Eric Cline makes a good case that the Bronze Age empires were organized around a “palace economy”, where only certain people (royals & their pals) were even allowed to trade. In some places the sovereign literally owned all the land and people on it.
One can imagine that a series of bad seasons, natural disasters, invasions & other stressors would open a window for revolt.
Yes tin was a factor, yes the “Sea Peoples” were a factor. But you don’t get the wholesale overthrow of so many empires without the common people being at least somewhat welcoming of the invaders (when not happily assisting them!) in throwing off centuries of elite oppression.
I wonder if the sea people were just displaced-farmers-turned-raiders that created some open loop feedback that in turn spawned more sea people in self defence or self survival.
The mythological idea of them just appearing out of nowhere is nice too. Makes it feel aligned with something like the pyramids having no explanation
They probably never existed in the first place. Most of the evidence for the “Sea People” story is extremely tenuous. Those maps you’ve seen with lots of cities burnt down? Bogus. Often it is really just one burnt down building in a village or town that looks like it might date to approximately the right century. The maps also cherry–pick the data by showing all the towns that they count as burned down wile ignoring the far larger population that were not, and by obscuring the fact that these fires were spread out over such a long period of time.
Obviously nobody knows. Whoever wrote those inscriptions apparently didn’t either. Even taking them at face value, however, the evidence that these “Sea People” systematically attacked all of civilization is extremely tenuous. There probably never was a power capable of kicking over all of the anthills and destroying civilization without leaving any other archeological evidence of their existence.
I've never heard that the Sea People were a cohesive force, attacking all of Bronze civilization in anything like a coordinated attack.
Waves of invaders can take many generations to wear down the native forces. They don't need to be allied in any formal sense, either. See for example: Saxons turning Britain Anglo-Saxon.
cobbzilla · · focus · HN ↗
One can imagine that a series of bad seasons, natural disasters, invasions & other stressors would open a window for revolt.
Yes tin was a factor, yes the “Sea Peoples” were a factor. But you don’t get the wholesale overthrow of so many empires without the common people being at least somewhat welcoming of the invaders (when not happily assisting them!) in throwing off centuries of elite oppression.
glouwbug · · focus · HN ↗
The mythological idea of them just appearing out of nowhere is nice too. Makes it feel aligned with something like the pyramids having no explanation
db48x · · focus · HN ↗
smcg · · focus · HN ↗
db48x · · focus · HN ↗
IAmBroom · · focus · HN ↗
Waves of invaders can take many generations to wear down the native forces. They don't need to be allied in any formal sense, either. See for example: Saxons turning Britain Anglo-Saxon.
db48x · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49923712">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49923712