Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Late Bronze Age Collapse

acoup.blog

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 330 posts

Re: Late Bronze Age Collapse

#51

Post by ReptileMan »

simiones wrote: post #29
Brendinooo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It injects some really interesting color into the Tanakh/Old Testament - I'm not sure anyone has definitively lined up the Bronze Age Collapse with Biblical events, but it sure seems to have happened somewhere between the Exodus and King David. One can easily see the events leading to the Exodus being enabled by (or causing, depending on who you ask!) the weakening of Egypt, and the period in Joshua and Judges descri…

The Exodus is an entirely fictional account though, it's not based on any real historical events. Even King David seems to be mostly mythical, though there is some vague evidence of a "House of David" being something some real kings claimed descent from. Edit: I should say "almost entirely fictional". The main scholarly agreement is that it may record some stories of some small numbers (hundreds, at most some thousan…

Iliad is fictional yet Troy existed. The biblical flood was mythical yet couple of thousand years ago black sea connected to the Mediterranean and probably was not entirely unpeaceful.

I have absolutely backed by nothing theory that ancient Armenians and Jews are the same people that got separated. For some tribe living on the shores of east black sea - a myth about massive flood and some saving boat that stopped on Ararat is easy to see how it could be created.

Of course it takes incredible levels of incompetence to be lost in sinay for 40 years. But apply exponential reduction for each generation of oral account and you may get to something resembling truth.

Re: Late Bronze Age Collapse

#52

Post by krapp »

BurningFrog wrote: post #46
simiones wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Exodus is an entirely fictional account though, it's not based on any real historical events. Even King David seems to be mostly mythical, though there is some vague evidence of a "House of David" being something some real kings claimed descent from. Edit: I should say "almost entirely fictional". The main scholarly agreement is that it may record some stories of some small numbers (hundreds, at most some thousan…

Are you saying we have no evidence that Exodus happened, or that we have real evidence that it did NOT happen?

We know the Exodus didn't happen because the supernatural elements described cannot have happened, and there is no evidence of any such mass migration in the archeological record, nor any non-Biblical references to such an event taking place.

It may be the case that the Exodus tale is a recontexualization of various historical memories of nomadic resettlement combined with political narrative, but the actual story as described in the actual Bible didn't happen.

Re: Late Bronze Age Collapse

#53

Post by jerf »

Brendinooo wrote: post #25
evanjrowley wrote: post #2

Seems to be a popular topic. Historian Eric H. Cline has multiple books citing this time period, specifically 1117 BCE as the inflection point for the bronze age "collapse", defined by a deterioration of international shipping routes that weakened the nation-states of the era. I've learned about it recently because YouTube began recommending videos about it. For example: https://youtu.be/choxcHXhZhE?is=t5lDwQQpqPsE2k…

It injects some really interesting color into the Tanakh/Old Testament - I'm not sure anyone has definitively lined up the Bronze Age Collapse with Biblical events, but it sure seems to have happened somewhere between the Exodus and King David. One can easily see the events leading to the Exodus being enabled by (or causing, depending on who you ask!) the weakening of Egypt, and the period in Joshua and Judges descri…

You'd probably find https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xy2Ic_j0SnA interesting.

For the rest of HN, while that video is from someone who takes the Bible seriously, you can also view it as an interesting examination of the historical time period, even if with a particular lens and slant. Who doesn't have a particular lens and slant anyhow?

Re: Late Bronze Age Collapse

#54

Post by The_Blade »

evanjrowley wrote: post #2

Seems to be a popular topic. Historian Eric H. Cline has multiple books citing this time period, specifically 1117 BCE as the inflection point for the bronze age "collapse", defined by a deterioration of international shipping routes that weakened the nation-states of the era. I've learned about it recently because YouTube began recommending videos about it. For example: https://youtu.be/choxcHXhZhE?is=t5lDwQQpqPsE2k…

Eric Cline is great - when i had a tooth removed in a somewhat nasty procedure i spent a Caturday hepped up on goofballs watching his videos on LBA while playing Hatshepsut on Diety in Civ VII 1.4 (i got to play test 1.3.2 via Firaxis via discord, ooh la la i call a car hole a garage)

in my personal "immersive learning" period starting 2021, i discovered acoup.blog when Old World came out and extended into reading while playing Civ VI and CK III. it actually started the February before COVID, playing Plague while watching Contagion and reading whatever peer-reviewed shit i could find. total Chris Crawford with a brain-eating amoeba action

EDIT: in the blind i'm guessing the port city of which you speak is Ugarit, which i had never heard of. IIRC everything was weakened by drought and famine, and Ugarit's armies were pulled over to the Hittites who abandoned Ugarit to The Sea Peoples. and the Sea Peoples always came off like a "cosmological constant" fudge factor where constant advances in shipwreck archaeology should provide more clarity in its merry time

history is dope. it never repeats itself but it always rhymes :)

Re: Late Bronze Age Collapse

#55

Post by pfdietz »

throwaway27448 wrote: post #44
stymaar wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Today we have a huge buffer from the large use of grain to feed animals. This, plus the gigantic amount of agricultural land being used for biofuel production (almost as much as cattle food).

Who ever thought the idea of biofuel was a good one? Is it just as much a blatant jobs program as it seems?

It's the result of politics, and that's not always pretty.

Re: Late Bronze Age Collapse

#56

Post by reactordev »

Retric wrote: post #43
reactordev wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The corn grown that’s not for human consumption is only because it’s earmarked for feed or biofuels. Corn is corn. Where I live, 1 in 4 fields is “for human consumption”

Filed corn is harvested at a different time resulting in a dryer product. But yes if people get hungry enough, field corn easily qualifies as actual food.

There are 4 types of corn. Dimple/dent corn, pop corn, sweet corn, and flint corn. Each variety can be eaten. Prepared differently of course as they have different starches and flavors but the vast majority of corn fields in the United States grow dent corn for feed and biofuels.

Re: Late Bronze Age Collapse

#57

Post by pfdietz »

cs702 wrote: post #50
evanjrowley wrote: post #2

Seems to be a popular topic. Historian Eric H. Cline has multiple books citing this time period, specifically 1117 BCE as the inflection point for the bronze age "collapse", defined by a deterioration of international shipping routes that weakened the nation-states of the era. I've learned about it recently because YouTube began recommending videos about it. For example: https://youtu.be/choxcHXhZhE?is=t5lDwQQpqPsE2k…

The OP talks about the drought extensively. Quoting: > there is quite a lot of compelling evidence that period of LBAC [late bronze age collapse], especially the 1190s, was unusually dry in the Eastern Mediterranean, which would have caused reduced agricultural output (crop failures). Interestingly, this would be most immediately impactful in areas engaged primarily in rainfall agriculture (Greece, Anatolia, the Leva…

One possibility I've wondered about is the emergence of a new crop pathogen. This might be addressed by looking at DNA of modern crop pathogens, and possibly looking if there was a change in the crops being grown before/after the LBAC.

Re: Late Bronze Age Collapse

#58

Post by simiones »

BurningFrog wrote: post #46
simiones wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Exodus is an entirely fictional account though, it's not based on any real historical events. Even King David seems to be mostly mythical, though there is some vague evidence of a "House of David" being something some real kings claimed descent from. Edit: I should say "almost entirely fictional". The main scholarly agreement is that it may record some stories of some small numbers (hundreds, at most some thousan…

Are you saying we have no evidence that Exodus happened, or that we have real evidence that it did NOT happen?

If there had been a massive migration of hundreds of thousands of people, and even more so hundreds of thousands of slaves, from late bronze age Egypt (a powerful, old, highly literate kingdom), we would expect to find significant evidence of this (inscriptions, local stories, migration sites, etc). The absence of any such evidence, while not conclusive proof of course, constitutes evidence against this event happening.

We also know for example that the types of beliefs detailed in Exodus, especially the idea that the Israelites worshiped Yahweh alone as the only God, are not historical. Belief and worship of other gods were common in both the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah long after the supposed time that the Exodus happened - in particular El (who was later associated with Yahweh) and Asherah (who was sometimes seen as the wife of Yahweh). So at least this aspect of the Exodus narrative is directly contradicted by archaeological evidence.

This is similar to the reason we believe the stories in Genesis are not historical, e.g. the flood, - if they had been historical, we expect that they would have left behind certain marks; those marks haven't been found, so we have a reason to believe that they didn't happen.

Re: Late Bronze Age Collapse

#59

Post by onion2k »

inigyou wrote: post #37
onion2k wrote: post #14

The Bronze Age was the third best age.

The Iron Age can be researched at your Town Center, but the Post-Iron Age isn't a real age, it's just an extra setting on the map settings menu that starts you in the Iron Age with everything already researched.

It was a Gold, Silver, Bronze joke. :(

Re: Late Bronze Age Collapse

#60

Post by CountHackulus »

darkfloo wrote: post #3
evanjrowley wrote: post #2

Seems to be a popular topic. Historian Eric H. Cline has multiple books citing this time period, specifically 1117 BCE as the inflection point for the bronze age "collapse", defined by a deterioration of international shipping routes that weakened the nation-states of the era. I've learned about it recently because YouTube began recommending videos about it. For example: https://youtu.be/choxcHXhZhE?is=t5lDwQQpqPsE2k…

Shameless plug for my favourite YouTuber of all time https://youtu.be/aq4G-7v-_xI?si=GviYcvEtOAJ1mln7

Historia Civilis somehow distills subjects down to squares in a great way. Entertaining and informative. Fantastic channel.
Post reply on HN