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

have been Crete, since in the text of the Phaistos disc (if
we are allowed to make use of the reading and interpretation
of the latter document recently put forward by a group
of Dutch scholars, referred to in note 182) this town is
called “Assuwian” (B 10-11) and in the tablets of Hagia
Triada mention is made of a-si-ja-ka u-mi-na-si “of the
Asian town” (HT 28a), which likely refers to Phaistos,
again. 184 The radiation of Assuwa’s influence to Crete
might also account for its occurrence in form of Asiya
(’Isy) in the annals of Tuthmoses III for the years just after
the eruption of the Santorini volcano (in casu 1445 and
1441-1440 BC). This subphase ends with the defeat of the
Assuwian league by the Hittite king Tud®aliyas I (1430-
1400 BC).
With the elimination of the Assuwian league by the
Hittites again a vacuum of power is created in the Aegean
region – thus marking the start of our second subphase.
One of the parties taking advantage of this situation is Attarissiyas,
the man of A®®iy, in whom we may recognize
Atreus, the father of Agamemnon, king of Mycenae and
leader of the Akhaians at the time of the Trojan war. According
to the annals of the Hittite kings Tud®aliyas II
(1390-1370 BC) and Arnuwandas I (1370-1355 BC), this
Akhaian ruler repeatedly attacked Madduwattas – a Hittite
vassal in the region of southwest Anatolia – and with the
latter held a raid on the island of Alasiya (= Cyprus), using
as much as 100 chariots. 185
The third and final subphase of the Minoan-
Mycenaean transitional period is characterized by the renewed
prominence of Arzawa under its king Tar®undaradus.
This king corresponded with the Egyptian pharaoh
Amenhotep III (1390-1352 BC) about the marriage of his
daughter to the latter. In this correspondence, recovered at
Tell El-Amarna, it is stipulated that the land of Hatti is
“shattered”. 186 The latter situation is plausibly connected
with the historical preamble to a decree of Hattusilis III
(1264-1239 BC) according to which before the reign of
Suppiluliumas I (1344-1322 BC) the realm of Arzawa
184 Meijer 1982: 97. For Luwian umina- “town”, see Laroche
1960a: *228; Woudhuizen 1994-5: 183; Woudhuizen 2004a: 41.
185 Note the diffusion of Mycenaean ware from the Argolid, reaching
Kos in Late Helladic IIB and Ialysos in Rhodes in Late Helladic
IIB-IIIA1, thus providing us with stepping stones for
Attarissiyas’ actions in southwest Anatolia and Cyprus, see Vanschoonwinkel
1991: 164-5.
186 Moran 1992: 101 (= EA no. 31); cf. Mercer 1939: EA no. 31
(“zersplittert”).
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reached to Uda and Tuwanuwa, which means to the territory
south of the Halys river deep in the ancestral Hatti
lands. Furthermore, the Egyptian pharaoh requests
Tar®undaradus to send Kaskans, a people situated to the
north of the Hittite capital Boazköy/Hattusa, but at the
time even occupying Nenassa south of the Halys bow. The
marriage of Amenhotep III with a daughter of
Tar®undaradus was part of a grander scheme, namely to
curb Hittite power both in the east and the west. Another
part of this scheme was formed by the political support
rendered to the Mycenaean Greeks. As argued by Eric
Cline, this support is emanating from the discovery of
scarabs and faïence plaques of Amenhotep III and his wife
Tiyi in the Aegean region, a concentration of which was
found in the capital Mycenae itself. Moreover, there is a
remarkable correspondence between the findspots of these
Egyptian imports and the places mentioned in the list of
Aegean place names on a statue base found in Amenhotep
III’s temple tomb at Kom el-Hetan, Thebes, which, though
starting and ending in Crete, likewise attributes a central
position to the Greek mainland if not actually to Mycenae
itself. Interestingly, the distribution of the Egyptian imports
plausibly suggested to reflect political support includes
western Asia Minor, as a scarab of Amenhotep III
has been discovered at Panaztepe in the Hermos valley,
which conceivably belonged to the realm of Tar®undaradus.
187 The rationale behind lending political support to
both Tar®undaradus and the Mycenaean Greeks in a containment
policy of the Hittites may perhaps be provided by
the information from the discus of Phaistos – if, at least,
one is allowed to make use of the aforesaid reading and interpretation
of this hieroglyphic text as recently offered by
a group of Dutch scholars. 188 Here great king Tar®undaradus,
who, although not mentioned explicitly by name, is
likely to be identified as the sender of the letter, is staged
as the overlord of the Mycenaeans in Crete under leadership
of king Nestor of Pylos in mainland Greece189 – the
187 Cline 1987; Cline 2001; note, however, that a scarab of queen
Tiyi has also been found outside the Aegean proper in Cyprus, see
Kenna 1971: 24, no. 47.
188 Achterberg, Best, Enzler, Rietveld & Woudhuizen 2004.
189 On the relation of Pylos with Crete, see Hiller 1996: 81-2 with
reference to tablet fragments in Knossian scribal tradition from the
old palace at Pylos and the mention in the Pylos tablets of the Cretan
towns Aminiso “Amnisos” (PY 943) and Kotuwe “Gortys (D)”
(PY An 233, etc.).