The Great Sea, David Abulafia

Wow, what an incredible find!

I normally pick up books on regional history at Books on Broadway when I am in North Dakota.  But for the moment, my library seems fairly complete with regard to this sector. I normally don't explore the rest of the bookstore, but yesterday I did, and wow! What a find.

A "human history" of the Mediterranean Sea.

During my Air Force years I spent a fair amount of time on the island of Sardinia, and have had occasion to be near the Mediterranean on other occasions outside my Air Force life.

The book has the "right" feel to it. It is 648 pages long, not counting the bibliography, end notes, or index. When I skimmed through it, it seemed to read very, very well. And then I saw why: the author is professor Mediterranean History at Cambridge University. I have said many, many times that, without question, English, Irish, and Scottish authors are the best writers. Period. Dot. Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Shakespeare (Sir Henry Neville). I rest my case.

I became interested in the Mediterranean a few years ago. First, the subject became personal when I spent a number of months with a most wonderful women in Yorkshire, England. She was Lebanese, and the first, perhaps to help me understand the history of the Lebanese.

And then coincidentally, or ironically (a word often used incorrectly by me according to one of my readers), I found myself teaching high school students the history of the Punic wars while substituting last school year. If one wants to learn about something, one great way is to teach it.

Personal Notes 

Mediterranean: "medit" -- between; "terrane" -- lands: between the lands

• Romans: "our sea"
• Turks: "white sea" -- Akdenize -- the "white sea" vs the "black sea" further north
• Jews: "Great Sea" -- Yam gadol
• Germans: "Middle Sea" -- Mittelmeer
• Egyptians: "the Great Green" -- very questionable

One always forgets the Sea of Marmara, but compared to the "white sea" and the "black sea" the Sea of Marmara is a "lake."

Ancient:

• in remote geological time, it was entirely closed
• between 12 and 5 million years ago, evaporation -- > the "sea" became a deep and empty desert
• Atlantic Ocean broke through; flooded the Sea in about two years (wow, the great flood, the Deluge; one can understand the Biblical story -- how would they have known about it?)

Hydrology:

• evaporation overtakes what the puny little rivers draining into it can provide
• the Black Sea, in contrast, has an excess of unevaporated water, and that creates a fast current that rushes past Istanbul into the northeastern Aegean -- but this only compensates for 4% of the water loss in the Mediterranean;
• the principal source that replaces Mediterranean evaporated water is the Atlantic Ocean -- the latter provides a stead inflow of cold Atlantic waters, to some extent counterbalanced by an outflow of the Mediterranean water (which is saltier -- due to evaporation -- and thus heavier; the Atlantic water flows inward on top of the Mediterranean flowing out
• the fact that Mediterranean is open at both ends (Gibralter, Istanbul) is critical for the sea; the Suez provides minimal water, but significant fauna from the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean

Winds
naturally prevailing: counterclockwise from west to east along northern Africa, brushes northward along the Levant, and then easterly back toward Italy
mistral wind: from the northwest of France toward the sea (there are 8 winds in the area); roars like a Lion over the Bay of Lion (southern France)
sirocco wind: from the southeast (Sahara)
the bora (Boreas) -- from the north/northeast; a very long history suggesting pre-historic winds similar to present-day winds
the author mentions that it was not common practice to cut across from Crete to Egypt until the steamship came along; rather ships hugged the coast along Greece to the Levant to Egypt; I don't think it had as much to do with wind or steamship per se; I think it had to do with fear of the open waters; better to stay along the coast




Preface
Author has identified five distinct periods

• First Mediterranean: descended into chaos after 1200 BC (about the time Troy is said to have fallen)
• Second Mediterranean: until 500 AD
• Third Mediterranean: emerged slowly and then experienced a great crisis -- the Black Death (1347)
• Fourth Mediterranean: a period that had to cope with increasing competition from the Atlantic, domination by Atlantic powers; and, ending about the time of the opening of the Suez Canal (1869)
• Fifth Mediterranean: the sea became a passageway to the Indian Ocean, finding a surprising new identity in the second half of the 20th century

Question: are we still in the Fifth Mediterranean period?

The author focuses on what was "important in the long term" such as:

• the foundation of Carthage
• the emergence of Dubrovnik
• the impact of the Barbary corsairs
• building of the Suez Canal

Much about Christians and Muslims, but author notes the importance of the Jews:

• as merchants in the early Middle Ages
• again, as merchants in the early modern period

Mediterranean shaped by:

• in antiquity: Phoenicians, Greeks, and Etruscans
• Middle Ages: Genoese, Venetians, Catalans
• centuries before 1800: Dutch, English, and Russian navies
• after 1500, and certainly after 1850, the Mediterranean became decreasingly important in wider world affairs and commerce

Some concentration on places but with emphasis on their links across the Mediterranean

• Troy
• Corinth
• Alexandria
• Amalfi
• Salonica

Introduction: A Sea With Many Names

Some of this was written above; won't be repeated.

***********************

PART I

Part One: The First Mediterranean

22000 BC  -- 1000 BC

Isolation and Insulation: 22000 BC - 3000 BC

Copper and Bronze Age: 3000 BC - 1500 BC (Thera explodes)
Cu + Sn --> Bronze; copper soft; bronze weapons

Merchants & Heroes: 1500 BC - 1250 BC

Part Two: The Second Mediterranean

1000 BC -- 600 AD

The Purple Traders: 1000 BC -- 700 BC

The Heirs of Odysseus: 800 BC -- 550 BC

The Triumph of the Tyrrhenians: 800 BC -- 400 BC

Towards the Garden of the Hesperides: 1000 BC -- 400 BC

Thalassocracies: 550 BC -- 400 BC

The Lighthouse of the Mediterranean: 350 BC -- 100 BC

"Carthage Must Be Destroyed": 400 BC -- 146BC

"Our Sea": 146 BC -- 150 AD

********

querns, page 4: stones used for grinding; the lower stone, the quern; the upper, mobile stone, the handstone

Gozo, p. 10: very small island, almost touching northwest Malta

********

Copper and Bronze Age

Troy
Cyclades
Crete, King Minos
Old Dynasty Egypt

*********

Crete: 1st major Mediterranean civilization

Great King Minos
Bronze Age Crete
Early Minoan II: 2600 - 2300 BC

Greece: copper
Melos: southwesternmost island of the Cyclades; just n of Sea of Crete; obsidian
Turkey: tin
Crete: pretty much in the middle of Cu/Greece, and Sn/Turkey

*********

3000 - 1500BC

Cycladic art -- a powerful influence on modern artists
- growing concern with proportions of the human body
- a sense of 'harmony' -- no parallel in other monumental sculptures of the period: Malta, Old Kingdom Egypt or Mesopotamia

**********

Impact of Troy: twofold -- at the beginning of the Bronze Age

1)  a staging post linking the Aegean to Anatolia and Black Sea
2) historical consciousness
 -- Greeks claimed to have destroyed the city
 -- Romans who claimed to be descendants of its refugees

Mound of Hisarlik: 4 miles from where Dardanelles flow into the Aegean

Greek knew Troy as Troie' and Ilios

Greeks built a new city: Ilion

'Troy I': 3000 - 2500 BC
'Troy II': 3500 - 2300 BC -- destroyed by fire
'Troy III': 2300 - 2100 BC -- poorer settlement than Troy II; destroyed by war
'Troy IV': --- not much better
'Troy V': 1700 BC

********

Merchants and Heroes, 1500 - 1250 BC

Jericho: oldest city --> Crete, one of the world's 1st civilizations; Crete came to an end after series of fires, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions.

Crete drawn into the world of the Mycenaean Greeks (Mycenaea: named after one of the early strong kings) (p. 29)

Homer's "Catalog of Ships" incorporated into the Iliad --> 12th century

Cretan's Egyptian-like hieroglyphics --> different language sound than Egypt --> written Linear A --> Linear B (Mycenaean Greece) (p. 31)

Mycenaean Greece: modern term for Bronze Age Greece (14th century)

Origin of people of Mycenaean Greece: in reality, most likely Balkans; myth/legend that Mycenaean Greeks came from Anatolia/Troy

Mycenaean Greeks:

• great builders of fortifications
• navy --> fleets --> "wooden walls" --> protecting their cities
• Achaeans -- known as "Acheaeans" by their contemporaries (?)
• contact with Cyprus (copper) -- bronze -- 10 parts copper; 1 part tin (p.33)

Descriptions of the Minoans merge imperceptibly with accounts of the Mycenaeans (p. 30)

Rise of the Mycenaean Greeks -- eastern Greece
12th century BC -- a line of settlements across Grece -- according to Homer -- recognized King of Mycenae as their leader

Minoans <---------->Mycenaeans

What distinguished the Mycenaeans? Their warlike character.

Pelops: a founding father of the Greeks

Mycenaean: a modern label for Bronze Age Greek civilization
 -- maybe they were referred to as Achaeans by their contemporaries

One new feature of Mycenaean trade: a link to Italy
-- Minoan Crete did not link with Italy -- specifically
-- thus the early Greek relationship with Italy (will come up again)
-- Sicily (Lipari) -- source of obsidian

Thapsos (Sicily) <-------------->Mycenae ------------> Eukomi (Cyprus -- off Anatolia)

Mycenaean period: "Mediterranean became enlarged in the eyes of those who sailed it"

II

Much more important to Mycenae --> Syria / Lebanon coasts
 -- Ugarit: important trading center -- bridge between Egypt and Mesopotamia; port on northern Syrian coast
 -- Ugarit: inhabited by speakers of Canaanite; the language from which Phoenician and Hebrew evolved
-- Ugarit: a center of trade since 3rd millenium

• supplied Egypt with cedar from Lebanon
• married into Egypt; close relationship

maryannu: young heroes ("mar" --martyrs?) (according to wiki: young warriors)

Ugarit --> Levantine trade network

Levantine trade --> long history with Nile Delta; an Egyptian port under oversight of Canaanite merchants; textiles, purple dye ( a specialty of Levantine coast; made form murex shellfish), oil, wine, and cattle

Hyksos: 100-year dynasty; ousted 1570 BC

• bronze armour
• chariots

replaced by pharoah Akhenaten
Egypt's "center" was the Nile, not the Mediterranean; Mediterranean came much later)
Egyptian navy: operated by foreigners

A number of port cities in the delta

***********

Sea Peoples and Land Peoples, 1250 -- 1100 BC

Troy: an outpost of the Hittite world; not Mycenaean; only language -- Luvian

18th century BC --> Troy VI until 13th century; lasted 500 years
Troy: Hippodomoi (horse tamers)  (p. 42)

Troy (Hittites) to the north, Egypt to the south fought at the seams -- came in conflict over Syria; Mycenaea often intersected itself into this conflict;

Mycenae <------>Hittites: seam at Troy

Wilios: Ilios, Troy

Hmmm -- King of Wilium -- Alaksander -- sounds similar to Alexander, the alternative name given for Helen's seducer Paris

Hmmm -- the 'man of Ahhiya' -- Attarssiya -- a name strikingly similar to Atreus -- the father of Agememnon and Menelaus -- none of this proves veracity of Homer's tales -- but certainly Homer is full of Anatolian names

Steep Wilusa: a Homeric epithet for Ilios. (p. 45)

Certainly Hisarlik was Homer's Ilios and Vergil's Troia.

Trojan War: history of war between great kings of Mycenaea and Hittites; Troy VI in earthquake zone; "The Trojan War" -- p. 45 - 47 -- Troy VIIA -- already past its peak

Tursha: area next to/fused with Wilusa --> in other words, the Trojans were both Sea Peoples and victims of the Sea Peoples (p. 52)

-----------

Following decline of Mycenaean culture

Some places escaped destruction: most important -- Athens

Question of invasions (p. 53)

Greeks: first real settlement in Cyprus at this time, p. 53

Contacts between Sicily and Greece ended by 1050 BC

 

----------

Meanwhile, Libya threatens Egypt

Libya aligned with Anatolians -- people of the seas

IV

Palestine: seafarers -- farmers

Philistines: turned inward -- came in contact with Israelites
Philistine settlements (1300 BC) along coastline north of Gaza: Gaza, Ekron, Ashkelon, Ashdod

Philistines come from the Greek world -- the kinsmen of Agememnon and Odysseus;
Philistines: Mycenaean origins
 -- sea-faring to farming
 -- adopted Semitic speech
 -- adopted Canaanite gods

Sea peoples and land peoples -- 1250 - 1100 BC

Israelites --> Canaan
Philistines --> Canaan (god Dagon)
Danites --> Hebrews (God of Israel)

Much of the area in chaos --> it would take centuries to reconstruct the Mediterranean trading routes

V, p. 57: the story of Moses, Canaanites, etc.

p. 59: Israelites, one of many restless tribes not important now, but will be important

"The end of the Bronze Age in the eastern Mediterranean has been described as 'one of history's most frightful turning points,' more calamitous than the fall of the Roman Empire,' arguably the worse disaster in ancient history.'

The First Mediterraneans -- a Mediterranean whose scope had extended from Sicily to Canaan and from the Nile Delta to Troy, had rapidly disintegrated, and its reconstruction into a trading lake which stretched from the Straits of Gibralta to Lebanon would take several hundred years.

*****************

Before proceeding to Part II

Neolithic to Bronze Age

Crete: one of world's first civilizations; cross-roads of Greece (copper); Turkey (Sn) --> bronze

Greeks to Sicily

Crete and Mycenaea cultures merge impertibly

Egyptians and Hittites (Troy) come into contact at northern Syria

First Greek settlement on Cyprus

Mycenaean culture disintegrated; Athens survived 

Trading routes with Sicily disappeared

Will take centuries for old trading routes to be re-established

PART II

Part II: The Second Mediterranean

1000 BC -- 600 AD

The Purple Traders, 1000 BC 00 700 BC

Remember: disaster of the 12th century -- recovery was slow

Wow! the art of writing was lost except among Greeks; refugees in Cyprus; art vanished; trades withered; palaces decayed

Power of the pharoahs weakened

Dark Age

12th century - 8th century: new networks of trade emerged

New trade routes established by merchants

 -- Canaanite merchants of Lebanon known to the Greeks as Phoinikes -- Phoenicians

[}--nikes -- Nikes?]

 -- resented by Homer for their love of business and profit -- "So begins the long history of contempt for those engaged in 'trade.'"

Inhabitants of Levantine littoral --> source of alphabet for the Greeks
 -- Canaanites up to about 1000 BC
 -- Phoenicians after that

Language of the Canaanites --> Aegean Philistines; Hebrew farmers; town dwellers -- Tyre and Sidon

4

Towards the Garden of the Hesperides

1000 BC - 400 BC

Italy, Sardinia, Sicily -- impact of Greece

5

Thalassocracies

550 BC - 400 BC

I

II

Persia, Xerxes

III

Athens and Democracy

IV

Peloponnesian War; 120 years; the Aegean Sea transformed from an Athenian to a Spartan lake

6

The Lighthouse of the Mediterranean

350 BC - 100 BC

I - IV

Alexandria

7

'Carthage Must Be Destroyed'

400 BC -- 146 BC

I-VII

Hannibal
Syracuse
Punic Wars

8

'Our Sea'

146 BC - AD 150

I

Ascendancy of Rome

9

Old and New Faiths

1 - 450 AD

I

Judaism

II

Christianization

10

Dis-integration

400 - 600

I - II

Decline and fall of Rome

PART III

Part III: The Third Mediterranean

600 - 1350

 

I

Mediterranean Troughs

600 - 900

I

The unity of the Mediterranean Sea had ended by the sixth century

PART IV

Part IV: The Fourth Mediterranean

1350 - 1830

I

Would-be Roman Emperors

1350 - 1480

Plague, decline in population; less pressure on growing enough food (grain)

PART V

Part V: The Fifth Mediterranean

1830 - 2010

I

Ever the Twain Shall Meet

1830 - 1900

Suez Canal, steamships;