A Walk Through the Destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans (70 CE) with Ronnie Ellenblum 
 

The Decline of Complex Civilizations: Resilience or Collapse? 

Norman Yoffee: The Evolution of Fragility

Israel Finkelstein and Dafna Langgut: New Evidence on the Collapse of the Egypto-Canaanite System in the Levant at the End of the Late Bronze Age and on the Recovery in the Iron I 

Michael McCormick: What Really Happened with Rome? Thinking about Collapse, Decline, Fall and Historical Understanding

Institute for Advanced Studies, Givat Ram Campus
(Jerusalem)

Seminar plenary discussion led by Norman Yoffee

Crumbling Ancient Powers

Gideon Shelach: The Rise, Decline and Transformation of Early Regional States in China

Miroslav Bárta: The Demise of the Egyptian Old Kingdom: 2200 B.C.

Joseph Maran:  Monuments and Social Memory Before and After the Demise of the Mycenaean Palaces

Coffee Break

Empires in Perspective

Yuri Pines: The Political Resilience of the Chinese Empire

Bryan Ward-Perkins: Why Has it Been Possible to Ignore the Collapse that Happened at the End of the Roman Empire?

Miriam Stark: Political Cycling in Southeast Asia’s Classical States

Plenary discussion led by Yuri Pines and Alex Yakobson

The Decline, Fall and Memory of Great Cities

Ari Daniel Levine: Dream Records of the Eastern Capital – Song Dynasty Kaifeng, Diasporic Nostalgia, and Reconstructed Memories

Hugh Kennedy: The Decline and Fall of the Abbasid Caliphate in the Tenth Century

Michal Biran: The Fall and Rise of  Baghdad Under Mongol Rule - Between History and Memory

Jodi Magness: Did Galilean Jewish Settlement Collapse in the Mid-Fourth Century C.E.?

Plenary discussion led by Bryan Ward-Perkins

Collapse: A View from the Edge

A discussion led by Gideon Avni over lunch

The Decline, Fall and Memory of Great Cities

Margalit Finkelberg: Immortalized in Destruction – The Fall of Troy in Greco-Roman Tradition

Sarah Morris: Cities of Memory in Monuments and Narrative – Troy, Mycenae and the Afterlife of the Aegean Bronze Age

Peter Machinist: The Collapse of Nineveh: Reality and Symbol

Nili Wazana: The Real and Imagined Destruction of the Canaanite Cities

Plenary discussion led by Nili Wazana and Sharon Zuckerman

Climatic Disasters and Societal Changes

Ronnie Ellenblum: ”Domino Effects” – the Moyenne Durée and the Collapse of the Eastern Mediterranean during the MCA

Yochanan Kushnir: Climate Teleconnections - What They Are, Their Impact, and Cause

Ofer Bar Yosef: Climate Change and Societal Transformations in Prehistory

Yehuda Enzel: Modern Extreme Events as Guides to Past Climatic Conditions

Plenary discussion