Back to Cline's 1177BC this afternoon. I came up with a theory about the possible identity of the so-called #SeaPeoples from Chapter 5, "A 'Perfect Storm' of Calamities?". What if the one of the destabilizing forces was the populace rebelling against the #RulingClass -- which spread far and wide!

Cline: "There is one other point to be considered, which has been suggested relatively recently and may well be a reflection of current thinking about the role of decentralization in today's world.

"In an article published in 1998, Susan Sherratt, now at the University of Sheffield, concluded that the Sea Peoples represent the final step in the replacement of the old centralized politico-economic systems present in the Bronze Age with the new decentralized economic systems of the Iron Age -- that is, the change from kingdoms and empires that controlled the international trade to smaller city-sates and individual entrepreneurs who were in business for themselves. She suggested that the Sea Peoples can 'usefully be seen as a structural phenomenon, a product of the natural evolution and expansion of international trade in the 3rd and early 2nd millennium, which carried within it the seeds of the subversion of the palace-based command economies which had initiated such trade in the first place.

"Thus, while she concedes that the international trade routes might have collapsed, and that at least some of the Sea Peoples may have been migratory invaders, she ultimately concludes that it does not really matter where the Sea Peoples came from, or even who they were or what they did. Far more important is the sociopolitical and economic change that the represent, from a predominantly palatial-controlled economy to on in which private merchants and smaller entities had considerably more economic freedom" (pages 141-142).

Earlier in the chapter, "Internal rebellions and social inequality" (page 137) are cited as factors as well (sound familiar?). Cline goes on to discuss other contributing factors -- a megadrought and climate shifts from hot to cold (page 159) -- and the resulting migrations from famine -- as another possible origin of the "Sea Peoples," since some of them came from over land (page 144), and not the sea.

#ClimateChange #WorkingClass #NoRulers #NoKings #1177BC #BronzeAgeCollapse

More from 1177BC...

"There are only a few instances in history of such globalized world systems; the one in place during the Late Bronze age and the one in place today are two of the most obvious examples, and the parallels -- comparisons might be a better world -- between them are sometimes intriguing.

"To give just one illustration, Carol Bell, a British academician, has observed that 'the strategic importance of tin in the LBA [Late Bronze Age] ... was probably not far different from that of crude oil today. At that time, tin is thought to have been available in quantity only from specific mines in the Badakhshan region of Afghanistan and had to be brought overland all the way to sites in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) and north Syria, from where it was distrbuted to points father north, south, or west, including onward across the sea to the Agean. Bell contianues, 'The availability of enough tin to produce ... weapons grade bronze must have exercised the minds of the Great King in Hattusa and the Pharaoh in Thebes the same way that supplying gasoline to the American SUV driver a reasonable cost preoccupies an American president today!"
- Eric Cline, "1177BC, The Year Civilization Collapsed," Preface to the revised edition, page xvii.

#ClimateChange #Collapse #Change #1177BC #BronzeAgeCollapse #HistoryRepeatingItself #Histodon #ExtractiveIndustries

"According to Joseph Tainter, who literally wrote the book on the collapse of complex societies, 'collapse is fundamentally a sudden, pronounced loss of an established level of sociopolitical complexity.' That was exactly what happened back in 1177 BC."

- Eric Cline, "1177BC, The Year Civilization Collapsed," Preface to the revised edition, page xvii.

#ClimateChange #Collapse #Change #1177BC #BronzeAgeCollapse #HistoryRepeatingItself