The Year Civilization Collapsed: 1177 B.C.

by Lee Duigon

Once upon a time—say 1250 B.C.—in the Middle East and around the Eastern Mediterranean, there was a multinational, multicultural, political and economic system that in many ways resembled what we would call a global system. They didn’t have the ability to get to China or the Americas, so it wasn’t a truly “global” global system. But it was close to being one.

The major players in this system were the Egyptian and Hittite empires, pre-classical Greece, Assyria, Babylonia, Cyprus, the Mitanni state, and the assorted Canaanite kingdoms. Each was linked to the others by trade routes, business dealings, treaties, a common level of “Late Bronze Age” technology, and similar polytheistic religions. And after the great war between the Egyptians and the Hittites, the whole system was at peace.

Sometime around the year 1177 B.C., the whole thing collapsed. In the words of lecturer Dr. Eric Cline, “Civilization collapsed”. All the major players were overthrown, with only Egypt surviving in a weakened state. No more Hittite Empire. Assyria and Babylonia needed several centuries to come back. Mycenaean Greece never did.

How could a whole international civilization collapse? In these days of trying to create a real globalist system, this seems like a question that really needs an answer. What happened, to take down the whole damned thing? Could the catastrophe have been avoided?

God has said, “I shake the earth, so that those things that cannot be shaken will remain” (Hebrews 12:26). But secular historians can only see God’s tools and their effects. They cannot see His purposes. They don’t want to see them.

So what happened? Lots of things, all of them bad. A regional drought that went on and on for decades (at least). Serial earthquakes throughout the region. Political unrest within those kingdoms. And wave after wave of invasions by hordes of barbarian “Sea Peoples” that shut down the trade routes, sacked cities, and destroyed whole empires. Pharaoh Ramesses III, in desperate battles, kept the invaders out of Egypt; but following that crisis, conditions in Egypt were bad enough to lead to the assassination of the pharaoh.

When the economy shuts down, and stays shut down, a lot of life shuts down with it. Cities don’t get rebuilt. Crops don’t get grown. Trade networks don’t get re-established. Things stop.

If we are confined, by secular presuppositions, to preoccupations with “climate change”—which is always happening, to some degree or other—and political and military errors—what age has ever been free of those?—we look only for purely worldly solutions to the problems: and we never find them. But we will, eventually. Honest. Because we’re so much smarter than those ancient peoples. Really.

Today, in our coronavirus/lockdown-ravaged world, we still expect to solve the problems of a fallen world: there just have to be answers. If only Science and enlightened global rulers can find the solutions, finally we’ll achieve perpetual stability. We will at long last devise a utopian global system, free of war, poverty, disease, economic inequality, and bad blind dates. Now that we’ve got Artificial Intelligence to guide us, the system will eventually be perfect. Trust The Smartest People In The World!

God laughs at those pretentions.

If you honestly believe a perfect world can be achieved by the likes of Bill Gates, the Chinese Communist Party, John Kerry, Greta Thunberg, Michael Moore, and the whole transgender movement—

You’re crazy.

I have discussed these and other topics throughout the week on my blog, http://leeduigon.com/ . Stop in for a visit (before civilization ends); a single click will take you there. My articles can also be found at www.chalcedon.edu/ .

E-Mail Lee Duigon: leeduigon@verizon.net