Known as the Bronze Age due to the significance the alloy of copper and tin played during that era, this time period birthed the Egyptian pyramids and marked some of humanity’s first-ever accounts in written language and “globalized” trade. So how, exactly, could so many great kingdoms such as the Egyptians, Babylonians, Minoans, Mycenaeans and Hittites, which had stood for hundreds or thousands of years, suddenly topple?
Modern scholars have fiercely debated that question for decades, with explanations ranging anywhere from drought and famine to war and disease. One particularly interesting theory involves the emergence of a marauding band of mysterious invaders, known only as the “Sea Peoples.” A handful of artifacts detail how these Sea Peoples began plundering the region around the 12th century B.C., even razing some major cities to the ground.