Whatever the matter, everyone agrees they had a fair degree of contact and probably influence in Egypt at this time. Maybe they supported the Hyksos after all. Suddenly I’m not so sure a Minoan fresco adorning the palace of these foreigners doesn’t have a more obvious explanation. But when you read the actual site reports, they acknowledge the scientific dating doesn’t quite match the historical record and it’s actually out by a few hundred years. Most historians I’ve read consider the frescoes to be made after the restoration of Egyptian control and therefore a sign of close connections between Egypt and Crete.
Most seem to consider the frescoes a sign of trade relations with the Minoans and even an interconnectedness between elites. Tantalising, but I don’t know of many historians who would support this view. You could speculate that while the local riffraff were Semitic people, the elite were actually Minoan. The real question is then, why are they there?Īnd there are a few main ideas here. Where does a Minoan fresco come in then? Well, while the graves goods and architecture indicate Semitic culture, adorning the walls of the palace of Avaris are Minoan frescoes. There’s been a lot of speculation about who they could have been but, as far as I understand, the modern consensus is some kind of Semitic people closely related to those inhabiting Canaan at the time. Basically, some foreigners invaded and took control of Lower (/Northern-yes, it’s confusing) Egypt for over a hundred years. It was the capital of the Hyksos during a rather embarrassing time in Egypt’s history called the Second Intermediate Period. That’s its modern name but back in the day it was called Avaris.
Why is it there? Those of us who study Ancient History are aware of Greek cities all around the Mediterranean by the time Rome came along, but these cities were founded after Homer’s glorified Bronze Age, weren’t they? What if I told you the Greeks took to the seas much earlier than we traditionally thought? Did you realise that was in Egypt? Let’s think about that for a second. Last week I showed you a photo of a Minoan (Cretan) fresco at Tell el-Dab’a.
0 kommentar(er)
