Iron Age myths about the Bronze Age Collapse?

[Geriander]

Instead of another thread discussing what really caused the Bronze Age Collapse in the Eastern Mediterranean or who the Sea Peoples were, I am looking for the stories told by the people who came afterwards about the collapse. Living among the ruins of advanced civilizations, I would imagine that the Iron Age cultures would come up with explanations of what happened that would then turn into myths.

For the Greeks there is the end of the age of heroes starting with the Trojan War as well as the return of the sons of Herakles (the Dorian invasion). I can't find any Greek writers giving similar accounts for the other areas affected by the collapse though.

The Hebrews take credit for a lot of the local destruction themselves following their return to Canaan from Egypt at the approximate time of the collapse.

Are there any other Iron Age accounts that seek to explain all or part of the collapse? I would have expected such dramatic and widespread destruction to be good fodder for storytellers but there doesn't seem to be much recorded.

 

[Graf Zeppelin]

Wouldnt that whole Atlantis thing fit ?

 

[diegosimeone]

Wouldnt that whole Atlantis thing fit ?

That what said to be around 9 thousand years before the Trojan war, so in short, no. That'd be more of an Ice Age thing.

For the Greeks I think the most accurate historic landmark would be the Thera eruption. Or Minoan Eruption as they call it in English mostly.

The Dorian descent (and not invasion) does not have much to do with the change of the world, which I assume is what you're looking for here in terms of the transition of eras.

The Dorians were living in the north of the Hellenic regions (Epirus, Macedon, Thessaly) and their descent to the Peloponnese brought us the Spartans a few other not so important poleis. It is also called a 'return', because it was alleged that Heracles was from further south himself (Thebes of Boetia, just north of Athens). The invasion part is pretty much the origins story of Sparta.

 

[Geriander]

The Dorians were living in the north of the Hellenic regions (Epirus, Macedon, Thessaly) and their descent to the Peloponnese brought us the Spartans a few other not so important poleis. It is also called a 'return', because it was alleged that Heracles was from further south himself (Thebes of Boetia, just north of Athens). The invasion part is pretty much the origins story of Sparta.

I know that the ”invasion” part is a 19th century interpretation and that it has not been confirmed if either an invasion or a more peaceful migration of Dorians actually happened. The return of the Heracleids is commonly linked to the apparent cultural break of the Greek Dark age but perhaps the Greeks themselves didn’t make this connection?

Are there any myths explaining why Mycenae was abandoned in classical times? I know that the royal family was said to be cursed for matricide but I’m not sure if that was supposed to be an explanation for the fall of the city.

 

[diegosimeone]

The Greeks were unaware of any "dark ages" period. In Greek that period is actually called the Geometric period due to the vast advances in mathematics.

I'll respond to your other question when I have more time.

 

[Geriander]

In Greek that period is actually called the Geometric period due to the vast advances in mathematics.
.

Source? From what I can find ”Geometric period” refers to the geometric patterns on the pottery. With no written records it would be hard to say if there were advances in mathematics.

 

[diegosimeone]

Source? From what I can find ”Geometric period” refers to the geometric patterns on the pottery. With no written records it would be hard to say if there were advances in mathematics.

Indeed pottery, weapons, arts etc. But also writing(birth of Greek alphabet, which is also numerical) .

As for math advances. Designing different spherical shapes and other shapes was part of it of course. Doesn't mean that it was a celebrated event, but that's where math and logic application was used for more things that were used in everday life, as opposed to only using whatever knowledge there was on building weapons or ships.

I wasn't implying math schools popped out, there's hardly any written evidence about most things back then.

 

[Geriander]

Indeed pottery, weapons, arts etc. But also writing(birth of Greek alphabet, which is also numerical) .

As for math advances. Designing different spherical shapes and other shapes was part of it of course. Doesn't mean that it was a celebrated event, but that's where math and logic application was used for more things that were used in everday life, as opposed to only using whatever knowledge there was on building weapons or ships.

The adaption of the Phonecian alphabet in the 8th century is later than the ”dark age”. The term is applied to the previous centuries back to the last surviving use of Linear B. Thales of Miletus and the great Greek advances in math came two centuries later.

 

[diegosimeone]

The adaption of the Phonecian alphabet in the 8th century is later than the ”dark age”. The term is applied to the previous centuries back to the last surviving use of Linear B. Thales of Miletus and the great Greek advances in math came two centuries later.

Linear B says hello. You're telling me that people forgot how to write and then had to wait for 3 centuries to find means of script? It's not like Greeks were isolated in one part of the world, they had variations of these scripts used all around. Just like the Linear A and then the Cypriot Syllabary, both of which share many elements. As does the later Greek(Ionian) alphabet, which people love to call Phoenician for some odd revisionist reason, as if there was any nation of people named the Phoenicians ever recorded in history. Just like the Euboean alphabet is pretty much the one we're using now, which was also used at the same time as others. It's not an odd thing to see when it came to ancient Greece. Herodotus talks about the Gephyraioi, even Will Durant speaks of the Greek influence in the lands of Phoenicia before the so called import of the alphabet.

We're also talking about the Geometric period here, the so called 'Dark Ages', which spans from 1050BC to around 700 BCE. Which also includes the birth of the modern Greek alphabet. No one is talking about Thales. I said mathematical advances, I didn't say the birth of modern mathematics or logic. It's not like people had no idea of what mathematics were before this. The fact that this was called the 'geometric period', simply attests to this. It was a period where mathematics were applied to the daily lives of the people.
There's no need to be confused over such simple things.

As for descent vs invasion, sure, we cannot really know. But Greek history has written this as the 'descent' or 'return' of the people who came from those places. We all know it probably wasn't peaceful at all.

To answer simply to the OP once more, the Greeks had the 'geometric' period to attribute the change from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age and the main 'even't was the Thera eruption, or Minoan eruption.

 

[Arilou]

*sigh*

Linear B is not the predecessor of the modern greek alphabet. The phoenician alphabet (that is attested at writing the phoenician language, hence the name) is. Linear B works entirely differently and the characters are not precursors.

 

[Herbert West]

Diegosimeone is a greek nationalist, it's no use telling him that something wasnt invented by the Greeks

 

[Geriander]

as if there was any nation of people named the Phoenicians ever recorded in history.

"These are the researches of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, which he publishes, in the hope of thereby preserving from decay the remembrance of what men have done, and of preventing the great and wonderful actions of the Greeks and the Barbarians from losing their due meed of glory; and withal to put on record what were their grounds of feuds. According to the Persians best informed in history, the Phoenicians began to quarrel. This people, who had formerly dwelt on the shores of the Erythraean Sea, having migrated to the Mediterranean and settled in the parts which they now inhabit, began at once, they say, to adventure on long voyages, freighting their vessels with the wares of Egypt and Assyria. They landed at many places on the coast, and among the rest at Argos, which was then preeminent above all the states included now under the common name of Hellas. Here they exposed their merchandise, and traded with the natives for five or six days; at the end of which time, when almost everything was sold, there came down to the beach a number of women, and among them the daughter of the king, who was, they say, agreeing in this with the Greeks, Io, the child of Inachus. The women were standing by the stern of the ship intent upon their purchases, when the Phoenicians, with a general shout, rushed upon them. The greater part made their escape, but some were seized and carried off. Io herself was among the captives. The Phoenicians put the women on board their vessel, and set sail for Egypt. Thus did Io pass into Egypt, according to the Persian story, which differs widely from the Phoenician: and thus commenced, according to their authors, the series of outrages."

 

[diegosimeone]

Phoenicians, just like Thracians, or Gallic people or whatever other generic name, was used to describe various people living within an area. Phoenicia, Thrace and so on. It wasn't considered to be a collective nation of tribes. There sure was a few of them, but Phoenician did not refer to them solely. Greeks used regional adjectives for all 'barbarian' nations they met except Egypt which they considered a nation or some Empires, who were under the control of an emperor or an origin state.

Also, I find it odd that there's consensus belief that there existed a 'phoenician alphabet' and 'phoenician language', but no one really has ever found any 'phoenician literature', or even just something more than a couple of phrases... But when anyone suggests that archaeological evidence of Linear B, Cypro-Minoan, Cypriot Syllabary and others have been connected to Linear A, just like Evans did to an extent, it's crazy conspiracies... We have to accept that Linear B died, that the Cypriot Syllabary was restricted to Cyprus of all places since we accept that it had a continuous timeline until the Koine from 1100 BCE and that the rest of the Greeks had forgotten any earlier form of writing and had to import it from a place they had settled centuries earlier... Makes perfect sense, doesn't it? And it also makes perfect sense that the modern Greek alphabet and the Linear B are not related when in fact their letters are pretty similar altogether. We hate myths, but let's invent one for the Phoenicians who no one really knew who they were. Even with Carthage who've had something to offer, there's no origin stories of what their ancestors were like, but sure, let's make our own conclusions and cast away anyone who disagrees... Even the so called 'Sea Peoples' are considered to be of Phoenician descent. Just because it'd be cool I guess, since there's zero evidence on those people whatsoever.

It'd be cooler if you'd find the original text of Herodotus, not just a translations. Things get lost in translations.

Can you tell me how the Greeks called the Israelites/Hebrews and the Canaanites as well? Wasn't it...Phoenicians as well? (Sure, possibility Phoenicians and Canaanites were the same, but Israelites? Don't think so.)

 

[Geriander]

Phoenicians, just like Thracians, or Gallic people or whatever other generic name, was used to describe various people living within an area. Phoenicia, Thrace and so on. It wasn't considered to be a collective nation of tribes. There sure was a few of them, but Phoenician did not refer to them solely. Greeks used regional adjectives for all 'barbarian' nations they met except Egypt which they considered a nation or some Empires, who were under the control of an emperor or an origin state.

As you can see in the text I quoted above, Herodotus viewed Phoenicians as a people with a common origin story in having migrated from the Erythraean Sea(the Persian Gulf), rather than as separate peoples living in the same area. Like the Greeks they were often divided into city states when they weren't vassals to foreign empires but the surviving texts point to a similar language.

Also, I find it odd that there's consensus belief that there existed a 'phoenician alphabet' and 'phoenician language', but no one really has ever found any 'phoenician literature', or even just something more than a couple of phrases...

See the Ahiram sarcophagus, Çineköy inscription, Eshmunazar II sarcophagus, Pyrgi Tablets, etc.
As is the case for almost all Middle Eastern records that survive they are stone inscriptions or clay tablets. Litterature, if it existed, could have been written on material that doesn't survive without being repeatedly copied as is the case for most surviving Greek literature.

But when anyone suggests that archaeological evidence of Linear B, Cypro-Minoan, Cypriot Syllabary and others have been connected to Linear A, just like Evans did to an extent, it's crazy conspiracies... We have to accept that Linear B died, that the Cypriot Syllabary was restricted to Cyprus of all places since we accept that it had a continuous timeline until the Koine from 1100 BCE and that the rest of the Greeks had forgotten any earlier form of writing and had to import it from a place they had settled centuries earlier

The complexity of Linear B, as with cuneiform and hieroglyphs, limited its use to a specialist class of scribes. The archeological evidence from mainland Greece points to the destruction or abandonment of almost all Mycenaean palace centers by 1000 BC, a considerable drop in population and prosperity and small villages as the new polity. This social change would leave little employment for scribes in Linear B and if the occupation survived it was to such a small extent that no further works by them survive.

... Makes perfect sense, doesn't it? And it also makes perfect sense that the modern Greek alphabet and the Linear B are not related when in fact their letters are pretty similar altogether. We hate myths, but let's invent one for the Phoenicians who no one really knew who they were. Even with Carthage who've had something to offer, there's no origin stories of what their ancestors were like, but sure, let's make our own conclusions and cast away anyone who disagrees...

The development of the Phoenician alphabet can be traced back through the proto-Sinaitic script to Egyptian hieroglyphs. The first known text written in it is the Ahiram sarcophagus which predates any Greek use of an alphabet by centuries. Even the Greeks themselves knew that they got the alphabet from the Phoenicians (Herodotus again):

"The Phoenicians who came with Cadmus—amongst whom were the Gephyraei—introduced into Greece, after their settlement in the country, a number of accomplishments, of which the most important was writing, an art till then, I think, unknown to the Greeks. At first they [the Phoenicians] used the same characters as all the other Phoenicians, but as time went on, and they changed their language, they also changed the shape of their letters. At that period most of the Greeks in the neighbourhood were Ionians; they were taught these letters by the Phoenicians and adopted them, with a few alterations, for their own use, continuing to refer to them as the Phoenician characters—as was only right, as the Phoenicians had introduced them. The Ionians also call paper 'skins'—a survival from antiquity when paper was hard to get, and they did actually use goat and sheep skins to write on. Indeed, even today many foreign peoples use this material. In the temple of Ismenian Apollo at Theba in Boeotia I have myself seen cauldrons with inscriptions cut on them in Cadmean characters—most of them not very different from the Ionian."

Even the so called 'Sea Peoples' are considered to be of Phoenician descent. Just because it'd be cool I guess, since there's zero evidence on those people whatsoever.

The Phoenician culture predates the arrival of the "Sea Peoples" in Canaan by centuries. The Philistines to the south of them are commonly viewed as candidates for the Sea Peoples and there is even some evidence of them being Mycenaean.

It'd be cooler if you'd find the original text of Herodotus, not just a translations. Things get lost in translations.

I don't speak classical Greek so I am forced to rely on english translations. If you have contradictory translations I would be interested.

Can you tell me how the Greeks called the Israelites/Hebrews and the Canaanites as well? Wasn't it...Phoenicians as well? (Sure, possibility Phoenicians and Canaanites were the same, but Israelites? Don't think so.)

Hebrew is in the same Northwest Semitic subgroup of the language family as Phoenician so the cultures were related but distinct. The most common modern theory is that Israelite culture emerged among those Canaanites that settled in the inland region following the Bronze Age collapse. The Phoenicians along the coast to the northwest survived the collapse relatively intact.

Herodotus doesn't mention the Israelites at all and I can't find any example of him or any other Greek source referring to them as Phoenician. As minor inland kingdoms under the rule of Persia they would be of little interest to the Greeks compared to the Phoenicians who traded with them and competed as colonizers of the Mediterranean.

 

[diegosimeone]

The Gephyraioi, as Herodotus says a chapter before your quote, were a people who claimed to be from Eretria (Euboea, near Chalcis) and at the time was under Athens. He himself says he has other sources claiming that they were people from modern day Syria (though it is argued that he just figured that they were connected to those parts as a town there had the same name, Gephyrae). But in the same chapter he says that the same Gephyraioi people went to Athens and the Athenians greeted them as fellow citizens and treated them as such. Mind you that the Athenians were probably the most supremacist Hellenic nation of all time and would rarely accept anyone from the next village as their kin, let alone some people who travelled from the Middle East.

So basically Herodotus says that these Gephyraioi came from Phoenicia, with Cadmus, whose ethnicity is not specified but he seems to have connections to Boetia, and brought an alphabet with them. He doesn't say that some foreigners brought an alphabet. Herodotus is also rather lax when it comes to switching from fact to opinion to comparing sources. He was simply doing the latter here, but it seems that modern historians took that as a fact while they ignored all everything else.
And these are the same people who will say that Herodotus was not accurate, reliable or other things like that.

Yes, there's a notion that the so called Phoenicians may have derived from present day Bahrain. Still a rather unknown entity to attribute so much to them.


I just don't get the double standards when it comes to these historical conclusions. I like my story, it doesn't stand on two legs but I still like it, so whatever else you say is wrong unless you prove yours is 100% accurate. It's not like you get dibs on what history is. If something is clouded, it just is clouded and is open to interpretation. I cannot understand how conflicting statements can be ignored all the time just because it spoils a narrative.

As for the Israelites, they were simply part of that 'Pheonicians' reference. Of course you won't find them named anything else or anything distinct. As I said before, it was very rare in ancient Greece to refer to foreign tribes and only regions or empires were used for the most part.
Phoenicia was the Levant and anyone living in Phoenicia was a Phoenician. There were Greek Phoenicians as well. And Herodotus used the term ''ελλήσι" for 'Greeks' in that chapter. Usually means the people of mainland Greece and not a general term for Greeks. Though I concede that occassionally it was also used to distinguish between Greeks and ''barbarians'. Depends on the context and here is another one that's open to interpretation. Herodotus is quite vague with these things so there's no definite answer.

 

[Arilou]

Also, I find it odd that there's consensus belief that there existed a 'phoenician alphabet' and 'phoenician language', but no one really has ever found any 'phoenician literature', or even just something more than a couple of phrases... But when anyone suggests that archaeological evidence of Linear B, Cypro-Minoan, Cypriot Syllabary and others have been connected to Linear A, just like Evans did to an extent, it's crazy conspiracies...

Can you tell me how the Greeks called the Israelites/Hebrews and the Canaanites as well? Wasn't it...Phoenicians as well? (Sure, possibility Phoenicians and Canaanites were the same, but Israelites? Don't think so.)

There's plenty of phoenician (and proto-canaanite) inscriptions. And Hebrew is a closely related semitic language. (though the hebrew script starts becoming differentiated from the phoenician one pretty quickly)

The connection between Linear A and Linear B is somewhat disputed (though it's mostly *how* it's connected) but that has nothing to do with the connection between Linear B to the modern greek alphabet (the consensus is that they are unrelated as scripts, though obviously they are both used to transcribe greek)

"Phoenician" is indeed used to describe a series of different polities.

As is the case for almost all Middle Eastern records that survive they are stone inscriptions or clay tablets. Litterature, if it existed, could have been written on material that doesn't survive without being repeatedly copied as is the case for most surviving Greek literature.

Though it should be noted that we do have some literature, written in a precursor to the phoenician script: Ugaritic. (which is roughly contemporary to Linear B, but is much closer to the greek alphabet, being an abjad rather than a syllabary)

So basically Herodotus says that these Gephyraioi came from Phoenicia, with Cadmus, whose ethnicity is not specified but he seems to have connections to Boetia, and brought an alphabet with them. He doesn't say that some foreigners brought an alphabet. Herodotus is also rather lax when it comes to switching from fact to opinion to comparing sources. He was simply doing the latter here, but it seems that modern historians took that as a fact while they ignored all everything else.

No, they didn't. Herodatos is unreliable at best, especially for these things. He is only at best a tangential piece of supporting evidence: The linguistic continuity, the pretty clear development of alphabetic scripts through various inscriptions, etc, mentions in various other near eastern inscriptions and chronicles (including the hebrew bible)

 

[diegosimeone]

@Arilou
My main objection is that historians completely ignore, well, history.

They simply want to assume that Linear A, Linear B, things in between or after are unrelated and have cultivated a Phoenician myth based on this Herodotus quote which at best is badly translated and at worst, is taken completely out of context.

The Greek alphabet has 3 symbols that do not exist in the Phoenician. Φ, Ψ and another one, don't recall now, can be found in every alphabet used in the Hellenic world, from Linear A, to the Cypriot Syllabary, Linear B and any other unassigned one.

You can also find almost all other modern Greek symbols that way. I will make a file of all Greek letters before the modern alphabet and compare them together at some point.

I don't care if the Greek alphabet indeed came from the Levant or the Persian Gulf or Egypt or from the sky. What I do care about is being diligent with history. And right now we're ignoring clear cut facts just to accommodate something that we like to call a fact, based on something you also have called unreliable, and being able to read and understand the original texts I can tell you that even what you think you've read is actually something that has a different meaning.

There's no factual evidence to support this alphabet import. It may very well be a mixture of the Minoan or Mycenean settlers of Phoenicia that combined their own alphabet with the one the people there used. It is also plausible that they imported the alphabet and then it got imported back to the Hellenes after centuries.

As long as things are open to interpretation, calling one opinion as factual is plain wrong.

 

[diegosimeone]

Then there's also the Byblos Syllabary, which resembled the Linear A and B (mostly B) and could possibly be their ancestor or direct influence or just a contemporary method of script. At the same time, it was a direct influence on the Phoenician alphabet, or possibly its origin.

And other than some little bees, chicks and ducks, most symbols are very similar to the alphabets that followed from there.

 

[Geriander]

The Gephyraioi, as Herodotus says a chapter before your quote, were a people who claimed to be from Eretria (Euboea, near Chalcis) and at the time was under Athens. He himself says he has other sources claiming that they were people from modern day Syria (though it is argued that he just figured that they were connected to those parts as a town there had the same name, Gephyrae). But in the same chapter he says that the same Gephyraioi people went to Athens and the Athenians greeted them as fellow citizens and treated them as such. Mind you that the Athenians were probably the most supremacist Hellenic nation of all time and would rarely accept anyone from the next village as their kin, let alone some people who travelled from the Middle East.

So basically Herodotus says that these Gephyraioi came from Phoenicia, with Cadmus, whose ethnicity is not specified but he seems to have connections to Boetia, and brought an alphabet with them. He doesn't say that some foreigners brought an alphabet. Herodotus is also rather lax when it comes to switching from fact to opinion to comparing sources.

When dealing with ancient historians I tend to give the most credence to statements that their contemporary audience would know and the least to things the author himself would have no way of knowing. The most reliable part of the quoted text is therefore, in my opinion, the claim that Ionians continued to refer to the letters as Phoenician.

He was simply doing the latter here, but it seems that modern historians took that as a fact while they ignored all everything else.

And these are the same people who will say that Herodotus was not accurate, reliable or other things like that.

Historians are basing that claim on actual findings rather than on Herodotus. Deciphered texts in the Semitic Phoenician language predating any surviving use of an alphabet to write Greek by at least two hundred years. The characters show clear descent from the earlier Canaanite ones and the later Greek alphabet in turn shows descent from the Phoenician ones.

The story by Herodotus is simply corroboration that the Ionians still called their letters Phoenician by his time.

Yes, there's a notion that the so called Phoenicians may have derived from present day Bahrain. Still a rather unknown entity to attribute so much to them.

I don't think that the origin story is necessarily true. My point was the Herodotus and his contemporaries viewed the Phoenicians as a people with a common origin rather than as the "various people living within an area" that you claimed.

I just don't get the double standards when it comes to these historical conclusions. I like my story, it doesn't stand on two legs but I still like it, so whatever else you say is wrong unless you prove yours is 100% accurate. It's not like you get dibs on what history is. If something is clouded, it just is clouded and is open to interpretation. I cannot understand how conflicting statements can be ignored all the time just because it spoils a narrative.

The problem with your narrative is that it requires the following:

1) Greeks to have invented the alphabet prior to 1000 BC and taught it to the Phoenicians in time for them to use it on the Ahiram sarcophagus.

2) The similarities between Phoenician letters and proto-Canaanite to be coincidental.

3) The mainland Greeks then don't use this alphabet for two hundred years or do so to such a small extent that no evidence survives.

4) The Greeks on Cyprus don't use this alphabet either for that period and instead continue using a syllabary.

That historians instead prefer the narrative that the alphabet spread from where it was first recorded to where it was last recorded, is not a "double standard", it is simply the narrative with most proof.

As for the Israelites, they were simply part of that 'Pheonicians' reference. Of course you won't find them named anything else or anything distinct. As I said before, it was very rare in ancient Greece to refer to foreign tribes and only regions or empires were used for the most part.

I was mostly wondering if you have a reference to Greeks calling a person or place that we know to be Israelite "Phoenician".

Phoenicia was the Levant and anyone living in Phoenicia was a Phoenician. There were Greek Phoenicians as well. And Herodotus used the term ''ελλήσι" for 'Greeks' in that chapter. Usually means the people of mainland Greece and not a general term for Greeks. Though I concede that occassionally it was also used to distinguish between Greeks and ''barbarians'. Depends on the context and here is another one that's open to interpretation. Herodotus is quite vague with these things so there's no definite answer.

Fortunate that Herodotus isn't the main evidence for this claim then.

 

[diegosimeone]

The Phoenicians coexisted with Greeks on Cyprus. Not a common occurrence in mainland Greece or other islands.

You would expect more influence, including in the writing method, but this probably Minoan/Linear A derived method of expressing a Greek dialect stuck around for several centuries, even after the new alphabet came to their lives.
And the symbols are pretty similar to the once used in the later alphabets.

So completely dismissing this is a bit revisionist, no?

The Philistines for example were considered Phoenicians as well, as they inhabited the land falled Phoenicia. And the Philistines were often considered Greek by some, but probably that was just because some Greeks settled there after they had.

Giovanni Garbini had a good account of all that.