Ch3

The Mediterraneanand Middle East,2000–500 B.C.E.

CHAPTER OUTLINEThe Cosmopolitan Middle East, 1700–1100 B.C.E.

The Aegean World, 2000–1100 B.C.E.

The Assyrian Empire, 911–612 B.C.E.

Israel, 2000–500 B.C.E.

Phoenicia and the Mediterranean, 1200–500 B.C.E.

Failure and Transformation, 750–550 B.C.E.

DIVERSITY AND DOMINANCE: An Israelite Prophet Chastizes the Ruling Class

ENVIRONMENT AND TECHNOLOGY: Ancient Textiles and Dyes

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Ancient peoples’ stories—even those that are nothistorically accurate—provide valuable insights

into how people thought about their origins and iden-tity. One famous story concerned the city of Carthage˚in present-day Tunisia, which for centuries domi-nated the commerce of the western Mediterranean.Tradition held that Dido, a member of the royal familyof the Phoenician city-state of Tyre˚ in southernLebanon, fled with her supporters to the westernMediterranean after her husband was murdered byher brother, the king of Tyre. Landing on the NorthAfrican coast, the refugees made friendly contact withlocal people, who agreed to give them as much land asa cow’s hide could cover. By cleverly cutting the hideinto narrow strips, they were able to mark out a sub-stantial piece of territory for Kart Khadasht, the “NewCity” (called Carthago by their Roman enemies).Later, faithful to the memory of her dead husband,Dido committed suicide rather than marry a localchieftain.

This story highlights the spread of cultural pat-terns from older centers to new regions, and the mi-gration and resettlement of Late Bronze Age and EarlyIron Age peoples in the Mediterranean lands andwestern Asia. Just as Egyptian cultural influenceshelped transform Nubian society, influences from theolder centers in Mesopotamia and Egypt penetratedthroughout western Asia and the Mediterranean. Far-flung trade, diplomatic contacts, military conquests,and the relocation of large numbers of people spreadknowledge, beliefs, practices, and technologies.

By the end of the second millennium B.C.E. manyof the societies of the Eastern Hemisphere had en-tered the Iron Age: they had begun to use iron insteadof bronze for tools and weapons. Iron offered severaladvantages. It was a single metal rather than an alloyand thus was simpler to obtain; and there were manypotential sources of iron ore. Once the technology ofiron making had been mastered—iron has to beheated to a higher temperature than bronze, and its

hardness depends on the amount of carbon addedduring the forging process—iron tools were found tohave harder, sharper edges than bronze tools.

The first part of this chapter resumes the story ofMesopotamia and Egypt in the Late Bronze Age, thesecond millennium B.C.E.: their complex relationswith neighboring peoples, the development of a pros-perous, ”cosmopolitan” network of states in the Mid-dle East, and the period of destruction and declinethat set in around 1200 B.C.E. We also look at how theMinoan and Mycenaean civilizations of the AegeanSea were inspired by the technologies and culturalpatterns of the older Middle Eastern centers andprospered from participation in long-distance net-works of trade. The remainder of the chapter exam-ines the resurgence of this region in the early Iron Age,from 1000 to 500 B.C.E. The focus is on three societies:the Assyrians of northern Mesopotamia; the Israelitesof Israel; and the Phoenicians of Lebanon and Syriaand their colonies in the western Mediterranean,mainly Carthage. After the decline or demise of theancient centers dominant throughout the third andsecond millennia B.C.E., these societies evolved intonew political, cultural, and commercial centers.

As you read this chapter, ask yourself the follow-ing questions:

● What environmental, technological, political, andcultural factors led these societies to develop theirdistinctive institutions and values?

● In what ways were the societies of this era more in-terconnected and interdependent than before, andwhat were the consequences—positive and nega-tive—of these connections?

● What were the causes and consequences of large-scale movements of peoples to new homes duringthis era?

● Why were certain cultures destroyed or assimilatedwhile others survived?

CHRONOLOGY

Carthage (KAHR-thuhj) Tyre (tire)

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61C H R O N O L O G YWestern Asia Egypt Syria–Palestine Mediterranean

2000 B.C.E. Horses inuse

1700–1200 B.C.E.Hittites dominant inAnatolia

1500 B.C.E. Hittitesdevelop iron metallurgy

1460 B.C.E. Kassitesassume control ofsouthern Mesopotamia

1200 B.C.E. Destructionof Hittite kingdom

11000 B.C.E. Ironmetallurgy begins

Iron metallurgy spreads911 B.C.E. Rise of Neo-

Assyrian Empire

744–727 B.C.E. Reformsof Tiglath-pileser

668–627 B.C.E. Reignof Ashurbanipal

626–539 B.C.E. Neo-Babylonian kingdom

612 B.C.E. Fall ofAssyria

2040–1640 B.C.E.Middle Kingdom

1640–1532 B.C.E.Hyksos dominatenorthern Egypt

1532 B.C.E. Beginningof New Kingdom

1500 B.C.E. Bronzemetallurgy

1470 B.C.E. QueenHatshepsut dispatchesexpedition to Punt

1353 B.C.E. Akhenatenlaunches reforms

1200–1150 B.C.E. SeaPeoples attack Egypt

1070 B.C.E. End of NewKingdom

750 B.C.E. Kings of Kushcontrol Egypt

671 B.C.E. Assyrianconquest of Egypt

1500 B.C.E. Early“alphabetic” scriptdeveloped at Ugarit

1250–1200 B.C.E.Israelite occupation ofCanaan

1150 B.C.E. Philistinessettle southern coast ofIsrael

1000 B.C.E. Davidestablishes Jerusalemas Israelite capital

969 B.C.E. Hiram of Tyrecomes to power

960 B.C.E. Solomonbuilds First Temple

920 B.C.E. Division intotwo kingdoms of Israeland Judah

721 B.C.E. Assyrianconquest of northernkingdom

701 B.C.E. Assyrianhumiliation of Tyre

587 B.C.E. Neo-Babylonian capture ofJerusalem

515 B.C.E. Deporteesfrom Babylon return toJerusalem

450 B.C.E. Completion ofHebrew Bible; Hannothe Phoenician exploresWest Africa

2000 B.C.E. Rise ofMinoan civilization onCrete; early Greeksarrive in Greece

1600 B.C.E. Rise ofMycenaean civilizationin Greece

1450 B.C.E. Destructionof Minoan palaces inCrete

1200–1150 B.C.E.Destruction ofMycenaean centers inGreece

1000 B.C.E. Ironmetallurgy

814 B.C.E. Foundationof Carthage

550–300 B.C.E. Rivalryof Carthaginians andGreeks in westernMediterranean

2000 B.C.E.

1500 B.C.E.

1000 B.C.E.

600 B.C.E.

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THE COSMOPOLITAN MIDDLE EAST,1700–1100 B.C.E.

Both Mesopotamia and Egypt succumbed to outsideinvaders in the seventeenth century B.C.E. (see Chap-

ter 1). Eventually the outsiders were either ejected or as-similated, and conditions of stability and prosperitywere restored. Between 1500 and 1200 B.C.E. a number oflarge territorial states dominated the Middle East (seeMap 3.1). These centers of power controlled the smallercity-states, kingdoms, and kinship groups as they com-peted with, and sometimes fought against, one anotherfor control of valuable commodities and trade routes.

Historians have called the Late Bronze Age in theMiddle East a “cosmopolitan” era, meaning a time ofwidely shared cultures and lifestyles. Extensive diplo-matic relations and commercial contacts between statesfostered the flow of goods and ideas, and elite groupsshared similar values and enjoyed a relatively high stan-dard of living. The peasants in the countryside who com-prised the majority of the population may have seensome improvement in their standard of living, but theyreaped far fewer benefits from the increasing contactsand trade.

By 1500 B.C.E. Mesopotamiawas divided into two distinctpolitical zones: Babylonia in

the south and Assyria in the north (see Map 3.1). The cityof Babylon had gained political and cultural ascendancyover the southern plain under the dynasty of Ham-murabi in the eighteenth and seventeenth centuriesB.C.E. Subsequently there was a persistent inflow of Kas-sites˚, peoples from the Zagros˚ Mountains to the eastwho spoke a non-Semitic language, and by 1460 B.C.E aKassite dynasty had come to power in Babylon. The Kas-sites retained names in their native language but other-wise embraced Babylonian language and culture andintermarried with the native population. During their250 years in power, the Kassite lords of Babylonia de-fended their core area and traded for raw materials, butthey did not pursue territorial conquest.

The Assyrians of the north had more ambitious de-signs. As early as the twentieth century B.C.E. the city ofAshur,˚ the leading urban center on the northern Tigris,anchored a busy trade route across the northern Meso-potamian plain and onto the Anatolian Plateau. Repre-

Western Asia

sentatives of Assyrian merchant families maintained set-tlements outside the walls of important Anatolian cities.The Assyrians exported textiles and tin, used since about2500 B.C.E. to make bronze, which they exchanged forsilver from Anatolia. In the eighteenth century B.C.E. anAssyrian dynasty briefly gained control of the upper Eu-phrates River near the present-day border of Syria andIraq. This “Old Assyrian” kingdom, as it is now called, il-lustrates the importance of the trade routes connectingMesopotamia to Anatolia and the Syria-Palestine coast.After 1400 B.C.E. a resurgent “Middle Assyrian” kingdomagain engaged in campaigns of conquest and expansionof its economic interests.

Other ambitious states emerged on the periphery ofthe Mesopotamian heartland, including Elam in south-west Iran and Mitanni˚ in the broad plain between theupper Euphrates and Tigris Rivers. Most formidable ofall were the Hittites˚, speakers of an Indo-European lan-guage, who became the foremost power in Anatolia fromaround 1700 to 1200 B.C.E. From their capital at Hat-tusha˚, near present-day Ankara˚ in central Turkey, theydeployed the fearsome new technology of horse-drawnwar chariots. The Hittites exploited Anatolia’s rich de-posits of copper, silver, and iron to play an indispensablerole in international commerce. Many historians believethat the Hittites were the first to develop a technique formaking tools and weapons of iron. They heated the oreuntil it was soft enough to shape, pounded it to removeimpurities, and then plunged it into cold water toharden. The Hittites were anxious to keep knowledge ofthis process secret, since it provided both military andeconomic advantages.

During the second millennium B.C.E. Mesopotamianpolitical and cultural concepts spread across much ofwestern Asia. Akkadian˚ became the language of diplo-macy and correspondence between governments. TheElamites˚ and Hittites, among others, adapted the cunei-form system to write their own languages. In the Syriancoastal city of Ugarit˚ thirty cuneiform symbols wereused to write consonant sounds, an early use of the al-phabetic principle and a considerable advance over thehundreds of signs required in conventional cuneiformand hieroglyphic writing. Mesopotamian myths and leg-ends and styles of art and architecture were widely imi-tated. Newcomers who had learned and improved onthe lessons of Mesopotamian civilization often put pres-sure on the old core area. The small, fractious city-states

62 Chapter 3 The Mediterranean and Middle East, 2000–500 b.c.e.

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Kassite (KAS-ite) Zagros (ZAH-groes) Ashur (AH-shoor)

Mitanni (mih-TAH-nee) Hittite (HIT-ite) Hattusha (haht-tush-SHAH) Ankara (ANG-kuh-ruh)Akkadian (uh-KAY-dee-uhn) Elamite (EE-luh-mite)Ugarit (OO-guh-reet)

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of the third millennium B.C.E. had been concerned onlywith their immediate neighbors in southern Mesopota-mia. In contrast, the larger states of the second millenniumB.C.E. interacted politically, militarily, and economicallyin a geopolitical sphere encompassing all of western Asia.

After flourishing for nearly fourhundred years (see Chapter 1),the Egyptian Middle Kingdomdeclined in the seventeenth

century B.C.E. As high-level officials in the countrysidebecame increasingly independent and new groups mi-grated into the Nile Delta, central authority broke down,and Egypt entered a period of political fragmentationand economic decline. Around 1640 B.C.E. Egypt cameunder foreign rule for the first time, at the hands of theHyksos˚, or “Princes of Foreign Lands.”

New KingdomEgypt

Historians are uncertain about who the Hyksos wereand how they came to power. Semitic peoples had beenmigrating from the Syria-Palestine region (sometimescalled the Levant, present-day Syria, Lebanon, Israel,and the Palestinian territories) into the eastern NileDelta for centuries. In the chaotic conditions of this time,other peoples may have joined them and establishedcontrol, first in the delta and then in the middle of thecountry. The Hyksos possessed military technologiesthat gave them an advantage over the Egyptians, such asthe horse-drawn war chariot and a composite bow,made of wood and horn, that had greater range and ve-locity than the simple wooden bow. The process bywhich the Hyksos came to dominate much of Egypt maynot have been far different from that by which the Kas-sites first settled and gained control in Babylonia. TheHyksos intermarried with Egyptians and assimilated tonative ways. They used the Egyptian language and main-tained Egyptian institutions and culture. Nevertheless,in contrast to the relative ease with which outsiders wereassimilated in Mesopotamia, the Egyptians, with theirHyksos (HICK-soes)

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strong ethnic identity, continued to regard the Hyksos as“foreigners.”

As with the formation of the Middle Kingdom fivehundred years earlier, the reunification of Egypt under anative dynasty was accomplished by princes from Thebes.After three decades of warfare, Kamose˚ and Ahmose˚ ex-pelled the Hyksos from Egypt and inaugurated the NewKingdom, which lasted from about 1532 to 1070 B.C.E.

A century of foreign domination had shaken Egyp-tian pride and shattered the isolationist mindset of ear-lier eras. New Kingdom Egypt was an aggressive andexpansionist state, extending its territorial control northinto Syria-Palestine and south into Nubia and winningaccess to timber, gold, and copper (bronze metallurgytook hold in Egypt around 1500 B.C.E.) as well as taxesand tribute (payments from the territories it had con-quered). The occupied territories provided a buffer zone,protecting Egypt from attack. In Nubia, Egypt imposeddirect control and pressed the native population to adoptEgyptian language and culture. In the Syria-Palestine re-gion, in contrast, the Egyptians stationed garrisons atstrategically placed forts and supported local rulers will-ing to collaborate.

The New Kingdom was a period of innovation. Egyptfully participated in the diplomatic and commercial net-works that linked the states of western Asia. Egyptiansoldiers, administrators, diplomats, and merchants trav-eled widely, exposing Egypt to exotic fruits and vegeta-bles, new musical instruments, and new technologies,such as an improved potter’s wheel and weaver’s loom.

At least one woman held the throne of New King-dom Egypt. When Pharaoh Tuthmosis˚ II died, hisqueen, Hatshepsut˚, served as regent for her youngstepson and soon claimed the royal title for herself(r. 1473–1458 B.C.E.). In inscriptions she often used themale pronoun to refer to herself, and drawings andsculptures show her wearing the long, conical beard ofthe ruler of Egypt.

Around 1460 B.C.E. Hatshepsut sent a naval expedi-tion down the Red Sea to the fabled land that the Egyp-tians called “Punt˚.” Historians believe that Punt mayhave been near the coast of eastern Sudan or Eritrea.Hatshepsut was seeking the source of myrrh˚, a reddish-brown resin from the hardened sap of a local tree, whichthe Egyptians burned on the altars of their gods and usedas an ingredient in medicines and cosmetics. She hopedto bypass the middlemen who drove up the price exor-bitantly, and establish direct trade between Punt and

Egypt. When the expedition returned with myrrh andvarious sub-Saharan luxury goods—ebony and otherrare woods, ivory, cosmetics, live monkeys, pantherskins—Hatshepsut celebrated the achievement in agreat public display and in words and pictures on thewalls of the mortuary temple she built for herself at Deirel-Bahri˚. She may have used the success of this expedi-tion to bolster her claim to the throne. After her death, ina reaction that reflected some official opposition to awoman ruler, her image was defaced and her name blot-ted out wherever it appeared.

Another ruler who departed from traditional waysascended the throne as Amenhotep˚ IV. He soon beganto refer to himself as Akhenaten˚ (r. 1353–1335 B.C.E.),meaning “beneficial to the Aten˚” (the disk of the sun).Changing his name was one of the ways in which hesought to spread his belief in Aten as the supreme deity.He closed the temples of other gods, challenging theage-old supremacy of the chief god Amon˚ and thepower and influence of the priests of Amon.

Some scholars have credited Akhenaten with the in-vention of monotheism—the belief in one exclusive god.It is likely, however, that Akhenaten was attempting toreassert the superiority of the king over the priests and torenew belief in the king’s divinity. Worship of Aten wasconfined to the royal family: the people of Egypt werepressed to revere the divine ruler.

Akhenaten built a new capital at modern-dayAmarna˚, halfway between Memphis and Thebes (seeMap 3.1). He transplanted thousands of Egyptians toconstruct the site and serve the ruling elite. Akhenatenand his artists created a new style that broke with theconventions of earlier art: the king, his wife Nefertiti˚,and their daughters were depicted in fluid, natural poseswith strangely elongated heads and limbs and swellingabdomens.

Akhenaten’s reforms were strongly resented by gov-ernment officials, priests, and others whose privilegesand wealth were linked to the traditional system. Afterhis death the temples were reopened; Amon was rein-stated as chief god; the capital returned to Thebes; andthe institution of kingship was weakened to the advan-tage of the priests. The boy-king Tutankhamun˚ (r. 1333–1323 B.C.E.), one of the immediate successors of Akhen-aten and famous solely because his was the only royaltomb found by archaeologists that had not been pillaged


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Kamose (KAH-mose) Ahmose (AH-mose)Tuthmosis (tuth_MOE-sis) Hatshepsut (hat-SHEP-soot)Punt (poont) myrrh (murr)

Deir el-Bahri (DARE uhl–BAH-ree)Amenhotep (ah-muhn-HOE-tep) Akhenaten (ah-ken-AHT-n)Aten (AHT-n) Amon (AH-muhn) Amarna (uh-MAHR-nuh)Nefertiti (nef-uhr-TEE-tee)Tutankhamun (tuht-uhnk-AH-muhn)

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The Cosmopolitan Middle East, 1700–1100 b.c.e. 65

by tomb robbers, reveals both in his name (meaning“beautiful in life is Amon”) and in his insignificant reignthe ultimate failure of Akhenaten’s revolution.

In 1323 B.C.E. the general Haremhab seized thethrone and established a new dynasty, the Ramessides˚.The rulers of this line renewed the policy of conquestand expansion that Akhenaten had neglected. The great-est of these monarchs, Ramesses˚ II—sometimes calledRamesses the Great—ruled for sixty-six years (r. 1290–1224 B.C.E.) and dominated his age. Ramesses loomslarge in the archaeological record because he undertookmonumental building projects all over Egypt. Living intohis nineties, he had many wives and concubines andmay have fathered more than a hundred children. Since1990 archaeologists have been excavating a network ofmore than a hundred corridors and chambers carveddeep into a hillside in the Valley of the Kings where manysons of Ramesses were buried.

Early in his reign Ramesses IIfought a major battle againstthe Hittites at Kadesh in north-ern Syria (1285 B.C.E.). Although

Egyptian scribes presented this encounter as a greatvictory, the lack of territorial gains suggests that itwas essentially a draw. In subsequent years Egyptianand Hittite diplomats negotiated a treaty, which wasstrengthened by Ramesses’ marriage to a Hittite princess.At issue was control of Syria-Palestine, strategically lo-cated at a crossroads between the great powers of theMiddle East and at the end of the east-west trade routeacross Asia. The inland cities of Syria-Palestine—such asMari˚ on the upper Euphrates and Alalakh˚ in westernSyria—were active centers of international trade. Thecoastal towns—particularly Ugarit and the Phoeniciantowns of the Lebanese seaboard—served as transship-ment points for trade to and from the lands ringing theMediterranean Sea.

Commerce andCommunication

Ramesside (RAM-ih-side) Ramesses (RAM-ih-seez) Mari (MAH-ree) Alalakh (UH-luh-luhk)

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In the eastern Mediterranean, northeastern Africa,and western Asia in the Late Bronze Age, any state thatwanted to project its power needed metal to make toolsand weapons. Commerce in metals energized the long-distance trade of the time.

New modes of transportation expedited communi-cations and commerce across great distances and in-hospitable landscapes. Horses arrived in western Asiaaround 2000 B.C.E. Domesticated by nomadic peoples inCentral Asia, they were brought into Mesopotamiathrough the Zagros mountains and reached Egypt by1600 B.C.E. The speed of travel and communicationmade possible by horses contributed to the creation oflarge states and empires. Soldiers and governmentagents could cover great distances quickly, and swift,maneuverable horse-drawn chariots became the pre-mier instrument of war. The team of driver and archercould ride forward and unleash a volley of arrows ortrample terrified foot soldiers.

THE AEGEAN WORLD,2000–1100 B.C.E.

In this era of far-flung trade and communication, theinfluence of Mesopotamia and Egypt was felt as far

away as the Aegean Sea, a gulf of the eastern Mediter-ranean. The emergence of the Minoan˚ civilization onthe island of Crete and the Mycenaean˚ civilization ofGreece is another manifestation of the fertilizing influ-ence of older centers on outlying lands and peoples, whothen struck out on their own unique paths of culturalevolution.

The landscape of southern Greece and the Aegeanislands is mostly rocky and arid, with small plains lyingbetween ranges of hills. The limited arable land is suit-able for grains, grapevines, and olive trees. Flocks ofsheep and goats graze the slopes. Sharply indentedcoastlines, natural harbors, and small islands withinsight of one another made the sea the fastest and leastcostly mode of travel and transport. With few deposits ofmetals and little timber, Aegean peoples had to importthese commodities, as well as food, from abroad. As a re-sult, the rise, success, and eventual fall of the Minoanand Mycenaean societies were closely tied to their com-mercial and political relations with other peoples in theregion.

By 2000 B.C.E. the island ofCrete (see Map 3.2) housed thefirst European civilization to

have complex political and social structures and ad-vanced technologies like those found in western Asiaand northeastern Africa. The Minoan civilization hadcentralized government, monumental building, bronzemetallurgy, writing, and recordkeeping. Archaeologistsnamed this civilization after Greek legends about KingMinos, who was said to have ruled a vast naval empire,including the southern Greek mainland, and to havekept the monstrous Minotaur˚ (half-man, half-bull) be-neath his palace in a mazelike labyrinth built by theingenious inventor Daedalus˚. Thus later Greeks recol-lected a time when Crete was home to many ships andskilled craftsmen.

The ethnicity of the Minoans is uncertain, and theirwriting has not been deciphered. But their sprawlingpalace complexes at Cnossus˚, Phaistos˚, and Mallia˚and the distribution of Cretan pottery and other artifactsaround the Mediterranean and Middle East testify towidespread trading connections. Egyptian, Syrian, andMesopotamian influences can be seen in the design ofthe Minoan palaces, centralized government, and sys-tem of writing. The absence of identifiable representa-tions of Cretan rulers, however, contrasts sharply withthe grandiose depictions of kings in the Middle East andsuggests a different conception of authority. Also note-worthy is the absence of fortifications at the palace sitesand the presence of high-quality indoor plumbing.

Statuettes of women with elaborate headdressesand serpents coiling around their limbs may representfertility goddesses. Colorful frescoes (paintings done ona moist plaster surface) on the walls of Cretan palacesportray groups of women in frilly, layered skirts engagedin conversation or watching rituals or entertainment.We do not know whether pictures of young acrobatsvaulting over the horns and back of an onrushing bullshow a religious activity or mere sport. Scenes of ser-vants carrying jars and fishermen throwing nets andhooks from their boats suggest a joyful attitude towardwork, but this portrayal may say more about the tastesof the elite than about the reality of daily toil. The styl-ized depictions of plants and animals on Minoanvases—plants with swaying leaves and playful octo-puses whose tentacles wind around the surface of thevase—seem to reflect a delight in the beauty and orderof the natural world.

Minoan Crete


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Minotaur (MIN-uh-tor) Daedalus (DED-ih-luhs)Cnossus (NOSS-suhs) Phaistos (FIE-stuhs) Mallia (mahl-YAH)Minoan (mih-NO-uhn) Mycenaean (my-suh-NEE-uhn)

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The Aegean World, 2000–1100 b.c.e. 67

All the Cretan palaces except Cnossus, along withthe houses of the elite and peasants in the countryside,were deliberately destroyed around 1450 B.C.E. BecauseMycenaean Greeks took over at Cnossus, most historiansregard them as the likely culprits.

Most historians believe thatspeakers of an Indo-Europeanlanguage ancestral to Greekmigrated into the Greek penin-

sula around 2000 B.C.E., although some argue for earlierand later dates. Through intermarriage, blending of lan-guages, and melding of cultural practices, the indige-nous population and the newcomers created the firstGreek culture. For centuries this society remained sim-

MycenaeanGreece

ple and static. Farmers and shepherds lived in StoneAge conditions, wringing a bare living from the land.Then, sometime around 1600 B.C.E., life changed rela-tively suddenly.

More than a century ago a German businessman,Heinrich Schliemann˚, set out to prove that the Iliad andthe Odyssey were true. These epics attributed to the poetHomer, who probably lived shortly before 700 B.C.E.,spoke of Agamemnon˚, the king of Mycenae˚ in south-ern Greece. In 1876 Schliemann stunned the scholarlyworld by discovering at Mycenae a circle of graves at thebase of deep, rectangular shafts. These shaft graves con-tained the bodies of men, women, and children and

Schliemann (SHLEE-muhn) Agamemnon (ag-uh-MEM-non)Mycenae (my-SEE-nee)

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were filled with gold jewelry and ornaments, weapons,and utensils. Clearly, some people in this society had ac-quired wealth, authority, and the capacity to mobilizehuman labor. Subsequent excavation uncovered a largepalace complex, massive walls, more shaft graves, andother evidence of a rich and technologically advancedcivilization that lasted from around 1600 to 1150 B.C.E.

Despite legends about the power of King Minos ofCrete, there is no archaeological evidence of Cretan po-litical control of the Greek mainland. But Crete exerted apowerful cultural influence. The Mycenaeans borrowedthe Minoan idea of the palace, centralized economy, andadministrative bureaucracy, as well as the Minoan writ-ing system. They adopted Minoan styles and techniquesof architecture, pottery making, and fresco and vasepainting. This explains where the Mycenaean Greeks gottheir technology. But how did they suddenly accumulatepower and wealth? Most historians look to the profits

from trade and piracy and perhaps also to the pay andbooty brought back by mercenaries (soldiers who servedfor pay in foreign lands).

The first advanced civilization in Greece is called“Mycenaean” largely because Mycenae was the first siteexcavated. Excavations at other centers have revealedthat Mycenae exemplifies the common pattern of thesecitadels: built at a commanding location on a hilltop andsurrounded by high, thick fortification walls made ofstones so large that later Greeks believed that the giant,one-eyed Cyclopes˚ of legend had lifted them into place.The fortified enclosure provided a place of refuge for theentire community in time of danger and contained thepalace and administrative complex. The large centralhall with an open hearth and columned porch was sur-


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rounded by courtyards, living quarters for the royal fam-ily and their retainers, and offices, storerooms, andworkshops. The palace walls were covered with brightlypainted frescoes depicting scenes of war, the hunt, anddaily life, as well as decorative motifs from nature.

Nearby lay the tombs of the rulers and leading fami-lies: shaft graves at first; later, grand beehive-shapedstructures made of stone and covered with a mound ofearth. Large houses, probably belonging to the aristoc-racy, lay just outside the walls. The peasants lived on thelower slopes and in the plain below, close to the landthey worked.

Additional information about Mycenaean life is pro-vided by over four thousand baked clay tablets written ina script now called Linear B. Like its predecessor, the un-deciphered Minoan script called Linear A, Linear B usespictorial signs to represent syllables, but it is recogniz-ably an early form of Greek. The extensive palace bu-reaucracy kept track of people, animals, and objects inexhaustive detail and exercised a high degree of controlover the economy of the kingdom. The tablets list every-thing from the number of chariot wheels in palace store-rooms, the rations paid to textile workers, and the giftsdedicated to various gods, to the ships stationed alongthe coasts.

The government organized and coordinated grainproduction and controlled the wool industry from rawmaterial to finished product. Scribes kept track of theflocks in the field, the sheared wool, the allocation of rawwool to spinners and weavers, and the production, stor-age, and distribution of cloth articles.

The tablets say almost nothing about individualpeople—not even the name of a single Mycenaeanking—and very little about the political and legal sys-tems, social structures, gender relations, and religiousbeliefs. They tell nothing about particular historicalevents and relations with other Mycenaean centers orpeoples overseas.

The evidence for a broad political organization ofGreece in this period is contradictory. In Homer’s Iliad,Agamemnon, the king of Mycenae, leads a great expedi-tion of Greeks from different regions against the city ofTroy in northwest Anatolia. To this can be added the cul-tural uniformity of all the Mycenaean centers: a remark-able similarity in the shapes, decorative styles, andproduction techniques of buildings, tombs, utensils,tools, clothing, and works of art. Some scholars arguethat such cultural uniformity could have occurred onlyin a context of political unity. The plot of the Iliad, how-ever, revolves around the difficulties Agamemnon has inasserting control over other Greek leaders. Moreover, thearchaeological remains and the Linear B tablets give

strong indications of independent centers of power atMycenae, Pylos˚, and elsewhere.

Long-distance contact and trade were made possi-ble by the seafaring skill of Minoans and Mycenaeans.Commercial vessels depended primarily on wind andsail. In general, ancient sailors preferred to sail in day-light hours and keep the land in sight. Their light,wooden vessels had little storage area and decking, sothe crew had to go ashore to eat and sleep every night.With their low keels the ships could run up onto thebeach.

Cretan and Greek pottery and crafted goods arefound not only in the Aegean but also in other parts ofthe Mediterranean and Middle East. At certain sites thequantity and range of artifacts suggest settlements ofAegean peoples. The oldest artifacts are Minoan; thenMinoan and Mycenaean objects are found side by side;

Pylos (PIE-lohs)

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and eventually Greek wares replace Cretan goods alto-gether. Such evidence indicates that Cretan merchantspioneered trade routes and established trading postsand then admitted Mycenaean traders, who eventuallysupplanted them in the fifteenth century B.C.E.

The numerous Aegean pots found throughout theMediterranean and Middle East must once have con-tained such products as wine and olive oil. Other possi-ble exports include weapons and other crafted goods, aswell as slaves and mercenary soldiers. Minoan andMycenaean sailors also may have made tidy profits bytransporting the trade goods of other peoples.

As for imports, amber (a hard, translucent, yellowish-brown fossil resin used for jewelry) from northern Eu-rope and ivory carved in Syria have been discovered atAegean sites, and the large population of southwestGreece and other regions probably relied on imports ofgrain. Above all, the Aegean lands needed metals, boththe gold prized by rulers and the copper and tin neededto make bronze. A number of sunken ships carryingcopper ingots have been found on the floor of theMediterranean. Scholars believe that these ships weretransporting metals from Cyprus to the Aegean (seeMap 3.2). As in early China, the elite classes were practi-cally the only people who owned metal goods, whichmay have been symbols of their superior status.

In this era, trade and piracy were closely linked.Mycenaeans were tough, warlike, and acquisitive. Theytraded with those who were strong and took from thosewho were weak. This may have led to conflict with theHittite kings of Anatolia in the fourteenth and thirteenthcenturies B.C.E. Documents found in the archives at Hat-tusha, the Hittite capital, refer to the king and land of Ah-hijawa˚, most likely a Hittite rendering of Achaeans˚, theterm used most frequently by Homer for the Greeks. Thedocuments indicate that relations were sometimesfriendly, sometimes strained, and that the people of Ah-hijawa were aggressive and tried to take advantage ofHittite preoccupation or weakness.

Hittite difficulties with Ahhi-jawa and the Greek attack onTroy foreshadowed the trou-bles that culminated in the de-struction of many of the old

centers of the Middle East and Mediterranean around1200 B.C.E. In this period, for reasons that historians donot completely understand, large numbers of people

The Fall of LateBronze AgeCivilizations

were on the move. As migrants swarmed into one region,they displaced other peoples, who then joined the tide ofrefugees.

Around 1200 B.C.E. unidentified invaders destroyedHattusha, and the Hittite kingdom in Anatolia camecrashing down. The tide of destruction moved south intoSyria, and the great coastal city of Ugarit was swept away.Around 1190 Ramesses III of Egypt checked a major in-vasion of Palestine by the “Sea Peoples.” Although heclaimed to have won a great victory, the Philistines˚ wereable to occupy the coast of Palestine. Egypt soon surren-dered all its territory in Syria-Palestine and lost contactwith the rest of western Asia. The Egyptians also losttheir foothold in Nubia, opening the way for the emer-gence of the native kingdom centered on Napata (seeChapter 2).

Among the invaders listed in the Egyptian inscrip-tions are the Ekwesh˚, who could be Achaeans—that is,Greeks. Whether or not the Mycenaeans participated inthe destructions elsewhere, their own centers collapsedin the first half of the twelfth century B.C.E. The rulers hadseen trouble coming; at some sites they began to buildmore extensive fortifications and took steps to guaranteethe water supply of the citadels. But their efforts were invain, and nearly all the palaces were destroyed.

The end of Mycenaean civilization illustrates the con-sequences of political and economic collapse. The de-construction of the palaces ended the domination of theruling class. The massive administrative apparatus re-vealed in the Linear B tablets disappeared, and the tech-nique of writing was forgotten, since it had been knownonly to a few palace officials and was no longer useful.Archaeological studies indicate the depopulation of someregions of Greece and an inflow of people to other re-gions that had escaped destruction. The Greek languagepersisted, and a thousand years later people were stillworshiping gods mentioned in the Linear B tablets. Peo-ple also continued to make the vessels and implementsthat they were familiar with, although there was a markeddecline in artistic and technical skill in the new, muchpoorer society. The cultural uniformity of the MycenaeanAge gave way to regional variations in shapes, styles, andtechniques, reflecting increased isolation of differentparts of Greece.

Thus perished the cosmopolitan world of the LateBronze Age in the Mediterranean and Middle East. Soci-eties that had long prospered through complex links oftrade, diplomacy, and shared technologies now collapsedin the face of external violence and internal weakness,


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The Assyrian Empire, 911–612 b.c.e. 71

and the peoples of the region entered a centuries-long“Dark Age” of poverty, isolation, and loss of knowledge.

THE ASSYRIAN EMPIRE,911–612 B.C.E.

Anumber of new centers emerged in western Asiaand the eastern Mediterranean in the centuries af-

ter 1000 B.C.E. The chief force for change was the power-ful and aggressive Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–612 B.C.E.).Although historians sometimes apply the term empire toearlier regional powers, the Assyrians of this era were thefirst to rule over far-flung lands and diverse peoples (seeMap 3.3).

The Assyrian homeland in northern Mesopotamiadiffers in essential respects from the flat expanse ofSumer and Akkad to the south. It is hillier, has a moretemperate climate and greater rainfall, and is more ex-posed to raiders from the mountains to the east andnorth and from the arid plain to the west. Peasant farm-ers, accustomed to defending themselves against ma-rauders, provided the foot-soldiers for the revival ofAssyrian power in the ninth century B.C.E. The rulers ofthe Neo-Assyrian Empire struck out in a ceaseless seriesof campaigns: westward across the steppe and desert asfar as the Mediterranean, north into mountainousUrartu˚ (modern Armenia), east across the Zagros rangeonto the Iranian Plateau, and south along the Tigris Riverto Babylonia.

These campaigns largely followed the most impor-tant long-distance trade routes in western Asia andprovided immediate booty and the prospect of tributeand taxes. They also secured access to vital resourcessuch as iron and silver and brought the Assyrians controlof international commerce. As noted earlier in this chap-ter, Assyria already had a long tradition of commercialand political interests in Syria and Anatolia. What startedout as an aggressive program of self-defense and reestab-lishment of old claims soon became far more ambitious.Driven by pride, greed, and religious conviction, the As-syrians defeated all the great kingdoms of the day—Elam(southwest Iran), Urartu, Babylon, and Egypt. At its peaktheir empire stretched from Anatolia, Syria-Palestine,and Egypt in the west, across Armenia and Mesopo-tamia, as far as western Iran. The Assyrians created anew kind of empire, larger in extent than anything seen

before and dedicated to the enrichment of the imperialcenter at the expense of the subjugated periphery.

The king was literally and sym-bolically the center of the As-syrian universe. All the land

belonged to him, and all the people, even the highest-ranking officials, were his servants. Assyrians believedthat the gods chose the king to rule as their earthly rep-resentative. Normally the king chose one of his sons tobe his successor, and his choice was confirmed by divineoracles and the Assyrian elite. In the revered ancient cityof Ashur the high priest anointed the new king by sprin-kling his head with oil and gave him the insignia of king-ship: a crown and scepter. The kings were buried inAshur.

Every day messengers and spies brought the kinginformation from every corner of the empire. He made

God and King

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decisions, appointed officials, and heard complaints. Hedictated his correspondence to an army of scribes and re-ceived and entertained foreign envoys and high-rankinggovernment figures. He was the military leader, respon-sible for planning campaigns, and he often was awayfrom the capital commanding operations in the field.

Among the king’s chief responsibilities was super-vision of the state religion. He devoted much of his timeto elaborate public and private rituals and to oversee-ing the upkeep of the temples. He made no decisions ofstate without consulting the gods through elaborate rit-uals. All state actions were carried out in the name ofAshur, the chief god. Military victories were cited as proofof Ashur’s superiority over the gods of the conqueredpeoples.

Relentless government propaganda secured popu-lar support for military campaigns that mostly benefitedthe king and the nobility. Royal inscriptions postedthroughout the empire catalogued recent military victo-ries, extolled the charisma and relentless will of the king,and promised ruthless punishments to anyone who re-sisted him. Art, too, served the Assyrian state. Reliefsculptures depicting hunts, battles, sieges, executions,and deportations covered the walls of the royal palacesat Kalhu˚ and Nineveh˚. Looming over most scenes wasthe king, larger than anyone else, muscular and fierce,with the appearance of a god. Few visitors to the Assyr-ian court could fail to be awed—and intimidated.

The Assyrians’ unprecedentedconquests were made possibleby their superior military organ-ization and technology. Early

Assyrian armies consisted of men who served in returnfor grants of land, and peasants and slaves whose servicewas contributed by large landowners. Later, King Tig-lathpileser˚ (r. 744–727 B.C.E.) created a core army of pro-fessional soldiers made up of Assyrians and the mostformidable subject peoples. At its peak the Assyrian statecould mobilize a half-million troops, including light-armed bowmen and slingers who launched stone pro-jectiles, armored spearmen, cavalry equipped with bowsor spears, and four-man chariots.

Iron weapons gave Assyrian soldiers an advantageover many opponents, and cavalry provided unprece-dented speed and mobility. Assyrian engineers devel-oped machinery and tactics for besieging fortified towns.They dug tunnels under the walls, built mobile towers

Conquest andControl

for their archers, and applied battering rams to weakpoints. The Assyrians destroyed some of the best-fortifiedcities of the Middle East—Babylon, Thebes in Egypt, Tyrein Phoenicia, and Susa in Elam (see Map 3.3). Couriersand signal fires provided long-distance communication,while a network of spies gathered intelligence.

The Assyrians used terror tactics to discourage re-sistance and rebellion, inflicting swift and harsh retribu-tion and publicizing their brutality: civilians were throwninto fires, prisoners were skinned alive, and the severedheads of defeated rulers hung on city walls. Mass depor-tation—forcibly uprooting entire communities and re-settling them elsewhere—broke the spirit of rebelliouspeoples. This tactic had a long history in the ancientMiddle East—in Sumer, Babylon, Urartu, Egypt, and theHittite Empire—but the Neo-Assyrian monarchs used iton an unprecedented scale. Surviving documents recordthe relocation of over 1 million people, and historiansestimate that the true figure exceeds 4 million. Deporta-tion also shifted human resources from the periphery tothe center, where the deportees worked on royal and no-ble estates, opened new lands for agriculture, and builtnew palaces and cities.

The Assyrians never found a single, enduring methodof governing an empire that included nomadic andsedentary kinship groups, temple-states, city-states, andkingdoms. Control tended to be tight and effective at thecenter and in lands closest to the core area, and less sofarther away. The Assyrian kings waged many campaignsto reimpose control on territories subdued in previouswars.

Assyrian provincial officials oversaw the payment oftribute and taxes, maintained law and order, raisedtroops, undertook public works, and provisioned armiesand administrators that were passing through their terri-tory. Provincial governors were subject to frequent in-spections by royal overseers.

The elite class was bound to the monarch by oaths ofobedience, fear of punishment, and the expectation of re-wards, such as land grants or shares of booty and taxes.Skilled professionals—priests, diviners, scribes, doctors,and artisans—were similarly bound.

The Assyrians ruthlessly exploited the wealth and re-sources of their subjects. Military campaigns and admin-istration had to be funded by plunder and tribute. Wealthfrom the periphery was funneled to the center, where theking and nobility grew rich. Proud kings used their richesto expand the ancestral capital and religious center atAshur and to build magnificent new royal cities. DurSharrukin˚, the “Fortress of Sargon,” was completed in a


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The Assyrian Empire, 911–612 b.c.e. 73

mere ten years, thanks to a massive labor force com-posed of prisoners of war and Assyrian citizens whoowed periodic service to the state.

Nevertheless, the Assyrian Empire was not simplyparasitic. There is some evidence of royal investmentin provincial infrastructure. The cities and merchantclasses thrived on expanded long-distance commerce,and some subject populations were surprisingly loyal totheir Assyrian rulers.

A few things are known aboutthe lives and activities of themillions of Assyrian subjects. Inthe core area people belonged

to the same three classes that had existed in Ham-murabi’s Babylon a millennium before (see Chapter 1):(1) free, landowning citizens, (2) farmers and artisans at-tached to the estates of the king or other rich landhold-ers, and (3) slaves. Slaves—debtors and prisoners ofwar—had legal rights and, if sufficiently talented, couldrise to positions of influence.

Assyrian Societyand Culture

The government normally did not distinguish be-tween native Assyrians and the increasingly large num-ber of immigrants and deportees residing in the Assyrianhomeland. All were referred to as “human beings,” enti-tled to the same legal protections and liable for the samelabor and military service. Over time the inflow of out-siders changed the ethnic makeup of the core area.

The vast majority of subjects worked on the land.The agricultural surpluses they produced allowed sub-stantial numbers of people—the standing army, govern-ment officials, religious experts, merchants, artisans,and all manner of professionals in the towns and cities—to engage in specialized activities.

Individual artisans and small workshops in thetowns manufactured pottery, tools, and clothing, andmost trade took place at the local level. The state fosteredlong-distance trade, since imported luxury goods—metals, fine textiles, dyes, gems, and ivory—brought insubstantial customs revenues and found their way to theroyal family and elite classes. Silver was the basic me-dium of exchange, weighed out for each transaction in atime before the invention of coins.

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Building on the achievements of their Mesopo-tamian ancestors, Assyrian scholars created and pre-served lists of plant and animal names, geographic terms,and astronomical occurrences, and made original contri-butions in mathematics and astronomy. Their assump-tion that gods or demons caused disease obstructed theinvestigation of natural causes, but in addition to exor-cists trained to expel demons, another type of physicianexperimented with medicines and surgical treatments torelieve symptoms.

Some Assyrian temples may have had libraries. Whenarchaeologists excavated the palace of Ashurbanipal˚(r. 668–627 B.C.E.), one of the last Assyrian kings, at Nin-eveh, they discovered more than twenty-five thousandtablets or fragments of tablets. The Library of Ashurba-nipal contained official documents as well as literaryand scientific texts. Some were originals that had beenbrought to the capital; others were copies made at theking’s request. Ashurbanipal was an avid collector ofthe literary and scientific heritage of Mesopotamia, andthe “House of Knowledge” referred to in some of thedocuments may have been an academy that attractedlearned men to the imperial center.

ISRAEL, 2000–500 B.C.E.

On the western edge of the Assyrian Empire lived apeople who probably seemed of no great signifi-

cance to the masters of western Asia but were destinedto play an important role in world history. The history ofancient Israel is marked by two grand and intercon-nected dramas that played out from around 2000 to500 B.C.E. First, a loose collection of nomadic kinshipgroups engaged in herding and caravan traffic became asedentary, agricultural people, developed complex polit-ical and social institutions, and became integrated intothe commercial and diplomatic networks of the MiddleEast. Second, these people transformed the austere cultof a desert god into the concept of a single, all-powerful,and all-knowing deity, in the process creating the ethicaland intellectual traditions that underlie the beliefs andvalues of Judaism and Christianity.

The land and the people at the heart of this storyhave gone by various names: Canaan, Israel, Palestine;Hebrews, Israelites, Jews. For the sake of consistency, thepeople are referred to here as Israelites, the land they oc-cupied in antiquity as Israel.

Israel is a crossroads, linking Anatolia, Egypt, Arabia,and Mesopotamia (see Map 3.4). Its location has given

Israel an importance in history out of all proportion to itssize. Its natural resources are few. The Negev Desert andthe vast wasteland of the Sinai˚ lie to the south. TheMediterranean coastal plain was usually in the hands ofothers, particularly the Philistines, throughout much ofthis period. At the center are the rock-strewn hills of theShephelah˚. Galilee to the north, with its sea of the samename, was a relatively fertile land of grassy hills andsmall plains. The narrow ribbon of the Jordan River runsdown the eastern side of the region into the Dead Sea, sonamed because its high salt content is toxic to life.

Information about ancient Is-rael comes partly from ar-chaeological excavations andreferences in contemporary

documents such as the royal annals of Egypt and Assyria.However, the fundamental source is the collection of

Origins, Exodus,and Settlement


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writings preserved in the Hebrew Bible (called the OldTestament by Christians). The Hebrew Bible is a compi-lation of several collections of materials that originatedwith different groups, employed distinctive vocabularies,and advocated particular interpretations of past events.Traditions about the Israelites’ early days were longtransmitted orally. Not until the tenth century B.C.E. werethey written down in a script borrowed from the Phoeni-cians. The text that we have today dates from the fifthcentury B.C.E., with a few later additions, and reflects thepoint of view of the priests who controlled the Temple inJerusalem. Historians disagree about how accurately thisdocument represents Israelite history. In the absence ofother written sources, however, it provides a foundationto be used critically and modified in light of archaeolog-ical discoveries.

The Hebrew language of the Bible reflects thespeech of the Israelites until about 500 B.C.E. It is a Se-mitic language, most closely related to Phoenician andAramaic (which later supplanted Hebrew in Israel), moredistantly related to Arabic and the Akkadian language ofthe Assyrians. This linguistic affinity probably parallelsthe Israelites’ ethnic relationship to the neighboringpeoples.

The Hebrew Bible tells the story of the family ofAbraham. Born in the city of Ur in southern Meso-potamia, Abraham rejected the traditional idol worshipof his homeland and migrated with his family and live-stock across the Syrian desert. Eventually he arrived inthe land of Israel, which, according to the biblical ac-count, had been promised to him and his descendantsas part of a “covenant,” or pact, with the Israelite god,Yahweh.

These “recollections” of the journey of Abraham(who, if he was a real person, probably lived in the twen-tieth century B.C.E.) may compress the experiences ofgenerations of pastoralists who migrated from the graz-ing lands between the upper reaches of the Tigris andEuphrates Rivers to the Mediterranean coastal plain.Abraham, his family, and his companions were followingthe usual pattern in this part of the world. They campedby a permanent water source in the dry season, thendrove herds of domesticated animals (sheep, cattle, don-keys) to a well-established sequence of grazing areasduring the rest of the year.

Abraham’s son Isaac and then his grandson Jacobbecame the leaders of this wandering group of herders.In the next generation the squabbling sons of Jacob’sseveral wives sold their brother Joseph as a slave to pass-ing merchants heading for Egypt. According to the bibli-cal account, through luck and ability Joseph became ahigh official at Pharaoh’s court. Thus he was in a positionto help his people when drought struck Israel and forced

the Israelites to migrate to Egypt. The sophisticatedEgyptians feared and looked down on these rough herd-ers and eventually reduced the Israelites to slaves, put-ting them to work on the grand building projects of thepharaoh.

That is the version of events given in the HebrewBible. Several points need to be made about it. First, thebiblical account glosses over the period from 1700 to1500 B.C.E., when Egypt was dominated by the Hyksos.Since the Hyksos are thought to have been Semiticgroups that infiltrated the Nile Delta from the northeast,the Israelite migration to Egypt and later enslavementcould have been connected to the Hyksos’ rise and fall.Second, although the surviving Egyptian sources do notrefer to Israelite slaves, they do complain about Apiru˚, aderogatory term applied to caravan drivers, outcasts,bandits, and other marginal groups. The word seems todesignate a class of people rather than a particular eth-nic group, but some scholars believe there may be a con-nection between the similar-sounding terms Apiru andHebrew. Third, the period of alleged Israelite slavery co-incided with the era of ambitious building programslaunched by several New Kingdom pharaohs.

According to the Hebrew Bible, the Israelites wereled out of captivity by Moses, an Israelite with connec-tions to the Egyptian royal family. It is possible that oraltradition may have preserved memories of a real emigra-tion from Egypt followed by years of wandering in thewilderness of Sinai.

During their reported forty years in the desert, theIsraelites became devoted to a stern and warlike god. Ac-cording to the Hebrew Bible, Yahweh made a covenantwith the Israelites: they would be his “Chosen People” ifthey promised to worship him exclusively. This pact wasconfirmed by tablets that Moses brought down from thetop of Mount Sinai. Written on the tablets were the TenCommandments, which set out the basic tenets of Jew-ish belief and practice. The Commandments prohibitedmurder, adultery, theft, lying, and envy, and demandedrespect for parents and rest from work on the Sabbath,the seventh day of the week.

The biblical account tells how Joshua, Moses’s suc-cessor, led the Israelites from the east side of the JordanRiver into the land of Canaan˚ (modern Israel and thePalestinian territories). They attacked and destroyedJericho˚ and other Canaanite˚ cities. Archaeological evi-dence confirms the destruction of some Canaanitetowns between 1250 and 1200 B.C.E., though not pre-cisely the towns mentioned in the biblical account.Shortly thereafter, lowland sites were resettled and new

Apiru (uh-PEE-roo) Canaan (KAY-nuhn) Jericho (JEH-rih-koe)Canaanite (KAY-nuh-nite)

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sites were established in the hills, thanks to the develop-ment of cisterns carved into nonporous rock to holdrainwater and the construction of leveled terraces on theslopes to expand the cultivable area. The material cul-ture of the new settlers was cruder but continuedCanaanite patterns.

Most scholars doubt that Canaan was conquered bya unified Israelite army. In a time of widespread disrup-tion, movements of peoples, and decline and destruc-tion of cities throughout this region, it is more likely thatIsraelite migrants took advantage of the disorder andwere joined by other loosely organized groups and evenrefugees from the Canaanite cities.

In a pattern common throughout history, the newcoalition of peoples invented a common ancestry. The“Children of Israel,” as they called themselves, were di-vided into twelve tribes supposedly descended from thesons of Jacob and Joseph. Each tribe installed itself in adifferent part of the country and was led by one or morechiefs. Such leaders usually had limited power and wereprimarily responsible for mediating disputes and seeingto the welfare and protection of the group. Certain charis-matic figures, famed for their daring in war or genius in ar-bitration, were called “Judges” and enjoyed a specialstanding that transcended tribal boundaries. The tribesalso shared access to a shrine in the hill country at Shiloh˚,which housed the Ark of the Covenant, a sacred chest con-taining the tablets that Yahweh had given Moses.

The time of troubles thatstruck the eastern Mediter-ranean around 1200 B.C.E. alsobrought the Philistines to Is-

rael. Possibly related to the pre-Greek population of theAegean Sea region and likely participants in the Sea Peo-ple’s attack on Egypt, the Philistines occupied the coastalplain of Israel and came into frequent conflict with theIsraelites. Their wars were memorialized in Bible storiesabout the long-haired strongman Samson, who toppleda Philistine temple, and the shepherd boy David, whoseslingshot felled the towering warrior Goliath.

A religious leader named Samuel recognized the needfor a stronger central authority to lead the Israelites againstthe Philistine city-states and anointed Saul as the first kingof Israel around 1020 B.C.E. When Saul perished in battle,the throne passed to David (r. ca. 1000–960 B.C.E.).

A gifted musician, warrior, and politician, Davidoversaw Israel’s transition from a tribal confederacy to aunified monarchy. He strengthened royal authority by

Rise of theMonarchy

making the captured hill city of Jerusalem, which lay out-side tribal boundaries, his capital. Soon after, Davidbrought the Ark to Jerusalem, making the city the reli-gious as well as the political center of the kingdom. A cen-sus was taken to facilitate the collection of taxes, and astanding army, with soldiers paid by and loyal to the king,was instituted. These innovations enabled David to wina string of military victories and expand Israel’s borders.

The reign of David’s son Solomon (r. ca. 960–920B.C.E.) marked the high point of the Israelite monarchy.Alliances and trade linked Israel with near and distantlands. Solomon and Hiram, the king of Phoenician Tyre,together commissioned a fleet that sailed into the RedSea and brought back gold, ivory, jewels, sandalwood,and exotic animals. The story of the visit to Solomon bythe queen of Sheba, who brought gold, precious stones,and spices, may be mythical, but it reflects the reality oftrade with Saba˚ in south Arabia (present-day Yemen) orthe Horn of Africa (present-day Somalia). Such wealthsupported a lavish court life, a sizeable bureaucracy, andan intimidating chariot army that made Israel a regionalpower. Solomon undertook an ambitious building pro-gram employing slaves and the compulsory labor of citi-zens. To strengthen the link between religious andsecular authority, he built the First Temple in Jerusalem.The Israelites now had a central shrine and an impres-sive set of rituals that could compete with other religionsin the area.

The Temple priests became a powerful and wealthyclass, receiving a share of the annual harvest in return formaking animal sacrifices to Yahweh on behalf of thecommunity. The expansion of Jerusalem, new commer-cial opportunities, and the increasing prestige of theTemple hierarchy changed the social composition of Is-raelite society. A gap between urban and rural, rich andpoor, polarized a people that previously had been rela-tively homogeneous. Fiery prophets, claiming revelationfrom Yahweh, accused the monarchs and aristocracy ofcorruption, impiety, and neglect of the poor (see Diver-sity and Dominance: An Israelite Prophet Chastizes theRuling Class).

The Israelites lived in extended families, several gen-erations residing together under the authority of the eld-est male. Marriage, usually arranged between families,was an important economic as well as social institution.When the groom, in order to prove his financial worthi-ness, gave a substantial gift to the father of the bride, herentire family participated in the ceremonial weighingout of silver or gold. The wife’s dowry often included aslave girl who attended her for life.

Shiloh (SHIE-loe) Saba (SUH-buh)

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Male heirs were of paramount importance, and first-born sons received a double share of the inheritance. If acouple had no son, they could adopt one, or the husbandcould have a child by the wife’s slave attendant. If a mandied childless, his brother was expected to marry hiswidow and sire an heir.

In early Israel women provided a vital portion of thegoods and services that sustained the family. As a result,women were respected and enjoyed relative equality withtheir husbands. Unlike men, however, they could not in-herit property or initiate divorce, and a woman caught inextramarital relations could be put to death. Working-class women labored with other family members in agri-culture or herding in addition to caring for the house andchildren. As the society became urbanized, some womenworked outside the home as cooks, bakers, perfumers,wet nurses (usually a recent mother, still producing milk,hired to provide nourishment to another person’s child),

prostitutes, and singers of laments at funerals. A fewwomen reached positions of influence, such as Deborahthe Judge, who led troops in battle against the Canaan-ites. Women known collectively as “wise women” appearto have composed sacred texts in poetry and prose. Thisreality has been obscured, in part by the male bias of theHebrew Bible, in part because the status of women de-clined as Israelite society became more urbanized.

After Solomon’s death around920 B.C.E., resentment overroyal demands and the neglectof tribal prerogatives split the

monarchy into two kingdoms: Israel in the north, with itscapital at Samaria˚; and Judah˚ in the southern territory

Fragmentationand Dispersal

Samaria (suh-MAH-ree-yuh) Judah (JOO-duh)

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Israelite society underwent profound changes in the periodof the monarchy. A loosely organized society of village-

based farmers and herders was transformed relatively rap-idly into a centrally controlled state with urban centers, astanding army, an administrative bureaucracy supported bytaxation, and involvement in long-distance trade networks.A central religious shrine emerged, with a hierarchy of priestsand other religious specialists maintained at public expense.The new opportunities for some to acquire considerablewealth led to greater disparities between rich and poor.

Throughout this period a series of prophets publicly chal-lenged the behavior of the Israelite ruling elite. They de-nounced the changes in Israelite society as corruptingpeople and separating them from the religious devotion andmoral rectitude of an earlier, better time. The prophets oftenspoke out on behalf of the uneducated, inarticulate, illiter-ate, and powerless lower classes, and thus provide valuableinformation about the experiences of different socialgroups. Theirs was not objective reporting, but rather theangry, anguished visions of unconventional individuals.

The following excerpts from the Hebrew Bible are takenfrom the book of Amos. A herdsman from the southern king-dom of Judah (in the era of the divided monarchy), Amoswas active in the northern kingdom of Israel in the mid-eighth century B.C.E., when Assyria threatened the Syria-Palestine region.

1:1 The following is a record of what Amos prophesied. Hewas one of the herdsmen from Tekoa. These propheciesabout Israel were revealed to him during the time of KingUzziah of Judah and King Jeroboam son of Joash of Israel,two years before the earthquake. . . .

3:1 Listen, you Israelites, to this message which the Lord isproclaiming against you. This message is for the entire clanI brought up from the land of Egypt: 3:2 “I have chosen you alone from all the clans of the earth.Therefore I will punish you for all your sins” . . .3:9 Make this announcement in the fortresses of Ashdodand in the fortresses in the land of Egypt. Say this:“Gather on the hills around Samaria! [capital of the north-ern kingdom]

Observe the many acts of violence taking place within thecity, the oppressive deeds occurring in it.”3:10 “They do not know how to do what is right. Theystore up the spoils of destructive violence in theirfortresses.”3:11 “Therefore,” says the sovereign Lord, “an enemy willencircle the land. Your power, Samaria, will be taken away;your fortresses will be looted.”3:12 This is what the Lord says: “Just as a shepherd salvagesfrom the lion’s mouth a couple of leg bones or a piece of anear, so the Israelites who live in Samaria will be salvaged.They will be left with just a corner of a bed, and a part of acouch” . . .3:14 “Certainly when I punish Israel for their treaty viola-tions, I will destroy Bethel’s altars. The horns of the altarswill be cut off and fall to the ground.3:15 I will destroy both the winter and summer houses.The houses filled with ivory will be ruined, the great houseswill be swept away.” The Lord is speaking!4:1 Listen to this message, you “cows of Bashan” who liveon Mount Samaria! You oppress the poor; you crush theneedy. You say to your husbands, “Bring us more to drink sowe can party!”4:2 The sovereign Lord confirms this oath by his own holycharacter: “Certainly the time is approaching! You will becarried away in baskets, every last one of you in fishermen’spots.4:3 Each of you will go straight through the gaps in thewalls; you will be thrown out toward Harmon” . . .

5:10 The Israelites hate anyone who arbitrates at the citygate; they despise anyone who speaks honestly.5:11 Therefore, because you make the poor pay taxes ontheir crops and exact a grain tax from them, you will notlive in the houses you built with chiseled stone, nor will youdrink the wine from the fine vineyards you planted.5:12 Certainly I am aware of your many rebellious actsand your numerous sins. You torment the innocent, youtake bribes, and you deny justice to the needy at the citygate.5:13 For this reason whoever is smart keeps quiet in such atime, for it is an evil time.

D I V E R S I T Y A N D D O M I N A N C E

AN ISRAELITE PROPHET CHASTIZES THE RULING CLASS

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5:15 Hate what is wrong, love what is right! Promote jus-tice at the city gate! Maybe the Lord, the God who leadsarmies, will have mercy on those who are left from Joseph[the Israelites] . . .5:21 “I absolutely despise your festivals. I get no pleasurefrom your religious assemblies.5:22 Even if you offer me burnt and grain offerings, I willnot be satisfied; I will not look with favor on the fattenedcalves you offer in peace.5:23 Take away from me your noisy songs; I don’t want tohear the music of your stringed instruments.5:24 Justice must flow like water, right actions like a streamthat never dries up . . .”

6:3 You refuse to believe a day of disaster will come, butyou establish a reign of violence.6:4 They lie around on beds decorated with ivory, andsprawl out on their couches. They eat lambs from the flock,and calves from the middle of the pen.6:5 They sing to the tune of stringed instruments; likeDavid they invent musical instruments.6:6 They drink wine from sacrificial bowls, and pour thevery best oils on themselves.6:7 Therefore they will now be the first to go into exile, andthe religious banquets where they sprawl out on coucheswill end.

7:10 Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent this message to KingJeroboam of Israel: “Amos is conspiring against you in thevery heart of the kingdom of Israel! The land cannot endureall his prophecies. 7:11 As a matter of fact, Amos is saying this: ‘Jeroboam willdie by the sword and Israel will certainly be carried intoexile away from its land.’ ” 7:12 Amaziah then said to Amos, “Leave, you visionary! Runaway to the land of Judah! Earn money and prophesy there! 7:13 Don’t prophesy at Bethel any longer, for a royal tem-ple and palace are here!” 7:14 Amos replied to Amaziah, “I was not a prophet byprofession. No, I was a herdsman who also took care ofsycamore fig trees. 7:15 Then the Lord took me from tending flocks and gaveme this commission, ‘Go! Prophesy to my people Israel!’7:16 So now listen to the Lord’s message! You say, ‘Don’tprophesy against Israel! Don’t preach against the family ofIsaac!’7:17 “Therefore this is what the Lord says: ‘Your wife willbecome a prostitute in the streets and your sons anddaughters will die violently. Your land will be given to oth-ers and you will die in a foreign land. Israel will certainly becarried into exile away from its land.’”

8:4 Listen to this, you who trample the needy, and get ridof the destitute in the land.

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8:5 You say, “When will the new moon festival be over, sowe can sell grain? When will the Sabbath end, so we canopen up the grain bins? We’re eager to sell less for a higherprice, and to cheat the buyer with rigged scales.8:6 We’re eager to trade silver for the poor, a pair of sandalsfor the needy. We want to mix in some chaff with the grain.” 8:7 The Lord confirms this oath by the arrogance of Jacob:“I swear I will never forget all you have done!8:8 Because of this the earth will quake, and all who live init will mourn. The whole earth will rise like the River Nile, itwill surge upward and then grow calm, like the Nile in Egypt.8:9 In that day,” says the sovereign Lord, “I will make thesun set at noon, and make the earth dark in the middle ofthe day.8:10 I will turn your festivals into funerals, and all yoursongs into funeral dirges. I will make everyone wear funeralclothes and cause every head to be shaved bald. I will makeyou mourn as if you had lost your only son; when it ends itwill indeed have been a bitter day.8:11 Be certain of this, the time is coming,” says the sover-eign Lord, “when I will send a famine through the land. I’m not talking about a shortage of food or water, but anend to divine revelation. 8:12 People will stagger from sea to sea, and from thenorth around to the east. They will wander around lookingfor a revelation from the Lord, but they will not find any . . .”

9:8 “Look, the sovereign Lord is watching the sinful nation,and I will destroy it from the face of the earth. But I willnot completely destroy the family of Jacob,” says the Lord.9:9 “For look, I am giving a command and I will shake thefamily of Israel together with all the nations. It will resem-ble a sieve being shaken, when not even a pebble falls tothe ground.9:10 All the sinners among my people will die by the sword,the ones who say, ‘Disaster will not come near, it will notconfront us.’ 9:11 In that day I will rebuild the collapsing hut of David. Iwill seal its gaps, repair its ruins, and restore it to what itwas like in days gone by.”

QUESTIONS FOR ANALYSIS1. For whom is Amos’s message primarily intended? How

does the ruling class react to Amos’s prophetic activity,and how does he respond to their tactics?

2. What does Amos see as wrong in Israelite society, andwho is at fault? Why are even the religious practices ofthe elite criticized?

3. What will be the means by which God punishes Israel,and why does God punish them this way? Whatgrounds for hope remain?

Source: http://www.netbible.com. Reprinted courtesy of Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C.

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around Jerusalem (see Map 3.4). The two were some-times at war, sometimes allied. This period saw the finalformulation of monotheism, the absolute belief in Yah-weh as the one and only god.

The small states of Syria and the two Israelite king-doms laid aside their rivalries to mount a joint resistanceto the Neo-Assyrian Empire, but to no avail. In 721 B.C.E.the Assyrians destroyed the northern kingdom of Israeland deported much of its population to the east. Newsettlers were brought in from Syria, Babylon, and Iran,changing the area’s ethnic, cultural, and religious char-acter and removing it from the mainstream of Jewishhistory. The kingdom of Judah survived for more thana century longer, sometimes rebelling, sometimes pay-ing tribute to the Assyrians or the Neo-Babyloniankingdom (626–539 B.C.E.) that succeeded them. Whenthe Neo-Babylonian monarch Nebuchadnezzar˚ cap-tured Jerusalem in 587 B.C.E., he destroyed the Templeand deported to Babylon the royal family, the aristoc-racy, and many skilled workers such as blacksmiths andscribes.

The deportees prospered so well in their new home“by the waters of Babylon” that half a century later mostof their descendants refused the offer of the Persianmonarch Cyrus (see Chapter 4) to return to their home-land. This was the origin of the Diaspora˚—a Greek wordmeaning “dispersion” or “scattering.” This dispersionoutside the homeland of many Jews—as we may nowcall these people, since an independent Israel no longerexisted—continues to this day. To maintain their religionand culture outside the homeland, the Diaspora com-munities developed institutions like the synagogue(Greek for “bringing together”), a communal meetingplace that served religious, educational, and social func-tions.

Several groups of Babylonian Jews did make the longtrek back to Judah, where they met with a cold receptionfrom the local population. Persevering, they rebuilt theTemple in modest form and drafted the Deuteronomic˚Code (deuteronomic is Greek for “second set of laws”) oflaw and conduct. The fifth century B.C.E. also saw thecompilation of much of the Hebrew Bible in roughly itspresent form.

The loss of political autonomy and the experience ofexile had sharpened Jewish identity, with an unyieldingmonotheism as the core belief. Jews lived by a rigid set ofrules. Dietary restrictions forbade the eating of pork and

shellfish and mandated that meat and dairy productsnot be consumed together. Ritual baths were used toachieve spiritual purity, and women were required totake ritual baths after menstruation. The Jews veneratedthe Sabbath (Saturday, the seventh day of the week) byrefraining from work and from fighting, following the ex-ample of Yahweh, who, according to the Bible, rested onthe seventh day after creating the world (this is the originof the concept of the weekend). These strictures and oth-ers, including a ban on marrying non-Jews, tended toisolate the Jews from other peoples, but they also fos-tered a powerful sense of community and the belief thatthey were protected by a watchful and beneficent deity.

PHOENICIA AND THE

MEDITERRANEAN,1200–500 B.C.E.

While the Israelite tribes were being forged into aunited kingdom, the people who occupied the

coast of the Mediterranean to the north were developingtheir own distinctive civilization. Historians refer to a ma-jor element of the ancient population of Syria-Palestineas Phoenicians˚, though they referred to themselves as“Can’ani”—Canaanites. Despite the sparse written rec-ord and the disturbance of the archaeological record byfrequent migrations and invasions, enough of their his-tory survives to reveal major transformations.

When the eastern Mediter-ranean entered a period ofviolent upheaval and mass mi-grations around 1200 B.C.E.

(discussed earlier), many Canaanite settlements weredestroyed. Aramaeans˚—nomadic pastoralists similar tothe early Israelites—migrated into the interior portionsof Syria.

By 1100 B.C.E. Canaanite territory had shrunk to anarrow strip of present-day Lebanon between themountains and the sea (see Map 3.4). The inhabitants ofthis densely populated area adopted new political formsand turned to seaborne commerce and new kinds ofmanufacture for their survival. Sometime after 1000 B.C.E.the Canaanites encountered the Greeks, who referred tothem as Phoinikes, or Phoenicians. The term may mean“red men” and refer to the color of their skin, or it may re-

The PhoenicianCity-States


Nebuchadnezzar (NAB-oo-kuhd-nez-uhr)Diaspora (die-ASS-peh-rah)Deuteronomic (doo-tuhr-uh-NAHM-ik) Phoenician (fi-NEE-shun) Aramaean (ah-ruh-MAY-uhn)

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fer to the highly valued purple dye they extracted fromthe murex snail (see Environment and Technology: An-cient Textiles and Dyes).

Rivers and rocky spurs of Mount Lebanon sliced thecoastal plain into a series of small city-states, chiefamong them Byblos˚, Berytus˚, Sidon˚, and Tyre. A thriv-ing trade in raw materials (cedar and pine, metals,incense, papyrus), foodstuffs (wine, spices, salted fish),and crafted luxury goods (textiles, carved ivory, glass)brought considerable wealth to the Phoenician city-states and gave them an important role in internationalpolitics.

The Phoenicians developed earlier Canaanite mod-els into an “alphabetic” system of writing with about twodozen symbols, in which each symbol represented asound. (The Phoenicians represented only consonants,leaving the vowel sounds to be inferred by the reader.The Greeks added symbols for vowel sounds, therebycreating the first truly alphabetic system of writing—seeChapter 4.) Little Phoenician writing survives, however,probably because scribes used perishable papyrus.Some information in Greek and Roman documents maybe based on Phoenician sources.

Before 1000 B.C.E. Byblos had been the most impor-tant Phoenician city-state. It was a distribution centerfor cedar timber from the slopes of Mount Lebanon andfor papyrus from Egypt. The English word bible comesfrom the Greek biblion, meaning “book written on pa-pyrus from Byblos.” After 1000 B.C.E. Tyre, in southernLebanon, surpassed Byblos. King Hiram, who came topower in 969 B.C.E., was responsible for Tyre’s rise toprominence. According to the Bible, he formed a closealliance with the Israelite king Solomon and providedskilled Phoenician craftsmen and cedar wood for build-ing the Temple in Jerusalem. In return, Tyre gained ac-cess to silver, food, and trade routes to the east andsouth. In the 800s B.C.E. Tyre took control of nearby Sidonand monopolized the Mediterranean coastal trade.

Located on an offshore island, Tyre was practicallyimpregnable. It had two harbors, one facing north, theother south, connected by a canal. The city boasted a largemarketplace, a magnificent palace complex with treasuryand archives, and temples to the gods. Some of its thirtythousand or more inhabitants lived in suburbs on themainland. Its one weakness was its dependence on themainland for food and fresh water.

Little is known about the internal affairs of Tyre andother Phoenician cities. The names of a series of kings arepreserved, and the scant evidence suggests that the polit-ical arena was dominated by leading merchant families.

Between the ninth and seventh centuries B.C.E. thePhoenician city-states contended with Assyrian aggres-sion, followed in the sixth century B.C.E. by the expansionof the Neo-Babylonian kingdom and later the PersianEmpire (see Chapter 4).

After 900 B.C.E. Tyre began toturn its attention westward, es-tablishing colonies on Cyprus,a copper-rich island 100 miles(161 kilometers) from the Syr-

ian coast (see Map 3.4) that was strategically located on amajor trade route. Phoenician merchants sailing into theAegean Sea are mentioned in Homer’s Iliad and Odysseyaround 700 B.C.E. By that time a string of settlements inthe western Mediterranean formed a “Phoenician trian-gle” composed of the North African coast from westernLibya to Morocco; the south and southeast coast of Spain,including Gades˚ (modern Cadiz˚) on the Strait of Gibral-tar, controlling passage between the Mediterranean andthe Atlantic Ocean; and the islands of Sardinia, Sicily, andMalta off the coast of Italy (see Map 3.5). Many of thesenew settlements were situated on promontories or off-shore islands in imitation of Tyre. The Phoenician tradingnetwork spanned the entire Mediterranean.

Overseas settlement provided an outlet for excesspopulation, new sources of trade goods, and new tradingpartners. Tyre maintained its autonomy until 701 B.C.E.by paying tribute to the Assyrian kings. In that year it fi-nally fell to an Assyrian army that stripped it of much ofits territory and population, allowing Sidon to becomethe leading city in Phoenicia.

The Phoenicians’ activities in the western Mediter-ranean often brought them into conflict with the Greeks,who were also expanding trade and establishing colonies.The focal point of this rivalry was Sicily. Phoeniciansoccupied the western end of the island, Greeks its easternand central parts. For centuries Greeks and Phoeniciansfought for control of Sicily in some of the most savagewars in the history of the ancient Mediterranean. ThePhoenicians controlled all of Sicily by the mid-third cen-tury B.C.E.

Historians know far moreabout Carthage and the otherPhoenician colonies than theydo about the Phoenician home-land. Much of this knowledge

Carthage’sCommercialEmpire

Expansioninto theMediterranean

Byblos (BIB-loss) Berytus (buh-RIE-tuhs) Sidon (SIE-duhn) Gades (GAH-days) Cadiz (kuh-DEEZ)

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Throughout human history the pro-duction of textiles—cloth for cloth-

ing, blankets, carpets, and coveringsof various sorts—may have requiredan expenditure of human labor sec-ond only to the amount of work nec-essary to provide food. Nevertheless,textile production in antiquity has leftfew traces in the archaeologicalrecord. The plant fibers and animalhair used for cloth are organic andquickly decompose except in rare andspecial circumstances. Some textileremains have been found in the hot,dry conditions of Egypt, the cool, aridAndes of South America, and the peatbogs of northern Europe. But most ofour knowledge of ancient textiles de-pends on the discovery of equipmentused in textile production—such asspindles, loom weights, and dyeingvats—and on pictorial representationsand descriptions in texts.

The production of cloth usually hasbeen the work of women for a simplebut important reason. Responsibilityfor child rearing limits women’s abilityto participate in other activities but does not consume alltheir time and energy. In many societies textile productionhas been complementary to child-rearing activities, for itcan be done in the home, is relatively safe, does not requiregreat concentration, and can be interrupted without conse-quence. For many thousands of years cloth production hasbeen one of the great common experiences of womenaround the globe. The growing and harvesting of plants suchas cotton or flax (from which linen is made) and the shearingof wool from sheep and, in the Andes, llamas are outdoor ac-tivities, but the subsequent stages of production can be car-ried out inside the home. The basic methods of textileproduction did not change much from early antiquity untilthe late eighteenth century C.E., when the fabrication of tex-tiles was transferred to mills and mass production began.

When textile production has been considered “women’swork,” most of the output has been for household consump-tion. One exception was in the early civilizations of Peru,

where women weavers developed newraw materials, new techniques, andnew decorative motifs around threethousand years ago. They began to usethe wool of llamas and alpacas in ad-dition to cotton. Three women workedside by side and passed the weft fromhand to hand in order to overcomelimitations to the width of woven fab-ric imposed by the back-strap loom.Women weavers also introduced em-broidery, and they decorated gar-ments with new religious motifs, suchas the jaguar-god of Chavín. Their high-quality textiles were given as tributeto the elite and were used in trade toacquire luxury goods as well as dyesand metals.

More typically, men dominatedcommercial production. In ancientPhoenicia, fine textiles with bright,permanent colors became a major ex-port product. These striking colorswere produced by dyes derived fromseveral species of snail. Most prizedwas the red-purple known as Tyrianpurple because Tyre was the major

source. Persian and Hellenistic kings wore robes dyed thiscolor, and a white toga with a purple border was the sign ofa Roman senator.

The production of Tyrian purple was an exceedingly labo-rious process. The spiny dye-murex snail lives on the sandyMediterranean bottom at depths ranging from 30 to 500feet (10 to 150 meters). Nine thousand snails were needed toproduce 1 gram (0.035 ounce) of dye. The dye was madefrom a colorless liquid in the snail’s hypobranchial gland. Thegland sacs were removed, crushed, soaked with salt, and ex-posed to sunlight and air for some days; then they were sub-ject to controlled boiling and heating.

Huge mounds of broken shells on the Phoenician coastare testimony to the ancient industry. It is likely that thesnail was rendered nearly extinct at many locations, andsome scholars have speculated that Phoenician colonizationin the Mediterranean may have been motivated in part bythe search for new sources of snails.

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comes from Greek and Roman reports of their wars withthe western Phoenician communities. For example, theaccount of the origins of Carthage that begins this chap-ter comes from Roman sources (most famously Virgil’sepic poem The Aeneid) but probably is based on aCarthaginian original. Archaeological excavation hasroughly confirmed the city’s traditional foundation dateof 814 B.C.E. Just outside the present-day city of Tunis inTunisia, Carthage controlled the middle portion of theMediterranean where Europe comes closest to Africa.The new settlement grew rapidly and soon dominatedother Phoenician colonies in the west.

Located on a narrow promontory jutting into theMediterranean, Carthage stretched between Byrsa˚, theoriginal hilltop citadel of the community, and a doubleharbor. The inner harbor could accommodate up to 220warships. A watchtower allowed surveillance of the sur-

rounding area, and high walls made it impossible to seein from the outside. The outer commercial harbor wasfilled with docks for merchant ships and shipyards. Incase of attack, the harbor could be closed off by a hugeiron chain.

Government offices ringed a large central squarewhere magistrates heard legal cases outdoors. The innercity was a maze of narrow, winding streets, multistoryapartment buildings, and sacred enclosures. Farther outwas a sprawling suburban district where the wealthybuilt spacious villas amid fields and vegetable gardens.This entire urban complex was enclosed by a wall 22 miles(35 kilometers) in length.

With a population of roughly 400,000, Carthage wasone of the largest cities in the world by 500 B.C.E. Thepopulation was ethnically diverse, including people ofPhoenician stock, indigenous peoples likely to havebeen the ancestors of modern-day Berbers, and immi-grants from other Mediterranean lands and sub-Saharan

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Africa. Contrary to the story of Dido’s reluctance to re-marry, Phoenicians intermarried quite readily with otherpeoples.

Each year two “judges” were elected from upper-class families to serve as heads of state and carry out ad-ministrative and judicial functions. The real seat ofpower was the Senate, where members of the leadingmerchant families, who sat for life, formulated policyand directed the affairs of the state. An inner circle ofthirty or so senators made the crucial decisions. Fromtime to time the leadership convened an Assembly of thecitizens to elect public officials or vote on important is-sues, particularly when the leaders were divided orwanted to stir up popular enthusiasm for some venture.

Carthaginian power rested on its navy, which domi-nated the western Mediterranean for centuries. Phoe-nician towns provided a chain of friendly ports. TheCarthaginian fleet consisted of fast, maneuverablegalleys—oared warships. A galley had a sturdy, pointedram in front that could pierce the hull of an enemy vesselbelow the water line, while marines (soldiers aboard aship) fired weapons. Innovations in the placement ofbenches and oars made room for 30, 50, and eventuallyas many as 170 rowers.

Carthaginian foreign policy reflected its economicinterests. Protection of the sea lanes, access to raw mate-rials, and fostering trade mattered most to the dominantmerchant class. Indeed, Carthage claimed the waters ofthe western Mediterranean as its own. Foreign merchantswere free to sail to Carthage to market their goods, but ifthey tried to operate on their own, they risked havingtheir ships sunk by the Carthaginian navy. Treaties be-tween Carthage and other states included formal recog-nition of this maritime commercial monopoly.

The archaeological record provides few clues aboutthe commodities traded by the Carthaginians. Com-merce may have included perishable goods—foodstuffs,textiles, animal skins, slaves—and raw metals such as sil-ver, lead, iron, and tin, whose Carthaginian origin wouldnot be evident. We know that Carthaginian ships carriedgoods manufactured elsewhere and that productsbrought to Carthage by foreign traders were reexported.

There is also evidence for trade with sub-SaharanAfrica. Hanno˚, a Carthaginian captain of the fifth cen-tury B.C.E., claimed to have sailed through the Strait ofGibraltar into the Atlantic Ocean and to have exploredthe West African coast (see Map 3.5). Other Carthaginiansexplored the Atlantic coast of Spain and France and se-cured control of an important source of tin in the “TinIslands,” probably Cornwall in southwestern England.

Unlike Assyria, Carthage didnot directly rule a large amountof territory. A belt of fertile land

in northeastern Tunisia, worked by native peasants andimported slaves, provided a secure food supply. Beyondthis core area the Carthaginians ruled most of their“empire” indirectly, and allowed other Phoenician com-munities in the western Mediterranean to remain inde-pendent. These Phoenician communities looked toCarthage for military protection and followed its lead inforeign policy. Only Sardinia and southern Spain wereput under the direct control of a Carthaginian governorand garrison, presumably to safeguard their agricultural,metal, and manpower resources.

Carthage’s focus on trade may explain the unusualfact that citizens were not required to serve in the army:they were of more value in other capacities, such as trad-ing activities and the navy. Since the indigenous NorthAfrican population was not politically or militarily wellorganized, Carthage had little to fear from potential ene-mies close to home. When Carthage was drawn into a se-ries of wars with the Greeks and Romans from the fifththrough third centuries B.C.E., it relied on mercenariesfrom the most warlike peoples in its dominions or fromneighboring areas—Numidians from North Africa, Iberi-ans from Spain, Gauls from France, and various Italianpeoples. These well-paid mercenaries were under thecommand of Carthaginian officers.

Carthaginian religion fascinated Greek and Romanwriters. Like the deities of Mesopotamia (see Chapter 1),the gods of the Carthaginians—chief among them BaalHammon˚, a male storm-god, and Tanit˚, a female fertil-ity figure—were powerful and capricious entities whohad to be appeased by anxious worshipers. Romansources report that members of the Carthaginian elitewould sacrifice their own male children in times of crisis.Excavations at Carthage and other western Phoeniciantowns have turned up tophets˚—walled enclosureswhere thousands of small, sealed urns containing theburned bones of children lay buried. Although somescholars argue that these were infants born prematurelyor taken by childhood illnesses, most maintain that thewestern Phoenicians practiced child sacrifice on a moreor less regular basis. Originally practiced by the upperclasses, child sacrifice seems to have become more com-mon and to have involved broader elements of the pop-ulation after 400 B.C.E.

War and Religion


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Failure and Transformation, 750–550 b.c.e. 85

FAILURE AND TRANSFORMATION,750–550 B.C.E.

The extension of Assyrian power over the entire MiddleEast had enormous consequences for all the peoples

of this region and caused the stories of Mesopotamia, Is-rael, and Phoenicia to converge.

By 650 B.C.E. Assyria stood unchallenged in westernAsia. But the arms race with Urartu, the frequent expen-sive campaigns, and the protection of lengthy bordershad sapped Assyrian resources. Assyrian brutality andexploitation aroused the hatred of conquered peoples.At the same time, changes in the ethnic composition ofthe army and the population of the homeland had re-duced popular support for the Assyrian state.

Two new political entities spearheaded resistance toAssyria. First, Babylonia had been revived by the Neo-Babylonian, or Chaldaean˚, dynasty (the Chaldaeans

had infiltrated southern Mesopotamia around 1000B.C.E.). Second, the Medes˚, an Iranian people, wereextending their kingdom eastward across the IranianPlateau in the seventh century B.C.E. The two powerslaunched a series of attacks on the Assyrian homelandthat destroyed the chief cities by 612 B.C.E.

The rapidity of the Assyrian fall is stunning. The de-struction systematically carried out by the victoriousattackers led to the depopulation of northern Meso-potamia. Two centuries later, when a corps of Greekmercenaries passed by mounds that concealed the ruinsof the Assyrian capitals, the Athenian chronicler Xeno-phon˚ had no inkling that their empire had ever existed.

The Medes took over the Assyrian homeland and thenorthern steppe as far as eastern Anatolia, but most ofthe territory of the old empire fell to the Neo-Babyloniankingdom (626–539 B.C.E.), thanks to the energetic cam-paigns of kings Nabopolassar˚ (r. 625–605 B.C.E.) and

Chaldaean (chal-DEE-uhn)Mede (MEED) Xenophon (ZEN-uh-fahn)Nabopolassar (NAB-oh-poe-lass-uhr)

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Nebuchadnezzar (r. 604–562 B.C.E.). Babylonia under-went a cultural renaissance. The city of Babylon was en-larged and adorned, becoming the greatest metropolisof the world in the sixth century B.C.E. Old cults were re-vived, temples rebuilt, festivals resurrected. The relatedpursuits of mathematics, astronomy, and astrologyreached new heights.

CONCLUSION

This chapter traces developments in the Middle Eastand the Mediterranean from 2000 to 500 B.C.E. The

patterns of culture that originated in the river-valley civ-ilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia persisted into thisera. Peoples such as the Amorites, Kassites, and Chal-daeans, who migrated into the Tigris-Euphrates plain,were largely assimilated into the Sumerian-Semitic cul-tural tradition, adopting the language, religious beliefs,political and social institutions, and forms of artistic ex-pression. Similarly, the Hyksos, who migrated into theNile Delta and controlled much of Egypt for a time,adopted the ancient ways of Egypt. When the founders ofthe New Kingdom finally ended Hyksos domination,they reinstituted the united monarchy and the religiousand cultural traditions of earlier eras.

Yet the Middle East was in many important respects adifferent place after 2000 B.C.E. New centers of politicaland economic power had emerged—the Elamites insouthwest Iran, the Assyrians in northern Mesopotamia,Urartu in present-day Armenia, the Hittites of Anatolia,and the Minoan and Mycenaean peoples of the AegeanSea. These new centers often borrowed heavily from thetechnologies and cultural practices of Mesopotamia andEgypt, creating dynamic syntheses of imported and in-digenous elements. The entire Middle East was drawn to-gether by networks of trade and diplomacy, a situationthat provided general stability and raised the standard ofliving for many. Ultimately, though, the very interdepen-dence of these societies made them vulnerable to the de-structions and disorder of the decades around 1200 B.C.E.The entire region slipped into a “Dark Age” of isolation,stagnation, and decline that lasted several centuries.

The early centuries after 1000 B.C.E. saw a resurgenceof political organization and international commerce,and the spread of technologies and ideas. The Neo-Assyrian Empire, the great power of the time, repre-sented a continuation of the Mesopotamian tradition,though the center of empire moved to the north. Israeland Phoenicia, on the other hand, reflected the influ-ence of Mesopotamia and Egypt but also evolved dis-tinctive cultural traditions.

Throughout this era people were on the move,sometimes voluntarily and sometimes under compul-sion. The Assyrians deported large numbers of prisonersof war from outlying subject territories to the core area innorthern Mesopotamia. The Phoenicians left their over-populated homeland to establish new settlements inNorth Africa, Spain, and islands off the coast of Italy. Intheir new homes the Phoenician colonists tried to dupli-cate familiar ways of life from the old country. In con-trast, the Israelites who settled in Canaan and, at a latertime, emigrated to the Diaspora underwent significantpolitical, social, and cultural transformations as theyadapted to new zones of settlement.

■ Key TermsIron Age mass deportation

Hittites Library of Ashurbanipal

Hatshepsut Israel

Akhenaten Hebrew Bible

Ramesses II First Temple

Minoan monotheism

Mycenae Diaspora

shaft graves Phoenicians

Linear B Carthage

Neo-Assyrian Empire Neo-Babylonian kingdom

■ Suggested ReadingFundamental for all periods in the ancient Middle East is JackM. Sasson, ed., Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, 4 vols.(1995), containing nearly two hundred articles by contempo-rary experts and bibliography on a wide range of topics. JohnBoardman, I. E. S. Edwards, N. G. L. Hammond, and E. Soll-berger, The Cambridge Ancient History, 2d ed., vols. 3.1–3.3(1982–1991), provides extremely detailed historical coverage ofthe entire Mediterranean and western Asia. Barbara Lesko, ed.,Women’s Earliest Records: From Ancient Egypt and Western Asia(1989), is a collection of papers on the experiences of women inthe ancient Middle East.

Many of the books recommended in the Suggested Reading listfor Chapter 1 are useful for Mesopotamia, Syria, and Egypt inthe Late Bronze Age. In addition, see Miriam Lichtheim, An-cient Egyptian Literature: A Book of Readings, vol. 2, The NewKingdom (1978); Donald B. Redford, Egypt, Canaan, and Israelin Ancient Times (1992), which explores the relations of Egyptwith the Syria-Palestine region in this period; Erik Hornung,Akhenaten and the Religion of Light (1999), which, while focus-ing on the religious innovations, deals with many facets of thereign of Akhenaten; Karol Mysliwiec, The Twilight of AncientEgypt: First Millennium B.C.E. (2000), which traces the story ofEgyptian civilization after the New Kingdom; and H. W. F. Saggs,Babylonians (1995), which devotes several chapters to thismore thinly documented epoch in the history of southern


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Conclusion 87

Mesopotamia. The most up-to-date treatment of the Hittitescan be found in Trevor Boyce, The Kingdom of the Hittites(1998) and Life and Society in the Hittite World (2002). Also use-ful are O. R. Gurney, The Hittites, 2d ed., rev. (1990), and J. G.Macqueen, The Hittites and Their Contemporaries in Asia Mi-nor (1975).

R. A. Higgins, The Archaeology of Minoan Crete (1973) and Mi-noan and Mycenaean Art, new rev. ed. (1997); Rodney Castle-den, Minoans: Life in Bronze Age Crete (1990); J. Walter Graham,The Palaces of Crete (1987); O. Krzyszkowska and L. Nixon, Mi-noan Society (1983); and N. Marinatos, Minoan Religion (1993),examine the archaeological evidence for the Minoan civiliza-tion. The brief discussion of M. I. Finley, Early Greece: TheBronze and Archaic Ages (1970), and the much fuller accountsof Emily Vermeule, Greece in the Bronze Age (1972), and J. T.Hooker, Mycenaean Greece (1976), are still useful treatments ofMycenaean Greece, based primarily on archaeological evi-dence. Robert Drews, The Coming of the Greeks: Indo-EuropeanConquests in the Aegean and the Near East (1988), examines theevidence for the earliest Greeks. For the Linear B tablets seeJohn Chadwick, Linear B and Related Scripts (1987) and TheMycenaean World (1976). J. V. Luce, Homer and the Heroic Age(1975), and Carol G. Thomas, Myth Becomes History: Pre-ClassicalGreece (1993), examine the usefulness of the Homeric poemsfor reconstructing the Greek past. For the disruptions and de-structions of the Late Bronze Age in the eastern Mediterranean,see N. K. Sandars, The Sea Peoples: Warriors of the AncientMediterranean (1978), and Trude Dothan and Moshe Dothan,People of the Sea: The Search for the Philistines (1992).

For general history and cultural information about the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Mesopotamia, and western Asia in the firsthalf of the first millennium B.C.E. see Michael Roaf, Cultural Atlasof Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East (1990); Amelie Kuhrt,The Ancient Near East, c. 3000–300 B.C. (1995); H. W. F. Saggs,Civilization Before Greece and Rome (1989); and A. BernardKnapp, The History and Culture of Ancient Western Asia andEgypt (1988). H. W. F. Saggs, Babylonians (1995), has coverage ofthe fate of the old centers in southern Mesopotamia during thisera in which the north attained dominance. Primary texts intranslation for Assyria and other parts of western Asia can befound in James B. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts Re-lating to the Old Testament, 3d ed. (1969). Jeremy Black andAnthony Green, Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Meso-potamia: An Illustrated Dictionary (1992), is valuable for reli-gious concepts, institutions, and mythology. Julian Reade,Assyrian Sculpture (1983), provides a succinct introduction tothe informative relief sculptures from the Assyrian palaces. J. E.Curtis and J. E. Reade, eds., Art and Empire: Treasures from As-syria in the British Museum (1995), relates the art to manyfacets of Assyrian life. Andre Parrot, The Arts of Assyria (1961),provides full coverage of all artistic media.

For general historical introductions to ancient Israel seeMichael Grant, The History of Israel (1984); J. Maxwell Miller and

John H. Hayes, A History of Ancient Israel and Judah (1986); andJ. Alberto Soggin, A History of Israel: From the Beginnings to theBar Kochba Revolt, A.D. 135 (1984). Amnon Ben-Tor, The Archae-ology of Ancient Israel (1991), and Amihai Mazar, Archaeology ofthe Land of the Bible, 10,000–586 B.C.E. (1990), provide overviewsof the discoveries of archaeological excavation in Israel. WilliamG. Dever, What Did the Biblical Writers Know, and When DidThey Know It? What Archaeology Can Tell Us About the Reality ofAncient Israel (2001), and B. J. S. Isserlin, The Israelites (2001),both review the archaeological evidence and take moderate po-sitions in the heated debate about the value of the biblical textfor reconstructing the history of Israel. Hershel Shanks, Jeru-salem, an Archaeological Biography (1995), explores the longand colorful history of the city. For social and economic issuessee Shunya Bendor, The Social Structure of Ancient Israel: The In-stitution of the Family (beit ‘ab) from the Settlement to the End ofthe Monarchy (1996), and Moses Aberbach, Labor, Crafts andCommerce in Ancient Israel (1994). Carol Meyers, DiscoveringEve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context (1998), carefully siftsthrough literary and archaeological evidence to reach a bal-anced assessment of the position of women in the period beforethe monarchy. Victor H. Matthews, The Social World of the He-brew Prophets (2001), provides social and historical contexts forall the prophets. For the Philistines see Trude Dothan, ThePhilistines and Their Material Culture (1982).

Glenn Markoe, Phoenicians (2000), Sabatino Moscati, The Phoe-nicians (1988), and Gerhard Herm, The Phoenicians: The PurpleEmpire of the Ancient World (1975), are general introductions tothe Phoenicians in their homeland. Maria Eugenia Aubet, ThePhoenicians and the West: Politics, Colonies and Trade (2001), isan insightful investigation of the dynamics of Phoenician ex-pansion into the western Mediterranean. Lionel Casson, TheAncient Mariners: Seafarers and Sea Fighters of the Mediter-ranean in Ancient Times, 2d ed. (1991), 75–79, discusses the de-sign of warships and merchant vessels. For Carthage see SergeLancel, Carthage: A History (1995), and David Soren, Aicha BenAbed Ben Khader, and Hedi Slim, Carthage: Uncovering theMysteries and Splendors of Ancient Tunisia (1990). Aicha BenAbed Ben Khader and David Soren, Carthage: A Mosaic ofAncient Tunisia (1987), includes articles by American andTunisian scholars as well as the catalog of a museum exhibi-tion. R. C. C. Law, “North Africa in the Period of Phoenician andGreek Colonization, c. 800 to 323 B.C.,” Chapter 2 in The Cam-bridge History of Africa, vol. 2 (1978), places the history ofCarthage in an African perspective.

Elizabeth Wayland Barber, Women’s Work: The First 20,000Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times (1994), is an in-triguing account of textile manufacture in antiquity, with em-phasis on the social implications and primary role of women.I. Irving Ziderman, “Seashells and Ancient Purple Dyeing,” Bib-lical Archaeologist 53 (June 1990): 98–101, is a convenient sum-mary of Phoenician purple-dyeing technology.

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DOCUMENT 5Artist’s Rendering of Solomon’s Jerusalem (photo, p. 77)

DOCUMENT 6An Israelite Prophet Chastizes the Ruling Class (Diversityand Dominance, pp. 78–79)

What is the tone of Document 6? How does thedocument’s tone help you to determine its point ofview? What additional types of documents wouldhelp you understand the power of the ruling classin ancient Egypt, Greece, and Israel?

Document-Based QuestionThe Power of the Ruling Classin Ancient Egypt, Greece, and IsraelUsing the following documents, analyze the variousways ruling classes demonstrated power in ancientEgypt, Greece, and Israel.

DOCUMENT 1The Mortuary Temple of Queen Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahri, Egypt, ca. 1460 B.C.E (photo, p. 59)

DOCUMENT 2Colossal Statues of Ramesses II at Abu Simbel (photo, p. 65)

DOCUMENT 3Fresco from the Aegean Island of Thera, ca. 1600 B.C.E.(photo, p. 68)

DOCUMENT 4Lion Gate at Mycenae (photo, p. 69)

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Ch3

Documents

Transcript of Ch3