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

7. ETHNOGENESIS OF THE GREEKS
The decipherment of Linear B by the British architect Michael
Ventris has proved that Greek existed as a language
from the second half of the 15th century BC onwards: the
earliest tablets are in fact from the Late Minoan II-IIIA1
period at Knossos in Crete (= c. 1450-1350 BC). 127 The
question which will be addressed here is: when did the
Greek language, and hence probably the Greek ethnos – in
later times at least the Greek language is one of the most
distinctive features of the Greek ethnos – , come into being?
Was it the result of an immigration by proto-Greeks
into the region we call Greece, or are there other processes
at work? In order to tackle this question, we will look at
the relevant archaeological, historical, and linguistic evidence.
From an archaeological point of view, there are three
periods which might be of relevance to our question: first
the transition from Early Helladic II to Early Helladic III
(c. 2300 BC), then the transition from Early Helladic III to
Middle Helladic (c. 2000 BC), and finally the transition
from Middle Helladic to Late Helladic I (c. 1600 BC) (for
alternative opinions focussing on different periods, see additional
note at the end of this section). All these three
transitional periods in varying degrees show evidence of
discontinuity in occupation. The type site for the transition
from Early Helladic II to Early Helladic III is Lerna, expertly
excavated by the Americans under the leadership of
John Caskey. Here the so-called “House of the Tiles” went
up in flames and was covered by a tumulus, new house
forms were introduced, characterized by apsidal ends, a
new pottery style was developed, first hand-made only,
which is baptized Minyan ware, and a new type of burial
came into fashion, namely individual burials in cist graves.
In the following transition from Early Helladic III to Middle
Helladic, the new features characteristic of Lerna and
some other sites, are also introduced at places that remained
untouched in the first transitional period, sometimes,
as at Eutresis, after a violent conflagration.
Although related cultural traits were introduced at both pe-
127 For the correlation of archaeological phases and absolute
chronology, see Warren & Hankey 1989; note however that the
lowering of the dates of Amenhotep III and Akhenaten as per
Kitchen 1989 has its repercussions for the date of the transition
from Late Minoan IIIA1 to Late Minoan IIIA2, which should
likewise be lowered from c. 1370 BC to c. 1350 BC.
59
riods, what distinguishes the transition at c. 2000 BC from
the previous one at c. 2300 BC is the presence at some
sites of Mattpainted ware, originating from the Cycladic
islands, and a little imported or locally imitated Middle
Minoan IA ware. It further deserves notice that at Lerna in
a context to be dated after the destruction of the “House of
the Tiles” bones have been found, first, in the Early Helladic
III period, of a horse-like animal and later, in the Middle
Helladic period, of a true horse.
A majority of the archaeologists, led by Caskey, is of
the opinion that in the two aforesaid transitional periods a
new people arrived in Greece, coming from the north or
east or both, which spoke an Indo-European language, if
not already Greek then at least about to become Greek. 128
This majority standpoint is challenged by the penetrating
study of René van Royen & Benjamin Isaac, who convincingly
demonstrated that the transition from Middle Helladic
to Late Helladic I, usually considered to be without a
true break, shows evidence of discontinuity in occupation
in about the same way as the two foregoing transitional periods.
Thus it happens that sites are abandoned (Argos) or
destroyed by fire (Eleusis, Kirrha) at the time of the introduction
of the Minoanizing Late Helladic I ware. 129 Another
new feature of this period, next to the Minoanizing
pottery style, is the introduction of new types of graves:
shaft graves, tholos- and chamber tombs – the latter for
multiple burials. Of these, the shaft graves at Mycenae deserve
special mention for their extremely rich contents:
clearly here were buried valiant warriors who appreciated
luxuries inspired by as far away a country as Egypt (think
of the daggers with Nilotic scenes, the gold masks and
Heinrich Schliemann’s observation that one of the corpses
was mummified). As manifest from the scenes on the stelae
which marked their graves, the dignitaries in question
were specialized in chariot warfare. In line with these findings,
there has come into being a minority view according
to which the arrival of the proto-Greeks in Greece consists
of a so-called takeover by a comparatively small but wellorganized
chariot-brigade in the transitional period from
Middle Helladic to Late Helladic I. As a variant, more
128 Caskey 1973.
129 Van Royen & Isaac 1979.