The Late Bronze Age Collapse

  The Late Bronze Age Collapse

What historians and archaeologists refer to as the Late Bronze Age Collapse was a period of societal upheaval and collapse that impacted much of the Eastern Mediterranean and the near east. The most affected regions included modern day Greece, Turkey, Egypt, the Balkans, Cyprus, Syria, the Levant and Mesopotamia. The collapse was sudden, violent and swift and is generally thought to have occurred between the years 1200-1100 BCE. Prominent societies were destroyed and virtually every fortified and walled city in the entire region was levelled. We are particularly interested in knowing more about this Mediterranean apocalypse because of its impact on the major cities that Homer described in the Iliad. Gone were the cities of Agamemnon, Mycenae in 1250 BCE and 1190 BCE and Tiryns, levelled by an earthquake in 1200 BCE. Pylos of King Nestor was hit by a major fire around 1180 BCE and Argos of Diomedes suffered a similar same fate, as did the lofty walled city of Troy itself, destroyed at least twice and forgotten about until Roman times. Thebes was destroyed and Athens was abandoned. Elsewhere in the near east, the Hittite capital Hattusa was burned, evacuated and never reoccupied. Sites in Cyprus met the same fate, as did Ugarit in Syria, destroyed in 1178 BCE.

Scientists tell us that earthquakes tend to occur in sequence and that a major quake above 6.5 on the Richter Scale can set off a storm of earthquakes along a weakened fault line. The entire eastern Mediterranean is a known earthquake zone with fault lines running throughout the region. When a map of quake occurrences is superimposed on a map of the places destroyed in the Late Bronze Age Collapse, there is a strikingly close correspondence. It is safe to say that earthquakes likely played some role in the overall collapse and the destruction of the region’s walled fortresses, but they do not tell the whole story. It is more likely that they provided the coup de grace for cities and societies already weakened by other causes.

The late Bronze Age was a period of heavy migration, with hordes of people arriving in the eastern Mediterranean by land from the northern parts of Europe, and by sea from the western Mediterranean from places like Sardinia and Sicily. We can compare those sweeping down from the north to Attila’s Huns or Genghis Khan’s Mongols. Those who arrived by sea were similar to the Vikings of later history and are most often referred to by historians as the Sea Peoples. Whatever they were called or wherever they originated from, the fact remains that the Late Bronze Age Collapse coincided with the appearance in the region of many new ethnic groups, all of whom thought, lived and acted quite differently than the established societies that they fought with and displaced.

It is thought that these migrants were fleeing drought conditions and worsening weather in their homelands and had taken to the roads and the waves out of desperation and sheer necessity. It is further conjectured that they were successful in overcoming the local inhabitants whom they encountered because they were better armed. The people of northern Europe had gradually moved away from a reliance on bronze for weaponry and had turned to iron. Iron was inferior to bronze for making weapons in the early days until the addition of carbon allowed for the production of steel, but iron was in more plentiful supply. In the north, in what is modern day Romania and Bulgaria, iron-working had been going on since the 13^th and 12^th centuries BCE. Larger armies were capable of being furnished with iron weapons and this meant that they could more easily overcome those armed with bronze. The collapse of international trade routes meant that copper and tin were less available and this led to an arms shortage of bronze weapons.

Throughout the region, there was at this time a general collapse of a multitude of systems. The impact of volcanoes, migration, invasion, drought, new weaponry, overpopulation, political revolt, disruption of supply chains and trade, and the collapse of longstanding alliances all had a bearing on the Late Bronze Age Collapse. Taken on their own, none of these factors could have caused the Mediterranean apocalypse by itself. But collectively, they could have indeed done so. However, all of these factors were slow in their onset and development and fail to explain the speed at which the collapse happened. There must have been a dramatic and catastrophic event that kicked off the entire cycle of collapse and destruction. For that cause, we must look farther afield than the affected region.

In fact, we have to look almost 4,000 miles away to find the catalyst for the Late Bronze Age Collapse. The Hekla 3 volcanic eruption in Iceland that occurred in 1159 BCE, was on a massive scale and released a vast amount of ash and sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere. The enormous ash cloud blocked out the sun, dropped temperatures and created a volcanic winter in northern Europe for years. Colder summers, more frigid winters and disrupted weather patterns led to widespread drought, crop failures, famine and social disruption. People had no other choice than to migrate south in search of warmer temperatures and food. Desperate hordes from the northern reaches of Europe came by land and still others, the Sea Peoples, travelled by water, all intent on reaching the eastern Mediterranean and the fertile lands of the near east.

We cannot be totally certain, but the environmental catastrophe caused by the eruption of Hekla 3 is believed to have been the final blow to an already stressed system. Indeed, there were multiples factors that contributed to the Late Bronze Age Collapse, but a sudden and catastrophic event, like a major volcanic eruption, is certainly the very answer that we are looking for to explain the rapidity of the collapse events that took place. The collapse was a perfect storm of interconnected factors, either kicked off by a major event that started the ball rolling, or else one that guaranteed that the destruction would become a certainty in very short order.