Gates Charles. Ancient Cities: The Archaeology of Urban Life in the Ancient Near East and Egypt, Greece and Rome

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152 THE NEAR EAST AND THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

THE END OF THE BRONZE AGE IN ANATOLIA

The destructions of the late thirteenth and twelfth centuries BC hit coastal and interior Anatolia

alike. Hattusa was attacked, the Hittite Empire destroyed. The region passed into a period about

which little is known. By the ninth century BC, the mid-Iron Age, when cultural developments

become clearer, new peoples had established themselves in west Anatolia: Greeks along the

Aegean coast, Lydians, Carians, and Lycians just inland. On the central plateau, the Hittite lands

were now controlled by the Phrygians. New arrivals during this Dark Age, probably migrants

from south-east Europe, the Phrygians nonetheless picked up the thread of Anatolian tradition

and occupied the cities and other settlements previously inhabited by Hittites, notably Hattusa

and the town they would make their capital, Gordion.

CHAPTER 9

Cypriots, Canaanites, and Levantine

trading cities of the Late Bronze Age

We have been surveying ancient cities of the eastern Mediterranean and Near East in their sepa-

rate cultural contexts: the Ancient Near East, the Indus Valley, Egypt, Anatolia, and the Aegean.

But these cultures did not each exist in a vacuum; indeed, as one might expect, they maintained

extensive relationships with their neighbors. To highlight the interconnections in the eastern

Mediterranean, let us examine cities that thrived for exactly this reason, from contacts between

regions. A key area for such cultural intersections is the coastal region of the east Mediterranean

(see Figure 8.1), with two examples from the Late Bronze Age offering a useful focus: Enkomi,

on Cyprus, and Ugarit, on the Syrian coast opposite Enkomi. From this period also comes the

remarkable testimony of two shipwrecks found off the south-west Turkish coast at Uluburun

and Cape Gelidonya. The scientific excavation of these wrecks has given a fascinating and impor-

tant glimpse into the mechanisms of trade in the Late Bronze Age.

ENKOMI

The island of Cyprus lies in the north-east Mediterranean, cradled between Anatolia and the

Levant. A stepping-stone between east and west, north and south, Cyprus has been prized

by military and commercial strategists from antiquity to the present. In addition, rich copper

resources provided the island with an important export commodity that supplemented the tradi-

tional agricultural base of its economy.

The city of Enkomi developed in the Late Bronze Age precisely because of these economic

factors. Enkomi is located in eastern Cyprus, one of several new towns such as Kition and Hala

Sultan Tekke that sprang up on the east and south coasts in the Late Bronze Age in order to

profit from trade with the Levant and Egypt, now prosperous and politically stable in the empire

Cyprus: Late Bronze Age (= Late Cypriot): ca. 1650–1050 BC

Late Cypriot I: ca. 1650–1475 BC

Late Cypriot II: ca. 1475–1225 BC

Late Cypriot III: ca. 1225–1050 BC

Ugarit: flourished fourteenth–thirteenth

centuries

BC; destroyed ca. 1190–1180 BC

Shipwrecks: Uluburun: late fourteenth century

Cape Gelidonya: ca. 1220 BC

154 THE NEAR EAST AND THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

of the New Kingdom. The ruins of Enkomi lie a few kilometers from the seacoast. Originally the

city had a sheltered harbor, perhaps a navigable estuary, but erosion has filled it in and today the

ruins lie high and dry, trapped in the plain. In the first millennium BC, habitation would shift to

the seaside, to the city of Salamis.

The tombs of Enkomi have been known from the late nineteenth century. Identification

and excavation of the city itself began with a single season of investigation in 1934 by French

archaeologist Claude Schaeffer who wished to supplement his findings at Ugarit/Ras Shamra

on the Syrian coast (see below). Schaeffer later resumed work in 1946. Subsequent collaborators

included Porphyrios Dikaios on behalf of the Cypriot Department of Antiquities. Excavations

continued intermittently until 1974 when the Turkish invasion of Cyprus led to the partition of

the island, with Enkomi falling into the Turkish-controlled northern zone.

Occupation at Enkomi began in the Middle Bronze Age, but the city flourished in the Late

Bronze Age. Evidence comes from archaeology, first and foremost, but we do have some infor-

mation from the texts of neighboring peoples. It is generally accepted that the kingdom of Asy

or Alashiya, a copper-producing country mentioned in texts beginning in the eighteenth century

BC from Alalakh (near Antakya, Turkey), Mari, Egypt, and Hattusa, is in fact Cyprus. The French

excavators, at least, believed Enkomi to be the capital of Alashiya; moreover, a recently discov-

ered text from Mari speaks of “the city of Alashiya.” About Enkomi specifically and its rulers

and inhabitants these texts give no information. From the Cypriots themselves we have only

potential evidence, for the local Cypro-Minoan script, first attested at Enkomi ca. 1500 BC and

used throughout the Late Bronze Age, has not yet been deciphered.

Enkomi grew rich as an important center for the trade in copper, the essential element in

bronze, an alloy highly valued for the manufacture of tools and weapons. Cyprus had important

sources of copper in the north-west part of the island, on the north and north-east slopes of the

Troodos Mountains. Exploited from the Early Bronze Age into modern times, the mines are

now exhausted. The ore was first collected and partially smelted before being brought to towns

such as Enkomi. After further processing, the copper was formed into ingots for shipment to

Syria, Egypt, and other areas without adequate metal sources. How the internal copper trade was

organized we do not know; possibly a single authority oversaw mining activities, or perhaps each

city took care of its own interests.

Copper (and even tin) ingots were sometimes made in the distinctive “oxhide” form, flat, thin,

and roughly rectangular, with the four corners pulled out (Figure 9.1). Measurements vary from

30cm–60cm × 20cm–45cm × 4cm–6cm. Their weights range from 10kg to 37kg, with an average

of 30kg. The distinctive shape, resembling an ani-

mal skin nailed in four corners for drying with its

center shrunken during the process, earned these

objects the picturesque name of “oxhide ingots.”

It was even proposed that these ingots represented

a monetary value equivalent to that of an ox. The

link with oxen has been disproved – the discovery

of both four and two-handled copper ingots on the

Uluburun shipwreck makes clear that the shape

was designed for easy handling – but nevertheless

the name has taken a firm place in the jargon of

Mediterranean archaeology.

Ingots have appeared in Sardinia in the western

Mediterranean, on Crete and in the Near East, with

Figure 9.1 “Ox-hide” ingots, of copper,

ca. 1200 BC: (a) from Serra Ilixi, Sardinia;

(b) from Enkomi

CYPRIOTS, CANAANITES, AND LEVANTINES 155

important depictions in Egyptian New Kingdom tomb paintings at

Thebes. Scientific analyses of the lead isotopes and trace elements

in the copper ingots have in many cases supported a Cypriot ori-

gin. The wide distribution of the ingots shows the importance of

Cypriot copper resources to a very broad region. The most strik-

ing use of an oxhide ingot in Cypriot art may well be as a base for a

solid bronze statuette found in an early twelfth century BC sanctu-

ary at Enkomi. A tall (35cm), willowy bearded god protected by a

horned helmet and greaves (shin guards) brandishes a shield and

a spear (Figure 9.2). Because he stands on an ingot, he has been

identified as the “ingot god,” the protector of the copper mines

of the island. So important was he considered by the excavators

that they named the Enkomi shrine after him: the Sanctuary of the

Ingot God.

The turbulent changes that swept the eastern Mediterranean at

the end of the Late Bronze Age did not spare Cyprus. Understand-

ing exactly what happened has depended on the interpretation of

pottery finds. Some pottery is imported from the Peloponne-

sus, according to the results of scientific analysis of the fabric,

but there was also local production in the Mycenaean pictorial

style, with large pots such as kraters and amphoras being favored.

Such Aegean pottery types found at Enkomi, especially in tombs,

have led to the conclusion that large numbers of Mycenaeans emi-

grated to Enkomi. In like manner, finds in eleventh-century BC contexts of Minoan types of god-

dess figurines with upraised arms and certain ceramics have suggested a wave of refugees from

Crete arriving in Cyprus after 1100 BC. Such hypotheses that equate Aegean ceramics found on

Cyprus with actual Mycenaean and Minoan settlers have been challenged in recent years. Just

as in today’s America the widespread use of objects from China (to take one example) does not

stem from a massive emigration of Chinese but from more complex economic relationships, so

too the reasons for Aegeanizing objects on Cyprus might be quite different from the traditional

explanation. As we search for the truth, we need to keep many possibilities in mind.

Other foreigners who passed through were not as benign as the possible Mycenaean and

Minoan emigrants. The Sea Peoples, a loose coalition of marauders who unsuccessfully fought

the Egyptians in naval battles off the Nile Delta in the late thirteenth and early twelfth centuries

BC, may well have put Enkomi to the torch on two occasions when the Late Bronze Age city

suffered severe damage. This pattern of destruction is attested at other Cypriot cities, notably

Kition. Cypriot cities recovered and their prosperity continued during the twelfth century BC;

eventually, however, the general economic decline in the eastern Mediterranean affected the

island, for in the mid-eleventh century BC Enkomi was abandoned.

Architectural remains

Architectural remains from the entire Late Bronze Age have survived at Enkomi, with the most

impressive belonging to the end of the period. Among the earliest architectural traces is the

fortress of Late Cypriot I. Several such fortresses were built throughout the island at this time,

reflections of the political uncertainty and unrest at the end of the Middle Bronze Age. The

Figure 9.2 God standing

on an ingot, bronze figu-

rine, from Enkomi. Cyprus

Museum, Nicosia

156 THE NEAR EAST AND THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

fortress at Enkomi, placed at the north edge of the town, measured 34m × 12m and was distinc-

tive for its very thick walls. Rooms were disposed on two stories, with an internal stairway giving

access to the upper story and the roof.

Late Cypriot II remains include houses and tombs. Houses of LC II typically feature rooms

built around three sides of a courtyard. Bathrooms are well supplied with cemented floors, clay

bathtubs, and drains. Burials of LC I and LC II include tombs built of stone masonry, some of

which resemble the built tombs of Ugarit, and three small tholoi. Elsewhere on Cyprus, the stan-

dard grave type in LC I–II is the rock-cut chamber tomb.

At the end of LC II, ca. 1225 BC and again ca. 1200 BC, Enkomi experienced severe destruction,

but each time was rebuilt. In the late thirteenth century BC, the people of Enkomi enclosed their

city with a fortiﬁ cation wall. Measuring ca. 400m north–south, 350m east–west, this wall consisted

of a base of a parallel row of large blocks 1.5m high, the interstices ﬁ lled with rubble. The super-

structure would have been made of mud bricks. Rectangular towers projected at intervals. Inside

the wall, the LC III town is strikingly laid out in a grid plan with a single main street, straight and

oriented roughly north–south, and side streets off it at right angles (Figure 9.3). The architecture

shows a variety of construction techniques and qualities, indicating an economic hierarchy in the

local society. Along the main street stood well-built temples, public buildings, and houses, whereas

Figure 9.3 City plan, Enkomi

CYPRIOTS, CANAANITES, AND LEVANTINES 157

further removed, along the side streets, one encounters modest

houses made from inferior materials. Other discoveries included a

workshop for copper smelting (in the North Gate area, the earlier

Fortress of LC I) and several tombs, including underground vaults

of the Ugaritian type.

The most impressive house of LC III Enkomi is Building 18.

Its purpose is uncertain, despite Schaeffer’s claim that it may have

been a palace for an Aegean chief. Building 18 occupies an entire

city block, measuring 40m on its main south side. The south side

also has four doorways, each 2m wide, and four windows. The

walls were made of ashlar masonry, a construction technique

that became prevalent in late LC II and LC III. In Bronze Age

architecture, the term “ashlar masonry” refers to rectangular (or

sometimes trapezoidal) blocks of varying sizes ﬁ nished on the vis-

ible side. Such slabs often served as the outer facings of a rubble

or earth-ﬁ lled wall. Here in Building 18, large ashlar blocks, set

on a rubble leveling and stone base, form the lowest course of

the building (Figure 9.4). These blocks could be large, up to 3m

(length) × 1.4m (height) × 0.7m (width). On top, set into cuttings,

were two thinner blocks, placed parallel to each other, but with a

space in between that was ﬁ lled with rubble or earth. A horizontal

slab was placed on top of this second course. This elegant con-

struction was a mark of Enkomi’s prosperity. By the end of LC III A, that prosperity was disap-

pearing. Building 18 was then divided into smaller rooms by means of rubble walls, and in part

served as a place for copper-smelting.

The most important religious building of LC III Enkomi is the Sanctuary of the Horned God,

named for a solid bronze statue found in one of two cult rooms, an image (54.2 cm high) of a

god shown as a young man wearing a helmet with two horns. The sanctuary consisted of a large

rectangular hall with ceiling supported by two square piers, and, off it to the east, the two cult

rooms. The hall contained an altar and offering table, around which were found libation bowls

and the skulls of several horned animals, such as oxen, deer, and goats. Other shrines discovered

at Enkomi have hearths, offering tables, and sometimes piers as focuses of worship, this last

perhaps reflecting the Minoan pillar cult.

UGARIT (RAS SHAMRA)

Enkomi and the other cities of east and south Cyprus had close ties with the important Canaan-

ite trading city of Ugarit, located just across the sea on the Syrian coast. The name of Ugarit

appeared in tablets found at Mari, Amarna, and Hattusa/Bog˘azköy, but until well into the twenti-

eth century the location of this city was unknown. After a farmer chanced upon a tomb chamber

near the large tell of Ras Shamra, north of Lattakia, a French team led by Claude Schaeffer began

excavations on the tell and in adjacent areas in 1929. By 1933, locally found cuneiform tablets

made clear that Ras Shamra was to be equated with Ugarit, and the puzzle of Ugarit’s location

was solved. With few interruptions, excavations have continued ever since. Campaigns since

1978 are aiming at a comprehensive understanding of urbanism at Ugarit, whereas earlier seasons

had concentrated, in more traditional fashion, on uncovering monumental buildings.

Figure 9.4 Diagram: cross-

section of wall construction

as practiced in Building 18,

Enkomi

158 THE NEAR EAST AND THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

Settlement at Ugarit began in the Neolithic period, then continued through the Chalcolithic

and Bronze Ages. Contacts with Egypt and Cyprus were established already in the Early Bronze

Age, with Minoan Crete in the Middle Bronze Age. We know of a nameless Middle Bronze Age

king of Ugarit, now famous for his curiosity about foreign wonders. He wrote to Hammurabi, a

king of Yamhad (Aleppo), requesting to see the palace at Mari: “Show me the palace of Zimri-

Lim! I wish to see it.” His letter, written on a clay tablet, was preserved in the Mari archives.

During the Late Bronze Age, the city enjoyed its greatest prosperity. The people of Ugarit

were Canaanites, a Semitic people of the Levantine coast. Much is known about local history,

religion, and mythology because of important finds in fourteenth- to thirteenth-century BC levels

of tablets in various languages, including Akkadian, Hittite, Hurrian, Cypro-Minoan, and the

local Ugaritic language itself. This last was written in an alphabetic cuneiform script of some

thirty signs, the oldest known alphabetic writing system anywhere in the world.

Despite pressure from their powerful neighbors, the Ugaritians maintained a certain degree

of autonomy. Indeed, under the umbrella of first Egyptian, then Hittite overlordship, a local

dynasty held sway through the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries BC. Whatever controls these

Great Powers exercised, they clearly did not impede Ugarit’s prosperity. The city’s wealth derived

from the local agricultural base, which provided for exports of grain, wine, and timber; from local

industries such as metalworking, perfumes, and especially the manufacture of a highly esteemed

purple dye from the murex, a local shellfish; and from the importing and transshipment of cop-

per from Cyprus. Although the city itself lay in from the sea, Ugarit maintained a port on the

nearby coast in an area known today as Minet el Beida, from the modern Syrian name for the

small bay. Minet el Beida was not Ugarit’s only port; recent excavations at nearby Ras Ibn Hani

have revealed another active commercial center on the Ugaritian coast.

Like most cities, Ugarit endured fire and earthquake, but always managed to come back. In

the early twelfth century BC, however, circumstances were different. The city was thoroughly

destroyed ca. 1190–1180 BC by invading Sea Peoples, one event amidst the turmoil and catastro-

phe that afflicted the eastern Mediterranean basin at this time. This destruction ended the great

era of local Ugaritic culture. Subsequent occupation would only be small in scale.

The site of Ras Shamra

Ras Shamra/Ugarit lies just inland in a coastal plain. Seasonal rivers bordered the city on both

north and south; both streams were probably bridged in antiquity, part of the road system from

north and south that gave access to the town. The southern stream, the Delbeh, served the city

in an additional capacity. Traces of a stone dam blocking the southern stream were discovered

in 1986, evidence for an additional component, along with wells, of the system of obtaining and

keeping water. The dam has been dated to the Late Bronze Age because of certain construction

techniques, notably the use of double swallow-tail clamps, that correspond with those attested in

some tombs and the west postern gate, all datable to the Late Bronze Age.

The tell measures just over 22ha on top, with certain sections having eroded away since antiq-

uity, and rises some 20m above the surrounding plain. Population has been estimated by M.

Liverani at 6,000–8,000 people. Approximately one-quarter of the tell has so far been explored,

although primarily only the top layer, the last major phase, the Late Bronze Age. Understanding

the architecture and urban plan of Late Bronze Age Ugarit has been much helped because stone,

not mud brick, was the main building material, thus allowing for good preservation. In addition,

because there was little subsequent building in the area, Late Bronze Age building materials were

not carried off and reused, but remained quietly in place.

CYPRIOTS, CANAANITES, AND LEVANTINES 159

The Royal Palace

Excavations have revealed two major sectors (Figure 9.5). The first, in the north-west, is the area

of the royal palace. On this west side was found a fortified gate, but this led only to the palace

area, not to the city proper. The main entrance into the city, that used by farmers, merchants,

and others, is thought to have been on the south, the road crossing the southern stream. Further

excavation is awaited to confirm this hypothesis. The second important sector is the acropolis,

in the north-east. This area contains the main religious buildings of the city: two temples to the

main city gods, Baal and his father, Dagan, and the House of the Chief Priest (also known as the

Library). In areas outside the palace area and the acropolis, mixed functions are seen, with an

intermingling of houses, cult buildings, shops, and industrial centers.

The Royal Palace dominates the large palace sector. A special fortification wall originally built

in the fifteenth century BC protected the area, a wall with an outward slope of 45 degrees, covered

in its lower portion by a glacis of packed stones. In addition, a cluster of towers by the entrance

Figure 9.5 City plan, Ugarit

160 THE NEAR EAST AND THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

provided extra security. Aptly named the Fortress, thanks to its 5m thick walls, this complex

protected both the main gateway and a postern gate, a stone-lined passageway built through the

lower part of the defense system (Figure 9.6). Certain construction techniques such as corbelled

vaulting show connections with Hittite and Mycenaean architecture.

The Royal Palace was built over the course of the fifteenth to thirteenth centuries BC in at

least four major stages. In typical east Mediterranean/Near Eastern fashion, it consisted of rooms

grouped around courtyards (Figure 9.7). But it was unusually large, covering 6,500m

by the time

of the destruction of the city in the early twelfth century BC, and it had an international reputation

for magnificence. On a tablet preserved in the Amarna archives of the fourteenth century BC, a

prince of Byblos writing to the Egyptian pharaoh, when describing the palace at Tyre, likens it to

the palace at Ugarit about which he adds, “Considerable is that which is found between its walls.”

The ground floor of the palace contained ninety rooms, five courts, four mini-courts, one

tower by the entrance, and, in the rear, a large garden. The rooms on the ground floor served

for public receptions and for administration, and included offices, archives, storerooms, guard

rooms, and lodgings for the staff. Below ground, under two northern rooms, were the family

tombs, three large stone-lined chambers with corbelled vaults. These were found emptied of

objects. Twelve staircases led to the now vanished upper floor, which must have contained the

private quarters of the royal family.

The plan of the ground floor is not symmetrical but flows freely, no doubt reflecting additions

and alterations made at different times. The outline is irregular, with the north façade, which ran

along a major street, varying in its line with intermittent indentations and projections. The main

Figure 9.6 Postern gate, Ugarit

CYPRIOTS, CANAANITES, AND LEVANTINES 161

entrance to the palace lies asymmetrically placed in the north-west. Clearly marked, it consists of

a paved porch with a ceiling supported by two wooden columns on stone bases, a stone bench

on either side, and a tower on the south for security. Two smaller entrances were located in the

north-east and south-west.

Construction quality was high. The palace was built of stone, using ashlar blocks preserved in

places to 4m in height. Wooden crossbeams were used too, placed in slots in the stone masonry.

A thick coating of undecorated plaster covered the walls.

The ruins have yielded an abundant harvest of objects, notably ivory carvings, stone stelai, and

figurines, and the many tablets mentioned earlier. The tablets, found in important archives in

several places in the palace, have much to say about the administrative functions of this center.

Their contents include reports about outlying districts, judicial records (especially from the south

central archives of the palace), and even the practice writing attempted by scribal students. The

original excavation report recorded an oven, located in the south court, in which clay tablets were

baked for permanent preservation. Tablets were found inside it, abandoned at the moment of

the destruction of the city, thus constituting a special group of texts written on the last day of the

Figure 9.7 Plan, Royal Palace, Ugarit