Travellers in Time by Wallace Saro;

Author:Wallace, Saro;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group

5

‘Aegean’ expansion

New dynamics, new boundaries in the later LBA

Introduction

The sixteenth through thirteenth centuries BC offer an especially wide and colourful range of change features for movement models to draw on and explain. Mainland state emergence brought the whole Aegean into the web of east Mediterranean interactions – a fast-moving and fast-changing world-system where interactions across distance were becoming more frequent, varied and intense than ever before (Sherratt and Sherratt 1991; 1993; Figure 5.1). With all regional players now at state or quasi-state level, growth had fewer restrictions, and pushed new forms and rates of interaction. Even in this contact-rich context, east Mediterranean societies developed no cultural uniformity – but there were tendencies for cultural and political blocs to emerge. History, geography and agency played vital roles in how these changes occurred.

Modes of long-distance movement were themselves changing. The pressures, opportunities and structures in Aegean and other east Mediterranean states by LB III apparently combined to encourage use of large oared galleys. Though these boats had slightly smaller hullspace than the masted sailing ships still also in use, they were more consistently powerable and highly directable (thanks to their tillers and shaped steering oars: Tartaron 2013: 59–71; Wedde 2005: 32; Figure 5.2), permitting the intense and targeted development of marine travel as an economic and political force. Palaima (1991: 286) notes references in the Pylos Linear B tablets (Vn 46 and Vn 879) to direct state support for participant galley rowers (some of whom were clearly politically influential and/or under powerful patronage).

Other highly visible shifts in this period include the movement of a new quantity and range of exotic goods through the Aegean: the related manufacture and procurement processes involved an increasingly substantial sector of society, with high investment stakes and side-benefits for a number of social groups. Already from LM IB (c. 1625–1550 BC), there are signs that mainland-based societies had a significant role in supplying goods on traditionally Crete-linked routes. Though many trips might still be organised from Crete, the manufacturing and manpower capacity of mainland polities,

Figure 5.1 Map of sites referred to in this chapter (by S. Wallace).

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