What is Bronze Age collapse?
The '''Bronze Age collapse''' is so called by historians who study the end of the [[Bronze Age]]. The palace economies of the [[Aegean]] and [[Anatolia]] of the late Bronze Age were replaced, eventually, by the village cultures of the '[[Greek Dark Ages]]'. Between 1200 and 1150 BC, the cultural collapse of the [[Mycenaean Greece|Mycenaean kingdoms]], the [[Hittites|Hittite Empire]] in [[Anatolia]] and [[Syria]],<ref>For Syria, see Liverani M. 1987. The collapse of the Near Eastern regional system at the end of the Bronze Age: the case of Syria. In ''Centre and periphery in the Ancient World'', M. Rowlands, M.T. Larsen, K. Kristiansen, eds. Cambridge University Press.</ref> and the [[Ancient Egypt|Egyptian Empire]] in Syria and [[Canaan]],<ref>Richard S. 1987. Archaeological sources for the history of Palestine: The early Bronze Age: The rise and collapse of urbanism. ''The Biblical Archaeologist''.</ref> interrupted [[trade route]]s and extinguished [[literacy]]. In the first phase of this period, almost every city between [[Troy]] and [[Gaza]] was violently destroyed, and often left unoccupied: examples include [[Hattusa]], [[Mycenae]], [[Ugarit]]. The gradual end of the Dark Age saw the rise of settled Neo-[[Hittite]] [[Aramaea]]n kingdoms of the mid-10th century BC, and the rise of the Neo-[[Assyria]]n Empire. ==Regional evidence== ===Anatolia=== Every important [[Anatolia]]n site during the preceding late Bronze Age shows a destruction layer.<ref>evidence of destruction and burning</ref> It appears that civilization did not recover to the same level as that of the [[Hittites]] for another thousand years. [[Hattusa]], the Hittite capital, was burned and abandoned, and never reoccupied. [[Troy]] was destroyed at least twice, before being abandoned until Roman times. ===Cyprus=== The sacking and burning of the sites of Enkomi, Kition, and Sinda may have happened twice, before they were abandoned. Originally, two waves of destruction, ca. 1230 BC by the [[Sea Peoples]] and ca. 1190 BC by [[Aegean Sea|Aeg