by
Damien F. Mackey
Those whom Sir Arthur Evans fancifully named ‘the Minoans’,
based on the popular legend of King Minos, son of Zeus,
are biblically and historically attested as the Philistines.
Gavin Menzies has followed Arthur Evans in labelling as “Minoans” the great sea-faring and trading nation that is the very focal point of his fascinating book, The Lost Empire of Atlantis: History's Greatest Mystery Revealed (HarperCollins, 2011). Though the ex-submariner, Menzies, can sometimes ‘go a bit overboard’ - or, should I say, he can become a bit ‘airborne’ (and don’t we all?) - he is often highly informative and is always eminently readable.
According to the brief summary of the book that we find at Menzies’ own site: http://www.gavinmenzies.net/lost-empire-atlantis/the-book/
... the Minoans. It’s long been known that this extraordinary civilisation, with its great palaces and sea ports based in Crete and nearby Thera (now called Santorini), had a level of sophistication that belied its place in the Bronze Age world but never before has the extent of its reach been uncovered.
Through painstaking research, including recent DNA evidence, Menzies has pieced together an incredible picture of a cultured people who traded with India and Mesopotamia, Africa and Western Europe, including Britain and Ireland, and even sailed to North America.
Menzies reveals that copper found at Minoan sites can only have come from Lake Superior, and that it was copper, combined with tin from Cornwall and elsewhere, to make bronze, that gave the Minoans their wealth. He uses knowledge gleaned as a naval captain to explore ancient shipbuilding and navigation techniques and explain how the Minoans were able to travel so far. He looks at why the Minoan empire, which was 1500 years ahead of China and Greece in terms of science, architecture, art and language, disappeared so abruptly and what led to her destruction. ...
[End of quote]
The Philistines
Thanks to Dr. Donovan Courville (The Exodus Problem and its Ramifications, Loma Linda CA, 1971), we can trace the Philistines - through their distinctive pottery - all the way back to Neolithic Knossos (Crete). And this, despite J. C. Greenfield’s assertion: “There is no evidence for a Philistine occupation of Crete, nor do the facts about the Philistines, known from archaeological and literary sources, betray any relationship between them and Crete” (IDB, 1962, vol. 1, p. 534). The distinctive type of pottery that Courville has identified as belonging to the biblical Philistines is well described in this quote that he has taken from Kathleen Kenyon:
The pottery does in fact provide very useful evidence about culture. The first interesting point is the wealth of a particular class of painted pottery …. The decoration is bichrome, nearly always red and black, and the most typical vessels have a combination of metopes enclosing a bird or a fish with geometric decoration such as a “Union Jack” pattern or a Catherine wheel. At Megiddo the first bichrome pottery is attributed to Stratum X, but all the published material comes from tombs intrusive into this level. It is in fact characteristic of Stratum IX. Similar pottery is found in great profusion in southern Palestine … Very similar vessels are also found on the east coast of Cyprus and on the coastal Syrian sites as far north as Ras Shamra. [Emphasis Courville’s]
By contrast, the pottery of the ‘Sea Peoples’ - a maritime confederation confusingly identified sometimes as the early biblical Philistines, their pottery like, but not identical to the distinctive Philistine pottery as described above - was Aegean (Late Helladic), not Cretan.
The indispensable “Table of Nations” (Genesis 10), informs us that the Philistines were a Hamitic people, descendants of Ham’s “son”, Mizraim (or Egypt) (v. 6).
Genesis 10:13: “Mizraim was the father of the Ludites, Anamites, Lehabites, Naphtuhites, Pathrusites, Kasluhites (from whom the Philistines came) and Caphtorites”.
These earliest Philistines would be represented by the users of this distinctive pottery at Neolithic I level Knossos (Dr. Courville):
With the evidences thus far noted before us, we are now in a position to examine the archaeological reports from Crete for evidences of the early occupation of this site by the Caphtorim (who are either identical to the Philistines of later Scripture or are closely related to them culturally). We now have at least an approximate idea of the nature of the culture for which we are looking ….
… we can hardly be wrong in recognizing the earliest occupants of Crete as the people who represented the beginnings of the people later known in Scripture as the Philistines, by virtue of the stated origin of the Philistines in Crete. This concept holds regardless of the name that may be applied to this early era by scholars.
The only site at which Cretan archaeology has been examined for its earliest occupants is at the site of the palace at Knossos. At this site deep test pits were dug into the earlier occupation levels. If there is any archaeological evidence available from Crete for its earliest period, it should then be found from the archaeology of these test pits. The pottery found there is described by Dr. Furness, who is cited by Hutchinson.
“Dr. Furness divides the early Neolithic I fabrics into (a) coarse unburnished ware and (b) fine burnished ware, only differing from the former in that the pot walls are thinner, the clay better mixed, and the burnish more carefully executed. The surface colour is usually black, but examples also occur of red, buff or yellow, sometimes brilliant red or orange, and sometimes highly variegated sherds”.
A relation was observed between the decoration of some of this pottery from early Neolithic I in Crete with that at the site of Alalakh ….
Continuing to cite Dr. Furness, Hutchinson commented:
Dr. Furness justly observes that “as the pottery of the late Neolithic phases seems to have developed at Knossos without a break, it is to the earliest that one must look for evidence of origin of foreign connections”, and she therefore stresses the importance of a small group with plastic decoration that seems mainly confined to the Early Neolithic I levels, consisting of rows of pellets immediately under the rim (paralleled on burnished pottery of Chalcolithic [predynastic] date from Gullucek in the Alaca [Alalakh] district of Asia Minor). [Emphasis Courville’s]
While the Archaeological Ages of early Crete cannot with certainty be correlated with the corresponding eras on the mainland, it would seem that Chalcolithic on the mainland is later than Early Neolithic in Crete; hence any influence of one culture on the other is more probably an influence of early Cretan culture on that of the mainland.
This is in agreement with Scripture to the effect that the Philistines migrated from Crete to what is now the mainland at some point prior to the time of Abraham.[[1]]
[End of quotes]
Late Chalcolithic, we have already learned, pertains to the era of Abram (Abraham), when the Philistines were apparently in southern Canaan:
Better archaeological model for Abraham
We next find the Philistines in the land of Palestine (the Gaza region) at the time of Joshua. Was there a Philistine migration out of Crete (“Caphtor”) at the time of the Exodus migration out of Egypt? (Amos 9:7): “Did I not bring Israel up from Egypt, the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir?”
Dr. John Bimson becomes interesting at this point, as previously I have written:
Here I take up Bimson’s account of this biblical tradition:[2]
There is a tradition preserved in Joshua 13:2-3 and Judges 3:3 that the Philistines were established in Canaan by the end of the Conquest, and that the Israelites had been unable to oust them from the coastal plain …. There is also an indication that the main Philistine influx had not occurred very much prior to the Conquest. As we shall see below, the Philistines are the people referred to as “the Caphtorim, who came from Caphtor” in Deuteronomy 2:23 … where it is said that a people called the Avvim originally occupied the region around Gaza, and that the Caphtorim “destroyed them and settled in their stead”. Josh. 13:2-3 mentions Philistines and Avvim together as peoples whom the Israelites had failed to dislodge from southern Canaan. This suggests that the Philistines had not completely replaced the Avvim by the end of Joshua’s life. I would suggest, in fact, that the war referred to in Ex. 13:17, which was apparently taking place in “the land of the Philistines” at the time of the Exodus, was the war of the Avvim against the newly arrived Philistines.
As conventionally viewed, the end of MB II C coincides with the expulsion of the Hyksos from Egypt. Bimson however, in his efforts to provide a revised stratigraphy for the revision of history, has synchronised MB II C instead with the start of Hyksos rule. He will argue here in some detail that the building and refortifying of cities at this time was the work of the Avvim against the invading Philistines, with some of the new settlements, however, likely having been built by the Philistines themselves.
[End of quote]
I have further written on Dr. Bimson’s laudable effort to bring some archaeological sanity to this era:
Bimson has grappled with trying to distinguish between what might have been archaeological evidence for the Philistines and evidence for the Hyksos, though in actual fact it may be fruitless to try to discern a clear distinction in this case. Thus he writes:[3]
Finds at Tell el-Ajjul, in the Philistine plain, about 5 miles SW of Gaza, present a particularly interesting situation. As I have shown elsewhere, the “Palace I” city (City III) at Tell el-Ajjul was destroyed at the end of the MBA, the following phase of occupation (City II) belonging to LB I …. There is some uncertainty as to exactly when bichrome ware first appeared at Tell el-Ajjul.
Fragments have been found in the courtyard area of Palace I, but some writers suggest that this area remained in use into the period of Palace II, and that the bichrome ware should therefore be regarded as intrusive in the Palace I level ….
It seems feasible to suggest that the invading Philistines were responsible for the destruction of City III, though it is also possible that its destruction was the work of Amalekites occupying the Negeb (where we find them settled a short while after the Exodus; cf. Num. 13:29); in view of Velikovsky’s identification of the biblical Amalekites with the Hyksos … the Amalekite occupation of the Negeb could plausibly be dated, like the Hyksos invasion of Egypt, to roughly the time of the Exodus …. But if our arguments have been correct thus far, the evidence of the bichrome ware favours the Philistines as the newcomers to the site, and as the builders of City II.
[End of quotes]
Next we come to the Philistines in the era of King Saul, for a proper appreciation of which I return to Dr. Courville’s thesis. He, initially contrasting the Aegean ware with that of the distinctive Philistine type, has written:
The new pottery found at Askelon [Ashkelon] at the opening of Iron I, and correlated with the invasion of the Sea Peoples, was identified as of Aegean origin. A similar, but not identical, pottery has been found in the territory north of Palestine belonging to the much earlier era of late Middle Bronze. By popular views, this is prior to the Israelite occupation of Palestine. By the altered chronology, this is the period of the late judges and the era of Saul.
… That the similar pottery of late Middle Bronze, occurring both in the north and in the south, is related to the culture found only in the south at the later date is apparent from the descriptions of the two cultures. Of this earlier culture, which should be dated to the time of Saul, Miss Kenyon commented:
The pottery does in fact provide very useful evidence about culture. The first interesting point is the wealth of a particular class of painted pottery …. The decoration is bichrome, nearly always red and black, and the most typical vessels have a combination of metopes enclosing a bird or a fish with geometric decoration such as a “Union Jack” pattern or a Catherine wheel.
At Megiddo the first bichrome pottery is attributed to Stratum X, but all the published material comes from tombs intrusive into this level. It is in fact characteristic of Stratum IX. Similar pottery is found in great profusion in southern Palestine … Very similar vessels are also found on the east coast of Cyprus and on the coastal Syrian sites as far north as Ras Shamra. [Emphasis Courville’s]
Drawings of typical examples of this pottery show the same stylized bird with back-turned head that characterized the pottery centuries later at Askelon.
… The anachronisms and anomalies in the current views on the interpretation of this invasion and its effects on Palestine are replaced by a consistent picture, and one that is in agreement with the background provided by Scripture for the later era in the very late [sic] 8th century B.C.
[End of quotes]
Part Two:
Dr. Bryant G. Wood’s View
“Dr. Wood’s article ["The Genesis Philistines", 2006] provides the evidence
that supports Crete as the ancient home of the Philistines”.
It occurred to me during a recent re-reading of Gavin Menzies’ book, The Lost Empire of Atlantis, that those peoples he - following Sir Arthur Evans - termed ‘the Minoans’, must really have been the Philistines. And thus I wrote Part One of this series:
So-called "Minoans" were the Philistines
Previously, I had devoted Chapter 2 (of Volume One) of my university thesis:
A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah
and its Background
AMAIC_Final_Thesis_2009.pdf
to a consideration of “The Philistines and their Allies”, the Philistines being relevant to any serious study of King Hezekiah of Judah. This chapter was heavily reliant upon the fine research into the subject by Dr. Donovan Courville (The Exodus Problem and its Ramifications, 1971).
Now, the intriguing “Dr Platypus” has referred to the findings of Dr. Bryant Wood in his post: “Philistines, Cypriots, and Minoans”, at: https://pursiful.com/2007/03/17/philistines-cypriots-and-minoans/
....
If the Philistines came most immediately from Cyprus, and Cyprus was within the Minoan sphere of influence, is it possible to place Philistines on Crete itself? Amazingly, the answer seems to be yes. The evidence for this has recently been advanced by Bryan[t] G. Wood in “The Genesis Philistines” .... According to Wood, the famous Phaistos Disk, a 6.5 inch diameter, half-inch think baked clay disk with undecipherable inscriptions on both sides, makes possible a Cretan-Philistine connection. This artifact dates from about 1700 BC in conventional chronology. Among its many symbols, the disk has a depiction of a warrior in a feathered headdress, which Wood claims is very similar to the depiction of the later Philistines in reliefs on the walls of Rameses III’s mortuary temple in Medinet Habu, Egypt (T. Dothan 1982: 22; T.and M. Dothan 1992: 35-36). This is not an isolated find, as identical signs, including frontal views of the feathered warrior, have been found inscribed on an axe found in a cave in Crete (Robinson 2002: 306-307).
To the presence of this seemingly Philistine figure on Crete, Wood adds evidence of an early Cretan presence at Gerar (identified as Tell Haror, 17 miles east of Gaza). He states,
Of particular interest is a Minoan graffito found in the sacred precinct dating to ca. 1600 BC. Analyses of the sherd determined that it originated in Crete, most likely the south coast. There are four Minoan signs on the graffito, inscribed prior to firing, which represent a bull’s head, cloth, branch and figs. In addition to the graffito, an unusual chalice of Canaanite shape and fabric was found in a room on the east side of the sacred area. What makes the chalice unusual is its high arching handles, a well-known feature of Minoan chalices, but not of Canaanite.
This find suggests that the Minoans were living in Gerar‚ the city in which Abraham and Isaac encountered Philistines in Genesis 21 and 26‚ and had possibly been for a significant time prior to 1600 BC. Painting Minoan-style reliefs would hardly be among the first tasks undertaken by settlers. It would probably only be done after the city had been firmly established. (I should note here that I favor a lower chronology for the ancient world which would place the Tell Haror graffito at several centuries greater distance from Abraham. I’ll address the issues of chronology and possible anachronisms in the next installment.)
Finally, although the language of Linear A has yet to be deciphered, the phonetic values of many of the signs can be determined by comparison with later Linear B.
Interpreted in these terms, there are a couple of well-attested Philistine names (Padi, Ikausu) found in Linear A inscriptions from Crete.
Crete: An African Connection?
Is it possible to link Cretan culture with Egypt? If the Philistines are to be associated with Minoan culture and if Genesis 10 is taken to be in any sense an accurate representation of the ethnography of the ancient world, this question must be addressed.
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Very little is known of Cretan history before the beginning of the Early Minoan period, conventionally dated to ca. 2600 BC, although several reputable scholars hazard a guess that there were early migrations from North Africa.
Crete has been inhabited as far back as the Neolithic period, ca. 6000 BC. Apparently, most of the early settlement was from Anatolia, but there is also evidence that Crete had a racially diverse population. Differing skull-types discovered at Cretan excavations suggest that such diversity existed. From a later period, Homer (Odyssey 17:175-177) noted at least five different tribes or ethnic groups on the island with each of them speaking a different language. It is possible that Crete was made up of many or at least several separate states at an early stage in its history. In Homer’s day, Crete was
a fair, rich land, begirt with water, and therein are many men, past counting, and ninety cities. They have not all the same speech, but their tongues are mixed. There dwell Achaeans, there great-hearted native Cretans, there Kydonians, and Dorians of waving plumes, and goodly Pelasgians.
Of the five tribes Homer mentions two are late Greek-speaking arrivals: the Achaeans and the Dorians. Native Cretans (or “Eteocretans”), Kydonians, and Pelasgians were likely all present on Crete before the arrival of the Greeks in the Late Helladic period. Eteocretans and Kydonians may have been related groups (in mythology, Kydon was the son of Minos, Crete’s founder and first king). The Pelasgians were also to be found throughout the Aegean and on the Greek mainland. They apparently originated in Anatolia and may have been Crete’s original Anatolian ethnic stock. Known in later Greek literature as Pelasgoi, they were originally called Pelastoi (Iliad 16:233; the earliest attested form of the word has “t,” not “g”)‚ a likely origin for the Egyptian term Peleset and the Hebrew Pelishtim. Since many believe that the indigenous population of Crete had both Anatolian and North African roots, this leaves Eteocretans and Kydonians as possible candidates for descendancy from Mizraim (Ge 10:13-14).
What else can be known?
There are Greek traditions that the Libyans originally came from Crete and/or settled in Crete, although I must hasten to state that the historicity of these traditions is strenuously contested by some, who see them as resulting from a linguistic confusion between Mat Libu, the Assyrian name for the Lycians of Asia Minor, and Libya. At any rate, one of these Libyan groups was the Garamantes, whom Robert Graves (The Greek Myths, vol. 1, pp. 33-35) states originally lived in the Fezzan region of Libya, south of Cyrene. In other words, the Garamantes lived just south of the region of Africa associated with the Casluchim, the ancestors of the Philistines according to the Genesis Table of Nations.
All of this, it must be emphasized, is purely speculation. No one can say for sure that the Eteocretans came from North Africa or were somehow culturally connected with Egypt. There is, however, an abundance of circumstantial evidence for a Cretan-Egyptian connection that has been noted since Sir Arthur Evans first excavated Knossos. Redmond notes several symbols shared by the two cultures:
- The ankh.
- Hathor-like images such as cows suckling calves.
- The resemblance between the Minoan “Snake Goddess” figures and Wadjet, the Egyptian Nile goddess represented as a snake. (For a fuller explanation, see Christopher L. C. E. Witcombe, Minoan Snake Goddess. Witcombe states, “It is clear that the Minoans borrowed much their culture and various cult practices from Egypt. Numerous Egyptian objects of one kind or another were found by Evans at Knossos.The most spectacular discovery was the lower part of a diorite statue of a seated Egyptian figure identified from the hieroglyphic inscriptions as a priest of Wadjyt.”)
- The orientation of the palaces on Crete was determined in relation to Sirius, as was the position of Hathor’s temple on the Nile.
- Both cultures celebrated the New Year at the early rising of Sirius in July.Additional features might be noted, including:
- Donald A. MacKenzie, Myths of Crete and Pre-Hellenic Europe, cites the affinities between the Cretan Zeus and Egyptian Osiris.
- Sir Arthur Evans believed that Cretan Linear A script was similar to Egyptian hieroglyphics.
- Evidence from Cretan murals indicates that the costumes the Minoans wore were similar to those of the Egyptians.These connections led Evans to speculate that during the unsettling time of the military unification of Upper and Lower Egypt, refugees from Lower Egypt may have immigrated to Crete. ....
[1] It is interesting in light of this that Dr. J. Osgood has synchronized Chalcolithic En-geddi with the era of Abraham. ‘Times of Abraham’, p. 181.
[2] ‘The Arrival of the Philistines’, p. 13.
[3] ‘The Arrival of the Philistines’, pp. 14-15.
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