The end of the Bronze Age in the eastern Mediterranean saw great change. The transition to the Iron Age saw “the development and spread of alphabetic writing, the growth of nationalism, of republican political forms, of monotheism, and eventually of rationalism” (3). The improvements were grand, as negatives also came, but what exactly led to this ending of an era in this region? Historian and Vanderbilt professor Robert Drews, who specializes in ancient history and prehistory, states his main reason being changes in warfare strategies—mainly the transition away from chariot-based warfare. The professor goes on in his thesis to dispute five other possible explanations for the Collapse in his book The End of the Bronze Age. But how right is …show more content…
The historian goes on to discredit many of these proposals. The author starts with the belief that ironworking caused the Collapse. However, Drews states this is not true since iron would not be used until after the Catastrophe. Even then, the iron use was very gradual (75). “The ironworking hypothesis has been undone by archaeological excavations and by metallurgical analyses. Although in conventional terminology the ‘Iron Age’ commenced with the Catastrophe, it is now quite clear that iron did not come into regular use until well over a century after the Catastrophe ended” (75). Another possible reason, the Vanderbilt professor discredits is earthquakes. Drews discusses many regions that the “damage from earthquakes that is certain” (37). However, the natural disaster would not explain the sacking and or complete destruction of some areas such as in Egypt (38-39). As the author states, “Damage is one thing, however, and destruction is another. Only a very few cities are known to have been [fully] destroyed by an ‘act of God” (38). Thus, this belief is only partially correct. Also with natural disasters, Drews discusses drought. He states there may been droughts, but directly prior to the Catastrophe “women and children were receiving, on average, 128 percent of their daily caloric requirement” (81). Some shortages did happen and may have been due to Raiders who pillaged. Raiders themselves are another hypothesis Drews discredits. Many argue Raiders were simply a result of the Catastrophe, but the fighting style they employed and them sacking areas show they were instead are a part
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.
According to Don Talpalriu with Softpedia, copper and bronze weapons were found 500 miles from Athens in 2008. In the Odyssey, Telemachus provides evidence on page 55 that there were five main sources of elements to be found in Greece:
The theory that an entire civilization was wiped out or forced to leave because of a severe drought is a possible connection. During 1100 A.D. there where many severe droughts that might cause the people to migrate to a new region, but without even taking there tools or even food? For no trace of them to be found after that they would have had to change there entire way of living. Appearance, religion, their culture, because no further traces of their civilization was found. “Current research suggests that the great drought was no where near as severe as scientists believed ten years ago, certainly not severe enough to drive a nation of people to abandon their homes.” (Leigh).
Renfrew, Colin. The Emergence of Civilisation: The Cyclades and the Aegean in the Third Millennium B.C. London: Metheun 1972.
However, when you look at the times that these events occurred and transcribed, these were times of a lack of scientific understanding. The people didn’t have the tools or capability to understand how volcanoes or plagues worked, so in order to come up with a satisfying answer, they turned to God. Meaning that disastrous natural events, were not understood as natural, and the people of the time attempted to come up with reasons as to why the occurred, and that a God being angry and causing pain on them would be a satisfying reason. As Anderson pointed out there are no geological evidence of great floods, and many events that could have occurred such as plagues, most likely would have occurred without the existence of God, yet God made a great scapegoat. If an event happened that caused suffering then God was clearly angry, and if brought generous periods then God was happy with what people were doing. For example, the 10 plagues of Egypt were caused by God for the Pharaoh refusing his will, yet there are many scientific explanations as to why these could have occurred or similar events. Unfortunately, we cannot know the full truth since the stories are the only accounts we have. Since we have no other accounts, it makes sense as to why people would start to question the stories
Ten million California residents who lived closely from the major fault lines could have been endangered in many extreme ways. (House, 56). A tragic thing was that after the earthquake a multitudes of fire followed right after. The situation led to the water mains being destroyed and the firefighter being left with no water to settle the growing fire which continued blazing. The bay water was planned on putting all of the dure out but it was to far in distance to be able to transport it (Earthquake of 1906, 2). The firefighters who were putting out the fire were either surrounded or being burned by the fire that was blazing in all directions (San Francisco Earthquake, 2). A resident who was present during the event mention that he/she saw men and women standing in a corner of a building praying, one person who became delirious by the horrific ways that were surrounding him while crying and screaming at the top of his lungs “the Lord sent it, the Lord”. Someone also mentioned that they experience themselves seeing Stones fall from the sky and crushing people to death. Reporters say there were 100 cannons going off (San Francisco Earthquake, 3). People who lived fifty miles away from the fire was able to “read the newspaper at
1177 B.C: The Year Civilization Collapsed is a ancient history book written by Eric H. Cline and published in 2014 by Princeton University Press. The book focuses on his hypothesis for the Late Bronze Age collapse of civilization, a transition period that affected the Egyptians, Hittites, Canaanites, Cypriots, Minoans, Mycenaeans, Assyrians and Babylonians; varied heterogeneous cultures populating eight powerful and flourishing states intermingling via trade, commerce, exchange and "cultural piggybacking", despite "all the difficulties of travel and time". He presents evidence to support a "perfect storm" of "multiple interconnected failures", meaning that more than one natural and man-made cataclysm caused the disintegration and demise of an ancient civilization that incorporated "empires and globalized peoples".[1][2] This ended the Bronze Age, and ended the Mycenaean, Minoan, Trojan, Hittite, and Babylonian cultures.[2]Before this book, the leading hypothesis during previous decades attributed the civilization collapse mostly to Sea Peoples of unknown origin.
Hause, S., & Maltby, W. (2001). The Ancient Near East: Mesopotamia, Egypt, Phoenicia and Israel. Essentials of Western Civilization (pp.7-15). California: Wadsworth.
The causes of the Peloponnesian War proved to be too great between the tension-filled stubborn Greek city-states of Athens and Sparta. As Thucydides says in Karl Walling’s article, “Never had so many human beings been exiled, or so much human blood been shed” (4). The three phases of the war, which again, are the Archidamian war, the Sicilian Expedition and the Decelean war, show the events that followed the causes of the war, while also showing the forthcoming detrimental effects that eventually consumed both Athens and eventually Sparta effectively reshaping Greece.
The example of societal collapse in which I will be making reference to throughout this essay is the Maya civilization. The Maya civilization is, “probably the best known of all early American civilizations.” (Fagan, 1995) It was at its strongest point between AD 300 AND 900. Around AD 900 was the time of its collapse. This civilization was developed in a densely, tropical forest on either highlands or lowlands. Today to visit a Mayan site, people would go to the modern Mexican state, capital city of Merida. This site was once home to the “New World's most advanced Native American civilization before European arrival.” (Diamond, 2009) Over the years there has been many predictions on what had caused the Maya civilization to collapse. At the moment the most recent cause that geographers and scientists have come up with is that climate change may have had a major impact on this collapse. It is said that the rainfall received during the creation of the civilization was a key factor in the continuity of life for the Mayans. This and the addition of societal factors such as religious beliefs, ethnicity and education all had an affect on their way of life, an effect on their societal well-being. Art and architecture that was formed by the Mayans is the foundation for the archaeologists work today. They look at these features and the ruins of the buildings created to depict the kind of lifestyle they lived. Looking at the art and architecture of a specific civilization or community of the past is just one way that can help to inform future adaptations. Another way in which the Europeans received knowledge on the collapse was that they sent out geographers and researchers not long after the collapse to gather as much data and information ...
This rural collapse eventually led to food shortages in towns and cities.
In the biblical flood it rained for 40 days and 40 nights, and in One Hundred Years of Solitude, it rained for nearly five years. The length of time emphasizes that humans cannot attain God’s power no matter how much knowledge or technology we obtain. Before the flood, Noah, who was told by God that he would flood the earth, tried to warn people of the flood. Due to the people’s hubris that God’s power was negligible, God descended the 40 days and 40 nights of rain upon them. "Finally, the water covered even the highest mountains on the earth, standing more than twenty-two feet above the highest peaks. All the living things on earth died – birds, domestic animals, wild animals, all kinds of small animals, and all the people...They were all destroyed..." (Genesis 7:19-23). In Macondo, people had just built the railroad that exposed them to the outside world. They were bringing in new technology that the people of Macondo had never experienced before. They were in wonder, but also losing sight of how the town was before the plantation and the railroad. “The sky crumbled into a set of destructive storms and out the north came hurricane that scattered roofs about and knocked down walls and uprooted every last plant of the banana groves." (Marquez 315). Just like in Genesis, the rain came and in this way reset the town to before the banana plantation and foreigners intruded and imposed their evil
The Mycenaean civilization flourished for four hundred years in the late Bronze Age before collapsing in to small bands of subsistence farmers. Some historians attribute this decline to ‘the Sea People’ who terrorized the Egyptians, Anatolians and the Hittites. But could a mysterious people who left no archeological proof of their existence really bring about the collapse of entire civilizations?
... although we may never be able to understand exactly what soil failures can occur when a natural disasters take place, as time goes on and testing instruments and materials advance we will hopefully have a better understanding of what we can do to avoid soil failures and come up with a better and more sufficient method of improving the soils structure and strength permanently. While researching the information for this report I feel I have a much better understanding for construction geo-technics and foundations especially regarding the deformation, liquefaction and pile information related to this specific event. I hope to carry the information I have learned from this event into the construction field and apply them towards an authentic project that’s taking place and know that the information, regarding soils, I have given input on will be precise and accurate.
Collapse of the Late Bronze Age The earliest civilizations left behind many answers to how society worked and the development of complexity over time. Despite the many findings from various civilizations, there are also many questions left unanswered. Collapse, the reasons that lead to the end of a civilization, are theorized and contemplated, therefore highly debated between archeologists. Collapse is best described by Joseph Tainter as “a process of marked sociopolitical simplification unfolding on a timescale of no more than a few decades,” thereby replacing an unsustainably high level of complexity with a lower, more sustainable level.