{"id":22378,"date":"2013-10-10T10:59:56","date_gmt":"2013-10-10T09:59:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/?p=22378"},"modified":"2026-04-25T09:25:55","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T08:25:55","slug":"late-bronze-age-collapse-n","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/late-bronze-age-collapse-n\/","title":{"rendered":"Late Bronze Age Collapse"},"content":{"rendered":"

Late Bronze Age Collapse <\/b>of civilisations in the Eastern Mediterranean in the second half of the 2nd<\/sup> millennium BC has been variously attributed to earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and severe climate change. It is extremely unlikely that all these occurred around the same time by coincidence. Unfortunately, it is not clear to what extent these events were interrelated. As I see it, political upheavals do not lead to earthquakes, volcanic eruptions or drought and so can be safely viewed as an effect rather than a cause. Similarly, climate change is just as unlikely to have caused eruptions or seismic activity and so can also be classified as an effect. Consequently, we are left with earthquakes and volcanoes as the prime suspects for the catastrophic turmoil that took place in the Middle East between the 15th<\/sup> and 12th<\/sup> centuries BC. Nevertheless, August 2013 saw further evidence published, that also blamed climate change for the demise of Bronze Age civilisations in the region.<\/p>\n

In 2022, a fourth possible cause emerged from a genetic research project – disease. The two disease carriers in question were the bacteria\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>Salmonella enterica<\/em>, which causes typhoid fever, and the infamous\u00a0<\/em>Yersinia pestis<\/em>, the bacteria responsible for the Black Death plague that decimated the population of medieval Europe. These are two of the deadliest microbes human beings have ever encountered, and their presence could have easily triggered significant heavy population loss and rampant social upheaval in ancient societies(d)<\/sup>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Robert Drews[865<\/a>] <\/sup>dismisses any suggestion that Greece suffered a critical drought around 1200 BC, citing the absence of any supporting reference by Homer or Hesiod as evidence. He proposes that \u201cthe transition from chariot<\/a> to infantry warfare as the primary cause of the Great Kingdoms\u2019 downfall.\u201d <\/i><\/p>\n

Diodorus Siculus <\/a>describes a great seismic upheaval in 1250 BC, which caused radical topographical changes from the Gulf of Gabes <\/a>to the Atlantic. (181.16)<\/p>\n

This extended period of chaos began around 1450 BC when the eruptions on Thera took place. These caused the well-documented devastation in the region including the ending of the Minoan civilisation <\/a>and probably the Exodus<\/a> of the Bible and the Plagues of Egypt <\/a>as well. According to the Parian Marble<\/a>, the Flood of Deucalion <\/a>probably took place around the same time.<\/p>\n

Professor Stavros Papamarinopoulos <\/a>has written of the \u2018seismic storm\u2019 that beset the Eastern Mediterranean between 1225 and 1175 BC(a)<\/sup>. Similar ideas have been expressed by Amos Nur & Eric H.Cline(b)(c)<\/sup>. The invasion of the Sea Peoples<\/a> recorded by the Egyptians, and parts of Plato\u2019s Atlantis story, all appear to have taken place around this same period. Plato refers to a spring on the Athenian acropolis<\/a> (Crit.112d)<\/i> that was destroyed during an earthquake. Rainer K\u00fchne <\/a>notes that this spring only existed for about 25 years but was rediscovered by the Swedish archaeologist, Oscar Broneer<\/a>, who excavated there from 1959 to 1967. The destruction of the spring and barracks, by an earthquake, was confirmed as having occurred at the end of the 12th<\/sup> century BC. <\/b>Tony Petrangelo published two interesting, if overlapping, articles in 2020 in which he discussed Broneer’s work on the Acropolis(e)(f)<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

A recent review of two books on the subject in the journal Antiquity<\/em> begins with the following preamble;<\/p>\n

“The collapse c.1200 BC\u2019 in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean\u2014which saw the end of the Mycenaean kingdoms, the Hittite state and its empire and the kingdom of Ugarit\u2014has intrigued archaeologists for decades. As Jesse Millek points out in (his book) Destruction and its impact, the idea of a swathe of near-synchronous destructions across the eastern Mediterranean is central to the narrative of the Late Bronze Age collapse: \u201cdestruction stands as the physical manifestation of the end of the Bronze Age\u201d (p.6). Yet whether there was a single collapse marked by a widespread destruction horizon is up for debate.”<\/em> (g)<\/sup><\/p>\n

(a)<\/sup> https:\/\/www.2009-q-conf-kandersteg.grazian-archive.com\/platoandtheseism\/papamarinopoulos-newversionof2009.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

(b) <\/sup>https:\/\/academia.edu\/355163\/2001_Nur_and_Cline_Archaeology_Odyssey_Earthquake_Storms_article<\/a> \u00a0(this is a shorter version of (c) below)<\/p>\n

(c)<\/sup> https:\/\/www.academia.edu\/19524810\/Poseidons_Horses_Plate_Tectonics_and_Earthquake_Storms_in_the_Late_Bronze_Age_Aegean_and_Eastern_Mediterranean?auto=view&campaign=weekly_digest<\/a><\/p>\n

(d)<\/sup> Mediterranean Bronze Age Collapse Linked to Deadly Typhoid and Plague | Ancient Origins (ancient-origins.net)<\/a><\/p>\n

(e)<\/sup> https:\/\/atlantis.fyi\/blog\/platos-fountain-on-the-athens-acropolis<\/a><\/p>\n

(f)<\/sup> A General Program of Defense | Atlantis FYI<\/a><\/p>\n

(g) <\/sup>Getting closer to the Late Bronze Age collapse in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean, c. 1200 BC | Antiquity | Cambridge<\/a> Core<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Late Bronze Age Collapse of civilisations in the Eastern Mediterranean in the second half of the 2nd millennium BC has been variously attributed to earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and severe climate change. It is extremely unlikely that all these occurred around the same time by coincidence. Unfortunately, it is not clear to what extent these events […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[599,1265,965,385,944,398,2011,7885,2644,291,2357,306,1038,1233,427,1447,60,1776,31,7165,652],"class_list":["post-22378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-acropolis","tag-chariots","tag-diodorus-siculus","tag-exodus","tag-flood-of-deucalion","tag-gulf-of-gabes","tag-hittites","tag-jesse-millek","tag-late-bronze-age","tag-minoans","tag-nur-cline","tag-oscar-broneer","tag-parian-marble","tag-plagues-of-egypt","tag-rainer-kuhne","tag-robert-drews","tag-sea-peoples","tag-stavros-papamarinopoulos","tag-thera","tag-tony-petrangelo","tag-ugarit"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22378"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67228,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22378\/revisions\/67228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}