All language subtitles for Bronze Age Apocalypse2023_track3_[eng]

NARRATOR: There once was
a flourishing world

in the eastern Mediterranean.

Thriving cities
dominated the landscape.

Culture and the arts
were at their peak.

Trade in gold
and luxury goods prospered.

We can't even imagine
how much trade,

exchange of goods and ideas
was going on.

It was really a very rich time.

This was all a little over
3,000 years ago.

And then, almost overnight,

nearly all these cities
ceased to exist.

MAN: What happened at the end
of the Bronze Age?

This is one of
the greatest mysteries

that continue to trouble us.

It is one of the most challenging
events in the history of mankind.

Something catastrophic,
something unimaginable.

It looks like history
switched off the lights.

Now some of the world's greatest
archaeologists and historians

are working together to try to
figure out what happened

MAN: The analytic toolbox
that we have in archaeology nowadays

has revolutionised
our understanding of the past.

And they're uncovering
a shocking truth -

WE could be facing
a similar fate today.

The collapse of the Bronze Age
and the immediate aftermath

is far more relevant to today

than many people might think.

Over 3,000 years ago,
in the late Bronze Age,

life in the eastern Mediterranean
was flourishing.

After years of war,
the world was largely at peace.

And, like today, was dominated
by a few superpowers.

In the north,
a people known as the Hittites

had established a mighty empire

that controlled most of what's now
Turkey and northern Syria.

To the west, in mainland Greece,

the Mycenaean civilisation thrived

and had also spread into Crete.

And in the south,

under the rule of
the great pharaoh Ramses II,

Egypt ruled an empire that stretched
from Southern Syria to Sudan.

Ships criss-crossed
the Mediterranean,

linking these wealthy nations

with an extensive network
of trade routes.

MAN: So, what we have
in the late Bronze Age

is a thriving,
internationalized network.

They are interconnected.

They are globalized.

They are dependent
on each other for goods.

But within a period
of little more than 50 years,

this entire world came crashing down.

Almost every significant city
or palace was burnt and destroyed.

The vibrant trade links
that connected this world

more or less disappeared.

So complete was the collapse

that even the art of writing,

which had linked these
centres of civilisation,

was also largely forgotten.

One by one, each civilisation
was wiped off the map.

Only Egypt survived,

but its empire collapsed,

and it was a dim reflection
of its former glory.

The world had entered
its first recorded 'dark age'.

No-one knows what happened.

Eric Cline is
Professor of Ancient History

at the George Washington University.

And he's spent years
sifting through the rubble,

trying to piece together

how an entire age
could collapse so quickly.

At the end of the late Bronze Age,
about 1200 BC,

something unimaginable happened.

He thinks the place to start
unravelling the mystery

is in Greece.

This is Mycenae.

It's my favourite site
in the entire world.

And it was one of the most important
sites in the ancient Bronze Age.

This is where Homer says
that Agamemnon and his men

took off for Troy
to try and rescue Helen

after she had been kidnapped.

Soon after they got back, though,
this was a smoking ruin,

and it's been ruined until today.

The mythical images of
the Mycenaeans and the Trojan War

have been immortalised
on countless Greek vases.

The Mycenaeans were clearly
great warriors.

But they were also
brilliant engineers.

Their architecture is characterised
by massive stone structures

that the later ancient Greeks

believed must have been built
by the one-eyed giants cyclops,

as only they
would have had the strength

to move the blocks into place.

This was a society
at the peak of its power.

There were grand palaces, temples...

..and burial monuments
like the tholos tombs,

the most famous being
the so-called Tomb of Agamemnon.

And yet despite the massive walls
and their mighty warriors,

the city of Mycenae
was soon abandoned.

Were the Mycenaeans attacked?

Round about 1250 BC,

they were obviously afraid
of being attacked by someone.

We don't know whom.

But they built new defensive walls
around the entire city,

including the famous Lion Gate.

They also built this water tunnel

so that they could
get at their water source

from inside the city.

In case of attack,
they can still get their water.

We don't know who they're afraid of.

We don't know
what they're worried about.

But they're definitely
worried about something,

and probably rightfully so,

because 50 years later,
the city's destroyed.

And it's not just here.

All the palace complexes
of southern Greece,

including nearby Tiryns,

have layers of ash,

suggesting that
however well-fortified,

they too were destroyed.

So, if these Mycenaean cities
were overrun,

who might they have been attacked by?

Even though all this happened
more than 3,000 years ago,

there are clues as to
who the assailants could have been,

and those clues can be found
far from Greece...

..in Luxor, Egypt.

At Ramses III's mortuary temple,

there is an extraordinary series
of reliefs and inscriptions

recording some tumultuous events
that took place here.

Salima Ikram, Professor of Egyptology
at the American University in Cairo

has long been fascinated
by these carvings.

They depict Ramses' conflicts
with the mysterious 'Sea People',

a group of would-be invaders
coming from the sea.

This enormous wall
is covered with these depictions

showing Ramses fighting against
these terrifying Sea Peoples.

And there are all these
really detailed reliefs,

as well as texts talking
about these battles

and the great Egyptian triumph.

And he says, "No land
could stand before their armies.

"They desolated its people,

"and its land was like that
which had never come into being."

The date of these inscriptions
is around 1180 BC,

just 20 years after
that key date of 1200 BC.

And according to Ramses,

all the other great powers
fell to the Sea People,

not only the Mycenaeans,

but also the Hittites
in Turkey and Syria,

and the Canaanites
in Israel and Palestine.

Only he was able to repel them,
he claimed.

They were extraordinarily strong,
devastating people

that pillaged, rape, looted

and devastated
the entire eastern Mediterranean.

Was Ramses declaration that Egypt
alone survived these attacks

just arrogant boasting,

or was there some truth
to all this pharaonic propaganda?

Were the other great
Bronze Age powers

all invaded, ransacked, and destroyed
by the enigmatic Sea People?

Nestled in the foothills
of rural Turkey

lie the ruins of Hattusa,

capital of the mighty empire
of the Hittites.

The Hittites had grown to match
the Egyptians in power

and had even signed the world's
first peace treaty with Ramses II.

But according to the writing
on the temple walls in Egypt,

they too were brought
down by the Sea People.

This would have been no easy feat.

The Hittites were skilled warriors,

and Hattusa was remarkable
for its strategic location

and well-fortified defences.

The city walls
were over 8km in length,

and more than 10m high.

Archaeologist Christoph Bachhuber

has studied the Hittites
for much of his life.

But he is as puzzled
as everyone else

as to how such a towering power

could be brought down by
some invaders from the sea.

Hattusa was very much
like a castle -

a very heavily fortified
and very heavily defended edifice

on top of a mountain -

seemingly impenetrable up here.

If we look at
the scale of these walls

and sort of appreciate where we are

in relation to
the rest of the landscape -

I mean, we are looking down for
20 or 30 miles in every direction.

Little remains today,

but Hattusa was an impressive
and unusual city

built on a series of terraces.

So, we're walking through
the Lion Gate,

the imposing flanking lions

that are the protective presence
at this gateway

but also a real projection of power.

Within the city walls,

the mudbrick buildings
were monumental

and almost exclusively
state-focused.

Our best estimate for the population
of Hattusa is about 15,000.

But the vast majority would
have lived outside of the walls.

Hattusa, the city,

was really built for
a very small number of people.

The royal family, of course,
living in the palace,

and the priests and attendants
of all the temples.

But in the end, their gods and their
fortifications didn't protect them.

This great city was destroyed.

Andreas Schachner is directing
excavations at the palace of Hattusa,

And everywhere they dig, they find
evidence of burnt mudbricks

dating to the end of the Bronze Age.

Wow, these are most probably
Hittite burned mudbricks.

These are the bricks,
the reddish ones,

and here, for example,
is one fallen down.

And here is, for example, also one
clearly visible.

Wow, that's really great. Mamma mia.

Whoo! Wow.

The palace seems to have been
razed to the ground.

But how could
such a well-fortified city,

250km from the sea,

have been overcome by assailants
arriving by boat?

Is there something
we still don't know?

Almost everything
we've learnt about the Hittites

comes from another discovery
made back when excavations began.

Thousands of clay tablets were found
in a single room, in 1907.

We simply would have almost no idea
about the Hittite state and empire

without the information
that is recorded in these tablets.

Legal texts, religious texts,
political correspondence,

texts recording their deeds
and their achievements.

The latest evidence for writing -
any Hittite writing -

dates to around 1200 BC.

After that,
the Hittites fall silent.

Hattusa was destroyed,

and the Hittites vanish from history
around that same date of 1200 BC.

About that, it seems,
Ramses was right.

But could the Sea People
truly be responsible?

Or is there more to this story?

Sadly the Hattusa tablets tell us
nothing about what happened here.

But if there was
diplomatic correspondence

between other Bronze Age cities...

..might their letters reveal more?

There is one other great city

where many of their written documents
have also survived.

Ugarit, in what is now Syria,

was one of the most important
ancient ports,

with trade links extending
across the known world.

One of the largest and richest
capitals of the Near East,

Ugarit was a busy
and prosperous metropolis.

Archaeologists have found
the remains of a port

with streets lined
with two-story houses...

..and a city surrounded by walls

with several temples
and other public buildings.

But it too was destroyed
at much the same time.

And among the rubble,

archaeologists have found explicit
written evidence about what happened.

The western edge of the city
was occupied by a large palace,

and here they found
hundreds of tablets

covering almost all aspects
of the life of Ugarit,

leading up to 1200 BC
the date everything stopped -

including the days
of its destruction.

And these cuneiform tablets
point the finger of blame

firmly back
at the so-called Sea People.

Yoram Cohen is an expert
in Bronze Age literature.

We have this fascinating letter
which was sent by the King of Ugarit

to the King of Cyprus, of Alashiya,

and he says as follows -

"My cities were burnt.

"They did evil things in my country.

"The seven ships
of the enemy that came

"have inflicted much damage
upon me and my household."

The King is desperate
to save himself and his people,

but unfortunately his cry for help
seems to have come too late.

The situation in Ugarit
was certainly desperate.

And this we know
from the following correspondence.

"When your messenger arrived,

"the army was humiliated,
and the city was sacked.

"Our food in the threshing floors
was burnt

"and the vineyards
were also destroyed.

"Our city is sacked.

"May you know about it.
You must know about it!"

This city was destroyed
by invaders from the sea.

And it seems it was not the only one.

In addition to Ugarit,
Hattusa and Mycenae,

archaeological evidence suggests that

almost every significant city
in the eastern Mediterranean world

was violently attacked and burnt
before being abandoned,

within a short period around 1200 BC.

But the cities have left no answers
as to who the Sea People were,

where they came from,

or how they were able to
attack powerful empires

that were many kilometres
from the sea.

Is there a clue in the fact
that they all fell together,

one after another, like dominoes?

Perhaps their strong connections
made them vulnerable.

Evidence of the close links
that existed between the states

can be found
across the eastern Mediterranean.

Here in Egypt, tomb paintings
show men wearing Aegean-style kilts

offering tributes to the pharaoh.

Would the destruction
of only one or two places

in this extensive network

immediately affect the others,

as happens today when
supply chains begin to fail

or stock markets crash?

DR BACHHUBER: Once the same people
who had invested in these networks,

once these networks
begin to unravel,

once they begin to dissolve,

we can imagine the same people
being left exposed.

They had become dependent,
perhaps overdependent,

on the benefits of
these long-distance networks.

I think that this would have had
dire consequences

for all the rulers
of the eastern Mediterranean.

It's possible that
the close links between them,

the very thing
that had propelled their network

up to its great heights,

may ultimately
have led to their demise.

Was the trade between the cities
essential for their survival?

Just before the collapse,

trade around the Mediterranean
was thriving.

This is vividly illustrated

in the remains of an ancient
shipwreck known as the Uluburun.

Discovered off the coast of Turkey,

this ship is thought to have been
heading for Rhodes or Crete,

and the luxury items
contained in its cargo

illuminate the interconnected world
the Bronze Age people inhabited.

These are high-value,
very elaborate luxury goods...

..gold jewellery,
gold chalices, faience rhytons.

Rhytons are
a type of drinking vessel.

You get a sense now of the decadence
of this time period

and of the palatial elites
who inhabited these palaces

and who were delivering
these types of objects

across the eastern Mediterranean.

They were exporting luxury goods
to each other

and importing raw materials
from distant lands -

glass ingots, ostrich eggs,

amber,

and unworked elephant
and hippopotamus tusks.

Some city, or someONE,

lost a lot of money
when this ship went down.

But the impact would have gone far
beyond the cargo's monetary value.

Because this vessel was
also carrying an enormous shipment

of the most important
raw materials of all -

the metals needed to make bronze.

The cargo of the Uluburun ship
included 11 tons of bronze.

That is a lot of bronze.

That would have furnished an entire
city, perhaps even an army.

So, this is
an enormous shipment of metal.

This would have been a tragic event.

And it would have had
enormous consequences,

socially, politically, economically,
of course.

Bronze was something
they all relied on,

and would have been the main driver
of all economic activity

during the Bronze Age.

We might compare it
to fossil fuels today.

Losing the Uluburun ship
would have been a great loss.

But imagine if we were talking
not about one ship,

but all the ships -

if trade collapsed,

and the Bronze Age cities
suddenly had no bronze.

Would they have been able to survive?

PROF. CLINE: Bronze was THE metal,

whether it was for tools
or for weapons or whatever.

And so, you know,
it gave the name to this period.

It's incredibly important.

But to make bronze,
you need tin, and you need copper.

10% tin to 90% copper
and you've got yourself some bronze.

If you don't have tin,
you can use arsenic.

But I don't recommend that.
You'll be dead pretty soon.

Here at Butser Ancient Farm
in the UK,

metalworking expert Fergus Milton

demonstrates
how it would have been made,

and why, for Bronze Age cities,

regular supplies of both
copper and tin were essential.

So, here are pieces of copper metal,
different shapes of copper.

And we'll pack them all
into the crucible...

..which we're then going to heat.

And here's some tin metal.

We'll heat, and they'll combine
to make bronze.

Copper was relatively easy to find.

Cyprus had it in abundance
and became a major source.

But tin was a rare metal,

and it was transported
from the limits of the known world.

The trade routes stretched

all over the Mediterranean,
and beyond.

Some tin came from
Cornwall in Britain...

..some from Spain and Sardinia...

..and some from southeastern Turkey.

But the vast majority
came from Afghanistan.

Elites of this wider region
had become dependent on

the production, exchange,
and consumption of bronze.

The Hittite king who lived
in this palace, for example,

would have been heavily invested
in these networks,

ensuring regular bronze supplies
for his armies,

for farming, for the sort of basic
machinery of these economies.

By this time, they had mastered

the relatively simple technology
for making bronze.

All they needed were animal-skin
bellows and an open furnace.

With these, Fergus is able to
reach the temperature required -

around 900 degrees Celsius -

to combine the tin and copper.

He then pours this molten alloy
into a mould.

So, we've broken open the mould now

and we've got
a beautiful bronze axe,

using the copper and the tin.

A lot of work,

but a beautiful item that will
last for thousands of years.

But to make their tools and weapons

they needed their supplies
of copper and tin.

Without these,

Bronze Age civilisations would have
found it impossible to continue.

And might the difficulty of obtaining
the raw materials for bronze

even point to an answer
as to who the Sea People were?

Could they be the inventors
of a new super metal?

Some historians have suggested
that around 1200 BC,

certain people,
perhaps tribes from the north,

mastered the technology needed
to produce iron.

Because while it's difficult
to obtain the materials for bronze,

iron ore is found everywhere.

And any tribe that
succeeded in making iron

would have been able
to create stronger, sharper,

and more durable weapons,

allowing them to sweep south,

leaving much of the Bronze Age world
in ruins.

The production of iron, however,

is significantly more complex
than bronze.

It requires
much higher temperatures...

..over 1500 degrees Celsius -

and the invention
of special furnaces.

And the process didn't just
require leaps in technology.

So, this is what we're after.

And you might see that it's
still got lots of slag attached.

The next phase would be to
consolidate that down,

to keep hammering it very gently

to make sure
all of the iron comes together

and expel all the rest of that slag.

It was a really
labour-intensive process -

lots and lots of effort,
lots of people-power,

lots of fuel, lots of materials,

and exhausting! (LAUGHS)

You really gain
a massive appreciation

for the amount of effort that
goes into, for example,

making something like this.

So, this is an iron sword.

You're looking at several more
days work to reach a finished item.

Could the tribes who first managed
to make iron be the Sea People?

This suggestion
seems a convincing possibility.

But is there any evidence?

Are there any signs of iron weapons
left behind in the ruins?

Kostas Paschalidis,

Curator of Antiquities
at the Archaeological Museum
in Athens,

thinks not.

This is completely wrong.

When it comes to
the late Bronze Age,

eastern Mediterranean.

The end of it was
not the result of a technology,

of a superior technology
of fighting or warfare.

It has nothing to do with that.

The archaeological narrative
is based on facts, on finds,

on what we have in the ground,
the material culture.

Therefore, talking
about what we have found,

we don't see any iron artefacts,

at least for 100 years
after the collapse.

Whoever the attackers were,
they too were using bronze weapons.

PROF. CLINE: There's no way that
new iron weapons

contributed to the collapse
of the Bronze Age civilisations.

In fact, it's much more likely
it was the other way around.

It's been suggested that,
perhaps as part of the collapse

and the supply-chain issues,

that people
couldn't get tin anymore,

or maybe even copper was
a little hard to get a hold of.

In which case, they did turn to iron
as a substitute.

It was only many years
after the Bronze Age collapsed

that iron tools and weapons
started to appear.

The Sea People were not tribes
from the north - or anywhere else -

armed with new, superior weapons.

So we're still left
with the big question -

who were these invaders?

And might they be
only part of the answer

as to what happened
at the end of the Bronze Age.

A very different clue
as to who they might have been

comes from the Greek island of Crete.

Archaeologist Krzysztof Nowicki

has spent the last few decades

searching the island
for Bronze Age sites.

And he's had to go high
into the mountains to find them.

One of his
most spectacular discoveries

is the almost inaccessible
Katalymata.

To come here to this natural terrace
hanging on the cliff

requires very tiring
climbing the scree,

and then one must find
the right place from the scree

to move to the cliff.

Anyone trying to access the site

then faces a treacherous traverse
along a narrow ledge,

and a difficult climb
up the steep cliff face.

So, it is tiring. It is dangerous.

It is, I would say, a very
uncomfortable way to get here.

Despite its perilous location,

he estimates that
there were once 10-12 houses here.

Which means that, unbelievably,

about 50-70 people
were living on this small clifftop.

To live here, to build houses here,

to have your families here,

means that you had to be terrified,
really terrified.

Once you are here,

you feel really secure,
you feel safe.

So, when were these people here,
and what were they afraid of?

Among the ruins of the houses,

Krzysztof has found fragments of jars
used for storing essentials

such as water, grain, and pulses...

..all of which would have had to be
carried up from the lowlands.

Crucially, they also allow him
to date the time of this occupation

to 1200 BC.

These people were
scared of other people.

And we have to understand
that the conflict between people,

that is something written
in the human history.

One group of people is hiding,

is trying to save their life,

against another group of people
who want to rob them,

who want to kidnap them,
who want to kill them.

Over 30 other refuge sites
have now been found in Crete,

including the much bigger
village of Karphi.

We are here on
the altitude of 1140m,

and we don't know
any village situated so high.

About 120 houses - 150 -

altogether, 600 to 1000 people,
we can estimate,

living in this village.

It is clear that
at the end of the Bronze Age

a large number of
the native population of Crete

had fled to almost inaccessible
communities on the mountaintops.

But it's the layout of Karphi
that gives us our biggest clue.

Whoever these attackers were,

they were not
their immediate neighbours.

These were not internal conflicts.

Why? Because many of these sites
are defensible only on one side -

the side which is from
the direction of the sea -

and they are very easily accessible
from the interior.

Yet evidence suggests

the invaders may not have been
coming from too far away.

I think that these are
just the local people.

Local Aegean, Anatolian,
Italian people

who were involved in sea activity.

Many of them were probably warriors

who were also very active
on the islands,

on the coastal areas.

They found out that
they were unemployed,

so they had to take
the action in their hands.

Then they were,
you know, the pirates.

They simply move to
other kind of activity.

So, is this the answer?

Were the Sea People actually
just out-of-work warriors

who had resorted to piracy
as their city-states collapsed?

It's hard to believe that a disparate
group of sea raiders or pirates

would be capable of reaping
so much destruction around 1200 BC

that entire civilisations
vanished without a trace...

..yet another indication that
there has to be more to this story.

Time to look again
at the original source

for the narrative
about the Sea People -

Ramses III's mortuary temple.

Could the enemy
depicted in these engravings

be the same attackers
that we find in Crete?

If we make the effort to interpret
these weathered reliefs,

we can meet these invaders
face-to-face.

What's great is you can see, that
there's a huge variety of people

because you get these ones with
these amazing headdresses coming out

and others that have horns
coming out of their headdress.

But just by the physiognomy,
by their faces,

by their hairstyles,
by their clothing,

you can tell that this is
a really ragtag group of people

who have come together
to fight against the Egyptians,

and, of course, also
the rest of the Mediterranean world.

The Sea People do indeed appear
to have been a disparate group.

But what is most intriguing

is that when you look closely,

they are not always depicted
as an army of terrifying raiders.

Generally, we think of
the Sea People as a huge invasion,

going all over the place.

But there are some reliefs here that
might give us a different idea.

And that is because we've got
images of these people

coming in ox carts
with women and children and goods.

So it's almost as if
they're trying to settle.

It seems these people were coming
not only to attack,

but to put down roots.

In another part of the temple

it's been revealed that the Egyptians
do actually name some of them.

We have the Shekelesh, the Sherden,

the Tehenu and a few others.

So, the Egyptians really did
document who their enemies were.

Historians have been able
to identify some of these tribes.

But tracing their geographic origins
has proved more difficult.

Until now.

New DNA work in Israel

is finally allowing us to determine

where at least SOME of
the Sea People were coming from.

Aren Maeir is directing
the work at Tell es-Safi

where it is recorded that
'the Philistines'

had come from the sea and settled.

The Philistines are
one of the so-called Sea Peoples.

The Philistines were seen
as a rather monolithic culture,

probably originally from
somewhere in Bronze Age Greece,

in the Mycenaean culture,

who migrated,
either by ship or by land,

destroyed the Canaanite cities

and founded new cities
and a new culture

which was, for the most part,
a Mycenaean culture.

But recent advances in DNA analysis

have allowed scientists
to extract and analyse DNA

from ancient skeletons
found in a number of Canaanite sites.

And the results are providing
a more nuanced picture

of what happened

The DNA studies show
that the Philistines

were not from one place.

They seem to have come from
all kinds of different places,

and, in addition to that,

they seem to have integrated
with the local people.

So, it was a mixed...

You can call it
an entangled culture,

or, if you want,
a Mediterranean salad -

not a Greek salad,
a Mediterranean salad.

And all this came together
to form this new culture

that we call the Philistine culture.

The Sea People seem to have come
from a number of different places.

And they weren't always hostile.

Some were raiders,
some were settlers.

Is it possible the Sea People were
a result of the Bronze Age collapse

rather than the cause?

For the archaeologists,
it was back to square-one

as they tried to explain
what might have happened

to cause the collapse of all
these Bronze Age civilisations

within a few decades.

The Sea People had
perhaps diverted attention

from the true culprit,

and were actually the victims
of some kind of disaster,

fleeing in search of new homelands.

But if so, what were they escaping?

Some of the possibilities
are famine, drought,

climate change, disease,

earthquakes, volcanoes.

Or could it have been
all those things?

Maybe the answer
was always right in front of us,

in the writings of those
who lived far closer in time

to the events in question.

So, we do have some mentions
from ancient authors

like Herodotus and Aristotle

that there may have been
climate change about this time.

Herodotus actually mentions
a drought in Lydia

that may have had
the Etruscans moving over to Italy.

But that means that they were aware

that something
might have happened back then.

Both writers talk about
how devastating droughts

can lead to famine,
social and political disruption,

and, eventually,
the fall of civilisations.

So, could climate change
be the answer?

The widespread failure of crops

would explain the collapse
of thriving communities,

and could have led
to mass migration.

The Sea People might have been
starving families

fleeing across the Mediterranean.

But is there any way of knowing
if this is what happened?

When you look closely
at the surviving texts

in the years around 1200 BC,

you discover that, at that time,

as well as the Sea People,

there was another
common preoccupation

across
the eastern Mediterranean empires -

the need for grain.

Here in Karnak Temple,

King Merneptah,
who was the son of Ramses II,

took a whole wall to record
his battle triumphs

and part of his reign.

And he writes,

"It is in order to
vivify the Hittite lands

"that I had ships of grain
sent to them.

"Behold - the gods love me,

"which is why they have
given me such nourishment."

He is boasting about sending
relief aid to the Hittites.

And they were not the only ones
pleading for his help.

PROF. COHEN: For many years,
scholars really didn't know

what happened at the end
of the late Bronze Age.

There were many suggestions,
but not one clear answer.

Now we have that answer,

in a letter which
was recently published.

"In the land of Ugarit
there is severe hunger.

"May my Lord..."
That is to say the Egyptian Pharaoh.

"May my Lord save the land of Ugarit

"and may the King
give grain to save my life,

"to save the citizens
of the land of Ugarit."

People in Ugarit
were clearly suffering too.

And yet another letter
refers to a famine

ravaging the city of nearby Emar
in inland Syria

at the time that it was destroyed
in 1185 BC.

The sender writes to one of
his family members

telling him how desperate
the situation was at that time.

"There is famine in our house.
We will all die of hunger.

"If you do not quickly arrive here,
we ourselves will die of hunger.

"You will not see a living soul
from your land."

One thing is evident
from all this correspondence -

there appears to have been
a major famine in the Mediterranean

around 1200 BC.

But drought and famine
were not unique

to the final years of the Bronze Age.

Is there any evidence

that THIS drought
was worse than any other before?

A great deal of research
has been done in the last few years,

and the findings are astonishing.

Deep in the heart of Jerusalem

lies a cavern more than 200m across
known as Atarot Cave.

Those that venture down there

are rewarded with an amazing view

of stalactites
and other cave formations.

Yoav Negev, head of
the Israeli Caving Association,

is fascinated by these formations,

not only for their beauty,

but also their importance
as a source of information.

Stalagmites are made of calcite

that is deposited by
water dripping from the ceiling.

When it rains, water enters the cave

and dissolves the limestone
surrounding it,

resulting in the deposition
of calcite on the cave floor.

This process forms
layers in the stalagmite,

with each layer representing
a different time period.

This stalagmite
is cut in the middle,

so we can open it
and see what it is made of.

And what we can see here -
it's pretty heavy -

that these are like the
growth rings of the stalagmite.

The centre of the stalagmite
is the beginning

when this stalagmite
was a baby stalagmite.

The youngest part of the stalagmite
is actually the external part.

By analysing the isotopic composition
and thickness of these growth rings,

scientists can determine how much
rain fell during that time period.

A large ring, for example,

would indicate
a period of high precipitation.

In this way, teams
across the eastern Mediterranean

have managed to put together
a 150,000-year record of rainfall.

And the results are illuminating.

Those isotopes show that
in that period

between the late Bronze Age
and the beginning of the Iron Age

there was no growth
in the stalagmite.

From that we can understand
this period was a drought period.

It's apparent that
at the end of the Bronze Age,

around 1200 BC
and in the years afterwards,

annual precipitation
was exceptionally low.

And the evidence
is not just in the caves.

This work is backed up
by studies on mud cores

undertaken by research teams
all over the eastern Mediterranean.

These cores reveal
the levels of pollen in the air

at the time the mud was laid down,

so researchers can reconstruct

past vegetation
and climatic conditions.

In Israel,
archaeobotanist Dafna Langgut

has been studying some cores

taken from beneath the Sea of Galilee
and the Dead Sea,

which suggest there was
a dramatic fall in crop cultivation

at just this time.

We were able to count,
for each sample,

hundreds of pollen grains.

What is unique about pollen

that each plant produces
its own unique pollen form.

So, it serves like its identity card
or its fingerprint.

And in addition,

pollen is the most durable
organic substance in nature.

So it can be preserved for
hundreds of thousands of years.

By measuring the quantity of
the radioactive isotope carbon-14

in the sediment,

they are able to date each sample

and determine the types of vegetation

that existed
during a particular period.

And what they identified
in the late Bronze Age

were low percentages of tree pollen,

such as oaks, pistachio, and olives,

together with high ratios
of herbs and small shrubs.

This means that at that time,

drier climate conditions existed
in that area.

Based on the pollen assemblages

we were able to reveal that
these very dry conditions

lasted for about 150 years,
starting at 1250 BC.

It is a situation
that is difficult to handle.

It would undoubtedly
have had a devastating effect

on the population of the region.

Intrigued by
all these new discoveries,

archaeologist Israel Finkelstein

began studying the cattle
that were present in this area

as well as the crops
that were growing in that period.

This is Megiddo,

a critical junction of
trading routes in the Bronze Age.

And in 1200 BC,
this whole area, known as Canaan,

was part of the Egyptian empire.

Remarkably, it seems that
the Egyptians

were introducing
new farming methods here

to cope with the drought.

When Israel examined
the cattle bones discovered on site,

he observed that
not only was there an increase

in the number of cows in this period,

but they were reaching old age
before dying.

So, the meaning is that they
kept the animals for a long time.

And usually the meaning of this

is that they use
these animals to plough.

So this is important.

It's not only
animals for consumption.

These cows were being used
to plough crops

rather than for meat.

What's more,
he also noticed an increase

in the number of sickle blades,

used for cutting crops.

There is also growth
in sickle blades,

hinting that there is
an expansion of agriculture,

and especially expansion
of cereal agricultural.

I'm speaking about dry farming.

That is to say,
mainly wheat and barley.

Dry farming relies on
natural rainfall to water crops,

and both wheat and barley

can survive with
little or no irrigation.

So, it seems
the Egyptians in charge here

were increasing the production
of these grains

in order to try and cope
with the crisis.

And there was something else
interesting about the cattle.

We carried out ancient DNA studies,

and we noticed that
there is something peculiar.

First of all, of the introduction
of cattle, probably from Egypt,

the zebu.

And, secondly,

breeding of the local cattle
with the zebu.

And the zebu cattle is a strong
animal which is more resilient

to extreme climate,
to extreme conditions.

And we think that this was done
on purpose in the late Bronze Age.

So, they were also
breeding hardier cows.

If they had the time to do that,

it suggests this must have been
a very long drought...

..what we might now call
climate change.

What's extraordinary

is that it seems that the Egyptians

may have been trying to
increase grain production

around the more fertile parts
of their empire

because they were also experiencing
drought at home.

Often referred to as
the breadbasket of the ancient world,

Egypt was known for its regular
and reliable flooding of the Nile.

But new research
conducted in the Nile Valley

suggests that Egypt, too,
was suffering.

Research scientist Nick Marriner
and his team

have been working across

all the countries
affected by the drought,

including Egypt.

We're using an auger to take a core

to study the evolution
of the Nile's ancient environments

and its waterscapes.

They can analyse
the pollen and other finds

in the layers of sediment,

such as fossils or freshwater shells,

to understand how the climate varied
in ancient times.

So we can use this core to
go back thousands of years

to see what was happening
during the Bronze Age,

what the climate was like,

what human societies
were doing in this area

and how they were affected
by climate change.

Their results suggest that

not only was Egypt suffering
from drought at this time,

but that it lasted even longer

than proposed by
the researchers in Israel.

We have evidence for
significant decline

in Nile levels and Nile discharge

spanning more than 6,500km

from the source of the Nile
at Lake Victoria

right down to the Nile delta.

This period lasted
for around 300 years.

This drop in the Nile

appears to have started during
the reign of Ramses III,

the pharaoh who fought
the Sea People.

This is an exceptionally
long period of drought

that we could describe
as being a megadrought,

and would have significantly
affected Bronze Age societies.

A drought lasting a year or two,
or even 10 years,

doesn't necessarily mean
that a society will fall.

But a mega-drought
lasting more than 100 years

simply does not allow the inhabitants
any respite.

When the drought finally ends,

some of the affected societies
may have survived...

..but others may no longer exist,

despite all their efforts
to deal with it.

A remarkable story
seems to be coming together.

A huge devastating drought

caused many different people
to take to the sea

in search of new lands...

..sometimes destroying the cities
of the existing inhabitants.

The result was a widespread collapse.

But the drought lasted 300 years.

Was there a specific event
that occurred suddenly

around 1200 BC

that led to the chaos at that time?

It seems there could still be
a missing piece of the puzzle,

some sudden event

that caused people to flee.

One obvious possibility
is a volcanic eruption.

The Mediterranean has many volcanoes,

and the eruption of the island
of Santorini in 1640 BC

is known to have caused
an earlier decline

in the Minoan civilisation.

But there is nothing to suggest
that Santorini exploded again.

But, recently,
archaeologists in Egypt

stumbled on some stunning
new evidence for one more factor

in the events that overcame
the people of the Bronze Age.

Until a few years ago,
the famous Colossi of Memnon

were all that remained of the largest
temple ever built in ancient Egypt -

the mortuary temple of Amenhotep III.

When we came here,
we thought it was a large field.

It was, indeed, a large field,

preceded by
these two colossal statues.

Nobody -
except very specialised people -

knew that beyond the Memnon

there were the ruins of
a very, very large temple.

This temple, known as Kom el-Hetan,

was the pinnacle of construction
in Egypt's New Kingdom.

But at some point in history,

the building was completely
destroyed by an earthquake.

All except the famous
colossi of Amenhotep III

which had once flanked the main gate.

Over the last few decades,
archaeologist Hourig Sourouzian

has been attempting to
resurrect this temple,

excavating and re-erecting
whatever stonework is left.

(MAN CALLS, ALL RESPOND)

It's been a herculean task.

(CALLING CONTINUES)

In the process
of all the reconstruction,

Hourig has been working with a team

from the Armenian Institute
of Geological Sciences

to try and establish when exactly
this destructive earthquake occurred.

Leading the team is Ara Avagyan.

He has found clear evidence
of a massive earthquake

throughout the site.

These huge blocks are displaced

with respect each other.

You see, vertically and horizontally

we have a displacement.

But here we have another thing,

much more important.

When we have earthquake,
we have a passing wave.

It's like waves in the water.

What we see here, all these blocks
tilted a few degrees to the south,

like this.

Here we see all these blocks

tilted a few degrees to the north,
like this.

And you see this row of blocks,

again, they are tilted
to the south.

So, we have some kind of wave here.

And in some places, we have
a manmade mortar folded like this.

Exactly the same...wave.

You see the wave like this,
like this.

So, such a deformation

can be explained only by earthquake.

To try and pinpoint
the date of the earthquake,

Ara has been looking for evidence of
'liquefaction'.

This can occur when soil
is shaken in a large earthquake

and begins to behave like a liquid,

leading to extensive damage
to any structures built there.

So, here we have a very beautiful
manifestation of liquefaction.

We have a thin archaeological layer.

And after the earthquake happened,

we have, like, plume injection
of sandy layer, OK?

It destroyed archaeological layer,

you see some fraction of
archaeological layer here.

The team found several examples
of this liquefaction layer,

evidence of a massive earthquake,

and in these layers
they found shards of pottery.

It is pottery, it is pottery,

it is pottery, it is pottery,
it is pottery.

This, this...

Radiocarbon dating of the pottery

indicated that this destruction
occurred around 1200 BC.

But the date was vague.

The style of
the pottery itself, however,

was more precise.

So, this is one of the pots
we found under the fallen colossi.

And these are sherds.

This pot, we showed it to
a specialist in pottery,

who said it's 1200 BC,
within a few years.

A massive earthquake
seems to have happened in 1200 BC.

And shortly afterwards, Ramses III
was fighting the Sea People.

Could there be a link?

Was this earthquake the trigger
for the events which followed,

and the widespread collapse
of the known world?

While the Armenian geologists
were in Egypt,

they sought permission to look at
several other nearby temples.

These included the famous Ramesseum,

where Ramses II's giant head

lies broken on the ground.

And nearby Karnak,

where they found extensive
earthquake damage,

including another
fallen statue of Ramses.

They concluded that
many other temples in Luxor

had been damaged
in the same earthquake in 1200 BC.

And if this earthquake

might have been a trigger
for the collapse which followed,

it was important to know
exactly how widespread it was.

To determine the extent,

Hourig and Ara
travelled throughout Egypt

looking for evidence of earthquakes
and attempting to date them.

The damage in a funerary chapel
at Gebel el-Silsila

is particularly striking.

Here, a statue of three seated
figures has been split,

with a separation of one metre
between its two halves.

We are in the middle of
an open crack.

These were three persons
seated near each other

and now they are split.

It is fantastic to see
this statue split in two part

and displaced during this shock.

You can be sure that
it is earthquake.

Based on the direction of the cracks,

Ara and Hourig think this
could have been the same earthquake

that destroyed Kom el-Hetan,

the mortuary temple of Amenhotep III,

and the other sites in Luxor.

Might its effects have been felt
even further afield?

They travel to Abu Simbel
in the south

to investigate.

Commissioned by Ramses II,

this iconic rock-cut temple

is considered to be one of the
most impressive remaining examples

of ancient Egyptian architecture
and engineering.

Although this entire temple was
raised when the Aswan dam was built,

it was preserved exactly as it was -

complete with any damage.

And it doesn't take them long
to find a suspicious crack.

It is new formed crack -

crack formed
after carving this wall.

And because we have a small step,
we have a small shift,

the blocks shifted
with respect to each other.

And such a thing, in geology,
we call also 'fault'.

It is a micro fault.
We have a shift here.

We can't explain this
without shaking.

I see. A clear demonstration, yeah.

They find similar cracks
throughout the temple.

The earthquake even seems
to have brought down the upper half

of one of the seated
Colossi of Ramses II.

It is obvious that
the monument hit by earthquake.

There is earthquake input
of this collapse, it is sure.

Maybe this earthquake,

an earthquake that we discovered
in the site of Kom el-Hetan,

it's the same, it is probable.

So far, from Abu Simbel to Saqqara,

the length of Egypt,

they have found evidence
of a massive earthquake,

or perhaps a series of earthquakes,

at much the same time.

Egypt, it seems,
was flattened in 1200 BC.

So, could these earthquakes have been
even more widespread, beyond Egypt?

Might they have played a role
in what happened in Greece?

In Mycenae,
excavators have now found evidence

of earthquake destruction -

collapsed buildings,
even crushed bodies.

In this doorway was found
a skeleton of a woman

who was killed when
the house collapsed around her.

In fact, these photographs show that

she was struck by a rock
that shattered her skull.

She was pretty much
killed instantly.

She is not the only body
that we have here,

from the earthquake
that hit the site.

There is another house
a couple of hundred metres away

where an entire family was crushed

when their house
came down around them.

So, in addition to everything else
that might have happened -

invaders, famine, drought -

we have to factor in
earthquakes as well.

And bodies have also been found
by excavators at other Greek sites.

Anthropologist Marilena Chovalopoulou

has been studying
some of the remains.

In the last few decades,

several anthropologists
unearthed at least 16 skeletons

who they believe died
from earthquakes

that took place in Greece
around 1200 BC.

Here we have an example
of a skeleton

who was found at Kadmeia.

It belonged to a young woman,
20-25 years old.

And she was believed to have died
during an earthquake

that took place at that time.

She had several injuries
to her skull,

but this one over here

that you can see
in the middle of her cranial vault

is believed to have been
the fatal one.

This fracture is thought to have
been caused by a falling roof beam.

Here we have another skeleton that
belongs to a young woman as well.

We are not sure whether she died
during an earthquake or not,

but she also had
injuries to her skull

and a very similar fracture

in the middle of her cranial vault
as well.

There can be no doubt that

Greece suffered from earthquakes
around this time.

And Eric believes that,
in some cases,

they may have been responsible for
the destruction of entire cities,

including the site of Tiryns.

I think this is destroyed
by an earthquake

at the end of
the late Bronze Age, 1200 BC,

and life, essentially,
comes to an end.

There are some survivors, there are
people living in the lower city.

But for all intents and purposes,
life comes to an end here.

Eric thinks
it would have been possible

for a storm of earthquakes
over a period of 50 years,

from about 1225 to 1175 BC,

to cause such devastating destruction
across the eastern Mediterranean

that society would have found it
very difficult to recover.

There's something that are known
as earthquake sequences,

or earthquake storms.

And this is simply
when you have an earthquake

and it doesn't release the pressure,

all of the pressure
in the fault zone,

you'll have another earthquake
soon thereafter -

maybe days, maybe weeks,
maybe a year -

but there will be
another earthquake.

And if that earthquake does not
release the rest of the pressure,

you'll have another earthquake
and another and another.

In fact, usually we need to
'unzip' the fault line, as we say.

And that can take up to 50 years,
and a number of earthquakes.

And then the sequence
starts all over again.

The Mediterranean
is full of fault zones,

as the recent earthquakes
in Turkey and Syria have shown.

And the Bronze Age world

may well have been a victim
of this 'unzipping'.

If we take a look at the map here,

there are active fault zones
everywhere.

We've got one coming down
the side of Greece and Crete,

coming round to Cyprus.

There's another one that
goes across the top of Turkey.

It's the North Anatolian Fault line.

And, of course,
we've got the Dead Sea Fault

that comes up forming
the Dead Sea and Lake Tiberius.

Now, if we superimpose a map

of all the sites that are destroyed
at the end of the late Bronze Age,

we can see that many of them are
right next to an active faut zone.

So, we have here, I think,

between 1225 to 1175 BC,

we have an earthquake storm in
the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean

and that may tell us why
a lot of these sites are destroyed.

Such an earthquake storm

would undoubtedly
have devastated many cities

and left others vulnerable to attack.

Right across ancient sites
in the eastern Mediterranean,

what is clearly earthquake damage
is visible.

Coming in the middle of
a devastating drought,

it's easy to see
how this earthquake storm

could have triggered
the widespread collapse

of the whole interconnected system
of the Bronze Age...

..causing people, the Sea People,

to set out in their thousands
in search of new homes.

So, was the earthquake storm

the final link
in a disastrous chain of events

that led to the collapse
of the Bronze Age world?

Even today, earthquakes
are frequently followed

by the spread of disease

as water supplies and drains
are destroyed.

And disease may well have been

an additional factor
in the disruption.

PROF. IKRAM: When there are
these collapses of civilisation

it is more than possible
that disease plays a role in it.

Sometimes it is,
sort of, the catalyst,

but more often than not, when there
are so many things going on,

particularly problems
in terms of food,

you have populations that
are more vulnerable

to any kind of disease
that might be around.

And so you will have the young
and the very old dying off,

as well as this affecting
other members of society.

The COVID-19 pandemic

has shown us just how devastating
its effects can be,

and how vulnerable we are
in an interconnected world,

just as they were then.

Diseases are often hard to identify
in the archaeological record,

but research suggests that
at least 10

could have been implicated
in the Bronze Age collapse,

including smallpox, typhoid,
and malaria.

This is the tomb of Ramses V.

And his death reveals that
smallpox was in Egypt

shortly after these events.

King Ramses V had little pustules
all over his face,

we know from his mummy.

And then, when we carried out tests,

we found out
he actually died of smallpox.

We have several texts
that talk about

how he was not buried immediately
upon his death,

but, in fact, 16 months later.

And this is a very odd thing,

because, generally,
within 70 days of your death,

you were supposed to be buried.

We also know that several tombs
were being cut for other relatives,

suggesting that everyone died
at the same time, unexpectedly.

And also the workers
who had cut these tombs

were given a whole month's leave
at the expense of the state,

which has led some scholars to think

that maybe this was
the first example of quarantine.

It sounds suspiciously like they
were facing a widespread epidemic.

Smallpox doesn't just appear
as a single case,

and if the pharaoh
and his family had it,

we can assume it was
sweeping through the population,

rich and poor alike.

Without vaccines or antibiotics,

the spread of infectious diseases
would have been disastrous.

According to experts,

there is nothing like a severe plague

to deliver a fatal blow to an empire.

So, do we at last have the answer
to what happened

to end the Bronze Age civilisations
so abruptly?

All these interconnected societies

were first laid low
by a period of megadrought..

..that caused widespread famine
and migration of people.

And were then finished off
by an earthquake storm...

..followed by an epidemic
of infectious disease.

Faced with
such a series of disasters,

the leaders of the day

would have been unable to
provide for their populations,

and social and political collapse
might easily have ensued.

The Sea People may not, in fact,

have been the only ones attacking
cities throughout the Mediterranean.

In the last days of Mycenae,
about 1200 BC,

the city is destroyed.

Who did it? Big question.

Is it invaders from outside?

Is it an internal uprising?

Are the 99%
rising up against the 1%?

The system they had in place

may have been susceptible
to such things.

You have the king at the top,
the wanax,

and then you have
a stratified society

taking advantage
of the lower classes.

It's possible that Mycenae's
eventual destruction

was not the result
of an external invasion,

but rather caused by
internal conflicts within the city.

This political collapse
could also explain

the riddle of what happened
at Hattusa

and other cities too.

DR BACHHUBER: The local resentment,
I think,

would have been
a large factor in this.

Now, we can imagine
you're toiling away in fields.

You're sending your agricultural
production to the palace.

You are not invited or included
to any of the fun and festivity,

even if it's religious in nature,

within the walls of Hattusa.

So there would have been
a real social divide

between the haves and have-nots,
let's say,

ripe for some sort of uprising.

An internal rebellion
may well have been the knock-out blow

responsible for
the Hittite state collapsing

and vanishing from history.

And though Egypt survived,

evidence of political and social
unrest can even be found here.

Following Ramses III's victory
over the Sea People,

we find the first labour strike
in recorded history.

PROF. IKRAM: The reign of Ramses III

was not just marked by
the chaos with the Sea Peoples,

but, in fact, it was when we had
the first sit-in strike in history,

when all of the workers who were
working in the Valley of the Kings

had not been paid by the king.

So, they put down their tools,

marched off
and had a sit-in at the temple.

And they kept doing this
until they finally got paid.

The strike ended up
going on for months

and marked the beginning of Egypt's
decline in power and influence.

This is all tied in to
why there was so much chaos

during this time period.

Because, of course,
if you're busy being pillaged,

you don't have time
for people to raise crops

and carry out agriculture.

And also, if you're fighting,

you need to supply your army.

And so you can't supply
the rest of your country.

So, really, there was
a lot of knock-on effects

with the battles with the Sea People

and possibly also other things
going on,

with climate changing
and low Niles being present,

which means that
the Egyptians did not have

the usual huge stockpile of grain

that they would have
in normal times.

This near-complete
social and political collapse

would likely have increased
the flood of different people

who were forced to flee
in search of somewhere new to live.

PROF. CLINE: Each group may have
been moving or leaving or invading

for a different reason.

Some may have been invaders.

Some may have been migrants.
Some may have been refugees.

As these victims of
a string of disasters

crossed the Mediterranean,

they were seen as
invading Sea People.

But it's clear that at least
some of them were not warriors.

They were families,

refugees, seeking a better life
in a new land.

I would say that
the equivalent in the modern era

would be the refugees
fleeing the civil war in Syria

and moving over to Greece and such.

After years of research,
theories, and mystery,

we finally appear to have a solution

as to what caused the collapse

of the great civilisations
of the Bronze Age.

But it's perhaps wrong
to think of the answer as

a string of disasters,
one thing after another.

I think that's too simple,
it's too simplistic.

Life as we know it
is much more messy.

And so I don't think I see this
as a linear progression.

I see it more as overlapping.

I think it's just this whole
smorgasbord, if you will,

of catastrophic events.

What I see this as
is a perfect storm.

It is a perfect storm of
catastrophes, of calamities.

And that's what
leads to the collapse.

Perhaps the inhabitants
could have survived one disaster,

such as an earthquake or a drought.

But they could not endure
the combined effects

of multiple catastrophes
all occurring together.

Climate change
causing drought and famine,

earthquakes and disease,

migrations and war,

internal rebellions,

and the collapse
of their supply chains...

..it was all too much to bear
at once,

and led to
the interconnected civilisations

collapsing like dominoes.

What followed has been called
a 'dark age'.

For a while, diplomatic and trade
relations were nearly non-existent,

and art, architecture,
and general quality of life

all suffered in comparison
with the Bronze Age.

But, of course,
it wasn't the end of everything.

In fact, it was the catalyst
for a new age,

an age in which iron replaced bronze
as the metal of choice.

It was a period of
transformation and development,

which, in time, gave rise to
the civilisations we know today.

1200 BC was undoubtedly
a pivotal point in history.

The thing that has me worried
and losing sleep at night

is a lot of the factors that I see

that contributed to the collapse
of the late Bronze Age

are around again today.

You can just tick off the boxes,.

You know, climate change? Yes.

Earthquakes? Yes. Invaders? Yes.

Drought, famine, migration.

I mean, they're all there.

Perhaps the past is more relevant
than we might like to think.

PROF. FINKELSTEIN: Climate was
a prime mover in the process.

Climate was the centrepiece
in the whole thing.

Of course,
it brought about other processes -

people moving,
destruction of cities,

collapse of empires and so on.

But the beginning was the climate.

PROF. IKRAM: History is very
cyclical, so maybe we will wind up

repeating what happened
at the end of the Bronze Age.

Or maybe we can do something
to stop it.

I think instead of
just talking about

doing things about climate change,

if we actually do it,
then we might stand a chance.

PROF. CLINE: Most societies
in the history of humankind

have collapsed.

And it would be hubristic
to think that we're not going to.

I definitely think it's
not a matter of IF we collapse,

but WHEN we collapse.

And when we do, then,
what are we prepared to do,

either to try and stop it
before it happens,

or, afterward,
how are we going to be resilient?

How are we going to get back up?

Uncovering the story of
the Bronze Age collapse

has shown how
the survival of any civilisation

may mean learning to deal with
the threats before it's too late.

Captions by Red Bee Media
(c) SBS Australia 2023