Tuesday, January 5, 2016

1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed




 What everybody continues to miss is that a major geological event took place in 1159 BC.  This event completely ended the organized world of the Atlantean trade empire whose currency was in the form of mostly copper ingots.  I call it Atlantean because it was centered in the Atlantic and something nasty happened there in 1159 BC to pluck the heart out of this massive trade civilization.


I have posted that it could have been as much as a subsidence of the Mid Atlantic Ridge and the Cuban Ridge as well taking with it the Bahama Bank.  We are talking about land masses the equal to Britain, France, Ireland and Japan.  It also could have been a lot less that this.  However i am showing just how much was possible and likely did take place deeper in time.


This event ended the massive trade that supported the world wide palace economies that anchored their respective cultures and all those slid deep into economic depression.  This also left the trading fleets without a living and they quickly turned to raiding and became the Sea Peoples of which 1177 is their high point less that twenty years later.  The fleets would still be intact but very much on borrowed time as their world steadily fell away from them.


We know of the Philistines in particular and their later history.


Thus the long dark age before the rise of iron age continental societies and horse cultures.



In 1177 B.C., marauding groups known only as the "Sea Peoples" invaded Egypt. The pharaoh's army and navy managed to defeat them, but the victory so weakened Egypt that it soon slid into decline, as did most of the surrounding civilizations. After centuries of brilliance, the civilized world of the Bronze Age came to an abrupt and cataclysmic end. Kingdoms fell like dominoes over the course of just a few decades. No more Minoans or Mycenaeans. No more Trojans, Hittites, or Babylonians. The thriving economy and cultures of the late second millennium B.C., which had stretched from Greece to Egypt and Mesopotamia, suddenly ceased to exist, along with writing systems, technology, and monumental architecture. But the Sea Peoples alone could not have caused such widespread breakdown. How did it happen?

In this major new account of the causes of this "First Dark Ages," Eric Cline tells the gripping story of how the end was brought about by multiple interconnected failures, ranging from invasion and revolt to earthquakes, drought, and the cutting of international trade routes. Bringing to life the vibrant multicultural world of these great civilizations, he draws a sweeping panorama of the empires and globalized peoples of the Late Bronze Age and shows that it was their very interdependence that hastened their dramatic collapse and ushered in a dark age that lasted centuries.

A compelling combination of narrative and the latest scholarship, 1177 B.C. sheds new light on the complex ties that gave rise to, and ultimately destroyed, the flourishing civilizations of the Late Bronze Age--and that set the stage for the emergence of classical Greece.




No comments: