Book Review: 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed

Eric H. Cline's book tells of the thriving civilization of the late Bronze Age Mediterranean and its catastrophic decline. From 1500 BCE to 1200 BCE thriving international trade among the empires created a cosmopolitan civilization with high art, and a vast trading network. The years following 1207 saw empires fall and become depopulated, written records disappear in many places, cities burned and abandoned, and evidence of widespread trade disappear or greatly diminish. It would take another three centuries before comparable conditions returned.

So what happened? There are plenty of theories: earthquakes, invasions, internal collapse, disruption of trade, or even some butterfly flapping catastrophe best explained by complexity theory. Each of these theories has some support. There were earthquakes, and some cities broken by them. Large groups of peoples were on the move, and battles fought and cities destroyed amidst the evidence of war. In some cities, only the elite portions of the city was destroyed, possibly the signature of internal revolt. How, though, can we account for the simultaneous collapse of some many empires over such a large region?

Many experts, and this inexpert reader, find a climatological explanation most convincing. Recent research has uncovered evidence of a long lasting, widespread drought afflicting the whole region, beginning at the onset of the troubles and lasting for perhaps centuries. We have letters among kingdoms at the time complaining of famine and begging for the delivery of food. Such a drought and the resulting widespread crop failure, like somewhat similar conditions affects parts of the Middle East and North Africa today, could set masses of desperate people on the move in search of food and other basics of life. These refugees could constitute the ethnically diverse masses of the "Sea Peoples" who were defeated by Ramses III, and who perhaps sacked many an empire before.

I liked the book, but you won't find answers to all your questions neatly wrapped up. You will find a long list of Kings and rulers of the age. It has several nice maps showing the locations of major kingdoms, and imperial capitals.

My other comments on the book can be found here.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anti-Libertarian: re-post

The most pointed critique of social security and liberalism in general is the libertarian critique. The problem with libertarians, for a liberal, is that we have too much in common. We both believe in individual rights, tolerance of individual differences, and dislike government prescription of religion. The basic difference, it seems to me, is the different answers we give to Cain's (with thanks to the Captain - my original version had the corpse asking the question!) famous question: "Am I my brother's keeper?" That's not really my basic bitch against the libertarians though. My real complaint is the same as my complaint against most religion - its premise is a fraud. For those who can't stand to wait for the punchline, I believe that trying to implement libertarian principles leads to tyranny or social disintegration. Demonstrating that takes some historical (and pre-historical) context. For all but the last 15,000 or so of the 100,000 years the human spec
Read more

Uneasy Lies The Head

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown ........... Shakespeare Henry IV, Part II. So it is with us and our slightly distant primate cousins , so it seems. A 9-year study of wild baboons in Kenya by Princeton University and the Institute of Primate Research may turn conventional assumptions of alphas males upside down. The study found that alpha males have high testosterone levels, which allows them to dominate other baboons, get access to more food, and attract better mates. This is expected. Surprisingly, though, the alpha males also have high levels of stress hormone glucocorticoid, which scientists measured from their feces samples. In fact, the stress of alpha baboons was on par with low-ranking baboons. The convention wisdom is that access to food and females provides life security and thus less stress for dominant males. Conversely, weak males who are constantly threatened by starvation and physical violence from stronger males are thought to be more stressed. The st
Read more

We Call it Soccer

The US played its best, and maybe only good game of World Cup, but lost thanks to brilliant goalkeeping by the Swedish keeper and the bizarre method soccer uses to settle ties when three US stars could not put the ball on frame from the 12 yard spot.  At the end it came down to a blocked shot that spun in by maybe a couple of centimeters. Well, that's football - too much like life.   Which brings me to a modest proposal.  Replace the thirty minute overtimes with as many 7-player 15 minute periods as needed to settle it.  Scoring should be much easier with fewer players.
Read more