we shall read on a later page, there was some consternation on the part of classical scholars when first the fact dawned on them that between the &ycenaean age and the historical 7reek time there was a span, more in the nature of a lacuna, of several centuries duration# In the end they accepted the Egyptian plan as being valid for 7reece?still without having investigated the evidence on which the claim of the Egyptologists was founded#F In Ages in Chaos we have seen that, with the fall of the &iddle Iingdom and the Exodus synchroni@ed, events in the histories of the peoples of the ancient world coincide all along the centuries# Hor a space of over one thousand years records of Egyptian history have been compared with the records of the 8ebrews, 'ssyrians, haldeans, and finally with those of the 7reeks, with a resulting correspondence which denotes synchronism# In Volume I of Ages in Chaos it was shown in great detail why 'khnaton of the Eighteenth Aynasty must be placed in the latter part of the ninth century# If 'khnaton flourished in "1D2 and not in "(412, the ceramics from &ycenae found in the palace of

'khnaton are younger by five or six hundred years than they are presumed to be, and the >ate &ycenaean period would accordingly move forward by about half a thousand years on the scale of time# Eet independently of the results attained in Ages in Chaos' the problem of blank centuries, usually termed ,dark ages,- increasingly claims the attention of archaeologists and historians# 'lthough the enigma of ,dark centuries- reappears in many countries of the ancient East, in no place did it create such discomfort as in 8ellenic history# 5here it is an inveterate problem that dominates the so"called 8omeric 0uestion< 5he historical period in 7reece, the 8ellenic 'ge, is ushered in by the sudden and bright light of a literary creation?the 8omeric epics, of perfect form, of ex0uisite rhythm, of a grandeur unsurpassed in world literature, a sudden sunrise with no predawn light in a previously profoundly dark world, with the sun starting its day at @enith?from almost five hundred years that divide the end of the &ycenaean 'ge from the 8ellenic 'ge, not a single inscription or written word survived# 'gainst this set"up the 8omeric Kuestion grew to ever greater proportions# In the light of?or better to say?in the darkness of the 8omeric problem, we will try to orient ourselves by scanning some early chapters of 7reek archaeology, and having done this, we should return to the problem of the deciphered >inear : script# 5wo timetables are applied simultaneously to the past of 7reece, one built on the evidence of 7reece itself, the other on relations with Egypt/ thus instead of any new discovery reducing the 0uestion to smaller confines, every subse0uent discovery enlarged the confines and decreased the chances of finding a solution#

Re"e!ences
(# M f# Ion 7hica, (storiile lui rodot' vol# II B:ucuresti, ()(3CN 3# 5hey wrote long before the Egyptian hieroglyphics were deciphered# 4# See my essay, ,'stronomy and hronology,- Supplement to !eoples of the Sea' BJew Eork, >ondon, ()**C/ first published in !ens)e (*R IV B()*4C# D# :y heliacal rising is meant the first appearance of a star after invisibility due to con9unction with the sun# F# See my ,'stronomy and hronology,- cited above#

The #ettin$ o" the #ta$e

' traveller afoot, steadily on the road, marching from 'thens westward, crosses the orinthian Isthmus and, by continuing to the south, may arrive at &ycenae before the sunset of the second day# 8e follows the rocky road uphill and reaches the fortification wall of the ancient citadel# $ampant stone lions in relief crown the gate of &ycenae# Inside the gate, immediately to the right, he is shown the shaft graves of the ancient kings# 5he place is deserted/ no village occupies the site# $esting at the gate, the traveller has before him the 'rgive plain, the scene of some of the most celebrated events of the human past# :efore the historical age of 7reece started, called also the Ionian or 8ellenic 'ge, 7reece had another civili@ation# It centered at &ycenae/ it spread over 7reece and over the 8elladic islands/ vestiges of it were found in many places of the ancient world# It was closely contemporaneous with the last phase of another civili@ation, the so"called &inoan, centered on the island of rete to the south# 5hese two great cultures left cities and palaces, ruined and deserted, and rich relics?pottery of ex0uisite forms, and gold and 9ewels?but no history known to modern man# Eet of &ycenae and of her heroes such a treasure of legend is preserved in 7reek lore that some of the heroes of that kingdom in the 'rgive plain and their contemporaries are more familiar to us than leaders of other races and other times much more recent# 'gamemnon, &enelaus, Jestor, 'chilles, and ;dysseus are better remembered and more widely known than most of the military leaders of the great wars of our own century# 8eroes of other times and nations are too often not known at all# 5heir names were # # # 'sk oblivionO ,5hey had no poet, and they died#-( 5his is said not 9ust of heroes but of whole civili@ations# 'gamemnon and &enelaus were sons of 'treus, king of &ycenae/ and legends were told about 'treus and 5hyestes, brothers who 0uarreled over the throne, and about the sign in favor of 'treus that was seen in the sun retracing its course# 5hese legends lived in 7reek lore# 'nother cycle of legends centered on 5hebes in :oeotia, and on the 'rgonaut expedition to olchis on the aucasian coast of the :lack Sea, which preceded the 5ro9an .ar by several decades# 5he world of these legends, cruel and heroic and treacherous, occupied the fantasy of the 7reeks/ and 7reek tragic poets of the fifth century, 'eschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, had an inexhaustible store of themes to draw upon# 5here is hardly any problem in the entire history of literature that occupies the minds of scholars as much as the origin of the 8omeric epics?the Iliad and the ;dyssey? especially the 0uestion as to the time of their origin# 5he Iliad tells of the events of the final stage of the siege of 5roy by the host of the 'chaeans under 'gamemnon, king of &ycenae# 5he ;dyssey tells of the long wanderings of ;dysseus, one of the heroes of that siege, on his circuitous way home#

5radition has it that 8omer was a blind bard who lived and wandered on the 'egean coast of 'sia &inor# 'mong the cities and islands that claimed to have been his birthplace were Smyrna, hios, olophon, Salamis, $hodes, 'rgos, and 'thens# :eyond this the tradition is very meager as to the personality of the poet and the events of his life# Several apocryphal writings pretending to tell something of him were composed in 7reece, but had nothing to commend them# .hen did he live and create= In his great epics he described the &ycenaean world which supposedly ended almost five centuries before him/ he shows a very great knowledge of that time?yet he knew the world of the seventh century, too# 5here are those who argue that the author of the Iliad and ;dyssey was not one man but a group of bards, or a succession of wandering poets, each of whom added of his inspiration to the epics/ and sometimes it is also argued that there was no historical siege of 5roy and that the story of the war is but the poets creation# 5he ;dyssey appears to be 9ust a story of fancy# 8owever, a war expedition in which many leaders, kings of cities in 7reece, took part, and the capture of a fortress named Ilion or 5roy, ruled by Iing !riam, could not be easily relegated, all and sundry, to the domain of fancy# &any 7reek and >atin authors referred to it, though their source was invariably 8omer# 'mong the early authors 'eschylus, Sophocles and Euripides wrote cycles of tragedies dealing with the personalities of the 8omeric epics and with their families, and many other poets followed in the path of the ancient bard# Virgils 'eneid, telling the story of the peregrinations of 'eneas, one of the defenders of 5roy, is famed as emulation of 8omers ;dyssey# 5hrough the classical period of 7reece, through the 8ellenistic age that followed, through the age of the $oman Empire, then through the &iddle 'ges, the 5ro9an .ar was the main event of the past, competing in this with the exploits of 'lexander of &acedon, for whom 'chilles of the Iliad served as the model# :ut in the nineteenth century, in the ,age of reasonableness- that followed the ,age of reason,- the view prevailed that the 5ro9an .ar was part of the imagery of a poet and 5roy itself had never existed# 8owever in the (1*2s the skeptics were confounded by 8einrich Schliemann, an adventurer with rich imagination, who as a cabin boy went on a merchant ship bound for 'merica that suffered shipwreck/3 he was a clerk in 8olland, an importer in St# !etersburg, a man not to miss the alifornia goldrush# 8aving grown rich through the years of adventures, Schliemann went to 8issarlik, a low hill near the Aardanelles, on the 'egean shore of 5urkey, after proclaiming that he would find 5roy there# Schliemanns advance public announcement as to his intent to discover 5roy was met partly with disbelief and sarcasm, but mostly with indifference# 8e dug, destroyed much valuable material and disturbed some of the archaeological se0uence/ but he discovered beneath the mound of 8issarlik the remains of seven cities, one beneath the other#4 8e identified the second city from the bottom as the 5roy of which 8omer sang< it was a fortress, strong and rich in treasures, seemingly destroyed in a violent earth0uake#D

>ater scholars identified Iing !riams city as the sixth from the bottom, still later as 5roy VIIa# In (1*+ Schliemann, now crowned with success, went to the 'rgive plain in 7reece, to &ycenae, to locate the tomb of 'gamemnon, ,king of men,- the leader of the 'chaeans at the siege of 5roy# Soon he cabled to Iing 7eorge of the 8ellenes that he had opened the grave of his predecessor among the five large shaft tombs which he discovered hewn in rock, with the skeletons of their occupants, with gold crowns and gold masks and much 9ewelry, gold vessels with oriental designs, and pottery# 'll kinds of voices were now heard# ;ne scholar announced that the find and its treasures date from the :y@antine age Bfirst millennium '#AC/ but in time the royal graves came to be accepted for what they were?of an era preceding the historical period in 7reece ?however not of 'gamemnon and his house who supposedly lived in the thirteenth or early twelfth century, but of an age several centuries earlier# 8ow was this figured out= In the buildings and tombs of &ycenae cartouches of 'menhotep II, 'menhotep III, and Kueen 5iy, wife of 'menhotep III and mother of 'khnaton were found,F and in 'khnatons short"lived city 'khetaton, deposits of typical &ycenaean pottery were unearthed# 5he age of these pharaohs in the conventional timetable belongs to the first half of the fourteenth century# Schliemann was wrong again in his identification, but right in the main< here were for all to see rich relics of the &ycenaean civili@ation# Schliemann made further diggings at 5iryns, in the 'rgive plain, and next intended to dig on rete, but he did not come to terms with the owners of the land, for which he made a bargain offer# 't the beginning of this century 'rthur Evans, having obtained a concession, dug at Inossos on rete and brought to light the &inoan civili@ation?palaces and frescoes and paved courts, a silent world of bygone days# 5he &inoan civili@ation could be traced to various stages separated by definite interruptions?Early &inoan, &iddle &inoan, and >ate &inoan?and it was the >ate &inoan age that ran parallel with the &ycenaean age# If anything, the &inoan civili@ation appeared as the dominant of the two# It was Evans excavations on rete that established the contemporaneity of &ycenaean ware with that of the >ate &inoan period# ;n rete Evans also found tablets with incised signs of two scripts, called by him >inear ' and >inear :# >ater tablets with the >inear : script were found in large numbers at !ylos and at other ruined cities on the 7reek mainland, and still later they were deciphered# :ut we are ahead of our story#

Re"e!ences
(# Aon &ar0uis, 0uoting !ope# 3# ;f this shipwreck Schliemann wrote to his sisters in 8anover an exciting account of miraculous escape from death# In his later autobiography he exposes his letter"report as more fantasy than truth# 4# In Troy and (ts Remains B>ondon, (1*FC Schliemann distinguished four cities/ in (lios' The City and Country of the Tro+ans B>ondon, (112C he recogni@ed seven#

D# 5his is the view of # H# '# Schaeffer, argued in his Stratigraphie compar)e et chronologie de l,Asie occidentale -(((e et ((e millenaires. B;xford University !ress, ()D1C, p# 33F# # :legen ascribed the destruction to a human foe# F# 6# A# S# !endlebury, Aegyptiaca B ambridge, ()42C, pp# F4"F*#

%hy no &ite!a!y Relics "!om Five Centu!ies'

5he Aark 'ges left no literary remains, not even a single word on a sherd or a few characters on a clay tablet# &# :owra in his book #omer and #is "orerunners puts the problem in straight terms< 5here is no evidence whatsoever that the &ycenaean script continued anywhere in 7reece after c# (322# 5here is no trace of writing of any kind in the sub"&ycenaean and !rotogeometric periods, or indeed before the middle of the eighth century, when the new and totally different 7reek alphabet makes its first appearance# Jow, this is surely not an accident# ' single scratched letter from this period would be enough to show that writing survived/ but not one has been found# 5his is undeniably a most remarkable phenomenon, for which it is hard to find either a parallel or an explanation# ' society seems suddenly to have become illiterate, and to have remained so for centuries# 8ow and why this happened we do not know# # #( :owra expresses his wonder at ,this astounding state of affairs#- It ,undermines any hope that the transmission of heroic poetry was maintained by a succession of written texts from the time of the 5ro9an .ar#;n the one hand, ,the 8omeric poems contain material which is older than (322#- ;n the other hand, :owra states his conviction that we can be ,reasonably confident that 8omer worked in the latter part of the eighth century, since this suits both the latest datable elements in his details and his general outlook#- Is this not an impasse?the poet separated from his sub9ect by almost five centuries, with an intimate knowledge of a vanished civili@ation and no art of writing in between= 'lan 6# :# .ace challenged this view, and in his preface to Ventris and hadwicks Documents in /ycenaean Greek B()F+C wrote that future discoveries and study would ,undoubtedly make clear- whether the Aark 'ge was really dark< 5he orthodox view of classical archaeologists is that there was a PAark 'ge when all culture in 7reece declined to barbarism, at the close of the :ron@e 'ge and in the early period of the ensuing Iron 'ge# Even now, when it is admitted that the 7reeks of the >ate :ron@e 'ge could read and write the >inear : Script, it is still believed by some that in the transition time, the 'ge of :ron@e to that of Iron, the 7reeks forgot how to read and write until about the eighth century when they adapted the !hoenician alphabet# It is incredible that a people as intelligent as the 7reeks should have forgotten how to read and write once they had learned how to do so#3 5hen where are the documents, what is the testimony=

,# # # >etters or literary texts may well have been on wooden tablets or some form of parchment or even papyrus/ some fortunate discovery will possibly one day reveal them to us#- ' 0uarter century since this was written nothing has been found that would substantiate this hope, as nothing was found in the preceding eighty years of excavation in 7reece# In the 0uoted passage the words ,it is still believed by some that # # # the 7reeks forgot how to read and write- refers to almost every classicist who agrees that the Aark 'ge left no written record because none was written#4 ,5here is no scrap of evidence,- writes Aenys ># !age in #istory and the #omeric (liad' ,and no reason whatever to assume that the art of writing was practiced in 7reece between the end of the &ycenaean era and the eighth century :# # # # #-D 'nd one hundred pages later< ,# # # 5he Iliad preserves facts about the 5ro9ans which could not have been known to anybody after the fall of 5roy VIIa#-F 5hen back to the 0uestion one hundred pages earlier< ,8ow did the truth survive through the Aark 'ges into the Iliad=-+

Re"e!ences
(# Sir &aurice :owra, #omer and #is "orerunners BEdinburgh, ()FFC pp# ("3# 3# !# xxviii/ cf# 6# hadwick, ,5he >inear Scripts- in The Cam$ridge Ancient #istory' vol# II, ch# QIII B()*(C p# 3+/ V# $# d'# Aesborough, The Greek Dark Ages B>ondon, ()*3C p# 43(# 4# 5he contention that during the Aark 'ges the 7reeks wrote only on perishables does not carry weight# In &ycenaean times, and again from the eighth century on, the 7reeks left writing on imperishable materials, such as baked clay or stone, as well as on perishable ones, such as papyrus or wood# 5he view that all writing during the Aark 'ges was on perishable materials, none of which was found, is thus rather difficult to uphold# In The 0ocal Scripts of Archaic Greece B;xford, ()+(C p# (*, ># 8# 6effrey convincingly disputes the ,perishables- theory# D# B:erkeley, a#, ()F)C p# (33# F# ($id.' p# 33(# +# ($id.' p# (32# $hys arpenter is among those who argue that an oral tradition stretching over centuries was not capable of preserving a detailed picture of &ycenaean 7reece B"olk Tale' "iction and Saga in the #omeric picsC/ yet Aenys !age and many other scholars state une0uivocally that an accurate picture %as somehow preserved#

T!oy in the Da!k A$es

5he Aark 'ge enveloped 7reece/ it enveloped 5roy too, for the site is barren of deposits which might be referred to the period c# ((22"*22 :# # Jot one sherd of proto"geometric pottery is known to have been found at 5roy?not by Schliemann, or by Aoerpfeld, or by :legen himself# .e are now in effect asking what happened at 5roy during the Aark 'ges of 7reece, from the Mbeginning ofN the ((th to the Mend of theN 1th century :# #< and this is the answer which we must accept?that there is nothing at 5roy to fill the huge lacuna# Hor 3222 years men had left traces of their living there/ some chapters in the story were brief and obscure, but there was never yet a chapter left wholly blank# Jow at last there is silence, profound and prolonged for D22 years#( 5his observation of Aenys !age, !rofessor of 7reek at the University of ambridge, is in the nature of ama@ement< out of a mound covering a ruined place, an archaeologist expects to extract stray ob9ects that accumulated there in the space of centuries# In 5roy there is ,silence profound and prolonged- as if time itself had stopped# :ut the same author stresses that ,the Iliad preserves facts about the 5ro9ans which could not have been known to anybody after the fall of 5roy VIIa#-3 5hus not only did 8omer know of the kingdom and people of &ycenae that were buried for centuries of the Aark 'ges, but he knew also of the kingdom and people of 5roy who, too, were dead, buried, and forgotten in the darkness of the Aark 'ges# 5he site of 5roy was reoccupied late in the seventh century/ but from the fall of 5roy, now put by archaeologists ca# "(3+2, until 8omers time, there was nothing on the surface of the mound that could disclose to the poet the many intricate details which he webbed into his epics# It is reali@ed that 8omer knew the scene of the 'egean coast of 'sia &inor of the eighth and seventh centuries/ therefore, it was argued, he could not have lived in the days of the 5ro9an .ar Bor shortly thereafterC in the (3th century# ' poet having composed the poems in the twelfth century would not be able to introduce into them innumerable references to the Iron 'ge in 7reece and the post"!hrygian 'ge in 'sia &inor of the seventh century# .as the site of 5roy alone in 'sia &inor an archaeological void for five hundred years, following that citys destruction at the end of the &ycenaean 'ge=

Re"e!ences
(# A# !age, ,5he 8istorical Sack of 5roy,- Anti1uity' Vol# QQQIII B()F)C, p# 4(#

3# ($id.' p# 33(#

The Da!k A$e in Asia (ino!

>ike 7reece and the 'egean, 'sia &inor has no history for a period of close to five centuries# ertain scholars disagree with this verdict, but it comes from the pen of one of the foremost authorities on archaeology and art of 'sia &inor, !rofessor Ekrem 'kurgal of the University of 'nkara#( ,# # # 5oday M()+(N, despite all industrious archaeological exploration of the last decades, the period from (322 to *F2 for most parts of the 'natolian region lies still in complete darkness# 5he old nations of 'sia &inor, like the >ycians and the arians, the names of which are mentioned in the documents of the second half of the second millennium, are archaeologically, i#e#, with their material heritage, first noticeable about *22 or later # # # 8ence the cultural remains of the time between (322 and *F2 in central 'natolia, especially on the plateau, seem to be 0uite irretrievably lost for us#5he huge land of 'sia &inor for almost five centuries is historically and archaeologically void# 5he cause of the interruption in the flow of history about "(322 is assumed to lie in some military con0uest/ but the !hrygians, who are supposed to have been these con0uerors, did not themselves leave any sign of their occupation of the country from before "*F2# 5hus the explanation that the end of the 'natolian civili@ation about (322 was due to the incursion of the !hrygians is not supported by archaeological finds# 'ccording to 'kurgal, the repeatedly undertaken efforts to close the hiatus by relics of !hrygian art ,cannot be harmoni@ed with the results of archaeological study# Jone of the !hrygian finds and none of the oriental ones found with them can be dated earlier than the eighth century#- ,Such results compel us to exclude from the study of 'sia &inor between (322 and *F2 any !hrygian presence and heritage#If there is no sign of !hrygian occupation for the period, are there possibly some vestiges of occupation by other peoples= ,It is startling,- writes 'kurgal, ,that until now in entral 'natolia not only no !hrygian, but altogether no cultural remains of any people, came to light that could be dated in time between (322 and *F2#- Jothing was left by any possible survivors of previous occupants, namely by 8ittites, and nothing by any people or tribe that could have supplanted them# 'lso on the rim of 'sia &inor the darkness of the Aark 'ge is complete< ,In the south of the peninsula, in &ersin, 5arsus and Iaratepe, in recent years important archaeological work was done # # # here, too, the early Iron 'ge, i#e#, the period between (322 and *F2, is enwrapped in darkness#-3 Even after only a few decades of settlement a town should leave discernible relics for archaeologists/ usually under such circumstances potsherds or a few beads, or a clay figurine, are found# 'sh and kitchen refuse are ubi0uitous finds wherever there was human habitation# :ut that on an area over 3F2,222 s0uare miles in extent there should, as 'kurgal claims, be found nothing, not even tombs, from a period counted

not 9ust by decades but by centuries, actually a period of almost five hundred years, is hardly less than miraculous#

$eferences
(# 'kurgal, Aie Iunst 'natoliens von 8omer bis 'lexander B:erlin, ()+(C, pp# F"*/ cf# his !hrygische Iunst B'nkara, ()FFC, p# ((3# 3# Ibid#, p#*#

The Home!ic )uestion

5he idea of a wide gap separating the &ycenaean 'ge from the historical age of 7reece has gained almost universal acceptance since it was first advanced more than a century ago# :ecause no literary documents and almost no signs of culture could be found for that long period, it came to be known as the Aark 'ge# 8ellenists and historians in general use the term Aark 'ge for the twelfth, eleventh, tenth, ninth, and most of the eighth centuries, or the period that lies between the &ycenaean and 'rchaic ages, the latter being the opening of the Ionian period that in due course developed into the lassical period# 5he time from about "(322 to "*F2 is the Aark 'ge in continental 7reece, on the 'egean islands and shores, and in the interior of 'sia &inor# 5he reader may think that the term is be0ueathed to us from ancient times, from 7reek historians or philosophers of the classical period# 5he fact, however, is that no 7reek historian, philosopher, or poet used the term Aark 'ge or dark centuries or any substitute for such a concept/ nor did $oman writers, much occupied with the 7reek past, have a concept of a Aark 'ge for the period following the 5ro9an .ar and preceding the historical age in 7reece# 5he term, and the concept as well, are a creation of modern scholarship in 8ellenic studies for the period from which we have neither history, nor literary remains# If, as most scholars now believe, 8omer lived and created at the end of the eighth or the beginning of the seventh century, and if the 5ro9an .ar took place 9ust before the beginning of the Aark 'ge, he could hardly have omitted to refer in some direct or only indirect way to the more than four centuries of the Aark 'ge that separated him from the epic events he described# .hy did no poet?and 7reece had many?ever mention a lengthy Aark 'ge, if only in passing= Jeither 8erodotus, nor 5hucydides,( nor Qenophon?the 7reek historians?had anything to say about a four or five centuries span that separated the 7reek history from the &ycenaean# 7reece had also many outstanding philosophers/ then how are we to explain that a period?not covering 9ust a few decades, but more than four centuries?is passed over in silence by 7reek poets, philosophers and historians alike= Should not 'ristotle or, much later, Aiodorus of Sicily or !ausanias in their voluminous writings have devoted as much as a single passage to the Aark 'ge?if there was one= Jeither the $oman writers, nor the chronographers of the $enaissance, applied themselves to the illumination of the Aark centuries, and it is only since the last decades of the nineteenth century that the term Aark 'ge in 7reek history has been used# Aespite being separated by five centuries from the &ycenaean civili@ation of which he sings, 8omer displays a surprising knowledge of details no longer existent in the 7reek world of his day< .e know from the archaeological evidence that 8omer attempts to archaeologi@e, even to take us into the &ycenaean 'ge # # # yet in 8omers day there was no science of archaeology, no written history to assist the historical novelist# .here then did he get these details from the past=

So writes one author in the preface to his translation of the Iliad#3 's an example of such knowledge, the author cites 8omers description of Jestors cup with doves on its handles, a description that fits a vessel actually disinterred in the &ycenaean strata which according to the conventionally written history were deposited some five centuries before 8omer began to compose his epics# 5he techni0ue of metal inlay of the shield of 'chilles?described by 8omer in the Iliad?was practiced in 7reece in the :ron@e 'ge and ,disappeared before its close, and apparently never returned there#- 5he boars tusk helmet described by 8omer was reconstituted by $eichel from slivers of tusk found in many :ron@e 'ge graves# ,It is difficult to imagine 8omer transmitting a description of an ob9ect which we could not visuali@e # # # Hor four centuries at least no one could possibly have seen a boars tusk helmet # # #;n the other hand in 8omer are found descriptions of ob9ects ,which cannot have found a place there before the *th century#- ;ne such ob9ect is the clasp which fastened the cloak of ;dysseus when on his way to 5roy# ,It points to the second decade of the *th century as the time of the composition of the ;dyssey Bunless it is an interpolation, the dates of which could not be much earlier or later than the first half of the *th centuryC#If the &ycenaean 'ge closed with the twelfth century and 8omer composed at the end of the eighth, four and a half centuries constitute a hiatus, and separate the poet from the ob9ects he describes# 5he blending of elements testifying to the &ycenaean 'ge together with elements the age of which could not precede the seventh and certainly not the eighth century is a characteristic feature of the Iliad# Some scholars have expended enormous efforts in trying to separate passages of the epics and ascribe their authorship to different generations of poets, from contemporaries of the events to the final editor of the poems in the seventh century# :ut all these efforts were spent unprofitably, and their authors at the end of their labors usually declared their perplexity# 5he following evaluation is from the pen of &# !# Jilsson< ,5o sum up# 5here is considerable evidence in 8omer which without any doubt refers to the &ycenaean 'ge# # # 5he 8omeric poems contain elements from widely differing ages# 5he most bewildering fact is, however, that the &ycenaean elements are not distributed according to the age of the strata in the poems#- Jilsson continued< ,5he &ycenaean and the orientali@ing elements differ in age by more than half a millennium# 5hey are inextricably blended# 8ow is it credible that the former elements were preserved through the centuries and incorporated in poems whose composition may be about half a millennium later=-4

Re"e!ences
(# M' passage from the first book of 5hucydides !eloponnesian 2ars BI#(*C which tells of a period of political chaos and economic deprivation after the

fall of 5roy, is sometimes cited as a reference to the Aark 'ges# 5hat the end of the &ycenaean 'ge was followed by several decades of migrations and poverty is a fact that is discussed at some length below Bsection ,' 7ap losed-C# :ut 5hucydides words cannot be construed as referring to a period of time longer than a century#N 3# E# V# $ieu, The (liad' B>ondon, ()F4C# 4# &# !# Jilsson, #omer and /ycenae B()44C, pp# (F1"F)#

The Allies o" !iam

I must admit that not so long ago I tended to consider the 5ro9an .ar as a legend, with more mythology in it than history< neither in its cause nor in its conduct did this conflict seem to reflect historical events# 5he cause of the war, according to tradition, was a seduction or abduction of the spouse of one of the 8elladic chiefs/ and this, we are told, raised the leaders of all 8ellas to undertake a mobili@ation and campaign to the coast of 'sia and to endure hardships for ten years, leaving their own spouses to be ravished or besieged by suitors in the meantime# 'nd if 8issarlik is the site of 5roy, there is the additional incongruity of a great war effort the goal of which was to capture a fortress occupying not much more than two acres of land B5roy VIIaC?so arl :legen, the last excavator of the site# 'nd what of the participation of 'res, 'thene, Leus, and other divinities= 5he emphasis is on the courage and proficiency of a few single heroes who trace their descent, and in some cases even their parenthood, to various deities and other mythological figures B5hetis in the case of 'chillesC# .ith the end of the siege of ten years duration and the fall of 5roy, the navy of the 'chaeans?of which the second book of the Iliad gives a record enumerating the number of ships that carried the warriors from each of the cities(?is as if no more existent# Victory and triumph are followed by only a few wretched returns home# Jothing is heard of the return to 7reece of the 'chaeans, victorious in war, as an organi@ed force# .e hear of single warriors, like 'gamemnon, the leader of the expedition, returning only to find violent death waiting for him in his own town and house or, like ;dysseus, spending another ten years striving to reach home by a round"about way# 5hose of the heroes who succeed in returning find their wives, some faithful, some unfaithful, some in cohort with their scheming lovers and having to be avenged by their children?but little is said of the continuing royal houses, whether of 'gamemnon in &ycenae, or of &enelaus in Sparta, or of ;dysseus in Ithaca, or of Jestor in !ylos# 5hen in a matter of hardly half a generation a curtain descends on 'chaean 7reece, which presumably for close to five hundred years presents only a picture of void enveloped in primeval darkness# Jothing is known of the subse0uent history of these city states, the personal tragedies having ended in family blood"baths# It is as if in the theater the curtain descended for the last time, the lights are extinguished, the hall hurriedly locked, and then five hundred years of impenetrable darkness# Eet a success of the protracted expedition, if undertaken, as some scholars have theori@ed, to protect the marine route through the 8ellespont, across the :lack Sea, and to the aucasian coast, should have made the 8ellenes, having forged their national unity in war, exploit the success by expansion of overseas trade and traffic# 5he curtain of darkness descends also on 5roy?and the void endures there almost as long as in 7reece, though it is presumed that some wretched inhabitants settled in hovels, but not before centuries passed# ;f the defenders of 5roy, from among those who survived the siege, we read also very little?as if they evaporated into thin air? with the exception of 'eneas and his household/ and he, like ;dysseus, spends a decade or so in wanderings, before reaching Italy#

Strangely, in that substantial portion of the enormous literature on the 5ro9an .ar and 5roy that I consulted, I scarcely ever found a discussion of the nationality of the people of 5roy#3 In the Iliad they are regularly referred to as ,the people of !riam,- their king, but this is not an ethnic designation# 5hus while it is known that the besiegers of 5roy were 'chaeans, also called Aanaans, and it is generally accepted that they were &ycenaean 7reeks?actually the last generation of them, sometimes designated as the 8eroic 7eneration?the 0uestion of which race were the people of !riam was left unanswered by 8omer# :ut at least let us look at !riams allies# 8ere some clear indications come to the fore/ and if we are still not helped in our pursuit?which nation did the 'chaeans fight at 5roy=?at least we see a ray of hope that, by knowing the allies we may be guided to the proper time# :y knowing the correct century of the events we may obtain an insight into the interplay of nations and races and perhaps come to reali@e the true reason for the conflict that summoned the 'chaean host to the 5road, the region surrounding 5roy# !hrygians are named as allies of !riam/4 also Ethiopians are counted among his allies# 5he identification of both these nations carries indications as to the century to which the most famous war of ancient times needs to be ascribed# ;f the !hrygians it is told that their origin stems from 5hrace, north of &acedonia, west of the 8ellespont# 5he time of their migration to 'sia &inor is not known# Jo !hrygian anti0uities from before the first half of the eighth century have been found,D and the opinion is expressed that 8omers reference to the !hrygians is an anachronism# It seems that in one of the earliest waves of the eighth century migrations the !hrygians moved from 5hrace over the 8ellespont to 'sia &inor# 5radition has it that the first king in their new domicile was 7ordias, and the story of his selecting the site for his capital 7ordion is a well known legend#F 5he son of 7ordias, &idas, is even more than his father an ob9ect of legendary motifs ?whatever he touched turned to gold, he had the ears of an ass?yet he was a historical figure as well who, according to the chronicle of 8ieronymus, reigned from "*D3 to "+)+#+ Soon the !hrygians came into conflict with the 'ssyrians who opposed the penetration of newcomers into central 'sia &inor/ and Sargon II B"*3+ to "*2FC, the con0ueror of Samaria and of the Israelite tribes, moved westward to stop the penetration of the !hrygians#* 'ltogether the !hrygian kingdom in 'sia &inor had a short duration#1 'lready the IRrte brothers, the early excavators of 7ordion, noted that of the royal mounds BkurgansC only three could be dated before the immerian invasion of the early seventh century which put an end to the !hrygian kingdom, and probably the number of royal successions did not exceed this number#) >ittle is known of its history besides the fact that ca# "+1* 7ordion was overrun by the immerians# 5he immerians came from the north, traversing the coastal routes of the aucasus/ their original homeland is often thought to have been the rimea in southern $ussia# 5hey occupied 7ordion, displacing the !hrygians westward, toward the >ydian

kingdom and the 'egean coast# .hile the displaced !hrygians may have continued to live for a time in the western confines of 'sia &inor, the year "+1* saw the end of their kingdom# It appears that the immerians did not tarry for any length of time in !hrygia/ like the Scythians, a nomadic race from the steppes of $ussia, who soon followed them on the coastal roads of the aucasus, they were but transient con0uerors# 5he time they came from their native land, "+1* or soon thereafter,(2 makes it 0uite certain that they were put on their migration by the natural events of that year?described at some length in 2orlds in Collision3(( by the world"wide upheavals, earth0uakes, frightening apparitions in the sky, as well as by the changes in climate that made many accustomed pursuits and agricultural practices obsolete# "+1* Bor possibly "*2(C was also the year that Sennacherib met his famous debacle as described in the books of Isaiah, II Iings, and II hronicles, while threatening 6erusalem with capture and its population with eviction and exile# !hrygians as allies of !riam, in the hinterland of the 5road, in conflict with the immerians, themselves pursued by the Scythians, would limit the period of the 5ro9an .ar to the years between "*32 and "+1*# 'fter the passing of the immerians, !hrygia was exposed to the occupation and influence of neighboring states, in particular to that of the >ydian Iingdom to the west, with its capital at Sardis# >ydia was ruled by 7yges, a great king who played a conspicuous role in the politics of the Jear East# 8e was on friendly terms with 'ssurbanipal, grandson of Sennacherib, king of 'ssyria/ then, feeling the threat of the growing 'ssyrian empire, he supported Egypts rise to independence< he sent Ionian and arian detachments to !sammetichus, king of Egypt, which enabled that country to free itself from the supremacy of 'ssyria# 5he 8omeric epics were created on the 'sia shore of 'sia &inor/ it is most probable that 8omer was a contemporary of 7yges, king of >ydia#(3 5his view was also offered and supported with arguments by Emile &ireaux/ moreover, &ireaux ascribed also the very events of the poems to the time of 7yges#(4 5he allies of !riam also included Ethiopians under &emnon/(D the Ethiopian allies of !riam must date in all probability to the period when the Ethiopians were one of the most honored nations, highly regarded for their military prowess# .hat is called here Ethiopians were actually Sudanese< in Egyptian history the Ethiopian Aynasty and their most glorious period is dated from ca# "*(3 to "++4, when 'shurbanipal pursued 5irhaka to 5hebes, occupied it, and expelled the Ethiopian from Egypt proper# 5he tradition concerning &emnon, the Ethiopian warrior who came to the help of 5roy, would reasonably limit the time of the conflict also to the end of the eighth and the beginning of the seventh century#(F 5he possibility of an Ethiopian landing at 5roy in the days of the Ethiopian pharaoh 5irhaka need not be dismissed because of the remoteness of the place< as 9ust said, close to the middle of the seventh century, and possibly at an earlier date, 7yges, the king of Sardis, sent in the reverse direction arian and Ionian mercenaries to assist the Egyptian king !sammetichus in throwing off the 'ssyrian hegemony#

5hus it seems that if the participants in the 5ro9an .ar all belong to the eighth" seventh century, 8omer, who is thought to have lived at the end of the eighth century or the beginning of the seventh, must have been either a contemporary of the siege of 5roy, or separated from it by one generation only# ' correct historical placement of the 5ro9an .ar may contain a clue to its real cause< we can surmise that the 8elladic city"states, alarmed by rumors of hordes of immerians, preceded by dispossessed !hrygians, pushing towards the 8ellespont, united under the leadership of 'gamemnon and moved across the 'egean sea to preclude the invasion of their land, should the migrating immerians or displaced !hrygians attempt to cross the straits into mainland 7reece# 5roy was located in the vicinity of the 8ellespont, crossed by armies in ancient times, by 'lexander, by Aarius I, and by other con0uerors before them# .hile the 7reek expedition may have had some limited success, its forces were wrecked and dispersed in the natural upheavals that accompanied the fall of 5roy#

Re"e!ences
(# See below, section ,&ycenaean ity James in the Iliad#3# f# Strabo, Geography QII#1#*# 4# 'ctually, repeated reference to !hrygians as !riams allies leaves the 0uestion open whether !riams people were not !hrygians themselves# D# Ekrem 'kurgal writes that their ,first archaeological traces appear in the middle of the eighth century#- Ancient Civili4ations and Ruins of Turkey' BIstanbul, ()*2C, p# (D# F# 'rrian, The Ana$asis of Ale5ander' II#4/ 6ustin, QI#*/ 7# and '# Ioerte, Gordion B:erlin, ()2DC pp# (3ff#/ $# 7raves, The Greek /yths B>ondon, ()FFC, no# 14# +# M use$ius 2erke' ed# $# 8elm B>eip@ig, ()(4C, vol# VII, pp# 1), )3#N &odern historians usually calculate the date of &idas death as "+*+# It was under &idas that the !hrygian kingdom reached the peak of its power, as archaeology also attests# See $# S# Eoung, ,7ordion< !reliminary $eport, ()F4- in American Journal of Archaeology F) B()FFC, p# (+# *# M'ccording to 'ssyrian records, Sargons campaign against &idas and the !hrygians, which took place in "*(F, was the result of &idas conspiring with the king of archemish against 'ssyria# See &# &ellink, ,&ita, &ushki, and the !hrygians,- Anadolu Arastirmalari BIstanbul, ()FFC# E# 'kurgal, Die Kunst Anatoliens' p# *2/ !# Jaster, 0,Asie mineure et l,Assyrie B>ouvain, ()41C, p# 4*# Sargons expedition was, however, not altogether successful in pacifying the region, and continuing disturbances brought Sargon several more times to the defense of his northwestern frontier/ he finally met his death there in battle in "*2F#N 1# M$# S# Eoung, the excavator of 7ordion, estimated a period of ,a half centuryor more for the flourishing of !hrygian culture at the site?,5he Jomadic Impact- in Dark Ages and 6omads' p# FD# Jo !hrygian presence can be recogni@ed in the archaeology until the middle of the eighth century?and soon after the start of the seventh, about the year +*+ :# #, the !hrygian

kingdom was destroyed in the catastrophic immerian invasion# 5his is also when &idas met his end Bby suicide, according to Eusebius, -Chron. p# )3C and Strabo Geography I# 4# 3(C, and his capital 7ordion was burned to the ground# 5he immerian destruction level was found in ()F+/ see Eoung, 7ordion ()F+< !reliminary $eport- in American Journal of Archaeology +( B()F*C p# 432# f# also idem, ,5he Jomadic Impact< 7ordion- pp# FDf#N )# M7ustav and 'dolf IRrte, Gordion B:erlin, ()2DC# Eoung, ,5he Excavations at Eassihuyuk"7ordion, ()F2- in Archaeology 4 B()F2C pp# ()+"())# 5he non" royal tumuli were much more numerous# ' royal tomb, perhaps of 7ordias, was excavated in ()F*?Eoung, ,5he $oyal 5omb at 7ordion,- Archaeology (2 B()F*C pp# 3(*"3()#N (2# In the ;dyssey BQI#(DC there is reference to the land of the immerians/ and if 8omer knew of the presence of the immerians in 'sia &inor, then the scene is not earlier than "+1*# ((# 8erodotus, :k# IV# (3# 5he dates of 7yges reign are given as "+1* to "+F3 by 8# 7el@er and as "+)2 to "+F* by 8# .inckler# (4# E# &ireaux, 0es po7mes hom)ri1ues et l,histoire grec1ue' B!aris, ()D1"D)C# (D# MIn the ;dyssey BIII#((("3C Jestor recalls the death of his son 'ntilochos who died by the spear of ,the glorious son of shining Aawn,- B;d# IV#(1F"323C which is the epithet reserved for &emnon# >ater in the ;dyssey the Ethiopian warrior is mentioned by name as ,great &emnon#- B;d# QI# F33C (F# 5hose called here Ethiopians actually were the inhabitants of what is today Sudan# f# &ireaux, 0es po7mes hom)ri1ues et l,histoire grec1ue' vol# I, ch# iv#

Aeneas
Hollowing the fall of 5roy 'eneas, son of !riam, a 5ro9an hero second only to 8ector, fled the fortress/ he lost his wife in the escape, himself carrying his aged father on his back and leading his young son by the hand# 5his is the way Virgil, in the first century before our era, imagined the beginning of 'eneas travels/ but already before Virgil, the fate of 'eneas was the sub9ect of poetic tradition# Virgils creation is regarded as the greatest of $oman epics/ Virgil, however, studied the sub9ect drawing on 7reek authors# Upon visiting 5hrace and the islands of the 'egean Sea, and following a so9ourn on rete, 'eneas and his little band of companions landed at arthage/ there Kueen Aido fell in love with him/ his refusal to make arthage his home and Aido his wife caused her, upon his departure, to take her own life# 'eneas further wanderings brought him finally to >atium in Italy, the land of the >atini# 'ccording to the $oman legendary tradition, he became the progenitor of the $omans through his son 'scanios, the first king to reign in the new capital of >atium, 'lba >onga, of which $ome was a dependent city/ or, in another version, through Jumitos in direct descent from 'scanios# :ut a more popular tradition had 'eneas himself as the founder of $ome/ the 7reek historian 5imaios Bca# "4D+ to ca# "3F2C followed this tradition# ' still better known legend has $omulus for the founder of $ome/ sometimes $omulus is made a descendant of 'eneas and 'scanios# $ome was founded, according to Varro, in "*F4#( 's to arthage, the generally accepted view is that it was founded in the second half of the ninth century/ 5imaios placed its foundation in the year "1(D# 5imaios was the first to fix the chronology of the ;lympiads#3 !hilistos, a 7reek author, born in "D4F, placed arthages foundation ,a mans life length- before the 5ro9an .ar/ but !hilistos dating of the 5ro9an .ar is unknown# !hilistos date for the foundation of arthage, sixty or seventy years before the fall of 5roy, is thought to be in conflict with 5imaios date because the 5ro9an .ar would need to be placed in the middle of the eighth century, shortly before the foundation of $ome# :ut is there a conflict between the founding dates of arthage in 5imaios and in !hilistos= ' refugee from 5roy in the first half of the twelfth century could not find arthage, a city built almost three centuries later by colonists from !hoenicia/ and he could not be associated with the founding of $ome either directly or by one of his descendants of several generations, the gap between "((14, the conventional year of 5roys fall, and "*F4, the traditional date of $omes foundation, being more than four centuries wide#

Re"e!ences
(# Habius !ictor gave "*D* as the date of $omes founding#

3# 8e was a native of Sicily, the history of which he wrote from the earliest times to "3+D/ of that history, regarded as authoritative in anti0uity, only single passages survived in authors who 0uoted him/ arthage is across the straits from Sicily#

Olym*ic Games in the Ilia+

5he recording of events in ancient 7reece was by the years of the ;lympiads, four years apart, the first year of the first ;lympiad having been "**+# 'n important contest at the ;lympiads was among charioteers, each driving a four"horse team# ;lympia was located in the district of Elis in the western part of the !eloponnesian peninsula# 5radition has it that the ;lympic games were initiated by !elops, an immigrant from !hrygia in 'sia &inor# 'nother account ascribes the founding of the festival to 8eracles, as a celebration of his con0uest of Elis#( In 2orlds in Collision the identity of 8eracles with the planet &ars was brought out from the statements of several ancient authors<3 .hile the founding of the games was attributed to 8eracles, or &ars, the festival also honored 'thene, or the planet Venus# 5his is shown by the fact that the early games were held at eight"year intervals,4 typical for Venus festivals, since eight terrestrial years e0ual five synodical years of Venus# >ater they were celebrated every four years, or two and a half synodical periods of Venus# 5he eighth century was a time when the planet &ars was prominent among the heavenly bodies and caused much destruction on earth# Jestor, the future king of !ylos, was but a young man at the time of the rampage of 8eracles"&ars through the western !eloponnese?he himself saw all his elder brothers killed by the god and his native !ylos burned to the groundD ?but by the tenth year of the siege of 5roy, 8omer tells, ,two generations of mortal men had MalreadyN perished< those who had grown up with him and they who had been born to these in sacred !ylos, and he was king in the third age#-F 5his information permits the rough guess that some fifty to sixty years passed between the founding of the ;lympic 7ames in Jestors youth and the 5ro9an .ar# In the Iliad the aging Jestor recalls that soon after the rebuilding of !ylos his father Jeleus sent from !ylos a team of four horses with a chariot to race for a tripod for a competition to be held at Elis# :ut the fine steeds were detained by the Elean king and their driver was sent home to !ylos empty"handed#+ # # # Hor in Elis a great debt was his MJeleusN due< a four"horse team of racing horses and their chariot that would have contended in the games and raced to win the tripod# 5hat this passage from the Iliad is a reference to the ;lympic 7ames was understood already in anti0uity, as we gather from a discussion of it by the geographer Strabo#* 5his means that 8omer knew of the ;lympic games and had Jestor refer to them as an event that began to be celebrated several decades before the drama that is the sub9ect of the (liad# 8owever, it is beyond dispute that the beginning of time reckoning by ;lympiads was in the eighth century, more precisely in "**+# 5he fact that these games are mentioned as taking place when Jeleus, the father of Jestor, was a young man gives some indication of the time in which the 5ro9an .ar was fought#

Re"e!ences

(# !indar, 8lympian 8des' Q D4ff#/ 8yginus, "a$ula 3*4# 3# ratosthenis catasterismorum reli1uiae' ed# # $obert, (1*1< ,5ertia est stella &artis 0uam alii 8erculis dixerunt#- f# &acrobius, Saturnalia iii# (3# F"+, reporting the opinion of Varro# 4# .# $# $idington, 5he &inoan"&ycenean :ackground of 7reek 'thletics B!hiladelphia, ()4FC, pp# 13"14# D# 8omer, (liad QI# +11"+)3/ !ausanias II#3#3/ III#3+#+ and V#4#(/ 'pollodorus II#*#4#/ Aiodorus Siculus IV#+1# F# 8omer, (liad, transl# by $# >attimore B()F(C, :ook# I, 3F2"3F3# +# 8omer, (liad QI# +)1"*2(# *# Strabo, Geography VIII#4#42/ !ausanias V#1#3

T!oy an+ Go!+ion

.hen Schliemann dug through the strata of 8issarliks hill, he discovered, on the second level from the virgin ground beneath, great walls of a fortress, and in the same level some treasures, all of which he attributed to !riams 5roy# 8is view was invalidated, and properly so, because a correlation with Egypt made it appear too early for 5roy# 5he second level, 5roy II, was shown to have been in existence during the ;ld Iingdom of Egypt, and thus long before the traditional date for 5roys fall# 5he end of 5roy VI, identified by .ilhelm Aoerpfeld as the Ilion of the siege, was found to have been contemporaneous with the mid"Eighteenth Aynasty of the Egyptian Jew Iingdom, and was therefore also too early for the 5ro9an .ar# arl :legen identified forty"six layers of occupation of the mound of 8issarlik, the 5roy of the excavators, but divided them between the nine strata of occupation classified by Aoerpfeld# 5roy VI was a well"built fortress/ :legen specified eight separate levels of occupation in this stratum alone# It ended in a violent earth0uake# :legen, however, looked for a fortress that fell not due to an earth0uake, but in a siege and assault/ thus he identified the 5roy sung by 8omer as 5roy VIIa# 5he sixth city of 5roy is conventionally placed in the fourteenth"thirteenth centuries before the present era, a dating which ultimately depends on Egyptian chronology# 8ere an observation by $odney Eoung, the excavator of the !hrygian capital 7ordion,( needs to be cited< ,In their batter as well as their masonry construction the walls of the !hrygian 7ate at 7ordion find their closest parallel in the wall of the sixth city at 5roy#- :ut a gulf of time separates these two constructions in the conventional timetable# 5hough separated in time by five hundred years or thereabouts, the two fortifications may well represent a common tradition of construction in north"western 'natolia/ if so, intermediate examples have yet to be found#3 Still today no intermediate examples have been found# 's to the date of the !hrygian 7ate and wall of 7ordion, Eoung wrote< 5he !hrygian Iingdom was # # # at the apex of its power toward the end of the eighth century, when it apparently extended as far to the southeast as the 5aurus and was in contact with 'ssyria# 5his period of power was apparently the time of the adornment and fortification of its capital city# 5his points to the eighth century for the erection of the city wall and gate#4 Eighth" century 7ordion is similar to thirteenth"century 5roy, yet intermediate examples of the peculiar way of building the gate and the wall beg to be found#D

Re"e!ences
(# 7ordion, the capital of !hrygia, was excavated by the Ioerte brothers at the beginning of this century# In ()F2 $odney Eoung led there a team and then returned for many seasons sponsored by the University of !ennsylvania &useum# 5he date of the !hrygian remains found at 7ordion was ascribed to the late eighth and early seventh centuries before the present era# 3# $# Eoung, ,7ordion ()F4,- American Journal of Archaeology' B()FDC# M5he post"8ittite and pre"!hrygian levels at 7ordion have not provided the much looked"for intermediate examples#N 4# M5he !hrygian 7ate of 7ordion was uncovered in ()F4 by a team from the University of !ennsylvania led by $odney Eoung# It was in the form of a large double gateway with a central courtyard# Since it belonged to the !hrygian period, its date, like that of most of the !hrygian constructions at 7ordion, was put sometime in the eighth century#N D# M.hereas the 5ro9ans had a long tradition of building in stone, the !hrygian gateway appears suddenly, without any other close antecedents/ nevertheless, it displays technical skills that speak of a long period of development# 5his apparent contradiction is also noted by Eoung B,5he Jomadic Impact< 7ordion,- p# F3C< ,# # # 5he planning of the M!hrygianN gateway and the execution of its masonry imply a familiarity with contemporary military architecture and long practice in handling stone for masonry# 5he masonry, in fact, with its sloping batter and its more or less regular coursing recalls neither the cyclopean 8ittite masonry of the 'natolian plateau in earlier times, nor the commonly prevalent contemporary construction of crude brick# 5he closest parallel is the masonry of the walls of 5roy VI, admittedly very much earlier# If any links exist to fill this time"gap, they must lie in west 'natolia rather than on the plateau#- 'ccording to the revised chronology, the 5ro9an fortifications were standing and in use as late as the ninth century/ the !hrygian fortifications at 7ordion, dating from the late eighth, could well have been part of the same tradition of building in stone#N

The &ion Gate o" (ycenae

5he >ion 7ate of &ycenae was the entrance to the city# 'top the gate, two lions rampant are carved in stone relief# Similar bas"reliefs of two lions rampant facing each other are found in a number of places in !hrygia in 'sia &inor#(

5he >ion 7ate of &ycenae

'rslantas, $ock"cut !hrygian tomb

,5he resemblance in idea is complete,- wrote .# &# $amsay in (111#3 8e considered the scheme ,so peculiarly characteristic of !hrygia, that we can hardly admit it to have been borrowed from any other country#- 8e found himself ,driven to the conclusion that the &ycenaean artists either are !hrygians or learned the idea from the !hrygians#-4 ,It is not allowable to separate them Mthe !hrygian and &ycenaean monumentsN in time by several centuries#-D ,5he !hrygian monuments,- in $amsays view, belong to the ninth and eighth centuries#F # # # 5he end of the !hrygian kingdom is a fixed date, about +*F :# #-+ when the invasion of 'sia &inor by the immerians put an end to the !hrygian culture and art# $amsay went on< I do not think it is allowable to place the &ycenaean gateway earlier than the ninth, and it is more likely to belong to the eighth century# 5he view to which I find myself forced is as follows# 5here was in the eighth century lively intercourse between 'rgos and 'sia &inor< in this intercourse the 'rgives learned # # # to fortify their city in the !hrygian style with lions over the gate# 8istorically there is certainly good reason to assign at least part of the fortifications of &ycenae to the time when the 'rgive kings Mthe tyrants of the eighth centuryN were the greatest power in 7reece Mhere follow the names of several authorities among the historians who hold the same viewN#1

;n the other hand, the almost universal opinion of archaeologists re9ects this hypothesis# # # # ;riental influences found in the remains of &ycenae are ,precisely what we should expect in a kingdom like the 'rgos of the eighth century,- when this kingdom had intercourse with 'sia &inor, !hoenicia and Egypt# ,I wish however to express no opinion here about the date of the &ycenaean tombs and about &ycenaean pottery, but only to argue that the fortifications of the >ion 7ate belong to the period 122"*22 :# #-) I 0uote this opinion of $amsay with the special intention of showing how this viewpoint was invalidated# 5he Egyptologist Hlinders !etrie made the following reply< ,M'N matter which demands notice is !rofessor $amsays conclusion that the lion gateway is of as late a date as the eighth century :# # 5his results from assuming it to be derived from !hrygian lion groups, on the ground of not knowing of any other prototype# 's however we now have a wooden lion, in exactly the same attitude, dated to (DF2 in Egypt # # # it seems that the !hrygian designs are not the only source of this motive for &ykenae#-(2 In Egypt of the latter part of the Eighteenth Aynasty a single instance of a rampant lion Bnot two rampant lions facing each other as at &ycenae and in !hrygiaC made !etrie claim Egypt as a possible place of origin of this image rather than !hrygia# 8e had discovered heaps of &ycenaean ware in Egypt of the time of 'khnaton# 8e could not but conclude that these heaps coming from &ycenae must be dated to the fourteenth century#(( E0ually impressive was the discovery at &ycenae of a number of ob9ects of Eighteenth"Aynasty date, such as ob9ects bearing the cartouches of 'menhotep II, 'menhotep III, and Kueen 5iy#(3 5herefore !etrie decidedly opposed $amsay in his estimate of eighth century for the >ion 7ate and the fortification wall of &ycenae#(4 8ere is a case where evidence from 'natolia pointed to the eighth century/(D but the Egyptologist demanded of the classical scholar that he disregard this evidence in favor of the time scale of Egypt# 5he debate between $amsay and !etrie took place before Evans archaeological work on rete/ there rampant lions were found engraved on >ate &inoan gems,(F conveying the idea that &ycenae must have borrowed the image from there, from a period well preceding the !hrygian models#(+ Eet one should not lose sight of the fact that retes chronology was also built upon relations with Egypt# In the section ,5he Scandal of Enkomi- we shall read how Evans ob9ected to the chronological implications of ypriote archaeology by stressing relations between the Egyptian and the &inoan B retanC chronologies on the one hand, and &inoan and ypriote on the other# In Ages in Chaos it was shown in great detail why the end of the Eighteenth Aynasty of Egypt must be placed in the latter part of the ninth century# 5hus even if rete was the

original source of the motif, &ycenae and !hrygia both deriving it thence, the dependence of retan chronology on that of Egypt constitutes the crux of the problem#(* >et us keep in mind that in the (112s and (1)2s classical scholars of the stature of .# &# $amsay B(1F("()4)C 0uestioned the inclusion of the Aark 'ges of several hundred years duration between the &ycenaean past and the Ionic age in 7reece# 'nd let us not overlook what was the supposedly crushing argument for wedging more than half a millennium into the history of ancient 7reece#

Re"e!ences
(# f# especially the relief on the ,>ion 5omb- at 'rslan 5ash near 'fyonkarahisar Bfig#C 3# $amsay, ,' Study of !hrygian 'rt,- Journal of #ellenic Studies IQ B(111C, p# 4+)# M$amsay, ,Studies in 'sia &inor,- Journal of #ellenic Studies III B(113C, p# ()?but see 7# &ylonas, /ycenae and the /ycenaean Age B!rinceton, ()++C, p# (*4#N 4# $amsay, ,' Study of !hrygian 'rt,- pp# 4+)"4*2# MEarlier representations of two rampant lions facing each other are known from rete/ however, it is for the carving techni0ue on stone on a monumental scale that &ycenae seems to be indebted to !hrygia# Hor a link to 'ssyria, see ># &# 7reenberg, ,5he >ion 7ate at &ycenae,- !ens)e (*R III, p# 3+#N D# ($id.' p# *2# F# MEmilie 8aspels in #ighlands of !hrygia B!rinceton, ()*(C dates the !hrygian reliefs at 'rslan 5ash to ,the last third of the eighth century :# #, the period of the P!hrygian ity of 7ordion- Bvol# I, p# (4F/ cf# vol# II, pl# (4("43C# E# 'kurgal, however, puts the same reliefs in the early sixth century, deriving them from Ionian, and ultimately Egyptian models?Die Kust Anatoliens von #omer $is Ale5ander B:erlin, ()+(C pp# 1+")2, )F# E&S N# +# $amsay, ,' Study in !hrygian 'rt,- p# 4F(# *# M$amsey considered the &ycenaean relief ,much more advanced in artthough ,not necessarily later in date- than the !hrygian >ion 5omb< ,Some !hrygian &onuments,- Journal of #ellenic Studies III B(113C p# 3F*# Hor evidence of !hrygian influence on eighth"century 7reece, see $# S# Eoung, ,5he Jomadic Impact< 7ordion- in Dark Ages and 6omads c. 9::: ;.C.3 Studies in (ranian and Anatolian Archaeology' ed# by &# 6# &ellink B>eiden, ()+DC, p# FD#N 1# U# v# .ilamowit@"&oellendorf, ,;ropos und die 7raer,- #ermes QQI B(11+C, p# (((, n# (, and idem, (syllos von pidauros B:erlin, (11+C, p# n#(/ :# Jiese, Die nt%icklung der homerischen !oesie B:erlin, (113C, p# 3(4, n# (# '# S# &urray and S# $einach are also among those cited by $amsay as concurring with his opinion Bp# 4*2, n# 4C# )# $amsay, ,' Study of !hrygian 'rt,- pp# 4*2"*(# (2# Sir .# &# Hlinders !etrie, ,Jotes on the 'nti0uities of &ykenae,- Journal of #ellenic Studies QII B(1)(C, pp# 323"24# M!etrie also attempted to fix the dates of many of the finds from the &ycenaean tombs by comparing them with ob9ects from Egypt whose anti0uity he considered to be well"established#N

((# f# 6# A# S# !endlebury, Aegyptiaca B ambridge, ()42C, pp# (((ff# MV# 8ankey and !# .arren, ,5he 'bsolute hronology of the 'egean >ate :ron@e 'ge,;ulletin of the (nstitute of Classical Studies BUniversity of >ondonC QQI B()*DC, pp# (D3"(F3#N (3# f# !endlebury, Aegyptiaca' pp# F4"F*/ 8ankey and .arren, ,5he 'bsolute hronology of the 'egean >ate :ron@e 'ge#(4# :oardman notes that monumental sculpture of this kind is unknown in 7reece from the time the >ion 7ate of &ycenae was built until the eighth century< ,&ore than five hundred years were to pass before 7reek sculptors could MagainN command an idiom that would satisfy these aspirations in sculpture and architecture#- Greek Art BJew Eork, ()+DC, p# 33# M' few other F22"year enigmas appear at &ycenae# See below, Supplement, ,'pplying the $evised hronology,- by Edwin Schorr#N (D# MIn The Sea !eople Sandars points out the stylistic similarity between the >ion 7ate of &ycenae and the >ion 7ate of :ogha@koi# E&SN (F# MSome of these gems were known even before Evans digs?see for instance the intaglio in 7# !errot and # hipie@, #istory of Art in !rimitive Greece II B>ondon, (1)DC, pp# 3(D and 3D+, depicting two rampant lions facing each other in a way similar to that on the >ion 7ate# f# also the gems shown in Corpus der minoischen und mykenischen Siegel' ed# H# &at@ and 8# :isant@ B:erlin, ()+DC nos# D+, (DD, (DF, (*3#N (+# MJ# !laton, B, retan"&ycenaean 'rt,- ncyclopaedia of 2orld Art IV MJew Eork, ()F1N, p# (2)C thought that ,the techni0ue of the execution Mof the >ion 7ateN is clearly inspired by retan sculpture#- :ut the retan sculptures, unlike those in !hrygia, are miniatures, and !laton needs to assume ,the effective translation of a miniature theme into a ma9or sculptural creation- B$# 8iggins, /inoan</ycenaean Art MJew Eork, ()+*N, p# )3C# Sandars in The Sea !eoples points out the similarity of the monumental carving style of the >ion 7ate of :ogha@koi in central 'natolia to the >ion 7ate of &ycenae#N (*# M5he discovery of >ate 8elladic III: pottery in strata excavated underneath the gate is used to establish the date of its construction#N :ut this pottery, too, is dated on the basis of relations with Egypt#

Olym*ia
5he scholarly world without any further deliberation decided not to bring the &ycenaean 'ge down to the first millennium, but this decision did not eliminate the disturbing facts# 't the same time another one"man battle was being carried on at the other end of the front# 7reek anti0uities, commonly regarded as belonging to the eighth and seventh centuries, were declared by a dissenting authority to date from the second millennium, to have been contemporaneous with the &ycenaean 'ge, and even to have partly preceded it# 'ccording to the accepted view the &ycenaean ware came to an end in the second millennium, and the Aorian invasion subse0uently brought a ,primitive- art, a pottery with incised designs/ later a pattern of painted geometric designs developed, reaching its full expression by the late eighth century# 5hereafter new motifs were brought into 7reek art?griffins, sphinxes and other oriental figures/ this is the period of the orientali@ation of the art of 7reece in the seventh century# 5his scheme was accepted/ and today, with only slight variations, it is the credo of archaeological art# 'ccording to ARrpfeld in the second millennium two or three different cultures met in 7reece#( ARrpfeld insisted that the geometric ware ascribed to the first millennium was actually contemporaneous with, and even antecedent to, the &ycenaean art of the second millennium, and that the ,primitive- pottery was also of the second millennium# 5he archaeological evidence for the contemporaneity of the geometric and &ycenaean ware and of all other products of these two cultures, and even of the partial precedence of the geometric ware, was the basic issue for ARrpfeld, who spent a lifetime digging in 7reece# ;bserving that the &ycenaean 'ge is contemporaneous with the period of the Eighteenth dynasty, and that the geometric ware is contemporaneous with the &ycenaean ware, he referred the geometric ware also to the second millennium#3 5his aroused much wrath# '# HurtwSngler, who during the excavations of ;lympia in the western !eloponnesus, under the direction of urtius, was the first to attach importance to bits of pottery, and who spent over a 0uarter of a century classifying small finds, bron@es, ceramics and other products of art, and devised the system of their development, disagreed on all points# ARrpfeld chose to prove his thesis on the excavations of ;lympia, on which he and Hurtwaengler had both worked since the eighties of the last century# In those early days urtius, one of the excavators of ;lympia, was strongly impressed by proofs of the great anti0uity of the bron@es and pottery discovered under the 8eraion Btemple of 8eraC at ;lympia/ he was inclined to date the temple in the twelfth or thirteenth

century and the bron@es and pottery found beneath it to a still earlier period, and this view is reflected in the monumental volumes containing the report of the excavation#4 't that time HurtwSngler was also inclined to disregard the chronological value of occasional younger ob9ects found there#D Jew excavations under the 8eraion were undertaken by ARrpfeld for the special purpose of establishing that the finds, as well as the original 8eraion, date from the second millennium#F :ut the excavated bron@es and pottery strengthened each side still more in its convictions# Each of the two scholars brought a mass of material to prove his own point?ARrpfeld, that the geometric ware, which he had himself found together with the &ycenaean at such sites as 5roy and 5iryns+ was contemporaneous with the &ycenaean ware and therefore belongs to the second millennium/ HurtwSngler, that the geometric ware is a product of the first millennium, and especially of the ninth to eighth centuries, and is therefore separated from the &ycenaean by einer ungeheueren Kluft Ba tremendous chasmC#* .ho but an ignoramus, argued HurtwSngler, would place in the second millennium the geometric vases found in the necropolis near the Aipylon 7ate at 'thens=1 .ere there not found, he asked, in this same necropolis, porcelain lions of Egyptian manufacture dating from the 5wenty"sixth, the Saitic, Aynasty of !sammetichus and Jecho=) .ere not also a great number of iron tools found beneath the 8eraion in ;lympia= 5he &ycenaean 'ge is the >ate :ron@e 'ge/ the 7eometric 'ge that of iron# It is true, claimed HurtwSngler, that a few iron ob9ects have been found in the &ycenaean tombs?but they only show that iron was very precious at the time these tombs were built# :oth sides linked the 0uestion of the date of the origin of the 8omeric epic to the 0uestion at hand# &ost scholars claimed that the epics originated in the eighth century# :ut, according to the dissident ARrpfeld, they originated five or six centuries earlier, in the &ycenaean 'ge, which is also the 7eometric 'ge# 5he dispute was waged with ungeh=rigen pers=nlichen ;eleidigungen Boutrageous personal slanderC/(2 and a 0uarter century after one of the disputants BHurtwSnglerC was resting in his grave the other, BARrpfeldC, then an octogenarian, filled two volumes with arguments# 5hey vilified each other on their deathbeds, and their pupils participated in the 0uarrel# In the end the followers of ARrpfeld, the dissident scholar, deserted him and went over to the camp of his detractors# :ut by that time he had already been completely discredited, and his obstinacy made him a target for further attacks by the younger generation of scholars properly trained in the science of archaeology, who are able at a glance to tell the exact age and provenance of a sherd# 5hey have no doubt whatsoever that the &ycenaean 'ge came to a close ca# "((22 and that the real 7eometric 'ge belongs to the ninth and eighth centuries, and for a long time now the issue has not been open to dispute#

:ut this does not mean that the facts ceased to perplex# 'ccording to E# '# 7ardner, ,fragments of geometrical vases # # # have been found on various sites in 7reece together with late examples of &ycenaean pottery#-(( .hen then did the &ycenaean 'ge end, ca# "((22 or ca# "*22= In this dispute between the two scholars, both were guided by the chronology of the Egyptologists, according to which the Eighteenth Aynasty ended in the fourteenth century, the Jineteenth came to a close before ca# "(322, and the 5wenty"sixth Aynasty belongs to the seventh and early part of the sixth centuries# In their application of these undisputed facts to the past of 7reece, both disputant scholars agreed that the &ycenaean 'ge belongs to the second millennium# 5he 7eometric 'ge did not follow the &ycenaean 'ge, but was of the same time or even earlier, argued one scholar BARrpfeldC, and was he wrong= 5he 7eometric 'ge belongs to the first millennium, argued the other scholar BHurtwaenglerC, and was he wrong= .rong was their common borrowing of dates for the &ycenaean 'ge from the Egyptologists# In view of the fact that later generations of archaeologists followed Hurtwaengler and not ARrpfeld, it is worthwhile to reproduce the assessment of the latter as an archaeologist by one who knew him and his work, herself a great figure in classical studies built on &ycenaean and lassical archaeology, 8# ># >orimer, author of #omer and the /onuments B()F2C# In her !reface to that book >orimer writes< I wish to record the debt which in common with all 8omeric archaeologists I owe to a great figure, forgotten to"day in some 0uarters and in others the ob9ect of an ill"informed contempt# 5o .ilhelm ARrpfeld, the co"ad9utor of Schliemann in his later years and long associated with the 7erman 'racheological Institute in 'thens, scholars owe not only the basic elucidation of the sites of 5iryns and 5roy which ensured their further fruitful exploration, but the establishment of rigidly scientific standards in the business of excavation, an innovation which has preserved for us untold treasures all over the 'egean area# 5hat in later years he became the exponent of many wild theories is true but irrelevant and does not diminish our debt# In his own realm his work, as those testify who have had access to the daily records of his digs, was as nearly impeccable as anything human can be# # # 5his is an evaluation of ARrpfeld as an archaeologist from the hand of a scholar who did not follow the lonely scholar on his ,wild theories#- 5he archaeological work that brought him to his theories regarding the se0uence of pottery styles was impeccable/ and his theories were wild mainly because he did not make the final step and free 7reek archaeology and chronology from the erroneous Egyptian timetable# 5he contemporaneity of the &ycenaean and early 7eometric wares, if true, contains the clue to the removal of the last argument for the preservation of the Aark 'ges between the &ycenaean and 7reek periods of history#

Re"e!ences
(# .# ARrpfeld, #omers 8dyssee' die 2iederherstellung des urspr>nglichen pos B&unich, ()3FC, vol# I, pp# 42Dff# 3# ,5his geometrical style is very old/ it existed before and next to the &ycenaean art, nor was it replaced by it#- .# ARrpfeld, Alt<8lympia B:erlin, ()4FC vol# I, p# (3# 4# 8lympia' Die rge$nisse der von dem deutschen Reich veranstalteten Ausgra$ungen' ed#, E# urtius and H# 'dler, (2 vols# B:erlin, (1)2")*C# D# '# Hurtwaengler, ,Aas 'lter des 8eraion und das 'lter des 8eiligtums von ;lympia,- Sit@ungsberichte der !hilosophisch"!hilologischen Ilasse der IRniglich :ayerischen 'kademie der .issenschaften, ()2+, reprinted in Ileine Schriften B&unich, ()(3C# F# MARrpfeld distinguished three consecutive temples?the existing 8eraion, built at the beginning of the ninth century, the original temple which, on the evidence of !ausanias BV#(+#(C he dated to "(2)+, and an intermediate structure, which in his view was never completed# 5oday scholars find no basis for positing this intermediate temple and, furthermore, on the basis of the geometric pottery found beneath the first temple, discount the ,erroneous tradition- B8# E# Searls and .# :# Ainsmoor, ,5he Aate of the ;lympia 8eraeum,- American Journal of Archaeology D) M()DFN p# *4C of !ausanias which originally led ARrpfeld to his early dating of it# 5he Elean tradition recorded by !ausanias has the ;lympia 8eraion built ,about eight years after ;xylus came to the throne of Elis#- BV#(+#(C Elsewhere BV#4#+C he puts ;xylus two generations after the 5ro9an .ar# 5he tradition is ,erroneous- only if the 5ro9an .ar is placed in the thirteenth or early twelfth centuries# If it was in fact fought in the late eighth, the tradition then would accord well with the findings of the archaeologists who place the first temple ca# "+F2 B'# &allwit@, 8lympia und seine ;auten M&unich, ()*3N pp# 1F"11/ 8#"V# 8errman, 8lympia' #eiligtum und 2ettkampfstaette M&unich, ()*3N pp# )4")D/ E# Iun@e, ,Lur 7eschichte und @u den AenkmSlern ;lympias- in 9:: Jahre deutsche Ausgra$ung in 8lympia M&unich, ()*3N p# ((C#N +# See below, section ,' !alace and a 5emple at 5iryns#- ;nly small 0uantities of &ycenaean ware were found at ;lympia, and none beneath the 8eraion# *# MKuite early on, HurtwSngler had become convinced that none of the bron@es found at ;lympia could be dated before the eighth century B,:ron@efunde aus ;lympia,- A$handlungen ;erl. Akad.' (1*), IV/ Kleine Schriften' &unich, ()(3, I, pp# 44)"D3(C# In (112 more bron@es were discovered in the black stratum beneath the floor of the 8eraion -8lympia' vol# IVC, and they seemingly confirmed a late eighth century date/ this meant that the temple had to be somewhat more recent# HurtwSngler later admitted that the evidence of several small finds, indicating a much more recent date of construction of the temple, had been re9ected by him at the time because it diverged too radically from accepted views# In ()2+ he published his influential study of the ob9ects newly dug up from beneath the floor of the 8eraion -?Das 'lter des #eraion und das 'lter des #eiligtums von 8lympia'@ Sit4ungs$erichte der philosophisch<philologischen Klasse der koeniglich $ayerischen Akademie der 2issenschaften. in which he concluded that the 8eraion and the pottery associated with it belong in the latter part of the seventh century#N

1# M5he Aipylon period, so named after the funeral vessels first discovered near the Aipylon 7ate at 'thens by the 7reek 'rchaeological Society in (1*4"*D, was dated originally to the tenth or ninth centuries :# # 'ccording to Schliemann, Aipylon ware was at one time ,commonly held to be the most ancient pottery in 7reece # # # .hen it was recogni@ed that the &ycenaean pottery was of a higher anti0uity, it was also found that the Aipylon graves must belong to a later time# # #- Tiryns B>ondon, (11+C p# 1*# ;f course, &ycenaean pottery was ,recogni@ed- as being ,of a higher anti0uity- largely because of synchronisms with Egypt#N )# M5he two porcelain lions were found in tombs excavated in (1)( near the Aipylon 7ate, together with ,vases of characteristic Aipylon ware,- according to E# '# 7ardner, Ancient Athens B>ondon, ()23C p# (F*# 8owever, cf# Ramses (( and his Time B()*1C in which monuments now attributed to the 5wenty" sixth Aynasty are redated for the most part to the subse0uent period of !ersian domination#N (2# ARrpfeld, Alt<8lympia' vol# I, p# (3# ((# E# '# 7ardner, Ancient Athens BJew Eork, ()23C pp# (F*"F1#

,The #can+al o" Enkomi5he lengthening of Egyptian history by phantom centuries must have as a conse0uence the lengthening of &ycenaen"7reek history by the same length of time# ;n yprus, 'egean culture came into contact with the cultures of the ;rient, particularly with that of Egypt, and unavoidably embarrassing situations were in store for archaeology# In (1)+ the :ritish &useum conducted excavations at the village of Enkomi, the site of an ancient capital of yprus, not far from Hamagusta, with '# S# &urray in charge#( ' necropolis was cleared, and many sepulchral chambers investigated# ,In general there was not apparent in the tombs we opened any wide differences of epoch# Hor all we could say, the whole burying"ground may have been the work of a century#,Hrom first to last there was no 0uestion that this whole burying"ground belonged to what is called the &ycenaean 'ge, the characteristics of which are already abundantly known from the tombs of &ycenae # # # and many other places in the 7reek islands and in Egypt#8owever the pottery, porcelain, gems, glass, ivory, bron@e, and gold found in the tombs all presented one and the same difficulty# Hrom the Egyptological point of view many ob9ects belong to the time of 'menhotep III and 'khnaton, supposedly of the fifteenth to the fourteenth centuries# Hrom the 'ssyrian, !hoenician, and 7reek viewpoint the same ob9ects belong to the period of the ninth to the eighth or seventh centuries# Since the ob9ects are representative of &ycenaean culture, the excavator 0uestioned the true time of the &ycenaean 'ge# :ut as the &ycenaean 'ge is linked to the Egyptian chronology he found himself at an impasse# .e shall follow him in his efforts to come out of the labyrinth# 8e submitted a vase, typical of the tombs of Enkomi, to a thorough examination# 5he dark outlines of the figures on the vase are accompanied by white dotted lines, making the contours of men and animals appear to be perforated# 5his feature is very characteristic# ,5he same peculiarity of white dotted lines is found also on a vase from aere Min EtruriaN, signed by the potter 'ristonothos which, it is argued, cannot be older than the seventh century :# # 5he same method of dotted lines is to be seen again on a pinax MplateN from ameiros Mon $hodesN in the M:ritishN &useum, representing the combat of &enelaos and 8ector over the body of Euphorbos, with their names inscribed# 5hat vase also is assigned to the seventh century :# # Is it possible that the &ycenae and Enkomi vases are seven or eight centuries older='naly@ing the workmanship and design of sphinxes or grifins with human forelegs on the vase, the archaeologist stressed ,its relationship, on the one hand, to the fragmentary vase of 5ell el"'marna Bsee !etrie, Tell el<Amarna' !late 3*C and a fragment of fresco from 5iryns -!errot and Chipie4' VI, FDFC, and on the other hand to the pattern which occurs on a terracotta sarcophagus from la@omenae, Min IoniaN now in :erlin, a work of the early sixth century :# #-

5he connection between the &ycenaean and 'ristonothos vases caused ,a remarkable divergence of opinion, even among those who defend systematically the high anti0uity of &ycenaean art#5he problem of pottery which belongs to two different ages is repeated in ivory# 5he ivories of the Enkomi tombs are very similar to those found by >ayard in the palace of Jimroud, the ancient capital of 'ssyria# 5here is, for example, a carving of a man slaying a griffin, ,the man being remarkable for the helmet with chin strap which he wears# It is a sub9ect which appears fre0uently on the metal bowls of the !hoenicians, and is found in two instances among the ivories discovered by >ayard in the palace at Jimroud# 5he date of the palace is given as 1F2"*22 :# #'n oblong box for the game of draughts, found in Enkomi, ,must date from a period when the art of 'ssyria was approaching its decline,- five or six centuries after the reputed end of the &ycenaean age# ,'mong the Jimroud ivories B1F2"*22 :# #C is a fragmentary relief of a chariot in pursuit of a lion to the left, with a dog running alongside the horses as at Enkomi, the harness of the horses being also similar#- 5he style of the sculpture Bof JimroudC ,is more archaic than on the Enkomi casket#- :ut how could this be if the ob9ects found in Enkomi date no later than the (3th entury= omparing the two ob9ects, I# 6# .inter wrote< ' hunting scene depicted on a rectangular panel from an ivory gaming board of P ypro"&ycenaean style found at Enkomi, with its blanketed horses and chariot with six"spoked wheel, so closely resembles a similar hunting scene on one of the pyxides from Jimroud that only details such as the hairdo of one of the chariot followers or the flying gallop of the animals mark the Enkomi piece as a work of the second millennium :# #, separated by some four centuries from the Jimroud pyxis#3 ' bron@e of Enkomi repeats a theme of the Jimroud ivories, representing a woman at a window# ,5he conception is so singular, and the similarity of our bron@e to the ivory so striking, that there can hardly be much difference of date between the two? somewhere about 1F2"*22 :# #,'nother surprise among our bron@es is a pair of greaves# # # It is contended by $eichel4 that metal greaves are unknown in 8omer# 8e is satisfied that they were the invention of a later age Babout *22 :# #C#:ron@e fibulae, too, were found in the Enkomi tombs, as well as a large tripod ,with spiral patterns resembling one in 'thens, which is assigned to the Aipylon period,and a pair of scales of a balance like the one figured on the 'rkesilaos vase# :ut such finds are separated by a wide span of time from the twelfth century#

5he silver vases of the Enkomi tombs ,are obviously &ycenaean in shape#- ,;n the other hand,- there were found two similar silver rings, one with hieroglyphics and the other engraved on the be@el ,with a design of a distinctly 'ssyrian character?a man dressed in a lions skin standing before a seated king, to whom he offers an oblation# 5wo figures in this costume may be seen on an 'ssyrian sculpture from Jimroud of the time of 'ssurna@irpal B11D"1+2C, and there is no doubt that this fantastic idea spread rapidly westward#Jext are the ob9ects of gold# 7old pins were found in a tomb of Enkomi# ,;ne of them, ornamented with six discs, is identical in shape with the pin which fastens the chiton MtunicN on the shoulders of the Hates on the Hrancois vase in Hlorence Bsixth century :# #C#- ' pendant ,covered with diagonal patterns consisting of minute globules of gold soldered down on the surface of the pendant- was made by ,precisely the same process of soldering down minute globules of gold and arranging them in the same patterns- that ,abounds in a series of gold ornaments in the :ritish &useum which were found at ameiros in $hodes- and which were dated to the seventh or eighth century# 'mong the pottery of ,the ordinary &ycenaean and pre"&ycenaean type- gems were found# ' scarab ,bears the cartouche of 5hi M5iyN, the 0ueen of 'menophis M'menhotepN III, and must therefore be placed in the same rank as those other cartouches of her husband, found at Ialysos Mon $hodesN and &ycenae, which hitherto have played so conspicuous a part in determining the &ycenaean anti0uities as being in some instances of that date Bfifteenth centuryC#-D 's for the porcelain, it ,may fairly be ranked- with the series of !hoenician silver and bron@e bowls from Jimroud of about the eighth century# ' porcelain head of a woman from Enkomi ,seems to be 7reek, not only in her features, but also in the way in which her hair is gathered up at the back in a net, 9ust as on the sixth century vases of this shape#- 7reek vases of this shape ,differ, of course, in being of a more advanced artistic style, and in having a handle# :ut it may fairly be 0uestioned whether these differences can represent any very long period of time#&urray surveyed the glass< In several tombs, but particularly in one, we found vases of variegated glass, differing but slightly in shape and fabric from the fine series of glass vases obtained from the tombs of ameiros, and dating from the seventh and sixth centuries, or even later in some cases# It happens, however, that these slight differences of shape and fabric bring our Enkomi glass vases into direct comparison with certain specimens found by !rofessor Hlinders !etrie at 7urob in Egypt, and now in the :ritish &useum# If !rofessor !etrie is right in assigning his vases to about (D22 :# #,F our Enkomi specimens must follow suit# It appears that he had found certain fragmentary specimens of this particular glass ware beside a porcelain necklace, to which belonged an amulet stamped with the name of 5utankhamen, that is to say, about (D22 :# #

&urray comes to the conclusion that ,!hoenicians manufactured the glass ware of 7urob and Enkomi at one and the same time#- onse0uently the 0uestion is, what was that time= Hor the present we must either accept !rofessor !etries date Babout (D22 :# #C based on scanty observations collected from the poor remains of a foreign settlement in Egypt, or fall back on the ordinary method of comparing the glass vessels of 7urob with those from 7reek tombs of the seventh century :# # or later, and then allowing a reasonable interval of time for the slight changes of shape or fabric which may have intervened# In matters of chronology it is no new thing for the Egyptians to instruct the 7reeks, as we know from the pages of 8erodotus# .ith this last remark the excavator at Enkomi came close to the real problem, but he shrank from it# 8e did not dare to revise Egyptian chronology/ all he asked was that the age of the &ycenaean period be reduced# 8ow to do this he did not know# 8e 0uoted an author B8elbigC who thought that all &ycenaean culture was really !hoenician culture, the development of which remained at a standstill for seven centuries# In (1)+ there was found in a tomb at 5hebes in Egypt a bron@e patera Ma shallow vesselN which in shape and decoration has so much in common with the bron@e !hoenician bowls from Jimroud that we feel some surprise on being told that the coffins with which it was found belong unmistakably to the time of 'menophis M'menhotepN III or the first years of 'menophis IV M'khnatonN# It is admitted that this new patera had been a foreign import into Egypt# E0ually the relationship between it and the bron@e !hoenician bowls is undeniable, so that again we are confronted with 8elbigs theory of a lapse of seven centuries during which little artistic progress or decline had been effected#+ It was necessary to assume a state of hibernation of almost seven hundred years# 5he endeavor of the excavator of Enkomi was directed toward bringing the &ycenaean 'ge closer in time by five or six hundred years, so that there would be no chasm between the &ycenaean 'ge and the 7reek 'ge# 's curator of 7reek and $oman anti0uities of the :ritish &useum, he constantly had before him the numerous connections and relations between &ycenaean and 7reek art, which could not be explained if an interval of many centuries lay between them# 8e tried to disconnect the link between &ycenaean and Egyptian archaeologies and chronologies, but he felt that this was an unsolvable problem# 5he proposal to reduce the time of the &ycenaean 'ge was re9ected by the scholarly world# 'rthur 6# Evans, at the time having 9ust embarked on a long series of excavations at Inossos on rete, came out against &urrays work, ,so full of suggested chronological deductions and?if its authors Mi#e#, '# S# &urray and his collaboratorsN will pardon the expression?archaeological insinuations, all pointing in the same

direction,- namely, ,a chronology which brings the pure &ycenaean style down to the 'ge of the 5yrants- of the eighth century, and makes it ,the immediate predecessor of the Ionian 7reek art of the seventh century :# #-* Evans had to admit that ,nothing is clearer than that Ionian art in many respects represents the continuity of &ycenaean tradition,- but he built his argument on the manifold connections of &ycenaean art with Egypt of the Eighteenth Aynasty# 're not the flasks of the Enkomi tomb almost as numerous in Egyptian tombs of the Eighteenth Aynasty= ' fine gold collar or pectoral inlaid with glass paste, found in enkomi, has gold pendants in nine different patters, eight of which are well known designs of the time of 'khnaton B'menhotep IVC, ,but are not found a century later#5he metal ring of Enkomi, with cartouches of the heretic 'khnaton, is especially important because ,he was not a pharaoh whose cartouches were imitated at later periods,- and so on# ;ne of the silver vases of Enkomi, Evans wrote, ,is of great interest as representing the type of the famous gold cup of the Vapheio tomb#1 5hese cups, as their marvellous repousse designs sufficiently declare, belong to the most perfect period of &ycenaean art#- 5his should establish that the theory of the latency of &ycenaean art for six or seven centuries after its flowering in the second millennium cannot help to solve the problem of Enkomi/ the Enkomi finds date from the apogee of the &ycenaean 'ge# Evans insisted that the material supplied by the ypriote graves ,takes us back at every point to a period contemporary with that of the mature art of the class as seen in the 'egean area,- and this despite his own admission that a number of ob9ects from Enkomi point to a later age, like the porcelain figures ,which present the most remarkable resemblance, as Ar# &urray 9ustly pointed out, to some 7reek painted vases of the sixth century :# #- Jevertheless, he concluded with regret that ,views so subversive- should come from so high an authority in classical studies# 5wo scholars clashed because one of them saw the close connection between &ycenaean art and the 7reek art of the seventh century, and the other saw the very same &ycenaean ob9ects disinterred in the Egypt of 'khnaton, dated to the fourteenth century# 5he &ycenaean 'ge has no timetable of its own independent of that of Egypt# I have referred to this 0uestion in the chapter dealing with $as Shamra in Ages in Chaos. If Evans had had some evidence, independent of Egypt, on which to calculate the ages of the &inoan and &ycenaean cultures, we would have needed to take into account all &inoan and &ycenaean chronological material, as we did with the Egyptian# :ut there is none#) ,5he chronological scheme depends ultimately upon Egyptian datings of 'egean pottery,- wrote 8# $# 8all,(2 who served as curator of Egyptian and 'ssyrian anti0uities at the :ritish &useum# ,Using this Egyptian evidence as his guide, and checking the results of excavation with its aid, Sir 'rthur Evans finds that the :ron@e 'ge pottery and with it the general

culture of rete divides itself into three main chronological periods< Early, &iddle, and >ate, each of which again is divided into three sub"periods#-(( 5he &ycenaean 'ge started at the same time as the >ate &inoan 'ge# Ar# &urrays case was lost# 8e had built its defense on two points, one strong, the other weak# 8is strong point was this< he analy@ed and made clear the close interrelation between &ycenaean culture and the early 7reek culture of the seventh century# 8is weak point was his anxiety to disregard the connection between &ycenaean culture and the Egyptian world of the end of the Eighteenth Aynasty# :ut in el"'marna of 'khnaton scattered heaps of &ycenaean ware were found# It was asked, .hich fact should be given greater weight by an unbiased 9udge< the close relation between &ycenaean and 7reek cultures or the fact that &ycenaean ware was found in the city of el"'marna B'khet"'tonC, which was built and destroyed in the fourteenth century= 5he verdict in the matter of the age of &ycenae was unanimous< its period of greatest influence is dated between the fifteenth and the twelfth centuries# 5his M&ycenaeanN ware did not appear in large 0uantities in Egypt until about (4*F :# #, and little of it was received in the coastal countries after the middle of the thirteenth century# 5herefore, whenever a piece of it is found in place in an ancient city, it dates the context between about (4*F Mthe first year of 'khnaton according to the presently accepted chronology(3 and (33F :# #(4 5he verdict with regard to Enkomi was, in the words of 8all, as follows< Excavations of the :ritish &useum at Enkomi and 8ala Sultan 5ekke Bnear >arnaka on yprusC have brought to light tombs filled with ob9ects of &inoan or &ycenean art, now mostly in the :ritish &useum, most of which cannot be later in date than the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries :# # 5he Egyptian ob9ects found in them are demonstrably of this date, and not later, being all of the late Eighteenth and Jineteenth Aynasties# $ings of 'khenaten M'khnatonN and a scarab of 5eie M5iy, mother of 'khnatonN have been found here as at &ycenae, and fine Egyptian necklaces of gold also, which, from their style, one would ad9udge to the Eighteenth or Jineteenth Aynasty# !robably, too, the greater part of the treasure of gold"work found in the tombs and now in the :ritish &useum is of this early date# 5he golden tiaras and bands certainly seem to connect with those of the &yceanean shaft"graves# :ut at the same time there are many ob9ects of later date, such as a bron@e tripod # # # which are demonstrably of the Aipylon period, and cannot be earlier than the tenth or ninth century#(D 5hus, in effect the excavator of Enkomi is accused of having been unable to distinguish burials of different ages in a grave#(F 8e denied that the graves of Enkomi had been re"used#

Somewhere I came upon the expression, ,the scandal of Enkomi#- I ask< .as the excavator to be blamed for something that was not his fault= 5he allegation that possibly ob9ects dating from two different epochs were mixed up in &urrays archaeological heaps does not meet his main arguments# 8is elaborated statements dealt with simultaneous relationships of single ob9ects with Egypt of the fourteenth century and 'ssyria and 7reece of the ninth and eighth centuries# .e learn from this case the fact which both sides admitted< the 7reek culture of the seventh century has many interrelations with &ycenaean culture# 5he resulting chronological gap, as we have seen in hapter I, had to be taken as a Aark 'ge# , yprus no less than 7reece itself passed through a long and tedious Aark 'ge#, yprus withdrew into herself, and life during this transitional age was dull and poverty"stricken, unenterprising and dim,-and after the &ycenaean 'ge came to its close elsewhere, ,in yprus it was perpetuated#-(+ ' generation after the excavations at Enkomi# in (1)+, other excavators opened more graves there and passed the following 9udgment< 5he burials in the graves belong to the second or :ron@e 'ge, its >ate or third period, the second part Bout of threeC of this third period, more precisely to the subdivisions ' B) gravesC, : B(2 gravesC and B1 gravesC also a few belong to >ate :ron@e I' and I:# 5hus the graves on the acropolis are ,all intermingled with each other in a seemingly arbitrary way#-(* .hat does this mean= It means that simple and great 0uestions are eclipsed by nomenclatures# In recent years Hrench and Hrench":ritish campaigns at Enkomi(1 have failed to solve the problems left by the :ritish &useum excavations of (1)+# 5he finds are still evaluated by Egyptian chronology#

Re"e!ences
(# &urray, ,Excavations at Enkomi,- in '# S# &urray, '# 8# Smith, 8# :# .alters, 5cavations in Cyprus B>ondon< :ritish &useum, ()22C# 3# -(ra1 41 M() N pp# )"(2C 4# .# $eichel, #omerische 2affen 3nd ed# BVienna, ()2(C, p# F)# D# Since the beginning of the present century, the conventional date of the reign of 'menhotep III has been reduced to the end of the fifteenth and the first 0uarter of the fourteenth century# F# Sir .# &# Hlinders !etrie, (llahun' Kahun and Guro$ B>ondon, (1)(C !late (*# ompare also !late (1 with two identical glass vases which are assigned to $ameses II# &urray, ,Excavations at Enkomi,- in &urray, Smith and .alters, 5cavations in Cyprus' p# 34, note# Since the above evaluation of the time of 5utankhamen by !etrie, the conventional date of this king, son"in"law of 'khnaton, has been reduced to ca# "(4F2# +# &urray, ,Excavations at Enkomi,- loc. cit.

*# Evans, ,&ycenaean yprus as Illustrated in the :ritish &useum Excavations,Journal of the Royal Anthropological (nstitute QQQ B()22C pp# ())ff# 1# 5wo gold cups with designs representing men hunting bulls were found in a beehive tomb at Vapheio in the neighborhood of Sparta# )# 5he ancient 7reek calculations of such past events as the time of &inos, of 8eracles, of the $eturn of the 8eracleidae, of the date of the 5ro9an .ar and other past events also depend on Egypt# (2# 8# $# 8all, Aegean Archaeology B>ondon, ()(FC, p# 3# ((# ($id.' p# 4# (3# 's was noted above, since the time of the &urray"Evans controversy the age of 'khnaton and of 5utankhamen has been reduced by a few decades# 5his point needs to be kept constantly in mind when one is examining the older scholarly literature on these sub9ects# (4# 7# E# .right, ,Epic of on0uest,- ;i$lical Archaeologist III Jo# 4 B()D2C# (D# 8all, Aegean Archaeology' pp# 34"3D# M5he tripod mentioned by 8all is dated to the twelfth century by 8# .# atling Cypriote ;ron4e%ork in the /ycenaean 2orld M;xford, ()+DN pp# (FD"FFC# It was compared to a tripod found in a grave on the !nyx in 'thens, variously dated, but now assigned by the associated pottery to the eighth century :# # :y analogy to the Enkomi stand and other contemporary examples, atling 9udged the !nyx tripod to be a twelfth"century heirloom# 'dding to the controversy, # $olley 0es trepieds a cuve cluee A"ouilles des Delphes F#4, !aris, ()**N pp# (3+"3)C, who accepts the Egyptian"based date, now challenges atlings assessment of the !nyx tripod, assigning both it and a very similar example recently discovered in a contemporary grave on the island of 5hera to the eighth century#?E# &# S# N# (F# See also 8# $# 8all, the 8ldest Civili4ation in Greece B>ondon, ()2(C, p# (+, and Evans in The Journal of the Royal Anthropological (nstitute' QQQ B()22C, p# 32(, note 3# (+# S# asson, Ancient Cyprus B>ondon, ()4*C, pp# +D, *2# (*# E# 79erstad and others, The S%edish Cyprus 5pedition' 9BCD<9BE9 BStockholm, ()4DC, I# F*F# (1# laude H# '# Schaeffer, ,Jouvelles d%couvertes T Enkomi B hypreC,- in Comptes rendus' Acad)mie des (nscriptions et ;elles 0ettres' !aris, ()D)/ $evue arch%ologi0ue, QQVII B()D*C, (3)ff/ American Journal of Archaeology' >II B()D1C, (+Fff#

Ti!yns
5he same problem that caused the difference of opinions at Enkomi and at the 8eraion of ;lympia arose at other excavated sites# 5o demonstrate this on another case of 7reek archaeology, I chose 5iryns, south"east of &ycenae# 5iryns was excavated by Schliemann and Aoerpfeld in (11D"1F# 'long with &ycenae, it was an important center of &ycenaean culture# ;n the acropolis, foundations of a palace were discovered# 5ogether with &ycenaean ware, and mixed with it,( geometric ware of the eighth century and archaic ware of the sixth century were found, among them many little flasks in which libations had been brought to the sacred place#3 'ccording to Schliemann, 5iryns was destroyed simultaneously with &ycenae and the palace was burned down# :ut his collaborator Aoerpfeld, who agreed with him as to the time the palace had been built, disagreed as to when it was destroyed, and their opinions differred by six hundred years#4 Hrom 7reek literature it is known that in early 7reek times, in the eighth or seventh century and until the first part of the fifth century, there was a temple of 8era in 5iryns which was deserted when the 'rgives van0uished the city in "D+2# In later times 5iryns was occasionally visited by travelers coming to pay homage to the sacred place of bygone days#D .hen the excavation of 5iryns was resumed in ()2F by a team headed by '# Hrickenhaus and continued in the following years, special attention was paid to the 0uestion of the time in which the &ycenaean palace there was destroyed# ;n the site of the palace and, in part, on its original foundations a smaller edifice was built, identified as the temple of 8era of 7reek times# 5he excavators felt that many facts point to the conclusion that the 7reek temple was built over the &ycenaean palace very shortly after the palace was destroyed by fire#F 5he altar of the temple was an adaptation of the &ycenaean palace altar/+ the plan of the &ycenaean palace was familiar to the builders of the temple/ the floor of the palace served as the floor of the temple#* 8owever, the 7reek temple was built in the seventh century#1 'fter deliberating on the evidence, the excavators refused to accept the end of the &ycenaean 'ge in the second millennium as the time of the destruction of the palace, and decided that the palace had survived until the seventh century# In their opinion the &ycenaean pottery was the refuse of an early stage of the palace/ the terracotta figures and flasks of archaic Bseventh"centuryC type were offerings of the pilgrims to the 7reek temple of 8era# ' continuity of culture from &ycenaean to 7reek times was claimed/ even the worship of 8era, they felt, must have been inherited#) Hrickenhaus and his team reali@ed that their explanation re0uired some unusual assumptions< for instance, that the inhabitants of the palace did not undertake any alteration for the entire period of more than half a millennium,(2 and that in one part of the palace the refuse of centuries was preserved, while in another part life went on#((

:ut the excavators knew no other explanation, because it was clear to them that ,the fire of the palace was followed immediately by the erection of the temple#-(3 ' decade later, when the temple of 8era was found to be very similar in plan to a &ycenaean building excavated at Iorakou, near orinth, ,grave doubts- were expressed about the correctness of the above interpretations of the excavators of 5iryns, who had been ,involved in a number of difficulties, both architectural and chronological#-(4 5he critic B # .# :legenC agreed that the temple had been built immediately after the palace was destroyed, but he could not agree that the temple was a building of the seventh century# 8ow is it possible, if a 7reek temple was established at the &ycenaean level in the megaron Mthe throne roomN and if the open court before the megaron was used at its &ycenaean level from the seventh century :# # onward,?how is it then possible that this same area was later covered over with almost purely &ycenaean debris=(D 8e therefore concluded that ,the later building within the megaron at 5iryns is not a 7reek temple- but ,a reconstruction carried out toward the end of the &ycenaean !eriod after the destruction of the palace by fire#- 8e also denied the significance of the capital of a Aoric column found during the excavation of the temple# 'lthough :legens arguments seemed to carry weight when he denied that the &yceaean palace had survived the &ycenaean 'ge by almost five centuries, they appeared without force when he asserted that the building erected on the foundations of the palace was not a 7reek temple#(F :legens view was also 0uestioned by an eminent classicist, &# !# Jilsson#(+ :ecause it is as inconceivable that the 7reek temple was built in the thirteenth century as it is that the &ycenaean palace stood until the seventh century without alterations, its floor not even showing signs of wear,(* Jilsson confessed his inability to draw a conclusion< ,5he time of the reconstruction being uncertain, the 0uestion whether or not the building is the temple of 8era remains unanswerable#-(1 In a book on the architecture of the palace of 5iryns, another excavator of that city, I# &uller, arrived at the conclusion that the difference of opinions is irreconcilable, but he shared the view of the scholars who ascribe the palace fire to about "*F2 and consider the edifice a 7reek temple#() &ost of the archaeologists agreed on the continuity of the culture and cult of both buildings,32 but each of the attempts to bridge the chasm of almost five hundred years met with insurmountable difficulties# 5he answer would not be difficult if the &ycenaean 'ge were not displaced by this interval of time, pushed back into history, before its proper place#

Re"e!ences

(# M5he late eighth"century pottery was found immediately above, or mixed with, >ate 8elladic III:U wares on the citadel, in the lower town, on the plain and in a wall chamber< see .# $udolph, ,5iryns ()+1- in Tiryns ed# U# 6ant@en B&aint@, ()*(C p# )4# ?E&SN 3# 8# Schliemann, Tiryns B>ondon, (11+C# 4# See '# Hrickenhaus, 5iryns vol# I, Aie 8era von 5iryns B'thens, ()(3C, p# 4D# D# !ausanias was one of those pilgrims in the year (*2 of the present era# F# Hrickenhaus, Tiryns' pp# 4("D2# MI# &uller, Tiryns ((( Die Architektur der ;urg und des !alastes B'ugsburg, ()42C, pp# 3(Dff#, !er 'lin Das nde der mykenischen "undstaetten auf dem griechischen "estland B>und, ()+3C, p# 43# :ut see 7# &ylonas, /ycenae and the /ycenaean Age B!rinceton, ()++C, pp# D1"F3, who argues that the temple was built five centuries after the burning of the megaron# f# .# Voigt">ander, Tiryns B'thens, ()*3C p# 1/ U# 6ant@en, "uehrer durch Tiryns B'thens, ()*FC p# 444/ 8# !lommer in Journal of #ellenic Studies )* B()**C, pp# 1("13/ 6# .# .right in American Journal of Archaeology 1D B()12C, p# 3D3#N# +# Alin' Das nde der mykenischen "undstaetten' p. EEF Jant4en' "uehrer durch Tiryns' p. EEF "rickenhaus' Tiryns ( pp. Gf.F /uller' Tiryns (((' pp. 9EDff. *# Hrickenhaus, Tiryns I, p# / M8owever, &# !# Jilsson -The /inoan</ycenaean Religion and (ts Survival in Greek Religion M>und, ()3*N pp# D*F"**C thought the floor of the later structure may have been at a higher level, a conclusion which has recently been argued by &ylonas -/ycenae and the /ycenaean Age' p# F(#CN 1# Hrickenhaus placed it in the middle of the seventh century -Tiryns I, pp# 4(ff#C )# Hrickenhaus, Tiryns I, 4(# (2# ($id.' p# 4F# ((# ($id.' p# 4+# (3# ($id.' p# 41# :ut see Jotes for the contrary view of &ylonas and others# (4# # .# :legen, Korakou' a !rehistoric Settlement near Corinth B'merican School of lassical Studies at 'thens M:oston, ()3(N p# (42# (D# ($id.' p# (43# M't the same time, :legen noted, ,the debris and potsherds which we should expect from the seventh century and subse0uently during the period when the temple was in use, have almost completely vanished#- f# &ylonas, /ycenae and the /ycenaean Age' p# D)# N# (F# M&ylonas, -/ycenae and the /ycenaean Age' p# F3C and 6ant@en, -"uehrer durch Tiryns' p# 44C reaffirm Hrickenhaus conclusion that the later building is a 7reek temple# !er 'lin -Das nde der mykenischen "undstaetten' p# 43C supports :legens viewN# (+# The /inoan</ycenaean Religion and (ts Survival in Greek Religion (*# $odenwaldt, 0uoted by I# &uller in Tiryns III# M8owever, see above, footnote 3(4 about the floor level# $odenwaldt himself agreed with :legen in placing the destruction of what he considered a rebuilt megaron in &ycenaean time< Tiryns II, p# 34F, n#3# f# idem, ,Lur der monumentalen 'rchitektur in 7riechenland,- Athenische /itteilungen DD B()()C, pp# (*)"(12/ ,&ykenische Studien I- in Jahr$uch des deutschen archaeologischen (nstituts 4D B()()C p# )F and n#3# :ut cf# above, n# + about the floor levelN# (1# MJevertheless, Jilsson inclined more to the view of Hrickenhaus that the later building was indeed a 7reek temple, and not a smaller megaron of &ycenaean time/ he stressed the evidence for the cult of 8era< ,the thousands of votive terracottas of a standing and seated goddess and others cannot be so lightly

pushed aside as is done by &r# :legen- / and he argued that ,we know from votive deposits that there was a temple on the acropolis of 5iryns, if the building itself is not accepted as satisfactory evidence# # # Under these circumstances the doubt concerning the identity seems unreasonable#'dditional sacred ob9ects were found by &uller in ()3+ -Tiryns III, pp# 3(Dff#C in a refuse pit/ they were assigned dates from the mid"eighth to the mid" seventh centuries# 'n attempt to explain them in the light of :legens theory was made by 'lin -Das nde der mykenischen "undstaetten p# 43CN# ()# &uller, Tiryns III, pp# 32*ff# M5ime did not help to reconcile the divergent views# 8# >orimer, writing in ()F2 -#omer and the /onuments' p# D4FC admitted that at ,5iryns the circumstances are obscure- yet opted for Hrickenhaus and &ullers conclusion# ,It appears certain,- she wrote, ,that # # # the megaron remained intact and uninhabited until it perished in a conflagration probably ca# *F2# It is difficult to conceive what purpose it could have served through the long post"&ycenaean period if not that of continuing to house the ancient cult#- :ut it was against exactly such a possibility that :legen had brought arguments a 0uarter of a century earlier# In the same year .# :# Ainsmoor published The Architecture of Ancient Greece BJew Eork, ()F2C, in which he advocated :legens solution Bp# 3( and n#(C# &ore recently !er 'lin Bsee above, n# (DC brought additional arguments in support of :legenN# 32# M8owever, 7# &ylonas had argued that the later 7reek temple was built long after the destruction of the &ycenaean megaron by new settlers who followed the plan of the by then five"hundred"years"old ruins# 5his view is also followed by U# 6ant@en in his ">hrer durch Tiryns B'thens, ()*FC, who nevertheless sees a continuation of the religious cult from &ycenaean into archaic times Bp# 44C#? E&SN

(ute %itnesses
5he divergence of almost five hundred years in the archaeological age evaluations repeats itself with respect to many sites of the 7reek past# :ecause two timetables are applied simultaneously to the past of 7reece?one built on the evidences of 7reece itself, the other on the evidences of relations with Egypt?a clash of opinions in matters of age appraisal is almost inevitable# 5he theory that ,a period covering the seventh century and extending, perhaps, into the eighth century, was the time in which pottery and other anti0uities of the &ycenae class were produced for the home market of 7reece and possibly in 7reece itselfB&urrayC( was pronounced an ,archaeological insinuation- BEvansC3 5he other attempt at synchroni@ing the geometric with the &ycenaean ware by ascribing them to the second millennium BAoerpfeldC was called ,the naivete of complete ignorance- BHurtwSnglerC#4 5he separation of the &ycenaean 'ge from the 7reek 'ge by five hundred years of Aark 'ge was paid for with an ever"growing mass of conflicting facts# 'lready in the shaft tombs of &ycenae some of the finds bore conflicting and unreconcilable evidence< Jor # # # is the evidence of 7reek excavation always as simple and convincing as it looks# It has been usual to regard all the contents of the acropolis"graves at &ycenae as dating more or less to the same period# :ut some of the ob9ects from these graves can be shown, if we are not to throw aside all that we have learned of the development of early 7reek art, to be of far later date than others#-D 5he same author admitted that the graves in 7reece were as a rule not re"used# 5his makes the presence of ob9ects of two different epochs in the &ycenaean graves in 7reece very enigmatic#F 5he epochs, as usual, are separated by close to five hundred years#+

Re"e!ences
(# 3# 4# D# F# '# S# &urray, #and$ook of Greek Archaeology BJew Eork, (1)3C, p# F*# Evans, Journal of the Royal Anthropological (nstitute 42 B()22C, p# 322# HurtwSngler, Kleine Schriften' vol# I, p# DF+# 8# $# 8# 8all, The 8ldest Civili4ation of Greece B>ondon, ()2(C, p# (+# M8all later retracted his opinion for the shaft graves of &ycenae, but the same F22"year enigma has since been found in other >ate 8elladic tombs throughout the 'egean# See 6# J# oldstreams article on hero cults in Journal of #ellenic Studies B()*+C# E&SN

+# Hor many more F22"year enigmas, see, Israel &# Isaacson, ,'pplying the $evised hronology,- !ens%e IV$, no# D BHall ())DC, F"32#

A Votive C!etan Cave

;n rete a long interval is thought to separate the last period of the &inoan civili@ation from the late 7eometric period in art and history, which belong in the eighth century/ six hundred years of Aark 'ge if Evans is right that the &inoan civili@ation came to its end in "(D22, and four hundred years if >eonard !almer is right in claiming that it endured to almost "(322# :ut if, as we maintain, the &inoan civili@ation continued until the eighth century or even until the later part of it, then, of course, the &inoan ware in its latest style must be found contemporary with the geometric ware and the same perplexing relations would be discovered on rete as were discovered in continental 7reece# 5he Aictaean ave on rete supplied the retan ollection in ;xfords 'shmolean &useum with many ob9ects/ the cave was a votive place in the >ate &inoan III age and an abundance of bron@e figures was stored there# 6# :oardman published a study of the retan ollection and tried to classify the finds by their style and affiliation#( ;f bron@e figurines of men from the votive cave he wrote< ,5hese retan figures have been dated, apparently by style, to >ate &inoan III# they must be related in some way to the well"known 7eometric type of mainland 7reece which exhibits the same characteristics#-3 ;f the bron@e figures of women from the same cave, the author says< ,'lthough no such figures of women have been recovered from >ate &inoan III deposits MelsewhereN, it is likely that the cruder specimens from the cave are of this date, although !endlebury4 thought some might be 7eometric#-D 5he bron@e male and female figurines divided the experts, with the &inoan and the 7eometric ages contesting for them# .ould the animal figures from the same assemblage make the decision easier= ,'gain there is as yet no reason to believe that bron@e animal votives were being made uninterruptedly from &inoan to 7eometric times# It should then be possible to distinguish the early from the late, but it is not easy#-F Jext came knives with human heads at the end of the handles# ,5he style of the head is exceptionally fine# # # # Its superficial resemblance to a group of retan 7eometric bron@es is noteworthy, and although the shape of the blade and solid handle point to the latest :ron@e 'ge, there is much in the style to be explained#- 5he layers in which it was found ,suggest a &iddle &inoan III">ate &inoan I context- and this ,considerably complicates the problem to which no solution is offered here#-+ ' ,cut"out pla0ue from the cave # # # is of a woman with a full skirt# 5he dress and pose, with elbows high, seem &inoan, but the decoration of the small bosses is more 7eometric in spirit#-*

5hus bron@e figurines, rings and pla0ues perplex the art expert when he tries to determine the period from which they date, and the difference fre0uently amounts to more than half a millennium# .ill not then the pottery?vases and dishes, the hallmark of their age?throw some light on the problem= Hor the storage 9ars with reliefs, -pithoi. from the Aictaean ave, two authorities1 ,imply a 7eometric date#- :ut two other authorities) ,have them &inoan#-(2 5hen what is the verdict of the fifth expert, familiar with the opinions of the other four= ,It is tempting to see in these pieces the immediate predecessors of the finely moulded and impressed pithoi of seventh"century rete, but for these the independent inspiration of mainland 7reece or the islands can be adduced, and the cave fragments are best regarded as purely &inoan in date#-(( 5he very same features tend to confuse the experts# Some retan vases have a very characteristic decoration on them and it could be expected that this would help solve the problem of the age, but it does not# 5here are several retan examples of heads or masks being used to decorate the necks of vases# # # # 5he example from Inossos was published by Evans as &inoan, and the signs on the cheeks thought to be signs in a linear script# 5he techni0ue and the decoration tell against this# 5he patterns are purely 7eometric# # # # 5he outline of the features is common in retan 7eometric#(3 In other cases the confusion is still greater when a decision is to be made between the &inoan Bor &ycenaeanC of the second millennium, the 7eometric of the eighth century and the 'rchaic Bof the seventh"sixth centuriesC# 5he case of the votive Aictaean ave and its contents was selected here to illustrate how the problem stands on rete# 5he verdict drawn by the art expert 0uoted on these pages did not clarify the issue by its recourse to our ignorance of what transpired during the Aark 'ge< 'fter the collapse or overthrow of the ma9or :ron@e 'ge civili@ations of the 'egean world in the twelfth century :# # rete, with the rest of 7reece, entered upon a Aark 'ge which the still inade0uate archaeological record can illuminate but little and the literary record not at all#(4

Re"e!ences
(# The Cretan Collection in 85ford B;xford University !ress, ()+(C# 3# ($id.' p# *# 4# 6# A# S# !endlebury, The Archaeology of Ancient Crete3 An (ntroduction B>ondon, ()4)C p# 443# D# :oardman, The Cretan Collection' p# 1# F# ($id.' p# )#

+# ($id.' p# 32# *# ($id.' p# D4# 1# H# ourby, 0es *ases grec1ues a relief B!aris, ()33C pp# D3f# and !endlebury, The Archaeology of Crete' p# 44D# )# 6# Schaefer, C Studien @u den griechischen $eliefpithoi des 1#"+# 6ahrhunderts v# hr# aus Ireta, $hodos, 5enos und :oiotien B()F*C/ &ustili, Annuario della R. Scuola Archeologica di Atene QV"QVI B()43"44C p# (DD, n#F# (2# :oardman, The Cretan Collection' p# F*# ((# ($id.' loc. cit. (3# ($id.' p# (24# (4# ($id.' p# (3)#

Et!u!ia
5he Etruscans are thought to have arrived in northern Italy sometime before the end of the eighth century before the present era# In Etruria, between the rivers 'rno and 5iber, are found vaulted structures erected by the Etruscans< they are of the type known as ,false vaulting#- ;# .# von Vacano in his truscans in the Ancient 2orld B()+2C comments with wondering< # # #5he &ycenaean corridor design and tholos Mcircular domed tombN structures are related to the vaulted buildings which make their appearance in the orientali@ing period in Etruria?and here it is even more difficult to solve, even though the connection itself is undisputed#( 5he Etruscan vaulted chambers impress one by their similarity to &ycenaean architecture# ;ther Etruscan structures of the seventh"sixth centuries also show such similarity# 5he remains of the city walls of !opulonia, Vetulonia and $usellae, consisting of huge stone blocks which have a P&ycenaean look, do not date further back than the end of the sixth century :# #< their gateways may well have had arches rounded like the entrance doors to the Grotta Campana' on the outskirts of Veii, which dates from the second half of the seventh century :# #, and is one of the earliest painted chamber"tombs of Etruria#3 ' dilemma no less serious is posed by a vase fashioned by a 7reek master who signed it with his name, 'ristonothos Bfig# C/ between "+*F and "+F2 he studied in 'thens, then migrated to Syracuse BSicilyC and later to Etruria B5uscanyC# 5he vase was found at erveteri, in southern Etruria# ,5here is an obvious link between the design of the 'ristonothos crater and another earthenware vessel, scarcely less often discussed and more than five hundred years older, the vase known from the principal figure decorating it as Pthe .arrior Vase of &ycenae#-4 It becomes ever clearer that the end of the &ycenaean 'ge, put at ca# "(322, is placed so not by a true verdict#

Re"e!ences
(# Von Vacano, The truscans in the Ancient 2orld' p# 1(# M'fter the monuments of &ycenae and 5iryns received, on the basis of Egyptian chronology, dates in the second millennium, some scholars attempted to age the Etruscan tombs by five hundred years to make them contemporary with their &ycenaean conterparts< so ,striking- was the similarity, so ,evident- the relation of the two architectural styles, that if the &ycenaean tombs belong in the second millennium, one expert argued, the ones found in Etruria ,are

probably not of inferior anti0uity#- B7# Aennis, The Cities and Cemeteries of truria M>ondon, (1*1N, vol# I, p# 3+F, n#3/ cf# p# 4+1, n# +#C :ut what of the contents of the tombs, which invariably consisted of Etruscan products of the eighth century and later= 5he surmise that this situation reflected ,a reappropriation of a very ancient sepulchre- BAennis, op. cit.' p# (FDC was unanimously re9ected by experts Be#g#, '# &osso, The Da%n of /editerranean Civili4ation MJew Eork, ()((N, p# 4)4C# 5here was no reason to suppose that the tombs had been built by anyone but the people who used them/ and these people first arrived on the scene in the middle of the eighth century# 5he relation of these eighth"century tombs to the five"hundred"years"earlier structures of &ycenean 7reece has remained a pu@@le# The Da%n of /editerranean Civili4ation BJew Eork, ()((C pp# 4)3")4/ '# J# &odona, A Guide to truscan Anti1uities BHlorence, ()FDC, p# )3/ S# von les"$eden, The ;uried !eople3 A Study of the truscan 2orld' transl# by # &# .oodhouse BJew Eork, ()FFC, p# (12/ '# :oethius and 6# :# .ard"!erkins, truscan and Roman Architecture B:altimore, ()*2C p# *1 and pl# D*# 5he oldest is the 7rotta $egolini 7alassi, dated to ca# :# #N 3# ($id.' p# 13/ cf# les"$eden, The ;uried !eople' p# (33# MJumerous other Etruscan cultural traits reflect &ycenaean models, something that would be not unexpected if, as the revised timetable postulates, the two cultures were contemporary, yet most difficult to account for if, as the conventional scheme re0uires, five hundred years of darkness intervened# BaC Columns. 5he types of columns used in Etruscan buildings derive from columns of Inossos and &ycenae, and have nothing in common with the Aoric columns of seventh and sixth"century 7reece#BS# von les"$edden, The ;uried !eople3 A Study of the truscan 2orld' transl# by # &# .oodhouse MJew Eork, ()FFN, p# 4F#C :ut it is presumed that no &ycenaean or &inoan structures were left standing in Etruscan times# .here, then, did the Etruscans find the models for their wooden columns= BbC "rescoes. 5he famous Etruscan frescoes, such as those that decorate the tombs near Veii, display an ,obvious reminiscence of rete-?however not of rete of the Aark 'ges, but rather of &inoan rete Bvon les"$edden, op. cit.' p# (D4C# :ut had not the retan palaces with their frescoes been destroyed many centuries earlier= BcC ;urials. 5he sepulchral slabs used in some Etruscan tombs, especially those bearing reliefs of men and animals, resemble those found by Schliemann at &ycenae BAennis, op. cit.' p# lxix, n# )C# 'lso Etruscan burial customs appear to be derived from &ycenaean models BS# von les"$edden, op. cit.' p# (F2#CN 4# Von Vacano, The truscans in the Ancient 2orld' p# 1(# See I# &# Isaacson, ,'pplying the $evised hronology,- !ens)e IQ B()*DC, p#p# Fff#

#icily
In &ycenean times Sicily had a prosperous civili@ation that carried on a busy commerce with the 8elladic city"state of mainland 7reece and the &inoan empire of rete# 5his civili@ation disappears from view about the same time that the chief &ycenean centers were destroyed, and five centuries of darkness are said to descend on the island#( Jot till the beginning of the seventh century is the gloom dispelled by the arrival of the first 7reek colonists# 5he earliest of the 7reek settlements was at 7ela on the southern coast, founded by migrants from rete and $hodes at a date fixed by the ancient chronographers as "+1)# 5radition also claimed that 7elas founder was 'ntiphemos, one of the 7reek heroes returning from 5roy< and Virgil has 'eneas, the 5ro9an hero, sail along the southern coast of the island and admire flourishing 7ela and two other 7reek settlements which by all accounts did not come into existence till the beginning of the seventh century#3 :esides furnishing further proof our dating of the 5ro9an .ar, these traditions are especially important in linking the 7reek coloni@ation of Sicily with the closed of the &ycenean age, and help explain the many survivals of &ycenean culture in the 7reek colonies of seventh century Sicily# ' little to the north of 'grigento, somewhat west of 7ela on Sicilys southern coast, are found tholos tombs of the &ycenean type#4 Inside of one of the tombs were found gold bowls and seal rings manufactured in a style that derives from &ycenean gold work#D Eet neither the tombs nor the ob9ects found inside them can be dated before the end of the eighth century# It is a pu@@le how ,splendid gold rings- with incised animal figures, so reminiscent of &ycenean ob9ects and having nothing in common with contemporary 7reek prototypes could have been manufactured by 7reek colonists in the seventh century if ,a real Aark 'ge-F of five hundred years duration did in fact separate them from the latest phase of the &ycenean civili@ation# In Sicily the time between the end of the &ycenean age and the beginning of 7reek coloni@ation is an absolute void, with a total lack of archaeological remains< even the !rotogeometric and 7eometric pottery which elsewhere is claimed to span the Aark 'ge, is absent/ only late 7eometric ware appears with the arrival of the 7reeks#+ 5he decorative motifs used by the 7reek colonists are once more under strong &ycenean influence/ a detailed comparison of the motifs in use in the seventh century with those on &ycenean ware caused much ama@ement among art historians, but not even a suggestion of how the motifs could have been transmitted through the Aark 'ges#* &oreover, &inoan influences were identified in the shape and decoration of pottery discovered at 7ela, presenting the same problems# 'll the evidence we have examined argues against a long gap between the &ycenean age in Sicily and the arrival of the 7reek colonists in the seventh century# 5hen why is it necessary for historians to postulate a five hundred year long Aark 'ge between the two epochs= ;f the sherds found on the island some were fragments of ,exactly the same pottery as that found in Egypt in the ruins of 5ell el 'marna, the capital of !haraoh 'menophis IV M'khnatonN B(4*3"(4FF :# #C- # 1 It was the erroneous timetable of Egypt which caused the historians to remove the &ycenean civili@ation of Sicily into the second millennium, severing its links to its 8ellenic successor#

Re"e!ences
(# >#:# :rea, Sicily ;efore the Greeks BJew Eork, ()++C, p# (42 3# The Aeneid :ook III, lines +*("+*4 4# !# 7riffo and ># von &att, 7ela< The Ancient Greeks in Sicily B7reenwich, onnecticut, ()+1C, p# D*/ :rea, Sicily ;efore the Greeks p# (*D# D# :rea, Sicily ;efore the Greeks p# (*F/ cf# 7# Iarl 7alinsky, Aeneas' Sicily and Rome B!rinceton, ()+)C, p# 1+/ E# >anglot@, Ancient Greek Sculpture of South (taly and Sicily BJew Eork, ()+FC, p# (F# F# :rea, Sicily ;efore the Greeks p# (42# +# 5#6# Aunbanin ,&inos and Aaidalos in Sicily,- !apers of the ;ritish School at Rome' vol# QVI# Jew Series, vol# III B()D1C, p# )# *# 7alinsky, Aeneas' Sicily and Rome' p# 14 1# >anglot@, Ancient Greek Sculpture of South (taly and Sicily , p# (F#

(ycenae an+ #cythia

,'ccording to the account which the Scythians themselves give,- reported the fifth" century 7reek historian 8erodotus, ,they are the youngest of all nations#-( It was the great disturbances and movements of people of the eighth and seventh centuries before the present era that brought these nomadic tribes from the depths of 'sia to the doorstep of the civili@ed nations of the ancients East?'ssyria, Egypt and 7reece# Hormerly the Scythians dwelt east of the 'raxus3?their first settlements in southern $ussia date to the end of the eighth century, about the time also that the 'ssyrians clashed with them in the vicinity of >ake Urmia#4 In the course of the decades that followed the Scythians attained the peak of their power, menacing Egypt and helping to bring about the downfall of 'ssyria# >ater the powerful haldean and !ersian empires succeeded to confine them to the steppes north of the aucasus# 5he appearance of the Scythians on the scene of the ancient East coincides in revised scheme with the final years of the &ycenaean civili@ation/ the accepted timetable, however, needs to place their arrival fully five centuries after the last of the &ycenae citadels had been abandoned# 5he tombs of the Scythian kings in the rimea were built in a way ,surprisingly reminiscent of &ycenaean constructions,-D the burial chamber consisting of ,enormous blocks of dressed stone set to overlap each other so as to meet in the center in an impressive vault#-F 5o explain the use by the Scythians of the corbelled vault of the type common in the &ycenaean period, it was suggested that there must have been a continuing tradition going back to &ycenaean times, despite the lack of even a single exemplar between the twelfth and seventh centuries# ,I have no doubt,- wrote the historian $ostov@eff, ,although we possess no examples, that the corbelled vault was continuously employed in 5hrace, and in 7reece and in 'sia &inor as well, from the &ycenaean period onwards# # #-+ .e, on the contrary, must begin to have doubts about a scheme which needs to postulate a five hundred year tradition of work in stone for which not a thread of evidence exists# Stone constructions of the type, had they existed, would have survived# 7regory :orovka in his Scythian Art writes of ,the striking circumstance that the Scytho"Siberian animal style exhibits an inexplicable but far"reaching affinity with the &inoan"&ycenaean# Jearly all its motives recur in &inoan"&ycenaean art#-* Solomon $einach, long ago, called attention to certain striking resemblances between Scythian and &inoan"&ycenaean art#1 Hor instance, the design of animal bodies in Pflying gallop- in which the animal is represented as stretched out with its forelegs extended in a line with the body and its hind legs thrown back accordingly, is at once characteristic of &inoan"&ycenaean art and foreign to that of all other ancient and modern peoples/ it recurs only in Scythia, Siberia and the Har East#'nother example of great similarity in style is in ,the Siberian gold and bron@e pla0ues depicting scenes of fighting animals#- :orovka supplies his description with illustrations# ,8ow often are the animals depicted with the body so twisted that the fore0uarters are turned downwards, while the hind 0uarters are turned upwards= an

the agoni@ed writhings of a wounded beast or fury of his assailant be more simply rendered=-) -;ther motives of the MScythianN animal style, too, reappear in &inoan and &ycenaean art# .e may cite the animals with hanging legs and those which are curled almost into a circle# onversely, the standard motif of the &inoan"&ycenaean lion, often represented in the 'egean with reverted head, reappears again in Scythian and Siberian art#5he similarity first observed by $einach and elaborated upon by :orovka is very unusual# :ut what appeared to them most surprising was the fact that two such similar art styles should be separated not only by a vast geographical distance, but also by an enormous gulf in time# -8ow are we to explain this far"reaching kinship in aim between the two artistic schools= It remains, on the face of it, a riddle# Immediate relations between &inoan" &ycenaean and Scytho"Siberian civili@ations are unthinkable/ the two are too widely separated in space and time# 'n interval of some F22 years separates them# # # Still, the kinship between the two provinces of art remains striking and typical of both of them#-(2

Re"e!ences
(# 8erodotus, The #istories' :k# IV, ch# F# 3# 5he 'raxus may be either the ;xus, which flows through todays 'fghanistan, or the Volga# 4# In the reign of Sargon II B"*33 to "*2FC# 5# 5# $ice, The Scythians B>ondon, ()*FC, p# DD# D# E# g#, 'ltan ;ba ,5he 7olden :arrow-C and 5sarski9 Iurgan B,$oyal :arrow-C# See $ice, The ScythiansF E# 8# &inns BScythian and Greeks' ambridge, ()(4, p# ()DC also considered the plan of the tombs to be of &ycenaean derivation# F# $ice, The Scythians, p# )+# +# &# $ostov@eff, (ranians and Greeks in South Russia B;xford, ()33C p# *1# Similar ,&ycenaean type- constructions of the Scythians were found in :ulgaria Bat >o@engradC, and in 'sia &inor B!ontus# aria and >yciaC?($id.' p# **# $# Aurn in Jahrhefte der k. Arch. (nstituts 4u 2ien' Q B()2*C, p# 342# *# B>ondon ()31C, p# F4# 1# S# $einach, ,>a repr%sentation du galop dans lart ancient et moderne- in Revue arch)ologi1ue' 4e s%rie, tome QQQVIII B()2(C fig# (DD bis ,>ion au galop sur une rondelle en bois myc%nienne#- p# 41< ,Il a d%9T %t% 0uestion dune rondelle de bois myc%nienne, d%couverte en Egypte, sur la0uelle est figur% un lion bondissant, larriVre"train soulev% avec une telle violence 0ue les rattes de derriVre vinnent toucher le front Bfig# F1C# Jous reproduisons ici cette figure Bfig# (DD bisC pour la rapprocher dune pla0ue dor sib%rienne repr%sentant un cheval atta0u% par un tigre# heval et tigre offrent %galement ce singullier motif des membres post%rieurs re9et%s vers le dos et lenclosure Bfig# ((DC#-

)# :orovka, Scythian Art' pp# F4"FD# (2# :orovka, Scythian Art' p# FD Similar observations were made by &inns BScythian and Greeks' p# 3+2C, who termed a Scythian depiction of a deer with its head turned around ,a &ycenaean survival#- 8e also compared an ibex on a casket from Enkomi, yprus to similar Scythian depictions#

ylos
!ylos in &essenia, on the western coast of the !eloponnese, was the capital of Jestor, the elderly statesman in the league headed by 'gamemnon, king of &ycenae, against !riam, king of 5roy, and his allies#( In ()4) arl :legen came to &essenia to search the countryside for signs of the ancient city of !ylos with Jestors famous palace, celebrated by 8omer# :legen selected for his first dig a prominent hilltop, a short distance from the sea, which seemed to him eminently suitable to be the site of a royal palace/ and in fact, as soon as he began to lift the earth from his first trench, extensive structures began to appear, and much pottery of &ycenaean time# 8e soon arrived at the conclusion that the palace was Jestors < the building he excavated had been occupied, in his estimate, in the second part of the thirteenth century before the present era?the preferred time for the 5ro9an .ar#3 'lready early during the work of excavation :legen unearthed scores of tablets written in the >inear : script, and soon there were hundreds of them# >inear : had been first discovered on rete by Sir 'rthur Evans, who found tablets with incised signs of two scripts, which he termed >inear ' and >inear :# 5he profusion of tablets found in !ylos made the archaeologists 0uestion whether the script was &inoan or had its origin on the mainland of 7reece/ and when subse0uently more tablets inscribed with these characters were found in other sites of the 7reek mainland?at &ycenae and at 5hebes?the name &ycenaean became rather regularly applied to the script# Hor over a decade after their discovery the tablets were neither published nor read/4 but when read?and the story will be told on subse0uent pages?they were found to contain no literary text< they were regularly archive notes, dealing with taxation or conscription, or human and animal census or storage inventory# Jevertheless, interesting parallels could be drawn with the 8omeric epics< !ylos is mentioned at the head of nine other towns that profess allegiance to it?both in 8omer and on the tablets/D again, a seven"town coastal strip mentioned in the Iliad finds a parallel in a strip of seven coastal settlements referred to on one of the tablets# 'nd to :legens great satisfaction !ylos was found repeatedly mentioned on the tablets retrieved from the palace he identified as Jestors #F Jestors name, however, was not found# 5he tablets, originally not fired but only dried, would have disintegrated long ago, were it not for the fire that destroyed the palace and baked the tablets# ' great conflagration raged over the structure/ it came rather suddenly, since most furniture, pottery, the contents of the storage rooms and archives were not removed< but humans all fled#+ :legen placed the destruction not long after the 5ro9an .ar, at the close of the &ycenaean 'ge#* 8owever, no signs of warfare, siege, re"occupation by people of another culture or occupation in general were found#1

5he palace presented :legen and his collaborators with problems not unlike those that were to occupy him later at 5roy# In the report of the excavations :legen wrote< ,In some places # # # in the upper black layer # # # were found, along with the usual &ycenaean pottery, a few gla@ed sherds of >ate 7eometric Style, as in so many other parts of the site, where similar deposits were encountered#-)

Re"e!ences
(# Iliad QI# +1)# ;dyssey III#4f# 3# # .# :legen and &# $awson, The !alace of 6estor at !ylos in 2estern /essenia, vol# I B!rinceton, ()++C vol# I, pt# (, pp# 4ff# 4# 5hey were published in ()F( -The !ylos Ta$lets3 A !reliminary Transcription. and the decipherment was completed by ()F4# See below, section ,>inear : Aeciphered#D# Iliad II# F)(")D/ :legen and $awson, The !alace of 6estor' vol# I, pt# (, p# D()# F# The !alace of 6estor' loc# cit# +# ($id.' p# D3D# *# ($id.' p# D33# 1# ($id.' p# D33# )# The !alace of 6estor' p# 422#

&inea! . Deci*he!e+
Hor a long time the >inear : script did not disclose its secret to those who worked on its solution# Jor was the decipherment facilitated by the manner in which Sir 'rthur Evans published the texts of the >inear : tablets?not all at once, but seriatim# .hen :legen discovered the >inear : tablets on the 7reek mainland in the ruins of the ancient palace in !ylos, they were ascribed to the 8eroic 'ge of 5roy, the final stage of the &ycenaean 'ge that ended abruptly# Eet even after the >inear : tablets were found on the mainland of 7reece their language was not thought to be 7reek# 5he reason for that was, first of all, in the accepted chronological scale< the Ionian age, according to conventional chronology, was separated from the &ycenaean 'ge by five hundred years# 7reek writing appears for the first time in the eighth century# Efforts to read the tablets made by classical philologists were unsuccessful, and whatever clue was tried out, the result was negative# ;ne of the most important and far"reaching theses of the reconstructin of ancient history is in the conclusion that the so"called Aark 'ges of the 7reek and 'natolian histories are but artifacts of the historians, and never took place# 5he &ycenaean 'ge ended in the eighth century and was followed by the Ionic times, with no centuries intervening, the break in culture being but the conse0uence of natural upheavals of the eighth century and of the subse0uent migrations of peoples# onse0uently the Ionic culture must show great affinity with the &ycenaean heritage/ and therefore I have claimed that the >inear : script would prove to be 7reek/ but this was not a view that had many supporters# In ()F2 the eminent authority on 8omeric 7reece, 8elen ># >orimer, in her treatise #omer and the /onuments wrote of this script and of the efforts to read it< ,5he result is wholly unfavorable to any hope entertained that the language of the inscriptions might be 7reek#Jevertheless, on the occasion of addressing the Horum of the 7raduate ollege of !rinceton University on ;ctober D, ()F4, I formulated my expectations< I expect new evidence from the &inoan Scripts and the so"called 8ittite pictographs# 5exts in the &inoan B>inear :C script were found years ago on rete and in &ycenae and in several other places on the 7reek mainland# I believe that when the &inoan writings unearthed in &ycenae are deciphered they will be found to be 7reek# I also claim that these texts are of a later date than generally believed# ,Jo PAark 'ge of six centuries duration intervened in 7reece between the &ycenaean 'ge and the Ionian 'ge of the seventh century#5he address was printed as a supplement to arth in &pheaval' but the last passage in the address was 0uoted from my Theses for the Reconstruction of Ancient #istory' published eight years earlier, in ()DF#(

.hen speaking to the !rinceton Horum in ;ctober ()F4 I did not know that a young English architect was by then on the verge of publishing the solution to the riddle of the >inear : script# ;nly six months passed since my addressing the 7raduate Horum, and the 'pril ), ()FD front page news of The 6e% Hork Times made known the exciting performance of decoding >inear : by &ichael Ventris# 5he ancient script ,that for the last half century and longer has baffled archaeologists and linguists has been decoded finally?by an amateur#- Ventris, an architect and ,leisure"time scholar of pre"classic scripts,- served as a cryptographer during .orld .ar II# 5he script that had been tried without avail in a variety of languages?8ittite, Sumerian and :as0ue among others?was found by Ventris to be 7reek#3 Ventris as a boy attended a lecture by Sir 'rthur Evans on the &inoan tablets with unread scripts and, like Schliemann who since boyhood was determined to find 5roy and the tomb of 'gamemnon, was intrigued to decipher the script of which he heard Evans speak# 5hus the greatest discoveries in the world of classical studies were made by non"specialists, a merchant and an architect# :ut Ventris was not immediately on the right path# In ()D) he had sent out a 0uestionnaire on >inear : to leading authorities on 'egean 0uestions/ he privately distributed the replies in ()F2 as The 0anguages of the /inoan and /ycenaean Civili4ations Bknown as the ,&id" entury $eport- C# Jone of his 0ueried correspondents came upon the right trail# In ()+3 >eonard $# !almer testified as to the stand the 8ellenic scholars and Ventris himself had taken prior to the achievement/ in his book /ycenaeans and /inoans' !almer wrote< ,Evans ventured no guess at the possible affinities of the &inoan language# 5hat it was 7reek never entered his head#- 'lso :legen, who was the first to find the tablets on 7reek soil, ,was Palmost certain that the language of his tablets was P&inoan # # # Jor did the possibility that the >inear : tablets concealed the 7reek language occur to &ichael Ventris#- 8e ,guessed that the language was related to Etruscan # # # 5his wrong diagnosis was maintained by Ventris right up to the final stages of his decipherment#- ,It figures in the so"called P&id" entury $eport, which records what could be deduced by the most eminent living authorities from the archaeological and other evidence available at the time preceding the decipherment of the script# 5he remarkable fact stands out that not one of the scholars concerned suggested that the language could be 7reek#:ut a few years more and Ventris found the true solution# Even then loud voices of skepticism and opposition made themselves heard#4 :ut the method being perfected disclosed more and more 7reek words and names which could not result from a mistaken decipherment# 5he entire field of early 7reek civili@ation experienced the greatest shock since the discovery of 5roy# 5o the even greater surprise of the scholarly world the names of the deities of the 7reek pantheon, supposedly ,created- by 8omer and 8esiod, were found on the deciphered >inear : tablets# 5he reading of these tablets in the 7reek language raised the 0uestion< 8ow could a literate people in the fourteenth century become illiterate for almost five centuries, to regain literacy in the eighth century= 5hus the problem already answered in Ages in

Chaos was brought into relief, and a heretical idea crept into the minds of a few scholars< is there some mistake in the accepted timetable= In the last century a Aark 'ge of five centuries duration between the &ycenaean and the Ionian ages was forced upon the scholars of the 7reek past by students of Egyptology, and in three 0uarters of a century this notion, first bitterly opposed, became as bitterly defended by the new generation of classical scholars, only to be confronted with the riddle of the &ycenaean tablets written in 7reek more than five hundred years before the oldest known 7reek inscription in alphabetic characters adapted from the 8ebrew" !hoenician script# Ventris died young, in an auto accident, soon after his triumph# ;ne of the most tantali@ing riddles of classical archaeology was solved, but not without creating some pu@@ling situations# 5he 8omeric Kuestion, instead of being solved, grew now to astonishing, one would like to say, 8omeric, proportions#

Re"e!ences
(# In this publication, distributed only to a limited number of large libraries in Europe and 'merica, I stated, without any elaboration, the findings to which I had come in the work of reconstruction of ancient history, thus outlining the pro9ected Ages in Chaos and its se0uel volumes# 3# f# 6# hadwick, The Decipherment of 0inear ; B ambridge, ()F1C# 4# E#g#, that of !rof# :eattie in Journal of #ellenic Studies *+ B()F+C, pp# (ff#

The G!eek antheon

.hen the texts in >inear : were read the so"called 8omeric problem did not approach a solution but, contrariwise, grew more urgent, more enigmatic, more perplexing# Since anti0uity it had been believed that ,8omer and 8esiod were the first to compose 5heogonies, and give the gods their epithets###-( 5herefore reading the names of 7reek gods and goddesses on the >inear : tables from Inossos on rete and !ylos on the mainland was something of a shock to classical scholars#3 8era, 'rtemis and 8ermes were worshipped in !ylos# Leus and !oseidon were worshipped in !ylos and Inossos# 'thene was deified in Inossos/ Aionysus name was found on a !ylos tablet#4 .ith 7reek gods and goddesses spelled by their names on the tablets, it was conducive to recogni@e 'pollo in a figure on a vase, singing among the &uses, or !oseidon in a figure depicted driving a chariot over the sea, or Leus with Europa in the depiction of a bull carrying a woman# 5he &inotaur and centaurs were recogni@ed as likely &ycenaean images#D Jot less unexpected were the names of 'chaean heroes known from the 8omeric epics when found on the !ylos and Inossos tablets, and a ,wealth of 5ro9an names,too# '9ax Bcalled by his patronymic ,5elamonian-C and his brother, 5elamonian 5eucer, have namesakes in 8omer/ ,and between them they killed two 5ro9ans with tablet names !yrasos and ;phelestas, and a third Simoeisios, whose fathers name, 'nthemos, occurs at Inossos#- 8ectors name and !riams name, and that of 5ros, are found in !ylos# 'chilles name is found both a Inossos and at !ylos, and Iastors at Inossos#F In 8omer >aodokoss father is 'ntenor and on a !ylos tablet >aodokos holds land in a village or suburb where 'ntenor is mayor# In 8omer >aodokos is from !ylos, where the tablet with his name was found# 'igyptos of the 8dyssey has a namesake on a Inossos tablet/ admittedly, there was no contact with Egypt during the Aark 'ges and until the seventh century, and how could a bard of one of those centuries, if the epos was not yet completed in the &ycenaean 'ge, come upon calling a hero after the river Jile, asked 5# :# .ebster# 5he name Jeritos in met in both, the (liad and the 8dyssey, and it was thought to be a misnomer for some 7reek term, corrupted in the later versions of the epics to look as a private name, but the name was found on a table as that of a sheep owner# ,Unfortunately the establishment of Jeritos as a good &ycenaean name does not help the difficult geographical problem of Ithacas location#5he campaign of the Seven against 5hebes and the sack of the city by the Epigoni are alluded to by 8omer# ,&ycenaean names int he story are 'mphiaros BInossosC, 'drastos, Eteocles, !olyphontes B!ylosC#- ;ne of the sons of Eteocles in !ylos was called 'lektryon, a name known from the (liad BQVII#+23C# In !ylos a man was called 5heseus and men at Inossos bore the names Selenos and Iakchos known from the 8dyssey# 5he name 'eneas is read on a tablet from &ycenae# !hegeus name, found

in the (liad BV#(2fC is found also on a tablet from &ycenae# 5he 5ro9an !edasos B(liad VI#3(C had a namesake at Inossos# Jot less ama@ing are the attributes and ad9ectives accompanying the names as used by 8omer and found on the tablets# ,5he evidence of the tablets- is ,that such formulae as 5elamonian '9ax were &ycenaean titles#-+ Jestor of 8omer ,has &ycenaean titles-/* 'gamemnons title %ana5 is ,certainly &ycenaean-/1 ,king of men- is a title most probably ,remembered from &ycenaean poetry- half a millennium before 8omer#) ,5he epithet hippiocharmes Bchariot"fighterC, which is applied to 5roilos in the Iliad and to 'mythaon Ba name found on the !ylos tabletsC in the ;dyssey, has been recogni@ed as derived from the &ycenaean word for chariot#-(2 If five hundred years separate 8omer from the tablets, is it not a cause for wonder that the poet should know these names and titles and use them for his epics=

Re"e!ences
(# 8erodotus II#F4 3# M&# Ventris and 6# hadwick wondered that the tablets ,unexpectedly reveal the worship of gods and goddesses known from classical sources- ? Documents in /ycenaean Greek B ambridge University !ress, ()F+C, p# 3*FN 4# M&# Ventris and 6# hadwick, Documents in /ycenaean Greek' second ed# B ambridge University !ress, ()*4C, pp# 3*), 31+"311# f# 7# &ylonas, /ycenae and the /ycenaean Age B!rinceton, ()++C, pp# (F)"(+2/ H# $# 'drados, ,>es Institutions religieuses myc%niennes- ? III ,>es dieux et leur culte- in /inos QI B()*3C, pp (14"()3/ '# 8eubeck, Aus der 2elt der fruehgrieschischen 0ineartaflen B7oettingen, ()++, pp# )+"(2+#N D# 5hese and the following examples are from 5# :# ># .ebster, "rom /ycenae to #omer B>ondon, ()F1C F# ($id.' p# / MA# 8# 8# 7ray, ,&ycenaean James in 8omer,- 6ournal of 8ellenic Studies *1 B()F1C, pp# D4"D1/ A# !age, #istory and the #omeric (liad BUniversity of alifornia !ress, ()F)C, pp# ()*"())#N +# .ebster, "rom /ycenae to #omer' p# 31+ *# ($id.' p# 3(1# 1# ($id.' p# (3(/ M!age, #istory and the #omeric (liad' pp# (11 and 32), n# D1#N )# .ebster, "rom /ycenae to #omer' p# (2*# (2# ($id., p# (24/ M!age, #istory and the #omeric (liad, pp# ()2 and 32), n# FF

(ycenaean City Names in the Ilia+

&ost notable among the passages in the Iliad traceable to &ycenaean times is the so" called atalogue of ities and Ships#( It is an enumeration, in the second book of the Iliad, of the contributions in ships made by various cities and towns of the 'chaeans or 7reeks of the 8eroic 'ge to the expedition against 5roy# 5here are scores of localities in the list and many of them, actually about half, did not survive into the modern Ionian 'ge/ then how could the 7reek poet, separated from the &ycenaean 'ge by dark centuries, have had such an extensive and detailed knowledge of these localities= 'rchaeological research has already identified the ruins of 0uite a few sites which had not been rebuilt and were not known in the classical period of 7reece/ and it is safe to assume that future digging will reveal more of the cities of this list# :y assuming that the oral delivery from one generation to another can account for the survival of the epics, it is also necessary to assume that a long list of localities, many of them small, many of them no more extant, was capable of surviving by means of such oral tradition# :ut would generations of bards carry over centuries of the Aark 'ges the multitudinous names of towns and villages of which nothing was extant for century upon century= It is conceivable that a few names of ancient palace cities would defy time and survive in the memory of bards# :ut to assume that almost a hundred names of localities that were but abandoned mounds in the time when the Iliad was put to writing survived in that manner implies nothing short of a miracle# In the view of Aenys !age, ,5here is no escape from this conclusion< the names in the atalogue afford proof positive and unrefuted that the atalogue offers a truthful, though selective, description of &ycenaean 7reece#-3 't the same time, ,there is no scrap of evidence, and no reason whatsoever to assume, that the art of writing was practiced in 7reece between the end of the &ycenaean era and the eighth century :# #-4 Eet ,it is inconceivable that such a list should have been first compiled during or after the Aark 'ges#-D :ut is it a solution that bards transmitted all those names=F 'nd where did the bards sing= .as not the land without palaces and with hardly any houses of occupation= Aenys !age continues on the sub9ect with growing wonderment< ,Aescriptive epithets are attached to some fifty of the place names# # # # &any of the epithets are distinctive, not generally applicable# ;ne place is a meadowland, another is rocky/ one place is rich in vineyards, another is famous for its sheep/ one place is rugged, another has many flowers/ one place is on a riverbank, another on the seashore#- ,>et us ask,!age continues, ,how could an Ionian poet living in the (2th or )th or 1th century :# # know how to describe so many places?some of them very obscure places?all over 7reece= 8ow could he know that there were many doves at &esse Bif anyone could still find the placeC/ and vineyards at 8ine Bif it had not yet been swallowed up by the lakeC/ that 'egylips was rugged, ;losson white, Enispe windy, !tellos a meadowland, 8elos on the coast=+

'nd is it thinkable that the bards came to 7reece from the 'egean coast of 'sia &inor towards the end of the Aark 'ges= :ut 'sia &inor together with its Ionian coast was also immersed in a Aark 'ge/ nor was there recovered a palace in which a bard upon return from 7reece could sing of those &ycenaean cities, towns and hamlets?so impoverished was the 7reek region of 'sia &inor during the Aark 'ges, with the highland of 'natolia being 0uite empty of any human habitation#* 5he problem of the &ycenaean heritage in the 8omeric poetry is staggering and remains unresolved through hundreds of volumes dealing with it/ it is the despair of anyone endeavoring to solve it within the framework of the accepted chronological timetable#

Re"e!ences
(# See $# 8ope Simpson and 6# H# >a@enby, The Catalogue of the Ships in #omer,s (liad B;xford University !ress, ()*2C# MSeveral scholars claim the atalogue to be a compilation of the late eighth or early seventh centuries# See $hys arpenter, "olk Tale' "iction' and Saga in the #omeric pics B:erkeley, ()D+C# 6# hadwick held a similar view# 8ere again is the five"hundred year controversy#N 3# !age, op. cit. M'# $# :urn, /inoans' !hilistines and Greeks3 ;.C. 9I::<B:: B>ondon, ()42C, p# (2< ,5he atalogue # # # has all the appearance of being a genuine document dating from before the Aorian invasion and the Ionian migration# # # #- N# 4# !age, op. cit.' p# (34# D# !age, #istory and the #omeric (liad p# (33# f#7# S# Iirk, The 0anguage and ;ackground of #omer ambridge, ()+DC, p# (*F# MIirk writes< ,# # # &uch of the substance of the atalogue of 'chaean contingents in the second book of the Iliad, which gives a complex and largely accurate survey of the &ycenaean geography, disrupted by the Aorian invasion, can hardly have been completed more than a generation or so later than the final upheaval# # #:ut cf# hadwick -/inos M()*FN, pp# F+"F1C#N F# f# $hys arpenter, "olk Tale' "iction' and Saga in the #omeric pics B:erkeley, a, ()D+C# +# !age, #istory and the #omeric (liad' p# (34# M arpenter -"olk Tale' "iction' and Saga in the #omeric pics' pp# (*1"*)C denies the possibility of such accurate transmissions and argues instead that the atalogue points ,to the situation in early archaic classical times when !heidon had extended his rule over 'rgos, when a league of towns was forming in :oeotia# # # #- 8is view that 8omer wrote about recent events does not in fact contradict the assertions by !age and others that the atalogue refers to &ycenaean times# f# also hadwick in /inos- B()*FC pp# F+"F1#N *# See above, section ,5he Aark 'ge in 'sia &inor#

The (ycenaean Dialect

.hen &ycenaean >inear : was deciphered by &ichael Ventris, it was thought to be an archaic form of 7reek, preceding 8omer by almost five centuries# ' name was proposed for it?,;ld 'chaean#- 8owever, a closer examination of &ycenaean resulted in a startling conclusion expressed by '# 5ovar< ,:ut contrary to what we expect from 7reek documents of the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries :# #, the &ycenaean dialect is not seen to be closer to proto" 7reek than are 8omer or 5hucydides# If sometimes &ycenaean shows very primitive features, it also sometimes appears more advanced than the dialects of the first millennium#,( 6ohn hadwick, who collaborated with Ventris in the decipherment of >inear :, writes< ,Since ()F3 important new work has modified the general view and this has entailed a shift of emphasis, and the abandonment of the name proposed for this dialect, P;ld 'chaean#-3 5he &ycenaean >inear : dialect was found to be best preserved in the southern B'rcado" yprianC group, and to be distinct from the Ionian"'ttic dialect/ the theory that &ycenaean was the mother tongue of all 7reek dialects conflicts with the fact expressed in these words< ,:ut &ycenaean presents many dialectal phenomena of 0uite recent aspect and is in some traits as far from Pcommon MearlyN 7reek as the dialects known a millennium later#-4 'gainst the view of E# $isch that &ycenaean was the proto"language of all 7reek dialects, 5ovar writes< ,5he weak point in $ischs argument is that it ignores the fact that against the innovations which appear in &ycenaean Band 'rcado" yprianC, Ionic shows many old forms#- E# :enveniste, too, expressed his criticism of the view of &ycenaean as proto"7reek, or ,;ld 'chaean-< It must be admitted that according to the hypothesis maintained by $isch during this period Mthe DF2 years between the last &ycenaean texts and the first literary testimony in eighth"century 7reekN a remarkable conservation of &ycenaean was upheld in its 'rcado" ypriote dialect and a profound evolution of &ycenaean in its Ionian dialect took place# Is it not more plausible to assume that in the epoch of our tablets the Ionian Bnot represented in the tabletsC already substantially differed=D Hour hundred and fifty years passed between the last &ycenaean texts and the first literary testimony# Is not the confusion discussed here a result of this erroneous premise= If the true figure is something like sixty years and not five hundred, all perplexities disappear#

Re"e!ences

(# '# 5ovar, ,;n the !osition of the >inear : Aialect,- /ycenaean Studies' ed# by E#># :ennet, 6r# BUniversity of .isconsin !ress, ()+DC# 3# 6# hadwick, Decipherment' p# *1# 4# 5ovar, p# (D+# D# E# :enveniste in tudes myceniennes B!aris, ()F+C p# 3+4#

Ca+mus
5he classical 7reek alphabet, its order of letters, and their form, were borrowed from the 8ebrew"!hoenician alphabet/ alpha, beta, gamma, delta, are but 7reci@ed aleph, beth, gimel, daleth of the 8ebrew language#( In early times 7reek was also written from right to left, as 8ebrew is still written today# admus, the legendary hero who came to 7reece from !hoenicia and founded 5hebes in :oeotia, is credited with the introduction of the 8ebrew or ,!hoenician- alphabet to the 7reek language/ in its 8elleni@ed early form the alphabet is called admeian# 's 8erodotus tells the story, 5he !hoenicians who came with admus # # # introduced into 7reece, after their settlement in the country, a number of accomplishments, of which the most important was writing, an art till then, I think, unknown to the 7reeks# 't first they used the same characters as all the other !hoenicians, but as time went on, and they changed their language, they also changed the shape of their letters# 't that period most of the 7reeks in the neighborhood were Ionians/ they were taught these letters by the !hoenicians and adopted them, with a few alterations, for their own use, continuing to refer to them as the !hoenician characters?as was only right, as the !hoenicians had introduced them#3 8owever, admus, the founder of 5hebes, preceded by several generations the 5ro9an .ar/ on this the 7reek tradition is unanimous# 5radition also has it that the admeian alphabet originally consisted of sixteen letters and that four additional characters were introduced later, about the time of the 5ro9an .ar#4 5he 5heban cycle of legends deals with the time preceding the 5ro9an .ar# 5hebes in :oeotia was outside of the &ycenaean dominion# Jo contingent from 5hebes participated with the other 7reek cities in the 5ro9an .ar for, according to tradition, 5hebes as a city had been reduced shortly before the new war started# .ith the conventional date of the 5ro9an .ar in the beginning of the twelfth century, admus needed to be placed in the fourteenth< his dynasty comprised several generations of rulers before the Epigoni con0uered and ruined the :oeotian 5hebes/ some of the Epigoni later participated in the siege of 5roy# 5his order of events in the semi"historical, semi"legendary 7reek past conflicts with the fact that the admeian alphabet has not been found in 7reece before about the middle of the eighth century# Hurthermore, because of certain characteristics in their form, the earliest admeian letters bear the best resemblance to the 8ebrew" !hoenician letters of the ninth century?as exemplified by the &esha stele#D :ut in 7reece no inscription in admeian letters was found that could be attributed to even so early a time as the ninth century# 5herefore among the classical epigraphists a

protracted debate was waged between those who claimed a date in the ninth century as the time the admeian alphabet was introduced into 7reece and those who claimed the seventh century#F Eet independently of the 0uestion whether the admeian letters originated in the ninth or in the seventh century, it is generally agreed that the fourteenth century is out of the 0uestion/+ but even should we follow the proponents of the earlier date?that of the mid"ninth century, we still would be at pains to harmoni@e dates so far apart as the ninth and fourteenth centuries, the date assigned to admus# If the tradition about admus, the originator of the 7reek alphabet, has any historical value,* and if admus lived in the ninth century, his descendants, participants in the 5ro9an .ar, could not have flourished about "(322#

Re"e!ences
(# Aleph means ,ox- in 8ebrew/ $eth means ,house- etc# 5he corresponding letter names have no meaning in 7reek# 3# 8erodotus, The #istories V# F1 Btransl# by '# de Selincourt, ()FDC# 4# M5here were three traditions, each of which placed him at a different period? three, six or nine generations before the 5ro9an .ar# See $# :# Edwards, Kadmos' the !hoenician B'msterdam, ()*)C, pp# (+Ff#?E&SN D# Iing &esha of &oab was a contemporary of Iing 'hab of Samaria# See Ages in Chaos' vol# I, Sections, ,&eshas $ebellion,- and ,5he P7reat Indignation#F# 't that time the admeian alphabet had not been found in 7reece before the seventh century# 8owever, since this debate between arpenter and Ullman, an inscription of the middle of the eighth century has come to light, the earliest known inscription in 7reek employing the admeian letters# +# f# the debate between $hys arpenter B,5he 'nti0uity of the 7reek 'lphabet,- American Journal of Archaeology 4* M()44N pp# 1"3)C and :# Ullman B,8ow ;ld is the 7reek 'lphabet=- in American Journal of Archaeology 41 M()4DN pp# 4F)"41(C# f# !# Iyle &c arter 6r#, The Anti1uity of the Greek Alpha$et and arly !hoenician Scripts B'nn 'rbor, ()*FC# M f# also arpenters reply< ,5he 7reek 'lphabet 'gain- in the same 9ournal, vol# D3 B()41C pp# F1"+)# .hile arpenter defended a date ca# "*22 for the adoption of the alphabet by the 7reeks, Ullman argued for ,the eleventh or twelfth century or even earlier as the time for the introduction of the alphabet into 7reece#- '# &ent@ B,Aie Urgeschichte des 'lphabets,- Rheinisches /useum f>r !hilologie 1F M()4+N pp# 4D*"4++C 9udged Ullmans proposed dates to be too lo% and suggested ca# "(D22 as the date for the adoption of the alphabet, based on the admus tradition# .# ARrpfeld, -Alt<8lympia II B:erlin, ()4FC pp# D2("D2)C, V# :erard 0es !heniciens et l,8dyss)e B!aris, ()3*"31C held similar views# f# also >ivio # Stecchini, ,5he ;rigin of the 'lphabet,- The American ;ehavioral Scientist IV# + BHebruary, ()+(C, pp# 3" *N# *# M&# # 'stour has suggested -#ellenosemitica M>eiden, ()+*N p# C that >inear :, the administrative script of the &yceneans and &inoans, was what the later 7reeks remembered as phoinikeia grammata' or ,!hoenician letters,introduced by admus# 5here appears to be little 9ustification for such a view

since the >inear : script had, as far as is known, no connection to !hoenicia, whereas the 7reek alphabet was directly adapted from the ninth"eighth century 8ebrew"!hoenician script# 8erodotus statement on the sub9ect could not be less ambiguous# In the same book, 'stour vigorously defends admus !hoenician origin Bpp# (D*ff#C f# 6# $ason, ,>a adm%e, Inossos et le lineaire :,- Revue archeologi1ue B()**C p# *)N#

#eismolo$y an+ Ch!onolo$y

Independently of my effort to construe a synchronical history starting with the common event that overwhelmed and vexed all nations of the globe?the great catastrophe that ended the &iddle Iingdom?a similar effort was made by laude H# '# Schaeffer, !rofessor at ollege de Hrance# 5he reader of Ages in Chaos is familiar with his work of excavating $as"Shamra BUgaritC from the chapter carrying this title# 8e observed in $as"Shamra on the Syrian coast obvious signs of great destruction that pointed to violent earth0uakes, tidal waves, and other signs of a natural disaster# 't the occasion of his visit to 5roy, excavated by # :legen, Schaeffer became aware that 5roy was destroyed by the elements?and repeatedly so?at the same times when $as"Shamra was destroyed# 5he distance from the Aardanelles, near which the mound of 5roy lies, to $as"Shamra is about six hundred miles on a straight line# In modern annals of seismology no earth0uake is known to have affected so wide an area# Schaeffer investigated the excavated places in 'sia &inor, and the archaeologists reports, and in every place found the same picture# 8e turned his attention to !ersia, farther to the East""and the very same signs of catastrophes were evident in each and every excavated place# 5hen he turned his attention to the aucasus?and there, too, the similarity of the causes and effects was undeniable# In his own excavations on yprus he could once more establish the very same series of interventions by the fren@ied elements of nature# 8e was so impressed by what he found that during the next few years he put into writing a voluminous work, Stratigraphie compar)e et chronologie de l,Asie occidentale -(((e et ((e millennaires.' published by ;xford University !ress in ()D1# In over six hundred pages supplemented by many tables, he presented his thesis# Several times during the third and second millennia before the present era the ancient East was disturbed by stupendous catastrophes/ he also found evidence that in the fourth, as well as in the first millennium, the ancient East went through great natural paroxysms, but their description Schaeffer reserved for future publications# In the published work covering the third and second millennia, Schaeffer discerned five or six great upheavals# 5he greatest of these took place at the very end of the Early :ron@e, or the ;ld Iingdom in Egypt# 't each of these occurrences, life was suddenly disturbed and the flow of history interrupted# Schaeffer also indicated that his ac0uaintance with European archaeology made him feel certain that Europe, too, was involved in those catastrophes/ if so, they must have been more than continental ?actually global in dimension# 5hus Schaeffer, like myself, came to the conviction that the ancient world was disturbed by repeated upheavals# .e even arrived at the same number of disturbances, a common reali@ation of their grandiose nature, and the same relative dating of these events# 8owever, we came to the same conclusions travelling by entirely diffferent routes# In this there was a considerable assurance of our having closely approached the historical truth# ' reader une0uipped to follow Schaeffer through his large and technical volume may well let the the last chapter -Resume et Conclusion. impress him by its 0uestions and

answers# In concluding his book Schaeffer epitomi@ed< ,;ur in0uiry has demonstrated that these repeated crises which opened and closed the principal periods # # # were caused not by the action of man# Har from it?because, compared with the vastness of these all"embracing crises and their profound effects, the exploits of con0uerors and all combinations of state politics would appear only very insignificant# 5he philosophy of the history of anti0uity of the East appears to us singularly deformed-?namely, by describing the past of nations and civili@ations as the history of dynasties, rather than as a history of great ages, and by ignoring the role physical causes played in their se0uence# 's to the chronology?in his printed work Schaeffer follows with certain reservations, the accepted timetable# In correspondence, however, he envisaged the possibility of shortening the Egyptian history, but not to the extent claimed in Ages in Chaos. 5hen how can we be in agreement as to the times of the catastrophes= 5he answer lies in the fact that both of us relate these catastrophes to the termination of the BidenticalC great periods in history# In other words, we are in agreement as to the relative chronology, not the absolute one# 't the end of his long discourse, Schaeffer also made clear his stand even before he became aware of my work# 8e wrote< ,5he value of absolute dates adopted by us depends, understandably, to an extent on the degree of precision obtained in the field of study of the historic documents that can be used for chronology and that derive from those collected in Egypt, !alestine, 'sia &inor, &esopotamia, and !ersia#5hus the absolute dates used in his work are dependent on chronology that in its turn depends on historical documents# :ut he adds< ,;n the other hand, thanks to the improvement of archaeological methods, today we no longer depend so completely on epigraphic documentation for an absolute chronology#I regard myself very fortunate that the task of presenting the archaeological evidence from the lands of the &iddle and Jear East was performed by a scholar of great stature, laude H# '# Schaeffer# 5he almost superhuman enterprise of unravelling the manifold ramifications of the recent tribulations of this planet was not committed all to one scholar#

Celestial Events in the Ilia+

5he eighth century, starting with "**+, was together with the beginning of the seventh a period of great natural upheavals# !opulations migrated, partly to 'sia &inor, and other populations descended from the north# 5he siege of 5roy might therefore have been an effort of the 7reeks to plant a foothold on the coast of 'sia &inor# 5he true time of the events recounted in the Iliad was the second half of the eighth and the beginning of the seventh centuries before the present era# In 2orlds in Collision an effort was made to recogni@e in the description of theomachy and of the natural phenomena that accompanied the battle of the gods, the events that took place in the sky and on earth between "*D* and "+1*#( 5he 5ro9an .ar was waged to the accompaniment of blows exchanged by the planetary gods?Earth B8eraC, &oon B'phroditeC, Venus B'theneC, &ars B'resC and 6upiter BLeusC# 5hese celestial phenomena could not have taken place in the sky over 5roy alone< the entire world had to witness the events, if they were not mere creations of the bard# 5hat they were not can be deduced from the fact that these very events, witnessed in all parts of the world, are also described in sacred epics from Hinland -Kalevala.' >apland and Iceland - dda.' from &exico, !eru, India, the South Sea Islands, hina and 6apan, and, of course, by the poets and dramatists, annalists and astronomers, of the Jear and Har East# It would re0uire repeating close to two hundred pages of 2orlds in Collision' actually the entire part II B&arsC of that book, should we desire here to evidence and illuminate this in some detail# !erturbations in the celestial sphere, or 5heomachy, in which &ars endangered the Earth at nearly regular intervals during this century, preoccupied the minds of men and repeatedly intervened in human history# !estilence also broke out, and many references in the cuneiform literature ascribe its cause to Jergal B&arsC# Earth0uakes, overflooding, change of climate, evidenced by Ilimastur@, did not spare a single land# 5hese changes moved entire nations to migrations# alendars were repeatedly thrown out of order and reformed?and the reader will find abundant material in the second part of 2orlds in Collision and also in arth in &pheaval' where no human testimony, but only the testimony of nature was presented/ and this material could be multiplied by any dedicated researcher# It appears, however, that in the Iliad 8omer telescoped into a few weeks events that took place in the space of several decades# 't least some of the events may be placed in a chronological order with the help of ancient Israelite sources< namely, on the day when Iing 'ha@ was interred the motion of the Earth was disturbed so that the Sun set before its appointed time/3 at the time of the destruction of Sennacheribs army in the days of 8e@ekiah, son of 'ha@, another disturbance occurred with the contrary effect< the Sun appeared to return several degrees to the east before proceeding on its regular westward path# It is asserted in the rabbinical literature that the second disturbance rectified the effects of

the first?and this is also the meaning of the sentence in Isaiah 41<1< ,So the sun returned ten degrees by which degrees it was gone down#-4 In 7reek legendary tradition the first event took place in the days of the two brothers, 'treus and 5hyestes, contesting the throne of &ycenae?when, according to Seneca, the Sun set earlier than usual#D Eet a certain compression or amalgamating of two events, separated in time, must have taken place, for another version of the story tells of a reversal of the suns motion# 5his version is recorded by 'pollodorus and several other authors#F 5he event described as the reversal of motion of the sun took place, as illuminated 2orlds in Collision' on &arch 34rd, "+1*#+ 5he fixing of the event to the early spring of "+1* is made on the strength of the information from 8ebrew sources that the event took place on the night of !assover, during the second campaign of Sennacherib against 6udah, the ninth campaign of his reign# 5he exact date for the last of this series of catastrophes* is provided by the records of the astronomical observations of the hinese, where we learn that in the year "+1*, on the 34rd of &arch, ,during the night the fixed stars did not appear, though the sky was clear# In the middle of the night stars fell like rain#-1 5his date is also confirmed by $oman sources?$omulus found his end during a celestial"terrestrial catastrophe connected with the planet &ars< :oth the poles shook, and 'tlas lifted the burden of the sky # # # 5he sun vanished and rising clouds obscured the heaven # # # the sky was riven by shooting flames# 5he people fled and the king M$omulusN upon his fathers M&arsN steeds soared to the stars#) $omulus was a contemporary of 8e@ekiah/(2 and the 34rd of &arch was the most important day in the $oman cult of &ars#(( .e must not forget that the $omans and the 7reeks worshipped their gods in the planets, not as gods of the planets# Invocations to the gods, such as the 8omeric 8ymn to 'res B&arsC are addressed directly to the planet as an astral power#(3 5he siege of 5roy under 'gamemnon followed by less than one generation the natural disturbances of the days of his father 'treus, when this king of &ycenae competed with his brother 5hyestes for the crown of the realm and the Sun was disrupted in its motion# 'treus and 5hyestes, being contemporaries of 'ha@ and 8e@ekiah, and 'gamemnon, son of 'treus, a contemporary of the latter king of 6erusalem, it seems that the time in which the drama of the Iliad was set was the second half of the eighth century, and not later than "+1*/(4 yet the poet condensed the events separated by decades into the tenth year of the 5ro9an siege, the time of the Iliads action#(D 5hus we come to reali@e that it was a rather late time/ clearly 8omer could not have lived before the events he described/ and therefore 8omers time cannot be any earlier

than the end of the eighth century# :ut more probably he wrote several decades after the 5ro9an .ar, when the events of the war had become enveloped in a veil due to a certain remoteness in time, and obtained a halo of heroic, god"like exploits# 5he ;dyssey, describing the wanderings of ;dysseus after the 5ro9an .ar, re0uires, too, a distancing between the poet and the 5ro9an .ar, on the assumption that both 8omeric poems were the product of one author# If not of one, then we must assume that two poets of uni0ue genius lived close in time to one another# !laced in its true time, the 5ro9an .ar may obtain some historical plausibility/ and, as we have seen, its mythological parts also serve, instead of obfuscation, to the elucidation of some complex chronological problems# .ith theomachy displayed on the celestial screen, the story in the Iliad gains, rather than loses, its historical validity#

Re"e!ences
(# See 2orlds in Collision' section ,.hen .as the Iliad reated=3# 5ractate Sanhedrin )+a/ !irkei $abbi Elieser F3# f# ># 7in@berg, The 0egends of the Je%s' B!hiladelphia, ()3)C vol# VI, p# 4+*, n# 1(# 4# f# II Iings 32<)ff#/ 8ippolytus on Isaiah, and sources cited above, fn# (# D# Seneca, Thyestes3 ,Jot yet does Vesper, twilights messenger, summon the fires of night # # # the ploughman with oxen yet unwearied stands ama@ed at his supper hours 0uick coming#- M f# !lato The Statesman 3+)a#N F# 'pollodorus, :k# II, ch# xii/ cf# scholium to the Iliad II#(2+/ Euripides, lectra +))"*42/ 8restes ))+"(2(3/ !lato, The Statesman 3+1e# +# See 2orlds in Collision' section ,&arch 34rd#- MSee also Iliad II D(4ff# where an expected delay in the setting of the Sun during the siege of 5roy is mentioned#N *# 5he other dates are "*D*, and "*2(/ "**+ is also connected with celestial events between Venus and &ars that did not, however, directly affect the Earth# See 2orlds in Collision' p. 1# E# :iot, Catalogue general des )toiles filantes et des autres meteors o$serv)s en Chine apr7s le *((e si7cle avant J.C. B!aris, (1D+C# 5he statement is based on old hinese sources ascribed to onfucius# ,5he night was bright- adds the 5so huen commentary B6# >egge, The Chinese Classics vol# (F, p# 12C# )# ;vid, "asti' transl# by 6# Hra@er, Vol# II, lines D1)ff# (2# 'ugustine, The City of God' :k# QVIII, hap# 3*# ((# .# .# Howler, ,&ars- in ncyclopaedia ;ritannica' (Dth ed# (3# .# 8# $oscher, Ausf>rhrliches 0e5ikon der griechischen und r=mischen /ythologie' s#v# ,'res#(4# If to harmoni@e the involved chronological problems the debacle of Sennacheribs army needs to be placed fifteen years earlier Bnot in "+1* but in "*2(C, and the first invasion in "*(F, and the beginning of 8e@ekiahs reign in "*3), then I would need to change the date for the last global catastrophe from "+1* to "*2( or "*23# MSee also 2orlds in Collision' pp# 3DF"3F4# ,# # # 5he time of the birth of the Iliad must be lowered to "*D* at least, and probably to an even later date#- N (D# 't least two con9unctions between Venus and &ars are described in the Iliad, in the Hifth and 5wenty"first :ooks# See 2orlds in Collision' pp# 3F3f#

Chan$es in &an+ an+ #ea

5he celestial phenomena that pervade the narrative of the Iliad and even dominate it in books five, twenty and twenty"one, were accompanied also by terrestrial changes? Earth, called 8era, participated in the strife among the gods# In the Iliad these terrestrial disturbances are narrated too< earth0uakes shook the 5ro9an plain amid the battle of the celestial gods# 5hen terribly thundered the father of the gods and men from on high/ and beneath did !oseidon cause the vast earth to 0uake and the steep crests of the mountains# 'll the roots of many"fountained Ida were shaken and all her peaks, and the city of the 5ro9ans, and the ships of the 'chaeans# 'nd sei@ed with fear in the world below was 'idoneus, lord of the shades # # # >est above him the earth be cloven by !oseidon, the Shaker of the Earth, and his abode be made plain to view for mortals and immortals # # # So great was the din that arose when the gods clashed in strife#( Strabo of the first century before the present era and !liny of the first century of this era were well aware of the physical changes that the area of western 'sia &inor and of the 'egean islands did undergo# Some of these changes are ascribed to the time of the 5ro9an .ar or the time closely preceding or following it/ but others may refer to earlier upheavals#3 Strabo cited Aemocles ,who recalls certain great earth0uakes some of which long ago took place about >ydia and Ionia as far north as the 5road, and by their action not only were villages swallowed up, but &ount Sipylus was shattered?in the reign of 5antalus# 'nd lakes arose from swamps, and a tidal wave submerged the 5road#-4 !liny described the changes in land and sea distribution# ,>and is sometimes formed # # # rising suddenly out of the sea# Aelos and $hodes, islands which have now been long famous, are recorded to have risen up in this way# &ore lately there have been some smaller islands formed,- and he names them< 'napha, Jea, 8alone, 5hera, 5herasia,D 8iera, and 5hia, the last of which appeared in his own time#F !indar said that ,the isle of $hodes was not yet to be seen in the open main, but was hidden in the briny depths of the sea- / then it was born in the darkness?the sun was absent# .hen the sun finally lighted the earth again, a plot of land was seen ,rising from the bottom of the foaming main#-+ Under the heading 0ands 2hich #ave ;een Separated $y the Sea !liny mentions< ,5he sea has torn Sicily from Italy,* yprus from Syria, Euboea from :oeotia,- and other similar instances# Under the heading (slands 2hich #ave ;een &nited to the /ain 0and !liny mentions 'ntissa which was added to >esbos, Lephyrium to 8alicarnassus, and the like in other places#

0ands 2hich #ave ;een Totally Changed (nto Seas3 the sea has totally carried off certain lands, and first of all, if we are to believe !lato, for an immense space where the 'tlantic ;cean is now extended# &ore lately we see what has been produced by our inland sea/ 'carnania has been overwhelmed by the 'mbracian 7ulf, 'chaia by the orinthian, Europe and 'sia by the !ropontis and !ontus# 'nd besides these, the sea has rent asunder >eucas, 'ntirrhium, the 8ellespont and the two :ospori#-1 !liny tells about Cities 2hich #ave ;een A$sor$ed $y the Sea3 !yrrha and 'ntissa, Elice and :ura Mon the 7ulf of orinthN) from the island of ea the sea suddenly tore off 42,222 paces ,with many persons on them#- In like manner it carried off Eleusina in :oeotia, and half of the city of 5yndaris in Sicily# 'nd not to speak of bays and gulfs, the earth feeds on itself< it has devoured the very high mountain of ybotus with the town of the urites/ also Sipylus in &agnesia, and formerly in the same place, a very celebrated city, which was called 5antalis#(2 5hese descriptions by !liny have corroborating references in other classical authors#(( &inor changes they were not< the :osporus tearing 'sia apart from Europe, like the breaking of the &editerranean into the ;cean at 7ibraltar were ma9or changes# Smaller changes where single cities were engulfed or isles born could have been the after"effects of the cataclysms, which for hundreds of years still agitated the distorted strata of the earth/ even today they have not completely subsided# Some of these changes occurred earlier and some later, but for the most part they occurred in historical times/ the memory of them survived, and the same testimony comes from all 0uarters of the globe# In the effort to regard the fantastic events in the sky as pure invention or flights of poetic imagination, the terrestrial changes described by 8omer were also kept out of the discussion# 'ctually, arl :legen re9ected .ilhelm Aoerpfelds identification of 5roy VI with the 5roy of the siege because he found that the walls and structures of 5roy VI had been destroyed by an earth0uake apparently oblivious of the fact that the Iliad contains a description of an earth0uake at the final stage of the siege#(3 5hus :legen became besieged by contradictions, derived from misinterpreting the Iliad and from following an erroneous chronology as well# 5o the confusion of the HurtwSngler"ARrpfeld debate,(4 a misreading of the Iliad brought more confusion, and made the tragedy complete#

Re"e!ences
(# The (liad' transl# by '# 5# &urray B()3FC, :k# QQ#F+"+*# 3# MHor geological and archaeological evidence, see I# Velikovsky, arth in &pheaval BJew Eork, ()FFC# f# laude H# '# Schaeffer, Stratigraphie

Compar)e B ambridge, ()D)C# See also above, ,Seismology and hronology#-N 4# Strabo, Geography' transl# by 8# ># 6ones B()D)C, I# 4# (*/ M5antalus reign is traditionally placed two generations before 'treus and 5hyestes i#e#, three generations before 'gamemnon# Strabo goes on to tell of many other changes that occurred in the region of the &editerranean, among them the opening up of the strait at the !illars of 8eracles, or 7ibraltar#N D# M5he story of 5hera and 5herasia is told at greater length by Strabo< ,Hor midway between 5hera and 5herasia fires broke forth from the sea and continued for four days, so that the whole sea boiled and bla@ed, and the fires cast up an island which was gradually elevated as though by levers and consisted of burning masses?an island with a stretch of twelve stadia in circumference# 'fter the cessation of the eruption, the $hodians, at the time of their marine supremacy, were first to venture upon the scene# # # #-? Geography I#4#(+# ;n the great volcanic eruption on 5hera in >ate &inoan times, cf# the bibliography collected by S# 8iller, ,Aie Explosion des Vulkans von 5hera,- Gymnasium 13 B()*FC, pp# 43"*D#N F# !liny, 6atural #istory' transl# by 6# :ostock and 8#5# $iley B>ondon, (1F4C, II#1)# +# !indar, ,Seventh ;lympian ;de,- transl# by 6# E# Sandys B>oeb lassical >ibrary, ()()C# *# MAiodorus Siculus IV# 1F< ,Some say that great earth0uakes occurred, which broke through the neck of the land and formed the straits Mof &essinaN, the sea parting the mainland from the island#- f# also ;vid, /etamorphoses QV, 3)2")(/ Seneca, Juaestiones 6aturales VI# 3)#N 1# !liny, 6atural #istory II# )D# )# f# Strabo, Geography I#4#(1/ !ausanias II#3F/ 'ristotle, /eteorologica I#+, II#1/ Aiodorus QV#D)/ Seneca, Juaestiones 6aturales VI#34,3+/ VII#F,(+# (2# !liny, 6atural #istory II# )4# ((# f# in addition to the works cited above >ucretius, De Rerum 6atura :k# VI passim, ;vid, /etamorphoses :k# QV# (3# # .# :legen et al#, Troy' Settlements *((a' *(($ and *(((' vol# IV B!rinceton, ()F1C# (4# See above, section ,;lympia#-

A Ga* Close+
' chronology with centuries that never occurred made necessary the introduction of ,Aark 'ges- between the years "((22 and "*F2 in many areas of the ancient world/ these upper and lower figures are already pulled together on the chronological timetable, and still some D22 years are unaccounted for?thus it is spoken of the ,mysterious spell of Aark 'ges#-( :ut when the hinges of history are fastened at correct levels the ghost centuries vanish and the chasm is shown to be imaginary# Eet it cannot be denied that there was some interruption between the >ate :ron@e and Early Iron 'ges in 7reece and elsewhere/ no smooth and evolutionary transition took place from the &ycenaean to the Ionian 'ge# 5here were great migrations in the eighth century and in the first part of the seventh# .hat kind of interruption, then, occurred in the entire ancient East= In his book Discontinuity in Greek Civili4ation' B()++C $hys arpenter stands before observations made by a number of investigators in the archaeology of 7reece and the 8elladic islands and, after reviewing the evidence on the mainland in its various regions and on the islands, one by one, he comes to the conclusion< ,Aespite the fact that there is no indication that the late &yceneans were driven out by any human intervention, they abandoned the south 'egean islands even as they deserted the central !eloponnese# Hor some reason and for some cause over which they had no control they found life in 7reece and in the southern 'egean so unendurable that they could not remain#-3 'nd arpenter asks< ,.hat caused them to evacuate their towns and villages=- Hrom here on he gropes in the dark and asks, was it a pestilence or a famine, was it a change of climate= and he continues< ,In the seventh book of his #istory 8erodotus recounts that rete was so beset by famine and pestilence after the 5ro9an .ar that it became virtually uninhabited until its resettlement by later inhabitants# ould 8erodotus by any chance have had access to a true tradition=-4 5here is a rather vague reference to the Aorian wandering< the Aorians migrated from 5hrace and, moving presumably along the 'driatic coast, crossed into the !eloponnese and occupied Sparta, becoming the progenitors of this severe and puritan tribe# In the absence of any other known cause for the cessation of the &ycenaean world, the Aorian invasion was considered as the most probable# :ut the &inoan civili@ation on rete, which in the later stage showed much affinity with the &ycenaean, was also terminated/ and the Aorian invasion was made to continue over the sea to rete# It was not the Aorians who dispossessed the original population of eastern and central 7reece< ,5he Aorian 7reeks,- writes arpenter, ,seem to have moved into a depopulated land#- Bp# (+C ,###5he Aorians had nothing whatever to do with the collapse of &ycenaean civili@ation, since they did not enter the !eloponnese until

long after the collapse had already taken place,-D It was some natural event< ,' Ptime of trouble was occasioned by climatic causes that brought persistent drought with its attendant famine to most mainland 7reece/ and it was this unbelievable condition of their native abode that forced the &ycenaeans to emigrate, ending their century"long prosperity#- :ut was there any specific cause for the climatic change= arpenter surveys the available evidence< 7# .elter, in a monograph on the island of 'egina, maintains that it became uninhabited after the &ycenaean 'ge# V# $# d'# Aesborough holds that the island of &elos had been abandoned by its &ycenaean inhabitants# Aiscussing the island of Ios, Aesborough ,was pu@@led at finding Pno clue as to the cause of its final desertion in >ate &ycenaean times#- 5here must have been some serious disaster, Phe decides# # # It can hardly be supposed that there was a complete depopulation, and yet there is no clear evidence of continuity into the !rotogeometric period#-F arpenter stresses here, too, ,a definite instance of interruption of cultural continuity#-+ In his search for climatic changes and physical upheavals arpenter comes to cite three cases, during the >ibyan and Ethiopian dynasties in Egypt, when unseasonal and excessive flooding took place in Egypt< in the eighth century, under the >ibyan king ;sorkon II, the Jile rose, breaking all the dykes/* in the days of Shabaka, the Aelta was repeatedly flooded and earth was heaped against the towns to protect them/1 and in the sixth year of 5aharka, ,the land was like the sea#-) :ut how could these instances in Egypt of the eighth and early seventh centuries help to understand what happened in 7reece at the end of the &ycenaean 'ge if this end occurred shortly after "(322= arpenter goes on< Even more spectacular, but somewhat insecure chronologically, is the inference from circumstantial evidence that the 8ungarian plain, an immense tract of comparatively low"lying land in which a number of large rivers converge, must have become almost totally submerged early in the first millennium :# # 8ow else shall we explain the fact that the rich and active phase of the 8ungarian :ron@e 'ge known to archaeologists as :ron@e IV and dated by 'lberg as lasting from about (222 to about 1F2 :# # Bthe drought period in 7reeceOC met, in 'lbergs words, Pan unexpected and sudden end### after which the country is without any discoverable sign of occupation and seems deserted=(2 5he words in arpenters preface to his ()++ book reveal that were he to follow !lato, 0uoted by him, he would have been led to the reali@ations familiar to readers of 2orlds in Collision and arth in &pheaval. I 0uote from !latos Timaeus in arpenters translation# 5he speaker is an Egyptian priest and the listener is Solon, one of the Seven .ise &en of anti0uity#

# # # 'll this, though told in mythic guise, is true, inasmuch as a deviation of the celestial bodies moving past the earth does, at long intervals, cause destruction of earthly things through burning heat# # #

So this is the reason why among us here oldest traditions still prevail and whenever anything great or glorious or otherwise noteworthy occurs, it is written down and preserved in our temples/ whereas among you and other nations that chance to be but recently endowed with the art of writing and civili@ed needs, at stated turn of years there has recurred like a plague brought down upon you a celestial current, leaving only an unlettered and uncivili@ed remnant/ wherefore you have to begin all over again, like children, without knowledge of what has taken place in older times either in our land or in yours# # # #(( 's set forth at great length in 2orlds in Collision' part II, the world in the eighth and seventh centuries before the present era was going through a series of natural catastrophes, with frightening apparitions in the sky, disturbances in the position and direction of the terrestrial axis, drastic changes in climate, and subse0uent mass movements of populations# 5he immerians descended from $ussia into 'sia &inor and engulfed the !hrygian kingdom# Aorians presumably reached rete, >atins were pushed from their homeland into Italy by newly arrived tribes?these were only a few of the migrating hordes that then moved in many directions all around the globe# 5he &inoan civili@ation of rete did not succumb to the Aorians/ it succumbed to the ravages of nature, and if the Aorians reached the devastated island, it was only because in desperation they looked for any room to move into, and there was nobody able or willing to defend the island from invaders# Aigging on rete 'rthur Evans arrived at the conclusion that each of the various stages of civili@ation on the island had come to its end in enormous natural paroxysms until the last of the stages found its end in the overturned palaces and cities, not to be rebuilt again#(3 5he interruptions in the flow of &inoan civili@ation had baffled Evans until the day when he experienced an earth0uake on rete# Jow he understood the nature of the agent of the destruction that he observed in the ruins of the palaces< the agent was not an enemy reaching the island/ and from that moment Evans filled his volumes on Inossos -The !alace of /inos. with the evidence of seismic catastrophes that terminated the great ages of &inoan civili@ation#(4 Spyridon &arinatos detected a devastation ascribed by him to an overwhelming wave coming from the north and sweeping over the mountainous island and carrying also ashes of volcanic eruptions#(D ,' normal earth0uake, however, is wholy insufficient to explain so great a disaster#-(F 5hat climate changed, and repeatedly so, between the eighth and seventh centuries is well documented, and since the works of the Scandinavian scientists '# :lytt, $# Sernander(+ and others, and also of 8# 7ams and $# Jordhagen(* of 7ermany, no effort needs to be spent to prove the point anew# 5he change was global, as the work

of 8elmut de 5erra in &exico(1 and the in0uiry of # E# !# :rooks and H# E# Leuner() amply document# ;f the changes in nature many elo0uent descriptions were left by their contemporaries, by 'ssyrian annalists and 8ebrew prophets, and also in many other documents of the literate peoples of the world# &igrations were the conse0uences of destruction of domiciles, subse0uent plagues, and of changes in climate that made agricultural experience dependent on former climates inapplicable# 5he climate in Europe that changed in the eighth century to dry and warm changed soon again to wet and cold#32 5his double change is documented e0ually well in the Jew .orld B8elmut de 5erraC#3( 5he upheavals of nature continued through the ma9or part of the eighth century and climaxed in the last great cosmic disturbance which I was able to date on &arch 34rd, "+1*#33 5he &ycenaean age came to its end in the catastrophic events of the eighth and seventh centuries?thus there were no Aark 'ges between the &ycenaean 'ge and the 7reek or Ionian 'ge# .hether the catastrophic changes that accompanied and followed these upheavals were by themselves enough to cause the end of the &ycenaean 'ge, or whether the migrations and invasions contributed, the great &ycenaean age came to its close not before the eighth century was over# 5here were no dark ages in between# ertain changes did take place between the end of the &ycenaean and the beginning of the Ionian ages?but they are better understood not by assuming four or five hundred intervening dark years, but by the very fact of dislocations created by catastrophes# ities with their palaces crumbled/ surviving populations migrated and were partly replaced by new settlers?in the case of 7reece by the Aorian invaders, the returning 8eraclid 7reeks who at an earlier date had migrated northward# 5hese upheavals of nature were responsible for the break in continuity that is found in 7reece, in 'sia &inor and in many other places# 5here was a disruption in occupation of lands and a discontinuity in civili@ations# :ut there were no Aark 'ges and the four centuries inserted between the &ycenaean and 7reek periods are unreal# 5hus we have the explanation of the fact that so much in common is found in the late &ycenaean and early 7reek ages, and also an explanation of the fact that no literary relics and scarcely any archaeological ones are found from the four or five centuries of the presumed Aark 'ges, and yet that, on the other hand, there %as some break in continuity#

Re"e!ences
(# &# 6# &ellink, ,'rchaeology in 'sia &inor,- Journal of American Archaeology vol +4, no# ( B6anuary, ()F)C# 3# $# arpenter, The Discontinuity in Greek Civili4ation' B ambridge University !ress, ()++C, p# F1# 4# ($id.' p# F)< 8erodotus VII# (*(#

D# !# F3# MV# $# d'# Aesborough emphasi@es that the abandoned sites were not occupied by any other race< ,Jowhere is there any evidence of settlement by new peoples#- 5his fact ,has very serious conse0uences for the traditional conception of the Aorian invasion#- See The 0ast /ycenaeans and Their Successors B>ondon, ()+DC, pp# 3F("3F3# f# idem, ,8istory and 'rchaeology in the >ast entury of the &ycenaean 'ge,- (ncuna$ula Graeca QQV#4 B()+1C, pp# (2*+"**/ E# Vermeule, ,5he Aecline and End of &inoan and &ycenaean ulture- in A 0and Called Crete BJorthampton, &ass#, ()+*C, p# 1+/ '# 'ndrewes, The Greeks B>ondon, ()+*C, p# 44#N F# arpenter, Discontinuity in Greek Civili4ation' p# F1/ Aesborough, The 0ast /ycenaeans and Their Successors' pp# (F*"F1## +# Carpenter' loc# cit# *# ($id.' p# *3# M6# $# :reasted, The Ancient Records of gypt' B hicago, ()2+C, IV, Sec# *D4# f# 6# Vandier, 0a famine dans l, gypte ancienne B()4+C, p# (34# 5he date of this inundation, calculated by arpenter, is "**+, the very year assigned to the first ;lympiad/ however, the basis of this calculation is the accepted chronology of the >ibyan Aynasty, which is 0uestionable# 5he description of the inundation may actually refer to a later upheaval#N 1# arpenter, loc. cit./ 8erodotus BII# (4*C describes the construction of massive earthworks during the reign of Sabacon BShabakaC/ these were evidently flood control measures# )# arpenter, loc# cit#/ cf# the optos Stele of 5aharka in V# Vikentiev, 0a haute crue du 6il et l,averse de l,an K du roi Tahar1a B airo, ()42C# (2# arpenter, Discontinuity' p# *D# ((# arpenter, Discontinuity' p# vii/ the 0uoted passages are from Timaeus 33 "A and 34 '":/ cf# 2orlds in Collision' section ,!haethon#(3# Evans, The !alace of /inos at Knossos B()3("()4FC/ cf# arth in &pheaval' section , rete#(4# arth in &pheaval' section , rete#(D# &arinatos, ,5he Volcanic Aestruction of &inoan rete,- Anti1uity QIII B()4)C, pp# D3Fff# MHor a review of the extensive literature, cf# 8iller, ,Aie Explosion des Vulkans von 5hera,- Gymnasium 13 B()*FC, pp 43"*D# ># !omerance has suggested that the collapse of 5hera and the resulting tsunami devastated not only rete, but the entire East &editerranean basin at the end of the >ate 8elladic III: ceramic phase?The "inal Collapse of Santorini -Thera.' Studies in /editerranean Archaeology vol# QQVI B7Rteborg, ()*2C#N (F# &arinatos, ,5he Volcanic Aestruction of &inoan rete,- p# D3)# (+# $# Sernander, ,Ilimaverschlechterung, !ostgla@iale- in Realle5ikon der *orgeschichte ed# &ax Ebert, VII B()3+C# (*# ,!ostgla@iale Ilimaaenderungen und Erdkrustenbewegungen in &ittel" Europa,- /itteilungen der geographischen Gesellschaft in /uenchen' vol# QVI, no#3 B()34C, pp# (4"4D1# (1# /an and /ammoth in /e5ico -0ondon' 9BGD.. ()# :rooks, Climate through the Ages 3nd edition BJew Eork, ()D)C/ Leuner, The !leistocene !eriod B>ondon, ()DFC# 32# M arpenter dated the change to a dry climate to before "(322/ he posited ,a northward shift of the Saharan drought @one into southern Europe,- Bp# (2C with the resulting famine causing the abandonment of large areas, no longer able to sustain the large populations characteristic of late &ycenaean times# 5he shift was reversed, in his view, in the eighth century, with the return of a

wet climate# arpenters inability to explain the cause of these shifts has invalidated his thesis in the eyes of many of his colleagues?cf# 8# E# .right, , limatic hange in &ycenaean 7reece,- Anti1uity D3 B()+1C, p# (3+# Hor a recent review of the physical evidence for arpenters thesis, see $# '# :ryson, 8, 8# >amb and A# ># Aonley, ,Arought and the Aecline of &ycenae- in Anti1uity D1 B()*DC, pp# D+"F2# f# !# :etancourt, ,5he End of the 7reek :ron@e 'ge,- Anti1uity F2 B()*+C, pp# D2"DF# f# also 6# amp, ,' Arought in the >ate Eighth entury :# #- in #esperia D1 B()*)C# 5he shifts in the Earths climatic @ones, if real, would have been a direct conse0uence of shifts in the inclination of the terrestrial axis in the eighth and early seventh centuries, as documented in 2orlds in Collision Besp# sections ,!oles Uprooted- and ,' 8emisphere 5ravels Southward- C and in arth in &pheaval.N 3(# /an and /ammoth in /e5ico' p# *+# 33# 2orlds in Collision' section ,&arch 34rd#-

Com*etin$ "o! a G!eate! Anti/uity

5he date of 5ro9an .ar is traditionally placed in the beginning of the twelfth century before the present era< this tradition goes back to Eratosthenes, a 7reek scholar in the employ of !tolemy III Euergetes in the third pre" hristian century# 8e calculated that the last year of the ten"year"long siege of 5roy fell in the year that in the modern calendar corresponds to "((14#( 5his date is still upheld today by many scholars?a very unusual case of adherence to a chronological computation made over twenty"two centuries ago, and dealing with an event presumably nine hundred years earlier#3 In anti0uity some other, differing calculations were made, too,4 but that of Eratosthenes survived until our time as the conventional date of 5roys fall# ;nly in recent years has a trend showed itself among the 8omeric scholars to remove the date in 0uestion by a few decades into the pastD? into the thirteenth century< with the chronological scheme arranged according to the timetable of Egyptian history, certain advantages were seen in moving the 5ro9an .ar to greater anti0uity than the inroad of the !eoples of the Sea into Egypt, computed to have taken place in "((*D#F Eratosthenes, however, did not connect in any way the events that took place in the days of $amses III with the 5ro9an expedition# .as there any special intent in Eratosthenes effort to place the 5ro9an .ar more than nine centuries before his own time= If his motive was to prove that the 7reeks were an ancient nation, then his reasoning should be viewed as tendentious# 5his is, in fact, the case# .hen the 7reeks under the leadership of 'lexander of &acedon sub9ugated &esopotamia and Egypt, and soon thereafter established there 7reek dynasties of Seleucus and !tolemy, and introduced the 7reek language and 8ellenistic civili@ation, the erudites in what was once :abylonia and e0ually so in Egypt felt an urge to prove to their con0uerors that they, the con0uered, belonged to cultures more exalted, because more ancient# :erosus, a haldean priest who flourished in :abylon in the first part of the third century, wrote his famed ;a$yloniaca' or, us 8istory of :abylonia and haldea, and in it he stretched the history of his land and nation to a gargantuan length# In order to do so he ascribed unnatural lengths of reign to earlier kings and also invented kings Bhis list largely disagrees with the cuneiform king" listsC#+ &anetho?a 7reek"writing Egyptian, and a contemporary of :erosus?composed under !tolemy II !hiladelphus the story of his nation, and a few passages from it are preserved by 6osephus/ his genealogies of kings and dynasties are preserved in the writings of the Hathers of the hurch, !amphilius, Eusebius, and 6ulius 'fricanus#* 5he regnal years ascribed to single &anethonian dynasties B42 in number until shortly before the arrival of 'lexander in EgyptC are excessively long< kings are often invented?no monumental confirmation of the existence of many of them was ever found/ complete dynasties were invented by him, too# >ike :erosus, &anetho tried to impress the 7reek masters with the fact that his nation was already ancient when the 7reeks only began to emerge from their barbarous state#

Such an attitude toward the 7reeks was already expressed almost three centuries earlier in the narrative of the priest of Sais to Solon as told in the Timaeus by !lato# :ecause of written records stored in their temples, the Egyptians were aware of the past of their land, ,so this is why among us here oldest traditions still prevail, and whenever anything great or otherwise noteworthy occurs, it is written down and preserved in our temples, # # # MbutN you and other nations that chance to be but recently endowed with the art of writing and civili@ed needs at stated turn of years there has recurred like a plague brought down upon you, a celestial current, leaving only an unlettered and uncivili@ed remnant, wherefore you have to begin all over again like children, without knowledge of what has taken place in older times in our land or in yours# # #-1 5he same pride in the anti0uity of the nation is found also in the narrative of another priest of Sais, a hundred years later, who gave the following account to 8erodotus< Hrom their first king until Sethos, the king"priest who was about to meet Sennacherib in battle when the latters host was destroyed by a natural cause, 4D( generations passed# alculating three generations to a century, 8erodotus found that it would comprise ((,4D2 years)?0uite a long time if we should consider that from the foundation of $ome to the present day not even a 0uarter of such time has passed# .hen the Egyptians came under foreign domination they experienced an even greater need to impress their masters with the excellence of their culture and its duration, in order not to be counted as barbarians/ they wished to provoke and sustain a feeling of admiration on the part of the sub9ugators# Such claims could produce in the 7reeks a feeling of their own inade0uacy and inferiority?they had, since their first contacts with the Egyptians, developed for them a feeling of respect bordering on awe, whereas to the !ersians, despite the magnificence of their court and bearing, the 7reeks applied the name ,barbarians#- .ith excessive claims as to national anti0uity the orientals were combatting their own feelings of shortcomings as politically subordinate nations#(2 Eratosthenes was a contemporary of &anetho and :erosus# :orn in yrenaica, he was of 7reek origin# In his calculations of the time of the 5ro9an .ar he was evidently guided by the same motive as :erossus and &anetho, namely, to show the anti0uity of his nation/ the date of "((14 for the end of the 5ro9an .ar served that purpose#(( 5he ,Aark 'ge- inserted between the &ycenaean and Ionic ages originated in the old calculations performed by Eratosthenes as to the time of the 5ro9an .ar, and on the reliance of modern historians of 7reece on Egyptian chronology and order of dynasties as offered by &anetho/ both them lived in Egypt in the !tolemaic age in the third century before the present era# It is not excluded that Eratosthenes based himself on &anetho#(3 8owever, neither Eratosthenes, nor before him 8omer, nor any other 7reek historian or philosopher ever referred to such a Aark 'ge/(4 it is a creation of modern historians# :ut they found support for its historical existence in the Egyptian chronology built on &anethos list of dynasties?the &ycenaean 'ge was dated by the archaeologically documented contacts of &ycenaean sites with Egypt# 5hus Eratosthenes found support in &anetho and &anetho in Eratosthenes#(D

Re"e!ences
(# Eusebius, Chronicle in Eusebius, 2erke B>eip@ig, ()(4C, vol# VII, p# +2# f# 6# Horsdyke, Greece ;efore #omer B>ondon, ()F+C pp# 31ff# 3# M'# $# :urn, /inoans' !hilistines' and Greeks3 ;.C. 9I::<B:: B>ondon, ()42C pp# F3"FD< ,It cannot be too strongly emphasi@ed that the traditional date of the 5ro9an .ar, (()D"1D, adopted by Eratosthenes and more or less tentatively accepted in so many modern books, is absolutely worthless- being based on Eratosthenes ,wild overestimate of the average length of a generation#- f# idem, ,Aates in Early 7reek 8istory,- Journal of #ellenic Studies FF B()4FC pp# (42"(D+# f# also A# !age, #istory and the #omeric (liad BUniversity of alifornia !ress, ()F)C p# )+, n# (F)< - Bthe dateC given by Eratosthenes is nothing but a guess proceeding from flimsy premises which could not possibly have led to a scientific calculation#- 'nother writer adds< ,sober historical 9udgement must discard the ancient chronological schemes in toto/ they are nothing more than elaborate harmoni@ations of myths and legends which were known in later times and have no independent value whatever for historical purposes#- B7# Starr, The 8rigins of Greek civili4ation3 99::<KG: ;.C. BJew Eork, ()+(C p# +*#N 4# 8erodotus, for instance, put the 5ro9an .ar a little more than 122 years before his time, or ca# "(3F2# 'ppian dated it after the founding of $ome, traditionally put at "*F4 or "*D*# D# # :legen et al#, 5roy, vol# IV B()F1C pp# (2"(4 and idem, ,5he &ycenaean 'ge# 5he 5ro9an .ar, the Aorian Invasion, and ;ther !roblems,- >ectures in &emory of >ouise 5aft Semple B!rinceton, ()+*C p# 4(# f# also 7# &ylonas, &ycenae and the &ycenaean 'ge B!rinceton, ()++C p# 3(F# F# See I# Velikovsky, !eoples of the Sea' BAoubleday< Jew Eork, ()**C# +# !# Schnabel, ,Aie babylonische hronologie in :erossos :abyloniaca,/itteilungen' *orderasiatisch<Lgyptische Gesellschaft B()21C# See also H# ornelius, ;erossus und die Altorientalische Chronologie' I>I; 4F B()D3C pp# (ff# *# See the volume /anetho in the >oeb lassical >ibrary# 1# 5ransl# by $hys arpenter in Discontinuity in Greek Civili4ation B ambridge University !ress, ()++C p# vii# )# 8erodotus II# (D3# (2# Isaac Jewton -The Chronologyes of Ancient Kingdoms Amended' M>ondon, (*31NC recogni@ed this hidden intent of :erosus and &anetho and therefore refused to give them credence as chronographers# f# Hrank &anuel, (saac 6e%ton' #istorian B8arvard University !ress, ()+4C# ((# MEratosthenes allegedly relied on the Spartan king"lists to establish his chronology/ in part he may have been influenced also by &anetho# :ut since the date he gives is identical to that computed by tesias, it is acknowledged that it was tesias writings which actually formed the basis of Eratosthenes system# Since anti0uity scholars have 0uestioned the reliability of tesias# f# the opinion of !lutarch in his 0ife of Arta5er5esF also Horsdyke, Greece ;efore #omer' pp# +1"*)#N (3# MEratosthenes became librarian of the >ibrary of 'lexandria in "3D2, and must have had access to &anethos writings#N

(4# V# $# d'# Aesborough, The Greek Dark Ages B>ondon, ()*3C p# 43(/ '# &# Snodgrass, The Dark Age of Greece BEdinburgh, ()*(C pp# ("3(# (D# M's early as the fifth century, writers like 8ekataeus and 8erodotus BII#(DFC put the 5ro9an .ar into the (Dth"(3th centuries?they, too, were misled by the Egyptians# See for example the above"mentioned story told to 8erodotus by a priest of Sais#N

#ummin$ 0*
8aving started on a 9ourney that first took us to &ycenae, but then also to 5iryns, ;lympia, !ylos and a number of other ancient sites on the mainland of 7reece and the !eloponnesos, also on rete, yprus, the 5road and the interior of 'sia &inor, we found at all sites one and the same embarrassing problem< close to five hundred years between conflicting evidences or discordant views# 5he list of archaeological sites discussed could be enlarged to encompass almost every excavated place in the area, with hardly any of them standing a chance of escaping the very same perplexing state of affairs#( .hat I call here ,the perplexing state of affairs- often took the form of a dispute?to which of the two ages, separated by nearly half a millennium, does a stratum, a building, or a tomb belong= 5he holders of conflicting views are usually at e0ual disadvantage in meeting archaeological facts that, with the conventional chronological scheme not 0uestioned, point simultaneously to two widely separated ages# .as 5iryns palace rebuilt in the &ycenaean or in the Ionic 'ge?in other words, in the :ron@e 'ge or in the Iron 'ge= 'nd if the first alternative is selected, how could it be that for almost five hundred years the building lay abandoned, unoccupied by any of the twenty intermediate generations, since they left nothing of their own, no relic whatsoever= 5he alternative situation is e0ually beset with perplexing evidence# 're the &ycenaean lions, carved in the peculiar position of standing erect on their hind legs facing a pillar that divides them, contemporary with similar !hrygian monumental sculptures, and if not, how does one explain the many centuries gap= 8ow is it that the wall of the !hrygian 7ate at 7ordion is built like that of 5roy VI, if some five hundred years separate them= In what way does one explain the affinity of &ycenaean art of the pre"twelfth century with the art of Scythia, the Aanubian region, and Etruria of the eighth and seventh centuries= .as the great strife between Hurtwaengler and Aoerpfeld ever resolved= :ecause two timetables are applied simultaneously to the past of 7reece, a clash of opinions is almost inevitable# 8ow is it that 7reece and the entire 'egean area of the &ycenaean 'ge suddenly became depopulated, with scarcely any traces of human activity surviving= 'nd if such was the case, how is it that so many details of &ycenaean life, habits and armaments were well known to 8omer who knew e0ually well the life, habits, and armaments of the eighth and seventh century, though a Aark 'ge of several centuries duration intervened= .hen the decipherment of the &ycenaean >inear : script, to the surprise of many 8ellenist scholars proved the language to be 7reek, the so"called 8omeric problem did not approach a solution but, contrariwise, grew more urgent, more enigmatic, more perplexing# 5he historians were startled because the &inoan"&ycenaean inscriptions are ascribed by them at the latest to the twelfth century, and the earliest 7reek texts were of the eighth century# 8ow could a people that was already literate forfeit its literacy so completely for over four hundred years=

5he very fact that none of the 7reek philosophers, historians, geographers, statesmen or poets ever referred to a Aark 'ge preceeding the Ionic 'ge and separating it from the &ycenaean 'ge, should have been enough to cast doubt on the soundness of the overall construction# .herever we turn?poetry, arms, architecture, arts?the same Jemesis disturbs the excavator, the explorer and the critic, and from all sides the very same problem in various forms mockingly stares in the face of all of them, whatever their persuasion# .here lies the root of all this confusion, a root hidden from sight and discussion= 5he &ycenaean 'ge in 7reece and in the 'egean, as well as the &inoan 'ge on rete, do not have an absolute chronology of their own, and this is not disputed# 's I have already stressed on several occasions on preceding pages, the dating depends on contacts with other countries that have an absolute chronology of their own, and Egypt was selected for that purpose#3 .hen a cartouche of Kueen 5iy was found at &ycenae, that stratum was dated accordingly to ca# "(D22# .hen in the short"lived city of 'khet"'ton, built by 'khnaton and abandoned in the same generation, &ycenaean ware was found in profusion, the ware was regarded as contemporary with 'khnaton, and was dated to the fourteenth century# .e have already dwelt on the sub9ect, but it needs repetition in the light of what was brought to discussion all through the foregoing chapters and sections# In an extended examination of the Egyptian chronology its structure was put on a scale and found wanting# Jow it is clear that if there is a miscalculation in Egyptian datings, the error must have spread through more than one land and vitiated more than one nationss chronology# 5he problem is once more thrown to Egypt# In Ages in Chaos we have seen that, with the fall of the &iddle Iingdom and the Exodus synchroni@ed, events in the histories of the peoples of the ancient world coincide all along the centuries# Hor a space of over one thousand years records of Egyptian history have been compared with the records of the 8ebrews, 'ssyrians, haldeans, and finally with those of the 7reeks, with a resulting correspondence which denotes synchronism# In Volume I of Ages in Chaos it was shown in great detail why 'khnaton of the Eighteenth Aynasty must be placed in the latter part of the ninth century# If 'khnaton flourished in "1D2 and not in "(412, the ceramics from &ycenae found in the palace of 'khnaton are younger by five or six hundred years than they are presumed to be, and the >ate &ycenaean period would accordingly move forward by about half a thousand years on the scale of time# If the ages of 'menhotep III, of 5iy and of 'khnaton, need to be reduced by about five hundred years, classical studies could take a deep breath# 'ctually, when in the eighties of the nineteenth century, the 8ellenists were coerced, upon the evidence presented by Egyptologists, to introduce those five dark centuries, they did it only after a period of protest and resistance# :ut now that three generations of historians have lived with those dark centuries as a historical reality, it is even more difficult to part with them# Jevertheless, sooner or later, they will have to part with the phantom centuries, and have the history of 7reece and the development of its writing as a normal process without a four"hundred"year gap#

5he conclusion at which we have arrived is this< between the &ycenaean and the Ionian 'ges there was no Aark 'ge, but one followed the other, with only a few decades intervening# 5he natural catastrophes of the eighth century and of the beginning of the seventh brought an end to the civili@ation that centered at &ycenae in 7reece, to cities and citadels and kingdoms/ even the profile of the 7reek mainland changed and many islands submerged and others emerged# 5hese changes moved entire nations to migrations in the hope that beyond the hori@on fertile lands, not damaged by unchained forces of nature, awaited the con0uerors# 5his explains the break in continuity?the change is not due to some intervening dark ages that left no vestige of themselves, but to the paroxysms of nature and the migrations# lassical studies have been troubled by many unresolved situations, archaeological and cultural# 5he field has been plagued by the presence of the Aark 'ge?a presence only schematic, never in effect# It engendered and continues to engender an ever" growing scholarly literature# If it can be shown that the Egyptian timetable is off its hinges, the bondage of these studies and their dependence on Egypt may terminate# 5he removal of the Aark 'ge from the historical se0uence unshackles what was for centuries shackled and releases the scholarly endeavor from travelling on the same circular paths with no exit from the modern version of the retan >abyrinth# &oreover, it rehabilitates scholars accused of ignorance or negligence, their having been guilty only of not perceiving that the problems they dealt with were not problems at all, as soon as unreal centuries are stricken out#

Re"e!ences
(# See the article of Israel &# Isaacson, ,'pplying the $evised hronology,!ens)e Vol# IV, no# D B()*DC, pp# F"32# 3# ,5he 'egean prehistorians have no choice but to adapt themselves to the Egyptologists-?6# adogan, ,Aating the 'egean :ron@e 'ge .ithout $adiocarbon,- Archaeometry 32 B()*1C p# 3(3#