Conflict in Central Europe leading to Bronze Age Collapse

Submitted by Gideonn1021 t3_zgeqjq in history

I was recently looking into the events that caused the collapse of most Bronze Age civilizations, and I found this map that shows invasion/migration patterns.

https://www.worldhistory.org/image/15310/the-late-bronze-age-collapse-c-1200---1150-bce/

Looking at the map I see there was a substantial amount of movement from Central Europe. Looking into various sources such as the Metropolitan museum in NYC I found there was a major culture shift at the same time in Europe as well, including a change in burial practices and religious beliefs, as well as a massive increase in metal working and advanced weaponry. To me it seems that whatever happened in Europe to drastically alter their culture led to migration and the "sea people" that contributed to the collapse of Bronze age civilizations. Does anyone have more information about what specifically occurred in Central Europe around 1200 BCE, and is there a correlation between the two as I am lead to believe?

As a bonus question is there a list or map out there that shows the order and probable dates each city collapsed? Much appreciated.

1,261

Comments

You must log in or register to comment.

puckkeeper28 t1_izgp0gx wrote

If you solve this question on Reddit that would be incredible. I don’t think anyone really knows how it went down yet.

436

Bentresh t1_izh6onw wrote

(1/2)

There has been an enormous amount of scholarship published on the Bronze-Iron Age transition over the last couple of decades. Unfortunately, most of this research is not reflected in popular history works on the topic.

To begin, one should keep in mind that societies in the Bronze Age were in constant flux; many kingdoms rose and fell over the centuries, and the end of the Late Bronze Age was not an unprecedented event. For example, much of the Mediterranean and Near Eastern world experienced a considerable amount of disruption at the end of the Early Bronze Age. Egypt fragmented into petty kingdoms at the end of the Old Kingdom, the Akkadian empire collapsed, there was a large-scale abandonment of walled cities in the southern Levant, and many sites in Greece like the House of the Tiles at Lerna were destroyed or abandoned for several centuries. It has long been thought that this was due primarily if not entirely to climate change and drought, as noted in "Did a mega drought topple empires 4,200 years ago?"

>The drought hit in roughly 2200 BC, when the Akkadian Empire dominated what is now Syria and Iraq. By 2150 BC, the empire was no more. The central authority had disintegrated, and many people had voted with their feet, leaving the region.

>The overlap between an epic drought and the collapse of the Akkadian Empire was no mere coincidence, according to Weiss, an archaeologist at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. When he and his colleagues discovered the evidence of drought in the early 1990s, they proposed that the abrupt climate disruption had brought the ancient empire down. This example has become a grim warning of how vulnerable complex societies can be to climate change.

>For Weiss, it was the start of a research endeavour spanning decades. He has become convinced that the drought of 2200 BC was not confined to Mesopotamia, but rather that it had effects around the globe. What’s more, the Akkadian Empire was not the only complex society that was disrupted or overthrown as a result. “We’ve got Mesopotamia, the Nile, the Aegean and the Mediterranean all the way to Spain,” says Weiss. In all these places, he says, there is evidence from around 4,200 years (kyr) ago for a drying climate, for the collapse of central authorities, and for people moving to escape the newly arid zones...

To get back to the end of the Late Bronze Age, this was not a singular collapse – "the" collapse, as OP put it – that affected all regions to the same degree. Rather, the end of the Late Bronze Age affected different regions in different ways over slightly different periods of time.

Some cities and kingdoms were destroyed and never regained their prominence (e.g. Ugarit and Emar), some simply moved locations (e.g. Enkomi to Salamis, Alalakh to Tell Tayinat), and others were scarcely affected by the end of the Bronze Age at all (e.g. Carchemish, Byblos, Paphos). It has become increasingly clear that we must look not at the overall picture but rather specific places at specific times to understand how each of the great powers (and especially each of the regions within them) collapsed, survived, or thrived from 1150-950 BCE.

To take the Hittite empire as an example, some of the southern parts of the empire like Tarḫuntašša and Malatya (Išuwa in the Bronze Age) essentially split off and became de facto independent states toward the end of the Bronze Age. These kingdoms preserved aspects of Hittite culture until the Neo-Assyrian conquests of the 8th/7th centuries BCE – religious beliefs and practices, Luwian and the Anatolian hieroglyphic writing system, architectural and artistic styles, administrative titles, Hittite royal names like Šuppiluliuma and Ḫattušili, etc.

The collapse of the Hittite heartland in central Anatolia was due partly to the loss of these outlying regions (the Hittite imperial core was always short on manpower and grain), but also from pressures unique to the Hittite empire, such as raids from the Kaška who lived in northern Anatolia. I discussed this more in How did the civilizations fall in the end of the Bronze Age? and When and how did we learn that the bronze age had really collapsed and was a thing and not just an imaginary folk idea like Atlantis?

The situation in Syria is similar; some sites disappeared forever at the end of the Bronze Age, whereas others survived or even flourished during the Bronze-Iron Age transition. To quote the ASOR article "What Actually Happened in Syria at the end of the Late Bronze Age?" by Jesse Michael Millek,

>The year, approximately 1200 BCE. The place, the geographic area of modern-day Syria. War has broken out as marauding pirates and nomads ravage the great cites of Ugarit, Emar, and Carchemish, looting and burning everything in their way. These groups became known in the Egyptian records as the infamous Sea Peoples.

>Famine plagued the region as climate change slowly deteriorated the ability to grow crops, and the final nail in the coffin were earthquakes, which destroyed anything left untouched by the ruinous hordes. Once all these calamities passed, the Late Bronze Age came to its end, and the region entered a Dark Age for the next 200 years.

>Or at least that’s how the Hollywood blockbuster version of events would go. But reality is far more complicated than modern scriptwriters - and many archaeologists - would lead us to believe.

>What about the supposed “wave of destruction?” The Sea Peoples are alleged to have destroyed many sites in Syria including Ugarit, Tell Sukas, Tell Tweini, Carchemish, Kadesh, Qatna, Hama, Alalakh, and Emar. The trouble is that only two of these were actually destroyed around 1200 BCE.

>Both Qatna and Hama were destroyed in the mid-14th century BCE, well before the end of the Late Bronze Age, and neither show any evidence of destruction around 1200 BCE. For Alalakh, a reanalysis showed that the supposed 1200 BCE destruction by the Sea Peoples occurred a century earlier, around 1300 BCE.

>Excavators also presumed that the Sea Peoples had destroyed Tell Sukas and Tell Tweini. But a closer examination of the archeological record reveals that neither site was actually destroyed. At Tell Sukas, the Late Bronze Age buildings show no signs of burning or collapse; only some patches of floor had been burned, hardly evidence of a tremendous destruction event. At Tell Tweini, what had been assumed to be evidence of a massive destruction event turned out to be debris from rebuilding activity that took place hundreds of years after 1200 BCE.

>The same pattern is found elsewhere, sites are listed as destroyed but no evidence of destruction has been uncovered. At Tell Nebi Mend, ancient Kadesh, excavations demonstrated that the site continued to be inhabited from the Late Bronze to the Iron Age without interruption. The same is true for Carchemish. There was a smooth transition from the Late Bronze to the Iron Age. This is despite the fact that Carchemish is listed as destroyed in the Egyptian records chronicling the march of the Sea Peoples...

334

Bentresh t1_izhcuku wrote

(2/2)

Much of the (over)emphasis on the impact of various migratory groups (today clumped together under the somewhat inaccurate label "Sea Peoples") is due to an unfortunate tendency to take Egyptian historical inscriptions at face value. Egyptian inscriptions were written to express the Egyptian worldview, not to record "what actually happened," and one should always exercise caution when using them as historical sources. For example, an inscription on the second pylon at Medinet Habu lists the city of Carchemish in Syria as destroyed by invaders, along with other Syrian cities such as Arwad. We know from textual and archaeological evidence from Carchemish, however, that Carchemish not only survived the end of the Bronze Age more or less intact but thrived after the collapse of the Hittite Empire, with an unbroken royal line descended from the Hittite Great Kings of the Late Bronze Age (as Millek notes above). Similarly, the Canaanite (or, as they would be called by the Greeks, Phoenician) city-states of the northern Levantine coast like Byblos and Sidon seem to have survived the end of the Late Bronze Age mostly unscathed.

The Egyptians were no doubt perfectly well aware of this, but they were not concerned with creating a faithful list of conquests and ensuring an accurate list of destroyed cities for future historians. The impact of the list was what mattered. A king who had (allegedly) defeated a confederation of enemies so powerful that they had destroyed the majority of the ancient Near East was a very mighty king indeed.

To cite another example of the often questionable veracity of Egyptian historical accounts, the Libyan battle reliefs from Taharqa's temple at Kawa in Sudan are direct copies of Old Kingdom battles scenes like those from the mortuary temple of Sahure at Abusir, created nearly 1800 years earlier. Even the names of the three defeated Libyans were recycled. This doesn't mean that Taharqa was trying to bamboozle people into thinking he had defeated Libyan forces when he hadn't; rather, the reliefs are simply a timeless expression of the king's role as protector of Egypt and his obligation to bring forth order from chaos.

As for the Sea Peoples, they were essentially dispossessed victims of the disturbances at the end of the Late Bronze Age (including but not limited to a devastating pandemic and prolonged drought) who migrated to other regions in search of greener pastures, both literally and figuratively. Some engaged in piracy (particularly in the vicinity of Cyprus and southern Anatolia), while others established new settlement sites in southern Anatolia and along the Levantine coast, becoming indistinguishable from the local populations fairly quickly (within the span of 1-2 generations).

Several of these groups originated in the eastern Mediterranean, particularly Greece, the Aegean islands, and western Anatolia, while others seem to have originated in south-central Europe (including but not limited to Sicily).

Some of the groups are attested more than 200 years before the end of the Bronze Age, often allied with the major powers like the Egyptians and Hittites. In the Battle of Kadesh (ca. 1280 BCE) fought between the Egyptians and Hittites, for instance, the Sherden fought on behalf of the Egyptians, and the Lukka fought on behalf of the Hittites. They were also often hired as mercenaries by the smaller city-states in the Levant. For example, in two letters to the king of Egypt (EA 122 and 123) dating to around 1340 BCE, the vassal king of Byblos complained that the Egyptian governor of nearby Kumidi killed a Sherden within his town.

I've written a bit more about this in a few past posts.

278

IRMacGuyver t1_iziku1s wrote

Isn't there only one period recording of the so called sea people?

3

Bentresh t1_izj73rs wrote

They’re attested between the 14th and 12th centuries BCE, which is a fairly broad span of time.

For more info, see The Philistines and Other Sea Peoples in Text and Archaeology edited by Ann Killebrew.

12

IRMacGuyver t1_izlaufr wrote

But still from what I understand there's only one time "sea people" were mentioned in known Egyptian texts and other sources are just cobbled together and could be referencing any number of pirates or sea faring civilizations.

1

jonny24eh t1_izhbnz4 wrote

What a great answer! Thanks for taking the time to write all that out

47

Gideonn1021 OP t1_izhctyr wrote

First and foremost thank you for your reply, it is far more informative than I had expected to receive asking this question, that said I may have further questions later reading over this again, as there is a lot of information to digest here.

The research that has been conducted and neglected over time, is there a reasonable basis for why it isn't used, or does it simply not fit the more exciting narrative as some of the points you brought up later?

When you speak of the collapse and how it was not a uniform effect across the entire Mediterranean region, do you mean there is no correlation and it was individual events suffered in these regions that appear to us in the modern day more like a chain reaction since they happened so closely relatively from our perspective? Basically there is minimal relation between what occurred in these seperate regions, one factor being the time periods they occurred in?

According to the information you have given, the disappearance of many settlements would be due more to local issues conflicts, rather than an external force (excluding things like the changing climate) and as such outside intervention would not serve as a catalyst to the diminishing civilizations of the Mediterranean which would answer my question generally that there was no event in Central Europe that contributed to the collapse(s) of the Bronze age civilizations?

One question that pops to mind is, the Egyptians took phenomenal records did they not? IF that is truly the case and I'm not wrong about their record keeping what exactly do their records say? Do they only refer to attacks on Egypt from the "sea people" or do they have extensive writings on the condition of other civilizations at the time?

Thank you again for your information, it is appreciated! I am glad to have found so much helpful input on reddit for this question. That should be all my questions based on the information you gave, if I have more I will let you know!

25

Bentresh t1_izhgfls wrote

>The research that has been conducted and neglected over time, is there a reasonable basis for why it isn't used, or does it simply not fit the more exciting narrative as some of the points you brought up later?

(1) Much of this research has been published in edited books and journals that are expensive, difficult to find, and often rather dry to read. Recent examples include Collapse and Transformation: The Late Bronze Age to Early Iron Age in the Aegean and Anatolia Between the 13th and the 12th Century BCE.

(2) This is a rapidly evolving area of study, with new finds constantly providing more information or overturning previous theories. For example, our understanding of the Hittite (or "Neo-Hittite") kingdoms of the Iron Age has advanced enormously since David Hawkins' publication of the Iron Age Luwian texts in the early 2000s due to the excavation of more Syro-Anatolian sites and the discovery of many more Luwian inscriptions. There is a list of new inscriptions here, itself now incomplete and outdated.

(3) There is, as you mentioned, also an element of pop history works wanting to exaggerate the Bronze-Iron Age transition for entertainment value. ("And then all of the societies collapsed, writing totally disappeared, and people lived in villages for 200 years!" – A wildly inaccurate description, to say the least.)

>When you speak of the collapse and how it was not a uniform effect across the entire Mediterranean region, do you mean there is no correlation and it was individual events suffered in these regions that appear to us in the modern day more like a chain reaction since they happened so closely relatively from our perspective? Basically there is minimal relation between what occurred in these seperate regions, one factor being the time periods they occurred in?

I wouldn't say minimal relation. Rather, we should be careful not to focus on external factors (e.g. migrations) at the expense of internal factors that made kingdoms vulnerable to this sort of chain reaction.

It is tempting to blame the collapse of the Hittite empire on invading groups – the "Sea Peoples," Aramaeans, and the like – and indeed many scholars have done so. That by itself is quite dissatisfactory, however, as it fails to explain why the empire fell to these groups when it had survived so many other invasions over the centuries.

For example, the Hittite empire experienced a series of invasions during the 14th century BCE, known today as the "concentric attacks." By the end of the century, most of the Hittite kingdom had fallen to attacks from the Kaška in the north and from Arzawa in the west. Even the capital city of Ḫattuša had been captured and burned, with the kingdom consisting of little more than the besieged territory of the city of Šamuḫa. The events were remembered dramatically in a decree of king Hattušili III, who reigned in the 13th century BCE.

>In earlier days the Ḫatti lands were sacked by its enemies. The Kaškan enemy came and sacked the Ḫatti lands, and he made Nenašša his frontier. From the Lower Land came the Arzawan enemy, and he too sacked the Ḫatti lands, and he made Tuwanuwa and Uda his frontier...

The king of Egypt was so convinced of the imminent demise of the weakened Hittite kingdom that he opened diplomatic relations with the kingdom of Arzawa in western Anatolia, expecting it to become the next great power in the Middle East.

>I have heard everything [is done]. The land of Ḫattuša (i.e. the Hittite empire) has been frozen/paralyzed.

As it turned out, however, the Hittites saw a reversal of fortunes under Šuppiluliuma I and his son Muršili II. Not only did the empire survive, it expanded to its maximum extent, encompassing western and central Anatolia as well as much of the Levantine coast.

So why was the Hittite empire vulnerable at the end of the Late Bronze Age when it had survived far more devastating invasions in the past? Here one has to look at the internal factors unique to the Hittite empire, such as the civil war that created multiple centers of power and a devastating pandemic that wiped out much of the Hittite population.

>According to the information you have given, the disappearance of many settlements would be due more to local issues conflicts, rather than an external force (excluding things like the changing climate) and as such outside intervention would not serve as a catalyst to the diminishing civilizations of the Mediterranean which would answer my question generally that there was no event in Central Europe that contributed to the collapse(s) of the Bronze age civilizations

It's a bit of both. To again take the Hittite empire as an example, the Hittites experienced a grain shortage toward the end of the LBA and imported grain from Egypt to supplement their reserves. Pirates based on Cyprus and the Levantine coast, however, interfered with these shipments.

This sort of piracy would've been a mere nuisance in more stable periods – pirates and bandits are well attested in earlier periods – but it greatly affected an empire already strained by other factors (internal warfare, pandemic, drought, etc.) and had an outsized effect on long distance trade and the political stability of the Hittite empire.

53

fighterace00 t1_izi0xtc wrote

Meta research is an enormous field.

We're generating more science than we have the capacity to decipher as a whole nor dispense in practical nor culturally significant ways. Someone recently made an ai to read thousands of studies and offer a way to access the data on human terms but it wasn't quite successful.

4

blarryg t1_izi5u69 wrote

One did have the actual rise of Israel and that could not have happened unless Egypt was very much weakened. So, there was a large disruption.

My totally data-free hunch for part of what happened includes a large extensive drought (hints of that in the Bible even) and in addition, the Stepps. Inner Mongolia was continually spawning new tribes which pushed older ones further and rippled into Europe (long before it culminated in the Mongols). I think a drought might have caused a push into Europe which caused a ripple of refugees to cascade down southward hitting a region already in bad shape.

I'm further intrigued by an ISIS analogy. ISIS wasn't all that effective until the unemployed Sunni former members of the Iraqi army decided to join because they were experiencing ethnocide anyhow. Once these military men became fused with the religious fanatic leaders, ISIS became a force that took the world's top militaries to put it down.

My totally data-free hunch for part of what happened includes a large extensive drought (hints of that in the Bible even) and in addition, the Stepps. Inner Mongolia was continually spawning new tribes which pushed older ones further and rippled into Europe (long before it culminated in the Mongols). I think a drought might have caused a push into Europe which caused a ripple of refugees to cascade down southward hitting a region already in bad shape.

−10

CantHideFromGoblins t1_izi9oay wrote

I highly doubt someone is going to solve one of the current biggest mysteries in history using pop science websites on Reddit. And it most likely will remain forever unknown unless there’s some breakthrough archaeological find in the real world. It’s a well known fact that people travelled from as far as northern Scandinavia and Scotland with movement between to the Mediterranean to trade with Bronze Age civilizations.

To claim that these Central Europeans were the Sea People is like claiming China first discovered the Americas. While there is evidence to support the Sea People came from a variety of cultures and those potentially could’ve been from deep inside Europe they were far more likely to be a mix from Sicily, Illyria, North Africa, and elsewhere. Maybe Pannonia but even then you’d have mountains separating who ever is there from the sea.

The more realistic option is that whatever crisis in europe happened caused the flow of trade to stop coming into the Mediterranean from Central Europe. Causing massive whatever merchants who lived off that constant supply to essentially switch careers from merchant ships to desperate pirate fleet or risk losing everything

6

Maccus_D t1_izisy96 wrote

A great spin I read was the rise of iron as a replacement for bronze. Bronze and it’s components (copper & tin) and it’s manufacturing and trade were the underpinnings of the age. Iron is plentiful and better and cheaper than bronze, doesn’t require the specialized knowledge to make the alloy etc. And so weaker weapons and armor against the sea people who had iron and a economy in collapse.

2

War_Hymn t1_izk2pfe wrote

>doesn’t require the specialized knowledge to make the alloy

Actually, iron smelting is WAY more complex than bronze smelting.

First off, ancient iron smelters were never really able to fully melt the iron (on any reliable basis) due to the limited temperatures of their furnaces. Copper and tin smelting was pretty straight forward in comparison and had lower temperature requirements to reduce and melt. Melt them together, and you got a strong useable alloy that also convenient melted at a temperature lower than just copper.

With iron, the kind of smelting they had to do was solid-state reduction of the ore - instead of smelting the ore and getting refined molten iron, they broke down and burned off/melted away the non-iron content of the ore to get a somewhat refined chunk or bloom of iron embedded with slag/charcoal. This bloom then had to be painstakingly worked - hammered and folded repeatedly while being periodically heated to a bright yellow/white glow - to consolidate the iron bloom and beat out impurities before getting a usable ingot of iron for making tools/weapons. All this needed an enormous amount of fuel, labour, and skill to perform.

Second issue. Unlike copper or tin, iron had a tendency to absorb a lot of the carbon from the burning charcoal fuel (carburization). This complicates the smelting process as iron that absorbs too much carbon turns into pig iron - A brittle ferrous alloy that couldn't be forged and had a tendency to melt and mix in with the slag during smelting. While people will later develop means to refine this pig iron into useable iron, pig iron was useless and considered an unwanted waste product by early ironworkers. As the first iron smelters figured out, you could reduce the amount of pig iron produced by maintaining a balanced airflow and temperature in the furnace, and also adding fluxing material to the smelt.

Hence, ancient iron smelters had to get a bunch of actions and conditions right in order to make good iron; without any modern measurement tools or direct knowledge of how chemical reactions and the like worked. Instead, they had to figure it all out by trial-and-error. Run the furnace too hot: excessive pig iron is produced as iron absorbs more carbon at high temperatures. Run the furnace too cold: ore doesn't get reduced. Too little airflow: fuel doesn't burn completely, furnace runs cold. Too much airflow: Iron gets re-oxidized by excess oxygen. Adding crushed limestone to the smelt: Oh, more iron!

Smelters had to maintain a constant sweet spot of furnace conditions to get it to produce iron instead of waste slag/pig iron. All this took considerable practical knowledge and experience. So it's not a surprise why it took so long to figure out how to make and use iron compare to copper or tin.

>And so weaker weapons and armor against the sea people who had iron

The thing is, there's no evidence that the Sea People had ironworking technology, at least not in the beginning. Instead, ironworking was restricted to the immediate areas under the control of the Hittites - who seemed to have kept the technology a secret and maintained a monopoly on iron production/trade. It is only after the Bronze Age collapse that we see ironworking proliferate; likely aided by former-Hittite iron smelters who were fleeing their homeland as refugees, or enslaved/assimilated by invaders. The first archeological evidence of iron smelting furnaces being operated outside the Hittite heartland of Anatolia have been dated to around 900-1000 BCE, and by 800 BCE we're seeing an enormous amount of iron being produced and used compare to what was presented during the supposed Hittite iron monopoly.

10

Maccus_D t1_izk43m3 wrote

I truly appreciate the greater exploration. I had already read that iron had democratized warfare, due to its proliferation from its advent. Again I appreciate it.

4

War_Hymn t1_izk5q5y wrote

No doubt, it allowed a larger subset of the population to participate in formal warfare. In the course of the BAC, we went from "palace" militaries made up of a few elite warriors who could afford the more expensive bronze weapons/armor, to militaries based on a larger body of common citizenry or peasant levies. Systems like the Greek polis or Roman Republic probably won't had existed without ironworking technology to produce affordable arms.

5

Maccus_D t1_izl0qdr wrote

It was also my understanding that Sardinia (Beeker) had advanced mining and metallurgical capabilities. Including Iron at the time. And that they may have been one of the groups that could have made up the sea people.

Also that as the BAC occurred displaced/disaffected peoples formally from these cities would have swelled the ranks of the “Sea People”.

There were a few sunken ships they found that were carrying a kingdoms worth wealth in ingots and would have caused whoever was on the bad side of that deal ruined.

Any thoughts?

3

Ferengi_Earwax t1_izj7jh1 wrote

Sorry but that would only be true if iron was replacing bronze at the end of the bronze age. Yes yes but it's the end of the bronze age though right? Wrong. Bronze would go on being used as the dominant metal for 700 years, longer in some remote areas. At the beginning of the Iron age, there was barely any Iron, anywhere.

2

Maccus_D t1_izj84d7 wrote

Sardinia had plenty and might be one the place where iron was first used. Also possible source of the sea people.

1

AnaphoricReference t1_j0g179q wrote

The part of that argument that makes sense to me is that a civilization that depends on bronze will need access to a large distance trade network to obtain both copper and tin. It will never have an incentive to destroy the trade network, even during war. A civilization that has made the switch to iron will more likely intentionally disrupt trade networks when it goes to war if its enemies depend on bronze.

In that sense it was a "disruptive innovation".

But iron was neither easier to work with nor better than bronze in those days. Just more widespread geographically.

2

Maccus_D t1_j0g750i wrote

I believe they mentioned the required vast trade network required for bronze and juxtaposed it to how the Beaker culture in Sardinia had all the iron it could need and may have been one of the groups that comprised the Sea People.

2

ArmDoc t1_izgtjby wrote

A book on this subject which I have found useful is: Eric H. Cline, "1177 BC-- the Year Civilization Collapsed".

87

ReallyFineWhine t1_izgvda8 wrote

Just finished reading this. Author gives a lot of background of what that part of the world looked before "it" happened, and what it looked like after, but still not much definitive about what "it" was that happened.

42

WhoopingWillow t1_izh99j2 wrote

That's part of the mystery that I love. Some places were clearly razed by an army, others seem to have been destroyed by earthquakes, some had the elite section of the city destroyed but the rest relatively untouched, iirc one place had a single temple preserved. Sure seems like a hellish time to live in that area!

26

Gideonn1021 OP t1_izhd3or wrote

That is really interesting, it really does leave you wondering!

6

CallFromMargin t1_izhy6uz wrote

The "IT" is the mistery. It probably was a combination of climate change (which caused food shortages), shitty natural phenomena (i.e. earthquicks in Greece) and complex military blocks going to war with each other. It's perfectly possible that "sea people" were nothing more than totally-not-guys-from-other-military-alliance doing what privateers do. It's also possible that one faction discovered iron working and decided to strike with their more advanced, better working new shiny tools, or discovered new techniques that made chariots obsolete.

Regarding migrations, always take legends with a giant grain of salt. Spartans had a legend saying they are sons of Hercules who came back to Greece from the north and enslaved the local population.

10

kevineleveneleven t1_izi3ye4 wrote

Iron production was known during the bronze age but not its proper heat treatment, so it was very soft and inferior to the bronze of the era. After international trade had broken down and tin was no longer available to make bronze, the price of bronze skyrocketed, necessitating the use of iron. It took a long time for the heat treatment process of iron to be developed to the point where it was superior to bronze. We could say that it was the late bronze age collapse that led to the Iron Age -- the tin shortage necessitated it.

11

CallFromMargin t1_izi5cjt wrote

This completely ignores the loss of knowledge that was the result of bronze age collapse. Entire regions "forgot" how to write and "forgot" agricultural techniques like irregation, so why couldn't they forget how to make good quality iron?

4

SpaceSweede t1_izihr6v wrote

Because making Iron was essential for survival and also a great way to become rich. The skill of writing not so much when the Palace you used to work in was a ruin and deserted.

5

CallFromMargin t1_izil47g wrote

The skills of agriculture and irregation were also essential for survival, and would make you rich when you sold your bountiful harvest, yet they were lost, entire regions with huge irregation systems were abandoned, and even hundreds of years later were not inhabited.

3

kevineleveneleven t1_izjv0so wrote

There is no evidence that anyone knew how to heat treat iron during the bronze age. We can analyze the crystal structure of iron artifacts and know what processes were involved in the production. Neither are there any literary references to superior iron weaponry and armor.

1

Germanofthebored t1_izilhcx wrote

I don’t really know much about (pre)history, but I was always wondering if iron technology made the extensive trade systems that were needed to gather the ingredients for bronze unnecessary, and that breakdown of “international” trade caused the collapse of civilization

2

kevineleveneleven t1_izjwyvq wrote

Those trade networks for tin really weren't necessary. Somehow people didn't realize there is tin in both Anatolia and in mainland Greece. The later Phoenicians established trade ports as far as Cadiz in Spain where they traded for tin from Britain. This was an unnecessarily long way for tin to travel. But yes, the skyrocketing bronze prices might have bankrupted Egypt as it armed and armored its soldiers to prepare for the expected attack of the Sea Peoples. Egypt managed to defeat them, but it was never the same again.

2

mapadofu t1_izk0xko wrote

It’s fun to think about how we now see iron(steel) as obviously superior to bronze, but at the time using iron was probably seen as a stopgap.

2

Em_isme t1_izhyxs8 wrote

Same feeling. The book left me more knowledgeable about things that I didn’t want this book to teach me and none the wiser about what I actually wanted to know.

6

monsieur_bear t1_izh8s1p wrote

Also listen to tides of history podcast, the host literally just wrapped up the most recent season this past month with the Bronze Age collapse. He said he used that book as a reference.

13

docdope t1_izhfvdu wrote

Patrick also had an interview with Cline during this season as well, the episode is titled "Why Did the Bronze Age World Collapse? Interview with Professor Eric Cline". I believe I remember him hinting at being at work on a sequel, so I'm sure that will be a fun read.

6

macevans3 t1_izjbjvv wrote

Loved this book. And there is a lecture by the author about the subject on YouTube.

1

jkershaw t1_izgt9ts wrote

This map is not in any way authoritative, it's guesswork. For example, no one knows who the 'sea people' were or if they were even one group at all rather than lots of bands of different displaced people.

Most evidence suggests that there was not a lot going on in central Europe at this point. All the big empires were in the south or East of the med, and these empires were highly interconnected and interdependent (like the modern world). Thus catastrophic events like famines, eruptions (Thera) or political collapse in one place might have been amplified and taken down the others. It's called system collapse.

That said, we really don't know a lot about this period. Gaps in the material record could be hiding anything. The theory I explain above is simply the most likely based on the incomplete evidence we have.

EDIT: Plus 'collapse' is a weird concept considering it happened over hundreds of years. Generally, there was a decline, but it's very hard to pin it to a single cause when it happened over such a long period.

75

Gideonn1021 OP t1_izgzpz9 wrote

I agree it is not at all the definitive idea of what occurred, based off of this educated guess work there is a general trend of moving west to east however which I find interesting. Thank you for referring to Central Europe I was unsure if there is current evidence towards any major events occurring but I imagine it seems unlikely, especially if they did not keep any records it will be nearly impossible for us to learn what truly happened over there.

Referring to your last point I believe I have seen much which refers to the successive collapses occurring in a 50-75 year span, however this definitely neglects the early stages of a collapse that are more hidden, that number focuses only on the dates when each city collapsed

2

jkershaw t1_izh0mzu wrote

The west to east trend only seems to be true because most of the people in the east were the ones writing. Could have been people going the other way too but because there are fewer sources it creates the impression that there wasn't.

As for period, the turbulence went on for a much longer period than that. Take Crete - the Minoans suffered several palatial destructions in the 2-300 years before the 'final' collapse in 1200BC, including the invasion/transition into Mycenaean culture. The same is true across the board. There may have been a cluster around the 'end' of the bronze age, but considering how hard it is to date things cohesively, these could have been generations apart and represent totally different events.

13

Gideonn1021 OP t1_izh2233 wrote

You are absolutely right I didn't think about the bias that exists with these theories because of the records that exist. Your points also make me wonder how much the Minoan and Mycenaean turmoil affected their counterparts across the Mediterranean, as in whether they themselves were a major factor leading to general collapse or they were victims of a larger chain of events along with everyone else

3

jkershaw t1_izh2dsr wrote

It's very possible. There are lots of records of the various rulers sending each other both the raw materials they depended on for their economies as well as the prestige goods they used to demonstrate their superiority and right to rule.

3

CallFromMargin t1_izhymae wrote

I'm pretty sure there are some evidence of mass migration from today's northern Italy to Greece, and that's based on pins found along the way. Although it's possible those cloth pins were just being traded.

1

pleasureboat t1_izgwldb wrote

The sea peoples were almost definitely all Mediterranean and very likely mostly Greek.

However, looking beyond the Mediterranean for causes of the collapse is certainly a good idea. The collapse certainly involved a breakdown of the bronze trade, whose ingredients were sourced in large part from northern Europe. If migrations cut off those trade routes, it could certainly be a contributing factor.

32

Gideonn1021 OP t1_izh1aux wrote

I just feel people talk about a chain of events occurring in the Mediterranean, but there aren't nearly as many answers for what caused the migration and incursions from the North into the Mediterranean. I got suspicious however after seeing there were relics from Europe that indicated the potential for a massive shift in culture in the region, preceding as well as at the same time the collapse of the Bronze age was put in motion, it's an interesting coincidence to me

10

CallFromMargin t1_izhyt71 wrote

It's a mystery. But research suggest that on early stages both a period of bad climate (which lead to food shortage) and earthquicks (which destroyed cities) were responsible. Wars followed that.

2

HappyHipo t1_izhcjq7 wrote

They were mostly sourced from Cyprus and Syria If I recall correctly?

3

War_Hymn t1_izk75op wrote

The major sources appeared to be Central Asia (Afghanistan/ Uzbekistan), with maybe large scale mining and trade of it from Britannia and Iberia.

There were a bunch of smaller mining operations scattered about the eastern Medditerrean region, but those sources were quickly exhausted.

1

43_Hobbits t1_izgw79a wrote

If you’re into this subject I doubt this will help, but Fall of Civilizations and The Histocrat both have fantastic videos on the subject. Both are narrations based of the source material if that is/not what you’re looking for.

https://youtu.be/B965f8AcNbw

https://youtu.be/q0AIYIjZKWY

19

Gideonn1021 OP t1_izh0qp4 wrote

Definitely looking for source materials, not just theories thank you!

1

monsieur_bear t1_izh96qd wrote

If you listen to podcasts, recommend listening to the tides of history, they literally just ended the most recent season talking about the Bronze Age and its collapse a month ago.

4

DarkTreader t1_izh6aad wrote

Just to be clear, all you are going to find are hypotheses. As many have said here, no one knows quite for sure.

In broad strokes, it was systems collapse based on trade of rare resources. The Mediterranean economy at the time was based primarily on copper and tin, which made Bronze (thus the name of the age). Tin, however, is rare, so it's a weak point in the system. Disrupt tin and the whole system breaks down.

But how exactly did this get disrupted? Was it ecological? changing climate? Raiders from outside the area? Most say it was all of that and more. Someone cites that they do see evidence of a string of volcanic eruptions during this time period, which could have led to drastic and sudden environmental change and this could have changed things such that food was scarce and people turned to invasion and war to find resources and feed themselves. But this is a string of hypotheses tied together with no evidence other than a couple of tablets referencing sea peoples.

What's great about this period however it's a bonafide actual mystery puzzle that tantalizes the imagination with something real, and not those BS "ancient aliens" documentaries on the history channel. You have to be ready to accept that you are not going to find definitive answers but it will fascinate you.

3

Rememberthat1 t1_izgtg9w wrote

God I love this subject, one of the most interesting event in ancient history. First, I remember that there's a map illustrating the sacked cities with dates that were documented and survived the centuries, like in hellas, anatolia, ugarit, levant, egypt. It seems that it started around the aegean sea, again of what we know of. There's the dorian invasion theory attached to it, that supposedly they came from the north (thrace, epirus, illyrian) or maybe farther who knows, there's an good research about DNA of early greeks very closely related to "georgians" near caucasus. Did it start with only one greedy/wary nation ? We know that the sea people were a coalition (dwelling in their islands far away on the dark sea; a approximation of what I remember a pharaon (rameses II?) said about them)

11

Gideonn1021 OP t1_izh09cg wrote

I did see the maps of affected cities, and it was almost bone chilling to me to see the amount of human civilization that just outright failed, it makes the whole series of events and humanity's survival all the more fragile

4

MyUterusWillExplode t1_izllz0i wrote

Hi, Im looking for this map too but cant find it, do you have a link?

Thanks :)

2

Gideonn1021 OP t1_izmgvse wrote

I was unable to find a map that included dates, however this first picture in the Wikipedia on the Bronze age collapse shows the different incursions from different factions, and from that with a little extra research one might be able to get a general idea of when the cities fell.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse

The map I referred to was traced back to this website, of course with the internet not everything is completely accurate or definite, but from this picture you are looking at most of the major civil centers of the world at the time being reduced to nothing, which is crazy to think about.

https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/wp-content/uploads/bronze-age-sites.jpg

1

LSF604 t1_izmu7j2 wrote

Humanities survival was not in any way at stake of course

1

Rememberthat1 t1_izgurh1 wrote

Yes it fu ked everything during that time, a millennial(s?) of relation, trading, economy between very distanced culture. But the biggest problem is we do not have direct written knowledge/artefacts of bronze age central-northern europe, exept that there were a lot of trade routes for amber and other goods. It leads to think that maybe they were good relations between europe up-north and aegean regions. Again there's no artifact proving that they were smelting iron during that time (central-northen europeans)

2

Gideonn1021 OP t1_izh0f32 wrote

But were there large civilizations in Europe (Central-North) at the time or was it mainly still comprised of tribes and smaller civilizations?

1

Rememberthat1 t1_izh3biy wrote

I tend to think that they were "large" civilizations in central-northern europe too. I'm sorry I can't give the source right now but they were some archeologists who found in northern germany a kind of battleground that happened in the early bronze age with a lot of corpses indicating a battle of thousands of men If I recall correctly. We know that they got a lot of amber that greeks really liked. Again I cannot tell the source right now but I remember that scholars found an ancient neolithic city in the balkans, I think they estimated the city with approx 5000-10 000 souls ( I mean real archeological papers not ancient origins lol). And it leads to the environment, aegean had stones, egypt sand, mesopotamian canals and northern-central european had big big forest. So any colossal structure ( in my oponion) would be more related with woodwork. I don't see why a culture in relation with early greeks and passing knowledge wouldnt have build a big city and temples with all the ressources they got in wood and "money" made with trading.

3

Gideonn1021 OP t1_izhef62 wrote

I imagine much like the Romans with Britain, regions that far away are so different and hard to keep relations with in the same manner, say the Mycenaeans towards the German people. I could definitely see relations with the Balkans though. Something that just came to me is if the Germans had relations with these bronze age civilizations, wouldn't it be much more probable that classical Greece and Rome would have had easier access to the region instead of an area isolated from major civilizations at the time? Just food for thought I don't really know

2

perestroika12 t1_izh7fq3 wrote

The only hard evidence we have of the sea peoples is from Egyptian sources. It depicts a barbarian sea faring group. It’s extremely unlikely (read: impossible) that they were from any kind of land locked area. There’s also no evidence that Northern Europe or Central Europe had developed sailing to the level of sophistication needed.

Most historians see the sea peoples as a coalition of raiders strongly backed by Greeks and Mediterranean people.

11

CertainDeer2027 t1_izi0koh wrote

>There’s also no evidence that Northern Europe or Central Europe had developed sailing to the level of sophistication needed.

That is such nonsense. People in Bronze Age Scandinavia, the British Isles and Northern Spain were all seafaring people. Especially in Scandinavia, where they had ships decorating almost every rock art piece one can encounter from those days, had burials in ships, etc.

The Tollense Valley Battle shows that large scale conflict existed in Northern Europe.

Mercenaries from the North went South to gain riches fighting (that's why there's many objects of Northern origin in the Mediterranean and Mediterranean objects as far as modern day England, all in the Bronze Age. Plus, people DID carry Tin from England as far as Cyprus) and then returned home, this is not only attested by material and genetic evidence, but also sources that immediately followed the Greek "Dark Ages".

All this together, I don't see why you see it as "impossible" that the oh-so poor and unsophisticated (/s) Northern and Central Europeans couldn't been part of the Sea Peoples coallition. Especially when the depictions of the horned warriors from Medinet Habu match the various rock art depictions and decorated Menhirs from Scandinavia to Spain and even in Sardinia.

You seem terribly biased on this subject.

4

Gideonn1021 OP t1_izhew84 wrote

Or worse, the Sicilians...

Thank you though I saw it was said that the sea people may have just straight up been propoganda from Ramses II? You also make a good point that the Europeans would not have developed the advancements in sailing needed that would thrive in open water, much less as a formidable raiding force

1

perestroika12 t1_izhf61q wrote

Propaganda only works if there’s truth hidden somewhere. It’s unlikely it was completely made up. It’s also not worth putting on a temple unless it’s somewhat agreed that these people were a serious threat.

Imagine Trajan making a column and it’s just 90% bs. Would not fly.

7

Gideonn1021 OP t1_izhgye1 wrote

That is a good point, especially in a temple I imagine lying about someone's deeds there would be unacceptable, unfortunately sifting through the simple truth and the whole truth of the matter is the difficult part!

1

bertiewooster_swgoh t1_izgzaf0 wrote

The podcast "Tides of History" has had some very interesting episodes on the Bronze Age Collapse.

Episodes 111-114 were pretty great and on topic. Episode 106 also directly addressed the question. It's a great series.

https://wondery.com/shows/tides-of-history/season/4/?epPage=12

10

geekjitsu t1_izhd07s wrote

I cannot recommend the most recent season of ToH enough for this (and many other) topic(s). Patrick Wyman’s combination of research and guests (including Eric Cline the author of 1177) this season was a grand slam from beginning to end.

8

StarKing18 t1_izhwo7f wrote

I appreciate you reminding me of this podcast. I stopped listening during the Middle Age seasons. That period of history just didn’t hold my interest. I am glad to hear he pivoted back to earlier history.

2

podslapper t1_izgsi9u wrote

I was under the impression that most experts now discount the Dorian invasion hypothesis.

8

Gideonn1021 OP t1_izgzv17 wrote

Elaborate? What motive WOULD the Dorian's have had to invade, and what lead to the hypothesis falling out of favor?

1

WhoopingWillow t1_izh9ynu wrote

I'm in a class on Ancient Mediterranean history right now and the main issue with the Dorian invasion hypothesis is that there is no archaeological evidence for Dorians specifically.

If Dorians invaded they'd presumably bring Dorian weapons and tools, but we haven't found any dating to that period.

9

xElMerYx t1_izgudd7 wrote

Man, the title wording made me think there was a collapre underway right now, and when i got to the "bronze age" part i was like "what we're not in the bronze age tho"

7

Zengoyyc t1_izgwl5e wrote

A collapse of sorts could be underway for certain countries, and is happening for some others. Civilizations do fall, its just how that looks has changed.

Look at any country seeing over 50% inflation.

5

Em_isme t1_izi6vdv wrote

I agree in principle but I think you should make a distinction between countries and civilizations.

The differences between the two are way less marked than they were 3000 years ago.

2

Em_isme t1_izi6hzo wrote

Talk for yourself. I haven’t updated my phalanxes yet !

1

thatguy9012 t1_izgrthj wrote

I don't think anyone really knows. Maybe mass migration due to the long term effects of natural climate change.

5

Gideonn1021 OP t1_izh2k7m wrote

A mass migration to more populated and thriving civilizations? If say conditions were generally getting worse wouldn't cities be the first to suffer while smaller populations could survive and as such people would vacate cities, or is it the other way around, I am unsure

2

jaydendangles t1_izgsts1 wrote

Extra Credits on YouTube has a great series on the collapse of the Bronze Age

4

Sparrowbuck t1_izgtayf wrote

With the original good narrator

4

series_hybrid t1_izgp1t6 wrote

I've seen several youtubes about this, and I like the evidence and conclusions in this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq4G-7v-_xI

3

writerightnow18 t1_izhaluy wrote

Thanks for this link! I just watched about 10 of their videos in a row.

1

FootballImpossible38 t1_izgtb8d wrote

Any correlation with massive volcanic events/climatic changes? The area is well known for that sort of thing extinguishing civilizations

3

Gideonn1021 OP t1_izh0m2r wrote

Someone referred to the eruption at Thera that wiped out the Minoan settlement there, by itself however it's tragic, but I wouldn't think devestating enough to affect the rest of the Mediterranean

2

MillennialsAre40 t1_iziruxe wrote

When Krakatoa erupted in 1883 it caused global temperatures to drop by 1.2°C for 5 years and effects in the tides and barosphere were measurable in England.

Thera's eruption is estimated to be 5x more powerful. To think it didn't have a major impact on the Mediterranean cultures seems ridiculous to me. I'm only a layperson though.

3

Gideonn1021 OP t1_izjztui wrote

No your point absolutely makes sense, it would definitely affect the surrounding area, from general living conditions to things like commerce and navigation in the area I imagine

1

DigitalTomFoolery t1_izgurlp wrote

This is a really good question. 1200 bc Europe would have been interesting

3

RenegadeMoose t1_izhanbb wrote

I think the Dorian invasion is earlier than the Bronze Age collapse. By 500 years or so? It could be there are other arrows on this map that are earlier or later.

I think there is no simple explanation to the events surrounding the Bronze Age collapse; and perhaps that's why it's so tantalizing to speculate about.

3

Gideonn1021 OP t1_izhfgx6 wrote

That was another question I meant to ask, is if there was a more defined timeline as that map leaves much up to question, where the timing is obviously an important factor to determining what actually occurred.

2

SciFiNut91 t1_izhcp3m wrote

This is a bit of a joke answer, but -The Trojan War.

3

Gideonn1021 OP t1_izhfr8w wrote

No it's a good point just another calamity that happened and displaced people!

2

SciFiNut91 t1_izmkw3o wrote

Or, it could have been the cause of the collapse./s.

1

WhoopingWillow t1_izhcq13 wrote

I don't have a good map with dates for each city, but I do have dates on some notable cities from my notes! I'm in a class on the Ancient Mediterranean.

In general we can tell if a city was attacked or not through archaeological evidence. Cities like Troy (VIIa)*, Gibala, and Ugarit were considered razed because a lot of arrowheads were found embedded in walls & buildings, skeletons show signs of non-crushing violent injury and there is evidence of widespread fires.

In contrast cities like Troy (VI)* and Tiryns were likely destroyed by earthquakes because skeletons show signs almost exclusively of crushing injuries, buildings are destroyed but without any evidence for weapons or (significant) fire, and the specific destruction pattern for the buildings. ((Invaders don't shake blocks out of all of the buildings in a city))

*Troy VI and Troy VIIa are both in the same location, but they're different archaeological layers. i.e. Troy VI was destroyed by an earthquake, but the people rebuilt after the destruction.

City Cause Date Notes
Troy (VI) Earthquake ~1300 BC Reoccupied after
Troy (VIIa) Razed / War ~1190-1180 BC Reoccupied after
Ugarit Razed / War ~1190 BC No reoccupation
Emar Razed / War ~1185 BC ?
Gibala Razed / War ~1192-1190 BC No reoccupation
Megiddo Razed* ~1130 BC Only the Palace part of the city was razed
Lachish Earthquake ~1150-1130 BC No reoccupation
Hattusas Razed / War Royal quarter was emptied before razing
Pylos Earthquake??? ~1180 BC
Mycenae Earthquake??? ~1190 BC
Tiryns Earthquake ?

This is one of my favorite periods in history and I too question what was going on in the surrounding areas beyond the Mediterranean, especially up in Europe. We know that there was trade coming from Europe such as tin and amber, and the amber was coming from pretty far north so at least some people up in Europe knew about these Mediterranean cultures!

3

Gideonn1021 OP t1_izhg0nx wrote

Thank you for the information, Troy really has been through a lot, huh.

Wait so Tin sounds like it would come from closer to the Balkans, but are you saying there were possible trade relations with places like Germany, or at least that far north?

2

WhoopingWillow t1_izhmfah wrote

There are 11 layers at Troy! Some are built during periods of development, others due to destruction.

Tin was imported from a lot of Europe, even from as far as Britain! Britain, Brittany (France), the Iberian Peninsula, Germany/CzechRepublic, and the Balkans all traded tin to the Mediterranean. Amber came from the Baltic region which is just as far! It's wild how far goods moved in the ancient world! (^(Tutankhamen's tomb has amber from the Baltics.))

What is less clear is the people side of all of it. We have some evidence for ships carrying trade goods, but it can be hard to assess if most of the trade was via direct, long distance trade relationships or was simply passed through many areas over time. (e.g. Changing hands 100 times from one place to the other) Most likely there was all of the above.

2

imgrandojjo t1_izhi7bq wrote

I have a personal theory about that. I don't know how valid it is but it makes sense to me.

The sensational way to put it would be, "the Trojan War caused the Bronze Age Collapse."

Obviously it's more complicated than that.

My theory is that Troy, which is located near one of the two Turkish straits, had trading connections with grain kingdoms along the cost of what's Ukraine today. If we assume such farming kingdoms existed, Troy would be in a perfect position to flourish by playing middleman between these states and the hungry nations of the eastern Mediterranean, which would explain why such a powerful Trojan state existed in the first place that it could defy all of Greece like contemporary histories suggest it did.

We know the years before the collapse were marked by declining yields in most if not all of the major players in the region, and as the years went on and yields began to shrink further and further but the population didn't decline along with it. Usually when yields decline populations decline too Famine, disease, starvation, confilict over remaining sources of food, all usually combined to ensure the nation goes demographically negative until the population has shrunk to the level it can support. This didn't happen in the late Bronze Age. Or at least when it did happen, it happened all at once suddenly, rather than gradually..

Why? I believe it was because there was a source of plentiful grain to import -- a region that even today is one of the great suppliers of the world's food. Ukraine.

So the grain farms of the northern Black Sea, which I admit I'm presuming to exist but have been there as far back in recorded history as you care to go, became a critical source of food for the empires around the eastern Mediterranean and Troy prospered as a middleman, possibly by shipping the grain itself, and possibly by collecting strait fees or navigation fees on other merchant shipping to help ships traverse the straits safely to reach their customers on the other side.

This in turn would explain why Troy, despite being only one city, could have the economic clout and resources to face the might of the Mycenaean Greeks and think they had a shot (also possibly why the siege of Troy didn't work very well, as they had a ready source of food behind the siege lines that the Mycenaeans couldn't easily stop).

A long siege of Troy would, however, cut off the rest of the eastern Mediterranean from these supplies of desperately needed grain. It would turn the Turkish straits into a warzone and the Greeks would be trying to use their powerful navy to isolate Troy. The grain kingdom(s) of Crimea and the northern Black Sea, robbed of their customer base by the inconvenient strait, may have even fallen apart without a source of revenue they had become dependent on to fund their states, and when the siege settled down, the region had devolved back into a more primitive state, removing these kingdoms from the board as grain exporters for a period of time.

With the Trojan grain network gone, nations that had become more and more dependent on its merchants for food now had that support kicked out from under them. With growing populations and shrinking food supplies, and the deficit no longer easy to make up from import, collapse became inevitable. Ironically, this is also a plausible explanation for why the Greek themselves didn't exploit their victory to colonize the straits until many centuries later. Pulling down Troy's house pulled down their own as well!

It's just an idea. But I think it checks out if you believe (as I do) that the Troy that was besieged by the Greeks was the one that flourished during the late Mycenaean era, and I believe that's where the consensus is right now.

3

ammonium_bot t1_izsj579 wrote

> the might of the

Did you mean to say "might have"?
Explanation: You probably meant to say could've/should've/would've which sounds like 'of' but is actually short for 'have'.
^^I'm ^^a ^^bot ^^that ^^corrects ^^grammar/spelling ^^mistakes. ^^PM ^^me ^^if ^^I'm ^^wrong ^^or ^^if ^^you ^^have ^^any ^^suggestions.
^^Github

1

MaxImpact1 t1_izhrbm1 wrote

I love this. Most historians are sure that “sea people“ existed and caused the sudden collapse of the bronze age but we know almost nothing about them. Real life mistery.

This is a very good documentary on the topic

3

HaikuBotStalksMe t1_izhwnfc wrote

Lol, I thought the title was saying that central Europe was about to collapse into the bronze age, and was like "damn, it's getting that backwards up there?"

3

SpaceSweede t1_izihjs2 wrote

The theory goes that a huge volcanic eruption in Indonesia/Flores changed the weather patterns in Europe. This resulted in repeating draughts and famine. The people rioted and civilizations fell. The very complex traderoutes that transported copper and tin was disrupted. Tin and copper was the ingredients of making bronze. This lead to a high pressure to refine the art of turning iron-ore into steel.

3

mrroney13 t1_izhcwyt wrote

Then who was king? Who was not the king? -Sumerian King List on the time of the drought about 2200 BC.

2

Gideonn1021 OP t1_izhg8nw wrote

It doesn't sound like this king kept his title very long if I may speak from an outsiders perspective

1

mrroney13 t1_izhkpbv wrote

It was about a period of about 3 years during the Akkadian Empire when 4 kings rose and fell. There's some open-endedness to that document,though, as it describes the antediluvian kings as reigning for tens of thousands of years each.

It corresponds chronologically with the decay of the Akkadians and a really bad drought around 2200 BC, though. A couple may have been the listed kings from the fourth dynasty of Uruk or the like, but we can't really know for sure. At least to the extent of my understanding.

2

samjp910 t1_izhdnbt wrote

I had a classics and Roman history professor who used to say that there is a misconception about separation, that the pre-iron age societies we look at now only appeared to be unconnected. ‘The illusion of separation’ was his term. Largely proven now of course but when he was coming up there were stil very clear borders.

One of the examples that I remember the best is about the supply of wheat, that if there was a blight on the crop in Egypt, the shortage would be felt as far away as the Indus and Central Europe.

There might be something to a theory of the inverse leading to the Bronze Age collapse. Lacking the means to feed themselves in a harsher north, people follow supply lines south to the Mediterranean, taking to raiding and piracy to survive. The same can be said for how the Balkans were later settled from the south.

2

Gideonn1021 OP t1_izhgnnt wrote

Oh very interesting! This is funny because I see people arguing both ways on the connections between bronze age societies, it's painstaking actually trying to find the truth when there are so many possibilities.

Your answer also helps to answer my question, it is possible Central Europe was impacted and would subsequently impact the Mediterranean, but then again anything is possible. Thank you!

1

KmartQuality t1_izhk1x0 wrote

Maybe this is more appropriate to ELI5?

These are very good questions and deserve a LOT of study.

2

hodorspot t1_izhx96u wrote

An Egyptian pharaoh said something like this about the sea people- “They dwelled in their islands far away on the dark sea”.

We know Southern Britannia has always been famous for its Tin, especially Cornwall. Tin and Copper make bronze. Herodotus said the Phoenicians sailed to the British isles for tin. I wonder if there was some type of powerful federation that came down from the British isles (islands far away on the dark sea) and raided where they sold their tin at whenever those places stopped buying. Idk fun thought🤷‍♂️

2

kimthealan101 t1_izi561r wrote

The rise in iron production and new iron weapons threw the power balance out of wack, too. This is not the only factor, but too many people tend to look for only one factor. Likely there were dozens of factors, some being more important than others in different areas

2

LittleKidLover83 t1_izi6hg8 wrote

I am no historian and an absolute noob, but a lover of Greek mythology and would love to see how the fall of Troy fits into all this

2

cognomenster t1_izikatv wrote

I loved The Horse, The Wheel and Language. It’s an unbelievably well sourced and detailed explanation of roughly 5000 BCE to approximately 1000 BCE. Worth every penny.

2

IRMacGuyver t1_izikh48 wrote

For a long time I've believed the collapse happened because some people figured out how to make steel and went nuts over expanding then when their steel production ran out they lost their new territory. There's been plenty of discoveries of high carbon iron in the time period. Be it from meteors or just early attempts at heating iron with charcoal. Remember too that the metal ages mostly only refer to Europe and the time periods fall apart once you start looking at China and Egypt. After all King Tut had an iron dagger in the 14th century BC.

2

HoneyInBlackCoffee t1_izikoal wrote

Nobody knows. There are theories but there's no evidence other than the Palace structure collapsing and settlements abandoned. It wasn't necessarily an invasion either, the only evidence of that is from Egypt. That map is a complete fabrication from guessing too

2

MasterJaguar t1_izikru5 wrote

There is some recent work by Luigi Pascali that finds that the transition from bronze to iron destroyed the need for trade routes and that decimated economies.

2

_cooperscooper_ t1_izitvf3 wrote

The Bronze Age collapse is really just guess work nothing is definitive. The Sea People narrative is mostly based off of a couple of Egyptian texts that could be used to explain why everything “collapsed,” but very few sites in the Levant show signs of actual warfare, rather many seem to have just been abandoned or burned, but not necessarily in fighting. Eric Cline talks a lot about this, but it seems that it was probably related to long period of drought that led to the collapse. We can tell that there were major droughts due to pollen analysis from soil cores, and this is corroborated by hittite, ugaritic, and Egyptian sources all discussing famine. This further would explain why the Sea People went to Egypt, as they were almost certainly Greeks leaving their homeland. We can tell this due to various things, but the major red flag is the philistine culture which appears in Palestine, because they basically pop up out of nowhere in the archaeological record using Greek style pottery, hearths, architecture, etc. they also have done genetic analysis on philistine bodies and found that they were of Greek ancestry

2

abdoelsheik t1_izou8hu wrote

Hi guys I got subscriptions for Curiositystream and HistoryVault the well known documentary streaming services for 50% off their original price if you interested please dm

2

Xciccor t1_izh6u2y wrote

I'll be honest. This post is written more like a revisionist question. As in, it sounds like you want there to have been more to central Europe during this time, and the mystery and lack of information about it, is the "evidence" or "feeling" you have of them having ties to the mysterious sea peoples.

1

Gideonn1021 OP t1_izh9zyh wrote

To be honest I don't have a preference either way for whether Central Europe had any influence over the rest of the world at the time, I was really just asking because I noticed trends of people moving from west to east coinciding with evidence through archaeological finds in Central Europe that there has just been a major change in their cultural beliefs of some sort. That by itself is hardly anything to go on, this post is me asking for more information on it since to me that seems to be a weird coincidence in history that there would be a major change in a culture of a region, and subsequent migration of population from that general area with there being no correlation, I'm just curious that's all, no conspiracy theories here

1

LC_001 t1_izhgc6q wrote

I wonder if there is a good podcast that delves into the Bronze Age collapse.

1

Gideonn1021 OP t1_izhh7eo wrote

Idk man I'm pretty sure there are no podcasts that cover this topic

I appreciate all the podcast requests though I'm glad to find more centralized discussions on the topic rather than pulling little bits and pieces of information for this question!

1

LC_001 t1_izhhszd wrote

Thanks. Have listened some truly amazing history podcasts. But haven’t been able to find any on the Bronze Age collapse.

I should ask in r/HistoryPodcasts or r/History_Podcasts

1

lostsailorlivefree t1_izk8ob8 wrote

“The Sea People” really are a mystery and there seem to be distinct references in multiple cultures referring to a destructive, mobile force who seem to come from sea travel to seek and pillage (and destroy) many many developed settlements around the Med. What if there were all the described calamities described from widespread famine and natural disasters and the “strong (brutal) survive” situation takes hold and the Sea People are an amalgamation of surviving folk who band together thinking “everything has gone to shit and if I want to survive I opt in with these mobile warlords and pillage for a living”. Like a 000 failed settlements each had a couple incredibly tough survivors and that ‘A’ Team of brutality was the Sea People. No other organizing force like religion or culture- just survival by taking.

1

War_Hymn t1_izkb4t8 wrote

I'm just hypothesizing here, but it could be a case of population pressure like that of the equally dramatic Migratory era during the late-Roman empire. There seemed to be a rapid uptake in warfare and fortification in places like the Italian peninsula as well in the period right before the BAC. My guess is the general European population might had reached a population level where there wasn't enough land to support people (with their current agricultural technology at least) or some widespread natural disaster (drought, flood) disturbed the balance of food production/consumption, so local tribes became much more competitive for land and resources, eventually leading to widespread intensive warfare. Those that were defeated then had to move away, either into the territories of the BA states, or forced other tribes to migrate and put pressure on them. While the militaries of the BA states might have handled the occasional intrusion by these "less sophisticated" groups, a constant torrent of desperate (and armed) people fleeing their homelands to gain refuge/loot eventually overwhelm the defenses of the BA states.

1

Fucknutssss t1_izgwfz6 wrote

What the hell is the Bronze Age?

−2

masshiker t1_izgxepn wrote

Roughly 1500 bce in the levante/middle east

4

Gideonn1021 OP t1_izh1kla wrote

Along with the other answer it could also be considered a sort of golden age for the Mediterranean civilizations, at least when they were all so prevelant and diverse.

1