Eight Empires Vanished in 1177 BC. Nobody Knows Why – Dr. Eric Cline, DemystifySci +429

Summary

The conversation explores the interconnected societies of the Late Bronze Age, the collapse around 1200 BC—symbolized by Eric Cline’s book title 1177 BC—and the uneven recovery that followed. A central point is that the collapse did not mean the disappearance of entire populations: political systems and palace economies broke down, but many communities survived and reorganized.

A connected ancient world

• Cline describes the Late Bronze Age Mediterranean and Near East as an interconnected system, rather than a collection of isolated civilizations. Trade, diplomacy, marriage alliances, and political rivalries linked societies across a region stretching roughly from Italy to Afghanistan and from Anatolia to Egypt.
• The major powers he informally groups as the ancient “G8” are the Mycenaeans, Minoans, Hittites, Canaanites, Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, and Mitanni.
• These societies exchanged raw materials and finished goods, including copper, tin, silver, gold, grain, wine, olive oil, perfume, pottery, and weapons. Tin was especially important because it was needed to make bronze.
• Akkadian served as a common language for much of the region’s written diplomacy and trade. Cline notes that ancient societies also had practices familiar today, such as embassies, embargoes, private merchants, and state-supported commerce.
• Because these economies depended on one another, disruption in one part of the network could affect others. The interconnectedness that enabled wealth and trade also created vulnerabilities.

Different societies, different evidence

• The Minoans of Crete are often characterized as relatively open and trade-focused, while the Mycenaeans of mainland Greece are associated with fortifications and a more militarized culture. The Mycenaeans eventually took over Crete, though the details and dates remain debated.
• The Hittites, Mycenaeans, Minoans, and other peoples did not all interact in the same ways. Archaeological evidence and texts suggest some connections, while other apparent gaps—such as the scarcity of Hittite objects in Mycenaean areas and vice versa—have prompted hypotheses about restricted trade or embargoes.
• Cline treats the Trojan War as a possible memory of real conflicts over territory and trade. Troy may have been known to the Hittites as Wilusa and may have been caught between Hittite and Mycenaean expansion. He argues that the later Greek epic tradition may preserve a historical core, but should not be read as a literal account.
• Cyprus is presented as a distinct society and a regional crossroads, influenced by nearby cultures without simply being the product of successive invasions. Its writing system, Cypro-Minoan, remains undeciphered, limiting what can be learned from local written records.
• The surviving evidence is fragmentary. Cline compares archaeology to assembling a jigsaw puzzle with an unknown number of pieces and no picture on the box; many goods and records have disappeared or been reused.

The collapse and its aftermath

• The collapse is best understood as a multicausal crisis, rather than the result of one proven cause. The discussion refers to environmental stress and drought, disease, famine, invasions, internal unrest, and trade or supply-chain disruption as possible interacting pressures.
• Cline describes his approach as following the evidence rather than beginning with a preferred explanation. He initially considered proposed causes separately, weighed their strengths and weaknesses, and concluded that several could have contributed at once.
• The effects were uneven. Palace-centered societies such as the Mycenaeans and Hittites suffered severe breakdowns, while Assyrian and Babylonian power continued in altered forms. The transition was not uniform across the region.
• The Phoenicians and Cypriots were among the relative winners of the aftermath. They retained maritime and commercial capabilities while other powers’ fleets and trade systems weakened, allowing them to expand their role in Mediterranean exchange.
• Cline suggests that decentralization may have helped them: the loss of one city or palace would not necessarily bring down other independent city-states. He presents this as a possible explanation, not a settled answer.
• The Phoenician alphabet may have spread partly through ordinary contact between merchants and local communities, rather than through a deliberate program of cultural expansion. Its phonetic structure made it easier to learn than complex writing systems requiring lengthy specialist training.
• Cypriots appear to have helped spread iron tools and weapons after the collapse, though the precise paths of technological transmission remain uncertain.

How to evaluate archaeological claims

Cline and the hosts emphasize the importance of distinguishing evidence-based hypotheses from attractive but poorly supported stories:

• Start with the available evidence rather than deciding in advance what the answer must be.
• Compare proposed explanations and assess how well each fits the different kinds of evidence.
• Check whether a hypothesis is consistent with other findings and whether it requires ignoring inconvenient evidence.
• Treat uncertainty honestly: a plausible interpretation is not the same as an established fact.
• Recognize that discoveries can change accepted interpretations, while avoiding claims that cannot be tested or that rely on cherry-picking.
• Remember that archaeological breakthroughs often build on earlier work. The discussion notes, for example, that Schliemann’s search for Troy and Michael Ventris’s decipherment of Linear B depended on prior scholarship and collaborators.

Possible lessons for the present

• Large, interconnected systems can be prosperous but vulnerable when essential goods and services depend on distant partners.
• Societies may be more resilient when power and economic activity are not concentrated in a single palace or center.
• Cline raises the possibility that exploitation and dissatisfaction among lower-status people contributed to instability in some Mycenaean societies. This remains a developing hypothesis, but it suggests that collapse may have affected elites and ordinary people differently.
• Water security is one practical lesson Cline highlights: environmental resources mattered then and remain important now.
• The hosts and Cline stress that understanding why some societies recovered while others did not is essential if the past is to offer useful lessons. At present, the reasons for these different outcomes remain uncertain.

Speakers and sources featured

Speakers

• Shiloh — co-host of the Demystify SciTech podcast.
• Anastasia — co-host of the Demystify SciTech podcast.
• Eric Cline — archaeologist and ancient historian at George Washington University.

Works, evidence, and people discussed

• Cline’s books 1177 BC, After 1177, Love, War, and Diplomacy, Three Stones Make a Wall, and From Eden to Exile.
• Ancient evidence discussed includes the Amarna letters, Hittite treaties and references to Ahhiyawa and Wilusa, Linear B tablets, the Wenamun story, Ramses III’s account of a naval battle, and archaeological shipwrecks including Uluburun and Cape Gelidonya.
• Scholars and writers mentioned include Glynis Fox, Josephine Quinn, Shelley Wachsmann, Jeffrey Emanuel, Joseph Maran, Michael Ventris, Alice Kober, Emmett Bennett, Heinrich Schliemann, Frank Calvert, Sir Leonard Woolley, Gavin Menzies, Erich von Däniken, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Samuel Huntington, Francis Fukuyama, and David Macaulay.