The Bronze Age Collapse - I: Before the Storm - Extra History

Very nice

Had to go backand find this series. Thanks for setting the stage. Now I have a pretty good idea why I've never heard of "the bronze age collapse" before: there was too little known. :)

Bill Lemmond

There isn't really a way to guarantee a topic will be covered on Extra History. Remember that our topics are chosen by popular vote: everyone sometimes sees the topic that they personally wanted most lose out to one that others wanted more. If you want to directly suggest a topic like Zheng He, there is no way to do that outside of being an $8 patron. It would not be fair to those folks, who have supported our show at that level and made it possible for us to make these episodes in the first place, if we made exceptions. But again, even at the $8 level there is first a raffle (to see which suggestions make it into the poll) and then a vote (to see which topic the patrons want most). That is how our process works. As for the emails, our Community Manager does her best to stay on top of the messages we receive and answer as many as we can, but we simply receive too many for her to be able to answer every one. This is why we have recently introduced an FAQ to our website, and that FAQ does directly address the issue of suggesting topics for Extra History: <a href="https://becausegamesmatter.com/faq/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://becausegamesmatter.com/faq/</a>#8

Extra History

They're not going to come up in this one, not directly! We'd be happy to cover the Kingdom of Israel on EH someday, though.

Extra History

We do our best!

Extra History

Dangit Jeff Goldblum! Why can you never save us from collapsing our own society through our hubris?

Extra History

Might not be speaking English right here, or if we were, it'd be a very very different version of it!

Extra History

What can we say, we're cool kids.

Extra History

I love it too! But then I was a Classics major, so I confess I love Classical history even better. ;) -Soraya

Extra History

There's a lot of theories! Spoilers: yeah, we're gonna talk about that. Today we've set the stage...

Extra History

African or European swallow?

Extra History

The historical Trojan War would be fuunnn to tackle... but it's not going to come up here. ;)

Extra History

Yeah the art has been fantastic! And gosh seeing it all just makes me want that Sargon series even more. lol

Christopher Smith

Peek behind-the-scenes: we corrected the position of the Assyrian Empire in production review (as well as sundry other things like the spelling of "Bronze Age"), but somehow the wrong file got uploaded to the server as the final version and that got pushed out the door with incorrect maps intact. :( Alas. We're working on a way to clear up that step in the production process or add some internal redundancy so that doesn't happen again because it did make us sad when we realized it.

Extra History

I love-love-love David's art in this series. I felt like he really got to play with colors and that is one of the many places where he SHINES.

Extra History

Oooh! I'm gonna check that out, thanks for the links, Martin!

Extra History

If the Jewish Traditional Version of Events is to be believed, this is the Time Period that the Exodus out of Egypt occurred when God supposedly Parted the Red Sea so the Israelites could get across.

Martin Verran

We'll never Know the answer precisely but I have been reading an Alternative History Online about what if ancient Egypt survived up to the Present Day.

Martin Verran

To Extra Credits: Since I'm not a $8 tier patron, how else can this Zheng He topic appear on Patreon? Because if the Zheng He topic is nominated on Patreon, you will prepare on doing a video about this guy in no time. By the way, I have sent a message to both the Extra Credits Gmail account as well as James Portnow's Gmail account, requesting that there be a video on the topic of Zheng He. However, I have received no response from any of them. Would you please be so kind as to explain the reasons for this?

I would be curious to see how the Biblical Isrealites fit into this story... as I understand it, they start to emerge right after the collapse

Robert Griffith

Assyria probably shouldn't be a towering bully with Iron weapons yet, that would be the Second Assyrian Empire, or Neo Assyrian Empire. Also very good job with the varying regional skin tones.

Richard Fejdasz

I'm not saying it was the aliens... but it was the aliens. Solely because Jeff Goldblum wasn't around to upload a virus and get rid of them... :P

Porcupine

I love this. Dawn of Civilization history was hardly covered when I was in school. I wonder what would have happened if whatever happened didn't happen.

Jason Youngberg

And the Avatar reference?

Anubis76

It wasn't the sole superpower? (Superpower is hardly anappropriate term anyway for a bronze age civ) The Assyrians and Hittes were its rivals. And the Assyrians, Persians, and Greeks conquered Egypt long before Rome.

dan

Of course they find a way to slip a Dark Souls reference in.

SpoonofEvil

Egypt loses its status as the sole Superpower at this Time, but it would struggle on for a few more Centuries before eventually being Conquered by Rome.

Martin Verran

Hooray! I love exploring pre-Classical history - it leaves so much room for imagination. I'm really looking forward to this series!

William Icenrose

1. Sir Robin of Camelot. 2. To seek the Holy Grail. 3. I don't Know that...aaarrrgghh!!! Couldn't resist that quote. [actual answer to Question 3 is Nineveh.]

Martin Verran

As I understand the Bronze Age collapse is a because too many bad things just happens to coincide at the same time: we have earthquakes, starvation, sea people invasions, rebellions all happening in rougly the same time. Just too much bad things at once.

Jonathan Luoto

What is your name ? What is your quest ? What is the capital of Assyria ?

Iforgotmyname

I suspect you are going to tell us of a World War 0 which ends with the Trojan War.

barefoot James

whoa...your assyrian empire is a little far out in Iran there. Also, did you said Egypt collapses during this time? I was pretty sure they make it through. They had a huge battle with the Sea Peoples and won....they lost out to other powers later on, and it wasn't until the Roman period Egypt as a distinct civilization began to fade out. Also all those pictures in the beginning of pyramids in ruins seems misleading since the Sea Peoples didn't sucessfully invade Egypt.

dan

Been looking forward to this one, can't wait to watch it!

Christopher Smith

Horray ~ It's Finally here, and at last we get an Egyptian Extra History! This also happens to be the First Topic I Voted for that actually Won. Seeing that this was on the way made me search YouTube for a Three-Part Documentary Series I Remembered watching when I was much Younger. I'm not exactly sure by how much but sufice to say it was Back in the Days of VHS and well before iPads or smart Phones. It took me a little while but here they are: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H4wVo8JfnA" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H4wVo8JfnA</a> ~ Part One <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bu7_Qev7vE" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bu7_Qev7vE</a> ~ Part Two <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hXa5-19pyY" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hXa5-19pyY</a> ~ Part Three

Martin Verran