The Mycenaean World

Summary

Dan Snow’s History Hit

Episode Summary: "The Mycenaean World" (July 20, 2026)

Overview

In this episode, Dan Snow sits down with Professor Eric Cline, a leading expert on the late Bronze Age and author of the new book Love, Diplomacy and War, to explore the interconnected world of the Mycenaeans. Together, they unravel the expansive trade networks, elite diplomacy, martial society, and the eventual collapse of this golden age—a world that shaped legends like the Odyssey and the Iliad. The episode also delves into how much of Homer’s epics might reflect real Bronze Age experiences, and what the latest archaeological discoveries and archival finds (like the Amarna letters) reveal about Mycenaean Greece and its neighbors.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Interconnected Bronze Age World

• The Late Bronze Age (c. 1500–1200 BC) in the eastern Mediterranean was marked by "a tightly interconnected...globalized Mediterranean for its time” (Eric Cline, 06:05).
• Major civilizations—Egypt, Hittites, Mycenaeans, Minoans, Babylonians, and Assyrians—were linked by maritime and overland trade, diplomacy, and occasional warfare.
• Trade goods included copper, gold, olive oil, ivory, and textiles, and cities rose or fell on the success of trade (Dan Snow, 01:15).

2. Elite Diplomacy and the Amarna Letters

• The Amarna archive (discovered in 1887) is a cache of 14th-century BC diplomatic correspondence revealing negotiations, alliances, and gift-giving among royal families (07:10–08:04).
  • Letters document "marriage negotiations, alliances, pleas...to send gold...embassies, embargoes—you name it" (Cline, 07:37).
  • Dan likens this to an ancient "G8," with elite rulers managing both war and diplomacy (08:18).

3. Mycenaean Society and Governance

• Mycenaeans controlled the Greek mainland ("series of kingdoms, or city states," Cline, 10:00), unified by language, religion, and culture (10:04).
  • Kings ("Wanax," pl. "Wanakai") ruled from heavily fortified palaces, controlling economy, taxes, and bureaucracy.
  • Social strata: warrior caste, commoners, and peasants (10:04–11:19).
  • "When the palace is doing well, everybody's doing well. When they fall, the whole thing collapses" (Cline, 11:19).
• This is the society believed to be echoed in the Homeric epics.

4. Warlike Nature & Fortifications

• Mycenaean cities (Mycenae, Tiryns, Pylos) had massive defensive walls (13:06–13:21).
  • Fortifications were highly functional, not just for show: “Those are not for show. Those are fully functional...They plan these fortifications at these cities extremely well” (Cline, 13:21).
  • Water tunnels inside cities ensured sieges could be withstood.
• Warfare, alliances, and shifting power dynamics were endemic ("alliances and subservience had to be earned and might be quite short-lived," Dan Snow, 17:47).

5. Trade, Hospitality, and Intelligence

• Merchant, pirate, and diplomatic journeys were central to information flow (06:53–06:58).
• Hospitality was a core custom, but probably practiced mainly among elites—travel itself likely marked a visitor as notable (15:07–16:25).
  • “To be honest...it is guesswork because...their tablets are not talking about that, they're strictly accounting” (Cline, 15:07).
  • Merchants and diplomats carried news and gifts, paralleling epic traditions (16:54–17:19).

6. The Mycenaeans in the Eyes of Their Neighbors

• Egyptians and Hittites recognized Mycenaeans as "on the frontier...a little bit uncivilized...on the edge" (09:45–09:53).
  • No textual evidence of detailed opinions on Mycenaean customs or temperament.
  • Wall paintings in Egypt portray Mycenaeans ("embassies bringing gifts"), reflecting their perceived subordinate role (19:09–19:24).

7. The Wider Political Landscape: Egypt and Hittites

• New Kingdom Egypt (14th–13th c. BC) was at its zenith; rulers like Amenhotep III referenced Mycenaeans and Minoans on monuments.
• Hittite Empire controlled Anatolia and contested Syria/Levant with Egypt—Troy lay at the periphery of both powers (24:24–25:58).
  • Troy’s situation compared to Kadesh (“the Kadesh of the Aegean,” Dan Snow, 25:58).

8. Realities Behind the Epics & the Trojan War

• Homeric tales likely "telescope" centuries of Mycenaean-Hittite conflict in western Anatolia (26:08–27:19).
  • “We've got textual evidence from the Hittites that the Mycenaeans were fighting on the western coast of Anatolia all the way back in the 15th century BC” (Cline, 26:08).
  • Archaeology and Hittite documents record both warfare and trade/peace treaties with Troy (Wilusa/Alexandu).

9. Epic Poetry as Historical Source

• Professor Cline “tries to fish out the nuggets” of historical fact from Homer (29:50).
  • Objects like boar’s tusk helmets and shield designs described in the epics reflect real Bronze Age details.
  • Some practices (e.g., coalition building, hierarchy among kings) seem to echo authentic Mycenaean social systems.
  • Quote: "I try and fish out the nuggets that we can use" (Cline, 30:32).

10. Collapse of the Bronze Age World

• Around 1200 BC, the "globalized" order disintegrated in decades—causes likely a mix of drought, famine, earthquakes, "supply chain shortages," and possibly disease (34:30–34:35).
  • Greece suffered intense population decline and near-total collapse of palace society. “Greece goes back to almost ground zero” (Cline, 34:30).
  • Mycenaeans and Minoans ultimately fared worse than most, with only the Hittites hit harder in the aftermath (36:45).

11. Survival of Memory & The Value of Homer

• Despite the collapse, some elements (like the names of gods) survived to the Iron Age.
  • “Some things made it through, some things didn’t...Greek takes until the early 8th century...to get back up to where it had been” (Cline, 34:30–36:33).
• Homer and Hesiod provide crucial (though partial and filtered) windows into the lost world—and new archaeological finds like the Amarna letters continue to transform our understanding.
  • “For me, Homer used very carefully, he does add light and life to this whole period” (Cline, 39:49).
  • The Amarna letters: “the most important source we’ve got...for the late Bronze Age...It was a real revelation. It rewrote history as we knew it” (Cline, 41:12–41:33).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It’s a tightly interconnected world...I would say, globalized Mediterranean for its time.”
  — Professor Eric Cline (06:05)
• “They could be a merchant and a pirate at the same time, an explorer, and who knows what else.”
  — Cline on Mycenaean mariners (06:53)
• “I call them the G8 of the ancient world.”
  — Cline on elite Late Bronze Age rulers (08:18)
• “Think Agamemnon...a charismatic king...king of kings.”
  — Cline on Mycenaean political structure (12:04)
• “Hospitality to strangers, right? That was a big thing in the Iliad and Odyssey, and it seems to have been something they practiced back then.”
  — Cline (14:36)
• “When the palace is doing well, everybody’s doing well. When they fall, the whole thing collapses.”
  — Cline on Mycenaean economic centrality (11:19)
• “What had been going along merrily...just after 1200 BC, everything collapses, just within a couple of decades...Basically everything that could go wrong did go wrong pretty much simultaneously.”
  — Cline on the Bronze Age collapse (34:30–34:35)
• “Homer used very carefully...he does add light and life to this whole period.”
  — Cline on the value of the epics as historical sources (39:49)

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Recommended Listening Timestamps

• 01:15: Dan Snow’s vivid introduction to the Mycenaean age.
• 05:03–06:35: The interconnected, “globalized” Mediterranean world.
• 07:10–08:46: The Amarna letters and elite diplomacy.
• 10:00–12:24: Structure of Mycenaean society and palatial rule.
• 13:06–14:41: Fortifications and martial nature of Mycenaean cities.
• 15:07–17:47: Hospitality and the movement of information.
• 26:08–27:19: Mycenaean-Hittite conflict and the Trojan War.
• 34:30–36:33: The collapse of the Bronze Age world.
• 39:49: The enduring value of Homer as source.

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Tone and Style

• The discussion is learned yet accessible, combining Professor Cline’s scholarly expertise with Dan Snow's engaging, inquisitive approach.
• There's a sense of wonder at both the breadth of ancient connectivity and the poignancy of its sudden end.
• The episode balances solid historical analysis with imaginative excursions into the possible inspirations for Homer’s epics.

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This episode serves as a definitive primer on the Mycenaean world and its legacy, blending archaeological discovery, ancient epic, and new historical interpretation in a lively, thoughtful conversation.

Transcript

[Dan Snow]

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[Dan Snow]

Summer's here, and that means travel season is in full swing. Road trips, last minute flights, quick weekend getaways, or anything else that feels like an escape. And sure, travel can be a little chaotic. Plans change, things go off track, but that's what makes it memorable. Tell my wife that when you're out there making the most of it, it helps to have somewhere reliable waiting for you. That's why Best Western Hotels and Resorts is such a solid option. It's cozy, convenient, and exactly what you need after a full day of exploring, wandering, or just figuring it out as you go. This summer, get 1,000 bonus points and a chance to win 250,000 bonus points. So wherever you're headed, make your stay part of the journey and make it count. With this limited time offer, life's a trip. Make the most of it@best western.com no additional purchase necessary. For sweeps, see bonus points, TNCs and sweeps rules for details and visit bestwestern.com for complete terms and conditions. Hi folks, you're listening to Dan Snow's history hit. It was a world built on on the sea. Merchant ships carrying copper, gold, ivory, olive oil, textiles across hundreds of miles of sparkling ocean. Kings exchanged lavish gifts and assurances of eternal friendship one year and sailed to war the next. Fishermen cast their nets, pirates prowled the coastlines. Cities grew on international trade. The fate of entire kingdoms could rest on a particular ship making it safely into harbor. This is the world of 1200 BC, the closing years of the Bronze Age. Another name for it is the Mycenaean Age. And it's in that period that we believe the Odyssey takes place. Stretching across the eastern Mediterranean was a network of powerful civilizations unlike anything Europe would see again for centuries. The Egyptians that ruled the Nile Valley. The Hittite Empire dominating Anatolia. The kingdoms of Mycenaean Greece controlling the Greek archipelago and mainland. While wealthy trading ports like Ugarit connected east to west and beyond that, inland, where Babylon and Assyria competed for power in Mesopotamia. It's in this world that the Odyssey is set. A time of voyages of peril and prizes. Unknown lands, peoples dangers, mighty empires, exotic discoveries and wealth. But I love studying this period for reasons that extend far beyond the Odyssey, because this was a time when everything came to a sudden end. This glittering golden age of Mediterranean trade collapsed. And we're still trying to explain why. Today I'm joined by Professor Eric Klein, leading expert on the Mycenaean world. His new book, Love, Diplomacy and War, explores this remarkable period of history through one of its most extraordinary surviving sources. We're very lucky to have it. The correspondence exchanged between the great kings of Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, the Hittite Empire and Cyprus. Can you believe we still have these documents, these extraordinary letters that offer a rare glimpse into the late Bronze Age world and its alliances, rivalries, trade and politics. This is the final episode in our series explaining everything you need to know about the Odyssey and its world. Eric, great to see you. Thanks for coming back on the pod.

[Professor Eric Klein]

Oh, my pleasure. Thanks for having me back.

[Dan Snow]

Do you know, the one thing that I regret most about my early days of historical awareness and research is thinking about Egypt and Greece and the ancient near east in these little sort of silos. And what work like yours does is just remind me that of course, these places next door to each other, they are sharing. This is why there's an explosion of activity in this part of North Africa and Eurasia. It's all happening because of. Partly because of collaboration and competition.

[Professor Eric Klein]

Yep. Collaboration, competition, good way to put it. It's a tightly interconnected world. Back then, I mean, we're talking 1500 BC down to about 1200 BC.

[Dan Snow]

So what late Bronze Age? Is that what we can call the Late Bronze Age?

[Professor Eric Klein]

Right, Absolutely. Late Bronze Age, yes. Across the Mediterranean. Everybody's talking to everybody else.

[Dan Snow]

And is that because of the geography, the technology? I mean, you can obviously travel on land between, as we know Ramesses does. For example, he travels up into what's now Syria. But Also with the Greek world, it's pretty easy, is it, to go Crete into the Nile Delta and back again. And we can trace that definitely.

[Professor Eric Klein]

You could definitely sail counterclockwise around the Mediterranean, no problem. Like you said, Greece down to Crete, down to Egypt, and then up around the Levant and then to what's now Turkey. Yeah. And upon occasion, you could go the other way as well. But you can also, if you're over in the eastern Mediterranean, of course, you can go by land to get from Egypt to Mesopotamia and the Hittites and all that. So it's a tightly interconnected, I would say, globalized Mediterranean world. I kind of like that. Globalized Mediterranean for its time.

[Dan Snow]

I was in Crete once in the museum and I saw the images of Egypt on some of the paintings that are so extraordinary. So we've got maritime trade. Because the thing about those mariners is they don't stop, do they, Eric? I mean, that's one thing. We call them smugglers, call them pirates, raiders, traders, whatever you like. They will move stuff around and sell it, won't they, in these ships?

[Professor Eric Klein]

They will. And sometimes they had dual roles. You can be a merchant and a pirate at the same time, an explorer,

[Dan Snow]

and who knows what else. Now, what about elite diplomacy? Because this is something I'm so interested in your work. There are these letters and requests and marriage alliances across reasonably different types of states, aren't there?

[Professor Eric Klein]

Yeah, they are. So we've got a number of archives from back then, including a famous one, the Amarna archive, which was found back in 1887. Dates to the middle of the 14th century BC high point of the Mycenaeans, but also high point of the Egyptian New Kingdom period. And in this archive, which were the royal letters of Akhenaten the heretic pharaoh and his father Amenhotep III.

[Dan Snow]

So. But the 18th dynasty, so peak New Kingdom Egypt. Okay, these guys are ballers.

[Professor Eric Klein]

Okay, fine, yes. You don't get more peak than that. And they're riding back and for to the other great kings, the king of Assyria, king of Babylonia, King of the Hittites. And yeah, there's marriage negotiations, there's alliances, there's pleas from the others for the Egyptians to send gold. I mean, we've got all kinds of diplomatic things going on back then. Embassies, embargoes, you name it. I mean, it's really similar to us today. More similar than you might expect.

[Dan Snow]

And so it's not all Ramesses taking on the Hittites or taking on the people of Kadesh. And you know, fighting sometimes. You're saying these Egyptian pharaohs actually saw quite a lot of kinship with rulers of these other states. There was a sort of international elite almost.

[Professor Eric Klein]

Yeah, Actually, I call them the G8 of the ancient world. Absolutely. So. And, yeah, sometimes they're fighting. Absolutely. But other times they are in diplomatic negotiations. So the Hittites and the Egyptians are a very good example. Right. You've got the Battle of Kadesh, like you mentioned, but you've also got eventually a peace treaty, like the world's first peace treaty. I think there's a part of it in the United Nations. So again, it's very, very similar to today.

[Dan Snow]

And where do the Mycenaeans fit into all of this? And are they across Greece at this point? Are they just in Mycenae? What's going on with these guys?

[Professor Eric Klein]

So the Mycenaeans are on the Greek mainland. Right. You've got the Minoans on Crete, but you've got the Mycenaeans on the mainland. They both are on the periphery of the world that we've just described. So we've got mentions by the Egyptians of the Mycenaeans. They knew them as Tanaia. That was their name for mainland Greece. They knew the Minoans as the Kefdiu. And we've also got the Hittites mentioning the Mycenaeans. They're probably Akiyawa. But we don't have, like, any evidence of kings marrying daughters or princesses from the other area. We don't have that for the Mycenaeans. So while they're in the commercial orbit and probably also diplomatic to a certain extent, they don't seem to be in the middle of the rest of them, as you might imagine. But then again, Greece is out on the edge. If you look at a map, perhaps

[Dan Snow]

a little bit uncivilized. They're out there on the frontier between what? Life beyond, like the Italians beyond. I mean, God knows what's going on with those guys.

[Professor Eric Klein]

Yes. But the Mycenaeans themselves, they're in control of the whole Greek mainland. We've got a whole series of kingdoms, or city states, if you will.

[Dan Snow]

Okay, so city states that share a culture, a language.

[Professor Eric Klein]

Religions, okay, yes, absolutely. Culture, language, religion. Absolutely. In fact, a lot of the later Greek gods and goddesses, Zeus, Poseidon, Hera, Athena, they're already around in the Mycenaean period. We know this because we're able to read writing. It's very early type of Greek. We call it Linear B, but it is very early Greek deciphered by Michael Ventris back in 1952. And we can find out a lot about the Mycenaean culture at that time. Now, we've got different city states, kingdoms, if you will. You've got the famous ones, Mycenae, Tiryns, Pylos and so on. Each of them has their own king, which we know from the Linear B tablets. He's called a Wanox. Each of those Wanaks, or Wanakai, has a warrior caste beneath them. And then below that, you've got your normal people, and below that, you've got your peasants. We can figure out the social classes back then, and we can also figure out exactly what's going on in the palaces. Simply put, they're in charge of everything. Taxes, economy, administration. When the capital cities, when the king. When the palace is doing well, everybody's doing well. When they fall, the whole thing collapses.

[Dan Snow]

Right. And this is the world that gives us, we think, the Iliad and the Odyssey.

[Professor Eric Klein]

Yes, we think that's a good way to put it. Homer's writing a couple of centuries later, or rather Homer's pulling everything together a couple of centuries later. But he seems to be describing kind of a combination of his own period, but with memories of the Bronze Age. So he does mention things that were not around in his time period, but our Bronze Age.

[Dan Snow]

And one of these things, as you've already mentioned it, but the centrality of the palace and the king, if people familiar with Greek history were thinking, we talk about democracies and oligarchies and despotisms, that's all much later on. This is, in some ways, I suppose, more familiar. There is a charismatic war leader. There is a guy with a crown on his head, basically.

[Professor Eric Klein]

Right? I mean, think Agamemnon. That's basically what it is. Think Menelaus. Right. So that's what we're talking about, a charismatic king. I mean, Agamemnon is described as the king of kings, and so he would have been in charge. Want to flotilla and armada? You got to go up to Agamemnon and ask for this. So whether or not he existed, somebody

[Dan Snow]

like him existed, and you think probably he held sway. So when he. We think about empires differently now, don't we? But if he requested troops from his allied city states, they would probably say, how many do you need, sir?

[Professor Eric Klein]

Yes, exactly. Yes, sir. They would jump. Yes, exactly. Right. Well, it wasn't always clear that the others understood this. And by the others, I mean the other powers. Like when the Hittites talk about Ahiyawa, we're not sure if they just mean Mycenae or if they mean Thebes or if they mean the whole of the Greek mainland. And they don't seem to have been clear about it themselves either. So the Mycenaeans were this known unknown, if you will, on the far edge of the world at that time.

[Dan Snow]

How interesting. And we're talking warfare. Very prominent. You think about Tiryns in particular, which I've been to, and Mycenae, massive walls. I mean, astonishing fortifications. And are those for show, or do you think that tells us this is a pretty warlike soc.

[Professor Eric Klein]

Those are not for show. Those are fully functional. Mycenae, Terrans, Pilos, they're all heavily fortified. We've got the Lion Gate at Mycenae, for example. Most of them fit the same kind of a pattern. And I tell my students, for example, if you're running up to capture one of the cities and you've got your shield on your left hand, because it didn't matter if you're left or right handed, you've got your shield on your left hand, you're protected from the guys on the wall above you on your left, you're not protected from the guys on the tower to your right. And you're going to be dead before you even make it through the Lion Gate. So they plan these fortifications at these cities extremely well. And at some of them, they even had their water supply inside the town, the big tunnel going down and out to the spring. So it is definitely a warrior society. And a lot of the tablets, the Linear B tablets that we've got are actually economic. They're documenting what came into the palace and what, what went out. Chariot wheels, bronze, things like that. But we also have the stories that Homer tells us, like the, the hospitality for strangers, right? That was a big thing in the Iliad and the Odyssey, and it seems to have been something they practiced back then. So invite the stranger in, feed him, and then ask who he is, that kind of thing.

[Dan Snow]

Okay, but Erica, I'll just because you brought that up, I'd like to have a little tiny detour. I've always wondered what that means, because Odysseus is always being invited in. Five minutes later, he's eating with the PR princess and the king. Do you think they would have been able to recognize other members of the elite? So we're saying strangers and travelers. Do we mean by that that when a shepherd's straggling along the road, the king's not going to get him in and give him a good meal at his table, is he. I mean, how do you think, deep down, that culture of hospitality really works?

[Professor Eric Klein]

Well, it's an excellent question because honestly, we don't know. We don't have the records telling us about that, but we do have adjacent things. For example, we've got a lot of. Of gift giving, especially in the Near East. Those letters at Amarna in Egypt that I mentioned, the kings, when they're writing back and forth, they are always saying with my message, I am sending a gift. Here it is, three chariots, five people, this, that and the other. And that whole idea of gift giving goes, I think, along with the idea of friendship to strangers and all of that. It does make sense in a way to me. And could you tell the elite from a regular person? I think, of course, for one thing, they would have an entourage with them and all of that. But, you know, to be honest, it is guesswork because at least from the Mycenaean records, their tablets are not talking about that, they're strictly accounting and all that. So it is a little bit, as I say, of guesswork there.

[Dan Snow]

Is there an element of which to travel, to voyage, to knock on the door of Tiryns and then the next city? Are you laying claim to being some kind of important and interesting and elite person just simply by doing that? You're not going to get just random tillers of the soil may be doing that. And so perhaps the kings felt they could let these interesting folk in and hear what they'd say.

[Professor Eric Klein]

Maybe. Maybe. I definitely think you're not going to get your average tiller of the soil traipsing around, Right? What you're going to have, though, rather than the kings, unless they're going fighting, you're going to have their emissaries, you're going to have the merchants, you're going to have the diplomats going from one place to another, from Mycenae to Tiryns, Mycenae to Pylos. And we do see things in the Linear B tablets where they're talking about shipments from. From other kingdoms, basically within the Mycenaean world.

[Dan Snow]

And all of those kind of people are sources of fantastic, essential intelligence. Right. You want to hear bits of gossip about who's in and who's out, not just in Tirin, but, you know, dare I even ask, in Crete and beyond. So actually, maybe it is in your interest to invite these people in, give them a drink, hear what they've seen and heard on their travels?

[Professor Eric Klein]

Yeah, I think so. That's how you would spread the news back then. They didn't have the Internet or texts, you know, and phones and all that. So for sure, we also, we have, for instance, there's war. One wall painting from Pylos down in south of mainland Greece, where we can actually see a bard singing with his harp or lyre. And that may have been another way to spread the news as well, with these kind of traveling bards. It's probably better than traveling minstrels, but something like that. So, yeah, spreading the news that way. But the merchants and the diplomats would have carried the news as well as the messages.

[Dan Snow]

And we talk about the endemic warfare. Do you think this is a time when actually alliances and subservience had to be earned and might be quite short lived? I mean, do you think that if the charismatic king warrior dies or is injured or declines, it wouldn't necessarily pass to his son. There wouldn't be a sort of orderly succession of obedience to his son. I mean, another city state may emerge and become hegemonic.

[Professor Eric Klein]

Yeah, that's always the possibility. I mean, we see that in later Greece, so it may have been the case here as well. We do get some idea that there might be some dynastic succession. I mean, we've got, you know, Telemachus and Odysseus and all of that, but again, we don't have a record of that in the Linear Re tablets. It doesn't say that. It's not that it couldn't have happened, it's just that they don't mention it. But we do have that kind of thing over in the Near East. We do have dynastic succession for the Hittites, for the Egyptians, for the Assyrians, for the Babylonians. So I would imagine it would be something similar for the Mycenaeans as well, if they're on a parallel track.

[Dan Snow]

Just before we leave Mycenae behind and talk about that wider world a little bit more, is it possible to characterize what these other states thought of the Mycenaeans? I mean, they were obviously regarded as a little bit on the edge, a little bit fringy. You don't want to marry your daughter off to one of them. But were they seen? Did they drink too much? Were they particularly violent? Is there anything that you can say kind of characterizes these Mycenaeans in the eyes of the Egyptians and others?

[Professor Eric Klein]

No, they don't mention anything like that. What we do get are things like wall paintings in the tombs of the nobles in Egypt where they're showing a diplomatic embass bringing gifts to the pharaoh. That's about it. Yeah,

[Dan Snow]

you're listening to Dan Snow's history here. There's more to come. Summer's here, and that means travel season is in full swing. Road trips, last minute flights, quick weekend getaways, or anything else that feels like an escape. And sure, travel can be a little chaotic. Plans change, things go off track, but that's what makes it memorable. Tell my wife that when you're out there making the most of it, it helps. Somewhere reliable waiting for you. That's why Best Western Hotels and Resorts is such a solid option. It's cozy, convenient, and exactly what you need after a full day of exploring, wandering, or just figuring it out as you go. This summer, get 1,000 bonus points and a chance to win 250,000 bonus points. So wherever you're headed, make your stay part of the journey and make it count. With this limited time offer, life's a trip. Make the most of [e-mail] no additional purchase necessary. For sweeps, see bonus points, TNCs and sweeps rules for details and visit bestwestern.com for complete terms and conditions.

[Tristan Hughes]

Ever wondered what it feels like to be a gladiator facing a roaring crowd and potential death in the coliseum? Find out on the Ancients Podcast from History Hit twice a week. Join me Tristan Hughes as I hear exciting new research about people living thousands of years ago, from the Babylonians to the Celts to the Romans, and visit the ancient sites which reveal who and just how amazing our distant ancestors were. That's the Ancients from History Hit.

[Dan Snow]

So the place they ought to inhabit. They should be subservient. They should be bringing gifts. They should be.

[Professor Eric Klein]

They should be. Yes, I would think in the grand scheme of things they were a power, but not a great power. I mean, at this time, the Egyptians and the Hittites are the two great powers in the area. Assyrians and Babylonians behind them, Mycenaeans and Minoans. Yeah, they're going to be on the periphery, but you know, they're dangerous. You got to watch out. If there's any truth to the Trojan War, you can see the Mycenaeans have a bite.

[Dan Snow]

Yep, they can project force overseas. Let's talk about New Kingdom Egypt and the Hittite Empire. Cause you write so blue about these New Kingdom Egypt. I mean again, these lines on the map didn't mean quite what they do now. But what are the sort of bounds of this kingdom that the boy king Tutankhamun may have ruled over or attempted to. But certainly some of his predecessors, certainly Horemheb one of his successors, Ramesses II and his father Seti, tried to rebuild, you know, what are we talking about down to the cataracts, the Nile as far as Khartoum today, or not quite the that far into Sudan.

[Professor Eric Klein]

I wouldn't go quite that far, but certainly down to Aswan, if you will. And of course you've got all this new kingdom. All the rulers are in what is now Luxor, Karnak. Right. The old kingdom was up in Giza. Now the new kingdom is down in Thebes and Luxor in Upper Egypt. So the Mycenaeans, Minoans, they're in touch with these guys. I mean, this is the high point of the New Kingdom period in Egypt. It's really, it's the golden age. Yeah, King Tut is emblematic of it. But everybody else, you go back to Hatshepsut and then Thutmose III come through Akhenaten. And in fact, if I can bring up Amenhotep III again middle of the 14th century, and he mentions the Aegean. There's one statue based list which we call the Aegean list now, on which Amenhotep III lists Mycenae, Knossos and other places and actually calls them Tenaya and Kephtu, mainland Greece and Crete. It's quite obvious that Amenhotep III knew about the Mycenaeans and the Minoans, and whether that list on the statue base is a geographical itinerary, which I kind of think it is. At the very least, you know, there are connections. And in fact, at Mycenae itself there are some faience plaques. The SC is halfway between clay and glass. And on those plaques there's about 10 of them is the name Amenhotep III both on front and back. They are not found anywhere else outside of Egypt except at Mycenae. So there must have been connections of some sort during that mid 14th century. Which means Amenhotep III and Akhenaten would have known about the Mycenaeans.

[Dan Snow]

Well, would they have heard the story of Troy? Who knows? That's amazing. Was Troy sung of in the court at Thebes? We don't know. Moment. That's amazing. Okay, so then we got the Hittite. We go up through Sinai into what is today Israel, Palestine, Syria. Where do the Hittites, who are, roughly speaking, in Turkey, are they in Anatolia? This is the question that Ramesses spent a career trying to answer. Where's the fault line between the Egyptians and the Hittites?

[Professor Eric Klein]

Excellent question. So the Hittites are up in Central Anatolia, modern day Turkey. They actually captured the whole thing. They go all the way out to the west coast to Troy, which we'll get to. But they also come down to the south, the southeast, if you will, down into what is today northern Syria, and even further down into. Well, almost down to Lebanon, I would say. The fault line, as you put it, between the Egyptians and the Hittites would have been at about the city of Kadesh. And in fact, that's why they fight their famous battle there in about 1279 BC for control of the Levant. Egyptians want to push north of Kadesh, Hittites want to push south of Kadesh, fight a major battle. It's a draw. Right. And since it's a draw, they both claim they won, when in fact neither one did. So we've got, as I mentioned, the Hittites and the Egyptians are the two greatest powers at that time, and they are duking out for control of Canaan at that time. So. And eventually they signed a peace treaty. The Egyptian pharaoh seems to marry one of the Hittite princesses. We may even have the Hittite king come on a visit to Egypt at that time. Yeah. So this is the world that we find the Mycenaeans involved. Involved in, and perhaps the Trojan War as well. If it takes place in about the 13th century BC, we're going to have Troy, where it is now, on the western coast of Anatolia. It's on the periphery of both the Mycenaean world and the Hittite empire. It's what I call a contested periphery.

[Dan Snow]

So it's a little bit like the Kadesh of the Aegean. Right. So it's this city that sits, unfortunately for it, in between these two great empire.

[Professor Eric Klein]

Yeah, absolutely. That's a great way to put it. Yes. So I wouldn't be at all surprised if the story of the Trojan War, in actuality, if we were able to go back and look at it, if it weren't actually a war between the Mycenaeans and the Hittites, and it just happens to be held at Troy, and Troy is kind of collateral damage, if you will. So I think there's a bigger picture here, and we actually do have evidence, textual evidence from the Hittites, that the Mycenaeans were fighting on the western coast of Anatolia all the way back in the 15th century BC. So one might think in terms of Iliad and the Odyssey, if the story of the Trojan War is not a telescoping of two or three hundred years of fighting in that region, that Homer and the Other epic poets managed to distill down into one epic tale. So we've definitely got the Mycenaeans around and in a warlike posture, I would add, on that western coast. And I think that's how they're interacting with the Hittites, because most of the mentions of Ahiyawa, as the Hittites call the Mycenaeans, are in a militarized context.

[Dan Snow]

Yeah, I love that idea of telescoping. It's not quite the same, but I imagine Shakespeare, when he writes Henry V, he's basically sort of writing about the way that the English tend to fight the French in that part of the world. And it's sort of. There's a sense of that there as well. So if that is true, that was part of this. At times there could have been this exchange of gifts, as you've pointed out. This is kind of interconnected world. But at times that breaks down and there will be violence and then perhaps some sort of peace settlement. There would be an agreement afterwards, marriage alliances made and tribute swapped around, depending, I suppose, on the outcomes on the battlefield.

[Professor Eric Klein]

Yeah, absolutely. And in fact, if we look at the archeology of Troy, we can see the Mycenaeans are happily trading with the Trojans before the so called war breaks out. We've got imported Mycenaean pottery in the earlier levels at Troy, but we also again have the Hittite records. The Hittites knew Troy as Vilusa and they document peace treaties that they signed with the rulers of Wilusa, including one guy named Alexandu of Wilusa. And Alexander of Wilusa sounds a lot like Alexander of Ilios, which is the other name for Paris and Troy. In fact, in the Hittites record four of these battles and treaties and such, and I think two of them they talked about, about the ruler of Troy having been overthrown by another power and that the Hittites have put him back on, have reinstalled him. So I do wonder, I mean, I think there is a nucleus of truth at the basis of everything that we're told by Homer. And I think he is reflecting some memories. And so I'm wondering if one of those mentions by the Hittites is also the one that Homer talks. So in my mind it's not was there a Trojan War, it's which one of the ones the Hittites mention is the one that Homer's mentioning.

[Dan Snow]

And when you're reading Homer, one of the bits as a historian really speak to you is it we talked about the hospitality we've talked about seafaring. I think from what you're saying, it's the idea of this kind of coalition building is very interesting. Agamemnon and Menelaus, they kind of reach out. Odysseus doesn't really want to go. They kind of half strong army. So the idea, idea of what Mycenaean power meant at the time, you know. Yes, they're city states. Yes. They have all these little kinglets, but it's clear that there's one king, that there's a sort of supreme king who most of them have to kind of do what they say, although that gives them all sorts of wonderful friction. Like Achilles falls out with Agamemnon. As I say, Odysseus doesn't want to join in at such. So does that feel quite real to you?

[Professor Eric Klein]

Yes, it does. But as a historian, I want to figure out if it's real to that period or if it's more real to Homer's period because he's living in the Iron Age. So as a historian I want to go in and kind of dissect it. And I'm looking for things that could be true Bronze Age versus later Iron Age. So I'll give you just like one example. It gets really nitpicky, like how many spokes are there in a chariot wheel, right? Are there six spokes? Are there four spokes? Are there two spokes? How did you make a boars tusk helmet? Well, Homer might have seen one, but they weren't being worn in his day. And yet Homer describes a boar's tusk helmet absolutely accurately. So things like this, including the shields that they were using, Achilles shield, the way it's described. Is that actually Bronze Age? Is it Iron Age? And then of course, you've got the famous catalog of ships, right, which you're referring to. When Agamemnon says jump, everybody says, sure. And how many ships do you want? There is in book two of the Iliad a catalog of ships where it says, Agamemnon brought this many ships and Menelaus brought this many ships. And that seems to be a true memory, memory of the Bronze Age that was handed down orally. So as a historian, I go in and try and dissect what Homer is saying. Yes, we can believe this. No, this is probably, you know, epic poetry. And I try and fish out the nuggets that we can use.

[Dan Snow]

You listen to Dan Snow's history. Don't go anywhere. There's more to come.

[Professor Eric Klein]

Hi, this is Zoe Deutsch.

[Dan Snow]

And this is Nick Robinson. Check out our new movie, Voicemails for Isabel, exclusively on Netflix.

[Professor Eric Klein]

Sign up now to watch.

[Tristan Hughes]

Ever wondered what it feels like to be a gladiator facing a roaring crowd and potential death in the coliseum? Find out on the Ancients podcast from History hit twice a week. Join me, Tristan Hughes, as I hear exciting new research about people living thousands of years ago, from the Babylonians to the Celts to the Romans, and visit the ancient sites which reveal who and just how amazing our distant ancestors were. That's the Ancients from History hit.

[Dan Snow]

Which other nuggets have really come to your attention? I mean, I suppose the ancient interplay of violence, acquisition, and then also kind of marriage, if we want to call it marriage, or sexual slavery, whatever it might be. But it's this landing on a foreign shore, taking goods, cattle, the things are described in very bold terms. And then women, and then how sometimes those women can forge subsequent alliances. I mean, that feels very interesting to me.

[Professor Eric Klein]

Yeah, absolutely. And to me as well. And it rings true. We've got, in the linear B text, like at Pylos, we have mentions of women from Asia Minor who are now slaves, and they must have been captured in raids or battles or small wars or whatever, much like the Trojan War. The other things, though, that kind of ring true to me, even though are a bit fantastical, is when Homer talks about the stories of various people traveling in foreign areas or objects that came from foreign areas. I mean, he mentions a mixing bowl from the king of Sidon that makes its way back to Greece. That's totally plausible. And somebody like Odysseus trying to get home, landing in a place like Egypt and spending some time there. That also is certainly within the realm of plausibility, if you will. It is, of course, extremely difficult, if not impossible, to try to trace his actual voyage. You can't do that. But.

[Dan Snow]

But Eric, I'm sure you know, but there's a whole industry, it seems to be sort of retired, rather cheerful British officers who've left the army and go and retire to Greece, and they travel around looking for all sorts of possible sites.

[Professor Eric Klein]

Yeah. Nice project in retirement. Yeah. Yes.

[Dan Snow]

The interesting thing is that Homer's describing this Bronze Age world, all the things we've just talked about. There is then some kind of cataclysm and Homer's writing after that. So there's a veil of tears through which Homer, in a way, is looking at this period, and we call it the Bronze age collapse around 1200. This sort of community of nations, this globalized order collapse. I'm Feeling. Hang on, I'm feeling a bit stressed talking about this at the moment. But this kind of international order, which was far from perfect, but this international order seems to quite dramatically, something happens, happens to it.

[Professor Eric Klein]

Absolutely. What had been going along, I mean, going along merrily, if you will. They were happy for 500 years, give or take, the usual problems, but whatever. But yes, just after 1200 BC everything collapses just within a couple of decades. Basically that international network that we've been describing that collapses and everybody is split asunder, if you will. There's probably supply chain shortages, you can't get tin anymore, hard to get copper, that kind of thing. But you've also got a series of natural catastrophes. You've got, it looks like drought, you've got famine, you've got earthquakes. We have some textual evidence of disease. I mean, basically everything that could go wrong did go wrong pretty much simultaneously. So the whole thing collapses and they have to rebuild. Greece goes back to almost ground zero. But you know, you mentioned a veil of tears and a curtain and such, I frequently call it in my lectures now, a porous membrane. Some things made in through, some things got through, but most did not. The names of the gods and goddesses, yes, those got through, but the Wanox, the king, there's no Wannacs in the Iron Age. There's no wannacs in Homer's time. It's now Basileis name for king is Basileus. In his time there was a Basileus. There were a bunch of them back in the Bronze Age, but they were much lower officials. They were below the Wannox. So, you know, so some things make it through and some things don't. But Greece takes until the early 8th century, just before the time of Homer, to get back up to where it had been at the time of the Mycenaeans. I mean, there was a huge population decline, maybe as much as 60%. We think there's something like 600,000 Mycenaeans on the Greek mainland, or Mycenaeans and Minoans in like the 13th century century. By the 11th century, they're down to 300,000. They've lost over half their population. So it was not a good time.

[Dan Snow]

And do you think Greece suffers worse than. I mean, Egypt has its time of troubles, but do you think that Greece is an outlier even in the troubles that afflicted this entire globalized Mediterranean system?

[Professor Eric Klein]

Yeah, I do. Much to my own chagrin. When I listed how well everyone did in the aftermath. Well, after 1177, I've got the Mycenaeans and Minoans down in category four out of five, they did almost worse than everyone else. Only the Hittites did worse. Basically the problem, it turns out, we think now there's a lot of new work going on. Joseph Moran, the excavator at Tiryns, for example, thinks that the Mycenaeans were much more fragile and vulnerable than they appear, even to outsiders, and that they may have overextended during the good periods, like in the 14th and into the 13th centuries. And when the drought hit, they weren't ready and they had overexploited the peasants in doing things like building the lion gate at Mycenae and draining the Copeus basin. So it may be that the Mycenaeans were not as all fired powerful as they appeared to others. Kind of like a Wizard of Oz effect, if you will. But he also says, and others as well, Martin Finne and Erica Viberg from Uppsala, they have suggested that the overexploited power peasants in the Mycenaean hinterland, if you will, they might have actually rejoiced when the palaces fell. They're like, oh, finally, now we can have some peace. So, yes, I do think the Mycenaeans did worse than almost everyone else at the time. But the question is why? And that's what we're still trying to figure out, which is a really interesting question.

[Dan Snow]

And you mentioned Hittites. Well, they disappeared. And I wonder, now that you say that, I wonder if that's where, why they're sort of not mentioned in Homer. Because they've disappeared as a political entity by the time Homer's writing. So this Mycenaean, Hittite war, Homer's not going to be quite as familiar with the, the former political structure, you know, centuries old political structures in what is now, you know, Asia Minor, Turkey. So maybe that's why they don't get the part they deserve in, in Homer. I don't know. Just thinking.

[Professor Eric Klein]

Yeah, no, you're quite right, absolutely. I mean, the Hittites are basically not mentioned by Homer, you know, why not? So, yeah, it's because they're completely gone by the time he's listening Living. We do have the neo Hittites that do survive the remnants in North Syria and they keep going for a couple of hundred years. It is those Hittites, the Neo Hittites, that I think the Bible mentions, because the Bible doesn't know the actual Hittites either. But they do know the remnants that survived, the scrappy ones, up in what is now North Syria. So there's a lot of interesting parallels between Homer and the Bible in terms of oral transmission, which is eventually written down, and so on. But the lack of knowledge of Hittites in both of them is another parallel.

[Dan Snow]

We're all talking about Homer this year. We're all interested in Homer as more discoveries are made as archaeologists and scientists push back the frontier of what we know. On the whole, does it make Homer more or less fascinating as a source? I mean, do you think now, oh, geez, a lot of that is just fantasy, or is it a bit of both? Or do we think, wow, this was more in this than we thought initially.

[Professor Eric Klein]

I'm on the side of, wow, this is great. Yeah, Everything that we find, it brings Homer to life and Homer brings that period to life. So we have so few sources from that time period. I mean, as I mentioned, even the Linear B tablets, they're just straight economic accounting tablets. We don't have epics and stories and poems from the late Bronze Age in Greece. We have them elsewhere, but not from Greece. So Homer and then Hesiod. I mean, welcome to the party, gentlemen, and thanks for bringing your gifts. So, yeah, for me, Homer used very carefully. I will stress that using Homer carefully, he does add light and life to this whole period.

[Dan Snow]

And in turn, your archaeological colleagues are adding stone and bone and pottery and earthenware and gold to the stories in Homer.

[Professor Eric Klein]

Yeah, absolutely. Putting flesh on the bones, if you will. Yes, between the two of them.

[Dan Snow]

Yeah, we're developing a full picture. Well, Eric, and then you're encapsulating that whole picture in your wonderful book. So thank you for those. Tell us what the latest one is called.

[Professor Eric Klein]

Called. The one that just came out is on the Amarna letters that we've mentioned. It's called Love, War and Diplomacy. The discovery of the Amarna letters and what they told us about the Bronze Age world, something like that.

[Dan Snow]

Just quickly on that. They were discovered around about the late 19th century. Did people know at the time what an astonishing resource they were?

[Professor Eric Klein]

They did not know because when they were found in 1887, there was a big race, a race to decipher. Akkadian and cuneiform had only been deciphered 30 years earlier. So that's what I do in half of the book is talk about the race to decipher. And there were two British scholars, well known Archibald Henry Sayce and Assyriologist, he was at Oxford, and the famous Wallace Budge, the infamous Egyptologist at the British Museum. And the two of them were part of the race to Translate. Along with five young German scholars who I dubbed the young Berliners, and the whole race to translate. I think it's as interesting as the race to translate Egyptian hieroglyphics and so on. And they did not realize before they translated them the world of the late Bronze Age at that time. And in fact, Sayce said that besides the Hebrew Bible, the Amarna letters are the most important source we've got text for the late Bronze Age. So it was a real revelation. It rewrote history as we knew it. And it was only, what, 140, 150 years ago?

[Dan Snow]

And just why were they preserved? Was it a rubbish tip? They'd been thrown out? Or was it part of the archive as we had other parts of the ancient Near East? The archive had just sort of collapsed. The library had collapsed for whatever reason, and they were just there ever since then.

[Professor Eric Klein]

They seem to have been left behind because they're in Akhenaten's capital city, which he built and only inhabited for 10, 20 years. When Akhenaten died in about 1330 BC and King Tut moved the capital back down to Luxor and Karnak, they left behind this archive. The thinking is that what they left behind is the closed cases. Oh, this is done. We don't need it anymore. And they only moved the correspondence that was still open, if you will. So, no, they're not burnt or anything like that, which is really unusual, but given the climate in Egypt, they're just preserved.

[Dan Snow]

Wonderful. Oh, makes you think what else we may find to shed light on these periods. It's so exciting. Eric, thank you so much as ever, for coming on the podcast.

[Professor Eric Klein]

Oh, always a pleasure. Thank you for having me.

[Dan Snow]

Well, thank you so much to Eric and actually to all the guests who joined me on this series, Explain the Odyssey and the world that it was springs from. It's just. It's been such a pleasure. I hope you've enjoyed it. Please leave us a review wherever you podcasts and we'll do more of these series explaining the history behind the big movies. Just say the word, but the content never stops. Certainly doesn't stop here. No, no, don't you worry. As we head into deep summer later this week, we're kicking off a new season on shows that we've recorded all over the world. So we've got the history of the Great Wall of China, medieval Krakow, from one end of the Silk Road to the other, the Siege of Malta, and much more as well. So whether you're traveling or in need of a little Escapism this podcast has got you covered, folks, and we're starting well, we're being quite literal where most journeys begin. We're starting at the airport with a short history of why those strange and important places are the way that they are. See you Thursday.

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[Dan Snow]

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