THRONE GAMES
The Trojan War and the Collapse of Late Bronze Age Civilizations
ERIC H. CLINE
Professor of Classics and Anthropology
The George Washington University
HOMERATHON 6 Keynote Address
TUESDAY, 10 OCTOBER
6:00-7:00 p.m.
Pew Library Multipurpose Room
Reception Follows
Refreshments Provided
Presented by the Department of Classics and the Mary Idema Pew Library, with the generous support of the Office of the Provost.
Professor Eric H. Cline of The George Washington University explores why the Mediterranean Bronze Age came to an end and whether the collapse of those ancient civilizations holds warnings for our current society.
During the Late Bronze Age, from about 1500 B.C. to 1200 B.C., the Mediterranean region was home to a complex and cosmopolitan world-system. It may have been this very internationalism that contributed to the apocalyptic disaster that ended the Bronze Age.
When the end came, as it did after centuries of cultural and technological evolution, large empires and small kingdoms alike collapsed rapidly. With their end came the world’s first recorded Dark Ages. Not until centuries later did a new cultural renaissance in Greece, and the other affected areas, set the stage for the evolution of Western society as we know it today.
Eric H. Cline is author of 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed, which received the 2014 prize for Best Popular Book on Archaeology from the American Schools of Oriental Research and was submitted for consideration for a Pulitzer Prize.
The Department of Classics and the Mary Idema Pew Library, with the generous support of the Office of the Provost, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Brooks College of Interdisciplinary Studies, the Dean of Students Office, and the Frederik Meijer Honors College, present the SIXTH running of an EPIC event: GAME OF HEROES: HOMERATHON 6, a non-stop performance of HOMER’S ILIAD.