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What Destroyed All of the Major Bronze Age Cities?
A mysterious apocalypse brought down nearly all of human civilization three thousand years ago
The apocalypse began around the year 1250BCE and would last a century. During this time period, humanity’s greatest calamity would strike the Mediterranean region. Despite bringing about the demise of nearly every major human civilization, including the destruction of dozens of large cities, the cause and details of this event are largely disputed and unknown.
What is known, is the vastness of the collapse and the absolute destruction that struck the region.
The Bronze Age produced modern and sophisticated civilizations. Their architecture was advanced, their artwork was detailed, they had multiple written languages and mastery over the region on a grand scale. Large and mythical cities such as Troy and Ugarit existed during this period and were part of the cities that showed signs of utter destruction.
So what did cause the collapse? How were dozens of cities reduced to smoking ruins?
The scale of the destruction
The most remarkable thing about this event was not the rise and fall of civilizations, that had happened before and would happen again. It was how violent this collapse was in comparison to other events in human history. A scholar by the name of Robert Drews presented a list of forty-seven major cities that were destroyed during this period. Not just the subject of battle or hardship but outright vanquished, never to be inhabited again.
Drews claims that every major settlement between Pylos in Greece and Gaza in the Levant was destroyed and abandoned. Forty-seven were credibly identified as having been destroyed during this period, and the number is probably much higher in actuality.
That is a fantastically high number. For context, if the forty-seven largest cities in the United States were destroyed you would start with New York City and go all the way down to Tulsa. Cities in between would include major…
