| Abstract: | Summary. During the first quarter of the fourteenth century B.C., a series of violent destructions seems to have occurred in the Aegean, affecting sites including Knossos, Khania, Mycenae, Pylos, Sparta, Nichoria, Thebes, Athens, Ayia Irini, Phylakopi, and a number of sites in Cyprus and Anatolia. This followed a period in which certain artifacts and burial practices were relatively uniform throughout these sites, and in which Knossos appears to have held a position of particular prominence.
It was during the period of these destructions that the Mainland Greeks began their most notable era of contact with the Eastern Aegean, possibly prompted by a desire to secure access to commodities such as copper from the Eastern Mediterranean. Competition to control such trade may have contributed to warfare between Mycenaean centres, which resulted in destruction at several locations, including Knossos. |
