A scribe breaks open a clay envelope by the window and reads the same line twice.
⟡ This narration features AI-assisted voice production, carefully crafted for consistency and clarity.
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THE FIRST GLOBALIZED WORLD COLLAPSED IN 1177 BC. ITS LETTERS SURVIVED.
Around 1200 BC, the kings of Egypt, the Hittites and the Greek palaces wrote to one another as brothers, and ships carried copper, tin and grain between their harbours. Within a few decades, almost all of it was gone. This is the story of the first connected world, and of how it came apart one letter at a time.
◈ A peace between Egypt and the Hittites, delivered on a tablet of silver
◈ A merchant city in Syria that asked for help and never received an answer
◈ A Greek palace whose records survived only because the fire baked them
◈ A pharaoh who won his war and was killed by his own court
Then the letters only went one way.
The Late Bronze Age collapse around 1177 BC, from Ugarit, Hattusa and Cyprus to Pylos, Mycenae and the Egypt of Ramesses III.
History told with space to breathe.
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Sources & further reading
· Eric H. Cline, 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed, revised edition (Princeton University Press, 2021)
· Eric H. Cline, After 1177 B.C.: The Survival of Civilizations (Princeton University Press, 2024)
· Trevor Bryce, The Kingdom of the Hittites (Oxford University Press, 2005)
· Oliver Dickinson, The Aegean from Bronze Age to Iron Age (Routledge, 2006)
· John Chadwick, The Mycenaean World (Cambridge University Press, 1976)
· Marguerite Yon, The City of Ugarit at Tell Ras Shamra (Eisenbrauns, 2006)
· Cemal Pulak, "The Uluburun Shipwreck: An Overview", International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 27 (1998)
· Sturt W. Manning et al., "Severe multi-year drought coincident with Hittite collapse around 1198–1196 BC", Nature 614 (2023)
· Zahi Hawass et al., "Revisiting the harem conspiracy and death of Ramesses III", BMJ 345 (2012)
· William F. Edgerton, "The Strikes in Ramses III's Twenty-Ninth Year", Journal of Near Eastern Studies 10 (1951)
· Homer, The Iliad
#1177BC #BronzeAgeCollapse #LateBronzeAge #SeaPeoples #Ugarit #Hittites #Hattusa #Mycenae #Pylos #RamessesIII #AncientEgypt #AncientGreece #AncientHistory #HistoryDocumentary #History
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