College to Host Lecture About Conflicts During the Late Bronze Age

The College of Charleston is putting conflict in context with a lecture by Billie Jean Collins on February 27, 2014 in room 309 of the Simons Center for the Arts. The free lecture begins at 7 p.m. and is open to the public.

Collins, an instructor in Middle Eastern studies at Emory University and acquisitions editor for the Society of Biblical Literature, will present a lecture entitled, “Conflict in Context: Mycenaean Greeks, Hittites, and Luwians in Western Anatolia.” Throughout the Late Bronze Age (1600-1200 BC), the region of western Anatolia, or Asia Minor, found itself caught between the competing interests of Mycenaean traders in the west, the Hittite Empire in the east, and self-interested adventurers with political ambitions from within. The result was a climate of political and economic uncertainty in which frequent outbreaks of hostility were the norm.

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Pulling together the most recent archaeological, textual, and linguistic research, Collins will present a fresh picture of the world of western Anatolia in the Late Bronze Age, with a particular focus on the Luwians, Trojans, and other local Anatolian peoples whose world formed the backdrop of Homer’s Iliad and legends of the Trojan War.