II.

Early Palace Societies

By c. 1500 bc, royal dynasties had developed great palace societies, which are best known on Crete at Knossos and in mainland Greece at Mycenae. For their palace records, they used a form of Greek whose script, known as Linear B, represents syllables (so that “tripod”, for example, is rendered by signs standing for “ti-ri-po”). New texts in Linear B continue to be found, most recently at Thebes, in central Greece.

However, these palaces were not poleis (cities). The social structure of palace societies, their bureaucracy, and patterns of land-tenure were totally different. Nor was Linear B a widespread alphabet. It reflects the use of a shared Greek language, but it is known only as a script used by scribes to keep records of palace resources. Perhaps the palace societies had a tradition of poetry and perhaps they even kept a chronicle of events. If so, they are lost to us. We know their style of life only through archaeology, especially in the fine gold objects and charmingly painted frescoes of the palace of Knossos, but we have no written histories or inscriptions with which to interpret them.

The palace societies in Greece were destroyed by invasion, war, and natural disasters c. 1200-1180 bc. They were followed by a “dark age” of four centuries which archaeology has recently helped to illuminate. Writing was lost, but we know that Greeks in this era did travel east and west in the wake of their Mycenaean forebears. In Italy, we find Greek goods from Cyprus dating from c. 1000 bc, and then from the prominent island of Euboea, c. 800-750 bc. On the western coast of Asia, migrants from mainland Greece settled a line of small communities c. 1050-950 bc. Further south, in Syria and the Levant, early traders from Cyprus, the larger Aegean islands, and Euboea visited and settled on the coast c. 900-800 bc. In the Levant they named the people “Phoenicians” (“phoinix”, which in Greek means “red”, referring to their copper-coloured complexion). These Phoenicians are best known for their cities of Tyre and Sidon (now Şaydā), and for their influences on the inland kingdom of Israel in the age of Solomon and the first biblical prophets.