The time around 1200 B.C.E. saw the overthrow of many Bronze Age regimes in the eastern Mediterranean. It also marks the departure towards new forms of economic and social organization both in the eastern and in the central Mediterranean regions. The interplay of historical factors between these wider regions is not well understood and new excavations continuously bring to light valuable evidence for re-assessing the development of local societies and their dialectic relationships with the super-regional processes.

After the completion of the excavations at Punta di Zambrone in southern Calabria in 2013, the Zambrone team wishes to discuss its preliminary results with the international scholarly community in the context of recent scientific results from other sites and regions. Therefore, a conference will be held at the Austrian Historical Institute in Rome, April 16 – 18, 2015 entitled “1200 B.C.E. A Time of Breakdown – a Time of Progress in Southern Italy and Greece”. In order to allow for a fruitful discussion, the conference shall treat the Recent Bronze Age in Italy and the late palatial period as well as the post-palatial period in Greece, that is to say on the 13th and 12th centuries B.C.E., and especially the decades around 1200. However, the perspective may be individually widened in order to illuminate the structural causes for and the effects of the main historical changes in the various Mediterranean areas. Methodological approaches will be broad and encompass a variety of scientific disciplines, all contributing to a multilateral reconstruction of the complex historical situation in this period.

Organizer:

Reinhard Jung (OREA, ÖAW)

in cooperation with Österreichisches Historisches Institut Rom (ÖHI)

 Preliminary programme

 Abstracts