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The Late Bronze Age collapse is a shocking event when cultures across the Eastern Mediterranean and Near East mysteriously fell between 1200-1150 BC.

Liu Jiaxin December 04 / 2022 Getting your audio player ready... To the layman who is educated in the Euro-Centric tradition, history stops at the Greeks. We are all familiar with the militaristic ferocity of the Spartans and the open atmosphere of discourse in Athens. Yet, we know little about what happened before that. For all we know, civilization was in its pre-embryonic stage, and humans lived in tribal societies where might is right and the objective was to survive. This cannot be further from the truth.A Forgotten Age: The Near East in the Late Bronze AgeA millennium before the emergence of the likes of Plato or Leonidas, the ancient Mediterranean was a bustling, metropolitan ecosystem consisting of varying cultures and societies. Complex alliances not unlike the Balance of Powers in 19th century Europe existed, and cultural interactions reminiscent of 21st century globalization took place. It was a bygone age far ahead of its time.In the south, the New Kingdom of Egypt dominated the Nile. At that time, around 1500 BC, they had already existed for 2 millennia. In Mesopotamia and Canaan, small city states vied for influence, while the Assyrian Empire loomed as a constant threat in the background. In mainland Greece, the Mycenaean civilization flourished with their naval prowess and penchant for commerce. To their east in Anatolia existed the Hittites, an early group of Indo-Europeans feared for their fighting capabilities and rapid expansion of territory.The Bronze Age - A Spark That Changed the World Mediterranean Bronze Age Collapse Linked to Deadly Typhoid and PlagueA Mysterious DeclineIn the 50 years between 1200-1150 BC, all these civilizations suffered a mysterious decline. A sudden, precipitous drop in activity was experienced. Cities stopped trading with each other, and many literary records were destroyed. Urban centers were abandoned, and there were massive outflows of population. Once formidable cities were torched to ruins, and capitals were razed to the ground. To quote Robert Drews:"Within a period of forty to fifty years at the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the twelfth century, almost every significant city in the eastern Mediterranean world was destroyed, many of them never to be occupied again."It was a calamitous destruction of proportions unseen till the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. A dark age would ensue for more than 400 years, until the Greeks began to colonize and the Assyrians re-established control over the Near East. However, there was little to no inter-regional relationship. Any development was heavily localized, and it seemed that the collapse permanently signaled the end of an era.Late Bronze Age Sanctuary of Myrtou-Pigadhes, Cyprus. (Yak / CC BY-SA 3.0)It was, and still is, a profound mystery. Scholars of antiquity struggled to understand the nature and cause of this event. The palatial ruins bespoke of an unspeakable terror, but the lack of evidence precluded any convincing thesis that sufficiently explained the collapse. Recent advances in archaeological technology and the unearthing of primary textual sources have shed light on the issue, but narratives can be drastically different.For example, some posited that the Hekla 3 volcano eruption in Iceland cooled global temperatures, leading to poor harvests, famines, and societal breakdown as banditry and anarchy reigned. Others argue there were revolutions in warfare that made insurgencies powerful, weakening the state's military capabilities. However, none of them seemed to be encompassing enough. While we can say that famine, disease, or more efficient warfare resulted in the collapse, why did it create such a perfect storm?One can attribute it to luck, but that isn't satisfactory as an explanation and is unlikely as well. Rather, I argue that the factors served to underline existing issues of fragility within the political entities. Volcanic eruptions, drought, and foreign invasions merely expedited an already teetering equilibrium.Ugarit: New York of the LevantBut it is too early to dive into theories. Let us reconstruct the world of the Late Bronze Age with the very limited evidence we have. Ugarit is a city-state located in Northern Syria. Situated at the crossroads between the Hittite empire in the north and Egypt in the south, it was an international entrepot bustling with trade. Text archives evidenced mercantile transactions of perishable goods such as dyes, bronze, oil, copper, linen, and produce. Specifically, Ugarit exported a lot to Assyria, an increasingly powerful force in the East.Ugarit imported heavily as well: palatial ruins uncovered Mycenaean pottery, bronze weaponry personally inscribed by the Egyptian pharaoh Merneptah, and Cypriot copper. It was rich and prosperous. Within the thick alabaster warehouses lay urns of precious goods transported by merchants who frequented all four corners of the known world.A tomb in the royal palace’s courtyard at Ugarit, Syria. (Gianfranco Ga...

Civilization's Midnight: The Late Bronze Age Collapse | Ancient Origins