Sea Peoples
& Natural Disasters
Hatti
Scholars are not agreed on precisely
how the Hittite Empire ended, although the consensus view holds that
invaders were responsible, and further, that the invading peoples are
perhaps the same mixture of warfaring sea peoples that attacked Egypt
in the days of Merenptah
and menaced Egypt in the days of the 20th dynasty king Ramses
III. We will
discuss these sea peoples in more detail later.
We are not convinced that the
scholars are correct. We have argued earlier in this book that
the Hittites were succeeded immediately by the Muski/Phrygians ruled by
a king Midas, perhaps but not certainly the king who later became a
legend. According to our earlier reasoning this king ruled around
765 B.C., the time of the Santorini explosion. The 760 B.C. date
we have
assigned to end of the Hittite empire falls only five years
later. These dates are supported by the entire weight of argument
in the three books
dedicated to this revision. The Muski were at least the
beneficiaries, if not
the immediate cause of the Hittite collapse.
We agree that much if not most of the
destruction inflicted on Hittite cities was caused by warfare, but we
must point out that the collapse of the walls of Hattusas, and the
havoc wrought elsewhere in the bend of the Halys, suggests that natural
causes, including earthquake, may have been a contributing
factor. Most Hittite sites show evidence of
destruction by fire. They are inevitably found buried in a layer
of ash.
But this does not necessarily imply warfare. As we will soon
observe in the case of Syria, where destructive fire fell
from heaven around this time, much of the burning may have
resulted from molten cinder and ash falling from the
sky, not from
military action. We wonder how many Hittite cities were burned
and buried the
day Santorini erupted and sent storms of fiery lava and pumice raining
throughout the
ancient world.
While there is ambiguity regarding the
cause of the Hittite collapse, there is general agreement as to its
timing, at least vis-a-vis the destruction of Ugarit and the end of the
19th dynasty in Egypt. All scholars agree that these three
events took place simultaneously, and that all resulted from the same
mass migration of sea-peoples. We agree in substance, though our
revised dates necessitate some correction to the identification of the
marauding sea peoples. It is only the absolute date of the
event that is in question. The traditional history
positions
these mass movements of sea peoples at the end of the 13th century B.C.
The revised
history moves them forward to the middle of the 8th century.
Which is correct?
All of the archaeological
evidence which demonstrates that the Phrygians immediately followed the
Hittites in multiple locations in central Anatolia, firmly places the
end of
the Hittite empire in the 8th century. All of the evidence cited
in the three books of this revision, that which demands that the
Hittite Empire be dated to the 9th/8th centuries B.C., precisely where
the traditional history admits the existence of a (Neo-)Hittite
Empire, agrees entirely with the archaeaological
evidence. Recently discovered documents clearly place a
king Suppiluliumas, arguably the last king of the Hittite Empire, on
the Hittite throne around the years
765-760 B.C. Little is known about his reign, though one
letter from Ugarit, found in the kiln of the destroyed city, suggests
that famine plagued the Hatti land at that time. Does this
imply that Hittite crops had been recently destroyed? It
is of some interest that in his brief reign Suppiluliuma II was
compelled to fight off invaders coming to the southern shores of his
kingdom from Alashiya (Cyprus). In the words of Johannes Leymann:
The Sea People, this
time genuinely sea-borne, had by now reached and occupied Alashiya
(Cyprus) on their way to Syria. Suppiluliuma made a last
desperate attempt to recapture the island. 'I mustered ... and
swiftly reached the sea - I, Suppiluliuma the Great King. But
ships from Alashiya opposed me three times in battle in the midst of
the sea. I destroyed them. I seized the ships and set them
ablaze in the midst of the sea. But when I came on to dry land,
the foes from Alashiya opposed me in battle. The Hittites 296
According to Leymann, "We
do
not know the sequel".
At least one other hint that
these were troublesome times is found in a sequence of oaths of
loyalty, recorded on tablets, required of multiple Hittite
subjects. Such oaths were common in treaties with foreign
kings. They are otherwise unknown among the rank and
file. Once again we follow Leymann:
Thanks to a discovery
made in 1953, we know that the last Hittite king was another
Suppiluliuma ... A brother of Arnuwanda, he reigned ca.
1200 during a period of such turmoil and dissolution that he was
obliged to make his subjects swear an oath of allegiance in order to
assert his authority. The following declaration was made by a
senior scribe of wooden tablets at the Hittite court: "I shall
defend the issue of my lord Suppiluliuma alone. I shall not
support another man, descendant of Suppiluliuma the First, descendant
of Mursili, descendant of Muwatalli and Tudhaliyas' This is
only one of several such oaths of allegiance, most of them cursorily
inscribed. The Hittites
295
We hear no more from
Suppiluliuma. The Hittites Empire is silent. It is
sometime around the year 760 B.C.
Ugarit
The ancient city of Ugarit
(modern Ras Shamra) was situated less that
100 km from the southern border of the Hatti land. Throughout
much of the Hittite Empire period it headed a vassal state, bound by
treaty to the Hittites. It is not surprising that its end
coincided with that of its parent. Evidence from the ruins
of Ugarit suggests that it fell at the hands of the same rebels who
dealt the coup-de-grace to the Hatti land. Margaret Drower
provides the consensus view of the end of the city in her Cambridge Ancient History article
on the topic. She employs but a single paragraph discussing
the immediate
predecessors of Amurappi, the last king. Little is known
about them and there is some indication that things were amiss in the
kingdom following their reign.
Ibiranu was a
contemporary of Tudkhaliash IV and probably also of his
successor Arnuwandash III. The next king of Ugarit, Ibiranu's son
Niqmaddu III, can have had only a brief reign; whether 'Ammurapi, who
followed him, was of the royal line or no is uncertain, for, contrary
to the usual custom, his parentage is nowhere mentioned; he is likely
to have been of the same generation as his predecessor. CAH
II.2 145
Several years after the reign of
Amurappi began, Suppiluliumas II began his reign in
Hatti. If we are correct, his coronation may have coincided
with the
eruption of the Thera volcano. Almost immediately, we
see
signs of insurrection in the kingdom. Either this or marauders
from without threaten the Hatti land, possibly the same Alashiyans
alluded to previously. Apparently there is famine in the
land. Ugarit, as
a vassal state, was summoned to assist. Drower discusses
this circumstance.
Shuppiluliumash II now
ascended the Hittite throne and, facing a
mounting tide of threatening disaster, found himself relying more and
more on the fleet ofhis most important vassal on the Levant
coast. The blow was not long delayed. In the ruins of the
latest level of the palace at Ras Shamra, the kiln used for baking
tablets was found to be packed full of documents, abatch of about one
hundred brought by the scribes when freshly written; many are
transcriptions into alphabetic Ugaritic of letters and despatches which
must have been received in the weeks - even the days - before the fall
of the city: there had been no time to take them from the
kiln. The immediacy of the danger facing Ugarit is implicit in
the wording and content of some of these and other tablets. The
Hittite king asks urgently for a ship and a crew to transport grain
from Mukish to the Hittite town of Ura in Cilicia, as a 'matter of life
and death' since there is famine in the area. In making this
demand, the Hittite refers to an act of liberation whereby he has
formally released the king of Ugarit (probably 'Ammurapi) from
vassalage, but he makes it clear that Ugarit has not been absolved from
all her obligations towards her former overlord. Famine may also
have afflicted Alashiya at this time: a certain Pagan whose letter to
the King of Ugarit was one of those found in the kiln, calls the
Ugaritian 'my son', perhaps indicating that a dynastic marriage linked
their houses; he asks for a ship to be sent with food supplies for the
island. In reply, 'Ammurapi informs his 'father', the king of
Alashiya, that he has not a ship to spare, since the enemy has
plundered his coasts, while his own fleet is in the Lukka lands and his
troops in the land of the Hittites. CAH II.2 145-6
According to Drower "only one
known situation fits this predicament: the approach of the 'Peoples of
the Sea' whose destructive progress by way of Qode (Kizzuwadna), the
Khatti-land, Carchemish, Alashiya and Amurru is all too briefly related
by Ramesses III in his inscription on the north wall of the temple of
Medinet Habu." (op. cit. 146)
We disagree. The Medinet
Habu text to which Drower refers, the
same text which caused Johannes Leymann to identify this same group of
"Sea Peoples" as the cause of the Hittite collapse described
above, belongs to a later phase of the social disruption caused
by the eruption of the Santorini volcano. In the revised
history we have dated the beginning of the reign of Ramses III around
the year 757 B.C.. His fifth year, in which these
particular sea-peoples invaded Egypt for the first time, must be dated
around 752 B.C., about a decade after the dual problems of famine and
insurrection mentioned in the Ugaritic documents. We will return
to this subject when we discuss the Egyptian situation momentarily.
Then who are the enemy who
threaten the Hatti land and plunder the coastline around Ugarit?
The answer is suggested by the context and deserves only a brief
discussion. But first we must ask a few leading questions,
entirely ignored by Drower. Why is an island nation
like Alashiya unable to muster a single ship to feed its
population? And why is a port city like Ugarit unable
to supply ships in response to urgent request for
help? Granted that its military fleet (or what was left of
it) was assisting elsewhere; surely a thriving port city such as Ugarit
harboured hundreds of commercial vessels at any one time. Where
were they? And how did a shortage of food occur so suddenly and
simultaneously both in the Hatti land and on Alashiya?
The answer to all of these questions is supplied by the historical
context in which we have dated these events.
When Santorini erupted in 765
B.C. vast tidal waves must certainly have overwhelmed both Alashiya and
Ugarit. Not only were ships destroyed overnight, but stored
food supplies as well. Ugarit had recourse to inland
resources to resupply its population. Alashiya did
not. Additionally, both the island and the city, indeed all
of Anatolia, were suddenly overwhelmed with fiery ash hailing from the
heavens. Earthquakes toppled walls, building and crops alike
were destroyed by fire, a layer of ash blanketed the
ground. We assume that the letters in the ovens of
Ugarit were written only months following the Thera
explosion. In the interim peoples throughout the near
east scrambled frantically to obtain food. What they could
not obtain by negotiation they attempted to attain by
force. We assume that the enemy that was confronted in the
Lukka lands by Suppiluliumas was local, either acts of civil
disobedience on
the part of the local population, or pillage
by neighboring peoples. It is significant that the texts do
not name the enemy.
We also assume that the texts from
Ugarit predate the one mentioned by Leymann earlier, that which speaks
of a conflict between ships controlled by Suppiluliumas (probably
Ugaritic) and those acting on behalf of Alashiya. This later
conflict assumes that Alashiya has by this time obtained a few ships
and is
attempting to pillage supplies from the Anatolian
coastline. It is a battle for
survival. Both nations are desperately in need of
food.
Around this same time, Ugarit itself is
ransacked and plundered, perhaps by local vandals capitalizing on the
chaotic conditions which prevailed in the city, perhaps by neighboring
states in search of food or fortune. There is at least one letter
that suggests that some of the vandals may have originated in the
north. We quote Drower once again.
At the approach of the
enemy, Shuppiluliumash must have summoned his
vassals in North Syria to his aid, and Ugarit, loyal to the last, must
have sent her whole army. One of the letters found in the kiln
appears to be an urgent dispatch sent to the king in Ugarit from the
commander of the army in Lawasanda (Lawazantiya) in Cilicia, which his
troops had fortified in anticipation of attack. The enemy is
nowhere mentioned by name, probably because so motley a horde had no
collective name. Their presence in Mukish only a few dozen miles
from Ugaritian territory, is indicated in a letter of Ewir-Sharrum,
another of the Ugaritian generals in the field, to the queen or
queen-mother, in the absence of the king at the front. Part of
the letter is unfortunately damaged, but it sounds the note of extreme
urgency and makes a reference to Mount Amanus, though a contingent of
two thousand horses (equivalent to a thousand chariots, a very
formidable force) is apparently still at the king's disposal.
Other letters which may well date
from this time of crisis tell of
looting and burning. CAD II.2 146 (emphasis added)
Drower is careful to point out
later in
her article, that there are "many obscurities" in this letter from the
general; "moreover in script and language it differs from the other
tablets in the archive and its date is therefore
problematical". We should read too much into it. All
we know for certain is that Ugarit
ultimately succumbed to unnamed marauders. Already severely
damaged by earthquake and fire the city was ransacked by opportunists
in search of food and fortune. Its demise may be dated only
a
few months after the Santorini eruption. Small wonder that
archaeologists are divided on the cause of its downfall.
Here the earthquake and fire, and subsequent ransacking, came in such
quick succession that scholars are unable
to tell which preceded and which followed. Schaeffer, the
first to excavate the city, was confused.
Of the anxiety of the
king and people of Ugarit in the face of impending danger the tablets
leave us in no doubt. Whether or not the destruction of the city
was due to enemy action is less certain. M. Schaeffer, the
excavator of Ras Shamra over more than forty years, who long held the
view that the Peoples of the Sea were responsible for the final pillage
and burning of Ugarit, has now reached a different conclusion.
Ugarit, he suggests, may have come to terms with the invaders and
persuaded them to bypass the city. CAH II.2 147
We understand the dilemna confronting
Schaeffer. There is overwhelming evidence that earthquake
and fire destroyed the city, covering it with a thick layer of
ash. There is also evidence that marauders ransacked, and perhaps
burned the
city. Which event came first?
We believe that Schaeffer should have maintained his original
position. It is the historical context, not the
archaeology, that informs our
conclusion. That context was denied to Schaeffer by the
errant chronology of the traditional history. Ugarit was
partially destroyed in 765 B.C. as collateral damage of the great
Santorini eruption. It was ransacked and looted perhaps
only months, certainly less than a year later, as famine and frenzy
gripped the population of the entire near east. Small
wonder there is confusion.
Syria/Israel/Judah
There exists a secure link
between the end of the Hittite Empire, the ultimate destruction of
Ugarit, and the mass movement of migrant peoples in the final days of
the 19th Egyptian dynasty and the early years of the 20th. When
we lowered the dates for the Egyptian 19th dynasty by 450 years, the
dates for Hatti and Ugarit necessarily moved in tandem. It
follows that our argument thus far, with the exception of the late
date, might ultimately appeal to scholars. There is no
fundamental reason why the migrations of "sea peoples" or the activity
of vandals in the last days of Ugarit could not have resulted from a
disruption in the food supply consequent to a massive eruption of some
volcano in the Mediterranean. Nor is there any great
contradition in identifying the cause as the Santorini explosion.
What scholars will despute most vehemently is the 8th century
date we have assigned to the event. It is for this reason
that our discussion of happenings in Syria, Palestine and Assyria
are critical aspects of our argument. Our revision has left the
chronologies of these three countries intact. It is
therefore of paramount importance that we find evidence that a massive
explosion of the Santorini variety, accompanied by tandem destructions
by earthquake and fire such as we have observed elsewhere, was felt
along the eastern Mediterranean coastline. It is also vital
that the event can be dated with some certainty around the year 765
B.C. We hope to find confirmation that the coastline was
subject to gigantic tidal waves, that the land suffered a deluge of
volcanic molten rock and that the atmosphere was polluted with ash,
obscuring the sun for a considerable time. There should be
evidence of mass starvation and social unrest. If not, there is
something amiss in our chronological reconstruction.
We are not disappointed.
The Great Raash:
Around the year 765 B.C., during the reign of Uzziah king of Judah, the
eastern Mediterranean experienced the trauma of what the Hebrew Bible
calls "a great raash", generally translated earthquake, but with much
broader meaning. Upheaval or disruption might be a better
translation. The Jewish prophet Amos devotes an entire prophetic
book to a detailed summary of what transpired in Syria. The
prestigious International Critical
Commentary dates the ministry of this prophet to the years
765-750 B.C. That is only an estimate. We
assume it began
several years earlier. The vision recorded in his book must be
dated to the beginning of his ministry. This important book has
been the subject of much scrutiny. It deserves yet another look.
The introductory byline of the book of
Amos sets the stage:
The words of Amos, who
was among the sheepherders from Tekoa, which he envisioned in visions
concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah king of Judah, and in the days
of Jeroboam son of Joash, king of Israel, two years before the
earthquake (raash). (1:1)
Amos'
reference to the raash does
not function merely to date his prophetic
word. It is rather an announcement of his intention to describe
the event. What follows is a panoramic vision of the raash
as it devastated the key centres of population from Damascus to the
Gaza strip, its arrival announced with a thunderous roar in Jerusalem
(1:2). From north to south the identical scene played out, fire
(from heaven) consuming the citadels of Damascus, bringing to an end
the royal line of Hazael and Ben-Hadad (1:3-5); and fire (from heaven)
consuming the walls and
citadels of Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon and Ekron (1:6,7) all but ending
Philistine civilization (1:8). Elsewhere the scene is
repeated. Tyre on the Meditteranean
coast suffered the identical fate as Damascus and Philistia
(1:9,10). Likewise Edom and Ammon further inland
(1:14,15). This was no mere earthquake; it was rather a
holocaust. We should not be deceived by the brevity of the
description. Significant for our revision, these events
are clearly dated around the year 765 B.C.
The description continues for nine
chapters. All of the anticipated elements are present. The
coastline shudders and the earth shakes, causing city walls and
buildings to fall. A gigantic tidal wave or multiple waves vent
their fury on the land, punishment, according to Amos, for the sins of
the nations. By degrees the sky is blackened by molten ash
and cinders. Fire fell from heaven, turning cities into
raging infernos. All was viewed as a judgment from the Lord for
multiple national sins.
He who made the
Pleiades and Orion
And changes deep darkness into morning
Who also darkens day into night
Who calls for the waters of the sea
And pours them out on the surface of the earth
The Lord is His name
It is He who flashes forth with destruction upon the strong
So that destruction comes upon the fortress (5:8,9; cf. 9:5-6)
Tidal waves came like a torrent,
sweeping away even those most securely sheltered,
depositing their remains on the highest elevations.
You will go out through
breaches in the walls
Each one straight before her
And you will be cast to Harmon, declares the Lord (4:3)
Ash swept in like a fog.
The sun was obscured. Darkness and gloom prevailed, awesome and
frightful.
Will not the day of the
Lord be darkness instead of light
Even gloom with no brightness in it. (5:20)
And it will come about in that day, declares the Lord God
That I shall make the sun go down at noon
And make the earth dark in broad daylight (8:9)
A great earthquake shocked the
land; aftershocks continued, the land rippled like a wave.
Because of this will
not the land quake
And everyone who dwells in it mourn
Indeed, all of it will rise up like the Nile,
And it will be tossed about
And subside like the Nile of Egypt. (8:8)
Death and destruction were
immediate and widespread. Property and crops were
destroyed in minutes (5:3,11). Entire nations were all but
exterminated; dynasties ended. Ninety percent of the population
died.
For thus says the Lord
God
The city which goes forth a thousand strong
Will have a hundred left
And the one which goes forth a hundred strong
Will have ten left to the house of Israel. (5:3)
Scholars have been confused by
the language of Amos, perplexed at how
to explain the absolute devastation he describes. Most
interpreters view the entire book as a metaphor, believing that the
devastation thus
described was the result of warfare. They point
to the fact that twenty years after the prophecy the Assyrian armies of
Tiglath Pilezer III did in fact invade the Levant, causing
indeterminate damage and inflicting innumerable casualties. There
are in fact several indications in the text that warfare did accompany
the events described elsewhere.
Therefore, thus says
the Lord God
An enemy, even one surrounding the land
Will pull down your strength from you
And your citadels will be looted (3:11)
We argue instead that the few
references to war are expected. From the experience of Hatti and
Ugarit we anticipate precisely this
secondary destruction by rebels/vandal/opportunists. In Syria
the house of Ben-Hadad and Hazael has ended. A contest for
the vacant throne must surely follow.
Widespread looting of destroyed cities is predictable. And as we
will observe in our discussion of Egypt, a decade after the destruction
of the Levant in 765 B.C. sea-peoples did invade Syria en mass, and
sojourn there en-route to Egypt. But neither these
migrant armies, nor the Assyrians later, are known to have wrought
havoc even remotely approaching what Amos envisions. The prophet
is most certainly attributing
the destruction to natural causes and the looting to human intervention
following. Any other interpretation is strained..
A half century ago Immanuel
Velikovsky recognized that the language of
Amos should be taken literally. In his Worlds in Collision he
attributed a cosmic cause to the earthquake, the tidal waves and the
fire from heaven. But there is no hint in the prophetic
writing of Amos of this extra-terrestrial origin. And
the date 765 B.C. convinces us that our interpretation is correct.
The great raash in Uzziah's day
was remembered for centuries. It became the unique symbol
of a time when the judgment of God was announced to the world with
great natural accompanying wonders, most importantly the pollution of
the heavens with clouds of ash and cinders which block out the sun,
turning day into darkness. Thus declares the prophet
Zechariah speaking hundreds of years later:
And you will flee by
the valley of My mountain, for the valley of the
mountains will reach to Azel; yes, you will flee out as you fled before
the raash in the days of
Uzziah king of Judah. Then the Lord, my
God, will come and all the holy ones with Him. And it will come
about in that day that there will be no light; the luminaries will
dwindle. For it
will be a unique day known to the Lord, neither day nor night ... Zech
14:5-7
The pollution of the atmosphere was
without doubt the most vivid and lasting effect of the Santorini
eruption. It must have persisted for months, if not
years. And its effects must have been felt around the
world. If so, then we should expect to see some
reference to it in the vast archives of the Assyrians, apart from the
Hebrew Bible the best preserved source of knowledge about the near
eastern world of the 8th century B.C. We should
therefore turn our attention eastward to Assyria. But
first one final question related to the situation which prevailed in
Syria following
the great raash.
Rezin. For well
over a hundred years before the great raash
Syria was ruled by a
succession of kings bearing the dynastic names Ben-Hadad and
Hazael. Amos is unequivocal is declaring an end to this
succession around 765 B.C. Unfortunately there is no
explicit
biblical reference to the political situation which prevailed in the
decades which immediately followed the raash. The next we hear from
Syria the country
is ruled by an otherwise unknown king named Rezin.
We first encounter Rezin around
the year 745 B.C. At the time he has allied himself with
Pekah, king of Judah, and is proceeding to attack Jerusalem (2 Kings
16:5,6) Ahaz, the Judaean king, responded by seeking the
help of the Assyrians, now ruled by the infamous Tiglath-Pilezer
III. As a result "the king of Assyria listened to him; and
the king of Assyria went up against Damascus and captured it, and
carried it away into exile to Kir, and put Rezin to death" (2 Kings
16:9)
We mention Rezin in order to highlight
one interesting aspect of his reign. Our only information
regarding him in the Jewish historical literature describes his violent
end. He is portrayed in this brief vignette as an
aggressive military leader. Nothing more is said about him.
We believe his reign began twenty years earlier, in succession
to the dynasty of Ben-Hadad and Hazael. And we believe that very
soon following the raash he
led an army, perhaps including foreign
mercenaries, to successfully attack Egypt, weakened by the same
upheaval that decimated the Levant. Surprising as it
might seem, for a brief moment in time this Syrian king became an
Egyptian pharaoh. But here we are getting ahead of
ourselves. We will take up that story in a moment.
Assyria
It is estimated that when Santorini
exploded "about 7 cubic miles (30 cubic km) of rhyodacite magma was
erupted" and that "the plinian column during the initial phase of the
eruption was about 23 miles (36 km) high". Much of that
material must have remained in the atmosphere for years, blocking out
the sun around the world. The heavier molten ash would have
dissipated in the first few days following the explosion, and depending
on wind conditions would have spent its fury within a radius of three
or four hundred miles. The eastern shores of the Mediterranean
might have been its limit.
Assyria lies five hundred miles further
east, and was spared the fury of the fiery downfall. But the ash
remained. The sun was obscured. Day turned to night
as it did in Amos' world. And the event was duly noted.
As a rule the Assyrian annals are not
interested in astronomical events. Lists of kings and their
exploits were produced in abundance, citing fact upon fact in concise
and monotonous sequence. But in the most inoccuous of
places and in the most matter of fact manner, one scribe at one
moment in time made an exception to the rule, and remarked on the fact
that the light of the sun was obscured. His remark was
recorded around 765 B.C. Unfortunately for history,
Assyriologists have misconstrued his remarks.
One of the most inportant sources for
the determination of Assyrian dynastic history is the Eponym Canon, a
document which itemizes, year by year, the reigns of the rulers of the
country over two centuries, associating each year with some notable
person or event. Its relative chronology is extremely
precise, affording scholars the opportunity to establish with precision
the sequence of Assyrian kings together with their reign lengths for
much of the 9th and 8th centuries B.C. And since several of
these Assyrian kings interacted with the kings of Syria and Israel, it
is possible to link Assyrian and Syrian chronologies with that of
Israel with some degree
of accuracy. By comparing the biblical and Assyrian data it
can be established with some certainty that the reign of the Assyrian
king Ashur-dan III should be dated roughly in the years
773-755. It follows that the Santorini explosion should be
dated approximately a decade into his reign.
Hugo Winckler, one of the most notable
Assyriologists from the pioneering days of this discipline, wrote his
History of Babylonia and Assyria
early in the 20th century, following
closely the data provided by the Eponym Canon. Concerning
the reign of Ashur-dan III (773-764?) he writes:
He marched three times
into Syria, the first time against Damascus, and
the second against Chata-rikka to the north of it. Twice he
advanced into Babylonia, in 771 and 767, where he sought to oppose
the Chaldeans. The second half of his reign witnessed a weakening
of his kingdom which compelled concentration of effort upon the
maintenance of that which had been slowly accomplished in the
tributary states. In 763 an insurrection broke out which, in the
years that followed, was repeated in different quarters until by
degrees a large part of the kingdom was involved. The Eponym
Canon puts a division line before this year (the year which it tells us
the eclipse of the sun occurred - a valuable notice for the
determination of the old chronology) as it does before the beginning of
a new reign; for, since the insurrection took place in Ashur, a rival
king must have been called forth.... The Eponym Canon does not
name the king who was raised to the throne by the insurrection, but
from various statements it is clear that he was recognized as
king. He was Adad-Nirari IV (763-755). HBA 234-5.
Several aspects of Winkler's summary of
the reign of Ashur-dan require explanation. We begin by reminding
readers well versed in ancient history that the reference to the
obstruction of the sun noted in the Eponym Canon in the 10th year of
Ashur-Dan has from the outset of Assyriological studies been
interpreted as a solar eclipse. And since comparison with
Jewish historical literature places Ashur-dan "roughly" in the third to
fifth decades of the 8th century, scholars from the outset sought to
determine the date of the event by astronomical means. They were
immediately successful. The fact that a solar eclipse took place
in the near east in 763 B.C. clinched the identification, and
with the Eponymn Canon in hand Assyrian chronology was rigidly secured
in its present position before the end of the 19th century.
The reign of Ashur-dan must have begun in 773 B.C. and it ended,
according to the Canon, eighteen years later, in 755 B.C.
But this interpretation of the "obliterated sun", and the results
which issued from it, should be seriously questioned.
Several challenges should be issued to
Winckler's remarks, quoted above. In the first place the
Assyrian text merely states that in the eponym year in question the
"the sun did not shine". The reference is to an event of
considerably more import than a momentary darkening of the sun, an
event lasting for at most a few hours. The Assyrians were
not a backward people, awestruck by an unexpected and awesome celestial
event. Assyrian astronomers were well aware of eclipses of
both moon and sun and able to predict their arrival with some degree of
accuracy. The eclipse of the sun would hardly deserve
mention in a document concerned to uniquely identify the regnal
year of a king. Rather, we suspect, this was the year that
day turned to darkness, the beginning of a prolonged period of dusk and
gloom that lasted for months, and perhaps for years.
There is evidence in Canon itself that we a right.
Winckler notes the fact that before
mentioning the year in which the sun ceased shining "the Eponym Canon
puts a division line", something it is careful to do elsewhere only at
the end of the reign of an Assyrian king, the end of an era so to
speak. The presence of a line before the 10th year of Ashur-dan
is unexpected and unprecedented, since his reign continued for another
decade. Winkler attempts to explain its presence by inventing and
inserting at this stage his king Adad-Nirari IV and assigning to this
king the years 763-755 B.C., thus ignoring the plain witness of the
Canon. We understand his reasoning. Something
extremely important must have begun in the 10th year of Ashur-dan
III. But what? We suspect, though admittedly we
cannot prove, that there began this year a period of prolonged
darkness, unprecedented and unexplained. We believe it
continued for years. And we date the event to 765 B.C., not
763 B.C. We should perhaps point out, in passing,
that altering the date for the 10th year of Ashur-dan by several years
implies that all chronologies for near eastern civilizations which are
referenced to Assyrian chronology are off by the identical number of
years, since this date was pivotal in assigning an absolute chronology
to the Assyrian kings. This means, in turn, that every 1st
millenium date used in our revision to this point in time would need to
be moved backward two years, to agree with a
revised Assyrian chronology. Needless to say we have no
intention of turning back the clock. There remains some
doubt that our interpretation of the Eponym Canon is correct, and our
date for the Santorini explosion was only approximate. What
is noteworthy here is the fact that the Canon reference to an obscured
sun provides a possible
parallel to events taking place elsewhere in the near east around the
identical time. And as coincidences multiply, certainty
grows.
We should also note in passing one
further curiosity. Not only does a new era begin in the 10th year
of Ashur-dan, whether 765 B.C. or 763 B.C. in absolute terms, but there
is clear evidence that this era ended around the year 747 B.C. when a
new age began. Many Assyrian documents are referenced to this new
age, well known to scholars as the "age of Nabonidus" Why it
began and what were its characteristics has never been determined.
Immanuel Velikovsky, the great revisionist thinker, makes the
following insightful comments:
In -747 a new calendar
was introduced in the Middle East, and that year
is known as "the beginning of the era of Nabonidus." It is
asserted that some astronomical event gave birth to this new calendar,
but the nature of the event is not known. The beginning of the
era of Nabonassar, otherwise an obscure Babylonian king, was an
astronomical date used as late as the second Christian century by the
great mathematician and astronomer of the Alexandrian school, Ptolemy,
and also by other scholars. It was employed as a point of
departure of ancient astronomical tables. WC 210
Quoting from Cumont's Astrology and Religion amoung the Greeks
and Romans, Velikovsky continues:
"This was not a
political or religious era ... Farther back there was
no certainty in regard to the calculation of time. It is from
that moment that the records of eclipses begin which Ptolemy used."
(Cumont 8,9) What was the astronomical event that closed the
previous era and gave birth to a new era? WC 210
Velikovsky corrects concludes that the
great raash of Uzziah's day
was the cause. But he wrongly concludes that the event happened
in 747 B.C.. We maintain
that the sun was first obstructed in 765 B.C. And when the
sun was obstructed so also was the nighttime sky.
Observation of the movements of sun and moon and stars which guided the
calculations of the Assyrian astronomers were precluded. In
a very real sense the Assyrians lost the ability to precisely regulate
their calendar. If we are correct the sky did not
clear sufficiently to resume calendrical determinations for 18
years! Of this we cannot be certain, but the fact
that the record of eclipses used by Ptolemy begins only in 747 B.C.
agrees
with our suggestion.
It is time to turn our attention to
Egypt, whence began this lengthy and circuitous excursus. We have
come full circle.
Egypt
In our second chapter we outlined
the histories of the 19th and 20th Egyptian dynasties, based to a large
extent on the chronology represented by the Berlin
genealogy. To Ramses II and Merenptah, the two most
notable kings ruling at the end of the 19th dynasty, we assigned the
dates
840-774 and 774-764 B.C. respectively. We also said concerning
the
ephemeral kings Seti II, Amenmesse, Siptah and Twosre, that they almost
certainly did not rule in succession at the end of the dynasty, as the
traditional history would lead us to believe. In all
likelihood their reigns overlapped the terminal years of
Merenptah, and several of them contested simultaneously for the
throne.
We repeat our earlier claim that
"most of the (few) monuments of this period are undated and there is no
clear evidence that these kings ruled in succession. In
fact, the evidence suggests otherwise." The four terminal kings
appear
to have been confined to the vicinity of Thebes, where they exercised
some limited political power till around 759 B.C., the date we assign
to the
beginning of the reign of Setnakht (759-757 B.C.), the patriarch of the
20th dynasty kings. These dates allow for the fact,
expressly stated by Ramses III, that an interregnum existed in Egypt
prior to the advent of his father Setnakht. To Ramses
(III), by far the most prominent king of the 20th dynasty, we have
assigned the
provisional dates 757-725 B.C.
The confusing evidence
attesting the brief reigns of the four ephemeral kings is
reflective of the
chaotic conditions which prevailed in Egypt both prior to and
immediately following
the great raash of 765 B.C. The country was threatened from
without for much of the reign of Merenptah through the first decade of
the reign of Ramses III. We believe that the series
of eruptions culminating in the cataclysmic explosion of Santorini was
a primary cause. There are only a few items from this time
frame deserving of comment here. We begin with the reign of
Merenptah.
Merenptah. From
the 5th year of
Merenptah well into the reign of Ramses III Egypt was threatened
by
marauding sea-peoples, though we must distinguish between the early and
later
phases of this series of aggressions. The early attacks
were lauched by Lybia, accompanied by other Meditteranean peoples
including the Ekwesh, Teresh, Luka, Sherden, Shekelesh, identified only
as "northerners coming from all lands." It is interesting
to
note that the lands involved encircle Santorini like a
wreath. Breasted, who has published all the
relevant inscriptions from the reign of Merenptah, gives his
impressions of the lands of origin of the aggressors.
Since the study of
Sarinian art by Perrot and Chipiez, as Muller has
shown, we must accept the Sherden as Sardinians; the Teresh may
then equally well be the Etruscans (Tyrsenoi), and the Shekelesh might
be the Sikeli (if "sh" be an ethnic termination in these western names;
...) Maspero has suggested Sagalassos in Asia Minor. The
Ekwesh are not impossibly the Achaeans, and from Asia Minor are the
Luka or Lycians. BAR III fn. a, 239
It is not necessary to assume
that this incursion of foreigners into Egypt was prompted by starvation
in or desolation of
the respective home countries of these peoples, nor that the desolation
resulted from volcanic activity at Santorini. But we do
consider that source to
be the likely cause. The year is 770 B.C., only five years
before the great explosion. We have previously argued that there
did
exist a lengthy period of volcanism on the island preceding the
great eruption of 765 B.C. The coincidence of time and
geography
is compelling. At least one reference in the Merenptah archives
indirectly supports this conclusion.
It is at least interesting to
observe that Merenptah, in his Great Karnak Inscription, in the same
breath in which he mentions with scorn the invading Libyan chief,
remarks on how he had recently sent "grain in ships, to keep alive that
land of
Kheta." This action is most naturally connected to the famine
which plagued the Hittites under Suppiluliumas II. It
follows therefore that it should be attributed to the same cause, which
we have identified as the volcanism at Santorini.
Breasted is convinced that Merenptah is here blaming the Hittites for
complicity in the recent attacks, thus accusing them being ingrates as
well as aggressors. Considering that the Luka were allied with
the invaders, and that the Luka were a tributary
nation of the Hittites during the late Empire period, he is probably
correct.
We move quickly from the beginning to
the end of the series of invasions of sea-peoples, i.e., those which
plagued
Egypt in the early days of Ramses III.
Ramses III.
Ramses III ruled, according to our revised chronology, from 757-725
B.C. In his 5th, 8th and 11th years he faced three separate
hordes of invading nations, the first led by Libya, assisted
by the
Philistines (Peleset) and the Thekel (Sicilians?); the second by a
northern confederacy "disturbed" from their isles, who are said to have
set up camp in Hatti and Syria, en route to Egypt; and the third by
another Libyan confederacy. It would be of some benefit to
discuss these invasion in some detail, but the principal of marginal
returns would soon set in. Rather, we focus our attention on the
invasion of the 8th year, 750 B.C. if we have correctly dated
Ramses III.
It is generally agreed that all of
these invasions were provoked by a common cause, some disaster in the
countries of origin of the invading
peoples. Something or someone "disturbed" these
confederates "in their isles", this according to the Medinet Habu
inscriptions in which Ramses has recorded the events. In
the case of the 750 B.C. invasion we read:
The countries - - , the
[Northerners] in their isles were disturbed, taken away in the [fray] -
at one time. Not one stood before their hands, from Kheta, Kode,
Carchemish, Arvad, Alasa, they were wasted. They set up a
camp in one place in Amor. They desolated his people and his land
like that which is not. They came with fire prepared before them,
forward to Egypt. Their main support was Peleset, Thekel,
Shekelesh, Denyen, and Weshesh. (These) lands were united, and
they laid their hands upon the land as far as the Circle of the
Earth. Their hearts were confident, full of their
plans. BAR IV 37-8
This invasion, according to the
inscription, arrived both by land and by sea,
as the invading hordes consolidated their strength in Anatolia (Kheta
and Kode), moved on to Syria (Carchemish, Arvad and Amor) where they
subdued what remained of the
northern and southern regions of the country, then on to
Egypt. We
let Breasted supply the details of what follows in the
inscription. He begins by linking this invasion with that which
preceded it three years earlier:
Already in Ramses III's
fifth year the tribes of the southern coast of Asia Minor and the
maritime peoples of the Aegean had sent some of their advanced galleys
to assist the Libyans in their war of that year against Egypt.
Or, as in Merneptah's day, the plundering crews of their southernmost
advance had incidentally joined the Libyan invasion. These
were but the premonitory skirmishing-line of a more serious and more
general movement. The peoples involved were probably Cretan
Peleset, a settlement of whom later became the biblical Philistines;
the Thekel, who may be the Sikeli, later of Sicily; the Shekelesh, the
Denyen or Danaoi, and the Weshwesh, who are of uncertain origin.
[A footnote informs us that the papyrus Harris adds the Sherden,
probably from Sardinia, to the list of invaders]. Owing to pressure
from uncertain sources without, large numbers of these peoples,
accompanied by their wives, children, and belongings, in clumsy ox
carts, left their homes, and moving eastward along the coast of Asia
Minor, penetrated Syria. They were accompanied by a strong fleet
also. In the author's opinion, this movement was really a "Volkerwanderung," not merely an
invasion, with a few families of the chiefs. They were strong
enough to hold all northern Syria at their mercy; from Carchemish,
through the Syrian Hittite conquests to the coast, as far south as
Arvad, and inland as far south as Amor, they plundered the
country. They had a central camp somewhere in Amor. BAR IV 33-4
Details of the actual invasion of Egypt
by this motley horde are of little interest to this
revision. We are concerned only to point out the remarkable
agreement with our proposed reconstruction of the history of the
period. Mainstream scholars are at a loss to explain
what is
happening. Many questions are left unanswered. What
tragic event could possibly explain
the mass displacement of peoples from remote geographic regions of the
eastern Mediterranean, not at a single moment in history, but at
various times spanning at least a twenty year time frame (much longer
in the traditional history)? How do
we explain how the northerners in the 8th year of Ramses III could
encamp in the vicinity of Kheta and Kode and Carchemish and encounter
virtually no opposition? Why is Kheta used here as a
place name only? Where are the Hittite people?
Why
are the Philistines involved in this supposedly 13th century event, a
nation that first appears in the Hebrew
Bible in days of kings David and Solomon in the 10th century
B.C.? And why
do we find mention of the Danaanians,
occupants of southern Anatolia named in 8th century documents and
otherwise known only from oblique references in Homers epic war
story. We mentioned them in an
earlier chapter. Finally, we wonder why the Etruscans are
mentioned if this is
the
13th century B.C.? Scholars have argued for centuries that
this group of European immigrants, ancestors of the
Romans, first arrived in Italy in the 8th century.
We have already provided our
answer to these problems. The events in question belong to the
8th century, not the 13th. Already in 770 B.C. eruptions of
Santorini were causing
havoc in the Mediterranean basin. Many Jewish prophets besides
Amos, including Isaiah, Micah and Haggai, were well aware of the
disasters already experienced by the Mediterranean world. Their
prophecies in part reflect their knowledge of present conditions.
Peoples around the Mediterranean had already sought
shelter or fled local
devastations. The great disruption of 765 B.C. only exacerbated
the problem. The damage was monumental.. Cloud enshrouded
the region for decades; aftershocks and secondary eruptions perpetuated
the fear. Drought persisted. Famine caused vast segments
of the surviving peoples to migrate and pillage in search of
food. As late as 750 B.C.,
the 8th year of Ramses
III, the gloom persisted. Another three years and the skies
had opened sufficiently to permit some degree of normalcy to life in
the Mediterranean. The Santorini disaster had run its
course. In Assyria a new age began. In Egypt the
Libyans tried one more time to find habitable domains but by now the
Europeans were content to remain in their homelands and
rebuild. It was 747 B.C.!
In time Santorini was
forgotten. Or was it? Some have argued, in
spite of maintaining a second millenium date for the event, that the
destruction of the island persisted in the myth of Atlantis, still
remembered by Plato in the 4th century B.C. The theory may be
correct in essence, though wrong in chronology.
But that is a
story for another time.
We have but one final observation
and with that this segment of our revision ends. If multiple
peoples of the near
east were dislodged from their homelands as early as 770 B.C., the 5th
year of Merenptah, and continued to seek refuge through 750 B.C., the
8th
year of Ramses III, then surely there must have been some intrusion of
foreigners into Egypt in the years between these dates, particularly in
the immediate aftermath of the 765 B.C. explosion. And
since Egypt was at this time "ruled" by an ailing king Merenptah, and a
succession of weak pharaohs contesting to succeed him, all ill equipped
to ward off armed intrusion, we expect that at least the northern
regions of the country were overrun during this time. We
do not expect to find corroborative evidence of this occupation in the
Egyptian monuments left by these rulers, whose preoccupation was more
with survival than posterity. We have dated the death of
Merenptah a year after the Santorini outburst. He may have died
fighting off the aggressors. In any case he was old and
ineffective, having come to power late in life due to the extemely long
life of his father Ramses II. The monuments suggest he was busy
preparing his tomb for the afterlife. His would be successors
were confined to the south of the country. The few
inscriptions that remain from this period
suggest that times were chaotic, but fail to document the fact that the
country was overrun by foreigners. Fortunately one
document composed in the immediate aftermath of the occupation survives
to tell us what happened. It is
more than enough.
The document in question is the
so-called Papyrus Harris, "found by the natives at Thebes in
1855". Breasted describes the great papyrus:
This remarkable
manuscript is the largest papyrus extant, being no less
than 133 feet long, and containing 117 columns, usually of twelve or
thirteen lines. Written in a magnificent hand, it is the
most sumptuous manuscript left us by ancient Egypt. The content
of the document is not less remarkable than its external form. It
is a detailed statement of Ramses III's benefactions to gods and men
during his entire reign of over thirty-one years. It was compiled
at his death by his son, to be placed in the king's tomb, and is
distinctly mortuary in its character and purpose. BAR IV 88
As Breasted notes elsewhere, "the
closing section, which is a short historical account of Ramses III's
reign, has received much attention". In particular it
offers us tantalizing detail concerning the interim between the end of
the 19th dynasty and the beginning of the 20th. It tells us
precisely what we have otherwise anticipated, that the country was
in fact successfully overrun by foreigners shortly after the death of
Merenptah.
According to the Harris Papyri,
when
Ramses III came to power ...
"the Libyans and the
Meshwesh were dwelling in Egypt, having plundered
the cities of the western shore, from Memphis to Kerben. They had
reached the great river on both its banks. They it was who
plundered the cities of Egwowe during very many years, while they were
in Egypt. Behold I destroyed them, slain at one
time. BAR IV 201-02
This revelation that the 20th dynasty
was preceded by a time of foreign occupation is stated even more
explicitly in the introductory paragraphs of the historical section
which precedes this description. We quote Breasted
one
last time. In the inscription Ramses (III) is speaking:
Hear ye, that I may
inform you of my benefactions which I did while I
was king of the people. The land of Egypt was overthrown
from without, and every man was (thrown out) of his right; they had no
chief mouth for many years formerly until other times. The land
of Egypt was in the hands of chiefs and of rulers of town; one slew his
neighbor, great and small. Other times having come after it, with
empty year, Yarsu, a certain Syrian was with them as chief. He
set the whole land tributary before him together, he united his
companions and plundered their possessions. They made the gods
like men, and no offerings were presented in temples. BAR
IV
198-99.
When scholars first read the papyrus
they were dumbfounded by the revelation that Egypt had been overrun by
foreigners prior to the beginning of the reign of Ramses
III. Particularly disturbing was the information that a
certain Yarsu, or Arsu, a Syrian chief, was among the intruders, and
that this foreigner had imposed his rule on some portion of the country
over several years. No historical antecedents could be
found in the 12th century to explain the event. No
explanation of what permitted this massive intrusion of a foreign
element into Egypt was readily at hand. Scholars were
unable to determine if this incursion brought the 20th
dynasty to an end, nor for how long the invaders ruled the
country. The entire episode is an enigma, and remains an
enigma. Egyptologists have
handled the incident the same way they have confronted a multitude of
other perplexities in the traditional history of the
country. The problematic material is simply ignored.
In the textbooks the 19th dynasty is succeeded by the 20th without
interruption. Foreigners are not mentioned. It is assumed
that there was no interregnum and therefore no need to
explain one.
The revised
history is more fortunate. Our date for the beginning of the 20th
dynasty lies only
six years following a massive volcanic eruption which devastated
multitudes of countries in the eastern Mediterranean, Egypt
included, bringing to an end the 20th dynasty, and opening the country
to the invasion of multitudes of opportunistic refugees.
Not only are we not surprised by the revelations of the Harris papyrus,
but had that document
not been preserved to confirm our expectations, we would have insisted
that a foreign invasion of Egypt must have taken place in the years
immediately following the Santorini explosion, bracketed by those that
had occurred five years earliers and those that followed a decade
later. But this time there was no strong dynastic leader to
resist it.
And it is our good fortune to be
able to claim, that at precisely that moment in history, Syria is ruled
by an opportunistic and aggressive chieftain named Resin, of which Arsu
is but an Egyptian variant. Coincidence? We think
not.
And on that note this segment of our
revision ends.
Concluding Personal Postscript.
I am under no illusion that
the scholarly community will rush to embrace my conclusions, though I
am convinced of their essential accuracy. If I am correct
entire library collections must be revised, rewritten or replaced.
Ancient history as it is now conceived is grossly in
error. Multiple scholarly disciplines related to that
history will have to
reexamine and revise many of their cherished assumptions.
Careers will be damaged, reputations ruined, egos bruised.
Without doubt critics will
respond to many of the arguments presented with
the same
disdain shown for the mountain of archaeological and cultural
historical evidence long known to contradict the long established and
inflexible traditional history. And perhaps moreso in this
instance for two reasons. In the first place the author
makes no claim to be an "expert" in the multiple disciplines which have
been utilized in his lengthy expose. He is clearly an
outsider. And secondly, the anticipated reaction can be
explained on the principle: "The closer the nerve, the sharper
the pain." The evidence we have presented is
overwhelming. It may well be considered "threatening".
As always in the case of proofs,
mathematical
or otherwise, there remains an element of subjectivity. In the
final
analysis the response to the revised history will depend on individual
perception of the merits of the argument. Thus in
conclusion we repeat the refrain heard often in all three books of our
series:
Let the reader decide.
Jim Reilly