Fall of Civilizations Podcast · Fall of Civilizations Podcast

2. The Bronze Age Collapse - Mediterranean Apocalypse

January 21, 2019·1 hr 5 min·2 clips

Ugarit's last king begged Cyprus for help while enemy ships burned his cities, but the letter was never sent.

1. Fall of Civilizations Podcast: The Bronze Age Collapse traces destruction across the eastern Mediterranean between 1200 and 1100 BC.\n2. Host Paul Cooper, a novelist and literature student, combines archaeological evidence with Homeric poetry to ask what collapse felt like for people in Hattusha, Ugarit, and Egypt.\n3. The episode's central puzzle is how Hittites, Mycenaeans, Ugarit, and other societies could disappear within roughly 40 to 50 years.\n4. Hattusha's ash, charred wood, collapsed walls, and abandoned floors date its violent destruction to around 1200 BC, while Karauglan preserves arrowheads and human remains.\n5. Homer's Iliad and Odyssey were written down in the 8th century BC after centuries of oral transmission, possibly preserving a distant memory of Troy's wars.\n6. The Uluburun shipwreck, dated to about 1300 BC, carried 10 tons of copper, one ton of tin, and goods from at least seven lands.\n7. Carol Bell compares late Bronze Age tin dependence with modern oil dependence, while tin traveled from Badakhshan through Mesopotamia to Greece.\n8. The Sea Peoples remain unidentified, but Egyptian records name groups including the Danunna, Peleset, Shardana, and Weshesh.\n9. Amurapi's final letter from Ugarit describes enemy ships burning cities, while Ramses III later used archers, spearmen, and ships against an invasion in the Nile Delta.\n10. Listeners who enjoy ancient history, archaeology, trade networks, and debated historical causes.

As heard by us

A measured look at fire-scarred cities, abandoned workshops, and the uncertain enemies tied to the Bronze Age Collapse.

The Bronze Age Collapse draws its power from the ground up: black ash at Hattusha, charred wood, melted bricks, and walls left where they fell after a fierce fire.

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Why you'd press play

You get a ruined fortress, a buried workshop, and a mystery history never neatly closes.

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