The Times of the Old Testament
Marshall High School Mr. Cline Western Civilization I: Ancient Foundations Unit Two DA * The Bronze Age Collapse
• The Mittani
• The foremost of the groups, however, that led to the fall of the Hittites were the Hurrians, also known as the Mittani.
• They filled the vacuum left by the Hittites, building an empire in northern Mesopotamia. Pressing east into the lands of the Assyrians and west into Anatolia.
• The Mittani left very little behind in terms of material culture; almost everything we know of them comes from references from other cultures.
• Still their empire survived until around 1350 BC, when a battle of succession left them vulnerable to a new Hittite assault.
• This weakened the Mittani enough for the Assyrians to overthrow their masters and create their own empire.
• Kassite Babylon
• Meanwhile, southern Mesopotamia was being forcibly unified under the rule of the Kassite Babylonians. * The Bronze Age Collapse
• Kassite Babylon
• Although the Kassite capitol was actually Mari, the Babylonians had so established their city as an imperial seat that the Kassite kings needed to be considered Babylonians to be considered Emperors of their region.
• They abandoned Mari, early on, and established the longest lasting Babylonian dynasty, which would survive almost 600 years.
• Three Empires
• Thus, with the destruction of the Mittani, the stage was set for a rivalry between three powerful empires.
• The Assyrians to the northeast,
• the Hittites to the northwest
• and the Kassite Babylonians to the south.
• These three empires would vie with one another for power. * The Bronze Age Collapse
• Three Empires
• Frightened by the growth of Assyrian power, the Babylonians allied with the Hittites to curb their expansion, but it proved pointless.
• For the second and third times, Babylon was sacked and burned to the ground by a succession of Assyrian kings.
• Yet no sooner would a new ruler of Babylon be named than he would try to break free of Assyrian control.
• The Bronze Age Collapse
• This struggle for power would continue until roughly 1200 BC, when a series of invasions from all directions tore bronze age civilization to shreds.
• From the north, Phrygians began raiding Assyria, and Thracians swept into the lands of the Hittites.
• From the east, the Elamites invaded once more, pillaging and burning Babylon for at least the fourth time. * The Bronze Age Collapse
• The Bronze Age Collapse
• From the deserts to the south, a new people, the Arameans, poured into Mesopotamia, making travel and trade between cities very dangerous indeed.
• And in the west, a mysterious group of invaders known only as the sea peoples, crushed kingdoms along the Mediterranean from Egypt to Greece.
• Trade ground to a halt, populations plummeted, literacy all but disappeared, entire empires disappeared overnight and civilization itself seemed to teeter on the brink of annihilation.
• This period is known as the Bronze age collapse.
• Many civilizations would not survive this catastrophe.
• The Hittites vanished without a trace, and the civilizations that survived would take over 300 years to recover.
* The Sea Peoples and other Ancient Population Displacements
• Among the greatest mysteries of the ancient world, the origins of the Sea Peoples ranks among the most intriguing
• “The foreigners made a conspiracy in their islands. All at once, the lands were shattered in the fray. No land could stand before their arms, Hatti, Kode, Carchemish, Arzawa, and Alashiya were destroyed one after the other. On they came towards Egypt…..Their confederation was the Peleset, Tjeker, Shekelesh, Denyen and Meshwesh.”- inscription from Ramses III’s mortuary temple
• Between 1200 and 1150 B.C. the eastern Mediterranean experienced massive destruction and economic dislocation. All the main centers of the Mycenaean civilization of Greece were destroyed as were a great many of cities of the Levant and Hittite Empire.
• The Peleset were most likely from the island of Crete, and would settle in the lands of Canaan in the Levant, and became known as Philistines, and today as Palestinians * The Sea Peoples and other Ancient Population Displacements
• The Meshwesh, or Ekwesh, were a group of Bronze Age Greeks from Achaean
• The Tjeker, or Tyrrhenian's were ancestors of the northern Italian Etruscans
• The Shekelesh were from Sicily, and the Shardana were from Sardinia.
• The Sea Peoples most likely were displaced from geographic upheaval in the Mediterranean that caused the end of the Mycenaean civilization, the ancestors of the Greeks
• Some of them may have also been displaced by the Phrygian overthrow of the Hittites.
• So, there seems to be little doubt given the evidence that for the most part, the Sea Peoples seemed to have been of Indo-European origins * The Sea Peoples and other Ancient Population Displacements
• The evidence of the Sea Peoples displacements are only found in archaeological finds and the written inscriptions of the nations they threatened and attacked, they had no binding culture, or language that made them a distinct people.
• For example, the supposition that the Philistines were the Peleset is findings of pottery remains that are derived from Mycenaean styles
• The Philistines were eventually conquered by the Assyrians, and forced to resettle in Mesopotamia
• Though less spectacular, other migrations of this period that caused far reaching consequences were the Hebrews, Chaldeans, and Aramaeans, all Semitic speaking desert nomads.
• The most numerous of these was the Aramaeans who settled on vacated Hittite and Canaanite lands in the Levant
• The Aramaeans kept the Assyrian empire under constant population and military pressure, and they even reduced the Assyrian empire to a small heartland. * The Sea Peoples and other Ancient Population Displacements
• In following centuries, the Aramaeans were subjugated by the Assyrians, and were deported and resettled all over the Near East.
• As a result, the Aramaic language became the Lingua Franca of the Near East by 600 B.C., and was even the official administrative language of the Persian Empire.
• The modern Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic scripts are all derived from the Aramaic alphabet
• The Chaldeans settled around Ur and Uruk, and by 700 B.C. were ruling Babylon, and by 612 B.C. had overthrown the Assyrian empire.
• What caused all of this upheaval and major population displacement seemingly out of nowhere, and for no particular reason?
• The Thera Volcano
• The baking soda and vinegar volcano has graced many a fifth-grade science fair. * The Sea Peoples and other Ancient Population Displacements
• The Thera Volcano
• As most children see or create at some point in their primary school education, when the two chemicals are combined they react to form an expanding, frothy mess that mimics lava.
• Well, imagine if instead of baking soda you placed a few sticks of dynamite inside your volcano.
• Sure, you would probably fail your science project, and get a free ride to the police station, but you would have a better idea of the eruption that occurred on the Mediterranean island of Santorini over 3,500 years ago.
• The Thera Volcano that erupted on Santorini changed the course of ancient history.
• Though historians disagree on exactly when the eruption took place, through geological evidence and analysis of ancient texts, the eruption is mentioned several times in Egyptian writings, scholars agree it occurred sometime between 1,645 B.C. and 1,500 B.C. * The Sea Peoples and other Ancient Population Displacements
• Eruption
• Scholars believe that the eruption of Thera may be the largest explosion ever witnessed by humankind.
• The eruption was so incredibly powerful that it literally blew a hole in the island, giving it the half-moon shape it has today.
• Archaeologists and geologists estimate that the explosion was 4-5 times more powerful than the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa, an Indonesian volcano which would eventually kill 40,000 people.
• Like the Indonesian eruption, Thera jettisoned tens of thousands of cubic meters of dirt into the air, likely causing the global temperature to fall several degrees.
• But unlike with the Krakatoa eruption, archaeologists have found very few bodies which date back to the event or exhibit the characteristics often present when death is caused by a volcanic eruption. * The Sea Peoples and other Ancient Population Displacements
• Eruption
• This has led many scholars to believe the Minoan civilization that inhabited the island may have predicted the eruption and evacuated the island.
• Impact on History
• The eruption changed the course of ancient history.
• The Minoans were the most prominent civilization in the ancient Mediterranean and were based on the nearby island of Crete.
• Though no first-hand accounts of the eruption survive, Minoan influence in the Mediterranean declined precipitously immediately after the eruption.
• The power vacuum this created allowed for the rise in influence of the Greek city-states such as Athens, Sparta, and Thebes. * The Sea Peoples and other Ancient Population Displacements
• Mythology and Lore
• Many historians believe that the eruption appeared symbolically in ancient texts.
• For example, when Plato told the story of the lost city of Atlantis nearly a century after the eruption, scholars believe he may have been channeling legends passed down by generations of Minoans.
• Other scholars have also pointed to the environmental effects of the eruption as a possible source for biblical accounts of Old Testament plagues and drought.
• The eruption of the Thera Volcano that erupted on the island of Santorini more than 3,500 years ago is an excellent example of how the natural world can change the course of human civilization.
• Without the event, pop culture depictions of Zeus and other Greek gods may have been displaced by the gods and goddesses of Minoan theology as the city-states of ancient Greece may not have risen to become one of the principal civilizations of the ancient world.
* The Kingdoms of the Bible Lands
• The kingdoms founded by the Hebrews in the Levant have an importance in world history out of proportion of their size.
• The period of independent monarchy was the formidable period for the Jewish religion, from which Christianity and Islam are ultimately derived.
• The main evidence of the history of the Hebrews was traditionally found in the Bible. According to the Bible, the Hebrews, or Israelites (those who struggle or wrestle (ysira) with God (El)) were a nomadic people who migrated into the land of Canaan around 1200 B.C.
• They settled in this land amongst scattered tribes ruled by chieftains known as “judges.”
• In order to better resist the military incursions of the Canaanites and Philistines, they allied themselves under a king. The first king’s name was Saul (1020-1006 B.C.), who was killed in battle with the Philistines, and was later replaced by David (1006-965 B.C.), who consolidated the monarchy, and expanded the Hebrew kingdom by defeating the Philistines and conquering the Canaanites, and their city Jerusalem. * The Kingdoms of the Bible Lands • Patriarchs and Heroes
• For every country or social group, there seems to be one person recognized as a father figure. One person who, regardless of the contributions of hundreds or even thousands to a movement, encapsulates the entity as the man who proverbially 'started it all.'
• For the U.S., that figure is undoubtedly George Washington. Basketball fans have a few choices, such as James Naismith (the creator of the game) or its most storied coach, John Wooden.
• For the ancient Kingdom of Israel, there is little discussion as to the patriarch; it is King David, the biblical Goliath-slayer and first successful king of Israel.
• Who was David?
• Though in truth David was the second king of the Kingdom of Israel, he was the first to reign successfully, uniting all twelve of the Israelite tribes. He took his seat on the throne at some point between 1010 and 1000 B.C. * The Kingdoms of the Bible Lands • Who was David?
• Though the story of David slaying Goliath may be apocryphal (of questionable authenticity), the real David certainly was an able commander.
• Soon after taking the throne, David defeated the Philistines once and for all and expanded Israelite territory to cover all of Canaan and most of the territory previously held by the Philistines.
• David also made a solid alliance with Egypt, ensuring his new kingdom would face no future threats from the west.
• He campaigned east into modern-day Syria and Jordan, though most of the gains in those territories were achieved through conquest by his son and successor, Solomon.
• In addition to expanding Israelite territories, David also greatly improved the infrastructure within the kingdom.
• Though he was a generally well-liked king, his methods for finding labor to build his roads, walls, and forts were not. * The Kingdoms of the Bible Lands • Who was David?
• David instituted forced labor conscription, where all citizens of Israel were required to serve at least a few days out of the week on build and labor crews.
• Previously, this work had been done only by slaves, and the citizens of the twelve tribes had been exempt.
• David's egalitarian and totalitarian approach to labor may have been unpopular, but it laid the foundations necessary for further expansion and a more prosperous kingdom in the following reign.
• Death and Legacy
• David reigned over the Kingdom of Israel for nearly forty years, dying of natural causes in 970 B.C.
• Though he survives most readily in present-day culture as the boy who slayed the Philistine, the historical David is remembered as an exceptional commander, builder and an astute ruler, the first Israelite to unite all of the tribes and fully institute the Kingdom of Israel.
* The Kingdoms of the Bible Lands
• Jerusalem became David’s capital, and his son Solomon built a great temple there on a hill, and made expensive trips and lived a lavish lifestyle. The kingdom stretched from the Gulf of Aqaba in the south to the Euphrates River in the north. • After Solomon’s death, economic discontent led to the division of the kingdom into two separate kingdoms, Israel and Judah, and the independence of the non Hebrew provinces • Although most historians still accept the Biblical account, archaeological evidence casts some doubt on it.
• There is no archaeological evidence to support the migration from Canaan as the Bible states the Jews were led by Moses from Egypt.
• Jericho had been uninhabited for centuries by the time the Bible claims it was captured by the Hebrews, and there were no walls to be brought down by Joshua’s trumpets
• Archaeological evidence also disputes the monotheistic nature of the Hebrew religion, as there is evidence of a popular fertility cult in the countryside
• However, even if it did not start out as such, there is no doubt that the Hebrews Jewish religion would become the world’s first great monotheistic religion.