The Ethnicity of the Sea Peoples - RePub - Erasmus Universiteit ...

or none at all?
A lot of ink has been spilled on this question, and I
am not aiming to present an exhaustive treatment of the
relevant literature, but only to briefly adstruct my own position
in this matter. One work needs to be mentioned here,
however, and that is Martin Persson Nilsson’s Homer and
Mycenae (1933), which, in my opinion, offers the best introduction
to the Homeric question. 35 As the latter author
goes at great length to explain, the Homeric poems are the
result of a long lasting epic tradition, in which bards constantly
rehandled their material for instant public performances
and old and new elements are mixed together like
currants and raisins in a well-kneaded dough. Consequently,
the efforts made by many a scholar to distinguish
early and late passages are altogether futile: there can, with
the help of archaeological, historical, and linguistic data,
only be distinguished early and late elements!
Among the late elements, the first that comes to mind
is iron. This metal is mentioned 23x in the Iliad and 25x in
the Odyssey. 36 Now, it is clear that in the Homeric poems
a conscious attempt is made at archaizing by having the
weapons made of bronze. Only in two instances, Iliad IV,
123 and Odyssey XIX, 13, the poet (= poetic tradition
epitomized in Homeros) makes a slip of the tongue and
speaks of weapons of iron. In this respect, then, the Iliad
and the Odyssey may be assumed to have reached their final
form in about the same period and not the one earlier
than the other as is often assumed. Note further in this
connection that the iron club of Areïthoös (Iliad VII, 141-
4) is a special case: it may have been made of meteoric
iron, which was already known in the Bronze Age, or it
may be one of those rare objects of mined iron on the production
of which the Hittites had a monopoly during the
Late Bronze Age.
Another definite Early Iron Age element is formed by
the close association of the Phoenicians with the Sidonians
– the latter being mentioned 4x in the Iliad and 13x in the
Odyssey. Although George Bass makes a strong case for
Canaanite shipping to Greece and the central Mediterranean
already in the Late Bronze Age on the basis of the
shipwrecks found by him off the coast of Lycia at Uluburun
near Ka (c. 1300 BC) and at cape Gelidonya near
35 Other pertinent literature: Page 1959, Webster 1960, and Latacz
2003.
36 Gehring 1901, s.v. sidreios, sidreos, sidros.
25
Finike (c. 1200 BC), 37 Jacob Katzenstein convingingly
demonstrates that the prominent position of the Sidonians
among the Phoenicians dates from the refoundation of
Tyre by the Sidonians in 1197 BC to the Assyrian conquest
of the city at the end of the reign of Eloulaios, 694
BC: in this period the kings of Tyre were addressed as
“king of the Sidonians”. 38
Next, it so happens that the standard burial rite in the
Homeric poems is cremation. The latter rite is already
known in the Late Bronze Age for Hittite royal burials, 39
and there are more than 200 cinerary urns reported for the
cemetery of Troy VIh. 40 But for Greece, one is especially
reminded of the burial of the hero of Lefkandi in the 10th
century BC and the burials at the west gate of Eretria from
the 8th century BC. 41 In general, it may be stated that the
popularity of the rite of cremation in Greece is an Early
Iron Age feature.
A further Early Iron Age feature is the use of the term
basileus as a mere substitute for anaks “king”. Both these
titles are already found in Linear B, where they occur as
qa-si-re-u and wa-na-ka, respectively, but only the latter
renders the meaning “king” here, whereas the former denotes
a functionary of lower rank in, so far specified, the
bronze industry. 42 It is interesting to observe in this connection
that the titular expression anaks andrn, with only
one exception in which it is associated with Eumelos of
Iolkos (Iliad XXIII, 288), is reserved for the supreme
commander of the Greeks, Agamemnon.
Also in the field of armory and fighting methods
Early Iron Age elements have slipped in. Thus the warriors
are often equipped with a round shield, two spears, and
greaves – the latter in one instance from tin (Iliad XVIII,
613). As Robert Drews cogently argues, the innovative
round shield is introduced into the eastern Mediterranean
by Sherden mercenaries from Sardinia fighting in the
Egyptian army from the beginning of the 13th century BC
onwards. Its earliest attestation in Greece is on the warrior
vase from Mycenae, dated to Late Helladic IIIC, i.e. just
37 Bass 1997.
38 Katzenstein 1973: 58-63; 130-2.
39 Haas 2000 (esp. 66-7).
40 Vanschoonwinkel 1991: 195.
41 Popham, Touloupa & Sackett 1982; Bérard 1970 (cf. section
10, esp. note 288 below).
42 Ventris & Chadwick 1973: glossary, s.v.