THE ELEPHANT IN THE AEGEAN

1177 BC: THE YEAR CIVILIZATION COLLAPSED

(Princeton and Oxford: Princeton U. Press, 2014)

By ERIC CLINE

Rev. by Hugh Murray

            I am no expert on the ancient world, but I am sorely disappointed with this book.  For example, Cline describes the expedition of (Queen) Pharaoh Hatshepsut to the land of Punt.(p. 27)  He acknowledges no one is certain just where Punt was, but he places it in the band from Sudan to Ethiopia to Somalia to Yemen and Arabia.  Cline includes a description of the queen of Punt, who had extra large buttocks and a fat belly.  Unfortunately, physical anthropology is now politically incorrect and has been squeezed from university curricula, but in the 1800s the Hottentots were viewed as so different as to possibly be a different species, and a few Hottentot women were displayed in Europe like animals because of their unusual physique – the large protruding buttocks and fat bellies.  Sarah Bartman (various spellings) was one of the Hottentot Venuses displayed.  Decades ago when I enrolled in an ancient history course, the professor spoke of Hatshepsut’s explorations, contending that the Egyptians even circumnavigated Africa, and the sailors complained that land was suddenly on the wrong side.  Could the Queen of Punt been a Hottentot?  Could Punt have been closer to southern Africa than to the Horn of Africa?  Unfortunately, Cline does not even consider this possibility.

            What caused the collapse of civilization in 1177 BC?  “Systemic collapse.”  Cline invokes a trendy phrase that simply means many factors – some earthquakes, some climate change, some droughts, some invasions by the Peoples of the Sea, some other invasions, some wars between this group and that, some internal revolts, some…and a dash of salt.  Though he mentions Sherlock Holmes in the text, this book is more like a Sherlock ending thusly: “Well, Sherlock, who did kill the young woman in the red bathing suit by the swimming pool?”  “Watson, don’t you understand, we all did it; we are all guilty.”  Readers of Holmes would grit their teeth in anger at such a conclusion.  So should the readers of Cline.

            What could have caused the collapse of Bronze Age Civilization?  There is an elephant in the room ignored by Cline (except on p. 93).  I should rephrase, an elephant in the Aegean.  When the Thera (Santorini) volcano erupted, scientists maintain that it was more powerful than the massive Krakatoa explosion of 1883 – one which had world-wide repercussions.  If Thera were really a more power eruption, it surely would have had gargantuan effects on the nearby civilizations – the Minoan in Krete, the Mycenaean in Greece, the Egyptian, the Hittite and the Mittani in Turkey/Syria, the Assyrian, the Canaanites, et al.  Surely, this eruption and tsunami might have unleashed the People of the Sea on quests to find land to replace what the floods had destroyed.  Did Thera destroy Bronze Age Civilization?

            Cline would argue, NO.  The Thera explosion occurred too early, maybe 1650 BC, or 1500 BC at the latest).  (Cline is so politically correct he wastes ink by continually writing BCE.  Does he also write that his paperback was published in 2014 of the Common Era?  2014 CE?)  Cline contends that the Bronze Age Civilizations (BAC) flourished after Thera erupted.  The generally accepted chronology is based on Egyptian sources, but until a century ago, we had never heard of King Tut or Akhenaton or the Amarna letters that Cline quotes.  Is it possible that the generally accepted chronology is miscalculated, off by more than a century?  Perhaps Thera did destroy the BAC, not on 1177 BC but in 1577 BC?

            Cline interprets Akhenaton’s religious revolution in Egypt, in part, as an attempt to regain pharoahnic power from the various priesthoods.  Cline assesses Akhenaton as “calculating and a powermonger,” and his religion “ a shrewd and diplomatic move.”(52)  Yet, Cline never bothers to ask how one of the hymns to Aton wound up as Psalm 104 in the Bible.  What were the links between Atonism and Judaism?  And what does Cline’s section on the Trojan War add to our knowledge of this event?

            Bottom line – this book promises much, but delivers little.  Cline does not think outside the box and fails to ask questions that might better answer why BAC collapsed.