1177 B.C.

Eric H. Cline argues in this revised and updated edition that the collapse of multiple interconnected Bronze Age civilizations around 1177 BC resulted not from any single cause but from a "perfect storm" of calamities, including climate change, drought, famine, earthquakes, invasions, and internal rebellions. He draws explicit parallels between the globalized world of the Late Bronze Age and modern society, noting that both depend on fragile networks of trade, diplomacy, and communication vulnerable to cascading disruption. The book is structured as a narrative in four chronological acts spanning the 15th through 12th centuries BC, followed by analytical chapters investigating the causes and nature of the collapse.

Cline opens with the events of 1177 BC, when diverse groups collectively called the "Sea Peoples" attacked Egypt during the eighth year of Pharaoh Ramses III's reign. These groups, whose precise origins remain unknown, traveled by both land and sea, reportedly overrunning major powers including the Hittites in Anatolia (modern Turkey), Carchemish in northern Syria, and Alashiya (probably Cyprus) before reaching Egypt. Ramses III recorded his victory in inscriptions at his mortuary temple at Medinet Habu. An earlier coalition of Sea Peoples had fought Egypt in 1207 BC during the reign of Pharaoh Merneptah, whose inscription from that year also contains the earliest known mention of "Israel" outside the Bible. Although Ramses III defeated the invaders, Egypt declined into a diminished power for the rest of the millennium. Cline emphasizes that earlier scholars treated the Sea Peoples as convenient scapegoats, but newer evidence suggests they were as much victims as aggressors, likely driven from their homelands by drought, famine, or other pressures.

To demonstrate what was lost in the collapse, Cline traces the rise of international connections beginning in the 15th century BC. Pharaoh Thutmose III commissioned Minoan artists from Crete to paint frescoes in his palace in the Nile delta, illustrating early cultural exchange across the Mediterranean. The Minoans, a civilization on Crete named by British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans, had traded with Mesopotamia since at least the 18th century BC. Egyptian tomb paintings from the reigns of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III depict Aegean delegations bringing gifts, confirming sustained diplomatic contact. Hatshepsut, who ruled as pharaoh for more than 20 years, sent trading expeditions to Canaan, the Sinai, and the land of Punt, a region probably in modern Eritrea or Ethiopia. After her death, Thutmose III launched 17 military campaigns, including the Battle of Megiddo in 1479 BC. He also campaigned against the kingdom of Mitanni, a Hurrian-ruled state in northern Syria whose chariot-warrior elite, the maryannu, were renowned for their expertise with horses. Around 1430 BC, Hittite king Tudhaliya I/II crushed the Assuwa Rebellion, a coalition of 22 states in northwestern Anatolia. The last two states on the coalition list, Wilusiya and Taruisa, likely refer to Troy and its surrounding area, the Troad. A sword of Mycenaean type, produced by the mainland Greek Bronze Age civilization, was found at the Hittite capital Hattusa with an inscription commemorating the victory, raising the possibility that Aegean warriors participated in the rebellion.

The 14th century BC represented a "Golden Age" of internationalism. The Amarna Letters, an archive of nearly 400 clay tablets discovered at Akhenaten's capital of Akhetaten (modern Tell el-Amarna), document extensive diplomatic correspondence between Egyptian pharaohs and the rulers of Babylon, Mitanni, Assyria, the Hittites, and Cyprus. In these letters, kings addressed each other as "brother" to establish fictive kinship relationships, exchanged elaborate gifts, and arranged dynastic marriages to cement treaties. When Tutankhamen died young, his widow, likely Ankhsenamen, wrote to Hittite king Suppiluliuma I requesting one of his sons as a husband. Suppiluliuma sent his son Prince Zannanza, but the prince was assassinated en route. The enraged Suppiluliuma declared war, and prisoners brought back from the campaign carried a plague that killed Suppiluliuma himself around 1322 BC.

The 13th century BC saw continued trade alongside mounting conflict. The Uluburun shipwreck, discovered off southwestern Turkey and excavated over nearly a dozen seasons, contained goods from at least seven countries, including 10 tons of Cypriot copper, tin probably from Afghanistan, and a gold scarab of Nefertiti. This single cargo demonstrates the scale of Late Bronze Age international commerce. On land, the Battle of Qadesh in 1274 BC between Hittite king Muwattalli II and Ramses II ended in stalemate, and 15 years later the two sides signed the "Silver Treaty," one of the best-preserved peace treaties from the ancient world. Hittite texts document ongoing conflicts with the Mycenaeans (whom they called Ahhiyawa) in western Anatolia, including disputes over the territory of Wilusa, probably Troy. A treaty between Hittite king Tudhaliya IV and Shaushgamuwa, king of Amurru, a Syrian kingdom allied with the Hittites, includes what appears to be one of the earliest economic embargoes in history, forbidding Ahhiyawan ships from reaching Assyria. The same treaty initially listed the king of Ahhiyawa among the Great Kings, the top tier of major Near Eastern rulers, but then struck his name, evidence of a demotion in status.

In the 12th century BC, the interconnected world fell apart. Ugarit, a prosperous trading city on the coast of northern Syria, was violently destroyed between 1190 and 1185 BC. A letter from the last king, Ammurapi, pleads for reinforcements against enemy forces that had already overrun Ras Ibn Hani, a nearby coastal site. Across the region, cities fell in rapid succession: Emar in inland Syria in 1185 BC; Troy VIIA, the archaeological destruction layer corresponding to the city's final Bronze Age phase, around 1190 to 1180 BC; and on the Greek mainland, Mycenae, Tiryns, Pylos, and many other sites between 1225 and 1130 BC. The Hittite capital Hattusa burned, though its public buildings had been emptied beforehand, suggesting abandonment before the attack. In Mesopotamia, the Elamite king Shutruk-Nahhunte invaded Babylon in 1158 BC in destructions clearly unrelated to the Sea Peoples. Ramses III himself was assassinated in the Harem Conspiracy of 1155 BC.

Cline evaluates each proposed cause and finds none sufficient on its own. Earthquakes struck the region between 1225 and 1175 BC, but societies typically rebuild after seismic damage. Internal rebellions may have occurred but remain unproven. Trade disruption would have devastated economies, but evidence from Ugarit shows commerce continuing until the city's violent end. New DNA evidence from infant burials at the Philistine city of Ashkelon in southern Canaan reveals mixed Aegean and local Canaanite ancestry. The Philistines were migrants often linked to the Sea Peoples, and this genetic evidence supports the view that they intermarried with local populations rather than simply conquering them. The strongest evidence concerns climate change: Multiple independent scientific studies now point to a megadrought beginning around 1200 BC and lasting 150 to 300 years. Texts from Ugarit, the Hittite archives, and Egyptian records document widespread famine. While Cline maintains that no single factor caused the collapse, he gives greater weight to this megadrought as the principal driving force, arguing that its unprecedented duration denied societies any opportunity to recover.

Drawing on archaeologist Colin Renfrew's concept of "systems collapse" and on complexity theory, Cline proposes that the interconnected Late Bronze Age civilizations were so interdependent that the failure of any one part destabilized the whole. When each component of such a system depends on every other, a condition scholars call hypercoherence, the extreme mutual dependence renders the entire network unstable and liable to collapse. Cline compares this dynamic to the COVID-19 pandemic's disruption of modern supply chains, citing risk theorist Nassim Nicholas Taleb's observation that "the great danger has always been too much connectivity" (177). From the ashes of the Bronze Age emerged new peoples and civilizations: the Israelites, Phoenicians, and Philistines in former Canaan; the Neo-Hittites, successor states descended from Hittite culture, in northern Syria; and eventually the Greeks of the archaic and classical periods, bringing innovations including the alphabet and democracy. Cline concludes that unlike the ancient Hittites, modern societies have the advantage of hindsight, but only if they choose to act on it.