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The world, when Thera erupted

View from northwest (about 15 miles wide) [pic source]

The most spectacular event of the 2nd millennium BC was the eruption of Thera c1628 BC. This page will attempt a snapshot of the world at that moment: the end of the Middle Bronze Age. [info] [weblog]

narrative

info ditto [pix]

eruption: geology

huge crater already before 1628: maps

Thera (Santorini): now [pic]

Crete: effects, overview

cannibalism? evidence

dating: debate, tree rings, etc, ditto, papers

first palaces built c2000-1900 (approx time of first longships with sails), destroyed by earthquake c1700 but rebuilt, unaffected by Thera c1628, Mycenean takeover?, decline c1450?

Crete is mentioned as 'Keftiu' (Egypt) or 'Caphtor' or 'Kaptara' (Mari) [dress]

Minoan culture: info, multipage, ditto, dress, strata, art [pix] ditto ditto ditto ditto; origins

"A sword, found in the palace of Mallia and dated to the Middle Minoan period (2000-1600 BC), is an example of the extraordinary skill of the Cretan metalworker in casting bronze. The hilt of the sword is of gold-plated ivory and crystal." [cite]

Was Minoan culture just a Bronze-Age Playboy club?

• balmy climate
• centrally located within eastern-Med trading area
• a hell of a moat, for self-defense!
• 'palaces' have up to 1400 rooms, centered on community space
• many palaces at once contradicts normal hierarchy-pattern
• 'villas' resemble vacation homes
• art avoids political/military themes
• sport: boxing, bull-vaulting
• weapons are ceremonial
• marionette theater? [info]
• statues show women performing with snakes
• women normally pictured in dresses that bare their breasts
• Crete later displayed unusual tolerance for homosexuality
• gambling: bejewelled Knossos board-game (Evans called it the most magnificent artifact of all) [info] Millia table? [pic]
• intoxicants: wine; opium-poppies featured in art
• possible shuttle to (from?) north Africa (hunting? Egyptian clientele?)
• Eleusinian Mysteries attributed to early Myceneans [info]

(sound like the Illuminati? theory)

double-axe ('labrys' in Carian) symbol: archeology $49

Aegean: multipage [map] islands near Troy

Phaistos (or Phaestos) disk: probably funeral psalm of King Arion c1800 from islands near Troy [basic info] [detailed drawing] [transcript] theories/links

Linear A: Faucounau

Troy: info

Arzawa (west Anatolian coast, aka Luwiya): [info] (spoke IE Luwian, resisted Hittites) Southwestern Anatolian culture had declined c2000 [cite]

c1900 BC, a 700 mile traderoute over the Taurus mountains between Kanesh in eastern Anatolia and Assur in Assyria took a donkey caravan two months. Each donkey could carry 200 pounds of tin and textiles from Assur (returning with copper). Assyria was trying to control the trade, and punished smugglers. [Kanesh archives]

Mycenean culture: info [pix] ditto

Achaeans: [brief] seem to appear in Hittite records as 'Ahhiyawa' c1450

Egyptian influence on Greece ('Black Athena' theory): summary

Indo-European diaspora: multipage

alphabet: debate

trade: amber, gold, copper, tin, furs, wine, olive oil, ivory, ostrich eggs, gypsum, lapis lazuli, carnelian, andesite, obsidian, coriander, frankincense, myrrh, pottery, seals, carved ivories, textiles, furniture, stone and metal vessels, weaponry, flax, hides, wool [cite]

tin becomes plentiful (source unknown): [cite]

ships: theory [pix] 1300 wreck, 1200 wreck

Sea Peoples: map, toys

Malta: passim

Balkans: map

Bulgaria: info

Croatia: pix

Serbia: Otomani [info] [stratig]

north of Black Sea: Catacomb Grave Culture replaced by Timber Grave Culture, nomadic horsemen who may have spoken proto-Iranian [cite] [timeline] (Potapovka culture?) [burials]

Ural steppes: Petrov culture [artifacts]

hemp-smoking [passim]

shirts have sleeves

Italy: brief

Europe: archeology, Central, migrations, weapons

salt-mining in Austria? [cite]

Hungary: [pots]

Uneticians (Prague) master bronze [cite]

Netherlands: links

English Channel: ferry

Beaker People (Rhineland): [info] [pix] (Britain): [info] [info] copper mining

England: info&pix [clothes] [swords]

Stonehenge was built around 2200 BC [info]

Scotland: offshore hamlet buried by sandstorm; 82 fifty-ton bluestones transported over a distance of over 200 miles; Flanged-Axe Warrior culture; new copper mine [info]

Ireland: [basics]

Celtic: culture

Denmark: clothing

Sweden: info; pix

Scandinavia: ships

Wacky theory that the Iliad happened in the Baltic region. Baltic map

northern trade routes: project

amber arrived in the Aegean c1700 BC from the Baltic, probably by sea [cite]

general traderoutes: website

Mideast: [archeology] emergence of chariot warfare (goes back to 2500 in Ur) metalwork; mining [dealer]

There had been a generally catastrophic drought between 2200 and 2000 BC. [BBC] Even the Cycladic islands were deserted! [passim] Also, between 1550 and 1500 there's a lack of historical documents, probably associated with widespread destruction of mideast cities. This is usually credited to Pharaoh Ahmose, but the evidence doesn't support this.

Hittites: [info] ditto [language] [artifacts] [links]

Hittites = Indo-European 'Nesa' ruling over non-IE Hattics

King in 1628 was possibly Hattusili I (aka Labarna II) [list] who moved capital from Kussara to Hattusa (50 miles west), and who attacked Aleppo

Hittite occupations: stonemason, merchant, physician, scribe, basketmaker, cobbler, weaver, potter, priest

Palace frescoes at Ugarit, Mari, and Alalakh show Minoan influence

Surviving Ugarit archives from 1425-1190 written bilingually in Akkadian and Ugaritic (semitic)

Canaan: info, trade, warfare, family, individuality, burial, proto-alphabet, farms, wine and olive oil, bread, weaving, jewelry, animals, pottery, imitation, storage; glossary

Gods: El and Asherah; temples

Ancestors of the Israelites were probably seminomadic herders of sheep and goats, but at the moment some 40,000 are settled in 200 villages (disrupted c1550); the taboo on pork will emerge by 1150. [tbu114]

Egyptian courtier Sinuhe hides out with Canaanites [autobiog]

Egypt: [EB] Hyksos dynasties: 13th and 14th fell in 1649 [info] alabaster jugs; arrival of one-person vertical loom

At the height of their power c1580, the Hyksos capital at Avaris received tribute: "hundreds of ships of fresh cedar filled with gold, lapis, silver, turquoise, bronze axes, moringa oil, fat, honey, willow, boxwood... all the fine products of Syria" (via Kamose, last pharaoh of the 17th dynasty)

The Rhind Mathematical Papyrus dates from around 1550 [info] [big gif]

An alabaster jar found at Knossos had the name of Hyksos pharaoh Khiyan.

gold-mining? [19th dynasty]

Kerma (east Africa): [pix] Kemet [pix]

Sahara: brutal warming since 2000 [cite] sorghum domesticated at Adrar Bous

Kenya: domesticated cattle and goats

west Africa: Dhar Tichitt: cattle, goats, fish, wild 'kram-kram'

Babylonia = old Sumer (south) + old Akkad (north) [cite] exports wool, dates, cereals ethics&history, map&etexts [pix]

beer recipe, more

trade-routes: Euphrates navigable for 1200 miles, vessels were inspected in north Babylonia

A 'mina' of silver or gold was Hammurabi's unit of value. Slaves were valued lower than freed men, who were lower than free-born men:

24: State pays 1-mina silver compensation for kidnapped relative
59: Trees valued at half-mina (unspecified metal)
114: For impersonating a creditor, fined one-third silver
116: Wrongful death of imprisoned slave, one-third gold
139: Annulled marriage, one gold
140: Ditto one-third, if he (?!) wasn't free-born
156: Seduction of maiden, one-half gold
198: Poking out eye or breaking bone, one gold
199: Ditto for slave, half slave's value
201: Knocking out teeth, one-third gold
203-04: Striking another's body, one gold (ten shekels if freed)
207-08: Accidental death, one-half (unspecified; one-third if freed)
209-13: Miscarriage by violence, ten shekels (freed five, slave two)
212-14: Striking pregnant woman who dies (half-mina freed, third slave)
241: Oxnapping, one-third mina
251-52: Untended ox murders human, half-mina (third for slave)

Hammurabi insists a trader repay his investor double if the trade falls thru (more if it succeeds). Slaves were captured in the north, northwest, and the Zagros mountains. Deforestation (especially to fuel smelting) was starting to be a problem.

conversion of different countries' units may have ben standardised [report]

Ammisaduqa (c1646-1626) successor to Hammurabi [qv-code] enacts widespread debt-relief [EB]

Babylonian compass-points: N = Subarians, S = Sumerians, W = Amorites (Amurru), E = Elamites

Assyria: enduring dynasty at Ashur [EB] marriage contract divorce

Indo-Iranian language groups not yet split, migrating down east side of Caspian Sea [cite] (Indo-Aryan branch composed Rig Veda in Vedic Sanskrit sometime later?)

Kassites: [EB] [EB] [pic] (horses sacred)

Mitanni (aka Hurri, Hanigalbat, Naharina): [info] [map]

Hurrians: [EB] info, Urkesh

Hurrians had been migrating since 2000, maybe from the Zagros region, attested by their names only, and now made up 30-50% of Alalakh. (Surviving tablets c1450 show Hurrian dominance.) Their language was neither IE nor semitic. Around 1600 they may have accepted an Indo-Aryan aristocracy, who included Mithra, Indra, and Varuna in their prayers. By 1530 they had formed the Mitanni kingdom.

Indo-European Luwians ruled over non-IE Hurrians?

occupations: scribes, chariot-builders, leather-workers, farmers, fisherman, weavers, and musicians

Ritual ingestion of hemp-plus-ephedra and poppy-plus-ephedra c2000 in Bactria-Margiana [info] The later 'soma' of the Indo-Iranians was probably harmel-plus-ephedra. [debate] (Ephedra is the stimulant in 'Herbal Ecstasy', and 'Sudafed' is a derivative.)

Central Asia: [map]

Bactria-Margiana: info [pic]

Western Siberia: Tashkovo/Krotovo cultures [passim]

Asiatic steppe: Petrovka-Sintashta culture of Andronovo [abstract] more

Indus valley: cities abandoned as river changes course [info] use of sintered quartz for cheap seals (Indo-Aryan branch composed Rig Veda in Vedic Sanskrit sometime later? cite) [info]

Asia: silk trade?

Loulan mummies, probably migrated from Bactria-Margiana: [info&pix] [info] ditto [pix]

China: Shang dynasty started 1766? [ethics]

cannibis used medicinally in China pre-2000

Links: AWW; toys; mining/metals; images; timeline

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