...although we don’t know how contemporaneous the final destructions actually were in Greece, it is clear that after the catastrophes were over, there were no palaces, the use of writing as well as all administrative structures came to an end, and the concept of a supreme ruler, the wanax, disappeared from the range of political institutions of Ancient Greece. [p. 183]
Cline describes the Late Bronze Age Collapse -- the destruction, in the early 12th century BC, of more than 40 cities from Greece to Egypt, and the collapse of the complex social, commercial and diplomatic networks linking multiple civilisations -- and argues that the traditional culprits, the mysterious 'Sea Peoples' fought and defeated by Egyptian forces in the eighth year of Ramses III's reign, 1177 BC, were, at most, part of the problem.
This is an excellent overview of the 'stable international system' -- kingdoms including Egyptian, Hittite, Assyrian, Babylonian, Ugarit and others -- which had prospered for more than three centuries, only to fail suddenly. Cline uses the word 'globalized', which I found puzzling given the limited geographic scope of these empires or kingdoms: but the sense of interconnection, of mutual dependency, is clear. I was surprised by how much of the evidence is textual: letters between named individuals, discussing trade and intermarriage as well as warfare. And archaeological investigations (along with new archaeological disciplines such as archaeoseismology) continue to provide evidence of the Collapse, and to suggest that it was caused by a combination of factors -- including a devastating drought that lasted for centuries -- rather than simply the influx of marauding foreigners. In this revised edition, Cline amends his original thesis: "...given the additional data that have appeared in the years since 2014, while I would still posit multifactor causation, I am inclined to think that this megadrought is likely to have been the principal driving force behind many of the problems that Late Bronze Age societies faced." And he notes that the Collapse 'opened the door for the growth of a new world on a more human scale, the world of the first millennium BC'.
This was a fascinating read, illuminated by voices from three thousand years ago: I'd had no idea just how much textual evidence had survived, as letters baked in clay and as temple inscriptions. Cline is writing for a general rather than specialist audience, and this is an accessible account of a period of catastrophic change.
Fulfils the ‘History’ rubric of the Annual Non-Fiction Reading Challenge.
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