Context: The Late Bronze Age collapse was a sudden systemic failure where major empires like the Hittites and Mycenaeans fell apart due to a mix of invasions, climate change, and trade disruptions. While the Sea Peoples are often blamed for the raids, the real cause was likely a perfect storm of disasters that broke the ancient world’s interconnected economy.
Please define “sudden systemic failure” and “collapse”.
it wasn’t sudden at all.
the “collapse” happened very slowly- all anyone knew is that crops were a little less productive than they remembered, food was a little scarcer and water a little harder to find; and bronze tools weren’t as easy to get.
It took generations.
there were a lot of causes for the collapse, some of it was climate change, some of it may have been social unrest caused caused by refugees seeking a better life. the complex and then-globalized trade with everyone being specialized. (one kingdom was extracting tin, the other copper and another was alloying them and casting brone into tools; some were growing food, etc,)
at the time scale it was happening, no one actually really noticed.
Within ~50 years nearly every major power was gone or severely diminished; Hittite, Mycenaea, Kassite Babylon, Mitanni, Assyria and the Egyptian New Kingdom (survived but barely), Ugarit and other city states gone.
Large interconnected trade networks ceased to exist, advanced economies crumbled, cities abandoned, widespread food/material shortages, and the entire order of the region was forever altered.
Their empire was already fragmented before the 12th century, their capital probably abandoned before it burned down at an unknown date some time in this approximate era.
Mycenean Greece slowly diminished due to migration pressure, internal turmoil, probably climate change, etc but existed roughly until 1050 BCE (after the bronze age collapse).
There was a period of decline during the 12th century BCE, but before 1100, a second period of prosperity, consolidation and expansion was ushered in, the Middle Assyrian Empire ended only in 912 BCE.
I mean, the Kassite dynasty was the longest lasting in the Middle Babylonian Kingdom, but it was just one dynasty. Incidentally, the Assyrians were part of the reason the Kassites were deposed as rulers.
Wasn’t even a kingdom anymore but a province of the Middle Assyrian Empire during the period of the bronze age collapse, and before the Assyrians they were defeated by the Hittites
There is a debate about how many destruction sites there actually were. Generally (for the whole supposed collapse) there were 148 sites with 153 destruction events attributed to the bronz age collapse described by archeologists and historians during the last 150 years or so. Modern historians and archeaologists like Jesse Millek however state that 94 of these are either not supported well by evidence, misdated or didn’t happen at all.
Just to make this clear: I don’t say nothing happened during that time. Clearly, Ugarit was destroyed in 1185 BCE and a few trading hubs went down and Egypt surely struggled. I just reject the notion of “everything falling to pieces quasi-simultaniously, violently and suddenly”. Accounting for some misdates, some exaggerations and suddenly it is not a peak in catastrophic events but a slightly curved hill or something.
The mysterious “Sea Peoples” were not a foreign invading force out of nowhere but a bunch of local groups (some of which are actually well attested, like the Lukka and Peleset while a few others have origins that are not documented).
Speaking in modern terms, the name “Bronze Age Collapse” would be called pretty clickbaity.
The collapse part is easy. All major civilizations of the Mediterranean and Asia minor were erased, except for Egypt, which became a shell of its former self.
The sudden part is… complex. If you like the bronze age, there are free lectures online discussing just the collapse and they’re very interesting.
You should reead my other comment, too.
Your should read the community name again. This is for dusty lulz. Actual historic discussion is best left elsewhere.