This is John Batcher, conversation with the archaeologist and author Eric Klein, his new book

After 1177 BC, The Survival of Civilizations.

You will recall the previous book 1177 and the collapse of

civilizations eight civilizations simultaneously then one at a time collapsed in the

Eastern Mediterranean Basin.

They did reawaken, some of them, some did not,

and the professor asked in this book,

what characteristics described those that survived the collapse, trade was broken, communication

was broken, lawlessness everywhere, city walls were crushed, fires everywhere, famine, pandemic, and what survived those

catastrophes and what did not. We come here to the use of the Trojan War, the Homer story, and what you can trust and what you can

in examining the Bronze Age, the late Bronze Age, when the collapse in the 12th century

B.C. took place.

Eric Klein on the Trojan Wars, what to trust and what not.

And why?

Or of this later.

Well, they may. and to a certain degree, and I have to say I am one of the people that thinks there

are portions of Homer that are accurate and that we can use.

Again, very cautiously with a grain of soul, for example, book two of the Iliad.

There's the catalog of ships where they say Agamemnon came with this many ships and

Manilaeus came with this many ships and so on. That I think is a fairly accurate

remembrance of what went on in the Bronze Age. Other portions of Homer, though,

problematic, for instance, Petrolclus being cremated, that's Iron Age.

...