Late Bronze Age collapse
The Late Bronze Age collapse was a time of widespread
The
Competing theories of the cause of the Late Bronze Age collapse have been proposed since the 19th century, with most involving the violent destruction of cities and towns. These include volcanic eruptions, droughts, disease, invasions by the
during the 1st millennium BC.Collapse
This section needs additional citations for verification. (August 2021) |
Cultural destruction
Bronze Age |
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↑ Chalcolithic |
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The half century between c. 1200 and 1150 BC saw the cultural collapse of the Mycenaean kingdoms, the Kassites in Babylonia, the Hittite Empire in Anatolia and the Levant, and the New Kingdom of Egypt,[2] as well as the destruction of Ugarit and the Amorite states in the Levant, the fragmentation of the Luwian states of western Anatolia, and a period of chaos in Canaan.[3] The deterioration of these governments interrupted trade routes and led to severely reduced literacy in much of this area.[4]
Only a few powerful states survived the Bronze Age collapse, particularly
City destruction
Initially historians believed that in the first phase of this period, almost every city between Pylos and Gaza was violently destroyed, and many were abandoned, including Hattusa, Mycenae, and Ugarit, with Robert Drews claiming that, "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."[5]
However more recent research has shown that Drews overestimated the number of cities that were destroyed and referenced destructions that never happened. According to Millek,
"If one goes through archaeological literature from the past 150 years, there are 148 sites with 153 destruction events ascribed to the end of the Late Bronze Age ca. 1200 BC. However, of these, 94, or 61%, have either been misdated, assumed based on little evidence, or simply never happened at all. For Drews's map, and his subsequent discussion of some other sites which he believed were destroyed ca. 1200 BC, of the 60 "destructions" 31, or 52%, are false destructions. The complete list of false destructions includes other notable sites such as: Lefkandi, Orchomenos, Athens, Knossos, Alassa, Carchemish, Aleppo, Alalakh, Hama, Qatna, Kadesh, Tell Tweini, Byblos, Tyre, Sidon, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Beth-Shean, Tell Dier Alla, and many more."[6]
Ann Killebrew has shown that cities such as Jerusalem were large and important walled settlements in the pre-Israelite
Causes
Various explanations for the collapse have been proposed, including climatic changes (such as drought[8] or effects of volcanic eruptions), invasions by groups such as the Sea Peoples, effects of the spread of iron metallurgy, developments in military weapons and tactics, and a variety of failures of political, social and economic systems, but none has achieved consensus. It is likely that a combination of several of these factors is responsible.
Dating
The reason that the arbitrary date 1200 BC acts as the beginning of the end of the Late Bronze Age derives from one German historian, Arnold Hermann Ludwig Heeren. In one of his histories on ancient Greece from 1817, Heeren stated that the first period of Greek prehistory ended around 1200 BC, basing this date on the fall of Troy at 1190 after ten years of war. He then went on in 1826 to date the end of the Egyptian 19th Dynasty as well to around 1200 BC. Throughout the remainder of the 19th century AD, other events were then subsumed into the year 1200 BC, including the invasion of the Sea Peoples, the Dorian invasion, the fall of Mycenaean Greece, and eventually in 1896 the first mention of Israel in the southern Levant recorded on the Merneptah Stele.[9]
Later cultural memories of the collapse
Cultural memories of the disaster told of a "lost
Evaluation
Robert Drews described the collapse as "arguably the worst disaster in ancient history, even more calamitous than the
Recovery
Gradually, by the end of the ensuing Dark Age, remnants of the Hittites coalesced into small Syro-Hittite states in Cilicia and in the Levant, where the new states were composed of mixed Hittite and Aramean polities. Beginning in the mid-10th century BC, a series of small Aramean kingdoms formed in the Levant, and the Philistines settled in southern Canaan, where Canaanite speakers had coalesced into a number of polities such as Israel, Moab, Edom and Ammon.
Regional evidence
This section needs additional citations for verification. (August 2021) |
Evidence of destruction
Anatolia
Before the Bronze Age collapse, Anatolia (Asia Minor) was dominated by a number of peoples of varying ethno-linguistic origins, including: Semitic-speaking Assyrians and Amorites, Hurro-Urartian-speaking Hurrians, Kaskians, Hattians, and Mitanni and later-arriving Indo-European peoples such as the Luwians, Hittites, and Mycenaeans.
From the 16th century BC, the Mitanni, a migratory minority speaking a Hurro-Urartian language, formed a ruling class over the Hurrians. Similarly, the Indo-European-speaking Hittites absorbed the Hattians,[11] a people speaking a language that may have been of the non-Indo-European North Caucasian languages or a language isolate.
Every Anatolian site, apart from integral Assyrian regions in the southeast and regions in eastern, central and southern Anatolia under the control of the powerful Middle Assyrian Empire (1392–1050) that was important during the preceding Late Bronze Age, shows a destruction layer, and it appears that in these regions civilization did not recover to the level of the Assyrians and Hittites for another thousand years or so. The Hittites were already weakened by a series of military defeats and annexations of their territory by the Middle Assyrian Empire, which had already destroyed the Hurrian-Mitanni Empire. It was initially thought that they then suffered a coup de grâce when Hattusa, the Hittite capital, was burned—perhaps by the Kaskians, long indigenous to the southern shores of the Black Sea, aided by the incoming Indo-European-speaking Phrygians. However, Jürgen Seeher, the former lead excavator at Hattusa, has demonstrated that the city was not completely destroyed in a single catastrophic assault.[12] He states that:
1) There is no burnt 'horizon', only a certain number of burnt ruins the date of whose destruction is not established; 2) for the most part these burnt ruins contained no finds, which suggests that they burnt down only after they had lost their function and had been emptied of artefacts; 3) the emptying was presumably carried out by inhabitants of the city – after all, an enemy that is attacking a city does not go to the trouble of emptying buildings virtually down to the last pot before torching them; 4) the only buildings to have burnt are official ones – temples, palace buildings – while the residential districts remained unscathed; this too argues against an assault from outside.[13]
Karaoğlan,[a] near present-day Ankara, was burned and the corpses left unburied.[15] Many other sites that were not destroyed were abandoned.[16] The Luwian city of Troy, famed site of the Trojan War, was destroyed at least twice in this period, before being abandoned until Roman times.
The Phrygians had arrived, probably through the Bosporus or over the Caucasus Mountains, in the 13th century,[17] before being first stopped by the Assyrians and then conquered by them in the Early Iron Age of the 12th century. Other groups of Indo-European peoples followed the Phrygians into the region, most prominently the Dorians and Lydians, and in the centuries after the period of Bronze Age Collapse, Cimmerians and the Iranian-speaking Scythians also appeared. Semitic-speaking Arameans and Kartvelian-speaking Colchians, and revived Hurrian polities, particularly Urartu, Nairi and Shupria, also emerged in parts of the region and Transcaucasia. The Assyrians continued their extant policies, conquering the new peoples and polities they came into contact with, as they had with the preceding polities of the region. However, Assyria gradually withdrew from much of the region for a time in the second half of the 11th century, although they continued to campaign militarily at times, in order to protect their borders and keep trade routes open, until a renewed vigorous period of expansion in the late 10th century.
These sites in Anatolia show evidence of the collapse:
Cyprus
During the reign of the Hittite king
There is little evidence of destruction on the island of Cyprus in the years surrounding 1200 which marks the separation between the Late Cypriot II (LCII) from the LCIII period.[19] The city of Kition is commonly cited as destroyed at the end of the LC IIC, but the excavator, Vassos Karageorghis, made it expressly clear that it was not destroyed stating, "At Kition, major rebuilding was carried out in both excavated Areas I and II, but there is no evidence of violent destruction; on the contrary, we observe a cultural continuity.[20]" Jesse Millek has demonstrated that while it is possible that the city of Enkomi was destroyed, the archaeological evidence is not clear. Of the two buildings dating to the end of the LC IIC excavated at Enkomi, both had limited evidence of burning and most rooms were without any kind of damage.[21] The same can be said for the site of Sinda as it is not clear if it was destroyed since only some ash was found but no other evidence that the city was destroyed like fallen walls or burnt rubble.[22] The only settlement on Cyprus that has clear evidence it was destroyed around 1200 was Maa Palaeokastro which was likely destroyed by some sort of attack[23] though the excavators were not sure who attacked it saying, "We might suggest that [the attackers] were 'pirates', 'adventurers' or remnants of the 'Sea Peoples', but this is simply another way of saying that we do not know."[24]
Several settlements on Cyprus were abandoned at the end of the LC IIC or during the first half of the 12th century without destruction such as Pyla Kokkinokremmos, Toumba tou Skourou, Alassa, and Maroni-Vournes.[19] In a trend which appears to go against much of the Eastern Mediterranean at this time, several areas of Cyprus, Kition and Paphos, appear to have flourished after 1200 during the LC IIIA rather than experiencing any sort of downturn.[19][25]
Syria
Ancient Syria had been initially dominated by a number of indigenous
Before and during the Bronze Age Collapse, Syria became a battleground between the Hittites, the Middle Assyrian Empire, the Mitanni and the New Kingdom of Egypt between the 15th and late 13th centuries BC, with the Assyrians destroying the Hurri-Mitanni empire and annexing much of the Hittite empire. The Egyptian empire had withdrawn from the region after failing to overcome the Hittites and being fearful of the ever-growing Assyrian might, leaving much of the region under Assyrian control until the late 11th century. Later the coastal regions came under attack from the
The
Levantine sites previously showed evidence of trade links with
A letter by the king is preserved on one of the clay tablets found baked in the conflagration of the destruction of the city. Ammurapi stresses the seriousness of the crisis faced by many Levantine states due to attacks. In response to a plea for assistance from the king of
My father, behold, the enemy's ships came (here); my cities(?) were burned, and they did evil things in my country. Does not my father know that all my troops and chariots(?) are in the Land of Hatti, and all my ships are in the Land of Lukka?... Thus, the country is abandoned to itself. May my father know it: the seven ships of the enemy that came here inflicted much damage upon us.[27]
Eshuwara, the senior governor of Cyprus, responded in letter RS 20.18:
As for the matter concerning those enemies: (it was) the people from your country (and) your own ships (who) did this! And (it was) the people from your country (who) committed these transgression(s)...I am writing to inform you and protect you. Be aware![28]
The ruler of Carchemish sent troops to assist Ugarit, but Ugarit was sacked. Letter RS 19.011 (KTU 2.61)[29] sent from Ugarit following the destruction said:
To Ž(?)rdn, my lord, say: thy messenger arrived. The degraded one trembles, and the low one is torn to pieces. Our food in the threshing floors is sacked and the vineyards are also destroyed. Our city is sacked, and may you know it![30]
This quote is frequently interpreted as "the degraded one ..." referring to the army being humiliated, destroyed, or both.[28] The letter is also quoted with the final statement "Mayst thou know it"/"May you know it" repeated twice for effect in several later sources, while no such repetition appears to occur in the original.
The destruction levels of Ugarit contained Late Helladic IIIB ware, but no LH IIIC (see Mycenaean Greece). Therefore, the date of the destruction is important for the dating of the LH IIIC phase. Since an Egyptian sword bearing the name of Pharaoh Merneptah was found in the destruction levels, 1190 was taken as the date for the beginning of the LH IIIC. A cuneiform tablet found in 1986 shows that Ugarit was destroyed after the death of Merneptah. It is generally agreed that Ugarit had already been destroyed by the 8th year of Ramesses III, 1178. Letters on clay tablets that were baked in the conflagration caused by the destruction of the city speak of attack from the sea, and a letter from Alashiya (Cyprus) speaks of cities already being destroyed by attackers who came by sea.
There is clear evidence that Ugarit was destroyed in some kind of assault, though the exact assailant is not known. In one residential area called the Ville sud, thirty two arrowheads were found scattered throughout the area while 12 of the arrowheads were found on the streets and in the open spaces. Along with the arrowheads, two lance heads, four javelin heads, five bronze daggers, one bronze sword, and three bronze pieces of armor were scattered throughout the houses and streets suggesting a fight took place in this residential neighborhood. An additional twenty five arrowheads were also recovered scattered around the Centre de la ville all of which suggests the city was burnt by an assault not by an earthquake.[31] At the city of Emar, on the Euphrates, at some time between 1187 and 1175 only the monumental and religious structures were targeted for destruction while the houses appear to have been emptied, abandoned and were not destroyed with the monumental structures which suggests that the city was burned by attackers even though no weapons were recovered.[32]
While certain cities such as Ugarit and Emar were destroyed at the end of the Late Bronze Age, there are several others which were not destroyed even though they erroneously appear on most maps of destruction from the end of the Late Bronze Age. No evidence of destruction has been found at Hama, Qatna, Kadesh, Alalakh, and Aleppo, while for Tell Sukas, archaeologists only found some minor burning on some floors likely indicating that the town was not burned to the ground around 1200 BC.[33]
The West Semitic Arameans eventually superseded the earlier Amorites and people of Ugarit. The Arameans, together with the Phoenicians and the Syro-Hittite states came to dominate most of the region demographically; however, these people, and the Levant in general, were also conquered and dominated politically and militarily by the Middle Assyrian Empire until Assyria's withdrawal in the late 11th century, although the Assyrians continued to conduct military campaigns in the region. However, with the rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the late 10th century, the entire region once again fell to Assyria.
These sites in Syria show evidence of the collapse:
Southern Levant
Egyptian evidence shows that from the reign of
There is little evidence that any major city or settlement in the southern Levant was destroyed around 1200.
During the reign of Ramesses III,
Despite many theories which claim that trade relations broke down after 1200 in the southern Levant, there is ample evidence that trade with other regions continued after the end of the Late Bronze Age in the Southern Levant. Archaeologist Jesse Millek has shown that while the common assumption is that trade in Cypriot and Mycenaean pottery ended around 1200, trade in Cypriot pottery actually largely came to an end at 1300, while for Mycenaean pottery, this trade ended at 1250, and destruction around 1200 could not have affected either pattern of international trade since it ended before the end of the Late Bronze Age.[40][41] He has also demonstrated that trade with Egypt continued after 1200.[42] Archaeometallurgical studies performed by various teams have also shown that trade in tin, a non-local metal necessary to make bronze, did not stop or decrease after 1200,[43][44] even though the closest source of the metal were modern Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, or perhaps even Cornwall, England. Lead from Sardinia was still being imported to the southern Levant after 1200 during the early Iron Age.[45]
These sites in the Southern Levant show evidence of the collapse:
Greece
Destruction was heaviest at palaces and fortified sites, and none of the Mycenaean palaces of the Late Bronze Age survived (with the possible exception of the
Up to 90% of small sites in the Peloponnese were abandoned, suggesting a major depopulation.[citation needed] Again, as with many of the sites of destruction in Greece, it is unclear how a lot of this destruction came about. The city of Mycenae for example was initially destroyed in an earthquake in 1250 as evidenced by the presence of crushed bodies buried in collapsed buildings.[49] However, the site was rebuilt only to face destruction in 1190 as the result of a series of major fires. There is a suggestion by Robert Drews that the fires could have been the result of an attack on the site and its palace; however, Eric Cline points out the lack of archaeological evidence for an attack.[50][51] Thus, while fire was definitely the cause of the destruction, it is unclear what or who caused it. A similar situation occurred Tiryns in 1200 BC, when an earthquake destroyed much of the city including its palace. It is likely however that the city continued to be inhabited for some time following the earthquake. As a result, there is a general agreement that earthquakes did not permanently destroy Mycenae or Tiryns because, as is highlighted by Guy Middleton, "Physical destruction then cannot fully explain the collapse".[52] Drews points out that there was continued occupation at these sites, accompanied by attempts to rebuild, demonstrating the continuation of Tiryns as a settlement.[47] Demand suggests instead that the cause could again be environmental, particularly the lack of homegrown food and the important role of palaces in managing and storing food imports, implying that their destruction only stood to exacerbate the more crucial factor of food shortage.[49] The importance of trade as a factor is supported by Spyros Iakovidis , who points out the lack of evidence for violent or sudden decline in Mycenae.[53]
Pylos offers some more clues to its destruction, as the intensive and extensive destruction by fire around 1180 reflects the violent destruction of the city.[54] There is some evidence of Pylos expecting a seaborne attack, with tablets at Pylos discussing "Watchers guarding the coast".[55] Eric Cline rebuts the idea that this is evidence of an attack by Sea People, pointing out that the tablet does not say what is being watched for or why. Cline does not see naval attacks as playing a role in Pylos's decline.[54] Demand, however, argues that, regardless of what the threat from the sea was, it likely played a role in the decline, at least in hindering trade and perhaps vital food imports.[56]
The Bronze Age collapse marked the start of what has been called the Greek Dark Ages, which lasted roughly 400 years and ended with the establishment of Archaic Greece. Other cities, such as Athens, continued to be occupied, but with a more local sphere of influence, limited evidence of trade and an impoverished culture, from which it took centuries to recover.[citation needed]
These sites in Greece show evidence of the collapse:[citation needed]
Areas that survived
Mesopotamia
The
The Arameans and
The situation in Babylonia was very different. After the Assyrian withdrawal, it was still subject to periodic Assyrian (and
Egypt
While it survived the Bronze Age collapse, the Egyptian Empire of the New Kingdom era receded considerably in territorial and economic strength during the mid-twelfth century (during the reign of Ramesses VI, 1145 to 1137). Previously, the Merneptah Stele (c. 1200) spoke of attacks (Libyan War) from Putrians (from modern Libya), with associated people of Ekwesh, Shekelesh, Lukka, Shardana and Teresh (possibly an Egyptian name for the Tyrrhenians or Troas), and a Canaanite revolt, in the cities of Ashkelon, Yenoam and among the people of Israel. A second attack (Battle of the Delta and Battle of Djahy) during the reign of Ramesses III (1186–1155) involved Peleset, Tjeker, Shardana and Denyen.
The Nubian War, the First Libyan War, the Northern War and the Second Libyan War were all victories for Ramesses. Due to this, however, the economy of Egypt fell into decline and state treasuries were nearly bankrupt. By defeating the Sea People,
Egypt's withdrawal from the southern Levant was a protracted process lasting some one hundred years and was most likely a product of the political turmoil in Egypt proper. Many Egyptian garrisons or sites with an "Egyptian governor's residence" in the southern Levant were abandoned without destruction including Dier el-Balah, Ashkelon, Tel Mor, Tell el-Far'ah (South), Tel Gerisa, Tell Jemmeh, Tel Masos, and Qubur el-Walaydah.[39] Not all Egyptian sites in the southern Levant were abandoned without destruction. The Egyptian garrison at Aphek was destroyed, likely in an act of warfare at the end of the 13th century.[60] The Egyptian gate complex uncovered at Jaffa was destroyed at the end of the 12th century between 1134 and 1115 based on C14 dates,[61] while Beth-Shean was partially though not completely destroyed, possibly by an earthquake, in the mid-12th century.[39]
Possible causes
Various theories have been put forward as possible contributors to the collapse, many of them mutually compatible.
Environmental
Volcanoes
Part of a series on |
Human history Human Era |
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↑ Prehistory (Stone Age) (Pleistocene epoch) |
↓ Future |
Some Egyptologists have dated the
Other estimated dates for the Hekla 3 eruption range from 1021 (±130)[63] to 1135 BC (±130)[63] and 929 (±34).[64][65] Other scholars prefer the neutral and vague "3000 BP".[66]
Drought
During what may have been the driest era of the Late Bronze Age, tree cover of the Mediterranean forest dwindled. Primary sources report that the era was marked by large-scale migration of people at the end of the Late Bronze Age.
In the Dead Sea region (The Southern Levant), the subsurface water level dropped by more than 50 meters during the end of the second millennium BC. According to the geography of that region, for water levels to drop so drastically the amount of rain the surrounding mountains received would have been dismal.[67]
Drought in the Nile Valley also may have contributed to the rise of the Sea Peoples and their sudden migration across the eastern Mediterranean. It was suspected that crop failures, famine and the population reduction that resulted from the lackluster flow of the Nile and the migration of the Sea Peoples led to New Kingdom Egypt falling into political instability at the end of the Late Bronze Age and well into the Iron Age.[citation needed]
Using the
In 2012 it was suggested that the diversion of midwinter storms from the Atlantic to north of the Pyrenees and the Alps, bringing wetter conditions to Central Europe brought drought to the Eastern Mediterranean, was associated with the Late Bronze Age collapse.[52] A 2023 study of tree rings of juniper trees growing in the region showed a change to drier conditions from the 13th century BC into the 12th century BC with three years consecutive drought in 1198, 1197 and 1196 BC.[69] Alternatively, changes at the end of the Bronze Age could be better characterized as a 'gear shift' in Mediterranean climate rather than an event of three years. The long-range shift in precipitation would not have been a crisis event, but rather a continual stress put on human societies in the region for several generations. There was no one year where conditions became untenable, "nor one straw that broke the back of the camel."[70] Analysis of multiple lines of paleoenvironmental evidence suggests climate change was one aspect associated with this period, but not the sole cause.[71] This was also the conclusion reached by Knapp and Manning in 2016 who, based on their assessment of the proxy data, concluded that, "Based on a series of proxy indicators, there is clearly some sort of shift to cooler and more arid and unstable conditions generally between the 13th and 10th centuries BC, but not necessarily any one key "episode"; thus, there is a context for change but not necessarily its only or specific cause."[67] Moreover, Karakaya and Riehl's recent study of ancient plant remains from Syria showed little evidence that plants underwent water stress during the Late Bronze Age to Iron Age transition. As they summarize their research, "The emerging picture as concerns plant subsistence is that there is no clear evidence that the Late Bronze Age and the Iron Age were periods of dearth and widespread famine, as some climate models have presupposed."[72]
Pandemic
Recent evidence suggests the collapse of the cultures in Mycenaean Greece, Hittite Anatolia, and the Levant may have been precipitated or worsened by the arrival of an early and now-extinct strain of the
Cultural
Ironworking
The Bronze Age collapse may be seen in the context of a technological history that saw the slow spread of
Leonard R. Palmer suggested that
Changes in warfare
Such new weaponry, in the hands of large numbers of "running skirmishers", who could swarm and cut down a chariot army, would destabilize states that were based upon the use of chariots by the ruling class. That would precipitate an abrupt social collapse as raiders began to conquer, loot and burn cities.[57][78]
General systems collapse
A general
In the specific context of the Middle East, a variety of factors – including population growth, soil degradation, drought, cast bronze weapon and iron production technologies – could have combined to push the relative price of weaponry (compared to arable land) to a level unsustainable for traditional warrior aristocracies. In complex societies that were increasingly fragile and less resilient, the combination of factors may have contributed to the collapse.
The growing complexity and specialization of the Late Bronze Age political, economic, and social organization, in Carol Thomas and Craig Conant's phrase,[81] together made the organization of civilization too intricate to reestablish piecewise when disrupted. That could explain why the collapse was so widespread and rendered the Bronze Age civilizations incapable of recovery. The critical flaws of the Late Bronze Age are its centralization, specialization, complexity, and top-heavy political structure. These flaws then were exposed by sociopolitical events (revolt of peasantry and defection of mercenaries), fragility of all kingdoms (Mycenaean, Hittite, Ugaritic, and Egyptian), demographic crises (overpopulation), and wars between states. Other factors that could have placed increasing pressure on the fragile kingdoms include piracy by the Sea Peoples interrupting maritime trade, as well as drought, crop failure, famine, or the Dorian migration or invasion.[82]
See also
- Greek Dark Ages – period following the Late Bronze Age collapse
- Iron Age Cold Epoch
- Middle Bronze Age migrations (ancient Near East)
- Migration Period – similar period preceding the Early Middle Ages
- Mycenology
- Third Intermediate Period of Egypt – a similar period in Egypt
- Late Harappan period, Indo-Aryan migrations – events and periods connected to the end of the Bronze Age India
Notes
References
- ^ Millek, Jesse (2023). "Destruction and Its Impact on Ancient Societies at the End of the Bronze Age". Lockwood Press.
- ^ For Syria, see M. Liverani, "The collapse of the Near Eastern regional system at the end of the Bronze Age: the case of Syria" in Centre and Periphery in the Ancient World, M. Rowlands, M.T. Larsen, K. Kristiansen, eds. (Cambridge University Press) 1987.
- ^ S. Richard, "Archaeological sources for the history of Palestine: The Early Bronze Age: The rise and collapse of urbanism", The Biblical Archaeologist (1987)
- ISBN 978-1412981767.
- ^ The physical destruction of palaces and cities is the subject of Robert Drews's The End of the Bronze Age: changes in warfare and the catastrophe ca. 1200 B.C., 1993.
- ^ Millek, Jesse (2022). "The Fall of the Bronze Age and the Destruction that Wasn't". Ancient Near East Today.
- ISBN 9781589830660. Retrieved 9 October 2018.
- ^ Sturt W. Manninget al. Severe multi-year drought coincident with Hittite collapse around 1198–1196 BC, 08 February 2023
- ^ Millek, Jesse (2021). "Why Did the World End in 1200 BCE". Ancient Near East Today. 9 (8).
- ^ Drews 1993: 3
- ^ Gurnet, Otto, (1982), The Hittites (Penguin) pp. 119–130.
- ^ Seeher, Jürgen (2001). "Die Zerstörung der Stadt Hattusa, in: G. Wilhelm (Hrsg.), Akten des IV. Internationalen Kongresses für Hethitologie. Studien zu den Boğazköy-Texten 45 (Wiesbaden 2001) 623–634". Akten des IV. Internationalen Kongresses für Hethitologie. Studien zu den Boğazköy-Texten 45.
- ^ Seeher, Jürgen (2010). "After the Empire: Observations on the Early Iron Age in Central Anatolia, in: I. Singer (ed.), ipamati kistamati pari tumatimis. Luwian and Hittite Studies presented to J. David Hawkins on the Occasion of his 70th Birthday (Tel Aviv 2010) 220–229". Ipamati Kistamati Pari Tumatimis. Luwian and Hittite Studies Presented to J. David Hawkins on the Occasion of His 70th Birthday: 221.
- ^ Robbins, p. 170
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- ^ Bryce, Trevor. The Kingdom of the Hittites. (Clarendon), p. 379
- ^ Bryce, Trevor. The Kingdom of the Hittites (Clarendon), p. 366.
- ^ a b c Georgiou, Artemis (2017). "Flourishing amidst a "Crisis": the regional history of the Paphos polity during the transition from the 13th to the 12th centuries BCE. in Fischer, P. and Burge. T. (eds.), "Sea Peoples" Up-to-Date New Research on Transformations in the Eastern Mediterranean in the 13 th −11 th Centuries BCE. 207–228".
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- ^ a b Cline 2014, p. 151.
- ^ Dietrich, M.; Loretz, O.; Sanmartín, J. "Archival view of P521115". Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. Retrieved 2 March 2021.
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- ^ Millek, Jesse (2020). "Our city is sacked. May you know it!; The Destruction of Ugarit and its Environs by the Sea Peoples. Archaeology and History of Lebanon 52–53: 102–132". Archaeology and History of Lebanon. 52–53: 105–108.
- ^ Millek 2019b, pp. 167–169.
- ^ Millek 2019b.
- ^ a b Millek, Jesse (2019). "Crisis, Destruction, and the End of the Late Bronze Age in Jordan: A Preliminary Survey". Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins. 135 (2): 127–129.
- ^ a b c Millek, Jesse (2018). "Just how much was destroyed? The end of the Late Bronze Age in the Southern Levant. Ugarit-Forschungen 49: 239–274". Ugarit-Forschungen.
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- ^ a b Georges Roux, Ancient Iraq
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Sources
- ISBN 978-0-691-14089-6.
- ISBN 978-0-691-04811-6.
- Millek, Jesse Michael (2019a). Exchange, Destruction, and a Transitioning Society. Interregional Exchange in the Southern Levant from the Late Bronze Age to the Iron I. Tübingen: Tübingen University Press. ISBN 978-3-947251-11-7.
- Millek, Jesse Michael (2019b). "Destruction at the end of the Late Bronze Age in Syria: A reassessment". Studia Eblaitica. 5: 157–190. S2CID 259490258.
- Millek, Jesse Michael (2021a). "Just what did they destroy? The Sea Peoples and the end of the Late Bronze Age". In Kamlah, J.; Lichtenberger, A. (eds.). The Mediterranean Sea and the Southern Levant: archaeological and historical perspectives from the Bronze Age to Medieval times. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 59–98. ISBN 978-3-447-11742-5.
Further reading
- Bachhuber, Christoph R. and Gareth Roberts, 2009. Forces of Transformation : The End of the Bronze Age in the Mediterranean : Proceedings of an International Symposium Held at St. John's College University of Oxford 25–6th March 2006 Paperback ed. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
- Dickinson, Oliver (2007). The Aegean from Bronze Age to Iron Age: Continuity and Change Between the Twelfth and Eighth Centuries BC. Routledge. ISBN 978-0415135900.
- Fischer, Peter M. and Teresa Bürge, 2017. "Sea Peoples" Up-To-Date : New Research on Transformations in the Eastern Mediterranean in the 13th-11th Centuries Bce. Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/j.ctt1v2xvsn.
- Killebrew Ann E. and Gunnar Lehmann, 2013. The Philistines and Other "Sea Peoples" in Text and Archaeology. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature.
- Millek, Jesse (2023). Destruction and its impact on ancient societies at the end of the Bronze Age. Columbus (Ga.): Lockwood Press. ISBN 9781948488839.
- Oren, Eliezer D. 2000. The Sea Peoples and Their World : A Reassessment. Philadelphia: University Museum.
- Ward, William A. and Martha Sharp Joukowsky, 1992. The Crisis Years : The 12th Century B.c. : From Beyond the Danube to the Tigris. Dubuque Iowa: Kendall/Hunt Pub.