1800 BC – Trade and Transformation in Middle Bronze Age Greece. An Essay on Regionality and Inter-regionality in Middle Bronze Age and Early Mycenaean Aegean

Abstract

Abstract The article confirms that profound economic, social, and political transformations occurred around 1800 BC on the Greek Mainland and especially on the Peloponnese. We underline that the former century – the 19th century saw the creation of chiefdom societies in parts of the Mainland and consider the 18th century to create the economic, social, and political structures of the Mycenaean state. We have seen that the external relations with the tribes on the Greek Mainland were with the Cyclades, while no relations with Crete are attested during the period of the early shaft graves in Mycenae (MHIIIA). In the Eastern Mediterranean, the 18th century BC saw the fall of the Middle Kingdom in Egypt, the rise of the Assyrian dynasty under Shamshi-Addad, the kingdom of Hammurabi of Babylon, the early Hittite kingdom and the establishment of Troy VIa in northwest Anatolia. We consider this tremendous boom in the Eastern Mediterranean to have inspired the creation of the secondary (‘derivative’) Mycenaean state. The intention is to show that using a high-resolution diachronic time scale makes it possible to create a narrative of gradual social, economic, and political transformations from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age in the Aegean area. The article is divided into two sections. First, a summary of the most recent results describing chronology and social transformations in Middle Bronze Age and early Mycenaean Greece (‘status analyses’) and second, a conclusion estimating what these data tell us about the origin of the Mycenaean society. To reach this conclusion, we have constructed an evolutionary model in order to establish a gradual development of Mycenaean society. The conclusion based on our evolutionary model seems to advocate for a strong influence from the eastern Mediterranean countries, creating the social and economic structure of the Mycenaean society.