12 minute read
CIVILIZATION
FALL OF THE FIRST GLOBAL CIVILIZATION
Written by Vinay Rajagopalan, ‘24 | Designed by Amina Aslam-Mir, '25 and Julia Huynh, '24
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Our modern civilization is perhaps the most interconnected that it has ever been. Just take a look at your clothing: most likely, it will read “made in China''. Think about it: the clothes on your back were made thousands of miles away. This level of cooperation and interdependence between all countries of the world seems entirely modern—a er all, people in the past were all nasty and brutish, hardly more intelligent than cavemen. But this is not true. In fact there was one era of history where the majority of the powers of the world were all interconnected-the Bronze Age. It occurred mainly in the Near East, and many of the rst empires arose during this time: The Baylonian, the Assyrians, and of course the Egyptians. But a er thousands of years of prosperity, the Near East suddenly crumbled into nothing. Why did this happen?
First, let’s take a look at the world before the Bronze Age Collapse. First o , are the Mycenaeans. They were a civilization that existed in Greece that built huge, forti ed palaces. They hugely in uenced the following Greek civilizations. The next civilization is the Hittite Empire, an empire in Anatolia (Turkey), who were a combination of the Hatti and the Hurrians. They controlled a vast amount of territory, and o en fought with the Egyptians over the Levant. Speaking of, Egypt was in its New Kingdom era, which saw its most famous rulers like Akhenaten, Tutenkhamun, and Ramses the Great. These rulers made Egypt an empire, spreading its borders to Kush in the South and to Anatolia in the North. Next is Babylonia, which at the time was ruled by a tribal people called the Kassites. The language used in this empire was Babylonian, and it used the cuneiform script. Other minor powers were the Assyrians, who eventually gave their name to Syria, and the Elamites, in modern-day Iran. which gives its name to the era-bronze. Bronze is created by smelting together copper and tin. A big source of Copper was the island of Cyprus, which was constantly being passed around between the great powers. Thus, it was pretty simple to obtain copper-tin, not so much. See, we still don’t know where the people of the Bronze Age Middle East got their tin-they just called it “Tin Land”. This may have been anywhere from Spain to even England. But regardless of where it may have been, it points to an extensive trade network that reached beyond the Middle East. This is not the only piece of evidence we have either. A ship o the coast of Uluburun, Turkey, was found laden with copper, tin, glass, ivory, and more. These products were found in places as distant as Kush and even Nubia. And perhaps the most telling sign are the Amarna Letters, tablets of correspondence between the pharaoh of Egypt and the rulers of other nations like the Hittites and Baylonians. The Letters, and countless other tablets and writings prove that the ancient Middle East was interconnected through countless trade routes, bringing materials from all over the world. But, concerningly, they also heavily depended on this interconnectedness, because their fragile economies depended on trade. For example, the Hittites needed Egyptian grain to feed themselves. There was prosperity-the Egyptians built many temples, mostly to praise their pharaohs. But this interdependence would soon fall apart. All of these empires, except the Assyrians and the Egyptians would completely fall apart. What could have caused this disintegration in such a short time?
For nearly a century, the blame was squarely placed on the Sea Peoples. Who were they? Well... we don’t know. We don’t even know what they called themselves-the name “Sea People” was coined by French Egyptologist Emmanuel de Rougé, who rst uncovered them from an inscription in Egypt. Other inscriptions from Europe mention they come from the “north”-some scholars take this to mean they came from Europe. Some famous faces hypothesized to be the Sea Peoples include: the Philistines, the Greeks, and even the displaced Trojans a er the Trojan War. What we actually know about their origins is that they were a confederation of many di erent tribes. They may have ed their original homelands because of crop failure, or maybe even war, bringing their families with them to settle in the Eastern Mediterranean. In doing this, they are charged with burning the great powers of the Bronze Age to the ground. They raided many of the cities along the sea, devastating them. A letter by the ruler of a city called Ugarit to the Hittite emperor tells of how the Sea Peoples devastated the city-because of how his army and navy were elsewhere defending against other attacks from the Sea People. Around this time, many of the palaces in Mycenaean Greece were destroyed or abandoned, though there is a caveat to this that we will look into later. They also attacked Egypt, though were defeated in several battles. In fact, a er Ramesses III defeated them in a naval battle in 1175 BCE, they slowly ceased to be mentioned in the historical record.
For so long, that was the accepted story of the Bronze Age collapse. The devastating raids of the Sea Peoples were too much to bear, and civilization disappeared for hundreds of years. But slowly, scholars started picking the theory apart, pointing out its inconsistencies. Firstly, all empires had survived invasions before. For example, the Hittite empire had even survived getting its capital sacked by a northern tribe called the Kaskians. Though the invasion of the Sea Peoples may have been especially brutal, they would have only devastated the coastal cities-this, on its own, would not be impossible to overcome. Also, the Egyptians beat the Sea Peoples, and yet they still collapsed (albeit not to the extent of places like Greece and the Hittites). A clue can be found in those Mycenaean palaces mentioned earlier. Some of them were burned down (maybe by the Sea Peoples or maybe by someone else), but some of them show signs of earthquake damage. Some of them are burned down, but have no evidence of weapons, pointing to just a regular old re being the cause of the palace’s destruction. But res and earthquakes (especially the latter) are a common occurrence, and are not enough to explain the total collapse we have seen-at least, by themselves. You see, the theory that’s growing in popularity is that it was all of these factors, and more, that destroyed the Bronze Age civilizations of the Middle East. Combined, there would be disaster a er disaster, with no time to recover. No civilization could survive that. So let's go through all of these disasters that would have happened in quick succession. There would have of course been the Sea Peoples. Also, earthquakes, perhaps several in quick succession, could have wreaked havoc on settlements. There were also the e ects of climate
change. There was a decline in rainfall during this period, leading to drought, and bad crop harvest. This naturally led to widespread famine. And what do people do when they are hungry and desperate? Well, that’s what the next cause is: rebellion. There were rebellions documented all over the Eastern Mediterranean, from Israel to Egypt. In places like Greece, these rebellions may have destroyed cities (though without much written evidence it’s hard to determine whether the Sea Peoples or rebels were the cause of the city’s destruction). Epidemics ravaged the populations of the empires. Once all these disasters combined, they lead to a total system collapse. All the interconnected trade routes that linked the great powers proved to be their downfall.
Once one empire fell, it brought down all others. The very interconnectedness that brought the Bronze Age powers to such heights also devastated them. With trade being disrupted by constant disasters, the economy fell apart, only causing more rebellions. This was more than the central government could handle, so it simply collapsed. In tandem with this, the ruling class disappeared. With no government or rulers to protect them, large cities became untenable, so they were abandoned. Of course, the collapse looked di erent everywhere, and was caused by di erent things, but these were the broad strokes that happened in many places.
The period a er the Bronze Age Collapse was known as the “Dark Ages”. While its name may have been a bit of a misnomer-some forms of metalworking existed throughout this-civilization was nowhere as advanced as it was before the collapse. The volume of writing decreased, and some scripts, like that of the Mycenaeans, disappeared. People moved from populated centers into the mountains, and the former large and glorious empires shattered or just vanished. But the great thing about humans is that we can recover from anything. Slowly, cities were rebuilt, trade routes were reestablished, and new empires lled the void le by the Collapse.
You may be wondering, if the Bronze Age civilizations could collapse so completely, could our modern day civilization-in nitely more interconnected and interdependent than the Bronze Age-also collapse? Simply put, yes. The importance of tin in the Bronze Age is akin to the importance of oil in our modern age. We can see this in the Russo-Ukrainian War. Before the war, Europe imported much of its gas from Russia, but with sanctions placed on Russia, Europe is facing a heating crisis in the winter. Besides oil, there’s also the problem of food. Ukraine(and Russia) are one of the largest wheat producers in the world. Because of the war, they aren’t able to export that wheat. This puts millions of people in Africa, who rely on the shipments of wheat and grain, at risk of starvation. And all this is just because of one war between 2 countries. If something more devastating happened(which, due to climate change, is looking more and more likely) it could mean, in the worst case, billions of people could die. And besides doing your part to reduce man-made climate change, there’s nothing you can do. That’s what’s so terrifying about the collapse of civilizations, that civilizations that existed for hundreds or even thousands of years could have collapsed so suddenly and completely. Within a lifetime or two, our entire world could disintegrate, and you’ll just have to try your best to hang on and survive. But, whatever happens, the human race will not go extinct. We will hang on, even if we are culled to only a few thousand members. Our world would never look the same again, but we would still be us.
Bronze Age Family
Daisy Zhang, ‘24 Digital
WINTERING (越冬)
Written by Anna Feng, ‘23 | Designed by Designer Kevin Du, ‘25
Once it passes it won’t return. The snow owers that have descended in my mind don’t know how to melt. In this blank wild, is there anything with a heart? When the sun sets, I’ll cradle the owers that never blossomed, embrace the kids who never grew up. I will climb the tallest tree looking for life. But all the sparrows already ew south, scattering their ashen feathers. If she heard me shouting, would she come back? Can two people truly imitate spring?
Sometimes, I feel nostalgic about my childhood. We ran too fast for the frigidity to catch us. Now, we can’t stop falling sick. When I feel numb, my mind spins. All my memories grow wings and try to take o . Regrets morph into raindrops and fall onto my cheeks. Struggling leaves turn black and decay. Still, I imagine my body as a clock. Night now. Slowly, it will dawn. A forlorn vagrant will nd her home. Meanwhile, I promise to survive.
winter
Rayne Huang, ‘26 Digital
THE RISE OF BOBA
Written by Anna Prasouvo, ‘24 | Designed by Sophie Cao, ‘26 and Karly Prasouvo, ’26
Whether it is a cool watermelon breeze from Jamba Juice, a homemade lemonade made by grandma, an iced matcha latte from Starbucks, or even simply electrolyte water before a soccer game, we have the pleasure of enjoying a plethora of drinks molded for our grati cation. Humans naturally love to consume foods and drinks that satisfy our taste buds and these drinks do just that. But, in recent years, thanks to the in uence of social media and post a er post of aesthetically pleasing pictures and videos, society has become obsessed with a hot new item: boba.
Bubble tea, also known by the shorter name “boba”, is a tea-based beverage originating in Taiwan in the 1980s. The drink was brought over to America in the 1990s by Taiwanese immigrants. The name “boba” stands for the tapioca pearls that are in the drink. However, the drink itself can be any avor, texture, or tea: there is the popular milk tea, fruit smoothies, avorful slushies, you name it. Boba is perfect for a postgame treat, dessert a er a meal, or an a er-school hangout beverage. It is (mostly) cheap too! Boba is ridiculously appealing. It is its versatility and wide range of avors that have aided its rise to popularity in the ca eine-obsessed United States with over 15,000 Starbucks shops.
Despite the competitive food market, boba chains are nding their footing in the states with bubble tea stores popping up like never before. Recently, 4S Ranch has seen its rst bubble tea store with Teaspoon opening its doors this October in the 4S Ranch Commons, a mere 4-minute drive from Del Norte High School. for Net ix in impact value. Not only boba, but other foods are also being enjoyed by the American audience: nasi goreng from Indonesia, pad thai from Thailand, fried rice from China, spring rolls from Vietnam, and countless other dishes.
As an Asian American myself, I take pride in seeing Asian culture in uencing the United States. From chopsticks to sriracha, ramen, manga, china town, and Bollywood, Asians have truly made an impact here. So the next time you take a sip from your $6.86 Strawberry Colada from Teaspoon, remember the culture you are appreciating as you relish in the vivid avors held within the cup.
Hot new item: boba.
Bubble tea stores popping up like never before
Personally, I delight in the hype boba is getting! It is just one example of a deserving piece of Asian culture being appreciated in the western market. Another example of Asian prominence in the United States is the huge surge of Asian pop culture artists breaking into the music industry and collaborating with western artists. For example, South Korean singer Jungkook and Charlie Puth’s song “Le and Right.” Furthermore, Asian dramas are also making waves too. According to Samantha Subin from CNBC, “Squid Game”, a Net ix survival drama series made by South Korean Film director Hwang Dong-Hyuck, brought in over $891 million
