CHAPTER XXVIII - THE SEA PEOPLES

Summary

ANATOLIANS AT THE BATTLE OF QADESH

The thirteenth century B.C. was an age of increasing turmoil, confusion and obscurity, after which it is largely clear that the civilization of the Age of Bronze in the Levant really tottered to its end. If we wish to obtain a picture of this period of sudden decline and collapse, we have to be content to pick our way through a bewildering tangle of evidence, much of it highly fragmentary, much of it highly conjectural and insecure. The former class is based, it is true, on more or less historically authentic records, partly in cuneiform (but these are sparse), partly in Egyptian hieroglyphic documents (but these suffer greatly in value from the imperfect system of vocalization used in them in transcribing foreign names). In the second group of data, we are driven to fall back on the evidence of Greek legendary traditions. These, though precarious, are clearly not to be ignored. The resultant picture is naturally far from clear, and such objectivity as it may possess has been sometimes brought into doubt by too passionate partisanship on the part of individuals who have sought to win conviction for their possibly justifiable theories by massive over-accumulation of uncertain arguments. The picture drawn here is further incomplete in so far as the publication of several important excavations in Lycia, Syria, Cyprus, and Israel, which, it is to be hoped, may soon throw much light on different aspects, is still awaited.