Late Bronze Age (1560-1200BC) Flashcards
Who controlled the land of Israel during the late bronze age?
Egyptian control: Egypt directly controlled land of Israel
How did the state of the population change at the time?
Population decline: The population in Canaan was poor and weak and on the verge of cultural destruction. An acute local crisis - demographic decline and the intense activity of nomadic sheperds and marginalized groups
What did people do to escape the effects population decline would have on them?
People fled outside the system and became nomads or semi-nomads, which increased the pressure on those who remained in the cities
How did the government respond to the change in the state of the demographic/population?
The depletion of the urban population and human resources affected the local governments. To show its power, they increased production of luxury producs, and imposed on the population, in addition to the taxes imposed by Egypt, taxes and works to finance waste
What is surprising about the archaeological finds of this time, given the state of the demographic at the time?
Rich material culture - large and impressive tels of the time
How was the country organized at the time (politically)? To whom did political power belong?
the country was divided into 17-18 kingdom-towns. Control of the cities and kingdom-towns were in the hands of the social elite (rulers of cities, their families…)
What are the Amarna letters? What do they show us about the relationship between Egypt and the land of Israel?
Amarna letters - an archive of 282 letters written on clay tablets, primarily consisting of diplomatic correspondence between the Egyptian administration and its representatives in Canaan. They show us that Egypt had political power/control over/in the land of Israel
What does Letter 287 of the Amarna Letters discuss?
Letter 287: discusses the control of transit routes from the port/beaches to the main mountain in the area of Jerusalem
What is the Merneptah Stele (אסטלת מרנפתח)? What is it evidence of? What is special about the stele in terms of it’s mentioning of Israel
A monument of stele inscription erected by the ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Merneptah after his victory over Libyan tribes in the west. It is evidence of Egyptian power in Israel
Merneptah was the first to describe Israel in a document that was not in Hebrew
What is discussed in the merneptah stele? (2 things)
The victory of Merneptah over Libyan tribes in the west and the subjugation of Ashkelon, Gezer, Yanuam and Israel
Why is Israel (most probably) mentioned in the Merneptah Stele?
Perhaps Israel is mentioned here because the settling in the central mountain was in full progress.
What does the Merneptah stele testify to with regards to the evolution of Egyptian control within the area?
After the decline of Egyptian control in the late days of the Ramesses the Second, there was a need to stregthen the Egyptian grip on the main roads in Israel. The strongest testimony to this is Merneptah Stele.
What were the reasons for the decline of the civilizations/societies of the Mediterranean? (5 reasons - BD-HEI)
- A severe crisis plagued the eastern basin of the Mediterranean in the late 13th century B.C.
- The Myceneanean centers destroyed due to infiltration of the Doric tribes into Greece and because of economic crises
- The Hittite Kingdom collapses due to the invasion of the sea gentiles and economic crises.
- Egyptian power declines
- Simultaneous to all this decline and destruction, new peoples, some of them immigrants began to appear in the area from distant lands, and as a result, there was a substantial change in material culture.
