For more than three hundred years during the Late Bronze Age, from about 1500 BC to 1200 BC, the Mediterranean region played host to a complex international world in which Egyptians, Mycenaeans, Minoans, Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Cypriots, and Canaanites all interacted, creating a cosmopolitan and globalized world-system such as has only rarely been seen before the current day. It may have been this very internationalism that contributed to the apocalyptic disaster that ended the Bronze Age. When the end came, as it did after centuries of cultural and technological evolution, 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, that had taken centuries to evolve, collapsed rapidly.
While the centuries following the Late Bronze Age Collapse in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean were a time of catastrophe, they were also a time of rebirth and resilience — it was less of a Dark Age and more of a reboot for many of the societies which were affected. While there are examples of failure to thrive or even to survive in some cases, others managed to adapt and transform. In effect, we have eight case studies of what to do (and what not to do) in the event of a systems collapse, ranging from the Assyrians to the Egyptians to the Mycenaeans and others in between. We will focus on the people and places that emerged from the ashes, highlighting some of the events and developments that took place in Greece, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and the Levant. We will also consider whether there are any relevant lessons to be learned from this dramatic story of resurgence and revival, especially considering what is going on in our world today.
Kershaw Lectures in Near East Archaeology
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