The Late Bronze Age Collapse-Scented Candle commemorates everyone’s favorite late 13th century widespread societal collapse.
If you’re not familiar with the Late Bronze Age collapse, it was a period around 1200 BCE when almost every major Eastern Mediterranean civilization was destroyed, abandoned or severely weakened, all within a few decades. (Even the Hittites!) Historians still aren’t sure why it happened, even though they have had plenty of time to figure it out.
And the Late Bronze Age Collapse-Scented Candle is similar in many ways:
It involves fire. (It is a candle.)
It involves tin, because the container is coated with tin. (Tin is also one of the ingredients that you need to make bronze. Now you know what to do with all of that extra tin you have lying around!)
It smells like burning cedar. Lebanese cedar was a popular building material in the Late Bronze Age. So one cause of the Late Bronze Age Collapse that we can probably rule out is moths.
It talks about the Late Bronze Age collapse. People at the time talked about the collapse too, although more in the vein of, ”Our food in the threshing floors is sacked and the vineyards are also destroyed. Our city is sacked, and may you know it!”
Historians are unable to fully explain why, exactly, it exists.
The surface of the candle depicts the port city of Ugarit before it was destroyed by “the seven ships of the enemy.” (That is why the candle has seven ships on it. Otherwise, I assure you we would not have bothered!)
At this point, you might be skeptical, but we bet you know at least three people who are interested in the Late Bronze Age Collapse.* (We’re including the two of us, since you basically know us. We already have a Late Bronze Age Collapse Candle, so you can’t get it for us as a gift. But you can get it for that third person!)
*This candle also makes a great gift for anyone who saw the Odyssey, because it’s a way of saying, “I know you’ve been into the Odyssey lately, but I didn’t get you a translation of the Odyssey, because I didn’t think you’d read it.”
