111–120 of 330 posts
My pet hypothesis is : That trade networks, in times of collapse- become sort of superspreader networks of downfall. Think about that city state who runs out of food by the sea! It still has all the trading vessels- whats more logic then to go - and take over somebody elses city and ships! Piracy of the damned! Stealing the food from the starving, just to give there families one more day! Following the coast- until y…
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The people of that era would have thought so. The Iliad and the Odyssey (if they have any basis in reality) might be examples of that period seen through a lens of mythology.
How so? Are the Greek the sea people then?
Very possibly a subset of the Sea Peoples were Greek. Egyptians reported the "Ekwesh" (which might be the Egyptian word for Achaeans) and the "Denyen" (which might be the Egyptian word for Danaans) among the Sea Peoples.
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…
> deterioration of international shipping routes like a closing of a certain straight that was essential for a large percentage of a necessary resource?
Enough of that & hardly any inter-state trading is left.
I am mobile and not at my main system with my HN login, so I made this temp, but I think I cracked the primary cause and have been slowly working on a paper to submit to the journals... I was doing geological research trying to show how crustal displacement theory is incorrect, and stumbled upon a paper that elucidated the insight: There was a localized weakening of the geomagnetic field in the Levant and in the Med…
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Yes, Troy existed - we know that because we found it. If we found evidence of a mass migration of slaves from Egypt to Canaan, we'd also know that certain aspects of the Exodus narrative are true - but no such evidence has ever been found. The biblical flood has been connected to various possible historical floods, but any such connection is highly speculative and tenuous, because the details simply can't match the o…
>We also know that the monotheistic/henotheistic religion described in the Exodus narrative was not the religion practiced by the people of Canaan, nor of the early kingdoms of Israel and Judah, which worshiped several other gods in addition to Yahweh (there are temples and inscriptions attesting to worship of Asherah, El, and even Baal in addition to Yahweh, at least). The Exodus narrative explicitly describes the e…
I am mobile and not at my main system with my HN login, so I made this temp, but I think I cracked the primary cause and have been slowly working on a paper to submit to the journals... I was doing geological research trying to show how crustal displacement theory is incorrect, and stumbled upon a paper that elucidated the insight: There was a localized weakening of the geomagnetic field in the Levant and in the Med…
This is an interesting theory. My question is: What methods are you using to test the change in magnetic fields? Put another way, what is your middle range theory from an archaeological perspective? How are you dating your samples? etc.
Beware the Sea Peoples
I wish the author would go into detail about the sea peoples. From what I read, one theory is that they were subject allies of the Hittites; once the Hittites collapsed they went in search of better farmland with their entire families.
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> The biblical flood was mythical yet couple of thousand years ago Pretty much every ancient religion/group has a "biblical" flood story. Even those from different continents. Haven't you seen Ancient Aliens?
It could be just that almost all ancient civilizations were near water bodies that could flood. Any big flood would seem apocalyptic for the population size of the time.
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Eric Cline has an interview on "Tides of History" podcast.
I'm really annoyed that Patrick gave up on that. I mean, I know he's been doing it a decade, and I can't chain him to a desk, and I'm being entitled, but...
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> So it's wasteful, not at all "Green", and inefficient, but do we have a replacement octane booster that wont poison people? I'm not sure it's all that wasteful. The waste product from biofuel production is distillers grains [1] which are just fed back to animals afterward for the protein, fiber, and fat content. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distillers_grains
It's wasteful in the sense that we are exploiting lots of land for the limited value it brings.
The "limited value" isn't so limited when we're talking about an additive to gasoline. The first thing we tried polluted the entire world with a background level of lead!