Around 2200 BC, a little-known but massive Bronze Age collapse rocked early civilizations in the Near East. What caused Egypt's First Intermediate Period, the fall of the Akkadian Empire, and the widespread abandonment of cities? Today we explore what happened and why it may have occurred. Was it the 4.2 kiloyear event - an episode of drought and aridification? How could this have disrupted complex societies, reshaping ancient Egypt, the Levant, and Mesopotamia? We will discuss early urbanization, trade networks, and the shift to pastoralism as humanity adapted to climate shifts, famine, and social chaos in one of history’s earliest episodes of socio-political collapse. Discover how ancient resilience met the challenge of environmental catastrophe and social.

Primary Sources:

The Sumerian King List

The Curse of Agade (Akkad)

A Conversation of a Man with his Ba
Secondary Sources:

Joseph Tainter, The Collapse of Complex Societies, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

Raphael Greenberg, The Archaeology of the Bronze Age Levant, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019.

Sophia Voutsaki, “Mainland Greece,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Bronze Age Aegean, edited by Eric Cline. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.

Trevor Bryce, The Kingdom of the Hittites, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006

Kay Prag, “The Southern Levant in During the Intermediate Bronze Age,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Levant: c. 8000-332 BCE edited by Ann E Killebrew and Margreet Steiner, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.

Harvey Weiss “The Northern Levant in During the Intermediate Bronze Age: Altered Trajectories,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Levant: c. 8000-332 BCE edited by Ann E Killebrew and Margreet Steiner, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.

Paolo Matthiae and Nicolo Marchetti, Ebla and It’s Landscape: Early State Formation in the Ancient Near East, New York: Routledge, 2013.


00:00 The First Bronze Age Collapse
00:36 Setting the Stage in the Early Bronze Age
02:10 The Intermediate Bronze Age and Collapse Defined
02:38 The First Intermediate Period in Egypt
03:39 A Discussion between a Man and his Ba
05:04 The Democratization of the Afterlife and Religoin
05:50 The EB IV in the Southern Levant
07:30 The Northern Levant and Syria
09:40 Anatolia and Trevor Bryce
10:21 The Early Helladic Aegean
11:04 Akkadian Empires Collapse
12:22 The Curse of Akkad
13:40 Ur III
14:15 the 4.2 ky event and climate crisis
15:55 Non-climate causes for collapse
17:00 Middle Bronze Age recovery

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