14 - The Early Iron Age in the Central Balkan Area, c. 1000–750 B.C.

Summary

INTRODUCTION: GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS

This chapter, being a direct continuation of chapter 4, deals with events in the Balkan Peninsula down to c. 700 B.C. Although the year 1000 B.C. was adopted in CAH 11.2 as a dividing line in general, there are specific reasons for starting our account at a date in the region of 1200 B.C. In the first place, the period c. 1200–700 B.C. may be regarded as a closed unit in the interior of the Balkan Peninsula, in the hinterland of the Aegean littoral and in the eastern Mediterranean in a wider sense. During that time there was an uninterrupted and unique cultural development, which can be traced despite regional differences and individual stages. In the second place a significant turning-point in the historical process occurred early in this period. It was marked by the so-called Dark Age in Greece, the invasion of the ‘Sea Peoples’ in Egypt, the destruction of the Mycenaean towns in Greece, and the fall of the Hittite Empire in Asia Minor. Finally, it was the period of the Trojan war and the settlement of the Philistines in Palestine.

Recently many historians and archaeologists have treated the problems of the migrations of this period, especially the Dorian invasion, in a more critical and cautious manner. They have regarded the invasion of the Sea Peoples in Egypt more as incursions by individual groups bent on pillage than as migrations by large numbers of people. Similarly in dealing with the destruction of the Mycenaean towns and the empire of the Hittites they have paid more attention to the presence of internal strains and possible antagonisms within those societies.