BIBLE HISTORY DAILY

Bronze Age Collapse: Pollen Study Highlights Late Bronze Age Drought

Featuring sidebars on pollen analysis and the collapse of Bronze Age cities from Biblical Archaeology Review and Archaeology Odyssey

Sites destroyed in the Bronze Age collapse around 1200 B.C.E.

During the Late Bronze Age (1500–1200 B.C.E.), the Eastern Mediterranean boasted a flourishing network of grand empires sustaining sophisticated infrastructures, the likes of which the world would not see again for centuries to come. An interregional destruction (attested in Greece, Turkey, Israel, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt) known as the Bronze Age collapse is one of archaeology’s greatest mysteries.

In the Archaeology Odyssey article “When Civilization Collapsed: Death of the Bronze Age,” William H. Stiebing describes the Late Bronze Age collapse:

It was a cataclysm of immense proportions: Near the end of the 13th century B.C.E., the great Bronze Age civilizations of the Aegean and Near East suddenly collapsed. In the latter part of the Late Bronze Age (c. 1400–1200 B.C.E.), Mycenaean civilization flourished in Greece and Crete. The Hittites controlled most of Anatolia and northern Syria from their capital at Hattusa. The Egyptian New Kingdom ruled not only in the Nile Valley but also in Palestine and southern Syria. Commerce flowed over trade routes that crisscrossed both land and sea. A late-14th-century B.C.E. ship excavated off the Uluburun promontory in southern Turkey, for example, carried cargo from Cyprus, Canaan, Egypt, Anatolia and Mycenaean Greece. A century later, all these civilizations had begun to unravel. Cities burned, trade became almost nonexistent, and large groups of people migrated from one place to another.

The Bronze Age collapse was swift and sudden, ushering in a so-called “Dark Age” of decreased literacy, population and technology in much of the Eastern Mediterranean. However, as Thomas Fuller wrote in A Pisgah Sight of Palestine in 1650, “It is always darkest just before the Day dawneth.” The power vacuum and increased migration surely played a role in the emergence of the Biblical Israelites and classical Greeks.


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But what caused the Bronze Age collapse? Scholars have proposed a combination of factors including marauding Sea Peoples, plagues and earthquakes leading to a so-called “systems collapse,” in which complex societal networks broke down under mounting interregional economic or demographic pressures. Some see Homer’s Iliad as an illustration of the warfare that brought about (or occurred in the wake of) the Late Bronze Age collapse.


The free eBook Island Jewels: Understanding Ancient Cyprus and Crete takes you on a journey to two stunning, history-laden islands in the Mediterranean. Visit several key historical places on both islands and discover many of the great objects that have been unearthed there by archaeologists.


 

A 12th-century inscription describes Ramesses III’s defeat of the Sea Peoples. The Sea Peoples, a range of groups including the Philistines, led raids on the Eastern Mediterranean during the period of the Bronze Age collapse and are often cited as the reason for the collapse.

A study of pollen grains in sediment cores beneath the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea provides a new view of the Bronze Age collapse. The research, published in Tel Aviv: Journal of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University, suggests that drought may have played a major factor leading to the Bronze Age collapse. Every plant produces a distinct pollen print (see below), and the studies show a decrease in trees requiring a great deal of water and an increase in the cultivation of dry-climate trees, such as olive trees, during the period between 1250 and 1100 B.C.E. Tel Aviv University professor Israel Finkelstein told the New York Times that pollen counts taken every 40 years are the “highest resolution yet in this region.” When compared with pollen data from Anatolia, Cyprus, Syria and the Nile Delta, the studies suggest a broader climate change across the Eastern Mediterranean around the time of the Bronze Age collapse.

The three-year pollen study is part of a broader scientific research project conducted by Israel Finkelstein and the Weizmann Institute’s Steve Weiner that includes DNA and molecular studies of archaeological data.

The pollen data is critical for understanding the Late Bronze Age collapse. While a single source for the centuries-long upheaval seems unlikely, an extended period of drought may have led to economic failures and population migration, sparking broader military and other conflicts that broke down the extended imperial network of the Late Bronze Age. While Egypt, Hatti, Mycenae and others would never rise to their pre-collapse levels of prosperity again, the so-called Dark Ages saw the birth of some of history’s most prodigious cultures, including the Biblical Israelites.


Read more about the pollen study in The New York Times.

Read the American Friends of Tel Aviv University Press Release.

Read more about pollen studies in Bible History Daily.

Read about the Early Bronze Age Levant in Bible History Daily.

Read “Earthquake Storms: What triggered the collapse?” by Amos Nur and Eric H. Cline as it appeared in the September/October 2001 issue of Archaeology Odyssey.

Not a BAS Library or All Access Member yet? Join today.


 

City by City: Death of the Bronze Age

Special Feature: Read “City by City: Death of the Bronze Age” as it appeared in the September/October 2001 issue of Archaeology Odyssey below. Read William H. Stiebing, Jr.’s full article “When Civilization Collapsed: Death of the Bronze Age” in the BAS Library.

Mycenae: The City of King Agamemnon

Described by Homer as a “strong-founded citadel” that was “rich in gold,” Mycenae was the greatest of the Mycenaean cities that flourished in mainland Greece from about 1600 to 1200 B.C. (In the Trojan War, Mycenae’s king, Agamemnon, is the king of kings who leads the Greeks into battle.) Around 1500 B.C. Mycenaeans conquered the island of Crete and adapted the Minoan script, called Linear A, to write their own language, an ancient form of Greek. This new script, called Linear B, was used solely for recording inventories and commercial transactions; hundreds of Linear B tablets have been found both on Crete and in such Mycenaean cities as Tiryns, Pylos and Mycenae itself. When Heinrich Schliemann excavated Mycenae in the 1870s, he uncovered royal shaft graves filled with extraordinary gold artifacts (such as the famous Mask of Agamemnon, shown above). All of the Mycenaean cities were destroyed toward the end of the 13th century B.C. or the beginning of the 12th century B.C.

Knossos: Center of Minoan and Mycenaean Civilizations

The island of Crete gave rise to Europe’s first and most splendid Bronze Age civilization. In the early second millennium B.C., the Minoans, named by modern archaeologists after the legendary King Minos, built an elaborate palace complex at Knossos, which was excavated—and partly restored—by the British antiquarian Arthur Evans about a century ago. The Minoans were extremely influential in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean—trading textiles, timber and wine to Cyprus for copper and Anatolia for tin. Minoan frescoes dating to the 17th century B.C. have been found in the Nile Delta, in the northern Levant and on the Anatolian coast. The Minoans also developed a script, the still-undeciphered Linear A, to write their language. In Knossos’s maze-like palace complex, Evans found frescoes of bull-leapers and exquisite bull’s-head rhytons, reflecting the Minoans’ reverence for the bull as well as the myth of Minos and the labyrinth he built to house the Minotaur. In the early 15th century B.C. Crete was invaded by Mycenaeans from the Greek mainland—who absorbed numerous aspects of Minoan culture (such as writing) and occupied the palace at Knossos.
Learn more about the Minoans for free in Bible History Daily

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Troy: Homer’s great Late Bronze Age City

Located near the western entrance to the Dardanelles, ancient Troy (modern Hisarlik, in northwestern Turkey) grew rich levying mooring fees on vessels waiting to negotiate the straits leading to the Black Sea. First inhabited in the early third millennium B.C., Troy became an important commercial center for wool, horse-breeding and metalworking. (The gold objects of “Priam’s Treasure,” excavated by Heinrich Schliemann in 1873, are from the end of the third millennium B.C.) Late Bronze Age Troy, perhaps the city described by Homer, lasted from about 1700 to 1200 B.C.; this settlement featured towering fortifications and a great defensive moat. The citadel’s palaces were destroyed around 1250 B.C.—either by earthquake, fire or attack—and replaced by more modest buildings. Some 70 years later, Troy was attacked and burned, perhaps giving rise to oral stories that four centuries later would be written down by Homer.

Hattusa: Capital of the Hittite Empire

So vast was the Hittite capital of Hattusa (modern Bogazköy, in central Turkey) that its circuit walls ran for six miles. The city contained a temple complex with a remarkable library of over 3,000 clay tablets—many of them written in Hittite, the earliest recorded Indo-European language. The Hittites worshiped their “One Thousand Gods” in the sanctuary of Yazilikaya, a rock outcropping 2 miles from Hattusa that was carved with images of Hittite and Hurrian deities and kings. By the mid-14th century B.C. the Hittites had become one of the Near East’s superpowers, rivaling Egypt in the south and Assyria in the east. Toward the end of the 13th century B.C., however, their kingdom suddenly collapsed and Hattusa was destroyed.

Ugarit: A Fusion of Canaanite and Syrian culture

During the second half of the 14th century B.C., Ugarit, on Syria’s Mediterranean coast, experienced a period of great peace and prosperity. Ugarit’s merchants traded for Mesopotamian and Lebanese timber, Mycenaean pottery, Egyptian ivory, Cypriot copper and Anatolian tin. This was one of the Bronze Age’s most scintillating cities: Its citizens carved delicate ivory figurines (above), made elaborate inlaid furniture, adapted the Semitic alphabet for cuneiform characters and recorded numerous Canaanite myths, songs and stories. (Much of this was revealed by the French archaeologist Claude Schaeffer, who excavated Ugarit from 1929 to 1970.) Ugarit’s golden age ended around 1300 B.C., when an earthquake struck the region and a tidal wave and fire engulfed the city. A century later, invading Sea Peoples from the Aegean disrupted the city’s commercial routes and forced much of its population to migrate to other sites. The Sea Peoples eventually conquered Ugarit and set the city ablaze.

Megiddo: City of Armageddon

Perhaps no other city in the ancient world is so associated with destruction as the mountaintop citadel of Megiddo, in north-central Israel. (The word “Armegeddon,” referring to the final battle between Good and Evil, derives from har Megiddo, a Hebrew term meaning “mountain of Megiddo.” Settled by Canaanites in the fourth millennium B.C., Megiddo prospered greatly during the Late Bronze Age. During this period, a palace was built near the gateway of the city, with an ingenious passageway cut through the bedrock to link the citadel to a spring outside the city’s walls. Around 1130 B.C., Megiddo and other Canaanite cities were violently destroyed—perhaps by a strong earthquake.

Learn about Megiddo’s Early Bronze Age Great Temple and what it can teach us about the birth of cities in the Levant for free in Bible History Daily.


The free eBook Island Jewels: Understanding Ancient Cyprus and Crete takes you on a journey to two stunning, history-laden islands in the Mediterranean. Visit several key historical places on both islands and discover many of the great objects that have been unearthed there by archaeologists.


 

How to Read Pollen

Special Feature: Read “How to ‘Read’ Pollen” by Vaughn M. Bryant, Jr. as it appeared in the November/December 2000 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review below. Read Bryant’s full article “Does Pollen Prove the Shroud Authentic?” in the BAS Library.

Pollen analysis—the application of statistical methods to the study of pollen—is less than a century old. Its basic principles were set forth by German geologist Lennart von Post (1884–1951), who used pollen to study past environments. He noted five key features of pollen. First, many plants produce vast amounts of pollen, which are dispersed by the wind. The average pine tree, for example, produces more than 100 billion pollen grains. Second, pollen has a very durable outer wall, called the exine, which can stay intact for a very long time. Examples have been found that are 250 million years old. Third, the general shape and the surface features of pollen vary between plant species, yet they are the same in all plants within the same species. Fourth, the distribution of pollen-producing plants is governed by such ecological factors as moisture, temperature and soil type; the more favorable the conditions for a particular plant, the more of that plant—and its wind-borne pollen—one would expect to see in that region. Fifth, almost all wind-borne pollen falls back to earth within about 30 miles of the plant that produced it, with the overwhelming majority (95%) found within a mile.

Pollen, in sum, is plentiful, hardy, identifiable and traceable to its point of origin.

Plants can produce a staggering amount of pollen. Swedish scientists estimate that the spruce forests in the southern third of their country release more than 75,000 tons of pollen into the atmosphere each year. Some flowering plants, however, generally those with colorful flowers to attract insects, produce relatively tiny amounts of pollen, relying on insects, birds or bats—rather than the wind—to carry out pollination.
The rate of pollen production is an important factor in palynology. Specialists must first determine the expected amounts and the dispersal patterns (called the pollen rain) of a specific pollen type in a particular region and then compare that to what they find on the item under study. With the Shroud of Turin, for example, we must ask if the types and amounts of pollen on the shroud match the pollen patterns in Jerusalem.

In court cases where pollen evidence is introduced, it is the pattern of pollen types—the “pollen print”—that can link a suspect to a crime scene. For example, in a case that took place in New Zealand in 1995–1996, a young woman was attacked and killed in a botanical garden. The suspect swore that he had never been at the site, but pollen embedded in his sweater came from plants not found in the area—except in the botanical garden. The suspect was convicted.


The free eBook Island Jewels: Understanding Ancient Cyprus and Crete takes you on a journey to two stunning, history-laden islands in the Mediterranean. Visit several key historical places on both islands and discover many of the great objects that have been unearthed there by archaeologists.


 

Related reading in Bible History Daily:

The Decline of the Neo-Assyrian Empire

Did Climate Change Bring Sumerian Civilization to an End?

The Last Days of Hattusa

What Does the Aegean World Have to Do with the Biblical World?


This Bible History Daily feature was originally published on October 22, 2013.


 

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19 Responses

  1. Glenn Allen says:

    No “Turkey?” Geez–picky.

  2. Lisa says:

    “An interregional destruction (attested in Greece, Turkey, Israel, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt) known as the Bronze Age collapse is one of archaeology’s greatest mysteries.”
    Really, Turkey? Turkey did not exist until many centuries later, so why not say Asia minor (now Turkey)….

    1. madeleine says:

      So vast was the Hittite capital of Hattusa (modern Bogazköy, in central Turkey) that its circuit walls ran for six miles. The city contained a temple complex with a remarkable library of over 3,000 clay tablets—many of them written in Hittite, the earliest recorded Indo-European language. The Hittites worshiped their “One Thousand Gods” in the sanctuary of Yazilikaya, a rock outcropping 2 miles from Hattusa that was carved with images of Hittite and Hurrian deities and kings. By the mid-14th century B.C. the Hittites had become one of the Near East’s superpowers, rivaling Egypt in the south and Assyria in the east. Toward the end of the 13th century B.C., however, their kingdom suddenly collapsed and Hattusa was destroyed.

      There you are. TURKEY in the BRONZE AGE.

  3. 1300-1200 BCE: The Israelis Move In - rhylan.co.uk says:

    […] of Canaan (taken from biblearchaeology.org) in 1200 […]

  4. Pamela Levene says:

    I wonder why Steibing chooses to use the anachronistic term “Palestine”? Until the Romans conquered the Land of Israel over twelve hundred years later, this name was unknown!

    1. SaEFan says:

      Ms Levene, the word Palestina is the Roman version of the Hellenic Greek Palaistine, who were the precursor occupiers of the Land of Israel. “Pal” means wrestle, which in Biblical Hebrew and Arabic is “ysr”. Ysr-El means “wrestle with God”. That is what the forefather Jacob did in Beth El early-mid 3rd Millennium BCE. In other words, “Palestinians” are the Israelites, none others, and Palestine is today synonymous with all the territory from the Jordan to the Med. This includes Israel , Samaria, Judah, Gaza, and actually the ancient territories of Ammon, Moav, and Edom, the latter three today in the Kingdom of Jordan. Of course one may argue the ancient frontiers. The Arab Filashtini (their name for themselves in Arabic) have appropriated the Israelites’ (today’s Jews) name in Latin for themselves, a theft that needs to be rectified.

  5. Hilary says:

    Um, I’m a bit puzzled here as to why the end of the bronze age is seen as a mystery at all. The end of the bronze age more or less coincides with the beginning of the iron age. Iron was a truly revolutionary technology – much tougher than bronze, but also much more democratic. Only elite craftspeople could work bronze, which can only be cast (so any damaged items have to be melted down and re-cast) but every village can host a blacksmith who can make and repair iron tools. In particular, iron ploughs. The iron plough changed agriculture, for ever – it made tough soils arable in a way that no one had imagined before. And in consequence, led to new agricultural settlements and sudden population shifts in unexpected places. The pressure this exerted is more than adequate explanation for the collapse of existing civilisations. So I really don’t think there is a mystery that needs to be explained. It was iron what done it.

    1. SaEFan says:

      Inherent in your take is that the transition from bronze to iron was rapid. Actually meteoric iron and alloys had been in use for thousands of years. It was the mining and working of Terran iron that created the difference. The transition took 50 yrs in some places, and 300 in others. Hence Homer wrote of happenings of his own lifetime.

  6. In the news: Climate Change Doomed the Ancients | Petros Koutoupis says:

    […] Publication: The New York Times Article: Climate Change Doomed the Ancients Author: Eric H. Cline Date: 05/27/2014 Synopsis: One of the most vivid examples comes from around 1200 B.C. A centuries-long drought in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean regions, contributed to — if not caused — widespread famine, unrest and ultimately the destruction of many once prosperous cities, according to four recent studies. Links: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/28/opinion/climate-change-doomed-the-ancients.html?_r=0&referrer= Related link: http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/ancient-near-eastern-world/bronze-age-coll… […]

  7. Bronze Age Collapse: Pollen Study Highlights Late Bronze Age Drought | ΝΕΑ ΠΝΕΥΜΑΤΙΚΗ ΑΝΤΙΔΡΑΣΗ says:

    […] http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/ancient-near-eastern-world/bronze-age-coll… Share this:FacebookLike this:Like […]

  8. Paul Ballotta says:

    A type of magical power was attributed to the ancient bards ( Hebrew “moselim”, Numbers 21:27), who sang epics of heros like those that are found in the Illiad. In the case of the sorcerer Balaam, these songs were not used as a mocking taunt against a defeated enemy, but were invoked as a curse like a weapon in war against nations (Numbers 22:6). Of Balaam it says, “he took up his masal” ( Numbers 23:7, 18; 24:3, 15).
    In the book of Zohar, Moses is contrasted with Balaam:
    “Moses’ actions were high, those of Balaam, low. Moses worked wonders with the holy crown of the supernal King above; Balaam worked black magic with the nethermost crowns, unholy, below” (Zohar, The Book of Enlightenment, by Daniel Matt, p.103).
    “So in order to draw upon himself impure spirit from that supernal serpent, that wicked Balaam defiled himself every night with his donkey, engaging with her conjugally, in order to become defiled and draw upon himself impure spirit; then he enacted his sorcery” (The Zohar, by Daniel Matt, vol. II, p.216).
    “Now Balaam, seeing that it pleased the Lord to bless Israel, did not, as on previous occasions, go in search of omens” (“nehashim,” serpentine sorceries, Numbers 24:1).

  9. Paul Ballotta says:

    Actually it was Moses whose staff turned into a serpent, with his older brother Aaron having the staff that turned into a dragon. We don’t know why the Pharaoh’s magicians failed so pathetically, but it’s my guess that Moses and Aaron got their power right from the source; the Ain Soph, which means “without end” in Kabbalistic literature. Since infinity cannot be comprehended, this attribute of God is represented as a point; the beginning of all.
    Jews living in Moslem Spain during the 13th century were influenced by Sufi Islam, which was itself influenced by Neoplatonism and Gnosticism. The Arab mystic Ibn Arabi wrote, “Everything emanates from the central circle – Light – which is the presence of God. Thus the substance and the emanations are one.” These emanations, known as the ten sephiroth, can be discerned by us through the lowest level, which is the sephirah of Kingdom; the world we inhabit that is limited by space and time. Of the ten sephiroth, seven are expressed as the seven days of of creation in Genesis 1, while the other three sephiroth are hidden. The upper sephiroth,, Wisdom and Understanding, can be discerned only through the seven lower sephiroth, wjth the Crown being the highest and beyond human comprehension.
    Someone tried to apply this theory to physics, though not everyone agrees. In a New york Times article, “God Is Also a Cosmologist” (June 8, 1997) a brief summary is given:
    “The first of the sephirot is Keter (Crown), a symbol of God’s infinite potential to create. It can be likened to what cosmologists call ‘eternal inflation,’ the infinite bubbling potential from which they believe the universe arose before the Big Bang. The second, Hokhmah (Wisdom), is the bursting through of the univeres from the realm of pure potential to actual physical existance, which,Mr. Primack says, is like the initial blinding instant of the Big Bang itself. The third, Binah (Understanding), is the female womb in which creation expands, which he sees as analogous to the unfolding of space, time and matter out of the Big Bang.”

  10. Paul Ballotta says:

    “At many of the Greek sites destroyed in the Caiastrophe there is in fact evidence that the arsonists must have been looking for something other than food. The destruction levels at these sites yielded carbonized remains of wheat, barley, olive pits, and grape seeds and evidence that the enemy destroyed pthoi and stirrup jars without emptying them of their contents. That storerooms of food were burned to the ground by starving mobs would be suprising. What we see in the eastern Mediterranean ca. 1200 is a general pattern of destruction by fire, and both logic and data indicate that the sites were razed by well-armed enemies” (The End of the Bronze Age, by Robert Drews, p.84).
    It is against this backdrop of invading Sea Peoples (with their ballads of the sack of Troy) that Moses is alone at the burning bush talking with God. The first test is to grasp the snake by the tail until it becomes a staff (Exodus 4:4). According to Carl Sagan in his “Dragons of Eden,” the snake is our central nervous system that runs along the spine with the snake’s head being the lower part of the human brain that controls baser animal instincts. Later he would act as a channel for “Ehyeh” which represents the will of God and compete against the whims of Pharaoh and his many magicians. In Exodus 7:12 the contest involves dragons, since crocodiles were worshipped in Egypt and were a symbol of Pharaonic power.

    1. H Shamir says:

      I suggest you read my paper in Academia.org “Moses to God: What Shall I Say Is Your Name?”

  11. Paul Ballotta says:

    Interesting revelation, that this period of dry climate conditions began around 1250 B.C.E., the same time as the destruction of the city of Troy. In Homer’s Illiad, it was the Achaeans from mainland Greece who laid seige to Troy, and Hittite records from this time mention the encroaching influence of the land of Ahhiyawa (Achaia) along the western coast of Anatolia.
    I can’t help but see a similarity between the name “Ahhiyawa” and the divine name revealed to Moses as “Ehyeh” (I will be) in Exodus 3:14,15. This was to be the Lord’s name for eternity, and the word for eternity, “olam,” is similar to the Arabic word for creation or world. In a Muslim parallel to Moses’ revelation (Koran 28:30) Allah reveals Himself to Moses as the “Lord of the Worlds.” Just as the Greeks extolled the plundering expeditions of the Achaeans against the city of Troy, so too did God’s intervention to save His people endure from generation to generation in the appellation of “I will be what I will be.”
    Let there be light.

  12. links to the land | preachersmith says:

    […] Age: Bronze Age Collapse: Pollen Study Highlights Late Bronze Age Drought [required […]

  13. Israel Finkelstein Paper Suggests LB Collapse In Canaan Fueled by Drought | Against Jebel al-Lawz says:

    […] apparently what the paper says. In any case, since the population of Canaan grew during the Late Bronze […]

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19 Responses

  1. Glenn Allen says:

    No “Turkey?” Geez–picky.

  2. Lisa says:

    “An interregional destruction (attested in Greece, Turkey, Israel, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt) known as the Bronze Age collapse is one of archaeology’s greatest mysteries.”
    Really, Turkey? Turkey did not exist until many centuries later, so why not say Asia minor (now Turkey)….

    1. madeleine says:

      So vast was the Hittite capital of Hattusa (modern Bogazköy, in central Turkey) that its circuit walls ran for six miles. The city contained a temple complex with a remarkable library of over 3,000 clay tablets—many of them written in Hittite, the earliest recorded Indo-European language. The Hittites worshiped their “One Thousand Gods” in the sanctuary of Yazilikaya, a rock outcropping 2 miles from Hattusa that was carved with images of Hittite and Hurrian deities and kings. By the mid-14th century B.C. the Hittites had become one of the Near East’s superpowers, rivaling Egypt in the south and Assyria in the east. Toward the end of the 13th century B.C., however, their kingdom suddenly collapsed and Hattusa was destroyed.

      There you are. TURKEY in the BRONZE AGE.

  3. 1300-1200 BCE: The Israelis Move In - rhylan.co.uk says:

    […] of Canaan (taken from biblearchaeology.org) in 1200 […]

  4. Pamela Levene says:

    I wonder why Steibing chooses to use the anachronistic term “Palestine”? Until the Romans conquered the Land of Israel over twelve hundred years later, this name was unknown!

    1. SaEFan says:

      Ms Levene, the word Palestina is the Roman version of the Hellenic Greek Palaistine, who were the precursor occupiers of the Land of Israel. “Pal” means wrestle, which in Biblical Hebrew and Arabic is “ysr”. Ysr-El means “wrestle with God”. That is what the forefather Jacob did in Beth El early-mid 3rd Millennium BCE. In other words, “Palestinians” are the Israelites, none others, and Palestine is today synonymous with all the territory from the Jordan to the Med. This includes Israel , Samaria, Judah, Gaza, and actually the ancient territories of Ammon, Moav, and Edom, the latter three today in the Kingdom of Jordan. Of course one may argue the ancient frontiers. The Arab Filashtini (their name for themselves in Arabic) have appropriated the Israelites’ (today’s Jews) name in Latin for themselves, a theft that needs to be rectified.

  5. Hilary says:

    Um, I’m a bit puzzled here as to why the end of the bronze age is seen as a mystery at all. The end of the bronze age more or less coincides with the beginning of the iron age. Iron was a truly revolutionary technology – much tougher than bronze, but also much more democratic. Only elite craftspeople could work bronze, which can only be cast (so any damaged items have to be melted down and re-cast) but every village can host a blacksmith who can make and repair iron tools. In particular, iron ploughs. The iron plough changed agriculture, for ever – it made tough soils arable in a way that no one had imagined before. And in consequence, led to new agricultural settlements and sudden population shifts in unexpected places. The pressure this exerted is more than adequate explanation for the collapse of existing civilisations. So I really don’t think there is a mystery that needs to be explained. It was iron what done it.

    1. SaEFan says:

      Inherent in your take is that the transition from bronze to iron was rapid. Actually meteoric iron and alloys had been in use for thousands of years. It was the mining and working of Terran iron that created the difference. The transition took 50 yrs in some places, and 300 in others. Hence Homer wrote of happenings of his own lifetime.

  6. In the news: Climate Change Doomed the Ancients | Petros Koutoupis says:

    […] Publication: The New York Times Article: Climate Change Doomed the Ancients Author: Eric H. Cline Date: 05/27/2014 Synopsis: One of the most vivid examples comes from around 1200 B.C. A centuries-long drought in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean regions, contributed to — if not caused — widespread famine, unrest and ultimately the destruction of many once prosperous cities, according to four recent studies. Links: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/28/opinion/climate-change-doomed-the-ancients.html?_r=0&referrer= Related link: http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/ancient-near-eastern-world/bronze-age-coll… […]

  7. Bronze Age Collapse: Pollen Study Highlights Late Bronze Age Drought | ΝΕΑ ΠΝΕΥΜΑΤΙΚΗ ΑΝΤΙΔΡΑΣΗ says:

    […] http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/ancient-near-eastern-world/bronze-age-coll… Share this:FacebookLike this:Like […]

  8. Paul Ballotta says:

    A type of magical power was attributed to the ancient bards ( Hebrew “moselim”, Numbers 21:27), who sang epics of heros like those that are found in the Illiad. In the case of the sorcerer Balaam, these songs were not used as a mocking taunt against a defeated enemy, but were invoked as a curse like a weapon in war against nations (Numbers 22:6). Of Balaam it says, “he took up his masal” ( Numbers 23:7, 18; 24:3, 15).
    In the book of Zohar, Moses is contrasted with Balaam:
    “Moses’ actions were high, those of Balaam, low. Moses worked wonders with the holy crown of the supernal King above; Balaam worked black magic with the nethermost crowns, unholy, below” (Zohar, The Book of Enlightenment, by Daniel Matt, p.103).
    “So in order to draw upon himself impure spirit from that supernal serpent, that wicked Balaam defiled himself every night with his donkey, engaging with her conjugally, in order to become defiled and draw upon himself impure spirit; then he enacted his sorcery” (The Zohar, by Daniel Matt, vol. II, p.216).
    “Now Balaam, seeing that it pleased the Lord to bless Israel, did not, as on previous occasions, go in search of omens” (“nehashim,” serpentine sorceries, Numbers 24:1).

  9. Paul Ballotta says:

    Actually it was Moses whose staff turned into a serpent, with his older brother Aaron having the staff that turned into a dragon. We don’t know why the Pharaoh’s magicians failed so pathetically, but it’s my guess that Moses and Aaron got their power right from the source; the Ain Soph, which means “without end” in Kabbalistic literature. Since infinity cannot be comprehended, this attribute of God is represented as a point; the beginning of all.
    Jews living in Moslem Spain during the 13th century were influenced by Sufi Islam, which was itself influenced by Neoplatonism and Gnosticism. The Arab mystic Ibn Arabi wrote, “Everything emanates from the central circle – Light – which is the presence of God. Thus the substance and the emanations are one.” These emanations, known as the ten sephiroth, can be discerned by us through the lowest level, which is the sephirah of Kingdom; the world we inhabit that is limited by space and time. Of the ten sephiroth, seven are expressed as the seven days of of creation in Genesis 1, while the other three sephiroth are hidden. The upper sephiroth,, Wisdom and Understanding, can be discerned only through the seven lower sephiroth, wjth the Crown being the highest and beyond human comprehension.
    Someone tried to apply this theory to physics, though not everyone agrees. In a New york Times article, “God Is Also a Cosmologist” (June 8, 1997) a brief summary is given:
    “The first of the sephirot is Keter (Crown), a symbol of God’s infinite potential to create. It can be likened to what cosmologists call ‘eternal inflation,’ the infinite bubbling potential from which they believe the universe arose before the Big Bang. The second, Hokhmah (Wisdom), is the bursting through of the univeres from the realm of pure potential to actual physical existance, which,Mr. Primack says, is like the initial blinding instant of the Big Bang itself. The third, Binah (Understanding), is the female womb in which creation expands, which he sees as analogous to the unfolding of space, time and matter out of the Big Bang.”

  10. Paul Ballotta says:

    “At many of the Greek sites destroyed in the Caiastrophe there is in fact evidence that the arsonists must have been looking for something other than food. The destruction levels at these sites yielded carbonized remains of wheat, barley, olive pits, and grape seeds and evidence that the enemy destroyed pthoi and stirrup jars without emptying them of their contents. That storerooms of food were burned to the ground by starving mobs would be suprising. What we see in the eastern Mediterranean ca. 1200 is a general pattern of destruction by fire, and both logic and data indicate that the sites were razed by well-armed enemies” (The End of the Bronze Age, by Robert Drews, p.84).
    It is against this backdrop of invading Sea Peoples (with their ballads of the sack of Troy) that Moses is alone at the burning bush talking with God. The first test is to grasp the snake by the tail until it becomes a staff (Exodus 4:4). According to Carl Sagan in his “Dragons of Eden,” the snake is our central nervous system that runs along the spine with the snake’s head being the lower part of the human brain that controls baser animal instincts. Later he would act as a channel for “Ehyeh” which represents the will of God and compete against the whims of Pharaoh and his many magicians. In Exodus 7:12 the contest involves dragons, since crocodiles were worshipped in Egypt and were a symbol of Pharaonic power.

    1. H Shamir says:

      I suggest you read my paper in Academia.org “Moses to God: What Shall I Say Is Your Name?”

  11. Paul Ballotta says:

    Interesting revelation, that this period of dry climate conditions began around 1250 B.C.E., the same time as the destruction of the city of Troy. In Homer’s Illiad, it was the Achaeans from mainland Greece who laid seige to Troy, and Hittite records from this time mention the encroaching influence of the land of Ahhiyawa (Achaia) along the western coast of Anatolia.
    I can’t help but see a similarity between the name “Ahhiyawa” and the divine name revealed to Moses as “Ehyeh” (I will be) in Exodus 3:14,15. This was to be the Lord’s name for eternity, and the word for eternity, “olam,” is similar to the Arabic word for creation or world. In a Muslim parallel to Moses’ revelation (Koran 28:30) Allah reveals Himself to Moses as the “Lord of the Worlds.” Just as the Greeks extolled the plundering expeditions of the Achaeans against the city of Troy, so too did God’s intervention to save His people endure from generation to generation in the appellation of “I will be what I will be.”
    Let there be light.

  12. links to the land | preachersmith says:

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