The Catastrophe of the Bronze Age is one of great magnitude that cannot logically have only a single cause. Drews’ talks about the possibilities of earthquakes, migrations, ironworking, possible drought, total systems collapse, and raiders; all of which individually would not create the immense damage that occurred. “Kingdoms centered on Pylos, Mycenae, Tiryns, Athens, Iolkos, Orchomenus, and Thebes were rocked by troubles internal and external, brought on by nature as well as human agency”. This quote from Citadel to City-State, the Transformation of Greece, 1200-700 BCE sums up the Collapse perfectly. The three most likely causes of the Collapse are some sort of natural disaster starting things off, then a systems collapse, which left them …show more content…
Such disasters could be typhoons, hurricanes, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions or earthquakes, depending on geography. The most likely to occur in the Bronze Age would have been hurricanes and earthquakes, but evidence points to the latter occurring at the time of the Collapse. All over the Mediterranean Sea there was massive damage, so much so that archaeologists are saying it was the result of multiple earthquakes. These earthquakes account for the damage and the possible abandonment of cities because people felt safer on the coasts. Some people, including Drews, find fault with the earthquake theory for a few reasons. One reason is that usually after a natural disaster, people do not flee, but instead rebuild the damaged buildings. Another reason is that there weren’t any dead bodies under the rubble and surely people would have been trapped and killed. A final reason is that there is no evidence of buried valuables, which also would have been trapped by fallen debris. To counter the first reason, the earthquakes did a lot of damage, possibly so much so that …show more content…
In order to gain the resources needed to rebuild towns, people relied on vast trade networks over land and sea. The routes were delicate over the sea due to pirates. Pirates were able to disrupt the transportation of certain goods to make bronze, thus interrupting the trade and production in one section and disturbing the whole system. The destruction of major buildings combined with the piracy on the trade routes had the system internally and externally collapsing. Without a stable trade network the production of goods all over the Mediterranean was affected in a negative way. Producing goods was becoming an issue and trade networks were taking a toll due to this. Citizens had to find new ways to get certain goods necessary for living, including bronze. City-states such as Mycenae could stave off the decrease in production with surplus that would help them last a few bad years. The combination of earthquake destruction and the delicacy of the trade system left city-states vulnerable to attacks from the last factor,
As the name suggests the Bronze Age is a period of human culture, in which civilizations heavily used copper and bronze for various aspects of life and trading. The beginning of the Bronze Age is estimated to date before 3000 BCE in parts of Med. Europe, Middle East and China. Knossos and Mycenae are both archeological sites, and date back to the Bronze Age. Knossos was the capital of the ancient Minoan civilization; located on the island of Crete. Mycenae was a massive fortified palace, located between two hills on the plain of the Peloponnese, Greece.
In 1910 a series of fifty-two earthquakes struck Arizona between September 10th-23rd and it caused much of the Flagstaff residents to flee the area as even strong households cracked and chimneys crumbled. The fifty-two earthquakes were all light-shock earthquakes with magnitudes between 4.0-4.2 that came right after another. If only one earthquake occurred in that timespan then it is likely that only objects would be knocked from shelves but no damage would be done to infrastructure, but the earthquakes happened right after another causing significant slight
One of these actions included the use of trade routes in Greece. Since Greece did not consist of fertile land and soil, trading with Phoenicia and other civilizations became a way for the country to obtain important resources they did not have in order for them to thrive (9). America also exchanges goods.They do this by importing and exporting them to and from other countries to also be able to acquire goods that cannot be found in the United States. In addition, Rome also possessed a complex network of roads. The roads in ancient Rome allowed for people to travel from naval base to naval base and transport legions (11). Likewise to Rome, the United States uses roads and highways to travel farther distances more efficiently. Also, America has figured out ways to transport their army, navy, and military to other countries more quickly than ancient Rome was able to. Moreover, the Romans had currency in the form of coins (7). Since the Greeks used coins, they inspired Rome to also use a form of coinage and this allowed Greece, Rome, and other countries along the Mediterranean Sea to exchange resources within one another’s empires. Although Rome did not possess many natural resources, the currency they used enabled them to obtain natural resources from other countries in order to
The economic activity and industry are closely linked, and both played an important role in the everyday life of Pompeii’s citizens. Trade was a key aspect to the city’s economic activity. Strabo tells us that Pompeii was the port for Nuceria and Nola. Although archaeologists are yet to determine whether it was a sea port or a river p...
...of Greece was changed and even debased through these events. While each city certainly had its own sets of conditions and flow of events, we can surely trace the start of such vainglorious butchery directly to the events at Corcyra.
During the classical era, there were shifts worldwide with regards to economic imports and exports. As many societies transformed from hunting-gathering societies into specialization societies, global trade networks expanded. This led to the founding and growth of many complex trade networks, both on land and by sea. Two notable trade networks were the Mediterranean Sea network and the Silk Road. The Mediterranean Sea is in Europe, and the trade network lined the shores of Turkey and North Africa. The Silk Road was trans-Asian. It reached from China to the Eastern Mediterranean. While these networks had multiple similarities in their expansion and spread of religion and ideas, there were many differences. These included the type of materials
There is no doubt that there are many different reasons and theories for the collapse of Bronze Age Greece and it maybe just a combination of many or all of these. In our research, we came to the conclusion that the Roman conquest of Greece after the battle of Corinth, the Hellenistic period with the expansion of power into the Middle East, Roman Greece period, general depopulation of the urban areas, Dorian invasion, and natural disasters all had an influence in the collapse of Bronze Age Greece.
Throughout the Ancient Greek world, there have been many wars and standoffs. However, there has been only one which changed the course of Greek history forever; the Peloponnesian War. Caused by the growing tension between Athens and Sparta, it came and left, leaving only destruction in its wake. The defeat of Athens in the Peloponnesian War caused the downfall of Greece, and the end of the Classical Age.
The Bronze Age ended at the beginning of the twelfth century in a collapse that appears to have been both sudden and difficult to define. A key reason that the cause of this collapse is so difficult to identify is because the collapse was so wide spread and complete. The groups we would look to for evidence on this event ceased existing, from the residents of Crete to the Greek mainland, removing their recording capabilities. We have archeological evidence, in the form of ruined cities, but most written records that provide insight into the collapse of the Bronze Age and the events of the world are Egyptian in origin, and thus are limited in their scope and reliability. In fact, these Egyptian records at
All the way from the start of civilization through to the Early Christianity there has been a pantheon of; destruction, recognition, wars, cultural diffusion, religious breakthroughs, laws that have been established, kings and queens crowned and dethroned. The Mesopotamian Civilization it was the land between two rivers the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers that civilization first began.
By the late 14th century, the Italian city-states had amassed a large treasury from taxes and tariffs. People began to swarm to the cities to work as laborers and artisans, creating urban societies. The merchants of t...
However, this chronological realignment does not mean that the eruption of Santorini had nothing to do with the Minoan collapse. Most obviously, the island of Thera, which the Minoans probably used as a trading centre or stop-off, was totally destroyed. This would have caused huge problems for the Minoan’s trading empire.
A civilization is the starting point of a society. Civilizations have existed for millions of years and are the basic unit of structure for a society. Civilizations were the base of great societies such as Egypt and Rome. If not for civilizations these societies would not have flourished or even existed.
This assignment is both a comparison and an analysis of two essays; The Decay of Ancient Civilization written by Michael Rostovtzeff and Mohammed and Charlemagne by Henri Pirenne. The two essays offer varying perspectives on the fall of the Roman Empire and more specifically the transition between late antiquity to the beginning of the middle ages. The collapse of the Roman Empire is generally known to have concluded through one particular event; the sack of the great city of Rome. Although both essays give different accounts as the eventual collapse of the Roman Empire entails more than the “Barbaric” invasion as they further delve into from different perspectives. When further examining the Historiography and perception of the Authors we
The factors that lead to the “collapse” of civilizations are almost directly related to those that created it. Archaeologists characterize collapse by a number of elements, some of which we have evidence for, others we do not. Most archaeologists are unsure of exactly what caused the decline of most civilizations in the ancient world, yet there are many clues to some of the events that could have contributed. The collapse of the ancient Roman Empire, the Mesoamerican Mayan, and the Egyptian cultures will be discussed in the following paragraphs, with a focus on the uniqueness of each.