The diffusion of Near Eastern cultures

This chapter will analyze the relationship between the Near Eastern and Etrurian civilizations from the collapse of the Mycenaean palaces to the Orientalizing period. This discussion claims that relationships continued between the eastern and western Mediterranean, which were not interrupted with the dissolution of the Mycenaean civilization and the invasion of the so-called "Sea Peoples", but continued thanks to the initiatives of "merchant-adventurers" whose main meeting place was on Cyprus. Between the twelfth and tenth centuries BCE, Cyprus played an important role for traders with the West, who traced the routes that had already been beaten by Mycenaean vessels and who kept contacts alive with the indigenous Sicilian and Sardinian communities. From the end of the tenth century, we witness a gradual increase in sea traffic from the city of Tyre, which, with the collaboration of Cypriot elements, created a dense network of ports in the Aegean and west-central Mediterranean. The driving force of these initiatives lay in Tyre's monarchy and its relationships with the merchants who were active along the Levantine, Cypriot and Aegean coasts. The focus of these merchants' interests is seen in the search for and acquisition of raw materials, especially metals. Already in the ninth century, Tyrian officials and merchants were active in the main mining districts of the West--from Calabria to Sardinia, and from northern Etruria to Atlantic Andalusia. In the Italian peninsula, the first finds that attest a Cypriot/Phoenician presence are from Torre Galli, on the Tyrrhenian coast of Calabria. At the same time, the ports in southern Sardinia were enlarged and became the focus of direct routes to the Etruscan-Lazio and Iberian coasts. During their first trading activities in the western Mediterranean, Phoenician sailors came in contact with Greeks. Phoenician and Euboean merchants actively collaborated in Cyprus, al-Mina and in the main ports of the Levantine and Aegean coasts. The collaboration between these two groups also proved successful in the West, as demonstrated by the evidence from Pithekoussai on Ischia, which was frequented by Phoenician merchants and artisans. From here and from Sardinia, through a trading network that ended along the Levantine coast, Phoenicians and Euboeans established relationships with the Latin and Etruscan communities. Such contacts intensified between the end of the eighth century and the first half of the seventh with the transfer of Eastern workers to Italy who satisfied not only the local elites' tastes, but also transferred knowledge of goldworking, metallurgy, glass and ivory working. Within a short time, the Eastern know-how spread from the "princely" dwellings to the higher classes, becoming the collective heritage of the Mid-Tyrrhenian communities.