How Did the Philistines Get to Canaan? Two: by Land

034

035

There is much I agree with in the preceding article by my colleague Tristan Barako, including the belief that the seemingly Philistine levels at sites in modern Israel actually represent the remains of Aegean settlers, rather than of an international trading elite, in an age when international trade was at its lowest point in 600 years.

On one important point, however, I depart from Barako. In my view the Philistines, like other Sea Peoples, came from their Aegean homeland primarily by land, not by sea. It is true that since the publication of Trude Dothan’s The Philistines and their Material Culture more than two decades ago, most scholars have tended to support, with minor variations, the view that the Philistines came to Palestine by sea in a mass migration from the realms of Mycenae, in the aftermath of the collapse of Mycenaean culture around 1200 B.C.E. They supposedly came to Canaan from the Aegean region in boats similar to those shown in the Medinet Habu relief of Ramesses III.¹

As Lawrence Stager of Harvard has put it, a complete population arrived in “boatload after boatload of Philistines, along with their families, livestock and belongings.”² Upon arrival, they destroyed the Canaanite cities on the southern coastal plain and settled in an area that would be named after them—Philistia. At a certain stage (either just before or immediately after their settlement in Philistia), they clashed with Pharaoh Ramesses III, who prevented them from invading Egypt and left for posterity the haunting reliefs at Medinet Habu.³

The Philistines’ arrival in Canaan, beginning in about 1175 B.C.E., marks a kind of watershed date in world history. Before then we find a thriving time in the Mycenaean-Aegean world, known as the Palatial, or Palace, Period, which ended in destruction, along with so much of ancient Near Eastern civilization. In the ancient Near East, 1200 B.C.E. roughly marks the dividing line between the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age I. In the Mycenaean-Aegean world this corresponds to the Post Palatial Period. In technical pottery terminology—pottery determines relative chronology and ultimately absolute chronology—the pottery of the Palatial Period is called Late Helladic IIIB. The pottery of the Post Palatial period is called Late Helladic IIIC. I will speak mostly about the Palatial and Post Palatial periods, but sometimes I may characterize the latter 036by referring to the pottery of Late Helladic IIIC.

The first important point is that the early Philistines in Canaan were not refugees from the magnificent culture of the Mycenaean palaces, but rather migrants from the later, and much humbler, socio-political system of the Post Palatial Period. The material culture finds from the earliest Philistine strata at Ashdod, Ashkelon and Ekron clearly demonstrate this. If the migrants were refugees from the destroyed Mycenaean palaces, we would expect to find material culture traits typical of the Late Helladic IIIB period, the last phase of the Palace Period in Greece. However, we see none of this in the material culture of the earliest Philistine settlers in Canaan. Not a single inscription in Linear B, the script of the Mycenaean palaces, has been excavated in Canaan. Indeed, the early Philistine settlers do not seem to have been literate at all; not one inscription can be securely attributed to them. They produced no elite art, such as frescoes and seal engravings of the type found in Mycenaean palatial centers. Their architecture does not resemble the Cyclopean walls and large palaces so typical of Mycenaean Greece. Finally, and perhaps most important, the pottery made by the first Philistine migrants after their arrival in Canaan is typical of the Late Helladic IIIC period rather than of the Palatial Late Helladic IIIB.⁴ As for the hearths mentioned by Barako, the public buildings with a central hearth from Ekron and Ashdod do not 037resemble the gargantuan Mycenaean palaces with their ashlar masonry, or the meticulously-built and frescoed patrician houses of the Palatial Period. Rather, they look very much like the humbler Post Palatial (Late Helladic IIIC) houses with central hearths, such as those found at Korakou, near Corinth, or at Lefkandi, in Euboea.

This means that the society out of which these early Philistine settlers came was not the sophisticated palace culture of the Aegean world, but the rather humbler culture that came afterward. Whatever may be said of the Palatial Period, the society of the Post Palatial Period lacked the organizational and logistic ability to mount a large-scale migration by sea, to say nothing of the cost. Ships themselves were expensive and not easily acquired. Skilled mariners had to be recruited and organized to navigate and propel the ships.

Moreover, after the widespread destruction that took place around 1200 B.C.E., not only in the Mycenaean-Aegean world but also in Anatolia and Syria (Ugarit, for example), it was possible to travel by land from the Aegean world to the coast of Canaan.

Because maritime travel was costly and had severe space limitations, most armies, and many travelers in the past, going from the Aegean to the Levant have used the land route, among them Alexander the Great (fourth century B.C.E.), the first Crusaders (11th century C.E.) and the anonymous traveler known as the Bordeaux Pilgrim (333 C.E.). Broadly speaking, the route went from Greece through the Dardanelles (the only major body of water to be crossed in the route) to western Anatolia, where there were two options for continuing on to Syria and the Levantine coast—either through Cilicia (this is the shortest route; it goes through the Konya plain to Seleucia, then across the Taurus mountains 038via the important passage of the Cilician Gates to Tarsus) or avoiding Cilicia (this is the longer option; it goes from the west to Caesarea, then south to Marash, around the Taurus mountains, and then to the south). From there the route continues, with some minor variations, to the southern Levant by the main coastal highway.⁵

Travelers headed to the Levant through Anatolia would have found that the land route presented far fewer political obstacles in the Post Palatial Period than during the earlier period. Achaeological evidence shows that virtually all the powers in Anatolia were overwhelmed around 1200 B.C.E.⁶ at the end of the Palace Period. Troy, the center of the kingdom of Wilusa (Ilium, in Greek), was destroyed, and although Troy was rebuilt soon afterwards, it is likely that for a considerable time it was possible to cross the Dardanelles from Europe to Anatolia and to follow the land routes of the Troad leading south toward Ephesus and Miletus. The western Anatolian kingdom of Arzawa was similarly destroyed (according to Ramesses III), opening the road from the Troad to the south. The road was further opened by the destruction of Hatti proper,⁷ and by the considerable damage inflicted on its southern vassal kingdom Tarhuntassa.⁸ This vacuum in central and southern Anatolia enabled free traffic from the west coast toward Cilicia. Most important, the Cilician kingdom, which held the Cilician Gates and the passages to Syria, was destroyed and its capital Tarsus burnt;⁹ that, coupled with the destruction of Ugarit between 1190–1185 B.C.E., opened the coastal highway to Palestine. The only considerable, organized military force 039between western Anatolia and Philistia in the 12th century B.C.E. may have been the Egyptian garrisons in Canaan. Due to these conditions, the Aegean migrants could have used the best land routes in Anatolia and Syria, ones that are not hindered by the rivers, promontories, swamps, sand dunes or other obstacles mentioned by Barako.

Moreover, there is even some evidence of the Philistines (or other Sea Peoples) moving through Anatolia. An inscription from Ramesses III’s mortuary temple at Medinet Habu records the fall of the powers in Anatolia to the “Sea Peoples”: “No land could stand their arms, from Hatti, Kode [Cilicia], Carchemish, Arzawa and Alashiya on.”¹⁰

In contrast, let us look at the likelihood of a mass-seafaring migration. Estimates of the size of the Philistine immigration into Canaan vary between “a few thousand”¹¹ and about 25,000.¹² The most popular type of ship in the Post Palatial Period was the oared galley, a long, narrow vessel fit for fighting and raiding. Depictions of oared galleys show that they did not have a deck. Towers were located on the bow and stern, where several warriors could position themselves. A narrow pathway extended between the towers, enabling passage. Without a real deck there was little room for passengers. The small space between the rowers was doubtlessly occupied by provisions and weapons. Ships like this were indeed used by the Sea Peoples (of whom the Philistines were one), as shown in the reliefs at Medinet Habu. Any migration party traveling in these vessels would have been composed almost entirely of able-bodied men—that is, the rowers themselves. Women, children and older people would have to have been left behind. And yet, it is hard to believe that thousands of young Philistine men would abandon their families to the uncertainties of the Post Palatial Period.

We have reason to believe, however, that the Philistines migrated with their families. The reliefs at Medinet Habu depict the Sea Peoples engaged in both a sea battle and a land battle. The sea battle reliefs show the Sea Peoples taking on an Egyptian fleet. There are no women or children in these depictions, only Sea People raiders attempting to pillage Egypt or its provinces. By contrast, in the land battle we see, among the Sea Peoples, oxcarts with women carrying children, teenagers and noncombatant men.¹³ Their presence in the slow oxcarts indicates that this is not a raid, nor an ordinary war party, but rather an entire population of families on the move to a new home. The double teams of oxen drawing each cart seem to indicate that these are families of farmers, bringing with them their draft animals.

In the Palace Period (the 13th century B.C.E., to be more precise), there is some evidence that a well-coordinated maritime colonizing effort could have been launched, one that required extensive 066planning and control. In some Linear B tablets from Pylos in Greece, we do hear of the recruitment of nearly 600 rowers, which included groups defined as settlers and immigrants among them. So an expedition might well have been intended to enlarge a polity’s boundaries by settlement abroad. But if the ships that were used were indeed penteconters, with 50 rowers each, such an expedition would have only consisted of 12 ships. (Even if they were triaconters, with 30 rowers, a fleet of only 20 ships would have been possible.) Given the preeminence of Pylos, this was probably the largest expedition of its kind that could have been mounted in the Palace Period. And even this involved extensive preplanning (as we learn from the tablets), in which a governmental administration had to recruit the rowers, provide exemptions where justified and recruit the colonists. Could a Post Palatial society in about 1175 B.C.E. have even this organizational skill, not to mention finances to acquire the ships and skilled oarsmen? It seems highly unlikely.

Did some of the stronger Post Palatial polities (such as Mycenae, Tiryns, Miletus or Phylakopi) have the manpower to launch a maritime migration? Suppose that no more than 400 people occupied every built hectare of land and that about 20 percent of the population consisted of men fit for rowing. It is logical to assume that only half this number would have embarked on a long-distance colonizing mission, so as not to leave the home settlements vulnerable. Mycenae, then, with less than four hectares, would have had 320 men and 160 potential rowers. Miletus, with five hectares, would have had 200 rowers. Phylakopi would have had 225 rowers. Therefore, these places could only have launched three to four penteconters on their own. Tiryns, with 25 hectares and 10,000 inhabitants, is the only place in the Aegean world where a large-scale colonization could have began. But even there, the ruling elite possessed less power in the Post Palatial Period than it had in the preceding Palatial one.

All the maritime evidence on which Barako relies comes from the Late Bronze Age, not the later period, the Post Palatial Period, during which the Philistine migration occurred.

If the Philistines had the immense maritime abilities to migrate by ship, we would expect to find abundant evidence of maritime activities in the early Philistine strata in Ashdod, Ashkelon and Ekron. But in fact there is very little archaeological evidence for such activity at the Pentapolis sites. At Ashkelon a vase fragment shows the foot of a person on the prow of a ship.¹⁴ Otherwise, there is no evidence for maritime activity—no anchors, no depictions of ships, and most tellingly, no 12th-century B.C.E. imports that would indicate a maritime trade. By contrast, the situation is entirely different in northern Israel at this time. There, we find depictions of 12th-century B.C.E. ships on the Acco “altar”¹⁵ and possibly contemporaneous ships engraved on the Carmel ridge.¹⁶ A 13th-12th century quay at Dor¹⁷ is the only possible Sea Peoples harbor installation ever found dating to the migration period. There are also very few Post Palatial pottery imports found at northern valley sites, such as Beth-Shean and Megiddo, or at the Philistine Pentapolis sites. Maritime trade, indeed any maritime activity, did not seem to be one of the major occupations of the early Philistine migrants. Did they forget the sea so quickly, or is this another indication of the possibly minor role played by ship-borne migration in the Philistine settlement?

In short, the immense organizational problems attendant on a maritime migration were far beyond the capabilities of the Post Palatial Aegean polities, quite aside from the severe limitations that oared galleys imposed on the number of passengers who could have been involved in a mass maritime migration. The land route, by contrast, offered unrestricted travel from the Aegean and Anatolia to the Levant and represents a plausible solution to the problem of the movement of a large population.

Which is not to say that there may not have been some Philistines who reached Philistia by sea. Cyprus was settled at this same time by an Aegean population similar, if not identical, to the Aegean population that came to Philistia.¹⁸ Some migrants may have come there by boat either directly from the Aegean world or just across the very short distance from Cilicia on the northern Syrian coast to Cyprus, after traveling mostly by the land route. From Cyprus, of course, it is only a short distance to Canaan and a repeated run, once the initial settlement in Philistia was established, is quite possible.

One scholar who has examined the processes of migration has emphasized the importance of scouts sent out to examine the possibility of settlement.¹⁹ We can easily imagine maritime raiders, of the type that laid waste to Ugarit, returning to the Aegean with up-to-date information on the rich and ill-protected lands to the east, and igniting a wave of migration. We can also assume that in anticipation of groups of migrants arriving by land, warriors traveling by boat secured bridgeheads in the areas where the land route was close to the sea. Austrian Egyptologist Manfred Bietak argued almost a decade ago that the Philistine Pentapolis was a bridgehead used as a base for a coordinated land and sea attack on Egypt—as depicted in the famous reliefs at Medinet Habu.²⁰ Stager too has argued that “the Sea People established beachheads all along the shores of the eastern Mediterranean and on the coastlands of Cyprus.”²¹

These bridgeheads, like Philistia itself, were not settled by the “armadas of sleek warships” mentioned by Barako. The oxcarts shown at Medinet Habu did not appear from nowhere. Since in the future we are unlikely to find an Egyptian depiction of a bulky oxcart and four oxen tightly squeezed between the rowers’ benches of a sleek Philistine warship, we can assume that the primary mode by which the Philistines reached Canaan was by land.

There is much I agree with in the preceding article by my colleague Tristan Barako, including the belief that the seemingly Philistine levels at sites in modern Israel actually represent the remains of Aegean settlers, rather than of an international trading elite, in an age when international trade was at its lowest point in 600 years. On one important point, however, I depart from Barako. In my view the Philistines, like other Sea Peoples, came from their Aegean homeland primarily by land, not by sea. It is true that since the publication of Trude Dothan’s The Philistines and […]