The Sea People and the Bronze Age Collapse

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

Because we work to keep History Snacks as accurate as possible, this episode contains disappearing populations, a mysterious people from the sea, the collapse of civilization, burning places, climate change, and how to make bronze.

Jillian Hughes (0:14)

History Snacks.

Kenny Curtis (0:27)

These stories are old and delicious.

SPEAKER_1 (0:29)

And now it's time for History Snacks. History Snacks.

Jillian Hughes (0:36)

Welcome to History Snacks, a podcast where we talk about when everything went horribly wrong.

Kenny Curtis (0:42)

Okay, yes, we are going to talk about that, but we're also going to talk about some cool ancient world mysteries, like who were the Sea People?

Jillian Hughes (0:54)

Okay, well, that's not much of a mystery. It's clear the Sea People were mermaids. Hello.

Kenny Curtis (1:00)

No, they were not mermaids. What?

Jillian Hughes (1:04)

No. What do you mean? Why else would they call them Sea People? And of course, we're going to talk about the lost city of Atlantis and all that other.

Kenny Curtis (1:12)

No, we are not talking about Atlantis. Well, actually, we might talk about Atlantis very briefly, but the Sea People are not mermaids, and they didn't probably come from Atlantis.

Jillian Hughes (1:22)

Sounds fake, but okay.

Kenny Curtis (1:25)

Okay.

Jillian Hughes (1:27)

History Snacks seed all the history.

Kenny Curtis (1:29)

So we start this story with the Greeks before the Greeks, the pre-Greeks living in the Bronze Age.

Jillian Hughes (1:36)

Okay, sorry to burst your bubble, but that makes no sense. You have to explain what all that means.

Kenny Curtis (1:41)

What?

Jillian Hughes (1:41)

The whole Bronze Age thing.

Kenny Curtis (1:42)

Okay, all right, fine. Let's start with the Bronze Age. So ages are typically named after the newest technology in that region at that time. Because often all we have left of these cultures are the objects they leave behind, what archaeologists like to call material culture that they left behind. So in this time, making bronze was like the newest thing.

Bronze, by the way, is made with copper and tin put together and was a major part of trade. It kind of made the Mediterranean world go round because copper from the island of Cyprus and tin from as far away as Afghanistan and England came together through trade routes and allowed people to create bronze for statues, weapons, nails, whatever. But the Bronze Age was a really long time ago.

Jillian Hughes (2:27)

Okay, how long are we talking here?

Kenny Curtis (2:29)

The Bronze Age started all the way back around 3000 BCE.

Jillian Hughes (2:34)

Whoa.

Kenny Curtis (2:35)

Yeah.

Jillian Hughes (2:35)

I mean, the Roman timeline we talked about started in the 700s BCE. So this is like ancient, ancient.

Kenny Curtis (2:43)

Yeah, it's so long ago that people don't even consider this ancient Greece. That actually comes much later.

Jillian Hughes (2:49)

Now you have to tell me about what's going on in Greece at this time. If they aren't Greeks, then who are they?

Kenny Curtis (2:54)

Okay. Well, let's start on the island of Crete. There was a culture we call the Minoan civilization who built large palaces with beautiful wall paintings called frescoes and lots of decorated pottery.

Jillian Hughes (3:08)

Ooh, palaces. Sounds fancy.

Kenny Curtis (3:10)

Yeah. Well, palaces are what we call them, but we're actually not sure if they were palaces for kings and queens or temples or what. Either way, they were very fancy.

Jillian Hughes (3:19)

I do love a good fresco.

Kenny Curtis (3:21)

Who doesn't love a good fresco? Anyway, of all the many things that are still a mystery about the Minoans, the big one is what exactly are all the things they drew on their walls. What was that stuff? Right. Yeah. They actually had an activity that they painted on their walls a lot that we still don't quite understand. Scholars call it bull leaping, and it was apparently a popular pastime. But from the paintings, it's pretty unclear how this sport slash game was practiced, and also why it was practiced. Like, what is this for? What are we doing?

Jillian Hughes (3:56)

Oh, I've seen images of that. There's like a person doing a handstand on the back of a bull while it's running or something.

Kenny Curtis (4:03)

Yeah, that is one famous image for it. But there are many more paintings and statues and pottery showing this same activity. Scholars think it had like a ritual or religious purpose, but sometimes that's just what you say when you're a scholar and you don't know why somebody is doing something.

Jillian Hughes (4:20)

Right, that makes sense, right? You gotta think of something, right? Right. But yeah, like in several thousand years, when archaeologists dig up our bones and find us with all these little rectangular things with screens next to us, they might think like must have been some kind of rectangle cult.