# Why Advanced Civilisations Collapsed: The 1200 BCE Mystery

An episode of [Arthur's Sleepy History](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6811069241), 16 Sep 2026, 3 h 09 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/117174784/podcast/play/125762659/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2026-8-15%2F431928234-44100-2-8b217a50fef74.m4a

🙏 Support us and try Premium FREE for 7 days 👉 https://arthurssleepyhistory.supercast.com Get the complete sleepy history catalog, every new story seven days early, and completely ad-free listening. Around 1200 BCE, within the span of a single human lifetime, almost every major civilisation in the eastern Mediterranean world collapsed. The Mycenaean palace cities were burned and never rebuilt. The Hittite Empire — which had fought Egypt to a standstill and signed the world's first known peace treaty — ended. Ugarit, the great cosmopolitan port city of the Levantine coast, was destroyed. Even Egypt, the most powerful state in the ancient world, survived only in weakened form, its empire permanently contracted. The writing system of the Mycenaeans disappeared with the palaces. Greece became illiterate for four hundred years. What happened? Settle in, get comfortable, and drift off to the echoes of a world that built everything and then lost it.

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