Greece, classical

The Camuni are an ancient people of uncertain origin (according to Pliny the Elder, they were Euganei; according to Strabo, they were Rhaetians) who live in Val Camonica—in what is now northern Lombardy—during the Iron Age, although  groups of hunters, shepherds and farmers are known to have lived in the area since the Neolithic.

They reach the height of their power during the Iron Age due to the presence of numerous iron mills in Val Camonica.

Their historical importance is, however, mostly due to their legacy of carved rocks, around three hundred thousand in number, which date from the Palaeolithic to the Middle Ages.

The first light to penetrate the dark age in Anatolia is lit by the very Phrygians who had destroyed Hattusa.

Architects, builders, and skilled workers of iron, they have assimilated the Hittites' syncretic culture and adopted many of their political institutions.

Phrygian kings apparently rule most of western and central Anatolia in the ninth century BCE from their capital at Gordium (a site sixty kilometers southwest of modern Ankara).

Phrygia forms the western part of a loose confederation of peoples (identified as “Mushki” in Assyrian records) that dominates the entire Anatolian peninsula between the twelfth and ninth centuries BCE.

This early civilization borrows heavily from the Hittites, whom they had replaced around 1200, and establishes a system of roads that the Persians will later utilized.

The Phrygians excel in metalwork and woodcarving and are said to have originated the art of embroidery.

Phrygian carpets are famous.

Among the various Phrygian religious practices, the cult of the Great Mother (Cybele) predominates and is passed on to the Greeks.

Little else is known of Phrygian society.

The great shrines such as Pessinus own vast lands, the high priests being virtually autonomous rulers.

Society is probably feudal.

An intelligent and evidently cultivated elite (they are able to read and write) exists at Gordium and the important religious center at “Midas City” (modern Yazilikaya, Turkey), together with an important nucleus of craftsmen and merchants, some doubtless being foreigners—Greeks, Phoenicians, Syrians, and Urartaeans.

A staple industry is sheep rearing, which provides a fine wool much in demand in Miletus and other Greek centers of industry.

The neighborhood of Midas City harbors considerable forestland, and timber is clearly an important economic factor.

Another specialty is horse rearing, the Phrygians probably being, like many of the Indo-Europeans, an equestrian aristocracy ruling over other native peoples.

Near East (909–766 BCE): Consolidation, Conflict, and Cultural Flourishing

Nubian Expansion and Egyptian Shifts

During the late ninth and early eighth centuries BCE, Egypt experiences significant geopolitical transformations. Kashta, a Kushite king based in Napata, expands his influence northward into Upper Egypt, notably installing his daughter Amenirdis I as the prospective God's Wife of Amun in Thebes. This effectively legitimizes Nubian dominance, paving the way for his son Piye to consolidate Kushite power across Egypt around 747 BCE. Under Piye's rule, Egyptian cultural and religious traditions experience revitalization, with an increasing adoption of Nubian elements.

Israel, Judah, and Regional Rivalries

This period sees Israel and Judah embroiled in frequent conflicts, both internally and with neighboring states. Notably, the Mesha Stele, or Moabite Stone, crafted by King Mesha of Moab around 850 BCE, provides critical historical insights. This stele details Mesha’s rebellion against Israelite domination under the "House of Omri," referencing the Israelite god Yahweh and potentially the earliest extrabiblical mention of the "House of David." The kingdoms of Edom and Moab also rise prominently, intensifying regional dynamics, with Edom gaining significance through increased trade and mining activities.

Israel under Omri (c. 876–869 BCE) and his son Ahab (c. 869–850 BCE) emerges as a significant regional power, marked by extensive military campaigns, construction projects, and an influential Phoenician alliance forged through Ahab’s marriage to Jezebel, daughter of Ithbaal of Tyre and Sidon. The internal religious turmoil intensifies with the clash between Phoenician Baal worship and Hebrew monotheism, particularly under the prophets Elijah and Elisha.

Assyrian Dominance and Local Autonomy

The Assyrian Empire, under rulers such as Shalmaneser III and later Tiglath-Pileser III, exerts considerable influence over the Near East, frequently subduing and extracting tribute from kingdoms such as Israel and the city-states of Phoenicia. Despite periodic revolts by city-states like Tyre and regional leaders, Assyria largely maintains its dominance through military might and political coercion, reshaping the political landscape significantly.

Sabaean Ascendancy and Arabian Trade

To the south, the Sabaean Kingdom in southern Arabia (biblical Sheba), beginning around the tenth century BCE, becomes a vital trade nexus connecting Arabia, Syria, and Mesopotamia. Controlling major caravan routes and flourishing economically, the Sabaeans significantly influence commerce and cultural exchanges across the Near East.

Greek Expansion in Anatolia and Cyprus

The collapse of Mycenaean civilization and the subsequent Dorian invasion in mainland Greece prompt waves of Ionian and Dorian refugees to establish new settlements in Asia Minor. The Ionian coast flourishes culturally and commercially with prominent cities such as Phocaea, Ephesus, and Miletus. Concurrently, the Dorians establish influential cities like Halicarnassus and Knidos, integrating into regional power dynamics through leagues like the Dorian Hexapolis. Cyprus also emerges as a significant cultural and commercial hub, with a Phoenician colony established at Citium around 800 BCE, contributing to the island's complex demographic and cultural landscape.

Cultural and Linguistic Developments

The Hebrew alphabet, evolving from Phoenician script, is reflected in early texts like the Gezer Calendar (tenth century BCE), demonstrating early literacy and agricultural traditions among the Israelites. Concurrently, the Elohist (E) textual source emerges, emphasizing Israel's northern kingdom perspectives, portraying a less anthropomorphic deity, Elohim, and competing religious practices.

Legacy of the Age

This age marks a profound consolidation and conflict across the Near East, with regional powers negotiating their positions amidst shifting alliances and rivalries. The cultural and political developments—ranging from Nubian expansion in Egypt, Hebrew religious struggles, Assyrian dominance, Greek colonization in Anatolia, to burgeoning Arabian trade—lay essential foundations for the complex historical trajectories that continue to shape the region's future.

Dorians from Troezen in the Peloponnese are the traditional founders of Halicarnassus, situated on the Gulf of Cerameicus in Caria. (Herodotus, a Halicarnassian, relates that in early times the city participated in the Dorian festival of Apollo at Triopion, but its literature and culture appear thoroughly Ionic.)

Among the islands and coast of southwestern Anatolia, six (later five) Dorian cities—Kos, Halicarnassus, and Cnidus, along with the Rhodian cities of Lindus, Ialysus, and Camirus—belong to the Dorian Hexapolis (league of six cities) by which the Greeks protect themselves in Asia Minor.

The Aegean coast of Anatolia had been an integral part of a Minoan-Mycenean civilization (circa 2600-1200 BCE) that had drawn its cultural impulses from Crete.

Ionian Greek refugees during the Aegean region's so-called Dark Age (ca. 1050-800 BCE) flee across the sea to western Anatolia, at this time under Lydian rule, to escape the onslaught of the Dorians.

The Greek colonizers of Phocaea (modern Foça), an Ionian city on the northern promontory of the Gulf of Smyrna, Anatolia (now the Gulf of Izmir, Turkey), arrive in Anatolia perhaps as late as the tenth century BCE.

The ancient Greek geographer Pausanias says that Phocaea was founded by Phocians under Athenian leadership, on land given to them by the Aeolian Cymaeans, and that they were admitted into the Ionian League after accepting as kings the line of Codrus.

Pottery remains indicate Aeolian presence as late as the ninth century BCE, and Ionian presence as early as the end of the ninth century BCE.

From this an approximate date of settlement for Phocaea can be inferred.

Ionia, a region of southwestern coastal Anatolia (in present-day Turkey, the region nearest Izmir, which was historically Smyrna), on the Aegean Sea, is eponymously named after the Greek Ionian tribe, who in earliest times occupied mainly the Aegean islands in between mainland Greece and the peninsula of Anatolia, but whose peoples migrated and founded settlements in both Attica (most significantly, Athens) and the region named after them in today's Turkey.

Comprising the central sector of the western coast of Anatolia, Ionia is bounded by the regions of Aeolis on the north and Caria on the south and includes the adjacent islands.

Ionia proper comprises a narrow coastal strip about twenty-five miles (forty kilometers) wide that extends from Phocaea in the north near the mouth of the river Hermus (now the Gediz), to …

…Miletus in the south near the mouth of the river Maeander, and includes the islands of Chios and Samos.

Ionia thus extends for a north-south distance of about one hundred miles (one hundred and sixty kilometers).

Its habitable area consists principally of three flat river valleys, the Hermus (modern Gediz), Cayster (Küçük Menderes), and Maeander (Büyük Menderes), that lead down between mountain ranges of five thousand to six thousand (fifteen hundred to eighteen hundred meters) to empty into deeply recessed gulfs of the Aegean coast.

The region bordered on the Hittite empire before 1200 BCE.

The early Greeks know this particular stretch of coast as Asia.

The name Ionia, however, does not appear in any records of this time, and Homer does not recognize any Ionic settlement of the Asiatic coast in Achaean times.

The name Ionia must therefore have been first applied to this coast subsequent to the collapse of the Achaean kingdoms in Greece in the face of the supposed Dorian invasion, when Ionic Greek refugees migrated eastward across the Aegean to Anatolia about 1000-900 BCE.

Dorians settle Knidos (Cnidus) on the Carian Chersonese on the southern coast of the Resadiye peninsula on the southwest coast of Anatolia (later Cnidians will claim that they are of Spartan origin).

Aeolian territory stretches north of the Gediz (Hermus) River up to Pitane, with Cyme as the most important settlement.

According to Herodotus, by the eighth century BCE, the Aeolians' twelve most important cities are independent, and form a league (Dodecapolis): Cyme (also called Phriconis), Larissae, Neonteichos, Temnus, Cilla, Notion, Aegiroessa, Pitane, Aegae, Myrina, Gryneia, and Smyrna, the most celebrated of the cities.