1177 B.C.: When Civilization Collapsed | Eric Cline

50 years ago I remember my Dad joking about how future archeologists would look at our ruins and think that Barby Dolls were fertility goddesses and TV sets were religious altars.

Wow. Dr. Cline was my professor for Greek History 18 years ago at George Washington University. It was one of the hardest classes I ever took. Dr. Cline offered me no quarter; either I learned a ton of history or I failed. I studied my ass off, got an A on the final, and earned the most difficult 'C' I'd ever receive. It is great watching him now and knowing that I was learning from one of the preeminent experts on this time period in the academic world.

Dr Cline is one of a few Lecturers that are able to keep my interest throughout the entire lecture. His ever-changing tone and interesting facts mixed with a bit of dry humor make it an easy listen. I wish I had more teachers like this while in school.

The Tojan war is a fascinating thing because of the cleverness of Homer's epic. This man sung a lie so big, so enthralling that here it is thousands of years later and we have not forgotten the truth. We don't know exactly where the war was fought, that's unimportant, we remember the important aspects. Men of Greece waged a war that lasted for many years and it was so terrible that even when it was over it was not over for the soldiers. They were so scarred by the war that they became lost, unable to truly return home for many years if at all. Thousands of years ago, Homer sung about PTSD... and mocked the very reason why the men paid such a terrible price.

Cline is a rare academic, one that can make complicated themes understandable. At the same time make it fun, engaging and makes you want to investigate more.

This was excellent. You can tell someone is a true master of their trade or area of expertise when they can explain the material so simply and elegantly. Bravo.

Just having an amateur interest in history and retired railway conductor I found this info very relevant to our human activity today. I think the video shown at the beginning was probably the same in 1200 BC. Just different technology. Your use of modern analogy, including jokes, and common language made this lecture a pleasure. Thank you.
I was employed on the Santa Fe Railway formed by a man in 1869 , Cyrus K. Holiday, who had a vision of trade with Asia. That vision is still a main stay of what we now call intermodal freight traffic or trade. The Santa Fe completed it’s transcontinental link from Chicago to LA and California ports by 1888. Now the BNSF Ry calls the Santa Fe mainline the southern “Transcon”. However, a large portion of the freight is now carried in containers adapted to be loaded onto large container ships on both east & west coast of the U.S. Some of the freight is trans-global, in that containers are off loaded on one coast onto trains. Then transported across the US and reloaded onto container ships too large to navigate the Panama Canal. Then transported to either Europe, Africa and Asia and visa-versa. It forced the railway systems to modernize and the Santa Fe had that vision to have the infrastructure to adapt to the change and increase in freight traffic. They were a bit slow to pick up the ball, but were way ahead of other railway companies in moving priority freight trains on their passenger mainlines much more efficiently. BNSF take over just boosted the investment needed to speed the mainline up even more on the Santa Fe route.
So how much evidence has archeology uncovered to show an evolution of methods of transporting raw material and high value trade items? The tin from Afghanistan would have been a tough trip with heavy loads to meet the demand to make bronze. Camels? Carts? Elephants? Were trade routes trampled down hard and leaving a permanent impression in the earth, then paved over by Roman road system? We can only guess, 🤔 I guess?

He makes the old cultures come alive, sublime!

Eric Cline is such a gifted speaker. He doesn’t waffle, and his lecture in fascinating and fluent. Really interesting. Thank you.

I love watching someone teach this subject who thinks this is as much fun to learn about as I do. 🥰

Dr Cline's voice, as well as his easy-to-understand delivery of his topic, reminds me of Carl Sagan.

wow, thank you Eric Cline ... and everyone else on camera. This was a breath of fresh air. None of you is "full of yourselves". You are humble, intellectual, succinct, and accessible. Just want to let y'all know it is recognized and appreciated.

Historians come in all breeds some are magical clerks who can take all works of a time and spin them into something cohesive and congruent, some are detectives who can infer so much out of so little and still be accurate, others are bards/artists who can take the mundane and bring them to life in a way no one else can. With ancient (might as well be Pre-) history you find the detectives en masse, but to actually bring life to a time so empty of literature takes talent of all three, and bravo to you sir.

Dr Cline got me into history and archeology.
Edit - The guy is a hell of a writer and lecturer, totally keeps you engaged.

Resilient factors:
-Interdependent economy
-interdependent cultures
-rise of literacy
-rise of skilled workmanship
-maturing ethical self-control

I read his book, and I wish I had had this narrative before I read it. I have worked on scientific literacy projects, and teaching storytelling is an underrated approach to helping people hang theories and evidence together. As much as I love methods, I think they may need to be a secondary priority in sharing STEM with the general public.

I was a history major, Middle Eastern and North African studies, and I keep coming back to this lecture. There’s so much incredible information here. Unfortunately, it helps us to understand where we’re headed.

Regarding the discussion on iron versus bronze..as a sculptor who pours both bronze and iron regularly I can say that the difference back then was surely the melting temperature..1850F for bronze and 2650F for iron..in ancient times there was no way to cast iron and get to that temp..it was smelted into what was called a bloom and heated red hot and pounded into useful shapes..but not melted..that would take centuries to engineer..also brass was rare because the boiling point of zinc is so close to its melting point that
zinc was rarely isolated to create brass..also i really enjoyed this video..cheers...

1:24:55 "Motel of the Mysteries"!! I remember Reader's Digest did an excerpt from that story back in the 80's or so, and it really stuck with me...never expected somebody to bring it up! It was brilliant. They "discovered" that the "ancient burial site" (motel) was surrounded by outward-facing guardians to protect and defend the tomb, with names like "Firebird", "Falcon" and so on... 😂

By far one of the greatest talks, I never wanted it to end. Just absolutely astounding.