It appears that the world we have known is collapsing around us, regardless of what country we live in. This COVID virus is certainly disruptive and some hyper-ambitious political people and countries are trying to exploit the circumstances to pull off a “soft” revolution in the USA and international land grab as we struggle to adapt—and watch out Europe, Asia, and Africa! It seems likely a “hard” revolution is not far ahead and will be recognized by full metal jackets and mass arrests. But don’t panic, because what “seems like” is most likely a deceptive illusion

Today’s crisis might be seen as the collapse of a “world order” that can no longer be sustained. Free people and socialism/communism are incompatible. We’ve already proved that over the past couple of centuries—but, ah! we don’t teach our children about history and government anymore. Our children (sadly including many now in their 30’s) have no idea they’re dealing with methods that don’t work.

Well, 3197 years ago (2020 + 1177) a seemingly stable Eurasian world fell apart very quickly. Many recognized bits and pieces of what was happening then. Some could not connect the dots, and we’ll get to that when we’re done here. From eastern Europe through western Asia into Egypt, simultaneously when measured by a historian with a multi-century perspective, the lights went out and the region did a reboot that took several centuries to stabilize in its new form(s). Egypt was the only survivor and it never achieved greatness again.

There are many excellent books—fiction and nonfiction, endless dissertations, a plethora of movies, boundless inspirations for artists, and world heritage poems dealing with specific occurrences during the collapse of the Bronze Age. I was alerted to this subject when I heard one of my sons speak of the Sea Peoples some 25 years ago, but I had previously noticed the discontinuities in the history and especially the art of the Hellenes. It was June and I was leaving Yale with my fresh master’s degree and on my way with a classmate to fish in Maine. I stopped at the Yale Co-op and bought Mary Renault’s “Bull From the Sea.” A week later I realized “that happened a long time before” the Classical period and the Punic Wars, in what was then called the archaic period.

I had previously addressed the core issue of the collapse of civilization in Post 101. An omen for our time: Bronze Age Collapse.  In this link, don’t overlook the further links to Eric Cline’s docudrama and presentation to the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago.

SUMMARY OUTLINE of the Collapse of the Bronze Age. 

To help you review the events of the collapse of the Bronze Age, I found online a PowerPoint lecture: ANT (Anthropology) 245: Peoples of the World: Mediterranean Area, From Prehistory to the Trojan War. Notes & images compiled by Gregory Mumford (2018) by Professor Gregory Mumford.

If you view and study each exhibit in the lecture, you will gain a broad understanding of the events and the perspective of the major players in the following structure: 

So, don’t worry, what’s going on now can’t be any worse than that. We’ll see soon enough.

Thanks for visiting,

R. E. J. Burke