Bronze Age Sailors in the Libyan Sea: Reconsidering the Capacity for Northward Voyages between Crete and North Africa
By Michelle Creisher
Master’s Thesis, Brandeis University, 2015
Abstract: This thesis re-examines the factors which would have allowed for the possibility of a direct northward trade route between the North African coastal ports and Crete during the Bronze Age. The subject has been the topic of much scholarly debate over the years with various features being hailed as sticking points for any model of a two-way trade system in the Libyan Sea in the second millennium B.C. This paper offers a systematic discussion of each of the three major factors which have been purported by scholars as prohibiting northward voyages: the patterns and characteristics of the winds in the Mediterranean Sea, Bronze Age ship technology and the sailing techniques and practices of the time and finally, the physical evidence, both literary and archaeological, which supports a bi-directional theory.
Through the discussion laid out in this paper, one can see that in fact, the ship technology would have allowed for sailing northward from the North African coast to Crete both with the aid of an opportune southern wind and without. There are written records of such voyages having taken place, as well as a small amount of archaeological evidence which supports the model of two-way trade between Egypt and Crete. Especially during the Late Bronze Age, it is clear that certain ships would have opted for the shorter, more direct route of sailing northward in the Libyan Sea towards Crete rather than taking the longer route up along the Levantine coast towards Syria-Palestine and around.
For centuries it has been the accepted view that maritime trade in the ancient world was carried out in a counterclockwise direction around the coast of the eastern Mediterranean. According to the common views on the trade routes, sailors would set out from their home port and sail along the Mediterranean coastline in a counterclockwise direction and eventually, due to the circular nature of the eastern portion of the sea, arrive back at their home port; e.g. from the Aegean, ships would sail southward to Crete, down along the coast of North Africa to Egypt, then up along the Syrian coast, through the Cyclades, and ultimately back to Greek ports. Thus, for the most part, maritime trade routes in the Bronze Age Mediterranean are thought to resemble a modern traffic rotary. This view is supported, to a large extent, by archaeological material from both coastal sites and ancient shipwrecks around the Mediterranean. While it is well known that the Egyptians and Cretans maintained strong communications during these times and even earlier, as witnessed by the quantity of Minoan artifacts found in Egypt, the many references made to the Keftiu in Egyptian records, and the iconographic evidence of Minoan/Egyptian contact seen in the Theban tomb paintings, most of the evidence has seemed to point towards one-directional (southward) communications. Recent excavations, however, at the site of Kommos in southern Crete have unearthed numerous Near Eastern, specifically Egyptian, pottery fragments which, by their sheer numbers, would seem to suggest possible two-directional trade between the two regions in the Late Bronze Age. Thus, it appears as though the small section of the trade rotary known as the Libyan Sea might actually have been an area of twoway, rather than one-way, traffic.
Click here to read this thesis from Brandeis University
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Bronze Age Sailors in the Libyan Sea: Reconsidering the Capacity for Northward Voyages between Crete and North Africa
By Michelle Creisher
Master’s Thesis, Brandeis University, 2015
Abstract: This thesis re-examines the factors which would have allowed for the possibility of a direct northward trade route between the North African coastal ports and Crete during the Bronze Age. The subject has been the topic of much scholarly debate over the years with various features being hailed as sticking points for any model of a two-way trade system in the Libyan Sea in the second millennium B.C. This paper offers a systematic discussion of each of the three major factors which have been purported by scholars as prohibiting northward voyages: the patterns and characteristics of the winds in the Mediterranean Sea, Bronze Age ship technology and the sailing techniques and practices of the time and finally, the physical evidence, both literary and archaeological, which supports a bi-directional theory.
Through the discussion laid out in this paper, one can see that in fact, the ship technology would have allowed for sailing northward from the North African coast to Crete both with the aid of an opportune southern wind and without. There are written records of such voyages having taken place, as well as a small amount of archaeological evidence which supports the model of two-way trade between Egypt and Crete. Especially during the Late Bronze Age, it is clear that certain ships would have opted for the shorter, more direct route of sailing northward in the Libyan Sea towards Crete rather than taking the longer route up along the Levantine coast towards Syria-Palestine and around.
Click here to read this thesis from Brandeis University
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