--- product_id: 279766944 title: "1177 B.C. (Revised and Updated): The Year Civilization Collapsed" brand: "eric h. cline, princeton university press" price: "€ 43.55" currency: EUR in_stock: true reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.es/products/279766944-1177-b-c-revised-and-updated-the-year-civilization-collapsed store_origin: ES region: Spain --- # 1177 B.C. (Revised and Updated): The Year Civilization Collapsed **Brand:** eric h. cline, princeton university press **Price:** € 43.55 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** 1177 B.C. (Revised and Updated): The Year Civilization Collapsed by eric h. cline, princeton university press - **How much does it cost?** € 43.55 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.es](https://www.desertcart.es/products/279766944-1177-b-c-revised-and-updated-the-year-civilization-collapsed) ## Best For - eric h. cline, princeton university press enthusiasts ## Why This Product - Trusted eric h. cline, princeton university press brand quality - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description This audiobook narrated by acclaimed archaeologist and best-selling author Eric Cline offers a breathtaking account of how the collapse of an ancient civilized world ushered in the first Dark Ages. In 1177 BC, marauding groups known only as the "Sea Peoples" invaded Egypt. The pharaoh's army and navy defeated them, but the victory so weakened Egypt that it soon slid into decline, as did most of the surrounding civilizations. Eric Cline tells the gripping story of how the end was brought about by multiple interconnected failures, ranging from invasion and revolt to earthquakes, drought, famine, and the cutting of international trade routes. Bringing to life a vibrant multicultural world, he draws a sweeping panorama of the empires of the age and shows that it may have been their very interdependence that hastened their dramatic collapse. Now revised and updated, 1177 B.C. sheds light on the complex ties that gave rise to, and eventually destroyed, the flourishing civilizations of the Late Bronze Age - and set the stage for the emergence of classical Greece and, ultimately, our world today. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio. ## Images ![1177 B.C. (Revised and Updated): The Year Civilization Collapsed - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/911DMSrj8KL.jpg) ## Available Options This product comes in different **Format** options. ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Excellent, and I know my Bronze Age Collapse *by on Reviewed in the United States May 12, 2024* I’ve been obsessed with the Bronze Age Collapse for a good fifteen years. I only bought Cline’s 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed because I’d run out of other books to buy. Would I learn anything new from Cline after I’d studied the primary literature and other more approachable works like Drews’s and Yasur-Landau’s? Also, I was certain that Cline would get things wrong. In fact, I learned some things that were new to me. In fact, Cline gets nearly everything correct. In 1177 B.C., Cline provides an enjoyable, easy-to-read overview of one of history’s greatest mysteries: what caused the collapse of eastern Mediterranean civilizations in the beginning of the 12th century B.C.? (Use of B.C.E. accomplishes nothing since year one is still based on an alleged year of Christ’s birth.) Cline provides a comprehensive and evenhanded presentation. Cline’s prose is lively, engaging, and conversational. There is occasional humor and a “revolting” inside joke on p. 138 that Bill Devers should enjoy. 1177 B.C. is thoroughly researched. Cline knows the literature. The book is rich with specifics to back up its assertions. But to understand the enormity of what was lost, we have to understand the Bronze Age in the eastern Mediterranean. Cline spends quite a few words explaining the Bronze Age before we get to the collapse. This is necessary. The Bronze Age in the eastern Mediterranean was a high point in Western Civilization. It was a time of trade, international correspondence, and generally peace. Here the newbie may suffer. There are a lot of names of places and people. Reread. Rereread. The places and people will start to come together. Cline does a great job summarizing the hypotheses that have been proposed to explain the Bronze Age Collapse. In the end, he opts for some combination of factors, and he may be right. However, a “perfect storm of circumstances”, some combination of “drought, famine, earthquakes”, and invading Dorians lusting for the taste of human flesh need not be invoked to explain the Bronze Age Collapse. As a scientist, I can tell you that the simplest explanation is not always the correct one, but here is my simple explanation. The Hittite Empire and a united Mycenaean kingdom, which the Hittites called Ahhiyawa, both fell apart. As such, they could no longer exercise their police function in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean (Hittites policed through their vassals). Groups already prone to piracy took advantage and went on a series of plundering expeditions. The result was mass destruction. Mycenaeans fled to the relative safety of the east, taking their pottery with them, except for the Mycenaeans in Tyrins, who thrived. The Sea Peoples have to have home bases somewhere (here I agree with Elizabeth French). Hatti’s demise is easily explained. Hatti was surrounded by enemies and had hardly any natural defenses (read Trevor Bryce). Whenever the Hittites went to war in one direction they were necessarily weakened on other frontiers. The capital, Hattusa, had already been abandoned once to the Kaskans (pronounced Kashkans) attacking from the north. We know that the capital was abandoned again at the end of the Bronze Age. Presumably it was the Kaskans once more. We also know the last Hittite king had to campaign along the south to recover lost vassal kingdoms. The Hittites may have lacked the military strength to fight both in the north and the south, and so the Hittite ship sank. The end of Ahhiyawa is trickier. In Hittite annals, Ahhiyawa is a united kingdom. In the Mycenaean records, we see only isolated city-states. But those records were only preserved because they consisted of clay tablets that were fired when the palaces that stored them were burned during the Collapse. Older tablets had been erased and reused. A united Ahhiyawa must have existed earlier, but then broke up. It’s fun to speculate as to the cause of the break up. We have a letter from a Hittite king to an unnamed king of Ahhiyawa whose brother, who also seems to be a king, was named Tawagalawa. It may not look like it, but Tawagalawa is equivalent to Eteocles. We see Eteocles and his brother, both kings, in the much later tradition of Seven Against Thebes, in which there is civil war. The attempted creation of a wall across the Isthmus of Corinth points to just that—civil war. Pirate attacks followed naturally. All it takes is the collapse of those two polities, Hatti and Mycenaean Greece, to account for the disastrous rise in piracy and city sacking that made up the Bronze Age Collapse. What to read next? Michael Wood’s In Search of the Trojan War is a fun history of archeology in general and the search for the Trojan War more specifically. “In Search of” is a little out of date, and Wood goes off the deep end when he imagines conversations with Agamemnon. But that’s towards the end of the book. Most of the “In Search of” is great. You can watch the TV version on YouTube. (Warning: at one point I was reminded of Robert Plant’s trousers in The Song Remains the Same.) Yasur-Landau’s The Philistines and Aegean Migration at the End of the Bronze Age is more focused on one topic, technical, and scholarly than Wood’s book. Drews’s The End of the Bronze Age is also more technical and scholarly. Drews provides a good overview of the destruction, demolishes all previous explanations for it, but then offers his own hypothesis which is highly speculative. Redford ridiculed Drews’s minimalism in an endnote to Egypt and Western Asia in the Late New Kingdom: An Overview. That endnote is key. “Islands in the midst of the sea” must refer to the Aegean. Throughout all of your reading, keep in mind an idea that Cline attributes to Annie Caubet: “One cannot always be sure that the people who resettled a site after its destruction are necessarily the same ones who destroyed it in the first place.” Caubet’s idea should be obvious, but it is neglected in much of the literature. I do not attribute the LH or LC IIIC pottery scattered from Cilicia south to what became the Philistine pentapolis to the Sea Peoples but rather to the peaceful migration of Mycenaean refugees mentioned above, in spite of the linguistic equivalence of Peleset to Pelishtim. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Interesting and informative *by on Reviewed in the United States July 14, 2026* The author makes a persuasive case that socioeconomic interdependency of the late bronze age nations of the eastern Mediterranean made them more susceptible to environmental and biological changes leading to internal unrest and less able to fight off opportunistic enemies; drawing parallels with our current-day global warming, COVID pandemic and the ongoing civil conflicts in the Middle East.For the novice historian the timeline is hard to follow as the author switches between the various nations whilst describing events that are taking place simultaneously. Add to that the unfamiliar and barely pronounceable names of people and places, some of which have more than one name depending on the language, and you have quite the mess of confusion.However, as I chose to "not sweat the small stuff", knowing that I'll probably read the book again later, the writing style makes for easy reading. The author even drops a few nuggets of humor along the way.I gave this four stars instead of five because a more comprehensive map(s) would have made the book far more accessible to general readers. The author does include a very detailed list of people mentioned in the book, a section on notes accompanying the text and a very comprehensive bibliography of the various works cited in his book.If you are not a stickler for details, this book makes for easy reading and the proposals put forth by the author deserve pondering, especially taking into account the current global situation. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Filling Your Gaps of Knowledge: The Late Bronze Age. *by on Reviewed in the United States May 26, 2026* Fascinating! Gives one a wider grasp of the history behind the Eastern Mediterranean in the LBA. Seems to be very well researched and documented. I chose a few of the cited references and the book was faithful to them.I only wish I were young enough to undertake further study on the ground in that part of the world.Unusual parallels with our current times. Well written and definitely worth doing so. --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.es/products/279766944-1177-b-c-revised-and-updated-the-year-civilization-collapsed](https://www.desertcart.es/products/279766944-1177-b-c-revised-and-updated-the-year-civilization-collapsed) --- *Product available on Desertcart Spain* *Store origin: ES* *Last updated: 2026-08-15*