1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed

Turning Points in Ancient History

by Eric H. Cline

In 1177 B.C., marauding groups known only as the “Sea Peoples” invaded Egypt. The pharaoh’s army and navy managed to defeat them, but the victory so weakened Egypt that it soon slid into decline, as did most of the surrounding civilizations. After centuries of brilliance, the civilized world of the Bronze Age came to an abrupt and cataclysmic end. Kingdoms fell like dominoes over the course of just a few decades. No more Minoans or Mycenaeans. No more Trojans, Hittites, or Babylonians. The thriving economy and cultures of the late second millennium B.C., which had stretched from Greece to Egypt and Mesopotamia, suddenly ceased to exist, along with writing systems, technology, and monumental architecture. But the Sea Peoples alone could not have caused such widespread breakdown. How did it happen?

In this major new account of the causes of this “First Dark Ages,” Eric Cline tells the gripping story of how the end was brought about by multiple interconnected failures, ranging from invasion and revolt to earthquakes, drought, and the cutting of international trade routes. Bringing to life the vibrant multicultural world of these great civilizations, he draws a sweeping panorama of the empires and globalized peoples of the Late Bronze Age and shows that it was their very interdependence that hastened their dramatic collapse and ushered in a dark age that lasted centuries.

A compelling combination of narrative and the latest scholarship, 1177 B.C. sheds new light on the complex ties that gave rise to, and ultimately destroyed, the flourishing civilizations of the Late Bronze Age—and that set the stage for the emergence of classical Greece.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Ancient History, Archaeology, Audiobook, World History, Ancient

266 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 23, 2014

About the author

DR. ERIC H. CLINE is the former Chair of the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and current Director of the Capitol Archaeological Institute at The George Washington University. A National Geographic Explorer, NEH Public Scholar, and Fulbright scholar with degrees from Dartmouth, Yale, and the University of Pennsylvania, he is an active field archaeologist with 30 seasons of excavation and survey experience in Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Cyprus, Greece, Crete, and the United States, including ten seasons at the site of Megiddo (biblical Armageddon) in Israel from 1994-2014, and seven seasons at Tel Kabri, where he currently serves as Co-Director. A three-time winner of the Biblical Archaeology Society's "Best Popular Book on Archaeology" Award (2001, 2009, and 2011) and two-time winner of the American School of Archaeology's "Nancy Lapp Award for Best Popular Archaeology Book" (2014 and 2018), he is a popular lecturer who has appeared frequently on television documentaries and has also won national and local awards for both his research and his teaching. He is the author or editor of 20 books, almost 100 articles, and three recorded 14-lecture courses. His previous books written specifically for the general public include "The Battles of Armageddon: Megiddo and the Jezreel Valley from the Bronze Age to the Nuclear Age" (2000), "Jerusalem Besieged: From Ancient Canaan to Modern Israel" (2004), "From Eden to Exile: Unraveling Mysteries of the Bible" (2007), "Biblical Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction" (2009), "The Trojan War: A Very Short Introduction" (2013), "1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed" (2014), “Three Stones Make a Wall: The Story of Archaeology" (2017), and “Digging Up Armageddon” (2020). He has also co-authored a children's book on Troy, entitled "Digging for Troy" (2011). For a video of his "Last Lecture" talk, go to http://vimeo.com/7091059.

Reviews

[Andrew Updegrove · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is perhaps the most disappointing book I've read in the past five years. Moreover, I say that based not only on my original assumption about what the author was setting out to achieve, but also on my adjusted assumption, after reading a few chapters

Let's start with the first assumption - that this would be a well-crafted book exploring external stresses on some interesting societies and the unfortunate results, along the lines of a work by Jared Diamond. Why would I jump to that conclusion? Well, for starters, let's look at the title and subtitle: "1177 B.C. The Year Civilization Collapsed." Does that sound like a scholarly title, or one shooting for the best seller list? Oh, and by the way, only at the very end of the book does the author explicitly own up the fact that the collapse really took, oh, let's be candid, as much as 100 years, and that the relevance of the year 1177 is simply that this is agreed to be a somewhat arbitrary end date for the end of that process.

Nor does the book provide the type of narrative that would deliver a book of that type, or the measured use of detail to support, rather than overwhelm, that narrative. On the other hand, he makes much of other forces where there are almost no solid facts to rely on at all. For example, while Cline makes provocative references to invasions by the "Sea Peoples" that may have accelerated the process of societal collapse, he necessarily then admits that there is virtually no evidence of any kind to say who they were, or where they came from - only assumptions. Even more puzzling, the only detailed description he provides about any of the actual events involving these mysterious invaders relates to the *successful* efforts of the Egyptians to turn back the Sea Peoples, thereby avoiding societal collapse - a rather puzzling introduction to the assumed story line.

Nor does Cline try to provide much of a picture of daily life for the civilizations involved, which brings me to my adjusted assumptions after making my way through the first two chapters. That's because what Cline goes on to do is to cite virtually all of the sources of information for various theories, making some effort to qualify which are more likely to be reliable. Indeed, the endnotes, bibliography and index of the book take up an incredible 56 pages out of the 237 in total.

All of this could have been bearable if the actual text was tighter, more disciplined, and less repetitive. But Cline makes the same points over and over and over again without any need or productive result. He also skips around through time, selecting aspects of this society or another to cite, but in ways that do not always add up to a coherent purpose. And throughout, we are treated to ongoing exposures to the author's conjectures. This isn't to say that theories aren't fine, but when they are uncomfortably lacking in supporting evidence, there's little incentive to learn what one author believes "probably" occurred.

In summary, I think that this is at best a questionably packaged and marketed book, and a failed compromise between a work of popular history and serious scholarship. In short, if you enjoy popular historical works, this is a book to be avoided. If you're looking for a serious scholarly work, then this one suffers from a serious lack of editorial review.

That said, judging by the many reviews that are more favorable than mine, a there is clearly a type of reader for whom Cline's approach is satisfactory. If you are an avid fan of historical detail about a period where your preexisting knowledge is slim, then you will certainly find ample detail here about clay tablet letters sent from King A to King B, indicating the existence of trade ties between their kingdoms, and which goods were found in which amphorae in this wreck or that indicating which regions engaged in trade with those regions.

That's all perfectly valid, and indeed, I've read scores of books on archaeology that include exactly the same level of detail. You don't expect that type of work to get into the big picture. But in my view, at least, what we find here is an author that has tried to sell to two very different audiences, and under delivered to both.

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to the audiobook version of the “revised and updated” edition of this book, which takes into account new scientific evidence that has emerged since the original publication, and has led the author to revise his original conclusions. I couldn’t find this edition on GR and decided not to add it as I’m not always successful at adding covers for new editions.

In this book the Bronze Age collapse is described as occurring over a period of decades, and the date of 1177BC is used as a “chronological placeholder” in the same way that 476AD is used for the end of the Roman Empire.

The author advises that, in writing about the Collapse, he wanted to describe what collapsed, and the bulk of this book is taken up with a description of the Bronze Age civilisations of the eastern Mediterranean. He concentrates on 6 political/cultural entities, the Egyptian and Hittite Empires, Mycenaean Greece, Minoan Crete, Cyprus, and the Canaanite cities of the Levant. At the height of the Bronze Age these civilisations traded extensively in what was an interdependent international economic system. They also of course fought each other and engaged in diplomatic exchanges. It would be exaggerating to say this section of the book is “dry” but the author does go into great detail, perhaps a little too much for the general reader. He also delves into differing archaeological interpretations. It’s good that he isn’t selective in presenting evidence, but as a general reader I was sometimes left wondering what to make of it all.

During the 12th century BC the Hittite Empire was destroyed, whilst the Mycenaean and Minoan civilisations disappeared. Egypt survived, though greatly weakened, as did Cyprus. Canaan was settled by the Israelites and the Philistines. Blame for the disaster has often been laid on the enigmatic Sea Peoples, raiders mentioned mainly in Egyptian texts, but were the Sea Peoples the cause of the Collapse or merely a symptom of it? Archaeological investigation of the ruined cities has in some cases revealed evidence of warfare, for example the presence of numerous arrowheads or lead pellets used as slingshot. In other cities there are no such signs but instead indications of earthquakes, such as walls being off-kilter, and smashed skeletons buried under fallen masonry. The latter evidence has led to the theory of an “earthquake storm” being the cause of the collapse.

Textual evidence from the Hittite Empire refers to severe famine at the beginning of the 12th century, and in the last few years scientific research has examined ancient pollen from sediments and the growth of cave stalagmites. The author argues there is now strong evidence that the region suffered a “mega-drought” during the 12th and 11th centuries BC, leading him to conclude that drought was probably the largest single factor in the Collapse, although earthquakes, warfare, and the destruction of trading networks, were involved in a “perfect storm” of calamities that, taken together, overwhelmed the classic Bronze Age societies.

The author comments that many readers of the first edition were disappointed at the lack of a firm conclusion about the cause of the Collapse, but he argues, reasonably enough I think, that the task of historians is to outline possible narratives rather than unchallengeable truths. He does attempt to draw parallels with modern day events, but for me these weren’t entirely convincing. He did make an interesting point at the end. For all the glories of the Bronze Age, it was the “Dark Age” that followed that eventually produced the Hebrew Bible and the unique political culture of Athens, both of which had an enormous impact on the subsequent development of European culture and its offshoots around the world.

Despite some reservations, I did enjoy this book, particularly the discussion about the Collapse itself.

[Clif Hostetler · Rating 3 out of 5]

The so-called Dark Ages of the 6th to 13th centuries that followed the demise of the Roman Empire was not the first dark age experienced by human civilization. This book explores what archeologists know about the Late Bronze Age collapse circa 1200 BC.

During the fifty-year period from 1225 to 1175 BC, the flourishing international trade between nations of the eastern Mediterrainian Sea ceased. Advanced cultures of the Mycenaeams, Minoans, Hittites, Assyrians, Kassites, Cypriots, Mitannians, Canaanites, and Egyptians either disappeared or were greatly dimished. Archaeologists have generally blamed the Late Bronze Age collapse to an invasion by the "Sea Peoples." The term "Sea Peoples" comes from accounts of their invasion found in Egypt. However, no conscensous has been reached about who the "Sea Peoples" were.

The title year of "1177 B.C." is the year of the climatic battle between the Egyptians and the "Sea Peoples" that generally marks the end of the Bronze Age. Egypt won the battle, but the rest of the eastern Mediterranean countries were already destroyed. Egyptian culture continued but greatly diminished in vigor and strength.

I was curious what conclusion this author would provide regarding the cause for the Bronze Age collapse. The book explores all the various reasons that have been proposed by various scholars over the years. The author reports on the most recent archeological findings; and I must say that I'm impressed with how much information researchers have been able to accumulate about the commerce and communication that occurred between the nations 3,200 years ago. One reason is that communications at the time were done on clay tablets which were able to survive 3,000 years of being buried under ruins of the city.

The author offers the following as a conclusion:

More than the coming of the Sea Peoples in 1207 and 1177 BC, more than the series of earthquakes that rocked Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean during a fifty-year span from 1225 to 1175 BC, more than the drought and climate change that may have been ravaging these areas during this period, what we see are the results of a “perfect storm” that brought down the flourishing cultures and peoples of the Bronze Age—from Mycenaeams and Minoans to the Hittites, Assyrians, Kassites, Cypriots, Mitannians, Canaanites, and even Egyptians.

In my opinion … none of these individual factors would have been cataclysmic enough on their own to bring down even one of these civilizations, let alone all of them. However, they could have combined to produce a scenario in which the repercussions of each factor were magnified, in what some scholars have called a “multiplier effect.” The failure of one part of the system might also have had a domino effect, leading to failures elsewhere. The ensuing “systems collapse” could have led to the disintegration of one society after another, in part because of the fragmentation of the global economy and the breakdown of the interconnections upon which each civilization was dependent.

So in other words, it was a perfect storm of various catastrophes that coincidentally occurred at about the same time that caused the fall of the Bronze Age.

Of course many readers will want to know what the book says about the Biblical account of the "Children of Israel" who were escaping from Egypt, wandering around the Sinai, and conquering the land of "milk and honey" at about this time in history. It's almost embarrassing how unhistorical the Biblical stories appear to be compared with the detail that the activities of the other nations in the area have been reconstructed by historians and archeologists. The author is pretty diplomatic in his pronouncements, but it was clear to me that the Exodus stories are myth and legend based on a conflation of oral accounts reporting of tsunamis (e.g. Minoan eruption of 1600 BCE), plagues, the Semitic Hyksos, and the speculative origin of Canaanite ruins.



A Minoan fresco from the east wing of the Palace of Knossos. From the Early Minoan or Early Middle Minoan Periods (2300 BC to 1600 BC). Photograph by D. Dagli Orti/DEA/De Agostini/Getty

The following is a link to a lecture by Eric H. Cline about 1177 B.C. (1 hr 10 min length):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRcu-...

An interesting review of this book:
http://theworthyhouse.com/2016/07/04/...

[Marc Lamot · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a striking case of diverging content and packaging. Four fifths of this book offers an excellent and nuanced overview of the debate on the end of the Bronze Age troubles in the eastern Mediterranean, around 1200 BCE. Eric H. Cline (professor of ancient history and archeology at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.) discusses in detail how connections between 1500 and 1200 BCE increasingly developed in that area in the form of (barter) trade, political and diplomatic exchanges, cultural interaction, and so on. And he outlines how this came to an end quite suddenly around 1200 BCE (in his thesis around 1177 bc). Or at least, how indications of what we would now call 'disruption' can be found in numerous excavations and written sources.

Cline is not blind to the many ambiguities and contradictions contained in that source material, especially in the chronology. And he rightly distances himself from the old theory that waves of Sea Peoples destroyed the Ancient Near East around 1200 BCE. According to him (and many other contemporary experts) there was a complex set of causes (climate, political uprising, invasions, migrations, etc.) that cumulatively led to a real 'system collapse'.

This is all highly interesting and, as mentioned, dealt with in a nuanced manner. But then it is strange that the title, prologue and conclusion of this book almost completely ignore that nuance, and Cline boldly claims that human civilization ended around 1177 BCE, and only rebounded centuries later. And that is manifestly wrong. I have the impression that Cline has a flair for public relations and knows how to successfully market his message through a striking simplification. And he dares to draw a parallel with our current, 'disruptive' times, and by doing that drawing a lot of attention of the media.

In that context, I find his closing sentence very disturbing, because it builds on ideas that were popular in the 19th century and are still popular in very reactionary circles today: “Sometimes it takes a large-scale wildfire to help renew the ecosystem of an old-growth forest and allow it to thrive afresh”. Really, is he serious? No, despite the merits of this book, I have to give it a low rating, because the author bends historical reality far too much to his will.

(addendum: I've read the original edition of this book, published in 2014. I've been notified that in more recent edition the text was thoroughly revised by Cline, and some of the most controversial statements removed. I haven't been able to check whether this changes the general outlook of this book, but it's to the author's credit that he's open to critique)

More details on that in my History account on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Steve]

A representation of the mural on the northern wall of Ramesses III's mortuary temple depicting his victory over the "Sea People"

But see also this link for a larger, clearer version of this image.


The collapse of the late Bronze Age cultures in the eastern Mediterranean, redux


Within a few decades around 1200 BCE most of the thriving cities around the eastern Mediterranean had been burnt to the ground, abandoned or reduced to a shadow of their former selves, including Mycenae, Thebes and Tiryns on the Grecian peninsula, Knossos on Crete,(*) and Troy in western Anatolia, to mention only names which are widely known. The worst of this Catastrophe, as Robert Drews termed it, appears to have taken place in Anatolia, Syria and the Levant, leading to the collapse of the Hittite Empire and the smaller kingdoms located in that region. Mesopotamia was not affected (apparently it was too far inland), but the Egyptians had to fight for their lives multiple times between 1208 and 1176 BCE and managed to defeat the marauders we have come to call the "Sea People" (as well as the Libyans twice), following the formula of a 19th century French historian. Nonetheless, the Egyptians were sufficiently weakened that their empire began to contract markedly: the victories over the Sea People were the swan song of the New Kingdom. Moreover, a Dark Age lasting as long as 400 years commenced on the Greek peninsula and the Aegean isles, where populations decreased and often moved to more easily defended fastnesses. The light finally began to shine there again in the age of the Homeric poets, which I discuss in my review of Moses Finley's The World of Odysseus.

Last summer I wrote about Robert Drews' The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe CA. 1200 B.C. (1993), which reviewed the many extant theories about the causes of the Catastrophe and then proposed another. But many questions remained unanswered and the yet hypothetical nature of all the explanations was painfully obvious. Inaugurating a new series in ancient history, Princeton University Press has recently released 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed (2014), by Eric H. Cline, which I've read in the expectation that some improvement in our grasp of those distant events had been made in the intervening two decades. Such is indeed the case.

Three of the five chapters of this book present a fascinating picture of the civilizations of the eastern Mediterranean in the three centuries preceding the Catastrophe, employing archaeological and written evidence, the latter primarily inscriptions found in Egypt and the wonderful baked clay tablets of the Middle East.(**) It is now known that prior to the Catastrophe there was a flourishing trade and active diplomacy all across the eastern Mediterranean.(***) As one example of many, I learned about the remarkable Uluburun shipwreck of a 50 foot long, Bronze Age trading vessel off the coast of Turkey which has been dated to about 1300 BCE using multiple methods and was discovered in 1982 at a depth of 150 feet.



The wreck in situ



A museum's cross section of the ship's hold, which contained hippopotamus and elephant ivory, raw glass, storage jars full of barley, resin, spices and wine, and, most precious of all, a ton of tin and ten tons of copper to make bronze. The goods came from as far away as Afghanistan, Nubia, Italy and the Balkans.


Cline takes the opportunity to rehearse his suggestion that the Homeric "Trojan War" was a vague memory of Mycenaean warriors taking part in a great rebellion in Asia Minor against the Hittites around 1430 BCE. Whatever one may think of that particular idea, the splendid shade of the past he summons up in these chapters and the extensive bibliography have added an entire new wing to my groaning TBR list.

After setting the stage, he comes to the evidence for and the theories about the Catastrophe, which some scholars prefer to call the Collapse. Cline provides a site-by-site description of some of the destruction (he and Drews have surprisingly little overlap here), as well as the dating results and attendant controversies. He also briefly reviews the various theories proposed to explain the Catastrophe, though here Drews' discussion is both more extensive and detailed.(4*) Both indicate objections to each of the theories and establish convincingly that no one of the "causes," including the "Sea People" can explain all of the observed destruction and consequent decline and re-making of the cultures of the region. Both suggest the possibility that all of the proposed "causes" could have contributed cumulatively to the observed phenomena - Cline calls it a "perfect storm" of calamities. Drews suggested his own theory but admitted it is only a hypothesis. And Cline concludes that though the causes of the Catastrophe must have been complex, we neither know all of them, nor do we know which were critical. So, the up-to-date conclusion is "We don't know." That is, in any case, better than believing in an incorrect hypothesis.

What we have now is a somewhat clearer picture of what happened, where and when; that picture is still evolving. Before reading this book I had not appreciated that the late Bronze Age was a kind of Golden Age in the eastern Mediterranean, both economically and culturally. Just the kind of thing that draws my further attention.



(*) This is under debate by the experts, since they are not certain when Knossos was burnt to the ground. But whenever Knossos itself may have been destroyed, violence and a complete change of settlement patterns at the beginning of the 12th century have been verified archaeologically all over Crete.

(**) As part of this series' evident goal to interest modern readers in those ancient times, Cline throws in many intriguing tidbits. For example, aware of the Pharoah Thutmose III's successful tactics in the battle of Megiddo in 1479 BCE (apparently the first battle in history recorded - on a temple wall - for the edification of persons not present), General Edmund Allenby repeated them in 1918 at Megiddo against the Germans and Turks with the same positive results.

An excerpt from the inscriptions on Ramesses III's mortuary temple gives a taste of ancient Egyptian imperial rhetoric:

Those who reached my frontier, their seed is not; their heart and their soul are finished forever and ever. Those who came forward together on the sea, the full flame was in front of them at the river mouths, while a stockade of lances surrounded them on the shore. They were dragged in, enclosed, and prostrated on the beach, killed and made into heaps from tail to head. Their ships and their goods were as if fallen into the water. I have made the lands turn back from even mentioning Egypt; for when they pronounce my name in their land, then they are burned up.

I wouldn't want to get on his bad side.

(***) The exchange of goods and ideas was so thoroughly developed that historians of art now speak of an "International Style" present at the end of the Bronze Age! Cline calls the era "this cosmopolitan age."

(4*) With an important exception: Since the appearance of Drews' book, environmental scientists have established by multiple means that towards the end of the Bronze Age there was a climactic change in the eastern Mediterranean which entailed a 300 year period of relative drought. There is written evidence of the resulting famine, at least until the civilizations collapsed. In Egypt, of course, due to the exceptional nature of the Nile River, this period of famine did not occur, but it might have contributed to the weakening of the Hittite Empire and partially explained why so many Mycenaean Greeks left the mainland for the western coast of the Near East.

Rating

http://leopard.booklikes.com/post/113...

[Lois Bujold · Rating 4 out of 5]

An overview of the end of the Bronze Age in the so-called Ancient World, the eastern Mediterranean and Near East from about 1500 B.C. to about 1150 B.C. The author and editors may fondly imagine this is written for a general public while retaining scholarly rigor. I think the first part of that belief is overly optimistic, while the second I cannot judge. Personally, I could have used something like "The Bronze Age for Dummies" as a lead-in, to give me a broader overview of the places, peoples, and their relationships to each other -- so many names! -- before plunging into an extended, albeit interesting, argument that presupposes such knowledge.

Ta, L.

[Sense of History]

I'm afraid I have to propose a dissenting opinion on this book. I did appreciate Cline's detailed account of what happened in the Late Bronze Age, and his conclusion that there's no mono-causal explanation for what happened back then, but I wrestled with some serious issues this book poses. I offer a selective summary of what is wrong with it, concentrated around a few incorrect/over-dramatized statements.

1. “Civilization collapsed”: No, civilization did not end around 1200 BCE, contrary to what the title, prologue and epilogue of this book indicate. How does Cline come to claim that? In practice, his evidence is limited to the Aegean region, Anatolia and the Levant, roughly the Eastern Mediterranean basin, which is only a limited part of what is the ancient Near East. He himself acknowledges in his book that Mesopotamia and Egypt hardly experienced any commotion or recovered quickly, and aren't those the two 'heartlands' of the ancient Near East? Also in China, Africa, the European continent and the Americas there is no question of a collapse of civilizations/cultures there.

2. “1177 BCE, the year civilization collapsed”. Cline tries to argue that 1177 BCE appears to be a pivotal year in the collapse of civilization. But in practice he seems to be able to provide only a very limited number of sources for this. He admits that there is some stretch in the chronology, and that it may be better to speak of the period at the end of the 13th - beginning of the 12th century, in a process that perhaps took half a century. That already looks more like it. And then again: almost all examples cited are located in the limited area of the Eastern Mediterranean Basin, not in the rest of the Ancient Near East (let alone the rest of the world).

3. “Over three hundred years of a globalized economy”. An essential element in the construction that Cline sets up is his thesis that in the Late Bronze Age the Ancient Near East was a highly integrated area. He needs that image, because only in this way can he substantiate his thesis of a 'systems collapse', in which one domino brought down another. Quod non! Admittedly, it seems like in the Eastern Mediterranean between 1500 and 1200 BCE considerably more cross-connections occurred than ever before, economically, diplomatically and culturally, and there is plenty of evidence for this (and Cline cites it extensively). But… to claim that it was an integrated, let alone globalized, area is definitely a bridge too far. Both the Levant and the Mycenaean region (in what is now largely Greece and western Turkey) were a colorful collection of city-states and non-urbanized areas (with quite a few semi-nomads as well); there certainly were many mutual contacts and exchanges in different domains. But all in all, this remained limited, as becomes clear when you read Cline’s book in detail.

Of course, there’s no denying that something was going on at the end of the 13th and beginning of the 12th century BCE, especially in the Eastern Mediterranean. Many other experts have already pointed this out. But almost all of them indicate how little we still know of that period, how limited our sources and finds are, and how pluri-interpretable they are (and in a large part of this book Eric Cline also admits this). But there is hope, because additional discoveries are made every year, and perhaps one day we will get a better idea of what exactly was going on in that (limited) area. Until then, I think it would be better to remain modest and emphasize how shaky our knowledge is. And above all, to restrain ourselves from sending dramatic bold statements into the world, like Cline does.

(addendum: I've read the original edition of this book, published in 2014. I've been notified that in more recent editions the text was revised by Cline, and some of the most controversial statements removed. I haven't been able to check whether this changes the general outlook of this book, but it's to the author's credit that he's open to critique)

[Hadrian · Rating 4 out of 5]

The foreign countries made a conspiracy in their islands. All at once the lands were removed and scattered in the fray. No land could stand before their arms, from Khatte, Qode, Carchemish, Arzawa, and Alashiya on, being cut off at [one time]. A camp [was set up] in one place in Amurru. They desolated its people, and its land was like that which has never come into being. They were coming forward toward Egypt, while the flame was prepared before them. Their confederation was the Peleset, Tjekker, Shekelesh, Danuna, and Weshesh, lands united. They laid their hands upon the lands as far as the circuit of the earth, their hearts confident and trusting.

-Walls of the mortuary temple of Ramesses III

This book has succeeded in taking an obscurer topic of intense scholarly debate and presenting it to the general public - the collapse of Bronze Age civilizations and the appearance of the Sea People, whoever they were. Where trade routes collapsed, cities burned, and literacy became nearly extinct, and only a few surviving cities clung to continued existence. The author has even taken a brilliant framing device - financial troubles in Greece and violence along the Eastern Mediterranean is an issue as much as over 3,000 years ago as today.

The prologue starts with the question - "Why did this happen?", and then going through a list of collapsed regional powers and a discussion of who the Sea People might have been. The successive chapters discuss the civilizations of the Late Bronze Age: the Hittites, the Myceneans, Assyria, Ugarit, Caanan, and Egypt, starting with networks of contact, trade exchanges, diplomatic relations, and treaty archives. A look at trade negotiations for valuable goods does much to ground the era for a contemporary reader's understanding. The translation of primary sources does much to bring the period alive for non-specialists like myself, but the citation of sources, I hope, would be a useful reference to the specialist in comparing this to ongoing research.

And yet even with all this ongoing research, what caused the collapse is not so certain. Cline first examines, and then discards the hypothesis that it was the Sea People alone - noting how the pharoahs, like so many other tyrants, lie to boost their own reputation. Climactic change may have been the first of so many stressors that led to a broader collapse. The introduction of complexity theory - of examining so many moving parts and seeing how they interact with one another - is another valuable tool for examining ancient history but other events. This is an appreciation of history that I found a compelling read.

[J TC · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eric H Cline - 1177 A.C. O ano em que a civilização colapsou
Que bela surpresa. Bela pela forma elegante, rigorosa e bem fundamentada com que está escrito. Ao longo de todo o texto não encontramos nenhum indício de “distorção histórica”. Aqueles que entendem que por não haver uma história, mas diversas, dependendo de quem as conta, habitualmente têm a tentação de interpretar factos de acordo com o que veem como mais adequado. Eric Cline, não sei se alguma vez motivado por estas tentações, mas, tentado ou não, apresenta-nos um texto credível, e não é demais afirmá-lo, muitíssimo bem documentado e referenciado.
E uma surpresa porque não fazia a menor ideia de que podia ter sido assim. A ideia que tinha desse mediterrânio oriental, era a de uma mundo sempre dominado por alguém. Primeiro Assírios e Babilónios, sendo estes mais tarde substituídos primeiro por Hititas e Egípcios depois. Terminado o domínio destes últimos, a “civilização” ter-se-ia deslocado para o norte do mediterrâneo. Primeiro para Creta e depois para a Grécia, o berço da civilização e da democracia. Quando há 10 anos me sentei no palácio de Knossos, enquanto me maravilhei com aqueles frescos foi assim que vi a história. Estava errado!
Habitualmente folheamos livros de história antiga e passamos de uma civilização para outra apenas com um virar de página, um iniciar de um novo capítulo. Mas a realidade não é essa. A ilusão que a distancia nos instiga é de que ontem era, e hoje já não é. Mas nunca acontece assim. Não há a magia da noite e entre o ser e o não ser decorrem centenas ou milhares de anos que os livros de história usualmente apenas descritos com um virar de página.
Eric Cline teve esse mérito, fez-me refletir no “lento continuum” da história e de que forma este rio se pode modelar a si mesmo, umas vezes contornando obstáculos, outras vezes eliminando-os, mas desenhando sempre as margens por onde fluir. Para os actores do presente, o futuro como um destino tem sempre um trilho incerto.
Surpresa ainda porque me revelou um mediterrânio oriental do 3º e 2º milénio A.C. fervilhante em civilizações (Egípcia, Hitita, Micénica, Cretense, Cipriota, Babilónia, Cassita, Levante, etc), dominadas por cidades com uma organização sociopolítica própria, que numa teia de cumplicidades, umas vezes cooperavam entre si, outras numa rivalidade mais ou menos bélica, nas quais modelavam o futuro e as cumplicidades entre si. Nada muito diferente do mundo de hoje onde o comercio é o cimento agregador de múltiplas “civilizações”, um cimento cuja resistência é tantas vezes testada por ambições de líderes, oligarcas, plutocratas, por questões identitárias ou outras resultantes imponderáveis ambientais ou resultantes de crescimentos populacionais ou outros, todos eles incomportáveis. Acontece agora, acontecia então há mais de 4000 anos.
Nesse mundo, nesse tempo, nesse mediterrânio oriental a vida parecia boa, as pessoas eram felizes. Tinham problemas, e quando há registos destes, vemos que as preocupações dessas gentes desse mundo antigo, desde a Grécia ocidental até ao golfo pérsico, não diferem muito das que nos atormentam nos nossos dias. As relações familiares, diplomáticas, a fome, a segurança, o controlo do povo e a preservação da sua “felicidade”/”acomodação” eram preocupações de então e são preocupações de hoje. E se imaginamos que o são de hoje poderia, e que o autor poderia ter sido tentado a transpô-las para o passado, é com satisfação que verificamos que Eric Cline se apoiou em provas inequívocas, demonstrando com as mesmas que os valores de então não diferiam muito dos de hoje. E essa para mim foi a grande surpresa do livro.
Mas esse mundo tão rico e complexo, repleto de ligações e dependências, tão autossuficiente, porque colapsou no ano de 1177 A.C.? Nesta questão, Eric Cline é bem claro, simplesmente desconhecemos.
Várias são as causas apontadas, mas ao que parece, o mais certo é não haver uma causa única, nem uma data ou um evento que possa ser assumido como data a celebrar ou recordar.
De forma muito inteligente E. Cline transporta-nos para o comportamento dos sistemas complexos, que por definição, quanto mais complexos, maior a sua susceptibilidade ao colapso.
Vivia então o mediterrânio oriental um tal grau de complexidade cujas interdependias lhe coartou a resiliência necessária para resistir ao evento(s) que entretanto ocorram. Mas que evento(s). Ao certo não sabemos. Eventualmente foram não um mas uma sucessão deles, que agindo ao longo de décadas e que terminaram em 1177 A.C., quando Ramsés III derrotou no Levante os povos, ou massas migrantes invasoras, mas cujas consequências se continuaram a manifestar no séculos seguintes até à emergência de civilização grega.
Mas que povos eram esses? Igualmente a resposta é, não sabemos. Pensa o autor, e há alguma evidencias disso que poderiam ser povos originários do mediterrânio ocidental, de áreas que vão desde o sul da península ibérica até à costa adriática.
Mais recentemente, e num outro livro, “O Princípio de Tudo” de David Graber, curiosamente encontrei referencias a mega agregados populacionais que se desenvolveram durante o fim do neolítico e a idade do cobre, Nebelivka, Ucrânia nas margens do Dniepre e Taljanky na actual moldávia, agregados populacionais que terão sido habitados até ao sec. XII A.C., altura em que foram abandonados sem uma razão aparente.
Talvez nesse século se tenha assistido a migrações de populações que por motivos climatéricos – seca e redução da produção agrícola ou dos recursos usados enquanto recolectores (mega agregados na europa central); fome – redução das produções agrícolas, ou dos recursos naturais alimentares; por outras alterações ambientais – terramotos, erupções vulcânicas; por pressão demográfica; por pressão de outros povos invasores; ou outras, talvez por qualquer um destes motivos, ou mais provavelmente por combinação dos mesmos, talvez por uma destas razões ao longo do século XII A.C. se tenha assistido a um fluxo migratório que pôs em risco as complexas interligações e dependências das civilizações desse mediterrânio oriental.

[E · Rating 3 out of 5]

At 190 pages before notes and a reasonable sized font, this book was not a long read.

The author notes that this 2021 edition is revised and updated. This being said, I was not up to the task of making sense of this twisted madrigal of theory.

The book explores the effect of the invasion of various groups of marauders known only as "Sea People"

There is a date used as a time marker as 1177 BC as the collapse of civilization.

It recognizes this date as the beginning as the decline of the Bronze Age.
(I think).


Through the book, the author explores theory on who these Sea People were, the possible effects of earthquakes, climate change, and internal Egyptian political upheaval.

All these theories are interspersed with bewildering lists of long vanished tribal groups and nations as well as still existing nations trying to point to the identity of the Sea People.

This all takes place over a decline of the bronze age of about 100 years.

I was not impressed with a couple of convoluted charts sprinkled with meaningless names.

A couple of sad black and white photos of the obligatory broken statues of Amenhoptep III are woven in.

The lists of "Dramatis Personae" at the start of notes can only be familiar to a well versed student of this period of time. That I am not. This book got the best of me.

The author ends with a big
"What if?" in the final chapter, The Aftermath.

So would any average reader ask of his book.

[Adam · Rating 1 out of 5]

From Mallory's tweet (where I first saw this) and the blurbs, I got the impression that 1177 BC would 1) take a dusty, abstract historical period and enrich it with cultural and economic details that were excluded from the more strictly military version I was familiar with and 2) address the abrupt collapse of the international economic system in that period and theoretically reframe the role of the mythical "Sea Peoples," the Goths to Egypt's Rome. Maybe those expectations were too strong, which set me up for disappointment. But hell, I imagine a lot of prospective readers share them. If that's you, well, you're probably better off steering clear.

It quickly becomes clear just how sparse the evidence is that Cline has to work with. The text is rich with names--factions and kings and queens and towns, some familiar but overall feeling exactly like a really clumsy and dense fantasy worldbuilding dump. The first 160 pages or so are spent building context for the story. But that context is largely the same boring, superficial sort of history I was hoping Cline would overwrite and fill in. It's all nations, borders, kings, war, and prestige trade. It feels like the plot synopsis of a Conan the Barbarian story (which I guess does make Conan's historical bona fides stand up a teeeeeeny bit better than utter shit in retrospect).

I get that there's not a lot of sources and archaeological evidence about normal trade, the details of daily life, etc. But that just keeps raising the question: why does this book exist? It raised so many questions for me and answered so few of them. Cline mentions tin occasionally, a key ingredient in bronze, mined only, we assume, in a particular surface deposit in Afghanistan. Why would bronze have been a make or break resource in Late Bronze Age cultures, exactly? Tell us more about this place? How did it fit into all these empires, if it was so far away? In all the discussion of these half dozen empires and their histories (very hard to keep track of, especially in BC!) there's never any real discussion of the power structures of their palaces. What role did trade play in keeping kings in power? Why were they concerned to advance territory?

The Sea Peoples crop up periodically in this backstory, but whenever they do, Cline just shrugs. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. "Don't look at me! How am I supposed to know?" is basically the message. The Sea Peoples stand out only insofar as they have no name; they are outsiders to the system of trade and correspondence tying together the eastern Mediterranean, and therefore more mysterious than the named but undescribed Mitanni, Philistines, Canaanites, etc, etc. But they're not presented as being more interesting. Cline seems to think they're just Greek people who migrated into the area as the larger empires fell. Which, fine, but that story is teased throughout and then never presented.

Cline seems to be trying to build a case for 160 pages or so, but it never cohered into anything for me. A bunch of kingdoms collapsed more or less simultaneously, associated with the end of intl trade and a bunch of burned capitals. This is the mystery, but it's presented in such an oblique and dull fashion. It's all the more disappointing because the early bits of the book try to set up hooks--the Late Bronze Age is "like the modern globalized world." Or the story of the letter a king maybe sent, maybe didn't, to ask for aid against the sea peoples. These things are misleading; they are never delivered on (thankfully, in the former case) and it compounds the overall impression that Cline has nothing to say, that this book is all empty promises. A premature summary of academic literature that hasn't figured out what its story is yet.

I gave up on reading 1177 for about a week but came back to it because I thought maybe Cline would finally get to his argument in the last 50 pages. He does. It's perhaps even more disappointing than the lead-up, however. He briefly reviews and dismisses several proposed explanations for the collapse event he's hinted at throughout the book. There's climate change, earthquakes, rebellion, the Sea Peoples, and a couple of more interesting ideas like the rise of private merchants. Instead of all of those, he turns to what he simply terms "complexity theory." He elaborates on this scientific concept at length, analogizing it to a traffic jam: we don't know why they happen or how to predict them, but we know they always will eventually happen. Then he admits this is perhaps a pseudoscientific concept that has no explanatory power without more evidence! He calls it "a fancy way to state a fairly obvious fact, . . . that complicated things can break down in a variety of ways." What a way to end a book. Sheesh. There's none of the detailed anthropology of social organization and collapse found in books like How Chiefs Come to Power--which presumably had much less textual evidence, and perhaps less archaeological evidence, to work with.

[Emma Sea · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting look at exactly how interconnected the cultures around the Med were in the late Bronze Age. Fascinating translations of letters I hadn't read before. Clines's writing is very conversational and communicates a great enthusiasm for the topic. I also felt his thesis was pretty comprehensively proven i.e. it's complex. The book really left me with an overwhelming desire to read a lot more recent work in the area, and that's gotta be a good thing, right?

Note that Clines does not cover theories of identity of the Sea Peoples in more than a passing mention: this book is only presenting contextual information and discussing other possible (probable) reasons for collapse: earthquakes, climate change, etc.

3.5 stars, rounded up.

[Erik Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book for reviewing and cross-referencing the current research on the fall of the Bronze Age into darkness at 1177 BC (the End of the Egyptian New Kingdom and the Reign of Ramses III) for a period of 300 years. The linkages between recently dug up newly translated tablets from Ugarit along with pollen core samples, radio-carbon dating, pot shard analysis, and sunken treasure is astounding. The work that must have gone into any one of these is a testament to the desire for our current civilization to uncover its ancient past. One thing a bit troubling is that at the end of the book Cline assumes that the destruction was a catalyst for positive developments, in which he lists monotheism. Akenaten's reign in Egypt was a pre-collapse case that fits the mold of monotheism better than the Elohim/Jehovah hybrid that the Israelite civilization brought out of the Canaanite ashes of the pre-collapse Bronze Age. The thought that monotheism was a result of the collapse is both not true systemically (systemic considerations was the approach to the book and certainly most societies remained polytheistic) and it certainly should not be forwarded as a positive cultural development, at least not without qualifications. Similarly the idea that alphabetic systems were "progress" would appear outrageous to the modern Chinese reader, and indeed to the student of Akkadian and Hieroglyphics which had significant phonetic character sets. There were even Bronze Age alphabet-only writing systems extant in 2000 BCE. The underrepresented merchant class, and the rise of thriving Bronze Age multiculturalism was certainly lost at the collapse, and would have been a better example of what actually did lead to the rise in the early Iron Age as the roots of our civilization. It wasn't how many gods folks worshiped, or if they worshiped any at all. But instead it was how effectively they could relate to each other on broad scales, and how much scientific and mathematical knowledge and their ability to leverage knowledge in the face of societal challenges. The writings of the Bronze Age that included commerce, science, mathematics, and legal-political structure are surely the best basis on which to judge the progress and decline of civilization. That reading Linear B and cuneiform was indeed lost in the Mediterranean is indeed a loss to humanity's progress. Fortunately, folks like those Cline mentions constantly in this book, researchers, anthropologists, whatever their motivations, are the ones that helped us recover this wonderful history so that we may indeed better contemplate our own fate. I learned a lot from Cline. The book did leave me wanting more information, but that is the nature of anthropology of the ancients. We must live with a mosaic of fragments, no matter how many pieces we recover.

[Jonfaith · Rating 2 out of 5]

Complexity theory, especially in terms of visualizing a nonlinear progression and a series of stressors rather than a single driver, is therefore advantageous both in explaining the collapse at the end of the Late Bronze Age and in providing a way forward for continuing to study this catastrophe.

Cline is a wonderful lecturer as evidenced on YouTube. His writing however leaves a lot to be desired. He engages the prevailing theory that Sea People overthrew the Eastern Mediterranean civilizations of the Late Bronze Age (LBA). Cline asserts that it likely wasn't a singular force or linked series of intentional conquests but rather an entire cluster of events including drought and earthquakes. This was all compounded by the interdependence of this geographical region. It still isn't very convincing. Cline also wants to place the Fall of Troy in the LBA and has Homer only retelling such 400 hundred years later. This is an interesting speculation but it remains that.

[Stratos · Rating 2 out of 5]

Σε καταπλακώνει ο όγκος των ονομάτων και απίθανων λεπτομερειών με αποτέλεσμα να χάνεις την ουσία του τίτλου..

[Loring Wirbel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Let's dispense with a pet peeve right away: I despise the trend of using a year for a book title, a decision I doubt Eric Cline had any say in. At least with a book like 1453 there is a significant event like the fall of Constantinople to hang one's hat on. It's as silly to call 1493 the ideal year to define post-Columbian Native American culture as it is to say 1971 was the defining seminal year for rock and roll. When dealing with the fuzzy and uncertain Late Bronze Era, it becomes even more preposterous to call this book 1177 B.C., and I think Cline is well aware of that. The book deals with a slow process of global collapse that took place from 1400 BC to 1130 BC, which launched the earliest of civilized humanity's Dark Ages.

Cline is the quintessential scholar who has found a popular audience for his musings on the Greek Dark Ages of 1100-700 BC(E). He does not say the marauding Sea Peoples were a myth, nor does he say it was certain that they were identical to the Philistines, or that they came from Cyprus or Crete. (The myth of a Dorian invasion from the north is just about dead.) What Cline tells us is that we do not know.

Many readers who would like a crisp, simple tale of the civilizational collapse that took place around the time of the mythical war for Troy are bound to be disappointed. We learn more about the Hittites, the Mycenaeans, and other ancient cultures every day, but as Cline says, there is unlikely to be a smoking gun discovered about the proximate causes that led to dozens of cities collapsing and populations dispersing around 1200-1130 BCE. It's very similar in many ways to Rome's fall and the imaginary year of 476 AD - sure, it might have been the invasions of the Visigoths, the Alans, or the Ostrogoths that sunk the Western Empire, or maybe Rome was simply bound to collapse at a certain point.

Cline adds just the right level of detail about histories and trade patterns among Egyptians, Hittites, and other cultures. He suggests the role climate change (yes, in the Bronze Age) and earthquakes might have played, and admits that the mysterious Sea Peoples were responsible for a certain amount of sacking between 1207 and 1177 BCE. But that is all that can be said.

Cline seeks to go beyond systems collapse into complexity-theory explanations for collapse, but wonders if he is bringing it up in a pseudoscientific way. Sure, chaos theory and tipping points have been used in a superficial way by authors like Jared Diamond, but if we compare Cline's conclusions with someone who provides a truly mathematical theory of societal collapse, as found in Peter Turchin's War and Peace and War, for example, it seems pretty clear that even if Cline is shying away from the math, he is on to something by applying complexity and chaos theories to the Late Bronze Age.

Cline makes the obvious comparisons at the end of the book to the 2008 financial collapse and the post-2010 rise of isolationism, and he stresses that widespread civilizational collapse often does not take place due to great wars or financial crashes, when citizens rally to prevent devastation. Instead, the cascading multiplicative effects of a thousand small events can most likely lead to catastrophic failures, because most people don't notice the multiplicative effect until it is far too late. It's a case of the frog being boiled alive in a pot where the water temperature is slowly being raised. It can happen when climate change, dis-intermediation from a globalized economy, greater isolationism and xenophobia, and a lack of citizen involvement and collectivist feeling atomizes everything. Any grain of sand added to the stack can be the last one. Sound like anywhere you know? We'd best not go there.

[Iset · Rating 4 out of 5]

The word that comes to mind after finishing this book is ‘disappointing’. Don’t get me wrong – this is not a bad book. Cline is well-known for his objective approach and thorough research, and he brings both to this book. He also writes in a smooth, readable style that makes the book suitable for a general audience as well as a more scholarly one. The information he provides is accurate, as far as I can see.

My issue is the formatting. For starters, as other reviewers have said, Cline attempts to do the pop culture thing of relating everything back to modern day. All I wanted was to find out about the past, and so I found the modern diversions distracting. Second, a good two, arguably three chapters could’ve been cut out as they have no or very little relation to the later Bronze Age collapse. Given that this book has six chapters and ends at the 55% mark on kindle, that’s an awful lot of material that is not specifically addressing the book’s premise, and it leaves a comparatively thin amount which is the reason I picked up the book. Third, and perhaps this was merely wishful thinking, I never expected this book to answer the question ‘what caused the Bronze Age collapse’, but I was assuming that it had something new to say. Some new tantalising snippet of evidence or even simply a brand new interpretation of existing evidence that had never been put forward before. It didn’t – although it does neatly bring together and summarise all the previous arguments and factors which have attempted to answer the question.

So, like I said, not a bad book, quite well-written and researched, but perhaps too unfocused.

7 out of 10

[Elena Sala · Rating 4 out of 5]

1177 B.C.: THE YEAR CIVILIZATION COLLAPSED (2014) is an engaging book about the end of the Late Bronze Age societies in the Mediterranean area.

Cline describes the Mediterranean of the 15th-13th B.C. as a "globalized" interconnected network of societies. Then he investigates the apparent causes of the destruction of the numerous, different sites using archeological material. Many different events could explain the destruction of these sites: climate change, famine, earthquakes, the collapse of international trade, social unrest, the invasion of the Sea Peoples, and others. The author argues that no single cause alone could explain the sudden, cataclysmic destruction of these societies. He, and many scholars, believe that a "systems collapse" took place: "a systemic failure, with both a domino and a multiplier effect". The rich and powerful Late Bronze Age societies could not recover from the catastrophic failure precisely because they were so interconnected, so interdependent. Trade ground to a halt, economies were disrupted, misery and migrations ensued and cities were destroyed.

The book's title is rather misleading. In the first part of the book Cline spends some time describing the Sea Peoples, the invaders mentioned in Egyptian inscriptions who raided Egypt for the second time in the year 1177 B.C. However, he does point out that 1177 B.C. should be considered a chronological placeholder, not a specific year in which these flourishing Bronze Age cultures disappeared. In the second half of the book it is clear that he believes in the "Systems Collapse " theory, not that a horde of destructive, fierce Sea Peoples brought the Late Bronze Age to an end with a crash.

This book has been written for a general audience in mind. There are lots of names, yes, but also many maps, which are very helpful. Cline combines scholarship and great storytelling skills so this is a great book if you are interested in the period.

[Justin Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not at all what the cover and press suggests, Cline has written a short history of the bronze age, with a focus on the end of it. His argument is that a lot of different factors contributed to the end of bronze age civilizations. Unfortunately, that kind of responsible argument won't get much of a hearing in the wider marketplace, so instead this is billed as a book about the END OF CIVILIZATION and how many lessons we can get from the 12th century BC.

There are no lessons, and civilization obviously didn't end. This book, however, is pretty good if you want to learn a bit more about the Egyptians, Hittites, Babylonians, Mycenaeans and Minoans. Good enough for me.

[Charles Haywood]

“1177 B.C.” is a worthwhile book, but it fails to deliver on its promises. It is an uncomfortable blend of academic treatise and popular history, and it suffers from this split personality. And it suffers from aiming high, promising to explain how Mediterranean Bronze Age societies collapsed together in short order and how that relates to today, and striking low, concluding that we don’t know why, admitting that they may not have collapsed in short order or together (and definitely not in 1177 B.C. altogether) and failing to convince the reader that there is any relevancy for today, though straining to do so. On the other hand, for those interested in the period, there are many fascinating facts—so long as you aren’t really looking for a coherent overarching narrative, this book will be very welcome.

Almost all of Cline’s discussion is informed by archaeology, mostly modern archaeology. Typically he is very detailed, in a way much more academic than popular. Names of places and rulers fly by, complete with translations into different languages and many, many attempts to evaluate whether we know to what a particular name or phrase really refers. This can be fascinating, but if you’re looking for an easy overview of the late Bronze Age, you won’t find it here. Stop paying attention for a paragraph and you’ll lose the thread entirely. But that’s not the author’s fault—there is a thread to be found, you just have to focus.

So, if you want to know all about “Suppiluliuma and the Zannanza Affair,” in which a Hittite king, in Anatolia, seized power from his brother two hundred years before the title year, whereupon he did things like “sack and plunder the Mittani capital Washukanni.” The Zannanza Affair involved a possibly inauthentic request from the queen of Egypt to marry her son to a son of Suppiluliuma, leading to the death of the son sent, and subsequent war. This is all fascinating, to me at least. But I’m not sure it reinforces the author’s narrative, beyond the obvious and uncontroversial fact that Bronze Age kingdoms contiguous in territory (the war was in Syria) interacted with each other.

Cline begins by discussing the Sea Peoples, focusing on their attacks on Egypt in 1177 B.C., in which the Egyptians (again) defeated the Sea Peoples. Cline then jumps back in time and sideways in space, first discussing the Hyksos and Egypt, then Minoan civilization, then back to Egypt as it related to Minoan civilization, then Egypt in its broader relations with neighboring civilizations, then other civilizations as they related to each other (though the focus tends to stay on Egypt). This can seem like too much hopping around, but Cline is actually trying to convey the inter-related nature of the Mediterranean Bronze Age civilizations. He keeps hopping around, until the last chapter of the book attempts a (failed) synthesis. There is much discussion of trade and trade goods, relying on archaeology. There is talk of the Trojan War and the Book of Exodus, and the archaeological evidence for both. As I say, all fascinating, but not obviously coherent in the service of any particular thesis.

Cline then tries to bring these threads together, focusing on many bad things happening in the Mediterranean. He cites earthquakes, climate change resulting in famine, migrating warlike peoples about whom nearly nothing is known, and internal revolts of uncertain origin. All of these have fragmentary and contradictory evidence that makes it very difficult to judge their scope and impact, or even the precise time frames involved. Cline himself notes that “Although it is clear that there were massive destructions in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean . . . it is far from clear who—or what—was responsible.”

Despite this admission, Cline then tries to synthesize multiple factors into a “systems collapse”—basically saying “it was complex, multiple bad things happened, so it all fell apart. Also, climate change!” (The repeated attempts to emphasize climate change in an explicit bid for modern relevancy are particularly jarring.) Maybe. But this is what my high school math teacher called the “Broad Point Theorem”—drawing a big enough point with your pencil to cover up the fact that the lines don’t actually intersect. This last chapter, alleging “A ‘Perfect Storm’ of Calamities,” is by far the weakest in the book, and it’s at this point it becomes clear that the perceived thesis of the book, that there was a collapse in 1177 B.C. and a reason for it, is completely unsupported. There is talk of “multiplier effects” and “complexity theory,” and an admission that “rather than envisioning an apocalyptic ending overall . . . we might better imagine that the end of the Late Bronze Age was more a matter of a chaotic although gradual disintegration of areas and places that had once been major and in contact with each other, but were now diminished and isolated . . . .”

Well, yes. But that’s like saying that now the sun has gone down, it’s dark outside. The question of civilizational collapse has exercised writers for millennia. Concluding that yes, civilizations decay, is not insightful. Arnold Toynbee, in the modern era, attempted to create a universal template of civilizational rise and decay, not relying on specific events, or on cop-outs like “multiplier effects” and “complexity theory.” Cline does not mention Toynbee, and perhaps he cannot see the forest for the trees—he has so much specific archaeological knowledge, he is unable to step back into the realm of social theory as buttressed by that knowledge. But in a book whose title and opening chapter implies that the author will at least try to show us how and why civilization collapsed, failing to do so in any meaningful way is a real disappointment.

[Elle (ellexamines on TT & Substack) · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I told Adam Frank that we should be thankful that, unlike the Hittites, we are now advanced enough to understand what is happening and can take steps to fix things, his rejoinder was short and direct: But are we advanced enough to do anything with our understanding? It remains to be seen whether we will have a good answer to his question.

Eric H. Cline’s telling of the history of the late Bronze Age Collapse constitutes one of my favorite nonfiction books I’ve read this year.

The late Bronze Age collapse was a decimation of the local ecosystem. The Mycenaean temple-building culture died out, with the Greeks losing writing for at least 500 years. The Hittite empire collapsed to be replaced by the Neo-Hitties / Luwians in Southeast. The Egyptians were almost destroyed, marking the beginning of their decline; Assyria and Babylon each shrank; the Canaanite city-states fell.

Cline goes over a wide variety of potential causes:
▷▶ Earthquake storms in the Aegean 1225-1175 BCE
▷▶ Climate change causing the 3.2ka BP drought (hotter then suddenly colder, lasts until c.900CE) and then famines, as per letters between kings
▷▶ Too much globalization and dependence on trade, other kings, and bronze, meaning that when one civilization died so did everyone
▷▶ The invasion of the Sea Peoples, who battled in Egypt in 1177 BCE and also raided Anatolia, Assyria, and Canaan. The Sea Peoples were the Peleset (later Phillistines – from Greece), Tjekker, Shekelesh (Sicily), Danuna (Homer’s Danaans from Aegean), Weshesh, and Shardana/Sherden (Sardinia)
▷▶ Possibly though not definitively disease – Ramses V probably died of smallpox and his body was quarantined
▷▶ An overall systems collapse – dependence on international and seafaring trade meant that even the threat of invaders may have majorly impacted systems.

Overall, the era is defined by a shift to a decentralized system, run by small city-states and merchants, from the centralized system run by kings and empires – private merchants had gained relevance in the 1400s, and here is where they became the power brokers. As kings lost the ability to provide for their people without trade or food, rebellion would’ve broken out and people deserted large areas.

I also loved some of the new info here about the Sea Peoples generally. Specifically, it’s fascinating that the Sea Peoples left behind ruins with evidence of a connection to the Aegean material culture, perhaps transmitted via Anatolian and Cypriot influence, but due to a complete lack of evidence of the palace-building Mycenaen culture following along, some archaeologists believe these were just opportunistic farmers moving to new real estate. We also have some Cretan DNA evidence of the Sea Peoples, as noted on pg.150.

I think this era is just utterly fascinating, and Cline’s work on it is excellent. I deeply appreciated both Cline’s departure from entirely blaming the Sea Peoples, and his genuine exploration of how civilization changed in the area.

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[Camelia Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

History may not repeat itself. But it rhymes.

I listened to the revised and updated version published in 2021.

1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed is a book about the Late Bronze Age collapse, a widespread societal collapse during the 12th century BC. The collapse affected a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean (North Africa and Southeast Europe) and the Near East, where Bronze Age civilizations such as Egyptians, Mycenaeans, Minoans, Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Cypriots, Trojans, and Canaanites, were located.

Professor Cline chose 1177 B.C. as its title because of its symbolic value: In 1177 B.C., "Sea Peoples" invaded Egypt, the most powerful empire at the time. Although the pharaoh's army defeated the invaders, as historical record indicated, the event weakened Egypt so much that it soon slid into decline, as did most of the surrounding civilizations. For a long time in history study, “Sea People” (foreign invaders) were blamed for the Late Bronze Age collapse. Professor Cline deciphers the true cause or causes of the collapse. The answers are in Chapter 5: A perfect Storm of Calamities and Chapter 6: Sea People, Systems Collapse and Complexity Theory.

There was no single cause. The 300 years mega drought was probably a trigger and had a multiplier effect. Cline’s major argument is the ancient world was not isolated. Instead, the highly established international trading and co-dependence between civilizations made it into a complex system therefore very much susceptible to damaging events (domino effect). “Sea People”, instead of being a highly organized foreign power, might have been waves of opportunistic migrants.

International trade and collaboration is not new. In the eyes of modern readers, Asian minor and the land circling around the Mediterranean sea are only a small corner of the earth, but more than 3000 years ago, it was the world.

The lesson is simple: the world collapsed before, and it will collapse again. It’s only a matter of time. Professor Cline strikes a positive note in the end: we have the benefit of hindsight; we have technology; we should know better.

[Nelson Zagalo · Rating 2 out of 5]

I decided to stop reading this book at 23%. Not due to lack of information — Eric Cline clearly has an impressive command of the Bronze Age — but because I gradually felt distanced by both the form and the underlying epistemic stance of the book.

The torrent of facts, presented in a nearly chronological sequence, lacks narrative scaffolding or any dramatic tension that might bring them to life. For me, the reading experience became arid — more akin to an inventory than a reconstruction with human intention.

Even more unsettling was the use of inappropriate contemporary comparisons, such as the weddings of William and Kate or Harry and Meghan, to illustrate political practices of the Bronze Age. Beyond trivializing the past, these analogies seem to underestimate the reader and impoverish the historical depth of the phenomena described.

Most concerning, however, is the author’s excessive confidence when speaking of an era we know only in fragmented and highly mediated ways. Many of the descriptions rely on layers of interpretation stacked upon interpretation, yet this is rarely problematized. As a reader, I prefer when the unknown is treated with the dignity of doubt — not as a stage for implicit certainties.

For all these reasons, and with full respect for the author's work and the book’s impact on other readers, I couldn’t continue. This is a personal note of disagreement — and departure.

[Julio Bernad · Rating 3 out of 5]

1177 a. C. se considera la fecha en que acaba La Edad del Bronce, o al menos, la momento de mayor esplendor de las potencias imperiales que dominaban el mediterráneo oriental, cuna de la civilización occidental ¿Qué ocurrió para que desapareciera el imperio hitita o el imperio mitanio y para que los griegos abandonaran la escritura durante 400 años? Según la tesis tradicional, los culpables de esta hecatombe fueron los pueblos del mar, un conjunto heterogéneo de tribus, la mayoría de identidad desconocida y origen aún más incierto, que sembraron el terror por todo el mediterráneo y al que solo los egipcios de Ramsés III lograron vencer. Sin embargo, Eric H. Cline no cree que un suceso de tal magnitud pueda explicarse por un único factor, de hecho, todo lo contrario: son tantos los factores que se dieron durante estos siglos que tomar esta fecha es más algo simbólico que real.

¿Y por qué terminó, entonces, La Edad de Bronce? Bueno, ese es el problema de la arqueología, que no hay respuestas esclarecedoras porque faltan aún demasiados datos. Cline no especula, recoge los datos que tenemos y nos lo presenta prolijamente, asumiendo que el lector no es un turista accidental sino un verdadero aficionado a esta disciplina, cuando no directamente un arqueólogo. Quien reúna otro perfil o vaya esperando encontrar aquí una respuesta contundente a un problema complejo, dudo que no acabe decepcionado.

Lo se porque me ha pasado.

[Elentarri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Date: April 2024. Second, revised and updated 2021 edition.
Rating: 4 stars

The revised and updated edition includes new information that wasn't available when the first edition of this book was written in 2014. The text has also been tidied up.

Cline has provided a broad overview and literature survey of the Late Bronze Age civilizations in the Aegean, the Near East, and Ancient Egypt; starting from their hey-day in the 15th century B.C, to their collapse in the 12th century B.C.

The prologue starts off on a grand note by describing the battle between Pharaoh Ramses III and the multitude of "Sea Peoples" as inscribed on Ramses III's mortuary temple at Medinet Habu. The year has been dated to 1177 B.C. Cline uses this battle as a starting point to examine what is known about these mysterious "Sea Peoples": who they were, where they came from, how (if?) they were involved in the Bronze Age Collapse, and where they went.

Cline then goes back in time to the 15th century B.C. to set the scene of what life was like in the Bronze Age before disaster struck. The first four chapters of the book covers the next four centuries and examines the regular affairs of state, personal dramas (usually of royalty), and various commercial ventures as deduced from the archaeological evidence (including letters written on clay tablets). What is interesting is the high level of political and economic integration between the various states, with the regular exchange of gifts, trade items, spouses and aid during war and famine. This is the most interesting part of the book for me and illustrates just how interconnected, and possibly interdependent, the many states in the region were with each other.

The fifth chapter provides an overview of the available evidence and clues to determine why the seemingly stable international system of the Late Bronze Age suddenly collapsed after surviving for centuries. I found this section a bit lackluster and all too brief. Cline provides a brief overview of some hypotheses for the collapse and the evidence for and against these. Earthquakes, internal rebellion, (possible) invaders and the collapse of international trade, decentralization and the rise of the private merchant, the "Sea People", disease, climate change with the resultant drought and famine (it looks like a 300 year long drought had a big influence). While Cline briefly mentions the hypothesis of Robert Drews that a change in warfare lead to the collapse, he doesn't examine it any further. Cline barely mentions warfare as an entity and any associated elements like weaponry and new tactics. It would have been useful to know when and where the use of iron weapons replaced bronze weapons, if this had any baring on the matter, and if Drew has a point about infantry hordes with new weapons overwhelming chariot companies.

In chapter 6, we are back to the "Sea People" but as a result of system collapse, rather than as a cause of it. In the end there is still no consensus on what caused the Bronze Age Collapse, but Cline is in favour of the system collapse hypothesis in which many problems/calamities/disasters could have been dealt with separately, but not all at once, especially if these disasters had a multiplier effect. Clive then brings complexity theory into the equation, and the gradual disintegration of larger sociopolitical states. Comparisons between 21st century and Bronze Age sociopolitical state interdependence and complexity is also made.

An interesting, but flawed book. I really wanted more about the collapse itself.

Additional Reading:
~The End of the Bronze Age by Robert Drews (1993)
~A History of Disease in Ancient Times by Philip Norrie (2016)

_______________________________

Date: August 2019. First Edition Rating: 3 stars
This book seems to have improved on a second reading 2 years after the first.

Cline has written a well researched, interesting and serviceable literature review of the end of the Late Bronze Age, the three preceding centuries, and the multitude of causes attributed to this decline/collapse. Cline spends a lot of text on urban archaeological findings, palatial elites and trading links, but practically ignores the role of agriculture and rural populations. The role of climate, disease, famine and earthquakes (and anything else) is also dealt with in one chapter only. There is nothing new in this book, but it does bring together the events of the time and various hypotheses in one book in a semi-popular style history book. The organisation and repetitiveness of the book leaves something to be desired. A time line would have been useful.

[Stetson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cline updates his case the collapse of the quasi-globalized economic system of the Bronze Age. This largely includes the why of the collapse taking the collapse itself largely as given after laying out relevant facts in the introduction. The beginning and end of the book are the parts mostly relevant to Cline's argument. The middle portion follows various highlights from the civilizations relevant to the collapse narrative.

The thesis of the book is summarized clearly in the prologue:

In our current view, as we shall see below, the Sea Peoples may well have been responsible for some of the destruction that occurred at the end of the Late Bronze Age, but it is much more likely that a concatenation of events, both human and natural—including climate change and drought, seismic disasters known as earthquake storms, internal rebellions, and “systems collapse”—coalesced to create a “perfect storm” that brought this age to an end.

It would have perhaps been more persuasive to structure the argument in reverse order: prove an interdependent global trade system, show the many forces causing crisis (sea people invasions, drought, earthquakes, etc), and then make the case that the early 12th century BC was pivotal.

I don't know much about this history so the book contained a lot of interesting insights about the Eastern Mediterranean. Otherwise this is a work with limited appeal to general readers while probably a subject of much debate among specialists.

[Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a nice and easy read. It has interesting tidbits and speculation, but it’s maybe not as in-depth on the states themselves as I’d have liked, and it does lack compelling structure. Also, the title and some of the opening feel as close to historical ‘click bait’ as you can get. The rest of the book thankfully does not follow suit, and is a solid discussion of what the archaeological record is able tell us. After reading A History of the Ancient Near East by Marc Van de Mieroop, this was a decent companion on the era for me by filling in the bits that book didn’t cover in relation to the Aegean and Egypt.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Their world was connected through trade, diplomacy, and cultural cross-pollination but within a lifetime everything changed. 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed sees Eric H. Cline unveil the prosperous Late Bronze Age of the Aegean, Eastern Mediterranean, the Fertile Crescent, and Egypt and theorizes about how they disappeared from history or were weakened apparently out of nowhere.

Using a variety of disciplines, from archaeology to linguistics, Cline shows the reader the world of the Late Bronze Age and the cultures that dominated it and their relationships with one another in an ever-increasing interconnectedness. Yet as Cline goes on to show this interconnectedness was also it’s down fall as natural disasters, climate change, internal and external migration, and numerous other factors that could have been weathered individually created a “perfect storm” of events that caused the international system to collapse. Cline doesn’t shy away from engaging in the long-held belief that the “Sea Peoples” were responsible for the collapse but shows how those migrates were reacting to the world falling apart and either taking advantage or running away to find stability. Throughout 187 pages, Cline packs in a lot of facts and speculations besides the confirmed history on events that could point to the truth of Troy and maybe the Exodus, though his speculation on the latter is weaker than the former.

1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed is a very fact dense book that is aimed for a general audience, but inquisitive and ready to get into nitty gritty of knowledge. Eric H. Cline knows his subject and is able to communicate it fairly well on page, but not as well as he comes across in lectures or presentations.

[Ahmed Louaar]

كان شرق المتوسط يعيش حالة من الازدهار الغير مسبوق، التجارة خاصة البحرية منها كانت رائجة بين المصريين والحثيين والاوغارتيين والميسينيين والمينويين والاشوريين والكنعانيين وغيرهم. كان هذا خلال القرون الاخيرة التي سبقت انهيار العصر البرونزي. لكن ما الذي أدى بهذا العالم الدولي المعولم إلى الانهيار؟

في هذا الكتاب "1177 ق.م عام انهيار الحضارة" يعود بنا إريك إتش كلاين، معتمدا على الأدلة الأثرية، إلى تلك الفترة المزدهرة من الحضارة الانسانية، حيث يصف التفاعلات التي كانت حاصلة بين الدول الاقليمية والمدن النشطة، والمراسلات بين الملوك والأمراء باللغات التي كانت سائدة وقتها، وأهم السلع التي كانت تنقلها السفن عبر البحر الأبيض المتوسط، وحتى الصراعات التي كانت تحصل بين الدول تماما كما هو حاصل في عصرنا الحالي.

بعدها يقوم كلاين بتفصيل الأسباب التي قد تكون أدت باختفاء معظم هذه الدول، كحدوث زلازل وجفاف وانظمة اجتماعية جديدة، دون أن يهمل المتهم المباشر الذي اعتاد المؤرخون الاشارة له وهم ما يعرف بشعوب البحر، هذه الشعوب الغامضة والتي لا توجد مصادر أثرية كثيرة لمعرفة أصلها وسبب ظهورها، ولكن فقط تفسيرات وترجيحات حول المكان الذي قد خرجوا منه.

الكتاب شيق لمن يهتم بالتاريخ القديم، وهو ثري للغاية بالمصادر والمراجع التي تهتم بتلك الفترة ككتاب "شعوب البحر" لناننسي ساندرز، وكتاب نهاية العصر البرونزي لروبرت دروز.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was fantastic. As an ancient history/archaeology nerd, this fulfilled everything I needed. Eric Cline gives the reader an engaging story of the LBA through the use of archaeological evidence, literary sources, and some clever sleuthing - the clever quips also were an enjoyable additive. His final remarks were succinct, concise, and pose an interesting thought. These societies were complex and their relations within one another were complicated. We will never be able to see the entire, unbroken picture of these societies, we are able to create conjecture over the few bits we have found. Cline comes across as knowledgeable and authoritative while passing that along in a readable manner for a non academic to understand. I put down the book feeling confident I learned a great deal about the languages, the socio-economic, and the political relations of the Egyptians, Hittites, Mycenaeans, and Canaanites. And even more was incorporated into the telling of the story, starting centuries before the collapse. I loved this book and it only increases my love of this era.