Contacts: Crete, Egypt, and the Near East Circa 2000 B.C

Malcolm H. Wiener major Akkadian site at Tell Leilan and many of its neighboring sites were abandoned ca. 2200 B.C.7 Many other Syrian sites were abandoned early in Early Bronze (EB) IVB, with the final wave of destruction and aban- donment coming at the end of EB IVB, Contacts: Crete, Egypt, about the end of the third millennium B.c. 8 In Canaan there was a precipitous decline in the number of inhabited sites in EB III— and the Near East circa IVB,9 including a hiatus posited at Ugarit. In Cyprus, the Philia phase of the Early 2000 B.C. Bronze Age, "characterised by a uniformity of material culture indicating close connec- tions between different parts of the island"10 and linked to a broader eastern Mediterra- This essay examines the interaction between nean interaction sphere, broke down, per- Minoan Crete, Egypt, the Levant, and Ana- haps because of a general collapse of tolia in the twenty-first and twentieth cen- overseas systems and a reduced demand for turies B.c. and briefly thereafter.' Cypriot copper." With respect to Egypt, Of course contacts began much earlier. Donald Redford states that "[t]he incidence The appearance en masse of pottery of Ana- of famine increases in the late 6th Dynasty tolian derivation in Crete at the beginning and early First Intermediate Period, and a of Early Minoan (EM) I, around 3000 B.C.,2 reduction in rainfall and the annual flooding together with some evidence of destructions of the Nile seems to have afflicted northeast and the occupation of refuge sites at the time, Africa with progressive desiccation as the suggests the arrival of settlers from Anatolia. third millennium draws to a close."' The "International Age" of the mid-third Contact between regions clearly suffered. millennium B.c. saw the arrival in Crete of At Byblos there are no Egyptian pharaonic imports of gold, faience, ivory, Egyptian inscriptions between those of Pepi II at the stone vases, and a silver cylinder seal from end of Dynasty 6 in EB II and Dynasty 12 Syria.' A foot amulet-seal from a tomb in the in the Middle Bronze Age. Evidence of Mesara clearly depends on Egyptian proto- Egyptian contact with Sinai and Nubia in types.' A piece of hippopotamus tusk, prob- this period is practically nonexistent. ably from Egypt, was found in an EM IIA fill Crete also experienced a period of drier above the West Court House at Knossos.' climate in EM III," perhaps beginning in In EM III the picture changed, with EM IIB. Around the end of EM IIB, a num- international trade apparently sharply ber of settlements and cemeteries were diminished in some areas. The change may destroyed or abandoned and not reoccupied, have resulted in large measure from a while refuge sites appeared on hilltops where major desiccation event ca. 2250-2050 B.C. access was extremely difficult." Crete seems and its consequences in the form of move- to have recovered relatively quickly, however, ments and invasions.' In Anatolia the arc with late EM III—Middle Minoan (MM) I of destruction included Troy, where the witnessing site nucleation and the beginning great walls of Troy II—III fell into ruin and of monumental architecture at the major cen- Troy IV suffered six destruction levels; sites ters of Knossos, Phaistos, and Mallia. in Cilicia proper and across the Taurus In the Aegean, the International Age of Mountains at the metallurgical site at EB II was followed by a wave of destruc- Goltepe; and Kiiltepe to the east. In the tions, associated on the islands and at sites Khabur Valley in northeastern Syria, the along the mainland coast with the arrival of 34 new groups from Anatolia,' perhaps set in in Attica. Accordingly, the Chrysokamino motion by the climatic factors mentioned evidence neither establishes nor precludes above. Some settlements were abandoned Cretan contact with Cycladic ore sources in and others were established in more remote EM 111.2° and defensible positions with fortifications, While there is some evidence of internal for example at Kastri on Syros, built when disruption in areas of Crete at the end of the the great Early Cycladic (EC) I—II cemetery EM II period, ca. 2300-2250 B.c., on the went out of use, perhaps suggesting the whole Crete escaped the great waves of arrival of new inhabitants. The manufacture destruction in mainland Greece and the of marble objects ceased or declined sharply, Cyclades. In the following EM III—MM I and cist tomb burial went out of fashion. period, ca. 2100-1900 B.C., Crete began a Beginning in Early Helladic (EH) II in the millennium of intense contact with the cul- northern Cyclades and central Greece, and tures of Egypt and the Near East. In sum, continuing into EB III as far as Aigina and the first appearance of monumentality and the southern Cyclades, metal forms and bur- literacy in the Aegean, in EM III—MM I, nished pottery of western Anatolian shape, with its concentration at the preexisting known as the Kastri group or EC ILIA centers of ritual and production at Knossos, intrusive ware, appeared.' Phaistos, and Mallia,21 may be seen as the How did these developments affect Crete? consequence of the happy position of Crete, A cemetery at Hagia Photia on the north- just far enough apart and with sufficient east coast of Crete contained one teapot and population relative to size to resist destruc- a few sherds of Kastri ware, dated around tive incursions, but within range of a wide the end of EM II/beginning of EM variety of stimuli from the civilizations of and a single sherd was found in the fill of Egypt and the Near East around the begin- an MM IA foundation deposit at Knos- ning of the second millennium B.c. sos,' but no other Kastri material has been Egypt may have recovered from the dis- reported from Crete. Sixty kilometers to the array caused by the low Nile floods of the north, at Christiana, the nearest Cycladic First Intermediate Period a short time island to Crete, the situation is far different. before recovery took hold in the Levant and On the saddle of a hill from which Crete Anatolia. By the last quarter of the twenti- is sometimes visible there is a rich scatter eth century B.c., Egyptian expeditions to of EC IIIA intrusive ware, depas handles the Near East, some military in nature, included.' The boundary between the were bringing back enormous amounts of Cyclades and Crete thus marks the abrupt booty, if the Mit Rahina inscription from limit of the expansion of the Kastri group. the court records of Amenemhat II are to Pottery of the subsequent Phylakopi I type is be believed.' While there is evidence of also known from Christiana but absent from Cretan contact with the Near East as well Crete, again indicating a line of demarca- in the period just prior to and at the begin- tion. Some contact with Cycladic or Attic ning of the Minoan First Palace period, copper sources in this period may have ca. 2150-1925 s.c., the contacts with Egypt continued, however. A hilltop on the north seem to have been both earlier and more coast of Crete at Chrysokamino, with traces significant with respect to the emergence of of occupation from Final Neolithic through palatial society on Crete.' Stimulus diffu- EM III, provides the earliest evidence for sion via models of behavior and of technical copper smelting on Crete. The lead isotope knowledge, including knowledge of the composition of the Chrysokamino frag- possible, may have had far greater impor- ments from the slag heaps bears some resem- tance than the specific goods exchanged.' blance to that of the ores of the Cycladic In EM III—MM IA (but perhaps mostly in island of Kythnos and the mines at Lavrion MM IA, if in the central Phaistos—Knossos 35 zone that period began before woo B.c.) in particular the Parading Lions/Spiral Egyptian stone vases, scarabs, and faience Complex (fig. 1), of which fifty-six of the were both imported and imitated locally in eighty examples on Crete—probably made Crete." The use of the hand drill in the from Egyptian hippopotamus tusk—were manufacture of stone vases and seals may found in the Mesara Plain in south-central have followed Egyptian practice. Minoan Crete at the site of Platanos. Seals of the seal production appears to have followed the "White Piece" group, with more than one Egyptian example in the use of ivory and hundred examples, some of scarab shape, faience and in the adoption of cylinder and are a Minoan innovation with no precedent scarab shapes, and perhaps the button shape in Egypt.' They are made, however, from as well." Scarabs were first manufactured in what appears to be heated talc (steatite), Egypt in the First Intermediate Period, used for imports from Egypt and for ca. 2150-2025 B.C., and arrived on Crete by Minoan imitations, some with scarab form at least the latter part of the period, around or and Egyptian-type designs, hence indicative just before the beginning of MM 1.27 Their of an early case of technological and artistic findspots both in Egypt and Crete suggest an transfer in, and limited to, the late Pre- amuletic function with strong funerary asso- palatial period in Crete." Several partial ciations. The Cretan versions depict not the impressions of a Parading Lions seal were indigenous horned variety of beetle, but found in an EM III context at Knossos." instead reproduce the Egyptian models." A Lions are not native to Crete, nor are they local technique was used to produce the likely to have been imported by sea for designs on the seal faces, however, one of zoos.

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