1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed (Eric Cline, PhD)
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- Published on Oct 11, 2016
- From about 1500 BC to 1200 BC, the Mediterranean region played host to a complex cosmopolitan and globalized world-system. It may have been this very internationalism that contributed to the apocalyptic disaster that ended the Bronze Age. When the end came, the civilized and international world of the Mediterranean regions came to a dramatic halt in a vast area stretching from Greece and Italy in the west to Egypt, Canaan, and Mesopotamia in the east. Large empires and small kingdoms collapsed rapidly. With their end came the world’s first recorded Dark Ages. It was not until centuries later that a new cultural renaissance emerged in Greece and the other affected areas, setting the stage for the evolution of Western society as we know it today. Professor Eric H. Cline of The George Washington University will explore why the Bronze Age came to an end and whether the collapse of those ancient civilizations might hold some warnings for our current society.
Considered for a Pulitzer Prize for his recent book 1177 BC, Dr. Eric H. Cline is Professor of Classics and Anthropology and the current Director of the Capitol Archaeological Institute at The George Washington University. He is a National Geographic Explorer, a Fulbright scholar, an NEH Public Scholar, and an award-winning teacher and author. He has degrees in archaeology and ancient history from Dartmouth, Yale, and the University of Pennsylvania; in May 2015, he was awarded an honorary doctoral degree (honoris causa) from Muhlenberg College. Dr. Cline is an active field archaeologist with 30 seasons of excavation and survey experience.
The views expressed in this video are those of the speaker and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Capital Area Skeptics. 
Science & Technology
the greek island + santorini are very very close Egypt ,If sand from Mongolia reach California ,Sand from the Sahara desert reach florida ,they are very far apart = santorini did it
When he stated at the end that said collapse brought us to where we are now, I couldn't help thinking that the collapse of this century will undoubtedly bring the resource-based economy.
Mass uncontrolled migration kills every civilization.
the people of Ugarit (near today's Latakia, Syria) and the Levant were awesome, creating the first alphabetic writing system
Good presentation but the study ignored basic histories in relation to nile and ethiopia which is base for egyptian survival ,and rift valley also
I don't see this as a new hypothesis being offered here by the good doctor.
great stuff!! but ther is no such place called "israel".
isis = mossad, israel special intel servce, isis... 1990 c-span even admitted that on tv.
the flood !! as reported in the holy bible
In 1200 BC the Middle East was not being backed by countries like the U.S. and Russia. Sure ISIS was trying to take over in 2016, but where was the mass famine, sequential earthquakes and collapse of trade routes. Iraq and Afghanistan have better infrastructure since the U.S. invaded. In those countries, trade routes and access to jobs are better than ever, which has significantly brought down military recruitment for terrorist organizations. The Middle East has been at war many times over for thousands of years. I don't see a perfect storm for societal collapse in that region. Syria is hurting, several countries are always threatening each other, the U.S. and Russia are looking to fight in a proxy war, but today the Middle Eastern countries have alliances with far reaching developed countries. They'll suffer, but there's no reason to believe that the region is going to collapse. Unless the oil runs out followed by a lengthy drought. Then they F'd in the A.
The sea peoples raiding twice on Egypt sounds similar to the Northmens dual attack on Frankia a little over 1000 years later.
Really interesting made so, because he kept his audience and presentation fun and factual
Great speaker... very entertaining. Keeps your attention.
Oh yeah, tons of bronze came to Scandinavia, and amber is all around the middle east
Good to see a variety of religious deities where tolerated by many different societies.
They may have recognised mythology should be separated from trade?
and the end is coming again. The new world order globalist plan
The king who refused the sandals must’ve been a Trump like caracter ...being an a-hole to his allies
Huh ????
Sea Peoples - Check out the tribes of Japheth. - Also, the eruption of Thera and the resulting Tsunami that hit Crete.
I got here from JC Denton giving fun snide & snarky remarks and I do not regret it. RU-clip, you're weird but sometimes you have your moments.
C-Line, C-Peoples. I was once a C-Peoples. I gave it up though.
This guy is great! These lectures can be so boring. This guy has a wonderful honesty to him. Makes corny jokes and I appreciate that.
Climate Change and Globalization are such buzz words. He had to point out that the Hittites didn't drive SUVs. Funny guy.
Is our current civilization near that collapse point too now?.
Wolfen443 more like a turning point. It could be the end. In fact it can end almost at any time but let our perseverance continue :)
It was global warming caused by too many oxen farts.
Love it when my brother wears a tie.
such an interesting lecture and he got lost with with the indentification of the sea people of today, who are, obviously, those with the strongest Navy.... and considering also the responsibility of the latter with the rebellions in most contries of the MENA area the answer is actually self-evident
40:00 the Hittites are not driving SUVs
It wasn't Thera.
Superb presentation. Beautifully illustrated with slides, so you are not just listening to a guy talk, you have visual illumination as well. This bloke Cline is a really good speaker.
I love waking up to new shit to watch.
"Civilization" has never collapsed. Nations or world regions collapse....not ALL civilization. Just like America is about to collapse now that trump is in the White House.
Having visited Hatusha (sp) in Anatolia and studied the era of their dominance, very much appreciated this talk.
Hatzor, I'm not sure spelling it correctly. You have an ancient story of Joshua burning the place down, the evidence shows it was burnt. Then you guys can't agree what happened there because you question whether the exodus happened. If you accept the exodus it would make sense would it not?
Thanks to Dr.Eric Cline for such beautiful explanation,but im surprised why he was just bumbling when he was asked about the true conclusion that ..THE PELESET ... Those men from the sea who are the authentic citizens of the land of KANAAN with its HAZOR political capital are the real inhabitants of PALESTINE before the exodus of the Israelis to the land of KANAAN!!His lecture means correctly that the Palestinians lived very long time on the land of Kanaan as a country and a political state before the exodus!!The other true historical plain truth is that the sons of Israel where a beduin tribe who came from the desert of whats actually known as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia certainly from Aseer desert! they were under the Egyptian captivity at the time the PALESTINANS where in the land of KANAAN since over 4000 years B.C.I believe in human rights for a peacefull life to all human beings without wars without falsification of the history !
Are you serious, Isis the sea peoples? Isis was the Baath party, so they effectively they wanted to make Iraq Sunni again. The US on the other hand came rapidly from the West with shock and awe to effectively destroy Iraq. We may have had a wonderful story (actually there were several) stating our mission was otherwise, but effectively we destroyed that nation. Our perennial invasions seem to keep poor commodity rich markets as one trick (commodity) markets and unable to diversify it seems.
Has anyone looked at disease interconnected with downfall of Sea People & Civilization? The little ice age reportedly enabled Bubonic Plague. War often brings famine because farmers & crops are killed off. In short, are any records reflecting any new disease being described?
Brillant!
So I was at the grocery store last week, standing in line, and here comes a SEA PERSON, just butts right in front of me. No apology. No acknowledgement. I am certain that sea peoples destroyed the ancient world.
These sea peoples seem to have been victims of late bronze age fake news.
It was really good until he had to bring modern politics into this. Where does he get his news from?! Fox news?
Skip to 49.06 and save yourself some time.
WHAT AGAIN ?
If im not mistaken the greeks came to eygpt to learn and came later to conquer . Yes it happen but it was not in troy but memphis
I think corrupt government caused those civilizations to collapse. volcanoes and earthquakes weren't hitting em every other day. better believe the tax man was.
Between two slides encrusted and incrusted are used interchangeably in precisely the same context. An object can "have an incrustation" as well as "be incrusted". However, If you are saying "with" or "by", then encrusted is the correct term as in "encrusted with lapis lazuli" or "encrusted by the blacksmith". While it's rather common to use these words interchangeably, it is a result of degeneracy rather than alternative/regional writings. No, this is not the only thing I took away from this video, and no it does not detract from the fantastic work presented here by Doctor Cline. I'm sure historians can appreciate my pedantry.
PhD Phony degree
Younger Dryas
Younger Dryas
I sea what you did there.
Why hasn't somebody made a video game of this yet?!?
Empty lands?!,.... Too much implications in this sentence... beware!
interesting video
what Iam asking myself is why they did not colonialize Italy, not too far away, fertile and upward the prevailing winds,the most humid part of the mediiteranian
-Dr. Cline, what caused the demise of the late bronze age?
-Yes
1610 BC Santorini blew up -VE7 and displaced many people around the Meditteranean. This is a likely contributor to the chaos and civilization break-up of the time. It may not have been a direct cause but a start of the disruption to that period.
I look at the contributions of the Sea Peoples with slight skepticism because we all know how difficult it has been, historically, to organize and keep together groups with different tribal and national identities. Crusading nations couldn't do it, Germanic tribes couldn't do it, etc, for any length of time. Keeping the Allied nations together for a period as short as WWII was notoriously difficult, even when fighting an incontrovertible enemy in Nazi Germany. The need for individual power and identity among the respective elites usually fractures alliances very quickly. Different groups get sick of each other fast. Even if the power structure at that time was shaky, it would have been incredibly difficult keeping NINE different peoples together in an organized army. It also seems they stayed together for at least a thirty year period to reattack Egypt in 1177. To me, that seems impossible. Yes, attacks from the Sea People no doubt happened but I greatly question whether it was like the Egyptians said it was.
3rd time I'm watching this. What a great presentation. I wish all teachers were this good at keeping our attention and imparting a ton of info.. :)
So Exodus may have happened and maybe didn't but he's using the Bible to backup his facts on the Philistines?
Perhaps he is just acknowledging that the Exodus story is disputed?
Based on ... not a lot of physical evidence ... hey idea ... this Humpty Dumpty should check out Anatoli Formenko' New Chronology ... that might put this debacle on track.
God brings kingdoms up and takes kingdoms down.
The facts are these: Deutoronomy clearly describes how Israel utterly annihilates the Hittites and the Canaanite tribes.
Next, in 1000 BC, Israel is the next political entity in the region. Israel ended the Bronze Age. This is a really bizarre blind spot of history.
He talks about this at the end of the video
Sea people sounds really antisemitic
kartun netvork vaz beder
Oh, you can believe some B.S. story about nations fighting over some white woman, but you can't believe an omnipotent God could bring His people out of a Totalitarian kingdom. No wonder your wife has to fight with your azz.
8:38 Sounds like he is describing the war of terror
trade connections went further than just the Mediterranean, a lot of the tin and copper came from the british isles
He mentioned Cornwall.
Climate change?
They had cars and factories and cow farts back then?
Look like American Indian to me
1183
1153
Which bring us to 1492
Famine and drought, rather the same thing, especially back then. And revolt and or invaders is closely connected, people often invade or rebel if there are food problems.. You say perfect storm but the only real two are drought and earthquake, the rest are really incidentally connected rather perfectly timed.
Guy forgot to mention - That civilisation (whatever the word denotes) did not collapse in the case of the Indus Valley Region. Known between Mohenjodaro and Harrappa (Now Pakistan) - at its greatest extent during the Mature Harappan phase (2600 BC - 1900 BC) - the Bronze Age.
Seem academic civilisation is always centerd somewhere around or in europe ... Pffft !
This lecture gets a Sea People plus!
The Trojan War? It happened. Not only that, but the charcters of the Iliad were historical. How do I know? I know because I know what was going on in the warfare there. You had a bunch of aristocratic guys who thought they were badass. But they weren't. They were a bunch of poseurs. The uber warriors, the likes Achilles. Patroclus, Hector and some others, were, so to speak, the Brett Favres of the day, and they could run around and chop these guys up at will. I was helped along by the fact that in my most recent reading of the Iliad, I read the 19th Century Butler translation. Butler translated whatever the term for "chariot" was as "car". This helped me to understand that these guys had something in common with the American white greasers of the 1950's: their "car" culture and the fact that the greasers for the greatest part were a bunch of blowfish.
If the young aristocrats who were named only on the rolls of the dead were real, then, I concluded, so were Achilles, Patroclus, Princess Briseis, Hector and all the other principles. Some advantages to this view. For one thing, Patroclus stops being a cardboard boobie and emerges rather as the being one of the best of men. Achilles, a powerful but troubled young man. Briseis, not a case of Stockholm syndrome, but a very young aristocratic woman, maybe the age of a high school senior or college freshman, struggling to maintain herself, her position and her sense on moral order in a world so violent it can turn over in a monring or an afternoon at any time.
It happened. It was gussied up. But it happened, and everyone named was a real person.
Volcano?
Nice instruction. I would expect no less from someone who resembles Captain Kangaroo's younger brother (a compliment).
But, am I the only one who kept seeing visions of Time Bandits (1981) during this lecture...?
Ancient history.... we are all hearsay specialists, with little direct evidence, and a hope that what [if anything] was written has some accuracy. For that reason, I suggest the last place to discern the history of Egypt is from an Egyptologist. Great breakthroughs usually come from people thinking outside the box.
The conclusion is moronic. There are ALWAYS short-term droughts in the world. There are actually NO FAMINES in the world except those resulting from political upheaval for the first time in the world’s history. Cold climate is BAD for humans because cold = dry. We are actually still emerging from the Little Ice Age, and warm=wet=GOOD for humans. If humanity can make the earth as warm as it was 9k years ago, deserts will shrink and people thrives. As far as rebellions, we have the LEAST VIOLENT WORLD in human history. Try again. This is stupidity. Rank stupidity.
I strongly disagree that there was a domino effect. Societies have stressors all the time and strong societies usually survive-even multiple stressors. The earthquakes and famines weakened the empires. Then people displaced by internal problems associated with these stressors attacked their neighbors and others took advantage of the chaos to claim their own territory. It’s not a 4-5 domino chain. It’s like a 2-3 step chain. That’s it. Other than bronze and salt, long distance trade largely involved luxuries. The people who got aggressive first were those sea economies specifically dependent on the luxury trade for their own wealth.
I wonder if they were from Atlantis... (hmmmmm???)
Númenor
did you say Turkey? Turkish history is only 100 years old
It wasn't called Turkey back then.
Lisbon Tsunami 1477 I think, check that out!
1755, maybe?
My theory... The Sea Peoples were the Proto-Phonecians. Their Phonetic language and alphabet was the result of a need to amalgamate the various languages of the Mediterranean of the various peoples that constituted their sea-fairing nation; North Africans, siardinians, Sicilians, Porto Etruscans, Iberians, etc. When they were done conquering, they were then the people now recognized as Levantine Phoenicians.
Wow! 3 million views on a history lecture... Maybe there's _hope_ yet.
Its a 4 year old video
I note he's an officer in his local Grand Lodge.
He says there are no texts about disease. But the Iliad speaks of "the arrows of Apollo" killing many Greek soldiers. And the Book of Exodus speaks of plague afflicting the Egyptians. Both the siege of Troy and the Exodus happened about the same time as the 1177 BCE collapse.
he means contemporary texts, like linear B or cuneiform tablets from bronze age sites that can be reliably dated to precisely that time period, not works of literature that have murky connections to the Bronze Age like Homer and the Bible.
How credible is it that all the civilizations collapsed at the same time from causes that must have affected them differently. Mesopotamia is inland. How would the Sea Peoples have reached them?
@Jack Kessler Urban elites ran he place though so without them the society would collapse.
@Roland Deschain Most ancient societies were primarily agricultural. Exceptions are few and small, notably the Phoenician city-states and some of the Greek city-states. Agricultural populations, outside of urban elites, would have been little affected by vicissitudes of trade.
The collapse in trade would surely have reached them though.
Sea people are the pheonicians
Exodus if it took place would have been 200 years earlier. About 1450BC most likely.
@Scarlet that is based on the statement Pi-Ramesses. The bible also states that the Exodus happened around 1450 BC. It did not happen in Ramesses II time. This is the same archaeological amazing insight that Mt Sinai must be in the Sinai peninsula because Emperor Constantine's mother said so, despite all the Jews and the Bible stating that the Exodus went to NW Saudi Arabia.
If you are happy to ignore the evidence to look where you won't find any evidence then you will find what you want to find - nothing. The city to look in was Avaris (Pi-Ramesess in 1450BC) that's where the evidence is.
No, archaeologists' consensus is that the pharaoh involved with Moses in Exodus is Ramses II. Look it up. However, you are correct in giving the date that is most often cited by religious scholars, both Jewish and Christian, as I understand it. They believe the pharaoh involved with Moses was Thutmoses. I do not know why the archaeologists vs religious scholars differ
Where is Hercules fit into all of this?
The Sea People razed my homework.
Could a flood have chased away the sea peoples? I'm referring to the undersea remains of an Egyptian city in the Nile delta.
If you wish to learn then read his book. This 70 minute production, although entertaining,, is far too superficial.
sea people = remnants of Atlantis?
Landell N no
This video was wayyyyyyy too short. I wish we could get him talking 1 hour on each point. Or atleast as close you can get to a hour on each point with the information we have now. Great speaker too.
Climate change happend.
I found your lecture very interesting
Crab peoples perhaps?
famine and Egypt thrived....
Hmmmmmm
Joseph was ordered by the God of heaven and Earth to prepare for the 7 years famine by storing gains from the 7 years of plenty
How one continent was divided into many and why the Bible was written and history was created as a cover story: The Fall and History of Lucifer, the untold story: Lucifer and his followers, rouge races through out the Uni-Multiverse (Skull & Bones = Thieves and Pirates) were Out Laws of Bandits and thieves and were sentenced by the Councils that Governed for Peace and Harmony. Compassion of the Council was not to arrest and persecute, but to reform if possible the affenders. Lucifer and his followers by their nature were judged as being to EVIL to co-exist with the Heavenly Council and those who lived in PEACE. Lucifer and all those charged and found guilty were sentenced to exile in a far off distant planet called Earth, inhabited by a Black Race, that was not apart of the Uni-Multiverse Council. The Sin and Responsibility of the Council is/was having no regard for Planet Earth and the Black Race, that lived and thrived according to the Laws of Nature, which to this day is not understood by the Heavenly Council. Lucifer and his rouge followers (The white race and other races, not genetically Black), Learned from the culture of the Black Race, and secretly set out from the devious nature of Crimes that sent them to Planet Earth; to learn from the Black Race and then replace the Black Race's Culture, in order to Transform it into Lucifer's Culture, The White Race (Lucifer and his followers); to be their existence with the History of the Black Race and to Terraform Planet Earth into a Luciferian Planet. The charity of the Uni-Multiverse (Heavenly Body) is responsible for the demise of what happened to Planet Earth and the Life Forms that have suffered from this decision that wreaked havac on Planet Earth and the original inhabitance of Planet Earth; making Planet Earth a Prison Planet doomed for Destruction. Out of Chaos comes Order and the motto of Lucifer, who has not changed his spots, who transformed and Terraformed Planet Earth into Out of Chaos comes Order. I therefore charge the Uni-Multiverse (so called god) with all the crimes of Lucifer and his followers and to set right all the crimes against Planet Earth and all Life forms that has suffered injury from the Decisions of the Uni-Multiverse as crimes against Planet Earth and particularly the Black Race. What is Terraforming? www.bing.com/search?q=terraform&form=PRHPR1&src=IE11TR&pc=EUPP_HRTS
Wow, that was... interesting.
Get off the drugs.
Ok, now that was fun. I love Bronze Age History.