Late Bronze Age Collapse
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The Late Bronze Age Collapse involved a wave of site destructions from 1220 to 1170 BC, but the scale and causes remain debated.
Bret Devereaux summarizes the Late Bronze Age Collapse, a sequence of archaeological destructions c. 1220-1170 BC that devastated Greece, Anatolia, and the Levant but spared Egypt and Mesopotamia, which instead entered long declines. The Hittite Empire collapsed entirely, Mycenaean palace centers were mostly destroyed, and Assyrian power contracted sharply. Destruction was uneven: Athens, Byblos, and Sidon survived. Devereaux dismisses the old "Dorian invasion" theory.
The article notes that causes remain uncertain-proposed factors include drought, internal instability, and disruption of long-distance trade in tin and copper-but stresses that the collapse was less total than earlier narratives claimed, with some sites declining slowly rather than vanishing.
What commenters are saying
Commenters widely cited historian Eric H. Cline's work linking the collapse to a severe centuries-long drought and deterioration of international shipping routes, which the article only briefly mentions. Several recommended the Fall of Civilizations podcast and other YouTube resources as deeper treatments. One commenter noted that the Exodus is likely fictional, sparking a nuanced subthread about how ancient sources can be mythologized but not entirely fictional, with historical kernels possibly embedded in later texts.