The Coming of the Greeks. Indo-European Conquests in the Aegean and the Near East

The Coming of the Greeks

this analysis. Pointing out that Middle Helladic Greeks would

have been of little value to the Egyptians as allies against the

Hyksos, Stubbings proposed that the shaft-grave princes were

Hyksos, who after their expulsion from Egypt were given shel-

ter by the Greeks of the Argolid. 47 Both theses run into chron-

ological difficulties, since the shaft-grave charioteers must have

come to Greece several decades before the establishment of the

Eighteenth Dynasty in Egypt. In addition, both theses assume

that the Mycenaean chariots derive from Egypt, but that as-

sumption is not well founded. Schachermeyr argued at great

length that the Late Helladic chariot had more similarities to

the Egyptian than to the Syrian or Mesopotamian vehicle, but

tions are keen, they too often serve impossible arguments. At pages 718—
19, for example, he argues that upon their return from Egypt, the Greek
soldiers of fortume began making chariots for themselves, but (having im-
perfectly observed the vehicles they saw in Egypt) maladroitly put four
wheels on some of them. Schachermeyr draws this amazing conclusion from
the fact that on one of the shaft-grave reliefs the artist has depicted a chariot
in profile, but has also depicted two wheels. Adding to these the two
wheels that he imagines on the far side of the chariot, Schachermeyr comes
up with his four-wheeled chariot. The more normal explanation, of course,
would be that the shaft-grave artist had trouble with profiles: just as his
warriors are shown in profile, but have both shoulders turned toward us, so
when attempting to depict a two-wheeled chariot he supposed it necessary
to depict two wheels. At any rate, having "established" that some of the
shaft-grave chariots had four wheels, Schachermeyr went on to argue that
such inefficiency ruled out the possibility that the chariots could have been
brought in by invaders: no invaders would have been able to prevail with
such cumbersome vehicles (cf. p. 719: "Dieser Befund der Schachtgraber ist
insofern von hochstger Bedeutung, als er die Einfiihrung des Streitwagens
durch zuwandernde Streitwagenritter ausschliesst. Diese ha'tten aus ihrer
fruheren Heimat den Streitwagen doch zweifellos bereits in seiner fertigen
Form mitgebracht und wiirden nimmermehr zuerst mit einem vierradigen
Typus experimentiert haben").

47. Stubbings, CAH II, i: 633—40. As support for an "Egyptian
    connection," Stubbings cites the Danaus myth, and concludes (p. 637) that
    "in tune with the tradition, we may postulate the conquest of the Argolid
    by some of the displaced Hyksos leaders from Egypt in the early sixteenth
    century B.C."

174