Age of Myth "City Burners"

[Danny McG]

I read this somewhere in a sci fi book (Ken MacLeod possibly).
Probably something he made up but it seemed 'factual' somehow. Google inconclusive.

A woman in the story is thinking about something NOW that terrifies her due to a historical parallel.

She is dredging up details in her memory of the "City Burners" who, in about 13th century before Christianity rose from the plains and deserts and sacked and burned all cities and civilization. They did this for a couple of decades throughout the Known World and then returned to their own lands. Only clues are dates in the ashes.

Is this real?
Did such a thing happen?
Thanks

 

[tinkerdan]

Maybe a reference to the dark age about that time.

Late Bronze Age collapse - Wikipedia

Many cites destroyed ;however also many just abandoned.

Possibly someone playing loose with history.

 

[Danny McG]

Don't know who this person is or their qualifications, he gives info (unsourced) that matches "City Burners"...
Old gods when?

 

[tinkerdan]

In the comments the poster references his link to this book which is a link pictured in a small thumbnail at the top of that article and references Robert Drews::


https://www.amazon.com/dp/0691025916/?tag=id2100-20

It's an old book--now and seems to be written by what I might erroneously call a theoretical historian.

Bio

He has reasonable credentials.

However; it still sounds as though many notions are the best guess to things that many historians might more likely say 'we just don't know based on all the evidence'.

I'm not a historian so though his arguments are compelling I can't say that his conclusions are valid.

There might be an equal or larger number of cities that were simply abandoned and in some cases there was evidence that someone expected to return. Though because of that evidence existence it was evident that they never did.

It's rather funny to me that what Robert Drew's describes brings to mind terrorist rather than an organized army; so I can see where someone might even draw parallels to today.

 

[Venusian Broon]

A while back the late bronze age collapse was totally ascribed to the impact of the 'Sea People' (hence city burners?)- based on a few bits of evidence, namely the record of the Egyptians, from which the general name of the raiders was ascribed. (They actually named a few, unfortunately we don't really know who these people are, although I believe there is quite a lot of evidence that the Egyptians after defeating this military alliance, settled some of the tribes in Palestine, the Philistines being a good candidate for one such tribe.)

There are also some plaintive cries for help from archives from Hittite lords on the coast, saying that the enemy were everywhere and their navy wasn't there to defend them.

It meant that when archaeologists looked at ~1300 BCE sites and found evidence of burning or violence, typically the 'Sea people' were blamed.

However a great deal of work, looking at archaeological evidence and new documents has complicated this picture remarkably. You have to remember that pirating and opportunistic raiding was probably endemic at the time. (Think of Troy - a story for later generations of Greek 'Vikings'! They would also have traded, much like the later Scandinavian Vikings.) Also some of the destruction sites don't really add up to savage attacks by outside people. Some cities only burned their temples and rich districts - was this rather an overthrow of the ruling class by the rest of society?

There was great upheaval and empires did collapse - but the reasons for this are, as tinkerdan states 'we just don't know'. There were very probably a number of factors. Climate was changing at the time and this was likely to cause famine (possibly starting in central Europe and causing peoples to migrate East, before drying conditions hit the Mediterranean world proper later) This would have led to more pressure for raiding and whole movements of people. But also some of the empires were in trouble - the Hittites were undergoing turbulent times with their royal families infighting (again for a number of reasons) - and therefore not being able to respond to external pressures. With central authorities collapsing, the trading networks that had been occurring that had been enriching everyone would have collapsed. I believe at this time, the Hittites even invaded Cyprus - a former ally - and the evidence seems to be that they did so to take control of as much Copper as they could - which they needed for weapons. Cities, particularly in the Levant who operated as entrepots, would have had their livelihood destroyed. So add economic ruin to it all...

In essence the Sea people have had a bad press, being blamed for everything. I'd like to think they were a symptom of the real reasons that caused chaos, not the actual cause (although of course, I should also admit that their actions were not helpful!)

 

[svalbard]

Don't know who this person is or their qualifications, he gives info (unsourced) that matches "City Burners"...
Old gods when?

The author is a bit vague and at times incorrect in his details.

He attibutes the coming of the gods to years after 950 however Zeus is attested to in the Linear B tablets which puts belief in the Greek Pantheon back into the Bronze Age. There was more than one city in Greece at the time of the 'city burners'. I think Sparta survived the upheavel of that time(open to correction in that).

There was a collapse of empires at this time. As VB pointed out the Hittites were the most prominent to fall. The Sea Peoples are blamed and there is much conjecture as to who they were. My belief is that they were Mycenanean Greeks who themselves were under pressure from Doric Greeks to the north.