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The absolute chronology of Late Helladic III A2 revisited1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

Malcolm H. Wiener
Malcolm H. Wiener
Affiliation:
The Institute for Aegean Prehistory
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Abstract

Recent dendrological and dendro/radiocarbon research has raised questions concerning dates previously proposed for the end of LH III A2 and the transition to LH III B. Moreover, further examination of the Mycenaean and Levanto-Mycenaean pottery from Kamid el-Loz in Syria has added relevant information, as has examination of the material from the Uluburun shipwreck and the Miletus excavation. Analysis suggests that the transition from LH III A1 to III A2 pottery takes place between 1390 and 1375 BC; the transition from LH III A2 to III B1 begins around 1330 BC at the earliest and ends around 1290 BC at the latest, with the main transition in many areas occurring no earlier than 1315–1305 BC.

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Articles
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 98 , November 2003 , pp. 239 - 250
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 2003

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Footnotes

1

An abridged version of this paper was presented at a conference at University College London on 25 May 2002 held in memory of Vronwy Hankey in recognition of her assistance to colleagues and contributions to learning. I dedicate this paper to the memory of Vrowny and Henry Hankey.

References

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3 Warren, P. and Hankey, V., Aegean Bronze Age Chronology (Bristol, 1989 Google Scholar). The authors note in a postscript (p. 214) that ‘discoveries of substantial LM IIIA2 levels in southern Crete, especially Haghia Triada, may require this view to be modified’.

4 Others have proposed spans ranging from the 20 years between 1360 and 1340 B C (E. Cline) to the 100 years between 1400 and 1300 BC (A. Furumark, A. Kanta); Cline, E., Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: International Trade and the Late Bronze Age Aegean (Oxford, 1994 Google Scholar); Furumark, A., Mycenaean Pottery (Stockholm, 1972 Google Scholar). All dates herein follow the Egyptian Middle Chronology. See Kitchen, K., ‘The basics of Egyptian chronology in relation to the Bronze Age’, in Åström, P. (ed.), High, Middle or Low? Acts of an International Colloquium on Absolute Chronology Held at the University of Gothenburg 20–22 August 1987, Part 1 (Göteborg, 1987), 37–55 Google Scholar; id., ‘History of Egypt (chronology)’, The Anchor Bible Dictionary, ii (New York, 1992) 322–31; id., The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt (1100–650 B.C.), 2nd revised edn. with supplement, (Warminster, 1996); id., ‘The historical chronology of Ancient Egypt: a current assessment’, Act. A. (1996), 1–13; id., ‘Regnal and genealogical data of Ancient Egypt (absolute chronology I): the historical chronology of Ancient Egypt, a current assessment’, in M. Bietak (ed.), The Synchronisation of Civilisations in the Eastern Mediterranean in the Second Millennium B.C. Proceedings of an International Symposim at Schloss Haindorf, 15th–17th of November 1996 and at the Austrian Academy, Vienna, 11th–12th of May 1998 (Vienna, 2000), 39–52; Kitchen, K. and Bierbrier, M., The Late New Kingdom in Egypt (c. 1300–664 B.C.) (Warminster, 1975 Google Scholar); Hornung, E., Untersuchungen zur Chronologie und Geschichte des Neuen Reiches (Wiesbaden, 1964 Google Scholar); ‘Chronologie in Bewegung’, in Görg, M. and Pusch, E. (eds), Festschrift Elmar Edel (Bamberg, 1979), 247–52Google Scholar; von Beckerath, J., Chronologie des ägyptischen Neuen Reiches (Hildesheim, 1994 Google Scholar); Die Chronologie des pharaonischen Ägypten (Mainz, 1997 Google Scholar); Krauss, R., Das Ende der Amamazeit (Hildesheim, 1978 Google Scholar); id., Sothis und Monddaten (Hildesheim, 1985); W. Helck, ‘Was kann die Ägyptologie wirklich zum Problem der absoluten Chronologie in der Bronzezeit beitragen?’, in Åström (op. cit.), 18–26; id., ‘Schwachstellen der Chronologie-Diskussion’, Göttinger Miszellen, 70 (1983), 43–9; id., ‘Chronologische Schwachstellen III’, Göttinger Miszellen, 70 (1983), 31–2; Luft, U., ‘Und nocheinmal zum Ebers-Kalender’, Göttinger Miszellen, 92 (1986), 69–77 Google Scholar; Wiener (n. 2), Addendum, 315–17. A recent restatement of the Egyptian chronology position appears in Wiener, M., ‘Time out: the current impasse in Bronze Age archaeological dating’, in Foster, K. and Laffineur, R. (eds), METRON: Measuring the Aegean Bronze Age. Proceedings of the Ninth International Aegean Conference, Yale University, 18–21 April 2002 (Aegaeum, 25 forthcoming)Google Scholar.

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8 Warren and Hankey (n. 3), 149; Wiener (h. 2), 309 and works cited therein.

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11 Ibid., 209.

12 For recent statements of the Egyptian Middle Chronology position, see K. Kitchen (n. 4).

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14 B. P. Hallager, ‘Mycenaean pottery in LM III A1 deposits at Khania, western Crete’, in French-Wardle (n. 6), 180. P. Warren also noted the overlap of LM III A2 and LH III B at the Stratigraphic Museum Extension site at Knossos (Hallager, 181).

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17 I am grateful to V. Hankey for these references.

18 Petrie, W. M. F., Tell el Amarna (London, 1894), 16–17 Google Scholar; Warren-Hankey (n. 3), 149; Popham, M. R., The Destruction of the Palace at Knossos. Pottery of the Late Minoan III A Period (Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology, 12; Göteborg, 1970), 84, n. 87Google Scholar.

19 V. Hankey, pers. comm.

20 Furumark, A., Mycenaean Pottery (Stockholm, 1941 Google Scholar); for Amarna see ii, 113.

21 Pers. comm.

22 Hankey, V., ‘Stirrup jars at El-Amarna’, in Davies, W. V. and Schofield, L. (eds), Egypt, the Aegean and the Levant. Interconnections in the Second Millennium B.C. (London, 1995), 116–24Google Scholar; Warren-Hankey (n. 3), 150, fig. 9.

23 P. Mountjoy observes (pers. comm.) that FS 178 does not usually have a decorated belly zone in III A2.

24 French, E., ‘Late Helladic IIIA2 pottery from Mycenae’, BSA 60 (1965), 159–202 Google Scholar.

25 Warren-Hankey (n. 3), 155, fig. 10.

26 I am most grateful to E. French for this assessment and for permission to quote it here, and to P. Mountjoy as well.

27 Manning, S. W. in A Test of Time (Oxford, 1999), 314 Google Scholar, stated the prior case as follows: ‘The 1628 B.C. and 1159–1141 B.C. tree-ring events are the only major tree-ring growth anomalies in the entire second millennium B.C. in the Irish dendrochronology. Therefore the correlation, within the possible dating window established by the high precision radiocarbon dating and wiggle-match, of the Anatolian and Irish dendrochronologies at both these decisive points provides a clear case for being able to apply the absolute dates from the Irish dendrochronology (and its European associates) to the Anatolian dendrochronology’.

28 Wiener (n. 2), 314.

29 Manning, S. W., Kromer, B., Kuniholm, P. I. and Newton, M. W., ‘Anatolian tree rings and a new chronology for the East Mediterranean Bronze-Iron Ages’, Science, 294 (21 Dec. 2001), 2532–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 The issues raised bv this proposed radiocarbon-based shift in the dendrological dates for the Anatolian floating chronology are addressed in detail in my forthcoming study entitled ‘Time Out: The Current Impasse in Bronze Age Archaeological Dating’ (Wiener, forthcoming [n. 4]), which concludes that the proposed shift in dates, while not free of all doubt, should be accepted as providing the best approximation of dates for the Anatolian sequence presently available.

31 Kramer, B., ‘Atmospheric BC levels from tree ring chronologies back to 12.400 BP: a tracer of natural climate variability in the Holocene’, lecture delivered at Cornell University on 29 Oct. 2002 Google Scholar, and pers. comm.; S. Manning, pers. comm. I am grateful to both colleagues.

32 Pers. comm. of 17 May 2002.

33 Kuniholm, P. I., Aegean Dendrochronology Project: 1996 Annual Progress Report (Ithaca, New York, 1996 Google Scholar); Pulak, C., ‘The Uluburun shipwreck’, in Hohlfelder, R. and Swiny, S. (eds), Res Maritima 1994: Cyprus and the Eastern Mediterranean, Prehistory Through the Roman Period (Atlanta, 1997), 233–62Google Scholar.

34 Wiener (n. 2), 314 and pers. comm.

35 See Manning et al. (n. 28), 2535, n. 38. I am most grateful to Professor Kuniholm for this information. Archaeological scientists as well as excavators sometimes find that it is necessary to correct a preliminary report.

36 I am grateful to M. Newton for calling this possibility to my attention.

37 Nicholson, P. T. and Henderson, J., ‘Glass’, in Nicholson, P. T. and Shaw, I. (eds), Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology (Cambridge, 2000), 195–222, esp. 200Google Scholar. The comparison was made possible through the provision of a cast of the Uluburun ingots by G. Bass and C. Pulak. See also Pulak, C., ‘The cargo of the Uluburun ship and evidence for trade with the Aegean and beyond’, in Bonfante, L. and Karageorghis, V. (eds), Italy and Cyprus in Antiquity, 1500–450 B.C. Proceedings of an International Symposium Held at the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America at Columbia University, November 16–18 2000 (Nicosia, 2001 Google Scholar).

38 Nicholson and Henderson (n. 36), 200, citing Bass, G. ‘Oldest known shipwreck reveals splendors of the Bronze Age’, National Geographic, 172 (1987), 692–733 Google Scholar; Jackson, C. M., Nicholson, P. T. and Gneisinger, W., ‘Glass-making at Tell el-Amarna: an integrated approach’, Journal of Glass Studies, 40 (1998), 11–23 Google Scholar.

39 Another LH III A2 link has been suggested in the form of possible Mycenaean warriors or at least their equipment. Schofield, L. and Parkinson, R. B., ‘Of helmets and heretics: a possible Egyptian representation of Mycenaean warriors on a papyrus from el-Amarna’, BSA 89 (1994), 157–70Google Scholar.

40 Nicholson-Henderson (n. 37), 204. Presumably this would imply a date between about 1360 and 1345 B.C. on the Egyptian Middle Chronology.

41 Warren-Hankey (n. 3), 149.

42 Nicholson-Henderson (n. 37), 205; Pusch, E. B., ‘Glasproduktion in Qantir’, Ägypten und Levante, 9 (1999) 111–20Google Scholar; Rehren, T. and Pusch, E. B., ‘Glass and glass making at Qantir-Piramesses and beyond’, Ägypten und Levante, 9 (1999) 171–9Google Scholar. I am grateful to David Aston for reminding me of the papers by E. B. Pusch.

43 Weinstein, J., ‘The Bronze Age shipwreck at Ulu Burun: 1986 campaign: III. The gold scarab of Nefertiti from Ulu Burun: its implications for Egyptian history and Egyptian-Aegean relations’, AJA 93 (1989), 23 Google Scholar.

44 Pers. comm. for which I am most grateful.

45 Pers. comm. conveyed by Dominique Collon, for which I am most grateful.

46 Pers. comm. of 8 Apr. 1997, for which I am most grateful.

47 Pers. comms. for which I am most grateful; J. Smith, letter of 4 Jan. 2003. The bucchero jug in question is illustrated in Bass, G., ‘A Bronze Age shipwreck at Ulu Burun (Kas): 1984 campaign’, AJA 90 (1986), 281 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

48 I am grateful to J. Rutter, who is publishing the pottery, and to E. French for discussing it with me and for these observations.

49 B. and W.-D. Niemeier, ‘Milet 1994–1995. Projekt “Minoisch-mykenisches bis protogeometrisches Milet”: Zielsetzung und Grabungen auf dem Stadionhügel und am Athenatemple’, AA 1997, 197; W.-D. Niemeier 1997 (n. 6); id., 1998 (n. 6), 32–3; id., pers. comm. For the settlement sequence of prehistoric Miletus as established by the new excavations see Niemeier, W.-D., in Greaves, A. M. and Helwing, B., ‘Archaeology in Turkey: the Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages, 1997–1999’, AJA 105 (2001), 505–6Google Scholar. See also Hawkins, J. D., ‘Tarkasnawa King of Mira “Tarkondemos”, Boğazköy Sealings and Karabel’, Anatolian Studies, 48 (1998), 1–31 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

50 Goetze, A., ‘Die Annalen des Mursilis’, Mitteilungen der vorderasiatisch-ägyptischen Gesellschaft, 38 (1933), 36–8, 253–4Google Scholar.

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52 Mellink, M. J., ‘The Hittites and the Aegean world II: archaeological comments on Ahhiyawa-Achaians in western Anatolia’, AJA 87 (1983), 139–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Neimeier, W.-D., ‘Mycenaeans and Hittites in war in western Asia Minor’, in Laffineur, R. (ed.), Polemos: Le contexte guerrier en Égée à l'âge du bronze (Aegaeum, 19; Liège and Austin, 1999), 150–1Google Scholar. Hawkins 1998 (n. 49), 28 considers this suggestion possible but points out, that ‘it infers more than the text records’.

53 G. Wilhelm and J. Boese, ‘Absolute Chronologie und die hethitische Geschichte des 15. und 14. jahrhunderts v. Chr.’, in Åström (n. 4), 108, table on 117.

54 Wilhelm and Boese (n. 53); Starke, F., ‘Hattusa’, in Der Neue Pauly, Enzyklopädie der Antike 5 (Stuttgart and Wiemar, 1998 Google Scholar), table on 191–2.

55 I am deeply grateful to W.-D. Niemeier for this communication and his permission to publish it here. See also Niemeier-Niemeier (n. 46) and Niemeier (n. 6).

56 Hankey, V. and Aston, D., ‘Mycenaean pottery at Saqqara: finds from excavations by the Egypt Exploration Society of London and the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden, 1975–1990’, in Carter, J. B. and Morris, S. P. (eds), The Ages of Homer: A Tribute to Emily Townsend Vermeule (Austin, 1995), 69 Google Scholar. I am grateful to Peter Warren for bringing this article to my attention.

57 Evans, A. J., The Prehistoric Tombs of Knossos I: The Cemetery of Zafer Papoura (London, 1906), 87–90 Google Scholar. Indeed, some III A2 even appears in the shaft of a tomb of a Ramesside princess buried during the reign of Merneptah toward the end of the 13th c., about 100 years into the III B era, but there is a possibility that the III A2 pottery was intrusive (G. T. Martin, cited in Warren–Hankey [n. 3]).

58 Warren-Hankey (n. 3), 154.

59 Pers. comm. 8 Apr. 1997.

60 Petrie, W. M. F., Illahun, Kahun and Gurob (London, 1891), 17 Google Scholar; James, T. G. H., cit. Åström, P., ‘Supplementary material from Ayios Iakovos Tomb 8’, Op. Ath. 4 (1962), 223 n. 1Google Scholar; Warren-Hankey (n. 3), 154.

61 Åström (n. 59), 207–24; Bell, M. R., ‘Gurob Tomb 605 and Mycenaean chronology’, Mélanges Gamal Eddin Mokhtar, i (Cairo, 1985), 61 Google Scholar; I am grateful to David Aston for calling the Bell publication to my attention.

62 Badre, L., ‘Kamid el-Loz’, in Meyers, E. M. (ed.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East, iii (Oxford, 1997), 265 Google Scholar.

63 Hachmann, R., Kamid el-Loz (Bonn, 1980), 88, pl. 26. 2Google Scholar.

64 Wiener (n. 2), 311.

65 While it is conceivable that the former temple courtyard could have served as a shrine after the destruction, it is unlikely that Mycenaean pottery would have been imported under such circumstances.

66 Wiener (n. 2), 311.

67 See e.g. tablet EA 29 in Moran, W. L., The Amarna Letters (Baltimore, 1992), 92–9Google Scholar.

68 I am greatly indebted to Eliezer Oren for this information (pers. comm.).

69 Pers. comm. of 29 Sept. 2002, for which I am most grateful.

70 Warren – Hankey (n. 3), 151–2.

71 Hankey–Aston (n. 56).

72 Pers. comms. for which I am most grateful.

73 Martin, G. T., The Hidden Tombs of Memphis (New York, 1991), 182 Google Scholar; van Dijk, J., ‘The Overseer of the Treasury Maya: a biographical sketch’, Oudheidkundige Mededelingen uit het Rijksmuseum van Oudheden te Leiden 70 (1990), 25 Google Scholar; M.J. Raven, ‘The site and its history’ and E. Strouhal, ‘The skeletal remains’, in Raven, M. J., The Tomb of Maya and Meryt, Pt. 2: Objects and Skeletal Remains (London and Leiden, 2001), 1–18, 80–97 Google Scholar. I am grateful to David Aston for information concerning these publications and to Jacobus van Dijk for his comments and corrections on this section of the paper.

74 Martin (n. 73), 148–9.

75 Martin (n. 73), 172; Strouhal (n. 73), 86.

76 Indeed, consecutive pottery styles may overlap for a considerable period; for example, Athenian black-figure pottery continues in production for three decades while the Pioneers and their successors develop red-figure in Athens, and one special type of black-figure vessel, the Panathenaic amphora, continues in production for more than another century. I am grateful to Peter Warren and John Papadopoulos for comments on my original paper making this point, and for their observations concerning regionalism as well.

77 Neutron activation analysis (NAA) of certain III A2 and III B pictorial vessels found in Egypt and Cyprus indicates that a number of them were composed of clays from the Mycenae-Berbati area ( Mommsen, H. and Maran, J., ‘Production places of some Mycenaean pictorial vessels: the contribution of Chemical Pottery Analysis’, OpAth 25–6 (2000–2001), 95–106 Google Scholar).

78 The LH III A2-B transition among others at Tiryns is portrayed in a chart published in 1988. The chart shows a sudden decrease in III A2 pottery at a point around 1300 B.C., but the calendar date is of course based on Egyptian contexts (K. Kilian, ‘Mycenaeans up to date, trends and changes in recent research’, in French-Wardle (n. 7), 115–52).

79 Hallager (n. 14) and Warren comment therein.

80 Phillips, J.. ‘And then there were none – Egypt and Crete in the 13th c. BC’, paper presented at ‘From Crete and Mycenae to Amarna: Pots, Pictures and Places in the Work of Vronwy Hankey’, Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 25 May 2002 Google Scholar.

81 Evans (n. 57).

82 Phillips (n. 80).