The First Wave of Globalization: Comments on Eric H. Cline’s “1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed”

Given that my specialty is ancient Greek philosophy, I thought of myself as someone who knew about the ancient world, but apparently not. After reading this book, I realized I was quite ignorant of what might be called the ancient ancient world. I’m familiar with the era of the Greeks and the Romans, but the era of a thousand years earlier I apparently didn’t know very well. Oh, I knew about the Egyptians and the early Greeks and the Hittites, and so on. And I knew that the Greeks of Plato’s day divided their past history the same way we do with an early “golden” era, an intervening dark age, and their own era that followed it. That dark age was believed to have been the result of the Dorian invasion, and I often marveled that it seemed to happen about twenty years or so after the end of the Trojan War. That seemed like a big coincidence, but anyway one thing I didn’t understand was who the Trojans were. I’d ask this of people and got only vague answers back. “Well, they were the Trojans, and the Greek fought them.” This wasn’t very enlightening. The Trojans, for the record, were probably part of the Hittite empire. And a friend told me about how the Hittites were invaded by the Sea Peoples and how archaeologists found a clay tablet in a kiln containing an urgent request for help because they were being invaded. Obviously, the message never got delivered.

Anyway, the big thing I didn’t know about that era was how globalized it all was. As Eric Cline notes in his book, “the Mediterranean region played host to a complex international world in which Minoans, Mycenaeans, Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Mitannians, Canaanites, Cypriots, and Egyptians all interacted, creating a cosmopolitan and globalized world system.” This globalization included lots of trade, but also the exchange of ambassadors. I had thought all these different groups rarely interacted with each other, but that wasn’t true at all. In particular, there was a lot of trading going on. The remains of a ship found off the coast of Turkey in 1982 – see here to see what it might have looked like – was packed with goods:

In addition to its primary cargo of ten tons of Cypriot copper, one ton of tin, and a ton of terebinth resin, there were also two dozen ebony logs from Nubia; almost two hundred ingots of raw glass from Mesopotamia ... about 140 Canaanite storage jars ... which contained the terebinth resin, remains of grapes, pomegranates, and figs, as well as spices like coriander and sumac; brand new pottery from Cyprus and Canaan ... scarabs from Egypt and cylinder seals from elsewhere in the Near East; swords and daggers from Italy and Greece ... and even a stone scepter-mace from the Balkans. [p. 77]

A few observations here. First, when it was first found, people were skeptical that anyone at that time was capable of sailing such a ship on the Mediterranean. Later evidence proved they were indeed capable. Second, the tin came all the way from Afghanistan, which was nearly two thousand miles away. Third, the transporting of the fruits shows that these people were not locavores. They were perfectly willing to trade in foodstuffs.

And all this happened in about 1300 BC.

By 1177, things were deteriorating, and Cline suggests that 1177 could be used in the same way that 476 AD is for the Roman Empire. Things lasted a little longer, apparently, but not much.

So what caused this dark age that the Greeks talked about? The invasion of the Sea Peoples, which was the old theory? Cline comes to no conclusion except that there’s really not enough evidence to tell. However, he points out that there were earthquakes, droughts, invasions of Egypt and some other places by some group they called the Sea Peoples, except that they seemed to come on land, too, plus there may have been internal revolts. Anyway, the whole system was dead a century later, along with many of these cultures.

So what about the Dorians? Apparently, their invasion came much later.

What about the Trojan War? There is evidence that in about 1177 its palace and city were destroyed, but the same was happening with the Mycenaeans, the Greeks who were supposedly attacking them.

What about the exodus story from the Bible? It seems unlikely that it happened as the Bible told, for a number of reasons. See here for the Wikipedia account, which goes into more detail than Cline does. What Cline observes, however, is that the Israelites were one of a number of new groups throughout the region that took advantage of the decline of the old global order in that they were allowed to develop their own cultures (for a while) without worrying about the domination of the Egyptians or the Hittites.

Oh, yes, the story of the clay tablet in the kiln? Apparently, it wasn’t found in a kiln and may have been a copy of another tablet, so the message may have been delivered after all.

Comments

[Terry]

It is a fascinating period, of which I know little and am still unclear who the "Sea People" were, considering how much of the "global" economy was based on societies that were maritime (Minoans, Egyptians, Mycenaeans etc..).

It seems that when civilizations thrived (at any point in history), international trade was extensive (and jobs must have been plentiful) and when they collapsed, international trade shrunk extensively and the "dark ages" came about. There is an important correlation there that, in my opinion, is not often studied.

[John Pepple]

The author said scholars today aren't sure who the Sea Peoples were, though he offered several suggestions.