The Collapse (~1100 BC) of Mycenaean Civilization

The Collapse (~1100 BC) of Mycenaean Civilization Santorini 500 yrs earlier

1320/1300-1050/1030 • 2 centuries of documented disasters: 1250-1050 bc • Multiple destructions across Mycenaean world

Fault Lines in the Area Black dots show various Mycanaen Ruins Known tectonic Stress Features

Destruction at Mycenae • Houses outside citadel (south of Grave Circle B) destroyed by fire

Fire Accidental or Deliberate? • Oil from stirrup jars poured over floor of “House of the Oil Merchant”

Cisterns & Expanded, Strengthened Fortifications water scarcity?

Gla Massive engineering project to drain Copaic Basin • Fortified granary? • Drainage channels destroyed

Tiryns • Enclosure of lower citadel • Syringes (underground water supply)

Further Disasters: • Earthquake & Fire at Tiryns, Mycenae & Midea • Mycenaean Collapse due to Natural Disasters? • But Fire (not earthquake) destroys Menelaion, Nichoria & palace at Pylos • Earthquake topples all the oil lamps???

Population Movements around this time: • Massive depopulation of Messenia • Depopulation of Argolid, Lakonia • Influx in Achaia

Social Unrest Idea • Peasant revolt against elite? • But why abandon fertile land?

Mycenaean States at War? • New fortifications due to threat from outside or inside Mycenaean World? • “Watchers by the Sea” => fear of piratic neighboring Mycenaeans? • Myths of Conflict post Trojan War => Internecine Strife? • Eteocles and Polyneices: Theban vs. Argos?

Climate Change across Eastern Mediterranean? • Dendrochronology says drought in Anatolia may have destroyed Hittite Empire • Possible but Unproven for Greece But why so many palaces destroyed at the same time?

Historic Evidence? • In the seventh book of his History Herodotus recounts that Crete was so beset by famine and pestilence after the Trojan War that it became virtually uninhabited until its resettlement by later inhabitants.

“Sea” Peoples as a disruptive Force

Ramses III: 1176 B.C.Medinet Habu Inscription "No land could stand before their arms, from Hatti, Qode, Carchemish, Arzawa and Alasiya on, being cut off at one time. A camp was set up in one place in Amurru. They desolated its people, and its land was like that which has never come into being. They were coming toward Egypt, while the flame was prepared before them. Their confederation was the Peleset, Tjeker, Shekelesh, Denyen, and Weshesh, lands united. They laid their hands upon the land as far as the circuit of the earth, their hearts confident and trusting: 'Our plans will succeed!'

Cut-and-thrust swords as evidence of Northern “invaders”?

Good Evidence for Sea Peoples in Egypt and swords in Greece in good Mycenaean contexts: graves, etc.

Disruption of Trade • Fragile palace economies pushed over the edge by collapse of trade routes • But, again, why abandon fertile land?

Change in Warfare • Light-armed, swift-moving Infantry with Javelin replaces Chariot-based warfare • Mycenaean, Hittite, & other Near Eastern empires collapse

Confusing Possibilities • (a) Internal Social Upheaval • (b) Mycenaean States at war • (c) Climate Change • (d) Invasion from Outside the Aegean World • (e) Changes in the Nature of Warfare Economic Factors • (f) EARTHQUAKES

From April 2013 Seismological Society of America conference Hinzen etal: In the 1970s, the archaeologist K. Kilian first published the hypothesis that several destructive earthquakes contributed to the decline of Mycenaean palatial society, culminating in collapse around 1200 B.C.E. Damaged buildings and structures of the Tiryns citadel in the Argolid, Peloponnese, Greece, formed the nucleus of the hypothesis. The ruins of the Mycenaean center of Midea, situated 7 km east of Tiryns, also exhibit damage. As both Tiryns and Midea were built on top of cone-shaped limestone hills, topographic amplification of seismic waves may have been a contributing factor to any structural earthquake damage.

An Early Seismometer?

The Collapse (~1100 BC) of Mycenaean Civilization