Clay and Chaos:
Imagined Vessels of the Sea Peoples

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The many reminders of the uncertainties of our current time got me thinking about what it actually looks like for a civilization to collapse. Would it be a slow burn or a sudden, catastrophic downfall? Looking to the Bronze Age, a time when inter-connected social and economic structures flourished around the Mediterranean, a time when Hammurabi was creating his code, King Tut walked the Earth and the legendary city of Troy flourished, the collapse appears to have been sudden. One theory lies within a mysterious, seafaring group known as the ‘Sea Peoples.’ Both raiders and refugees, seaborne traders and pirates, with their arrival civilizations began to crumble. This work imagines their ceramic vessels. 

 

Of course this collapse also led to transformation. Those who adapted survived and harkened in the Iron Age, the creation of the alphabet and ideas leading to democracy in Greece. So what inspires people to hold to change as a threshold of possibility while others see a disastrous fall from an ideal past? Here’s to embracing uncertainty and remaining open-hearted towards transformation!