The Greeks
Significant contact between the Aegean and
the Levant is attested as early as the Middle Bronze Age. This early evidence,
however, indicates contact with Minoans, rather than with Greeks proper (Minoan
Kamares Ware appears throughout the Levant during the Middle Bronze Age, and
the Middle Bronze Age palace discovered at Tel Kabri into the Galilee contains
several frescoes paralleled by those of Minoan Crete).
It is not until the Late Bronze Age that
evidence for contact between the Greeks and Palestine begins to appear. The
Cape Gelidonya and Uluburun shipwrecks attest to widespread Mediterranean trade
during the late Bronze Age, including trade between the Mycenaean Greeks and
Palestine (Sasson 1966). Ceramic remains likewise indicate trade between Greece
and Palestine during the Late Bronze Age: Canaanite pottery is found throughout
the Greek mainland (e.g., Mycenae, Athens, and Tiryns), and Mycenaean pottery
appears at sites in Palestine (e.g., Tell Aby Hawam, Lachish, Tel Dan; Cline
2009, 48-59; Wijngaarden 2002, 31-124; Stubbings 1951, 53-89).
After the crisis years of the Late Bronze
Age, contact between Greece and Palestine is first attested during the late
tenth century B.C.E., when Protogeometric Greek pottery is attested throughout
the Iron Age at northern sites (e.g. Tell Abu Hawam, Megiddo, Samaria, Dor, Tel
Dan, and Tel Kabri) as well as southern sites (e.g., Tel Miqne [Ekron],
Ashkelon, Arad, and Meṣad ḥašavyahu).
Most of the pottery forms represented are kitchen vessels (e.g., skyphoi,
kraters, oinochaoi, jugs). This strongly suggests the presence of
Greek-speakers in the areas because vessels of this type would normally not be
imported from Greece (Hagedorn 2005, 87-89; Wenning 2001, 341-44; Waldbaym
1994; Auscher 1967, 9-21). At some of these sites, particularly Meṣad ḥašavyahu and Tel Kabri, these Greeks
were almost certainly mercenaries. Classical sources attest to the presence of
Greek mercenaries at Palestine during the Iron Age (Alcaeus, Frag. 48 LP; 350 LP), as does the Hebrew
Bible, which notes that Carians (כָּרִי) served as bodyguards for
Athaliah (2 Kgs 11:4, 19). Thus, although little evidence exists for a
substantial Greek population in Palestine during the Iron Age, there is good
evidence for the presence of Greeks in Palestine, many of whom were probably
traders, artisans, and mercenaries (Hagedorn 2005, 89-93). (Benjamin J. Noonan,
Non-Semitic Loanwords in the Hebrew
Bible: A Lexicon of Language Contact [Linguistic Studies in Ancient West
Semitic 14; University Park, Pa.: Eisenbrauns, 2019], location 2175 of 24262 in
Kindle edition)
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