Mycenaean Foreign Relations: Trade, Ships, Egyptians, Minoans, Trojans | Early European History And Religion

MYCENAEAN TRADE AND SHIPS

Reconstruction of a Mycenaean ship

The Mycenaeans dominated the Argoid, an important and wealthy region in the northeast Peloponnese, and controlled trade in the Aegean Sea. Excavations have revealed workshops with fine metal work, jewelry and carving on hippopotamus ivory. There is also evidence of bronze and perfume making. Mycenaeans paid taxes in ox hides, hogs, wool, and linen.

Minoan sailors perhaps ferried the Mycenaeans back and forth and were cut in for a piece of the action. This may explain how the Minoans became so rich and their art flourished during a period of military activity around 1600 B.C. The Mycenaean’s rich supply of gold is believed to have come from Egypt. Some have speculated they were hired as mercenaries by the pharaohs to get rid of unruly subject and were paid in gold.

Mycenaean ships were shallow-draught vessels and could be beached on sandy bays. There were various sizes of vessels containing different numbers of oarsmen. The largest ship probably had a crew of 42–46 oarsmen, with one steering oar, a captain, two attendants and a complement of warriors. The most common type of Mycenaean vessel based on depictions in contemporary art was the oared galley with long and narrow hulls. The shape of the hull was constructed in a way to maximize the number of rowers. Thus, a higher speed could have been achieved regardless of wind conditions. Although it carried mast and sail, it was less efficient as a sailing ship. The Mycenaean galley offered certain advantages. Although lighter compared to the oared-sailing ship of the Minoans of Crete, it seated more rowers. Its steering mechanism was a triangular steering oar, a forerunner of the latter steering oar of Archaic era. [Source Wikipedia]

Mycenaean Foreign Relations

Around 1450 B.C., Greece was divided into a series of kingdoms on the Greek mainland, the most important centered at Mycenae, Tiryns, Pylos and Thebes. In the subsequent decades, the Mycenaeans began to expand throughout the Aegean, filling the niche previously filled by Neopalatial Minoan society. Thus, the Mycenaeans began to build up their maritime power in the Aegean Sea, expanding towards the Aegean Islands and Anatolian coast. During this period, the Mycenaeans established diplomatic ties with foreign states including Egypt, for whom Mycenaean soldiers were sometimes hired as mercenaries. [Source Wikipedia]

The Mycenaeans had at least some interaction with the Hittite Empire. Both civilizations collapsed around the same time. According to Archaeology magazine: It's clear from surviving diplomatic correspondence that at some point the Hittites considered the Mycenaean ruler Ahhiyawa a peer on the order of ancient powers such as Assyria, Babylonia, and Egypt. In a letter the Hittite ruler Hattusili III sent demanding the leader of an unruly state be brought to justice, he addresses its recipient as "brother king," a term he also employs in letters to the pharaoh Ramesses II as well as to Mesopotamian kings. The Hittites left behind the most extensive record outside Greece that describes the Mycenaean world. [Source: Eric A. Powell, Archaeology magazine, September-October 2023]

Minoans and Mycenaeans

Minoan style bull from a Mycanae grave

The Minoans were a model for Mycenae and then a competitor and then were eclipsed by the Mycenaeans. The two cultures lived side by side until the 15th century B.C. when Minoa became a Mycenaean colony. First it was thought that maybe Minoans and Mycenaeans were the same people and that Mycenae was a colony of Knossos. Their art, written language and religion were that similar.

The Mycenaeans were rich and powerful. They controlled the sources of precious metals and used them to earn income and dominate trading routes. They controlled the gold and silver worked by craftsmen on Minoa. Through the Minoans the Mycenaeans gained access to Egypt, a key consumer, and Cyprus, a key supplier. In the process of gaining control of key resources the Mycenaeans came head to head with the powerful Hittites in Anatolia, where Troy was located.

There is still some debate on how much the Minoans influenced the Mycenaeans. The latter commonly used bulls as a symbol but people were never depicted leaping over them and some archaeologists say they looked more like cattle than sacred animals. The biggest difference is the Mycenaeans lived in fortress cities and the Minoans lived in walled cities. [Source: "History of Art" by H.W. Janson, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.]

Links Between Myceneans and Minoans

Nicholas Wade wrote in the New York Times: “The palaces found at Mycene, Pylos and elsewhere on the Greek mainland have a common inspiration: All borrowed heavily from the Minoan civilization that arose on the large island of Crete, southeast of Pylos. The Minoans were culturally dominant to the Mycenaeans but were later overrun by them...The Mycenaeans used the Minoan sacred symbol of bull’s horns on their buildings and frescoes, and their religious practices seem to have been a mix of Minoan concepts with those of mainland Greece.... The transfer was not entirely peaceful: At some point, the Mycenaeans invaded Crete, and in 1450 B.C., the palace of Knossos was burned, perhaps by Mycenaeans.[Source: Nicholas Wade, New York Times, October 26, 2015 ^^]

“If the earliest European civilization is that of Crete, the first on the European mainland is the Mycenaean culture...It is not entirely clear why civilization began on Crete, but the island’s population size and favorable position for sea trade between Egypt and Greece may have been factors. “Crete is ideally situated between mainland Greece and the east, and it had enough of a population to resist raids,” said Malcolm H. Wiener, an investment manager and expert on Aegean prehistory. ^^

“The Minoan culture on Crete exerted a strong influence on the people of southern Greece. Copying and adapting Minoan technologies, they developed the palace cultures such as those of Pylos and Mycene. But as the Mycenaeans grew in strength and confidence, they were eventually able to invade the land of their tutors. Notably, they then adapted Linear A, the script in which the Cretans wrote their own language, into Linear B, a script for writing Greek.” ^^

Links Between Mycenaeans and Egyptians

Mycenaean chariot
Eric A. Powell wrote in Archaeology magazine: The wealth of Egyptian artifacts discovered at sites such as Mycenae is proof of the Greeks' connections to Egypt. A number of cartouches bearing the names of pharaohs such as Amenhotep III (reigned ca. 1390-1352 B.C.) have been found at Mycenae, and exotic Egyptian goods including faience figures have been unearthed at other Mycenaean sites. [Source: Eric A. Powell, Archaeology magazine, September-October 2023]

It seems the Egyptians were quite familiar with the lands of the Bronze Age Aegean, which they knew as Tanaja. Column bases in Amenhotep III's mortuary temple in Thebes are inscribed with extensive lists of foreign lands, including a possible travel itinerary whose place-names scholars believe are those of Mycenaean centers. Mycenaean pottery and other objects have been found at Pi-Ramesses, the capital built by Ramesses II. Perhaps, says Blackwell, the Hittites knew that the pharaohs esteemed their connections to far-off Tanaja. If so, it might have been possible for the wanax of Mycenae, or another Greek city-state such as Pylos, to leverage this association with Egypt to convince the Hittites that they were the rulers of a kingdom on par with the great powers of the Near East.

Mycenaean-Egyptian Relations

Stefan Pfeiffer of Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg wrote: “After the collapse of the Minoan culture, the Mycenaeans—who, like the Minoans, were located in “islands in the midst of the Great Green,” as the Egyptians called the Aegean—filled the economic gap left by Minoan traders. The earliest Egyptian attestation of the Mycenaeans dates to the 42nd year of Thutmose III’s reign. The transition from the Minoan to the Mycenaean culture may be reflected in Theban Tomb 100 (of the high official Rekhmira, who served at the end of Thutmose III’s reign and into that of Amenhotep II), in which an Aegean tribute carrier is depicted. The wall painting is a palimpsest: Originally, the depicted person was dressed in a typical Minoan loin-cloth; later on, this garment was modified to a multicolored kilt, which is generally attributed to Mycenaean origins. However, it is noteworthy that the interpretation of both garments as Minoan or Mycenaean, respectively, is nowadays questioned. [Source: Stefan Pfeiffer, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, 2013 escholarship.org ]

“Mycenaean cities are mentioned in the geographical lists of the House of Millions of years of Amenhotep III, proving knowledge of the Aegean world in Egypt. There were intense contacts in the time of Akhenaten, as is attested by Mycenaean pottery sherds dating to his reign. Mycenaean pottery is also found in post-Amarna times (for example, at Pi-Ramesse, the capital city built by Ramesses II): like their forefathers, Egyptian potters tried to copy the form and style of Minoan pottery, now aimed to imitate Mycenaean ware, even in faience or calcite (Egyptian alabaster).

Mycenaen Bridge
“The view that post-Amarna contacts between the two worlds were mainly based on indirect trade relations via the Levant is nowadays being questioned; there are in fact hints to an exchange of individuals and ideas. What can be said is that the Mycenaeans, like the Minoans, were highly interested in Egyptian goods. Especially in Mycenae itself, many Egyptian objects bear witness to close trade relations. Moreover, Mycenae seems to have served as a “gateway community” for the import of Egyptian goods to the whole Aegean world.

“Summing up, it is not easy to determine the intensity of relations between the two cultures. It appears prudent to assume that in the Mycenaean Period (as well as in the Minoan) durations of close contacts alternated with those of merely sporadic contacts due to wars or natural catastrophes.”

Mycenaeans and Trojans

The Mycenaeans fought against the Trojans in the Trojan War and Odysseus, a Mycenaean, got lost on his way home from Troy. Whether this true or not is not known for sure. Many examples of Mycenaean weapons and armor have been unearthed seem to confirm Homer's depiction of the Mycenaeans as a warlike people. Mycenae itself was a lose confederation of small city -states ruled by warrior kings. The Mycenaeans lacked central authority and often fought among themselves.

Mycenae was the home of Agamemnon and Nestor and had links with Odysseus and other heroes described in the epics of Homer. It was the Mycenaeans that Homer immortalized in his two epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey . The question that is often asked is “How much, if any, of those tales are true?” and the answer is that it is unlikely that that question can be completely answered in our lifetimes, if ever. Myth, history and archaeology - all different - but there are examples where they coincide remarkably, and others where they cannot be made to meet, despite the most earnest coaxing. Homer and his forefathers nursed the Mycenaean legends through the tunnel of the Dark Ages into the light of the later Greek world. How much was dropped off and added on in that journey is the subject of speculation and the stuff of debate. What is evident is that some of the content is clearly true and some is the product of imagination. Sorting one from the other has become a task for the ages.” [Source: Canadian Museum of History]

Thucydides On Agamemnon

Thucydides wrote in “On The Early History of the Hellenes (c. 395 B.C.): “What enabled Agamemnon to raise the armament was more, in my opinion, his superiority in strength, than the oaths of Tyndareus, which bound the suitors to follow him. Indeed, the account given by those Peloponnesians who have been the recipients of the most credible tradition is this. First of all Pelops, arriving among a needy population from Asia with vast wealth, acquired such power that, stranger though he was, the country was called after him; and this power fortune saw fit materially to increase in the hands of his descendants. Eurystheus had been killed in Attica by the Heraclids. [Source: Thucydides, “The History of the Peloponnesian War,” translated by Benjamin Jowett, New York, Duttons, 1884, pp. 11-23, Sections 1.2-17, Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Greece, Fordham University]

Funeral mask of Agamemnon
“Atreus was his mother's brother; and to the hands of his relation, who had left his father on account of the death of Chrysippus, Eurystheus, when he set out on his expedition, had committed Mycenae and the government. As time went on and Eurystheus did not return, Atreus complied with the wishes of the Mycenaeans, who were influenced by fear of the Heraclids — besides, his power seemed considerable, and he had not neglected to court the favor of the populace — and assumed the scepter of Mycenae and the rest of the dominions of Eurystheus. And so the power of the descendants of Pelops came to be greater than that of the descendants of Perseus. “To all this Agamemnon succeeded. He had also a navy far stronger than his contemporaries, so that, in my opinion, fear was quite as strong an element as love in the formation of the confederate expedition. The strength of his navy is shown by the fact that his own was the largest contingent, and that of the Arcadians was furnished by him; this at least is what Homer says, if his testimony is deemed sufficient. Now Agamemnon's was a continental power; and he could not have been master of any except the adjacent islands (and these would not be many), but through the possession of a fleet. And from this expedition we may infer the character of earlier enterprises. Homer has represented it as consisting of twelve hundred vessels; the Boeotian complement of each ship being a hundred and twenty men, that of the ships of Philoctetes fifty. That they were all rowers as well as warriors we see from his account of the ships of Philoctetes, in which all the men at the oar are bowmen.”

Thucydides on the Hellenes After the Trojan War

Thucydides wrote in “On The Early History of the Hellenes (c. 395 B.C.): “Even after the Trojan War, Hellas was still engaged in removing and settling, and thus could not attain to the quiet which must precede growth. The late return of the Hellenes from Ilium caused many revolutions, and factions ensued almost everywhere; and it was the citizens thus driven into exile who founded the cities. Sixty years after the capture of Ilium, the modern Boeotians were driven out of Arne by the Thessalians, and settled in the present Boeotia, the former Cadmeis; though there was a division of them there before, some of whom joined the expedition to Ilium. Twenty years later, the Dorians and the Heraclids became masters of Peloponnese; so that much had to be done and many years had to elapse before Hellas could attain to a durable tranquillity undisturbed by removals, and could begin to send out colonies, as Athens did to Ionia and most of the islands, and the Peloponnesians to most of Italy and Sicily and some places in the rest of Hellas. All these places were founded subsequently to the war with Troy. [Source: Thucydides, “The History of the Peloponnesian War,” translated by Benjamin Jowett, New York, Duttons, 1884, pp. 11-23, Sections 1.2-17, Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Greece, Fordham University]

“But as the power of Hellas grew, and the acquisition of wealth became more an object, the revenues of the states increasing, tyrannies were by their means established almost everywhere — the old form of government being hereditary monarchy with definite prerogatives — and Hellas began to fit out fleets and apply herself more closely to the sea. It is said that the Corinthians were the first to approach the modern style of naval architecture, and that Corinth was the first place in Hellas where galleys were built....They were the means by which the islands were reached and reduced, those of the smallest area falling the easiest prey. Wars by land there were none, none at least by which power was acquired; we have the usual border contests, but of distant expeditions with conquest for object we hear nothing among the Hellenes.

“There was no union of subject cities round a great state, no spontaneous combination of equals for confederate expeditions; what fighting there was consisted merely of local warfare between rival neighbors....Various, too, were the obstacles which the national growth encountered in various localities. The power of the Ionians was advancing with rapid strides, when it came into collision with Persia, under King Cyrus, who, after having dethroned Croesus of Lydia and overrun everything between the Halys and the sea, stopped not till he had reduced the cities of the coast; the islands being only left to be subdued by Darius and the Phoenician navy.”

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons, The Louvre, The British Museum

Text Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Greece sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Hellenistic World sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; BBC Ancient Greeks bbc.co.uk/history/; Canadian Museum of History, Perseus Project - Tufts University; perseus.tufts.edu ; MIT Classics Online classics.mit.edu ; Gutenberg.org, Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Live Science, Discover magazine, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, Encyclopædia Britannica, "The Discoverers" and "The Creators" by Daniel Boorstin. "Greek and Roman Life" by Ian Jenkins from the British Museum, Wikipedia, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP and various books and other publications.

Last updated September 2024