Eric Cline is a real-life Indiana Jones — an author, archaeologist, National Geographic Society explorer, and professor of classics and anthropology at George Washington University.
Even though he specializes in ancient history, Cline’s work is extremely timely. On the eve of the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris, Nov. 30 through Dec. 11, Cline will visit Madison to talk about his recent book, 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed, which outlines disturbing parallels between Bronze Age history and contemporary events. Isthmus caught up with Cline to ask what it’s like to play the dual role of adventurer and doomsayer.
What are the questions you field most often?
Where’s Noah’s Ark? Where’s the Ark of the Covenant? Did Joshua actually capture Jericho? And where are the 10 lost tribes of Israel?
You show that the Bronze Age was much more complex and interconnected than most of us knew. There was trade, nationalism and communication throughout the Eastern Hemisphere. How is the collapse of that civilization cautionary?
You don’t want to push the analogies or the parallels too much, but we are intertwined today. We’re dependent on oil like they were dependent on tin, and I would argue — some might disagree — that there is climate change today. There are earthquakes today. And I ask, “Are we suffering the same things today?” I go through a checklist, and the only thing that we don’t have today are the Sea Peoples.
Are you referring to the mysterious invaders mentioned in Egyptian records who sacked the Mediterranean and set refugees, such as the Philistines, in motion?
I would argue that ISIS are the Sea Peoples. That’s our version. I mean look at them: They’re destroying the Middle East right now.
An even better parallel is all of the refugees now that are flooding into Europe. Those are the Sea Peoples. It just happens that ours are peaceful for the moment. But, you know, it’s the exact same thing. That’s why the Sea Peoples in antiquity started moving, because of drought and famine and war — and that’s why these people are flooding Europe. So I actually think that our situation now and their situation after 1200 B.C. are very, very similar.
No difference?
I would say that the big difference is they had no idea what was happening or why it was happening. The Hittites didn’t know why there was a drought; all they knew was there was no rain. The real takeaway for me is the realization that every civilization to date has collapsed. Why should we be invulnerable? I don’t know that we’ll collapse next week or even next year, but we will collapse at some point. That’s why I would say that history has lessons to teach us, if we’re willing and interested enough to learn. Why don’t we do something so that we don’t disintegrate?
I’m sorry, but since I have you, I have to ask about the Great Pyramids being used to store grain [an assertion put forth by Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson]. Yes or no?
[Laughs] Are you kidding? Of course you had to ask. No. Pyramids were not used to store grain. Nor are they built by aliens, nor are they built by people from Atlantis. Yikes!
Cline will speak Dec. 3 at 7:30 p.m. in room L160 of the Chazen Museum of Art, as part of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Humanities without Boundaries series. The event is free and open to the public.
