The main problem in understanding the Bronze Age Collapse is that we don’t really know what happened. This may look like an oversimplification but it is not. It is, instead, the simple truth. Of the four great civilizations that faced disaster in this 12th century BC collapse: the Mycenaean Greeks, the Hittites, the Assyrians and the Egyptians, only one gives us any clues as to an inciting event. The other three are more or less unhelpful, serving more to confirm a collapse did actually happen as to tell us why. We don’t know what happened to the Mycenaean Greeks because their royal dynasties and social structure was entirely lost in the collapse. Nobody wrote down what happened because the collapse was so total that the Greeks even forgot how to write. What records we have about the world of the Greeks before the collapse is one of mythical heroes and their interactions with the gods. The stories of Homer which survive come from an oral tradition alone, because the break at the end of the collapse was absolute. When the Greeks taught themselves to read and write again, and could capture these stories, it was in an entirely different language, an entirely different alphabet. The Hittites were well on their way to collapsing on their own by the Bronze Age Collapse, so while we have surviving evidence of their fall it is much more introspective, concerned with dynastic infighting and how they’d burned down their capital all on their own. For the Hittites, the Bronze Age Collapse was merely another problem to (fail to) deal with. Header Image: Egyptian depiction of Ramesses III fighting the Sea Peoples. These warriors have been identified with the Peleset based on their head dresses. Source: TYalaA / Public Domain.
Right Man, Right Place, Right Time: The Rise of Napoleon
In 1799 France changed forever. After a decade of rumbling discontent regarding the concentration of wealth towards the powerful and the exploitation of the masses who were facing widespread starvation, the French rose up and killed everyone in charge, from the King on down. The failure of the ancien regime, the creaking feudal order of things in France, to address this economic crisis led to a new way of thinking, not just for France but for the world. Many of the fundamental principals of modern liberal democracy came out of this seismic upheaval and metamorphosis of one of the most powerful countries in Europe. This was also a time of bloody violence and widespread paranoia: not for nothing is the period where the French people sought to rule themselves for the first time in history known as “The Terror.” Noble families were butchered, royalists hunted down and executed. Amidst the chaos there was very little that even the new government could agree on. The enormous power vacuum left by the death of a king and his court attracted quite as many chancers and opportunists as it did good men looking to build a better world, and nobody who tried to govern in this almost-lawless time escaped without bloody hands. But there was unity, of a sort, in the French Consulate. The new order would be one for the people, ruled by merit not by birthright, and in this new democracy one thing was clear: there would never again be a king. So how is it then that, only 15 years later, France crowned a new ruler: not just a king but an emperor? Who could have charted a course so true in these turbulent times that he could win the backing of the people who had just destroyed such a regime? This was Napoleon, and the story of how he rose to the top of this chaotic French furball is one of bravado, and of sheer talent. It is also one of duplicity, of disobedience and of sheer luck. How did France’s “little corporal,” an Italian Corsican, become Emperor of the French? A Bloody Meritocracy It certainly helped that Napoleon picked the right side, and the timing could not have been better for him. He had been commissioned as an artillery lieutenant in the Royal French Army in 1785, only four years before the Revolution: long enough to establish himself, but brief enough to escape associations with the traditional royalist elements of the army. He was also an active and prominent supporter of the Revolution, an understandable thing. For a man of talent but low birth to be suddenly offered a world where he could shine presented a golden opportunity, and Napoleon was never a man to miss an opportunity. Napoleon threw himself into the cause of the Revolution in his native Corsica, a brave thing to do given the complex politics of the island. There were many who wanted Corsican independence in the wake of the fall of the French regime, and Napoleon’s father was declared a traitor for failing to support them. Was Napoleon a good soldier? He was a brilliant strategist and his battlefield tactics were unsurpassed, in a large part because this artillery lieutenant understand that artillery were the future, and could shape and direct the course of a battle to devastating effect. But he was also disobedient, opportunist, and very much on the make. It was a peculiarity of his service in the army that he was never punished for his transgressions. He disobeyed orders in staying too long in Corsica commanding a troop of auxiliary volunteers, but instead of censure and a court martial this earned him a promotion to captain in 1792. Finally returning to France and his duties after an embarrassing failure to take Corsica’s neighbor, the island of Sardinia, a year after advancing to captain Napoleon was promoted to overall artillery commander of the Republican forces by the French government, known as the Directory. This meteoric jump came about aided by his Corsican support and the disarray in France at the time. Napoleon was again lucky with his new job, which saw him in convoy passing the French port of Toulon at a crucial moment. He was charged with capturing the city from the occupying British and French royalists, so he captured a hill fort overlooking the city and its harbor and positioned his artillery so they could attack with impunity. Toulon fell to Napoleon after several months, and he was made a general for his troubles. He had also caught the attention of the top men in the government. Given command of the artillery of the Army of Italy, he now had a purpose, and the momentum to carry him to power. The French authorities seemed not to concern themselves with Napoleon’s rise or the increasing cult of personality which surrounded him, so long as he kept winning. He swept through Italy with a series of stunning victories, returning to Paris in 1797 as a populist hero. His next expedition was to Egypt, where he soon controlled much of the Nile Delta. However Napoleon was unable to hold this territory, and once the British had destroyed his fleet at the Battle of the Nile he found himself trapped and facing ruin. However this somehow turned out to be to his advantage. In his absence France had suffered a series of costly setbacks and was facing invasion with empty coffers, something for which Napoleon could clearly not take any blame. This allowed him to return, as he did in 1799 without orders to do so, as the savior of France. This made Napoleon the figure around which public support coalesced. He was winning when everyone else was losing, he was strong when the new French government was weak. His success put him beyond punishment: his desertion in Corsica, his failure in Egypt and his repeated disobeying of orders were discussed by the Directory but no action was taken. In fact
The Battle of Shiloh, when the Injured Soldiers Glowed
It is early 1862, and Ulysses S Grant has just won two major battles. Fighting tooth and nail in Tennessee as he forced his way south in an effort to splinter the Confederacy and cut off vital supply lines, the victories were the largest the Union had achieved at the time, and earned Grant a promotion to Major General. But now, things are grim. Although the battles have forced the Confederate Army to abandon Kentucky, this has allowed them to consolidate their forces further to the south. The Union army, by contrast, is exhausted and still separated from reinforcements. The Confederate leaders knew they had to act decisively, and act they did. Before Grant could join with his reinforcements and continue to push southwards, carving the Confederacy into two, the Confederate army launched a surprise attack on April 5. Their plan, to force Grant and his Union forces into the swamps at their back, and defeat the Union incursion. This conflict became known as the Battle of Shiloh, named for the rough wooden church near the heart of the fighting. “Shiloh” is an odd name for a church, a Hebrew word meaning “place of peace” and hardly a fitting title for the hard fought victory the Union won here. But this is not a story of the conflict. Instead, this battle is remarkable for another reason. As the dead and dying from both sides lay on the battlefield in the aftermath, something strange was seen, something which lacked any satisfactory explanation for almost 150 years. The wounds of some of the soldiers were glowing. Many Theories, Few Explanations Losses were heavy on both sides after the battle, and there were many injuries. Emanating from many of these grievous wounds was something never before seen: a glow which allowed the soldiers to be easily found in the dark, and which the amazed survivors termed the “Angels’ Glow”. This was not some tall tale of history, this was a reality of the aftermath verified by everyone at the scene. And the strange glow was not the only thing that was unusual about the wounded of Shiloh. It was observed that those among the injured with glowing wounds were more likely to survive their injuries. Battlefield surgeons and orderlies noted in the days following the battle that the injuries which glowed this eerie bluish green were less likely to become infected. It seemed that the glowing wounds healed faster and gave those soldiers a better chance at life. Over the following 150 years no adequate explanation was offered as to the cause of the glow, or the reason for the protection offered by this strange phenomenon. Many Union soldiers attributed it to divine providence, seeing in the protection it offered them a hope for their cause: were the angels truly on their side. For these glowing wounds certainly benefitted the Union casualties more than the Confederacy. The Union victory at the Battle of Shiloh was hard won indeed, and estimates put the Union wounded at some 8,000. Confederate casualties were similarly high, but the Confederate army was not nearly as overextended as Grant’s force. It is possible the high number of wounded on both sides was a factor in the observation: with so many injured soldiers the glow around some of the wounds would have been more likely to attract attention. The glowing wounds may have been missed at a smaller or less destructive conflict, with fewer casualties. The mystery of the glowing wounds would only be solved as late as 2001, and then only in theory. A high school student named Bill Martin, touring the battlefield, came across the strange story and decided to investigate further. Bill enlisted the help of his mom, a microbiologist. For Bill, you seem had a theory. He thought the glow might have come from a very particular bacterium, known as Photorhabdus luminescens. This bacterium, as its name suggests, luminesces: it glows. It is also known to be found in nematodes, microscopic worms found in soil. The nematodes have a symbiotic relationship with the bacteria: the worm infects insects attracted by the light, and then introduces the bacteria into the blood of the insects: both bacterium and worm feast. This would explain much. The glowing bacteria not only kill the host insect which the worm has infected, but all other competition, including other toxic bacteria. This would explain why the glowing wounds of the soldiers were more resistant to infection, as they were effectively being sterilized of other harmful bacteria. Had the worms infested these wounds? Bill set to work to figure out if the soil present at the Battle of Shiloh could have contained such worms, and if the worms in turn could have introduced to the injuries of the soldiers as they lay dying on the battlefield. Why then do all such wounds not glow? Several other factors must have come into play for this hypothesis to be true. For a start, nematode worms do not ordinarily infest human hosts, driven off in part by the higher temperatures of the human body. The injured soldiers lying on the battlefield in the cold April night would have had a lower body temperature than healthy individuals, potentially allowing the worms to overcome this barrier. Similarly the soldiers’ own immune systems would have been hard pressed under such circumstances, failing to fight off the bacteria which passed from the soil into their bodies. It is certainly a possibility, but it is sadly one impossible to prove. But it seems that this explanation is entirely plausible as the source of the Angels’ Glow. Not divine intervention after all, but a glowing bacteria and its host worm feeding on the wounded soldiers at the Battle of Shiloh. Top Image: The wounds of many of the fallen soldiers were seen to be glowing after the battle, and those with glowing wounds seemed more likely to survive (Thure de Thulstrup / Public Domain)
Ragnarok: What Can We Learn from the Doom of the Gods?
In the 13th century in Iceland a poet and a scholar named Snorri Sturluson wrote two great masterpieces, texts which cast a shadow to this day. In his Poetic Edda and his Prose Edda his beautiful writing captured much of ancient Norse tradition: their people, their history, and their gods. These texts are a vital resource for our present-day knowledge of Norse traditions, and there is much in there that would not otherwise be known to us. From what earlier sources survive it seems that Snorri, although not above dramatic flourish and invention, was generally faithful to the stories he sought to record. These were the stories of his people after all, well known to all. And it is Snorri we have to thank for perhaps the greatest story of all in Norse mythology, a series of events known as Ragnarok. Much can be learned from this final, fatal battle for the Norse pantheon, not least about the people who in their fixation told and retold the tale of the doom of their gods. For, although not without parallel in other religions, there are many peculiarities of this story which set it apart. Were the peoples of Scandinavia so set in their fatalism that they needed a heroic end for their gods? Was death in battle the only glorious death for them? To be sure, other religions set their gods up with dark adversaries, with the looming implication of an upcoming conflict which will settle things once and for all. The Greek gods have their Titans, the Egyptians their desert hell with Set lurking where no man can survive. Christians have their hell, too, but for all these other religions the fate of the gods (or angels) hangs ever in the balance. The figures of such mythologies remain static, the final battle always in the future, unknown. Among all the great pantheons it is only the Norse who talk of how their gods die in such detail. The more one knows about the tale, the more it confounds. At its heart the story of Ragnarok is not one of glory, or victory, or even closure. There is shame, and humiliation in this tale, and not all who face their fate here are granted a fitting end. Why must the Norse gods die in this way? An Inevitable End Ragnarok, the Doom of the Gods, begins with Odin the Allfather, god of war and chief among the Norse pantheon known as the Aesir, seeking to know his future and his end from a witch. The seer looks into the future and prophesies for the god his end, talking of a time of chaos and destruction. It is clear that social order has broken down. The seer warns of the home of the gods running red with gore, three roosters crowing and then the great guardian Gaumr, the dog that guards the gate of Hel, escaping his bindings he wreak havoc. On the mortal plane, families are described as turning on each other as all is reduced to a merciless slaughter. Ragnarok is, for the Norse, the ultimate ending and undoing of all they held valuable, and the rejections of the Norse ideals of family, clan and loyalty in this way must have been shocking indeed. At this point the Aesir are still secure, but the other lands of Norse mythology fall into ruin. The great world serpent Jormungandr thrashes, rendering the seas unnavigable and freeing the dread ship navigable, and Jötunheimr, the lands of the jötnar, are aflame. Yggdrasil, the world tree itself, groans in torment. The old foes of the gods, array themselves against the Aesir, roaming free and dressed for war. Hrym, shieldbearer of the giants, leads his army from the east, and fire giants lead by Surtr with his flaming sword advance from the south. Worst of all, the great wolf Fenrir, tricked and trapped by an Aesir named Tyr, has loosed his bonds and stands free, a fearsome adversary beyond the strength of any god. The gods know that the battle is helpless, but they sally forth to meet their doom. Odin is the first to die, eaten by Fenrir, who then in turn dies at the hands of Odin’s son Víðarr, who in his rage and grief manages to open the wolf’s massive jaws wide and stab it through its heart with a spear. Thor faces off against the world serpent Jormungandr and is victorious, crushing the snake but being grievously wounded in the process. Thor is only able to take nine steps from the body of the snake before he, too, falls, overwhelmed by the many venomous bites he has received. Loki, imprisoned and tortured for his part in the death of the god Baldr, is freed and faces off against the god Heimdall. Both kill each other in mortal combat. The noble god Freya faces off against Surtr but is no match for the fire giant, and with this defeat for the Aesir the Sun itself turns black. The lands hiss with steam and flames rise as the stars are blotted out with smoke. All is ruin. Amidst this destruction there is hope, however. The remaining Aesir, broken and leaderless, retreat to a meeting place known as the field of Iðavöllr. Here they remember their lost glory, before seeing the return of crops and life without their intervention, a message at the end that life will go on, even without their stewardship. This is the most straightforward vision of Ragnarok. Other poems and the Prose Edda give further details, clearly pointing to a well-known mythology from which Snorri was drawing. The fates of other figures of Norse mythology are given in these texts. Skoll and Hati, the wolf and his companion who chase the Sun and Moon, finally catch their quarry: the Sun and the Moon are swallowed whole. But all texts agree that, after the doom of the gods, there will be a rebirth, a new world for the survivors. Some of
