2023/134: 1177 BC: The Year Civilisation Collapsed — Eric H Cline

2023/134: 1177 BC: The Year Civilisation Collapsed — Eric H Cline

...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.

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