1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed (Turning Points in Ancient History)

The historian writing about the Aegean Bronze Age faces an uncomfortable choice. They can take a point of view and make a compelling narrative but only at the cost of simplifying or ignoring the scanty and contradictory evidence. Or they can delve into the complexities and the current arguments in the field at the cost of providing a confused turmoil into which the reader is lost. Eric Cline does very, very well at charting a course between those extremes; he makes it possible to follow the story while exposing and exploring the counter-evidence and competing theories. The late bronze age in the Aegean, as he describes so eloquently in the opening chapter, is a frighteningly familiar world; wide-spread nets of trade and economic interdependence, a complex weave of diplomatic relationships, the pressures of environmental change and a growing undercurrent of violence. In what seems like a blink over half the great players were seemingly wiped from the map (although all may not be as it seems there). One can't help thinking of the phrase "Too big to fail" and wondering if there is a warning here for us. It is also a fascinating, vibrant time. And a time in which foundational legends were being laid; set in this time, though not neccessarily happening in it, are the Greek myths, the Homeric epics that shape so much of the self-perception of the Western world, the events of Exodus...and this is also the height of Egypt's power, the New Kingdom, from where also comes so many of the stories and myths which would be recorded and elaborated in the Ptolemiac. The book is long, but still too short for the subject. Fortunately it is packed with citations. And dense, too; I am on my fourth or fifth reading and I'm still finding new things to explore. As with all history, but particularly history of the Ancient World, archaeology and the associated fields have seen incredible advances over the past years. Even Egyptology, buttressed by the volume of texts (and the historical accidents that made them translatable rather early on) is changing paradigms almost daily. In my humble, amateur opinion, it isn't worth reading a history written more than twenty years ago unless you are interested in the history of history. Fortunately, then, this is a recent book by someone who is active in the field. He honestly explores outmoded concepts such as the Dorian Invasions and manages to give both a historical perspective and ways in which the concept is still useful in a more modern conception. Oh, right. And it is incredibly readable for the amateur and the non-specialist. This is a serious history, make no doubt about it (the pages and pages of citations should tell you that). But it is fully accessible to any reader.

"1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed," by Eric H. Cline, is a short and engaging book of archeological evidence and theory that kept me so glued to the pages that I finished it in one day. Unfortunately, I found the book as disappointing as it was fascinating. It wasn't what I thought it would be. Nevertheless, I was pleased with what it did contain and that's why it is getting four stars. Let me explain. This book does an excellent job of setting forth the raw summarized archeological evidence supporting the concept that virtually all Late Bronze Age civilizations in the Aegean, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Near East collapsed beginning in 1197 BC (with the Sea Peoples' successful invasion of Egypt) and continuing like a wave of disintegration across the basin over the many decades. What followed was a mini-dark ages lasting many centuries before civilization once again rebounded in the Iron Age. Cline's book summarizes the primary source evidence demonstrating how these Late Bronze Age civilizations were dependent on a highly complex system of regional trade in luxury items, foodstuffs, essential raw materials, ideas, and specialized high-technology experts. He also presents evidence showing how this system broke down and collapsed as the result of a "a concatenation of events, both human and natural--including climate change and drought, seismic disasters known as earthquake storms, internal rebellions, and `systems collapse' that brought this age to an end." As to an overall theory for this process, the author believes that the answer can be found by applying "complexity theory" to the evidence. I whole-heartedly agree! But this is exactly the point at which the author completely failed me. In my estimation, Cline did a very poor job of showing the evidence in support of that idea. I certainly don't pretend to be an expert in the science of complex adaptive systems, but it soon became clear to me that I may have actually read more on this new science than he has. The author did a very fuzzy job of describing how the evidence might support the application of complexity theory to this particular situation. In particular, the author could have presented evidence from related sciences in support of this idea. I wanted to see evidence from archaeobotany (the study of plant remains), zooarchaeology (the study of faunal remains), archaeopedology (the study of soil and uses of the soil), and paleoclimatology (the study of ancient climates). In my estimation, we won't fully understand these events until their evidence is given equal weight. Two years ago, I did a college-level independent study and report on the collapse of the Bronze Age Mycenaean civilization. So, I am well-acquainted with the evidence pointing toward complexity theory as the root cause. At that time, I read evidence concerning deforestation, erosion, drought, soil fertility depletion, and other environmental causes that may have been significant causal factors behind the rebellions and the emergence of the "Sea Peoples." I don't see this evidence in Cline's book...just brief mention that some of this may be involved. Perhaps this quote might help. It comes from one of the major scholars studying and applying complexity theory to a wide number of issues. The scholar is Yaneer Bar-Yam. He is head of the New England Complex Systems Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He says: "A networked society behaves like a multicellular organism; random damage is like lopping a chunk off a sheep. Whether or not the sheep survives depends on which chunk is lost. And while we are pretty sure which chunks a sheep needs, it isn't clear--and may not even be predictable --which chunks of our densely networked civilization are critical, until it's too late. When we do the analysis, almost any part is critical if you lose enough of it. Now that we can ask questions of such systems in more sophisticated ways, we are discovering that they can be very vulnerable." The actual text of Cline's book is only 177 pages in length, so it is a fairly small book that can be read in a brief amount of time. The rest of the book consists of detailed notes, a glossary of important ancient people in the book, and a bibliography. I enjoyed it. I learned a great deal. I would definitely recommend it together with the caveats I've noted above.

This book is very strong as a non-technical summary of the Hittite and Ugarit power centres and their correspondence. The main weaknesses are the attempts to determine causes of events. The author often explains causes as maybe this, or maybe that, or maybe something else. In other words, he rarely succeeds in pinning down the causes of things. The author describes very effectively, and in some fascinating detail, how the ruling classes of the numerous power centres of the eastern Mediterranean region communicated with each other about their administrations, armies and personal issues. However, most of the archaeology tells us predominantly only about the ruling classes and their collapse. Presumably the societies continued after the collapse of ruling élites, but without the central control, taxation and oppression. Thus 1177 BC should not be thought of as the date of collapse of civilisation, but rather the collapse of the ruling élites. There's an interesting early case of game theory on pages 29-30, where a king decided to take the most difficult path to attack a town, rather than the two easier paths, because the enemy would place all of their defences at the easy approaches. This is similar to the Calais-versus-Normandy decision in WW2. But this early game-theory-like thinking was in 1479 BC. Two small sections of this book could have been more useful at the beginning. The two-page map on pages 110-111 is a very useful overview of all of the individual towns which collapsed, and the 4-page "dramatis personae" on pages 181-184 gives useful perspective for all of the personalities which appear in the narrative. They would have been more useful just before page 1. I wondered about the name Ahhiyawa for Mycenaean Greece. It looks pretty clearly like an early form of Achaea. So I'm not sure why this was not discussed. There's a little error on page 37, where the activities of Schliemann in the "mid- to late eighteenth century" are discussed. Wrong century, I think. Pages 139-179 are concerned principally with speculation as to the causes of the apparent "collapse of civilization". These are the weakest pages in the book. The most meaningless and implausible explanation given by the author is that the international order became too complex. He invokes some kind of "complexity theory", which he himself admits on pages 169-170 is "possibly pseudoscientific" and "does not really make all that much sense". I would omit the word "possibly". The main problem which I see in the idea that "civilization" collapsed is that it was really only the palaces and a few towns which collapsed and were not re-built. Also, the written correspondence would naturally disappear if local power centres collapsed. The fact that the ruling 1% lost their ability to rule the 99% does not imply that the 99% just disappeared into thin air. (Remember that only the ruling class had access to reading and writing.) It seems that the rulers at that time had over-leveraged their power, in the same way that the Roman Empire over-leveraged its power, finally depending on foreign mercenaries which it could no longer pay. (Too much outsourcing!) And of course, if the 99% get no benefit from supporting the lavish life-style of the 1%, they might not consent to be ruled by them. And then, for example, they might burn down the palaces and loot the towns and cities. Despite its failings, this book deserves a strong 5 out of 5 for all of the fascinating correspondence of the Hittite and Ugaritic kingdoms which I didn't know much about before. If there is a lesson for the present, it might be that excessive concentration of power and wealth in the ruling classes might not be good for long-term stability.

It's a good book, one that fills in a significant gap that can often be seen in other books on the ancient Bronze Age societies. Cline is very, very careful to qualify findings, which makes a lot of sense but also gives the book a vague, indeterminate feel. The fact is that we just don't much about what happened, and the little we do know is not enough to actually construct a strong narrative on the events that led to all of these civilizations falling apart. So, at times, it led me to wonder why I was actually reading this book. I also find the name to be disingenuous. The year is chosen because that is when we "know" that Ramses III encountered the Sea Peoples in Egypt, but Cline spends a significant chunk of the book underplaying the role the Sea Peoples had in Bronze Age Collapse. In fact, sometimes it feels like he is underplaying the Bronze Age Collapse itself. He is quite quick to point out the cities that were re-populated, that did not suffer as much as first thought, and so forth. Yet he also doesn't, in my opinion, spend nearly enough time in Greece, as the destruction of the Myceneae civilization is much more total than the ones he does focus on. Then again, though, the information we would need to tell that story is just not there. However, these faults are outweighed by the fact that Cline paints a very, very good picture of what civilization was like at the time before the collapse. The picture he paints is one of, by all accounts, a very cosmopolitan, dynamic, lively society. It's where the vast majority of the book spends its time, and it's clear that is where Cline's interests lie. The problem is that the narrative is set up so that this is merely a prologue to the collapse, yet the way the collapse is soft-pedaled makes the whole thing feel more like a bait & switch. I would have happily read a book on Late Bronze Age civilization that was sold as such, but perhaps the publishers thought selling it as a gripping story of collapse would get more attention (and they were probably right). I do recommend this book, just don't go in expecting what the title and description says.

[ I have edited this review to correct some flaws pointed out in comments. ] The other reviewers have already pointed out the book's many fine points; I agree with them that this is a book well worth reading. I had long thought that the Late Bronze Age Collapse was primarily due to the depredations of the Sea Peoples, and this book scotches that idea. Yes, the Sea Peoples played a part in it, but they may well have been just as much Effect as Cause. That is, their rampage may well have been induced by the same factors that brought down other cities. The real contribution of this book lies in the application of recent archaeological findings to the problem. Over the last few decades archaeologists have built up a steady compilation of data on the cities of the Late Bronze Age, and they have demonstrated that not all those cities were destroyed in wars. Some show evidence of having been wrecked by earthquakes; in others, the destruction is confined to the central palace and government facilities, suggesting that a popular revolt, not a foreign invasion, lay behind the destruction. Other sites, however, do show the kind of general destruction we'd expect from a victorious enemy. Especially important is the evidence they bring to bear showing that some sort of regional climate change was responsible for the at least some part of the collapse. The evidence indicates a cooler, dryer climate which would have been devastating to the cereal crops on which civilizations are dependent. The cooler climate would have led to repeated famines that would have led to revolts, migrations, and wars - all of which appear in the record of this period. However, there are two points on which I disagree with the author. The first is the author's decision not to organize the causal factors into some sort of logical pattern. Instead, he declares that all of the factors (climate change, poor harvests, migration, civil disturbance, and war) converged to create a "perfect storm" that destroyed Late Bronze Age civilization in the Near East. That struck me as overly conservative. My second objection falls on the assumption that a collapse of international trade caused by the piratical depredations of the Sea Peoples added to the collapse. The author several times refers to an 'international system' of trade, likening it to modern globalization. He even goes so far as to suggest that the societies of that time had developed such intricate trade relationships that the disruption of those relationships helped undermine the societies. The problem arises when you think in terms of economic output. In all early societies, agricultural output constituted the vast majority of economic output. Sure, the historical records teem with stories of gems, spices, precious woods, and metals, but they attracted so much attention only because they were so rare. In terms of economic output, grain was far and away the most important component of all ancient societies. Indeed, in 1790, 90% of all laborers in the USA worked on farms. So let's keep our eyes on the ball here: grain. Trade in grain was rare and limited to emergency situations, because the transport systems of the Late Bronze Age were incapable of moving grain in bulk. The ocean-going ships of the day had cargo capacities of a few tens of tons. Grain was carried in heavy ceramic jars; a single ship could carry enough food to provide for at most a hundred people for a year. Land transportation was even worse: the inefficient wagons and poor roads of the day did not permit the carriage of large amounts of grain very far. After a few tens of miles, so much of the grain would have to go to feed the dray animals that there just wouldn't be much left at the destination. Thus, the disruption of trade would have denied rulers their luxuries, but would not have made much of a dent on the economy as a whole. A postscript to this review: the author of the book, Eric Cline, has graciously responded to my criticisms and finally gotten through my thick head a point that, while not mentioned in this review, came up in the exchange of comments. He has taken a lot of his time to straighten me out, and I deeply appreciate his patience with my errors.

I'm a big reader of apocalyptical fiction, but sometimes it's good to return to non-fiction and think about the real world. So I picked up this book to learn about "the year civilization collapsed" in 1177 BC. I've also always been interested in ancient civilizations like the Egyptians, Babylonians, Hittites, etc. but I am no expert in this field and am certainly not an archeologist. So I approach this book from the perspective of an interested but not particularly well-informed layperson. The book first sets the scene of what countries had diplomatic, trade, martial, or cultural relationships with each other in the Late Bronze Age. A few interesting and sometimes even amusing anecdotes are sprinkled in here, so reading it in short chunks is a good way to pass the time. The author describes this network of countries as "international" or "globalized"--I would hesitate to call this state of affairs "globalization" but I take the author's point that the countries were interconnected and in some ways interdependent. The book then walks you through major developments in research in this area, from archeological digs (and reinterpretations of the findings there), a little linguistic analysis, climate research, etc. Although perhaps a little dry, this part gives you plenty of names and footnotes for further exploration if there is a particular researcher or research point you'd like to follow up on later. Those looking for a grand conclusion about how and why various major civilizations in the Mediterranean collapsed may be disappointed. The author challenges the view that the legendary "Sea Peoples" launched invasions and singlehandedly took down all these countries. Rather, the author indicates that there may have been a "perfect storm" of natural disasters, climate change, political and economic instability, social unrest, and other factors that may have brought the international network to its knees and pushed the "elites" of the palace-centered societies back into the ranks of the ordinary folk, who then fell into a "dark age" of sorts that later gave rise to the advances of the Iron Age. (As a result, the title is a little misleading, as 1177 BC ends up being of relatively little relevance, since the author concludes that the collapse took place over a longer period, and readily admits that the selection of that year for the end of an era is more or less symbolic, like the dates some use to declare the end of the Roman Empire.) Overall, I appreciated the author's skeptical approach, as he points out inconsistencies and possible alternative explanations, and challenges existing research where he finds it lacking. I'm left with the impression that a lot of amazing research has been done in this area, and that more work is needed to better understand the Late Bronze Age and what came after. Also, a word of caution: the book isn't quite as long as you might think. The footnotes, bibliography, and index make up about 45% of the book (based on Kindle percentages). The rest of the writing is not overly wordy, but could have been made a little more concise and clear in places, too. As for the Kindle edition of this book: On a Kindle Paperwhite, I found that the few tables and maps in this book were far too small to read, even when I double-touched to zoom. So the map was essentially worthless. The footnotes worked well, popping up the notes and citations whenever I wanted to check them. The table of "dramatis personae" at the end was of little use since it's harder to just "flip" to the back of the book and back in a Kindle, but x-ray seems to work if you want to check on other references to a particular name or place.

I have a soft spot for history books about a particular year (see my reviews of 33A.D, 1421, and, most recently, 1913, for a few examples). That being said, when I saw the year 1177 B.C. emblazoned across the cover of this book, I was especially intrigued. The farther you go back in history, the harder it must be to know things accurately. What could one really know about a specific year over 3000 years ago? Turns out, quite a lot. According to Egyptian hieroglyphics, this was the year that the “Sea Peoples” invaded. Though they were ultimately defeated, the cost of the victory was so great that Egypt was sent into a decline that would last centuries. And Egypt was merely the last in a series of declines of great empires in the eastern Mediterranean. The Minoans, Hittites, Babylonians, and others had all faded or disappeared in the decades leading up to 1177 B.C. What is fascinating about this period and what Mr. Cline brings out well is how interconnected these empires were. We tend to think of ancient people as being very connected to their local land (as many people certainly were); however, there were classes of people—soldiers, merchants, diplomats, etc.—who traveled extensively. These empires became very entwined and often depended on each other for important trade items: natural resources like metals and timber as well as finished goods that the artisans of various cultures specialized in. Though these empires may not have dealt across a truly worldwide area like we do today, their interdependence was quite similar. In fact, as Mr. Cline is trying to point out, historians who look to one cause for the overthrow of empires are probably off track. Different area experienced different things: a drought here, and earthquake there, and then a weakening of trade that left certain areas vulnerable to invasion or internal revolt. Moreover, what happened in one area likely contributed to what happened in one of these connected empires. In the end, Mr. Cline has produced an interesting, balanced, and highly readable look into the far distant past, basing his conclusions on ancient records and current archeology which he describes well. I was very taken with his account. Apparently, this book is to be the first in a new series, “Turning Points in Ancient History”. I am interested to see what is coming next.

Readers familiar with Ancient Egypt are more than aware of the invasions of the Sea Peoples who have been blamed for the general collapse of the Late Bronze Age. According to earlier historians, successive pulses of invasion against Egypt were turned back by the pharaohs Merneptah and Rameses III, but the rest of the civilizations of the eastern Aegean and the Near East (Mycenae, the Minoans, the Hittites, and various others) suffered decline and collapse, leading to the beginning of the Iron Age. Eric Cline has written a fascinating book that demonstrates that the fall of the Late Bronze Age (LBA) can be attributed to a series of calamities, of which the Sea Peoples were just one factor, albeit a possibly major one. Possibly, because Cline continually is setting them up as a cause for collapse of individual polities, but mostly knocks that conclusion down again and again. This can be frustrating as the reader begins to see it as one big tease (but brilliantly done). Potential readers should be aware that the first 60% to 65% of the book is spent setting up the case for seeing these civilizations as one interconnected area brought together by trade and cultural exchanges. This part is utterly fascinating. He then examines the evidence for and against other causes besides foreign invaders for the decline and collapse of the LBA. Among these causes are earthquakes, internal rebellions, foreign invaders, and famine resulting from crop failures induced by climate change. Climate change is a loaded term today, however, and it would have served Cline better just to have said 'drought', persistent or otherwise. Ultimately, Cline sees the end of the LBA as a congeries of a wide set of calamities which disrupted trade routes which led to collapse. He invokes complexity theory also to,demonstrate that complex systems are always susceptible to collapse. For me, this is a fancy way of stating the obvious and it smacks of historical determinism. Also the emphasis on economic decline seems to be problematic. This is frustrating as such determinants as Assyrian imperialism and Mycenaean ambitions against Knossos are only lightly touched upon. Although the Egyptians and the Hittites had by this time reached an understanding and even a sort of alliance, the LBA was not simply an age of international amity. All that aside, this book is packed with learning, wit, and a fine sense of discernment. This book begs for further reading on the subject and the author provides an outstanding bibliography to that end. I rate this book a solid four stars with some parts rating five stars. So 4 1/2 stars then.

Although this work has very few illustrations it does boast two very helpful maps featuring the eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. Fortunately, the illustrations are excellently presented and explained and are ideally placed to fit in with the text. In Fig 1 on page 2 is an illustration of captured Sea People, circa 1177 BC dressed in kilts patterned with their very own 'clan' designs. Prior to the advent of these Sea People the Middle East had been governed by a series of advanced civilisations some with moral codes superior to anything to be found in the Old Testament. Flooding in the region of Mesopotamia in the flood plain of the sister rivers Tigris and Euphrates (now largely in modern Iraq) gave rise to a variety of flood legends predating the two woven together flood myths in Genesis in the OT by something like 1000 years. Although the author, Eric H Cline, does his very best to fit the story of the Exodus of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt into a viable historic period it is quite plain that he is not convinced by any of the meagre, not to say concocted, evidence available. It rather looks as if the Israelites were an off-shoot of the Canaanite people who didn't eat pigs and were gravitating towards monotheism in the wake of an upheaval caused by an invasion by the 'Sea Peoples' who may also well have been called 'Philistines'. Mr Cline has an excellent writing style that makes this work a joy to read. He is also mostly content to reveal the facts and let them speak for themselves. The work consists of a preface, prologue, five chapters and a short epilogue. There is an extensive bibliography and an index. Chapter One is entitled: Act 1. Of Arms and the Man. The Fifteenth Century BC. Chapter Two: Act II. An (Aegean) Affair to Remember: The Fourteenth Century BC. Chapter Three: ACT III. Fighting for Gods and Country. Chapter Four. ACT IV. The End of an ERA: The Twelfth Century BC. Chapter Five: A Perfect Storm of Calamities. Epilogue: The Aftermath. The author obviously has no axe to grind. He is concerned only with presenting the facts based on reliable evidence and, when anything is unclear, he says so. To make things even better, the work includes extensive source notes and a list of the main characters mentioned in the text with explanations. You can sort of sense the author enjoying writing what must have been for him somewhat of a 'labour of love.' having, like all love affairs, its ups and downs. This style of writing rubs off on the reader who happily falls into his own love affair with it. All told, a fascinating piece of writing. Buy and enjoy.

Eric. H. Cline has written a very good and dense summary about the bronze-age civilisation and there development in the brooder backyard of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. As others have stated the bock is written in a scientific and comparatively fact-based style. Why I can imagine this isn't anybody's preference, I personally like that style, maybe because I'm a scientist too [my bad English is rooted in the fact I'm not a mother-tongue speaker]. It could also be questioned if a book like this has to be written for "the average Joe" because such a concrete topic in a non-poster child field of ancient history may not attract him actually. This maybe different if one writes a book regarding WW I or the Great Depression. I enjoyed the reading of the chapters about the development of the bronze-age societies. I'm not an expert here and gained much knowledge. While it is again a comparatively factual style it gives the reader a good insight about the political and economical developments which took place at these times. I would had liked to read a little more about the bronze age economy like the copper-tin cycle or the crops of the era, but that is a personal taste. The final chapter gives several reasons and possibilities for the downfall of the bronze-age societies and extends a pure nonspecific "multiple-cause" approach by the introduction of the complexity theory and the way complex systems tend to develop and fail finally. Especially how comparatively local and/or small "trigger" events finally lead to cascading disruptions of such systems. This is definitely the highlight of the book. I agree 100 % with the authors claim that it was that what finally happened. He discusses also the role of "core" system parts in these bronze-age (society) systems like the palatial-system where maybe some 1000 or 10.000 people controlled much of the goods, the informations and the distribution of them. In this specific capital I would have liked the author to go a little further - maybe even speculating - on the last days of the Bronze Age. Even in this "climax" chapter Cline stays very dense and factual. But that is - probably - the way Cline writes and things so all fine. However I have one point that is critical IMO for the understanding of history which Cline nearly doesn't mention and mostly ignores (maybe for the lack a factual data?): Demographic development. To understand history without understand demographics won't work. This aspect could be further divided into quantitative and qualitative aspects. I'm very aware that especially the second one has become a taboo in sciences to some degree, but at least the first one could've been touched. One example is "Secular Cycles" by Peter Turchin and Sergey A. Nefedov how show one very useful part how demographics drive history. They describe in detail how societies evolve from a pure and equal state to mature feudal states under resource constrictions. From historical data it is very clear that somehow when a civilisation "matures" even in historical times these civilisations tend to have comparatively low fertility - especially among the higher ranks but also in general compared to the "non-civilized" societies surrounding them. For ancient Greek and the (western)Roman empire this is very well documented, going as far as it can be seen that the core areas of a society typical peak first (like the Italian part of the Empire or the numbers of full free citizen in Sparta). Typically 150 +/-100 years before the demising or absorption of a society it often absorbs large numbers of immigrants until it finally destabilises internally. There are very different explanations and there maybe historical examples where demographics played a minor part and climate chance/ resource exhaustions played the mayor part (Maya, Eastern Island or Ângkôr Vôtt come to mind). But anyhow it is a key factor and deserves a much broader reflection - especially when the fall of societies is concerned. It is clear that most of the bonze-age civilizations where "mature" when the "Sea people" showed up. Of course from area to area things may have been different - Greek still on the rise, Egypt or Sumer already fare advanced. But like in the case of the Roman Empire while the "Barbarians" where definitely not the only or sole reason for the final curtain the disbalance between "fresh" and rapidly expanding societies with wave after wave nearing the borders and a mature, low-fertility and high immigrant (slaves, general) Empire was a critical factor in an already stressed complex system starting to disintegrate. Demographics also partly explain why the "complexity-level" of the palatial system was too high at the very end considering it was from an absolute perspective much lower than today's level. Even without tacking qualitative aspects of demographic development into account even the biggest palaces may have been run by 10.000 people. They don't had nearly the access to information 10.000 well-educated people today have. The maximum complexity-level and stability of a system run by only 10.000 people - how had only cuneiform script - Is very limited. Even on large OEM today has more engineering/scientific stuff than the total of the people running the most of the society at these times. Because of that [and maybe the individual level of the most educated people compared to today for whatever reasons (better Nutrition, full-scale education, genetics(?)] the maximum complexity in that times was of course much lower than what is possible today.

海の民によるレバント文明の破壊の歴史です エジプトすら多大な影響を受けたのです

Ok

Good read. Gripping narrative. Just wouldn't purchase anything from PBC Distributors. Had a terrible experience.