History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.
In his lecture titled “1177 BC and After: The Collapse and Survival of Civilizations,” Dr. Eric C. Cline borrowed Mark Twain’s famous phrase, “if history does indeed rhyme, then we are swiftly approaching the end of a rhyming couplet.” And he pointed to the similarities between our modern, globalized world and the world of the Bronze Age—a flourishing network of trade, diplomacy, and culture that essentially collapsed overnight.
“If history does indeed rhyme, then we are swiftly approaching the end of a rhyming couplet.”
Dr. Cline, a world-renowned archaeologist and Professor of Classics and Anthropology at George Washington University, visited Baylor University on Thursday, October 30th to deliver the Department of Religion’s annual McGee Endowed Lecture. Established to honor the legacy of Dr. Daniel McGee, the lecture invites leading scholars from around the country to speak on issues relating to ethics.
The collapse of civilizations at the end of the Late Bronze Age—Dr. Cline’s topic—may at first appear remote from the pressing ethical issues of our time. But the problems that led to the downfall of those ancient nations are strikingly similar to problems we face today: climate change, famine, political unrest.
Dr. Cline began his remarks by painting a picture of the cosmopolitan world-system at the end of the Late Bronze Age (roughly 1500-1200 BC): “[It was] what I would call the globalized Mediterranean…In today’s terms, that’s roughly from Italy on one side, to Iran, Afghanistan on the other, and from Turkey down to Egypt.” This international network was made up of Egyptians, Babylonians, and others. Through this web of trade, King Hammurabi of Babylon could even source a pair of leather sandals from the island of Minos (and return them, as the story goes.)
But why consider civilizations that seem so distant from us? Cline argued that such global interconnection is rare in human history, and thus the Bronze Age may be closer to us than its 3,200-year distance would suggest.
In a matter of years, it all fell apart. “In about 1200 BC, and in the decades after throughout the 12th century, everything that they had enjoyed just went south. They collapsed. [The system] would have been happily working for 500 years, and suddenly it went away.”
The cause? Drawing on research from his award-winning book 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed, Cline argued that the collapse was a result of a kind of “polycrisis.” While some historians attribute its cause to invasions, famine, or disease, Cline proposes a compound of disastrous factors: “My answer is yes, it’s all of the above…What if you have more than one at once, or you have them in rapid succession? What if you’re suffering from a drought which has weakened the populace? That leads people to invade you, and then you get hit by an earthquake.”
“My question is, are we going to be anti-fragile Phoenicians? Or are we going to be unprepared Mycenaeans?”
But not every civilization crumbled. While some failed to adapt, others appear to have regrouped and transformed. Dr. Cline pointed to the civilizations that adapted as models for us today—if our current crises are similar to those of Bronze Age civilizations, then perhaps the solutions are too: “My question is, are we going to be anti-fragile Phoenicians? Or are we going to be unprepared Mycenaeans?”
Indeed, avoiding the mistakes of the past is one reason to study history in the first place. When I interviewed Dr. Cline, he spoke about the vital importance of understanding history. Cline argued that “if you don’t know your own past and other people’s past, you’re in no position to figure out where we should go.” The past is a treasure trove of resources, and ignoring our ancestors because we assume they were unenlightened is like refusing a priceless gift because we think it is beneath us.
“if you don’t know your own past and other people’s past, you’re in no position to figure out where we should go.”
It can seem pessimistic to imagine that we’re heading toward collapse. But instead of hopelessness, Dr. Cline offered seven practical goals, based on the societies that adapted, to guide us away from disaster. They included crafting multiple contingency plans, preparing for extreme weather, and securing dependable water resources—nothing that hasn’t been thought of before, as Cline pointed out, but concrete objectives for our generation nonetheless.
But if you have enough people working on enough issues, then you can make a big difference…. It’s the sum of the effort
Abigail Miranda, a freshman Electrical Engineering major from Lufkin, Texas, left Cline’s lecture with a hopeful outlook. When I interviewed her, she shared how she sees her future career as a way to meet these goals, doing her part to work toward a flourishing global society: “In the field of study that I’m in, I’m looking for ways that I can apply my skills. Solar energy is a big interest of mine. I [like to ask] how do famine and the energy crisis relate? How do they play together? Because it is all interconnected, right? It’s a web—not that solving one issue will solve all the issues. But if you have enough people working on enough issues, then you can make a big difference…. It’s the sum of the effort.”
That’s what it’s really about: grasping the interconnectedness of things. How the past is tied to the present, how the Mediterranean Sea is related to Lake Waco, how an aspiring engineer can work to provide sustainable energy for an entire continent. As Wendell Berry once wrote, “History overflows time…. Every shakable thing has got to be shaken. In a sense, nothing that was ever lost has been replaced. In another sense, nothing is ever lost, and we are compacted together forever, even by our failures, our regrets, and our longings.”
If the Bronze Age collapse teaches us anything, it’s that the future depends on ordinary people making thoughtful choices in an interconnected world. As student Abigail Miranda put it, “it’s the sum of the effort.” Her words, along with Berry’s reminder that “we are compacted together forever,” might be the real lesson of 1177 B.C. History may rhyme, but the rhyme is ours to write.