Page 257 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

[1510-1440 b.c.] The Amber Route 217
legends of a common origin hundreds of years ago with the sun­
worshipping settlers of Scandinavia. And for all that the Achae­

ans had adopted much of the Cretan civilization, they had still
not forgotten their warlike traditions. The massive citadels of the
princes frowned down upon the Cretan merchant ships in the
harbors, and their privateers were a constant menace to honest
traders. Minos of Knossos was forced to keep a task force of war­
ships almost constantly in Greek waters, and punitive expeditions
were frequently necessary to keep the Achaean princes properly

subservient.
To the northeast, beyond the coastal settlements of the
Achaeans in Asia Minor, relations were friendly with the great
kingdom of Arzawa and the small but rich land of Troy at the

entrance to the Dardanelles.
In the interior of Asia Minor lay the kingdom of the Hit­
tites. By their neighbors they were regarded as potentially dan­
gerous, though more because of the tradition of their explosive
conquests of over a century ago than by reason of any present
activity. After a period of anarchy they had again been united

into a strong kingdom some thirty years before, by king Telepi-
nus. The Cretan merchants had little to do with the landlocked
Hittites directly. Their contacts were closer with their southern
neighbors and allies, the kingdom of Kizzuwatna, which held the

coast north of Cyprus as far as the frontier with Yamkhad.
In the capital of Yamkhad, Aleppo, and its main port of
Ugarit the sailors from Crete met the caravans from the east, as
they had done for hundreds of years. The great Euphrates trade
route was at peace. Beyond Yamkhad lay the strong kingdom of

Mitanni, the southernmost of a confederacy of Hurrian states
which stretched north almost to the Black Sea and the Cauca­
sus. And beyond Mitanni, on the headwaters of the Tigris, was
the Semitic kingdom of Assyria, sandwiched between the Indo-
Europeans of Mitanni and the Indo-European chieftains of the

Kassites in the Persian mountains and on the middle waters of the
Euphrates and Tigris. And beyond the Kassites, from Babylon
to the Persian Gulf, lay the Semitic-ruled country of Babylonia.
For a hundred years, since the Hittite raid under Mursilis had
sacked Babylon and put an end to the dynasty of Hammurabi,