Reimagining the Rise and Fall of Civilizations
Essay published with The Long Now Foundation.
Image credit: Casey Cripe
In his Histories, Herodotus tells the story of Croesus, a wealthy king who ruled the region of Lydia some 2,500 years ago. One day, Croesus consulted the famous oracle at Delphi about his conflict with the neighboring Persians. The oracle responded that if Croesus went to war, he would destroy a great empire. Sure of victory, Croesus marched for battle. Much to his surprise, however, he lost. The great empire he destroyed was not his enemies’, but his own. A few centuries later, the Persians were in turn bested by Alexander the Great.
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Copyright 2020-present Dries Daems.
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Dries Daems
Assistant Professor in Spatial Digital Humanities
I am Assistant Professor in Spatial Digital Humanities at VU Amsterdam.I got my PhD in Archaeology from KU Leuven. My research interests include social complexity, urbanism, connectivity and information exchange, artisanal production, and human-environment interactions through computational modeling and pottery studies. My core research focus lies in the Hellenistic Mediterranean.