Devastating 'World War ZERO' destroyed ancient civilisations and plunged Europe into a dark age

mirror.co.uk ^ | 11:44, 13 MAY 2016 | JASPER HAMILL

[Trumpinator]

Devastating 'World War ZERO' destroyed ancient Mediterranean civilisations and plunged Europe into a dark age

11:41, 13 MAY 2016 UPDATED 11:44, 13 MAY 2016 BY JASPER HAMILL

Controversial theory finally identifies mysterious 'Sea Peoples' blamed for cataclysmic series of events which changed the course of history

It was a disaster which destroyed the ancient world's greatest civilisations and plunged Europe into a dark age that lasted centuries.

Now one archaeologist think he's worked out who's to blame for sparking an event he calls "World War Zero", but which most academics refer to as the The Late Bronze Age Collapse .

At some point between 1200 and 1150 BC, the advanced civilisations in the Mediterranean suddenly collapsed after a little understood group of vicious barbarians dubbed "The Sea Peoples" swept across the region.

We know about these savage invaders due to ancient Egyptian inscriptions which describe a mass movement of people so brutal that "no land could stand before their arms".

But despite years of study, no academic has been able to fully prove their true identity or explain what really happened in "the crisis years".

Eberhard Zangger, head of an organisation called Luwian Studies , has now stepped in to offer his own explanation for the cause of this ancient cataclysm.

On a new website set up to publicise his theories, his organisation said that previous explanations for the invasion of the Sea People "have failed".

Zangger's zinger of an idea hinges around the claim that a lost civilisation called the Luwians from Anatolia, in modern-day Turkey, may have caused the disaster, which was the result of three great conflicts.

[Trumpinator]

I looked it up - it was a Greek Prophet. Apparently, there was a miracle where a sheep laid down and an alter was erected to “an unknown God” that saved Athens from a plague when sacrifices to the established Pantheon did not produce any results. I provided a link above. Fascinating reading. This would have been clear to people of that era but to us modern folk it requires some historical insight.

[Verginius Rufus]

I looked at the link you provided. Although it cites Diogenes Laertius, it goes beyond what he says about Epimenides--there is nothing in Diogenes about the Unknown God.

Diogenes (1.110) mentions the plague and how the Athenians were told by the Pythian priestess to purify their city, so they sent Nicias son of Niceratus to Crete to ask the help of Epimenides. He came in the 46th Olympiad (595-592 B.C.) and stopped the plague in this way:

He took sheep, some black and some white and led them to the Areopagus. There he let them go wherever they wished, instructing those who followed them to mark the spot where each sheep lay down and offer a sacrifice to the local god, and thus the plague was stopped. For this reason even to this day it is possible to find in the villages of the Athenians anonymous altars, which are memorials of this expiation.

According to Diogenes Laertius, before this Epimenides had gone to sleep in a cave and woke up 57 years later, and that is why he had become famous.

[Verginius Rufus]

Aristotle in his Athenian Constitution briefly mentions Epimenides of Crete and his cleansing of the city, but has nothing about sheep or altars.

[Trumpinator]

I took it from this source:

Paul announced what had waited six centuries for utterance. Yahweh, the Judeo-Christian God, was anticipated by Epimenides’ altar to the unknown god. He was not a “foreign god” as his adversaries claimed (v.18) but a God who had already intervened to bring help in the affairs of Athens.

http://christiansincrete.org/news/to-an-unknown-god/

[Verginius Rufus]

Yes, I looked at the source you linked, but I don't know of any ancient source that connects Epimenides with the notion of an Unknown God.

Diogenes Laertius' short biography of Epimenides doesn't. Aristotle in his Athenian Constitution doesn't. Aristotle also mentions Epimenides briefly in his Politics but that has nothing to do with religion. Plato in the Laws has Epimenides coming to Athens 10 years before the Persian Wars (almost a century later than Diogenes' date) but still nothing about an Unknown God. Plutarch mentions him in his Life of Solon and refers to religious reforms he made at Athens, but nothing about an Unknown God.

[Trumpinator]

I am not afraid to admit this is a new one for me.