PSW 2491 The Survival of Civilizations After 1177 BCE | Eric Cline
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- Опубліковано 10 січ 2025
- Lecture Starts at 15:30
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PSW #2491
March 8, 2024
The Survival of Civilizations After 1177 BCE
Eric Cline
Professor of History, Classics, and Anthropology
Director, GWU Capital Archaeological Institute
George Washington University
In the years after 1177 BCE, many of the Late Bronze Age civilizations of the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean lay in ruins, undone by invasion, revolt, natural disasters, famine, and the demise of international trade. An interconnected world that had boasted major empires and societies, relative peace, robust commerce, and monumental architecture was lost. This lecture will trace the compelling story of what happened during the four centuries after 1177 BCE, across the wide swath of the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean world. It is a story of resilience, transformation, and success, as well as failures, in an age of chaos and reconfiguration. Those that failed to adjust disappeared from the world stage, while others transformed themselves, resulting in a new world order that included Israelites, Philistines, Phoenicians, Neo-Hittites, Neo-Assyrians, Neo-Babylonians, and world-changing innovations such as the use of iron and standardization of the alphabet. It is now clear that this period, far from being the First Dark Age, was a new age with new inventions, new opportunities, and lessons for today.
Eric H. Cline is Professor of Classics, History, and Anthropology and Director of the Capitol Archaeological Institute at the George Washington University. He is also former Chair of the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations there. Eric is a National Geographic Explorer, NEH Public Scholar, Getty Scholar, and Fulbright Scholar.
Eric is an active field archaeologist with more than 30 seasons of excavation and survey experience in Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Cyprus, Greece, Crete, and the United States, including ten seasons at Megiddo (1994-2014), where he served as co-director before retiring from the project in 2014, and another ten seasons at Tel Kabri, where he currently serves as Co-Director. He is the author or editor of 20 books and nearly 100 articles; translations of his books have appeared in nineteen different languages. Among them are Three Stones Make a Wall: The Story of Archaeology; Digging Deeper: How Archaeology Works; 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed and (with Glynnis Fawkes) 1177 BC: A Graphic History of the Year Civilization Collapsed; and After 1177 BC: The Survival of Civilizations (all Princeton).
Eric earned an AB in Classical Archaeology with Anthropology at Dartmouth and an MA in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures at Yale. He studied at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens and then went on to earn a PhD in Ancient History at U Penn. Eric is also the recipient of an honorary PhD from Muhlenberg College.
www.pswscience.org
This was excellent. Own Dr. Cline’s revised 1177 BC book and just pre-ordered his newest one. Super fascinating period of time.
Gotta read his revised book. Have the first one, and got to read his newest one. Ciao, Salve, Hello, Hi
Really enjoyed this thank you! Going to check out his books
Hello All, this was a great talk, speaker, subject etc. I remember the first talk by Prof. Cline. Also fantastic. Looking forward to the next one!
Thank for making the fascinating period more accessible to the public in your books and lectures. I think its amazing how the ancient world was much more connected than my child and teenage education ever gave it credit for.
Brilliant as always from Eric, a top historian, and as always warm and witty.
Thank you for making premium contents available to the general public!
Primo content.
Cyprus shifting to iron with the unavailability of tin, inaugurating the Iron Age is so enlightening!
The whole story of what happened is fascinating.
Very interesting about computer models about the order of the events 1:49:35. The model result coincides with the letter from the king of Ugarit that mentions that when Ugarit was attacked, the Hittites were also at war (and the Ugarit fleet was sent to help them).
Having watched 'Part 1' some years ago, it's a pleasure to have Dr. Cline providing an update on an extremely fertile topic
Such a fascinating subject, and an excellent speaker! I could listen to Dr. Cline for hours.
Me, too. But I would rather read the new book. Any idea what the name of the new book is?
I’m a geologist and it seems to me that more work can done to date any strong earthquakes of this period. Geologists use “fault trenching” and geochronometric dating to study the approximate magnitude and timing of (geologically) recent earthquakes. I haven’t seen any of these studies done in the Eastern Mediterranean that could add to the body of knowledge about the Bronze Age Collapse, or perhaps the results of such studies done for other reasons have not been collated and studied as a whole (these studies are often done before major development projects to assess the potential for earthquakes). Archaeo-Architectural evidence of destruction, like fallen or distorted structures, is not the only type of earthquake evidence that might be available, these standard geologic studies could be done as well. I love Dr. Cline’s books and lectures. Geological investigation could be much more integrated into the field of archaeological research.
You should send Dr. Cline an e-mail.
Geology is such an underrated science. 👏🏼
See this is what we really need, cross-discipline cooperation and studies.
I am so happy that I can use this hypercomplex socieoeconomic system to consume this incredible information!! ❤❤❤
Although my studies have been Andean pre-history and the links with SE Asia and Antarctica, I have been listening to Dr. Cline's lectures on the BAC for many years. Clues to our future are there. It is our best example of what happens when multiple entities dependent on trade fall. There are still many questions regarding the Sea People, but they are another story--the restless, the pirates, and so forth. I think I'll need the new book!!!
And it really needs to be emphasized on how archaeology is changing so rapidly due to new sciences and tools. We aren't limited to stone buildings and empires or even by what we find on the land. Ocean-archaeology could eclipse digs in the near future as sea level rise gains acceptance and methods of discovery are perfected. Everybody who was anybody lived on the coast. LOL!! Mysteries like Nazca probably have a submerged history. The story is changing as should we.
This lecture is great. A bit of the old and the new. The lecture is great.
Awesome talk Dr. Cline! I love your work.
Brilliant story, brilliant lecturer, Thank you.
The problem was not the drought, but the fact that it was a long drought (it is written in the book and in this video at 1:49:00 ).
Absolutely fascinating. Thank you.
an upvote for historicism (history repeats itself)? 🤨
tyvm for the lecture/upload 🇨🇦😁
3 people claiming to be pharaoh at the same time. Being British and having just endured the Year of the Three Prime Ministers (2022 for any Americans this passed by) I can sympathise. And it certainly doesn’t resemble a functional government.
Nice observation
Ah, the 3-PM Problem.
And then there was the years of 3 popes
That gate is just still Tremendous, awesome. Read so much about Mycenae. I went through that gate, Iwas humbled, I marvelled. So much Time.
Thank you for posting this excellent talk.
Combine this lecture with The Great Courses' series on general Complexity, and you get a very coherent view of how and why this collapse happened and how a series of increasingly complex relationships can form, then only be transformable by LOSING SO MUCH. Then, "Rinse and Repeat"!
That's the somewhat chilling lesson for the current day.
Those darn Sea People. Always causing trouble.
Very enjoyable, including the questions, and the trilogy reveal 😊
new book? yes!!!! thank you! also its the subject I'm most interested in, resilience.
Very interesting.
Excellent refresh on an already well described historical period.
Amazing. Thank you.
We are hugely fragile now. We have made the world completely dependent on digital technology that in turn depends on our ability to produce materials of incredible purity and lay them down in minutely thin layers in astonishingly detailed patterns. Our financial systems are massively connected and dependent on such digital systems. Our food supplies are just as vulnerable requiring daily replenishment almost entirely by vehicles that depend on supplies of fuel that is produced in highly technical factories. Our massive connections allow diseases to spread very raoidly and easily. I thought we were living in the decline and fall of the western empires, but it is apparent that China is also vulnerable and a collapse would be global.
I agree with your assessment. We are on the edge of a huge catastrophic disaster if an event happens.
Dr Cline is antional treasure
Fascinating.
Thank you
One of the big post-LBAC shifts is the transition from the Sicilian amber trade, to the Baltic amber trade, probably this is connected to the rise of the Celts and the Germanics, fascinating period in history, the Tollense battle is probably connected to the suddenly-increasing trade bonds post-LBAC between Northern Europe and the Mediterranean.
You need to put the Indus Valley civilization in there. The saraswati river dried up and they moved to the gangetic plain.
Please also tie in the African Humid Period... If I've understood it right, Gobekli Tepe might have been at the END of the last African Humid Period? Maybe?
Because I agree with your hunch that we can learn from past events for the current event.
Very good research & presentation. One question, are “Cypriots” not in fact Phoenician settlements such as Kition and Salamis?
I am reading the book right now, and he uses Cypriot for all peoples living on Cyprus which at the time seem to be original Cypriots (survivors of the Bronze Age), Phoenicians and Greeks. All were active on the island.
Wasn’t the Harappan Civilization trading with the region as well? Their decline seems to coincide with the late Bronze Age collapse. Maybe the same climate change event ended their civilization that might have spurred on the sea people (via 2nd/3rd order effects)?
Everything and everyone under great stress.
excellent !
Iron or bronze arrowheads in the walls?
The bronze economy collapsed around 1186 when the tin mine in Anatolia was abandoned. The countries looses the ability to pay their mercenaries because bronze is basicly worthless. And long range trade stops. Trade in iron is distributed. I assume that the nations failed to replace the mercenaries. And became vulnerable.
If the mercenaries serve for a limited time before heading back home, there would be problems when the economy crashed . When this system collapses, the surplus warriors have to leave home in order to aquire stuff needed to establish them at home. Hence "Sea People".
Yes, your hypothesis is certainly superior to the above, which is only supported by the consilience of data from many independent but still communicating scientific groups.
Which tin mine was that which was so important, because I have mostly read of the source so far more distant and out of the region and NEVER a domestic quarry that the Hittites would have certainly been able to use to dominate even more than they did over time?! Also, why are the "Sea People" not identified with those mercenaries. And, why were these groups be called SEA peoples, not LAND people? You know, as in LAND mercenaries, especially chariot mounts, who were the real fighting power of the Late Bronze armies ..., aside from the levies that people like the Hittites and Egyptians also relied on in addition to a core of permanent 'royal bodyguard' units?
The Western Mediterranean lacked proven military and naval logistics at that time. The Greeks and those in the Aegean area had active wars, they had the weapons and ships that appeared in the Egyptian basreliefs, they had fleets, and they had seaports. Furthermore, the Philistines had Aegean-style pottery and buildings, and the DNA of the early Philistines is most similar to that of the Greeks.
The Greeks of Miletus were able to face the Hittite king alone. Who would have had the power to come from outside to defeat those in mainland Greece? No one. Most likely there were civil wars and/or wars between small Greek states, and then part of the population migrated. (also in the 2nd book)
I don't think FAMINE needs a very large standing army to defeat even 'mainland' Greece, especially when there was no real United Greece, but just a collection of independent cities ..., independent cities mostly interested in defending their own, particular interests? This was not the time of Athens and Sparta, which even then had fractious relations with each other.
A
The Sea People are overrated.