Not ones to break tradition even with a certain pandemic in the way, the Greek Community of Melbourne (GCM) celebrates a decade of presenting Greek History and Culture Seminars with an online lecture by Louise Hitchcock, Professor of Archaelogy, School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne.
The lecture entitled What the Covid-19 Pandemic Can Tell Us About the Bronze Age (12th Century) Collapse in Greece will be the first in the series to be delivered online. The lecture to be deliverd by Professor Hitchcock on 25 June, will be through the video conferencing platform Zoom, and the GCM’s Facebook and Youtube channels.
In her lecture, Professor Hitchcock will revisit theories of events and mythologies relating to the Bronze Age collapse of Mycenean civilisation and other sites on the Mediterranean as well as the depopulation of Greece in at the end of the Bronze Age.
The once popular theory of a Dorian invasion of Greece from the north has been discounted as an Aryan fantasy by modern scholars. Instead plague, climate change, famine and earthquakes have been put forward as probable causes for the rapid decline in the 12th Century BCE.
In the past, scholars favoured theories that the collapse was due to human acts rather than by events such as plague or famine or the appearance of new weapons in the form of the cut-and-thrust sword (Naue II), the Perstosa Italian dagger and the socketed spear that paved the way for the widespread use of iron weapons.
In describing the forthcoming lecture the GCM said: “It will be suggested in this lecture that observations of the social and economic effects of the Coronavirus pandemic can provide us with a more nuanced understanding of the way social breakdown caused by pandemic might have contributed to creating an opportunity for military action by non-state actors including a dissatisfied rural population as well as the so-called Sea People, known from Egyptian records as well as from Old Testament accounts of the Philistines.”
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Prof Hitchcock is author of Minoan Architecture: A Contextual Analysis, Theory for Classics, Aegean Art and Minoan Architecture (co-authored with Donald Preziosi), and is the co-editor of DAIS: The Aegean Feast, Aegaeum 29 and of the Festschrift for Aren Maeir, as well as the author of over 90 articles dealing with Aegean, Cypriot, and Philistine history and culture.
♦ The lecture will be delivered online through Zoom, and the GCM Facebook and Youtube channels on 25 June. For more information telephone (03) 9662 2722 or email: info@greekcommunity.com.au
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