This is John Batchett.

Conversation with Professor Eric Klein, his new book, After 1177 BC, The Survival of Civilization.

This is a follow-up to a book that the professor did several years past.

I spoke with him at the time.

The original 1177, the year civilization ended.

The professor compares and contrasts seven different civilizations, Egyptian Hittite,

around the eastern Mediterranean and into Asia Minor, finding that they worked together,

globalized, worked together very neatly, until one after another

fell apart for different reasons. But that took the whole chain down, if I understand correctly.

Arriving on the scene is a mystery called the Sea Peoples. Here's the professor to explain. Where did they come from?

Where were they going? The sea peoples. There is speculation that they came from the general

Aegean area. But what drove them to invade simultaneously so many parts of the Levant into Egypt.

Eric Klein, the mystery of the sea peoples, after 1177 BC, the survival of civilization.

Thank you.

Yes, first of all, the Philistines are in those three cities, plus two more.

They're also in the site of Ekron, which is Telmikna, and they're in the site of Gath, which is Tel-Safi,

and four of the five have been excavated.

Gaza has never been excavated, and who knows if it will be now,

or if it's even still there. But these are the five cities of the Philistines. The Bible calls them

the pentapolis. And so we've got all of those. And in fact, very interesting, well, let me back up for a second. The Philistines

are definitely part of the Sea peoples. They are probably the group that the Egyptians

call the Palescet. So the Pelleset would be the Philistines. We've been able to identify their

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