Speaker 1: The late return of the Hellenes from Ilion caused many
Speaker 1: revolutions and factions ensued almost everywhere, and it was the
Speaker 1: citizens thus driven into exile who founded the cities. Sixty
Speaker 1: years after the capture of Ilon, the modern Baeotians were
Speaker 1: driven out of Arne by the Thessalians and settled in
Speaker 1: the present Beotia, the former Cadmian land, though there was
Speaker 1: a division of them there before, some of whom joined
Speaker 1: the expedition to Ilon. Twenty years later, the Dorians and
Speaker 1: the Heraclids became masters of the Peloponnesus, so that much
Speaker 1: had to be done, and many years had to elapse
Speaker 1: before Hellas could attain to a jurable tranquility, undisturbed by removals,
Speaker 1: and could begin to send out colonies, as Athens did
Speaker 1: to Ionia and most of the islands, and the Peloponnesians
Speaker 1: to most of Italy and Sicily, and some places in
Speaker 1: the rest of Hellas. All these places were founded subsequently
Speaker 1: to the war with Troy. Well, Hi, Hello, welcome, this
Speaker 1: is let's talk about myths baby, and I am your host.
Speaker 1: Live here with the beginning of the end of the
Speaker 1: Bronze Age, a look into the so called collapse of
Speaker 1: not only the Minoan and Mycenaean people of ancient Greece,
Speaker 1: but the wider ancient Mediterranean. What makes a collapse? Though,
Speaker 1: really the word itself is an accurate descriptor of what happened,
Speaker 1: but it carries with it this desire to make the
Speaker 1: collapse of these cultures into something, if not bigger and
Speaker 1: more dramatic, then certainly at least mysterious. The idea of
Speaker 1: a collapse, the end of these once great people lends
Speaker 1: itself to the history bros who blend fact with conspiracy
Speaker 1: and pseudohistory, or to the conspiracists. More directly, it lends
Speaker 1: itself to the idea that the end of these people
Speaker 1: was a mystery to be solved, that they simply disappeared
Speaker 1: from human existence, only to be replaced by an entire
Speaker 1: different group. But of course, as I hope you can
Speaker 1: all gather, that isn't what happened. There is no great mystery,
Speaker 1: no moment in time where the Myceneans or the Minoans
Speaker 1: just suddenly, out of nowhere ceased to exist. Instead, it's
Speaker 1: far more complex and much more interesting, and ultimately is
Speaker 1: better described as a collapse of elite power structures, a
Speaker 1: collapse of the super rich, if you will. The regular
Speaker 1: people just kept going, They moved on, they adapted, they
Speaker 1: transitioned to something different. Because when your climate is changing
Speaker 1: and unrest is rising, the elites who hoard wealth in
Speaker 1: their great palaces, who live like kings while the rest
Speaker 1: of the world scrambles to find food, well, that never
Speaker 1: ends well for the elites. Are you listening, Bezos musk
Speaker 1: weston HM. Today we look at the end, the collapse,
Speaker 1: the transition from a cultural structure where the elites ruled
Speaker 1: from palaces to one where regular people with sense and
Speaker 1: knowledge of the world shifted with the changes that they
Speaker 1: saw around them and adapted themselves and their world. As
Speaker 1: always that quote I read at the top of the
Speaker 1: episode was another from Thucydides, ancient Athenian trying to wrap
Speaker 1: his head around this very thing, the end of the
Speaker 1: Bronze Age. But we will look at the actual history. Today.
Speaker 1: I give you the basics of what happened and when,
Speaker 1: and then on Friday I will be joined by returning
Speaker 1: guest Flint Dibble to talk about some of the reasons
Speaker 1: for the Bronze Age's end. Particularly, we'll look at food,
Speaker 1: how they ate before, during, and after the end of
Speaker 1: the Bronze Age, and how we can look at those
Speaker 1: things and see in them the changing climate of the Mediterranean,
Speaker 1: the end of the palatial power structure, and a return
Speaker 1: to a more simple way of living, one that suited
Speaker 1: those who remained, these regular people just trying to get by.
Speaker 1: And then next Tuesday, to cap off this series on
Speaker 1: the Bronze Age of Greece and it's collapse, a conversation
Speaker 1: with Eric Klein, who literally wrote the book on the
Speaker 1: end of the Bronze Age Mediterranean, and a new one
Speaker 1: that's just coming out now about what came after. The
Speaker 1: Bronze Age. Is the period most aligned with Greek mythology.
Speaker 1: It's the age in which many myths were understood to
Speaker 1: have happened. It's when the Greeks were believed to have
Speaker 1: traveled to Troy in search of a woman, when they
Speaker 1: waged this ten years war that changed the face of
Speaker 1: the Mediterranean. It's the time when the heroes were believed
Speaker 1: to have roamed the Greek world, defeating monsters, battling centaurs,
Speaker 1: and bickering with gods and you know whatever, theseus was
Speaker 1: always fucking around with It's a time that's been blended
Speaker 1: with myth in fascinating ways, but it's also blended with
Speaker 1: myth in frustrating ways, ways that can obscure the history
Speaker 1: in favor of a mythological past. For all the fun
Speaker 1: in imagining a Bronze Age like that of the Iliad,
Speaker 1: it's important to remember still that it was a very
Speaker 1: real time period, and really the mythological sources that were
Speaker 1: believed to be situated in the depths of the Bronze Age,
Speaker 1: like the Homeric epics, were very much products of their time,
Speaker 1: full of references and technologies from the periods in which
Speaker 1: they were developed and then written down. They are a
Speaker 1: blending of anachronisms. You heard it on Friday's episode with
Speaker 1: Joel Christiansen. There are archaic weapons and notions, Iron Age concepts,
Speaker 1: Bronze Age cultures like all nestled together in this epic poem.
Speaker 1: The Bronze Age is a time and place separate from
Speaker 1: the epics in the same way that the monsters defeated
Speaker 1: by Heracles are separate from the real Greece that people
Speaker 1: lived and died in. Instead, in those sources we can
Speaker 1: learn about the people that came after the Bronze Age,
Speaker 1: how they saw their world, their cultural history and memory,
Speaker 1: and their future. I say all that because well, I'm
Speaker 1: me and I'm too fascinated by the mythology and epics
Speaker 1: and what they do and do not say about the
Speaker 1: Bronze Age and then the later Iron Age and into
Speaker 1: the Archaic period and beyond that, what was the actual
Speaker 1: Bronze Age like? Like, how did it and how didn't
Speaker 1: it resemble the world of epic and of course how
Speaker 1: did it end and why? With a bonus of let's
Speaker 1: take a little dive into what it looks like when
Speaker 1: a super rich elite power structure crumbles and who and
Speaker 1: what is left when it does. This is episode two
Speaker 1: fifty nine, not with a bang, but a whimper, the
Speaker 1: collapse of Bronze Age grease. Finally we get to the end,
Speaker 1: or rather an end that's also a beginning. The end
Speaker 1: of the Bronze Age also marks the beginning of the
Speaker 1: grease that we know a little better, where the alphabet
Speaker 1: will be developed and perfected, where the oral storytelling of
Speaker 1: the Homeric tradition will arise and give us everything that
Speaker 1: we love so dearly in order for any of that
Speaker 1: to begin, the Bronze Age and its palatial world had
Speaker 1: to end. The Bronze Age collapse is the term that
Speaker 1: bounces around this topic and generally describes the total collapse
Speaker 1: of the various states of the Bronze Age Mediterranean and
Speaker 1: surrounding cultures. It is a ridiculously complicated subject that we
Speaker 1: don't have the clearest answers about. The word collapse is
Speaker 1: both accurate and a little misleading. It was a collapse, yes,
Speaker 1: but one that marked a transition to What we can
Speaker 1: say with enough certainty when it comes to the end
Speaker 1: of the Bronze Age is that sometime during the twelfth
Speaker 1: century BCE, a number of events occurred that caused many
Speaker 1: of the major sites around the Mediterranean to best and
Speaker 1: a decline in population to take place. The word lost
Speaker 1: is thrown around a lot when it comes to what
Speaker 1: exactly happened here. I don't love the word. It presents
Speaker 1: the idea that humanity forgot something, rather than simply no
Speaker 1: longer had use for it. For instance, it's said that
Speaker 1: monumental building was lost, large cities were lost, and the
Speaker 1: interconnectedness that permeated every bit of the Bronze Age falls apart.
Speaker 1: The interconnectedness certainly does fall apart, and monumental building does
Speaker 1: stop happening in the same way, and the large cities
Speaker 1: were no longer in use. They weren't lost though, so
Speaker 1: much as they lost relevancy. That isn't to say that
Speaker 1: the collapse wasn't a big deal and a very real event.
Speaker 1: I just don't want to be like the history bro
Speaker 1: I will never forget who will suggested that the people
Speaker 1: of the Bronze Age straight up disappeared and or lost
Speaker 1: the ability to understand written language. It wasn't magic or
Speaker 1: some kind of wild collective amnesia of human intelligence. It
Speaker 1: was a huge collapse of society across the region and
Speaker 1: a transition to something totally different. In fact, most of
Speaker 1: the cultures that were active in that region during the
Speaker 1: Bronze Age, they do just fall apart completely, with only
Speaker 1: really Egypt coming out and with some sort of presence
Speaker 1: still intact. It was a collapse of society as the
Speaker 1: region knew it. The Mediterranean changed completely. The cultures that
Speaker 1: had existed before the collapse just ceased, especially in Greece.
Speaker 1: And in terms of what we can find or have
Speaker 1: already found, and what was left behind, you know, these
Speaker 1: palatial sites like Myceni and Tyrans that we have found
Speaker 1: were basically abandoned, and because they weren't still being occupied
Speaker 1: in the same ways, they instead served as this inspiration
Speaker 1: for the mythological history that would go on to exist
Speaker 1: in the region. The people of iron Age Greece, just
Speaker 1: a few generations from the Bronze Age that had collapsed,
Speaker 1: lost the cultural memory of those sites and saw only
Speaker 1: what was left, the palatial compounds that looked utterly and
Speaker 1: completely epic, that were so monumental and enormous that they
Speaker 1: would have housed so many people in such riches, and
Speaker 1: they could only construe of these as the palaces of
Speaker 1: their heroes. These sites, the cities, the tombs, would live
Speaker 1: on in this collective mythical history developed in some part
Speaker 1: at least as a means of explaining what the people
Speaker 1: before them had left behind. And as these stories were
Speaker 1: developed and grew into something so much bigger than what
Speaker 1: they started, as they were passed down through the ages
Speaker 1: until they became the archaic Greek's de facto historical past,
Speaker 1: and so by the time we get to the Iliad
Speaker 1: and the Odyssey as we know them, the heroes that
Speaker 1: came out of the Mycenae cities that were scattered around
Speaker 1: the Peloponnese were real and had walked the land. Agamemnon
Speaker 1: was the king of Mycene, and Menelaus was king of Lacedaemon,
Speaker 1: and Minos was the king of Kunosos Nestor of Pilos.
Speaker 1: And this remained, of course, to the point where even
Speaker 1: today we still called the gold mask found in Myceni
Speaker 1: the mask of Agamemnon, despite him almost certainly not having
Speaker 1: been real, and of course we still call the palace
Speaker 1: at Pilos the Palace of Nestor. But how does such
Speaker 1: an enormous societal collapse happen? A total system collapse is
Speaker 1: a huge thing that doesn't just happen because of one
Speaker 1: or two small events. Multiple catastrophes and troubles needed to
Speaker 1: occur in order to shake up the system so thoroughly
Speaker 1: that it just falls apart after having thrived for hundreds
Speaker 1: of years. There are lots of theories for why this
Speaker 1: one collapse happened, from the infamous sea people's to famine,
Speaker 1: to earthquakes and climate change, but all of these by
Speaker 1: themselves just aren't enough to cause a big enough disruption
Speaker 1: to destroy such an established system. Instead, it's likely that
Speaker 1: it was all of these things occurring around the same
Speaker 1: time or in close enough succession, that the systems in
Speaker 1: place just cracked and broke and eventually fell apart. Just
Speaker 1: so many game changing events and threats and disasters coming
Speaker 1: together at just the wrong time, and poof your society collapses.
Speaker 1: But remember we mean this society collapsed. Everyone doesn't just disappear,
Speaker 1: but the elite structures that had been established crumbled, and
Speaker 1: what was left was just the regular people who, for
Speaker 1: the most part, kind of just figured it out. They adapted,
Speaker 1: transitioned to something entirely new, and unfortunately, either what they
Speaker 1: left behind wasn't found or wasn't impressive enough to quell
Speaker 1: the idea of this dark age, this loss. But what
Speaker 1: it really was is that either what they left behind
Speaker 1: just didn't last for us, or we haven't found it yet.
Speaker 1: And you all know how I love a good natural disaster,
Speaker 1: let alone one combined with so many other wild events.
Speaker 1: So let's look at all the things that came together
Speaker 1: to collapse the societies of the Bronze Age Mediterranean. Obviously,
Speaker 1: we are starting with my favorite topic, one that I've
Speaker 1: touched on before because it aided in a certain conspiracy
Speaker 1: about a certain so called lost mythical city that's really
Speaker 1: just a wild thing Plato made up. That's right. We're
Speaker 1: talking about the abruption of Thera, and fine, not because
Speaker 1: it had anything to do with the Bronze Age collapse,
Speaker 1: but instead because I want to talk about it. And
Speaker 1: it is often referenced as a cause of the Bronze
Speaker 1: Age collapse despite not being a cause of the collapse,
Speaker 1: because fine, it happened like four hundred years before the collapse,
Speaker 1: but it is still evidence of the volcanic and tectonic
Speaker 1: happenings in the area, which did indeed contribute to the collapse.
Speaker 1: It's generally understood that the major collapse of the Bronze
Speaker 1: Age happened around the twelfth century BCE. Meanwhile, the exact
Speaker 1: date of the eruption of Thera is still up for debate.
Speaker 1: There's a whole lot of science that I simply cannot
Speaker 1: and will not wrap my head around. But it's likely
Speaker 1: that it was toward the end of the seventeenth century BC,
Speaker 1: so again, four to five hundred years before the eruption
Speaker 1: was to put it simply massive, The event would have
Speaker 1: lasted about two to three days, and even before the
Speaker 1: volcano erupted, there would have been major earthquakes in the region.
Speaker 1: This is super common. Even at Pompeii, before Vesuvius erupted,
Speaker 1: there were earthquakes leading up to the actual event. Actually,
Speaker 1: just the other day I read about two hundred earthquakes
Speaker 1: happening right off the coast of where I live in
Speaker 1: quick Success. And apparently the scientists were just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's cool, Like a little bit of magma is going
Speaker 1: to erupt into the Salish Sea, but it's nothing to
Speaker 1: worry about. I mean, I trust them, but still I digress.
Speaker 1: The point is, volcanic eruptions come with earthquakes. And when
Speaker 1: Theira did finally erupt, and I should have said this already,
Speaker 1: thera is Sancherini. It basically blew out the center of
Speaker 1: the island completely. Like have you ever looked at the
Speaker 1: shape of Sancherini. It is essentially a circular island that's
Speaker 1: had the center blown out. It's why Santorini has the
Speaker 1: cliffs that are so famously beautiful and horrifically packed with tourists.
Speaker 1: It's literally a popped off volcano popped is the technical term.
Speaker 1: The town that we know of on Bronze Age Thera,
Speaker 1: Acriterii was covered in a layer of pumice and volcanic ash.
Speaker 1: It was closely connected with crete to the south and
Speaker 1: likely forced refugees who were able to escape south to
Speaker 1: that island. And fun fact about Ekerterii too, Unlike Pompeii,
Speaker 1: the preserved Bronze Age city, Bronze Age City does not
Speaker 1: have a single body that's been found, which either means
Speaker 1: everyone got out, people returned after to mourn and care
Speaker 1: for their dead, or they just haven't been found yet.
Speaker 1: Regardless of Acritiri, which in the grand scheme of the
Speaker 1: Mediterranean was nothing particularly special, the resulting ash cloud would
Speaker 1: have spread over the Aegean and the effects on the
Speaker 1: surrounding land would have been noticeable. Still, if this happened
Speaker 1: four to five hundred years before the collapse, how is
Speaker 1: it relevant? Well, aside from my insisting that we include
Speaker 1: it in this series because Aquaria is a magical place
Speaker 1: where Bronze Age fantasies are born and I love a
Speaker 1: good volcanic eruption story, it demonstrates to us the type
Speaker 1: of environmental events that happened in this area, because again, fine,
Speaker 1: it did not contribute to the collapse, let's make that
Speaker 1: very clear, but it does remind us what's possible because
Speaker 1: there were definitely, certainly tectonic happenings that did contribute to
Speaker 1: the collapse. Not necessarily Valcai eruptions, but earthquakes. The Mediterranean
Speaker 1: and the Near East all exist along active fault lines
Speaker 1: that can and do still affect the people that are
Speaker 1: living there. The last time I was on Crete, there
Speaker 1: was an earthquake in Heraclion, like big enough that they
Speaker 1: did some damage even to the modern island. Earthquakes can
Speaker 1: be devastating for a city, especially one with buildings that
Speaker 1: are not built to withstand that kind of movement, and
Speaker 1: when you don't fully understand why they're happening or how
Speaker 1: to handle them, like they're going to be a pretty
Speaker 1: big issue. And toward the end of the thirteenth century
Speaker 1: and beginning of the twelfth century, there was a series
Speaker 1: of earthquakes that took place along that fault line. Earthquakes
Speaker 1: of varying intensity were happening all up and down the
Speaker 1: fault line at this time, and obviously they were causing
Speaker 1: major destruction. And when you think about how monumental building
Speaker 1: was done at this time, like basically stacking big stones
Speaker 1: on top of each other. They're not going to survive
Speaker 1: the earth violently shaking beneath them. Still, it can be
Speaker 1: hard to say whether a site was destroyed by an
Speaker 1: earthquake or human intervention other than you know, sometimes there
Speaker 1: are telltale signs, like if a site is destroyed because
Speaker 1: of an earthquake, you would not expect to find lots
Speaker 1: of people with arrows sticking out of them, you know,
Speaker 1: that's a bit of a giveaway. But in case of
Speaker 1: an earthquake, you might What you might have is people
Speaker 1: trapped under debris or walls that have shifted and moved
Speaker 1: and show visual signs of that movement. You know, not
Speaker 1: to say that they couldn't have had a thing for
Speaker 1: like wavy walls, but one does have to stick with
Speaker 1: the most obvious explanation sometimes. And still, earthquakes alone, you know,
Speaker 1: did not collapse these entire societies. We do see efforts
Speaker 1: across a Mediterranean to rebuild after earthquakes, you know, but
Speaker 1: there needed to be more to take these people out
Speaker 1: so completely. This is where other people come in. See
Speaker 1: people to be dramatic and specific have you not heard
Speaker 1: of see people. Oh you must be a normal person
Speaker 1: who does not spend their entire life devoted to people
Speaker 1: who've been dead for thousands of years. Lucky you. Basically,
Speaker 1: the Sea people are a theorized group of people who
Speaker 1: just kind of sailed around fucking shit up. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of uncertainty and a lot of sensationalizing around them,
Speaker 1: lots of memes, you know the type, which is why
Speaker 1: I would like to start with a caveat The Medinet
Speaker 1: Habu inscriptions of the late thirteenth and early twelfth century
Speaker 1: from Egypt are the only definitive mention of the Sea peoples,
Speaker 1: and they don't like use a term like sea peoples.
Speaker 1: This is a modern phrase that current scholars and others
Speaker 1: use to describe what is mentioned in these inscriptions. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: what is described are battles between the Egyptians and outside
Speaker 1: forces that can be understood as having come from islands
Speaker 1: or somewhere else by sea. And other than that, we
Speaker 1: don't have much explicitly about these sea peoples. There's a
Speaker 1: debate about one letter from Ugart that could possibly be
Speaker 1: mentioning the sea peoples, but it's not agreed upon widely.
Speaker 1: So what we understan stand up about the Sea People's
Speaker 1: comes from extremely limited sourcing and ultimately does not give
Speaker 1: us enough information to fully understand them. My conversation next
Speaker 1: Tuesday is going to go into much more detail on this.
Speaker 1: But if we're going to, you know, not to jump
Speaker 1: into this sensationalizing that is the Sea People's, Like, how
Speaker 1: are we gonna understand what's happening? You know, because we
Speaker 1: can see from sites all across the Mediterranean that there
Speaker 1: was violent destruction happening and someone, some people were causing it.
Speaker 1: So who could they be? Like, yes, the Sea peoples
Speaker 1: are an option, but like, who are they really? When
Speaker 1: we look at it is what we have is once
Speaker 1: again people moving around the Mediterranean, you know, movement and connection,
Speaker 1: albeit in a rather more violent way in this case,
Speaker 1: and this is what defines a Mediterranean Even during the collapse,
Speaker 1: there absolutely was destruction and invasion happening from outside sources.
Speaker 1: During the collapse, you know, there were people moving around
Speaker 1: the Mediterranean from a variety of places and who were
Speaker 1: indeed sometimes invading other cities. There's plenty of evidence for
Speaker 1: sites that were destroyed because of humans, Like for example,
Speaker 1: you know, when we find people with the aforementioned arrows.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not always so explicit, but what we
Speaker 1: have found are people who have met some kind of
Speaker 1: violent and unnatural end. You know, I think it would
Speaker 1: be pretty safe to say that if we find people
Speaker 1: who have obviously died because another human came at them
Speaker 1: with something sharp and pointy, that such a thing was
Speaker 1: done with, you know, dubious intentions. And there are enough
Speaker 1: sites that were destroyed because of this kind of human
Speaker 1: violence that we can certainly say that, you know, there
Speaker 1: were people destroying cities purposefully in some way. But that
Speaker 1: begs another question, you know, because if we can't say
Speaker 1: who the people were that were doing the destroying, like,
Speaker 1: can we say why they were traveling the seas and
Speaker 1: ultimately destroying what they found during this period of collapse.
Speaker 1: Not all of the cities that are destroyed by people
Speaker 1: are destroyed for the same reasons. And this is found
Speaker 1: in what remains of the sites, you know, well over
Speaker 1: three thousand years later, which is your periodic reminder that
Speaker 1: archaeology is seriously fucking cool, especially from this time period
Speaker 1: where we have minimal text sources to go off of. Now,
Speaker 1: you know, archaeologists are scientists as you will hear in
Speaker 1: the conversations that are coming, you know, where I try
Speaker 1: to understand very sciencey things with my background in literature
Speaker 1: and mythology. But today's episode is trust me. So we
Speaker 1: are keeping it simple through many scientific ways, I won't
Speaker 1: to understand. The sites that remain have been examined, and
Speaker 1: through them we get an idea of how and why
Speaker 1: they were destroyed. Like if we find a city that
Speaker 1: has destruction absolutely everywhere, from the top governmental buildings down
Speaker 1: to the neighborhoods of the everyday person, you know, it's
Speaker 1: most likely caused by an invasion, especially if we find
Speaker 1: human remains that have these marks of violence on them,
Speaker 1: you know. And then that gets tied with any textual
Speaker 1: evidence that we might have that talks about invasions and
Speaker 1: fights happening in those areas, you know, and suddenly we've
Speaker 1: got probable invasion. But you know, what about the sites
Speaker 1: that have destruction, But it's limited, say to the palatial
Speaker 1: centers and bureaucratic buildings. Remember, it is a collapse of
Speaker 1: the elite, you know. I won't say it's the dream,
Speaker 1: but if Bezos ever goes down, I will be celebrating
Speaker 1: in the streets So if all the elite structures in
Speaker 1: an area show signs of destruction, you know, but the
Speaker 1: neighborhood where that people are living is untouched. Hmmm. An
Speaker 1: instances like this, you know, it's probably not invasion that's
Speaker 1: responsible for the destruction. It's probably something more akin to
Speaker 1: internal factors, to the people living in the region rising
Speaker 1: up against the ruling elite and you know, well eat
Speaker 1: the rich, good for them. These are things that we
Speaker 1: can learn from ancient history, you know, like let's make
Speaker 1: a free grocery store out of one of Galen Weston's houses,
Speaker 1: Like it seems only fair. Ultimately, the point is that
Speaker 1: while many of these sites show widespread destruction at the
Speaker 1: hands of humans, we can't always assume some outside invasion
Speaker 1: by sea people's or anyone else. Sometimes the most dangerous
Speaker 1: people in a culture are the ones that have been
Speaker 1: fucked over and marginalized for generations. This is entirely me
Speaker 1: making stuff up here. But if you've spent hundreds of
Speaker 1: years working for an elite palatial complex where the rich
Speaker 1: are living their best lives and bathing in gold and
Speaker 1: your poorest shit, well, you know, when the opportunity arises,
Speaker 1: revolution isn't new and maybe we need to return to
Speaker 1: some roots, you know, apropos of nothing. Yesterday I bought
Speaker 1: coffee and eggs and like three other basic staple foods
Speaker 1: at a grocery store and it costs over fifty dollars.
Speaker 1: Eat the rich. But what does this destruction look like,
Speaker 1: you know, this specific type of internal disruption. Well, where
Speaker 1: we're going to go next. The most important factor in
Speaker 1: the destruction is fire. Remember these linear A and linear
Speaker 1: B tablets. You know. Linear A and B are the
Speaker 1: two Proto Greek languages that developed during the Bronze Age.
Speaker 1: Linear A is primarily coming from a no one create
Speaker 1: and it's colonies, and Linear B from the mainland of
Speaker 1: mice Andians and theirs. Linear B is translated, linear A
Speaker 1: is not, you know, which is why I have a
Speaker 1: bunch of fun little symbols tattooed on my finger in
Speaker 1: the hopes that one day will translate it and I'll
Speaker 1: know that I have like grain or olive oil trade
Speaker 1: tattooed on my fingers. Because that's the thing about linear B.
Speaker 1: It's primarily focused on these palatial records from the Bronze
Speaker 1: Age period, iterating a lot of this stuff to you.
Speaker 1: Just as this reminder of what they are, because you know,
Speaker 1: during this time, Linear B is the only textual evidence
Speaker 1: that we have coming out of Mycenean culture. And how
Speaker 1: do we have these tablets, these palatial records today because
Speaker 1: of fire, the fiery destruction of various Bronze Age Greek sites.
Speaker 1: Is this main reason why we have these tablets containing
Speaker 1: Linear A and B. The fires that took down these
Speaker 1: monumental buildings also just happened to bake those clay tablets
Speaker 1: for us, you know, like firing a clay pot in
Speaker 1: a kiln to preserve it. These fires preserved the tablets.
Speaker 1: And this is just so fucking lucky for us because
Speaker 1: Linear B tablets are this invaluable research when it comes
Speaker 1: to understanding the palatial complexes in which they were found. Like, sure,
Speaker 1: they were mostly these palace records, and no one came
Speaker 1: right out and told us that Achilles was like a
Speaker 1: real dude. But you know, knowing how much olive oil
Speaker 1: and wine and food stuffs were kept in the palaces
Speaker 1: is super helpful, if less thrilling than if they contained
Speaker 1: a Bronze Age myth. That would have been cool. Still,
Speaker 1: I have so much to say. Let's hang around these
Speaker 1: Bronze Age sites just a little bit longer. It was
Speaker 1: during this late thirteenth century and into the early twelfth
Speaker 1: that we date a lot of the destruction of the
Speaker 1: mainland Greek sites, specifically at Mycene. It appears that at
Speaker 1: first there was an earthquake sometime in this mids thirteenth century.
Speaker 1: Then some fifty years later there was another destruction event.
Speaker 1: This one was marked by fire, but this fire seems
Speaker 1: to be localized to the citadel and not the surrounding areas.
Speaker 1: You know, like say, maybe someone returned from war to
Speaker 1: find his city and shambles and his wife pretty angry
Speaker 1: that he sacrificed their daughter for a bit of wind,
Speaker 1: you know, in violence ensues. Okay, fine, again, probably not that,
Speaker 1: but still eat the miceny and rich, particularly if they're Agamemnon. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: over at the nearby palatial site of Tyrans, the palace
Speaker 1: where Heracles was said to have kicked a guy off
Speaker 1: a wall and started a whole mess for himself, we
Speaker 1: see more evidence of an earthquake destroying the buildings in
Speaker 1: the citadel at the end of this thirteenth century. And
Speaker 1: then if we quickly pop over to Pilos, we once
Speaker 1: again see evidence of destruction in the early twelfth century
Speaker 1: by fire. Poor Nestor. I mean, you know, I'm all
Speaker 1: for toppling the aristocracy, but comparatively like he was a
Speaker 1: pretty okay guy. Again, fictional iliatic heroes aside, and you know,
Speaker 1: I can't resist making references to them. We can look
Speaker 1: all over the Mediterranean and inland to the east and
Speaker 1: see this evidence of this, you know, the similar kinds
Speaker 1: of it's found in the Mesopotamian people of ancient Iraq,
Speaker 1: and the Hittites of Anatolia, ancient Turkey and Cyprus, Phoenicia
Speaker 1: down into Egypt. And this early twelfth century date around
Speaker 1: the time as this destruction in Pilos was when also
Speaker 1: Troy seven fell. But it's worth mentioning that just because
Speaker 1: these sites were destroyed doesn't mean that they were then abandoned.
Speaker 1: You know, this is really important for understanding this Bronze
Speaker 1: Age collapse. This is an event where what is lost
Speaker 1: is this centralization. Not the people or really the culture
Speaker 1: at all these sites. The thing that is lost is
Speaker 1: this centralized government that at the top of the social ladder,
Speaker 1: this highly organized system that we have become so familiar
Speaker 1: with in the Bronze Age disappears for a period of
Speaker 1: time that you know, varies depending on the region. In
Speaker 1: Greece it was gone for a good while, but elsewhere,
Speaker 1: you know, they popped up quicker than you might expect,
Speaker 1: because while this centralization in administration disappears, people and human
Speaker 1: ingenuity do not, which is why, you know, we don't
Speaker 1: want to keep calling what followed the Bronze Age this
Speaker 1: this dark Ages, because it wasn't dark like. It isn't
Speaker 1: even marked by a lack of sources, which is you know,
Speaker 1: where the word originally came from. It was simply a
Speaker 1: transitional period that becomes the Iron Age, and it's when
Speaker 1: a whole lot of other amazing stuff happens, So calling
Speaker 1: it dark is mean at the best. The vast majority
Speaker 1: of these sites continue to demonstrate people living in and
Speaker 1: occupying the buildings that are still present, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: not in the most upper parts of the citadel, but
Speaker 1: in the cities and the surrounding regions. And this tells
Speaker 1: us so much because what gets assumed is that you know,
Speaker 1: this Mediterranean after these events, gets catapulted in this time
Speaker 1: of lack and loss, and quite frankly, that's just that's
Speaker 1: not what is actually happening. Even in Greece, shirt like,
Speaker 1: the upper classes of society are seemingly gone, but the people,
Speaker 1: like the people that lived on and worked the land
Speaker 1: and fought for their cities, like, they are still going
Speaker 1: about their day to day lives in whatever way they can.
Speaker 1: In Greece, at least, they went on to establish and
Speaker 1: formalize the Greek alphabet, among everything else, you know, to
Speaker 1: develop this oral tradition of storytelling that will eventually give
Speaker 1: us the Iliad and the Odyssey. The ages that followed,
Speaker 1: they were not dark. And maybe this is what we
Speaker 1: should take from these instances of destruction and the people
Speaker 1: that are moving around the Mediterranean at this time. You know,
Speaker 1: for the most part, this is not necessarily people looking
Speaker 1: to destroy and take over regions. Maybe it's people moving
Speaker 1: around trying to find a better place to live. Because
Speaker 1: maybe an earthquake took out their old home and a
Speaker 1: couple of families packed up what they had, jumped on
Speaker 1: a ship and moved around. This is not an unfamiliar occurrence,
Speaker 1: you know. Maybe, and this is where we're head next.
Speaker 1: It was this change in climate that forced people to
Speaker 1: leave the areas they were living because they simply could
Speaker 1: no longer sustain themselves. They left in order to find
Speaker 1: a land where they could survive. But once again, and
Speaker 1: this is Mikaela screaming in the background. Like the Bronze
Speaker 1: Age at every point is defined by people moving around,
Speaker 1: interacting and existing amongst each other. It is a time
Speaker 1: period that is defined by its interconnectivity and diversity even
Speaker 1: during its collapse. Climate change was definitely a major factor
Speaker 1: for movement within the Bronze Age. Collapse, droughts and the
Speaker 1: resulting lack of food and resources would of course have
Speaker 1: pushed people to move themselves and their family to hopefully
Speaker 1: better horizons. And this is a seriously natural human response.
Speaker 1: We know that people are moving around, not just from
Speaker 1: accounts of the quote unquote see peoples, but also from
Speaker 1: the continued movement of artifacts that are found in these
Speaker 1: various sites. But how do we look back and find
Speaker 1: evidence of things like drought and famine. These seem to
Speaker 1: be things that could be particularly difficult to find within
Speaker 1: the archaeological record. What kind of evidence would we expect
Speaker 1: to find that would help us see that these things
Speaker 1: are happening at this time? Well, the first and probably
Speaker 1: the most obvious is textual evidence. While we tend to
Speaker 1: focus on Greece for a lot of things during the
Speaker 1: Bronze Age, we need to expand our horizons and look
Speaker 1: at this Mediterranean as a whold. The textual evidence that
Speaker 1: we get from Grace is pretty much just these administrative
Speaker 1: records of various resources that the palatial centers had. But
Speaker 1: if we look toward other areas, we get different kinds
Speaker 1: of sources, better, more detailed sources. For this, we're going
Speaker 1: to head back to the levant and the people at
Speaker 1: the city of Ugarit, which really was hit with pretty
Speaker 1: much everything that we have talked about so far. You know,
Speaker 1: there was an earthquake, there was famine, we'll get there,
Speaker 1: and there was invasion. Like really, this is a great
Speaker 1: case study for understanding the various elements at play during
Speaker 1: the Bronze Age collapse. So at Ugarit, which is in
Speaker 1: northern Syria by the way, what was been found are
Speaker 1: letters that have been sent between various individuals, from those
Speaker 1: with power all the way to people who are just
Speaker 1: involved with commerce. And within these letters, which we'll hear
Speaker 1: about in more detail in my conversations, we hear about
Speaker 1: famines across the region. These accounts are evocative and very
Speaker 1: telling to the seriousness of the situation at hand, with
Speaker 1: the most relevant of sources saying there is famine in
Speaker 1: your house. We will all die of hunger. If you
Speaker 1: do not quickly arrive here, we ourselves will die of hunger.
Speaker 1: You will not see a living soul from your land.
Speaker 1: This isn't a light account. It's very notable today, perhaps
Speaker 1: human caused famine being a bigger issue. It's this very
Speaker 1: telling account though, of just how dire a situation like
Speaker 1: this is, particularly during the collapse you know in ugar
Speaker 1: It the situation was so tense that those in charge
Speaker 1: felt the need to reach out to neighboring kingdoms in
Speaker 1: order to seek aid. There were these requests for grain
Speaker 1: and other food sources so that they would be able
Speaker 1: to feed their people. But textual sources are not the
Speaker 1: only forms of evidence that we have for these droughts
Speaker 1: and famines. Science also comes in and gives us much
Speaker 1: more explicit evidence for droughts in the region. This is
Speaker 1: done through examining pollen of all things like The long
Speaker 1: and short of how this works is that scientists have
Speaker 1: gone to the Levant and the Near East and taken
Speaker 1: these core samples from soils specifically along the areas where
Speaker 1: streams and rivers would have been in antiquity. Then they
Speaker 1: examine the samples that they retrieved to see what kind
Speaker 1: of pollens are present in them. And what these various
Speaker 1: pollens can tell us is that the kinds of plants
Speaker 1: and crops that were being grown at the time were
Speaker 1: more akin to those that do well in these more arid,
Speaker 1: dry environments. And so what comes out of this study
Speaker 1: is evidence for an incredibly long and for all I
Speaker 1: can assume arduous drought that occurred during a late thirteenth
Speaker 1: century and lasted until like the ninth century, something like
Speaker 1: three hundred years. Other studies that examine other sources have
Speaker 1: shown us that there was a drop in the sea
Speaker 1: surface temperatures that would have resulted in less precipitation on
Speaker 1: the land. And so all in all, the evidence that
Speaker 1: comes out of these various studies points to a drastically
Speaker 1: different climate in the early Iron Age from the one
Speaker 1: of the Bronze Age, and a change like this, especially
Speaker 1: if a society doesn't have much space for adaptability and
Speaker 1: really relies on what resources that they can bring in
Speaker 1: from their land like would have really devastating effects on
Speaker 1: the economic output and the ability to sustain a larger population.
Speaker 1: So what we end up seeing all across the Mediterranean
Speaker 1: and Near East is quite a drastic drop in their population.
Speaker 1: You know, there are less people. This is what happens
Speaker 1: during a famine. Of course, were to assume the worst.
Speaker 1: So looking at the end of the Bronze Age as
Speaker 1: a whole, what we see is drought and climate change,
Speaker 1: devastating natural disasters that lead to destruction of sites, invasion, migration, war,
Speaker 1: all these things by themselves are not totally devastating. They're
Speaker 1: recoverable individually. But that's the thing, you know, they were
Speaker 1: not happening one at a time. They were all happening
Speaker 1: at once or in quick succession. And this is what
Speaker 1: was so just wholly devastating to the region. It wasn't
Speaker 1: just one earthquake that a couple of sites spent a
Speaker 1: couple of years recovering from. It was a series of
Speaker 1: earthquake over a long period of time, causing this continual
Speaker 1: destruction and disruption to all these sites. It wasn't just
Speaker 1: one war or one invasion. It was a series of
Speaker 1: wars and invasions across the Aegean and Near East. It
Speaker 1: wasn't a small drought in one region. It was this
Speaker 1: prolonged and persisting drought, this drastic event of climate change
Speaker 1: that affected the regions for decades to come. And of
Speaker 1: course all of those things are going to come with refugees,
Speaker 1: with people seeking safety. All these events in succession are
Speaker 1: just not easily recoverable, like especially during a period so
Speaker 1: as early as the Bronze Age. This is what makes
Speaker 1: this time period so important to study and learn from.
Speaker 1: It's a case study of the various types of events
Speaker 1: that can affect a world so highly connected and cause
Speaker 1: it to just fall apart. But it's also important to
Speaker 1: remember that just because this occurred, just because some organized
Speaker 1: civilizations collapsed entirely, that doesn't stop people from living and
Speaker 1: building and continuing on in their individual worlds. The Mycenaean
Speaker 1: kingdoms of Mainland Grace fell apart, but all the everyday
Speaker 1: normal people that survived this didn't disappear off the face
Speaker 1: of the earth. They continued to find ways to survive
Speaker 1: in their new landscape and to build a new life
Speaker 1: for themselves. The stories of who they used to be
Speaker 1: or who they came from continued to live on in
Speaker 1: this oral tradition that they passed down to their children
Speaker 1: through the ages, and which became the stories that even
Speaker 1: today I survive on. Most of the myths that we
Speaker 1: love and talk about on this show came out of
Speaker 1: this persistence of the people living in this region at
Speaker 1: this time. It came out of their understanding of who
Speaker 1: they used to be and what they could understand from
Speaker 1: the built world around them and what little they understood
Speaker 1: of it. A couple hundred years later, Myceni continued to
Speaker 1: stand and the stories of Menelaus and Helen persisted or
Speaker 1: came into being. The various monumental palatial structures continued to stand,
Speaker 1: and people visited the enormous tombs built into the landscape
Speaker 1: and imagined that this is where Ajax and Diamedes, and
Speaker 1: Achilles and Odysseus were laid to rest. Supposedly, even Alexander
Speaker 1: the Great, on his campaigns into the Persian Empire, stopped
Speaker 1: by the believed site of the Trojan War and went
Speaker 1: to this tomb of Achilles and made a sacrifice there.
Speaker 1: That's an Alexander's story, but still like life would never
Speaker 1: be the same after the collapse but life would continue
Speaker 1: to still be life, and that's important to remember when
Speaker 1: thinking about this the end of the Bronze Age and
Speaker 1: about the collapse as a whole. It does mark an end,
Speaker 1: but not in totality. And maybe the people we should
Speaker 1: focus on are the people who were left after these events,
Speaker 1: the you and me, the ones who were going to
Speaker 1: keep going and give these stories of what was and
Speaker 1: who we were to their children for generations to come.
Speaker 1: The Bronze Age as a whole is not just an
Speaker 1: example of where these cultures that we love come from,
Speaker 1: but it's this example of human resilience and determination in
Speaker 1: the face of these uncontrollable events. It's also an example
Speaker 1: of how if the world dies, the elites die with us,
Speaker 1: or rather they die first. Oh Nerds, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for listening. That was one of the longest scripts
Speaker 1: I've read in a while, and we're just gonna wrap
Speaker 1: it all up. I have two more conversations coming for you.
Speaker 1: So this is not the end of the Bronze Age.
Speaker 1: It is just my and by that I mean Mikaela's
Speaker 1: incredible script in my attempt to read it, my attempt
Speaker 1: to wrap up this collapse in a narrative episode. But oh,
Speaker 1: I have two conversations still coming about this collapse. So
Speaker 1: we are going to go into much more detail with
Speaker 1: the actual archaeologists who know this stuff. It's going to
Speaker 1: be amazing. On Friday, you will hear Flint Dibble talking
Speaker 1: about climate change. The way the series turned into a
Speaker 1: rant against humanity's inability to act about climate change, when
Speaker 1: the Bronze Age people were able to fucking do it
Speaker 1: and they weren't causing it themselves and they didn't know
Speaker 1: about it. I just I wasn't expecting it. But you
Speaker 1: can have that to look forward to world's colliding, world's colliding.
Speaker 1: This is it's such a relevant period in time, both
Speaker 1: historically and just out of interest, and also like for
Speaker 1: us today to look back on and see, hey, they
Speaker 1: survived climate change. They didn't even know what was happening,
Speaker 1: and they certainly weren't causing it. So maybe if we
Speaker 1: can convince capitalism to stop being quite so evil, we'll
Speaker 1: have a chance or maybe get rid of it entirely.
Speaker 1: Speaking of I will finish off today's episode with a
Speaker 1: review from one of you amazing listeners. I got a
Speaker 1: few recently and they made me smile. Really really big,
Speaker 1: So thank you so much for those. If you are interested,
Speaker 1: consider living me a review on Apple Podcasts, or you
Speaker 1: can do a rating on Spotify. They just don't let
Speaker 1: you write something nice and have it sent to me,
Speaker 1: so that's why I like the reviews. This one comes
Speaker 1: from a user called lil Maru from the States. You
Speaker 1: have a fun and nice voice. I like listening to
Speaker 1: your podcast because of the subject matter, and you obviously
Speaker 1: love what you're talking about and it shows. Also I
Speaker 1: agree death to capitalism. That's right, thank you, Death to capitalism.
Speaker 1: It's evil. The Western world of is evil. Anyway, back
Speaker 1: soon with more. I can't wait for you guys to
Speaker 1: hear these conversations. Yeah, they're gonna be so good. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about Myth's Baby has written and produced by me,
Speaker 1: except not in this case. Mikayla absolutely wrote most of
Speaker 1: this entire series. I contributed minimally other than my voice.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Mikayla, you are the existence behind this Bronze
Speaker 1: age series. Laura Smith is the production assistant and audio
Speaker 1: engineer who worked so hard on all of the conversation
Speaker 1: episodes and always does select music in this episode was
Speaker 1: by Luke Chaos. The podcast is part of the iHeart
Speaker 1: Podcast Network. Listen on Spotify or Apple or wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts, and help me continue bringing you the
Speaker 1: world of Greek mythology and the Ancient Mediterranean by becoming
Speaker 1: a patron, where you'll get access to lots of past
Speaker 1: bonus episodes, hopefully some new ones, but definitely helping the show.
Speaker 1: Helping the free show, visit patron dot com, slash myths Baby,
Speaker 1: or click the link in this episode's description. Oh my
Speaker 1: voice is going Thank you all so much. This was
Speaker 1: so fun. What a series. Stay tuned for really the
Speaker 1: best parts of it. Let's be honest, the conversations are
Speaker 1: the best part of this series. Stay tuned. I am
Speaker 1: live and I love this shit and I'm excited to
Speaker 1: return to mythology, a thing that I feel more confident
Speaker 1: talking about. S