Before Collapse: The Late Bronze Age World

This video essay from the channel Dig. surveys the major regions of the eastern Mediterranean and Near East during the Late Bronze Age, followed by a century-by-century review from c. 1600 to 1200 BC and a discussion of whether contemporaries anticipated the Bronze Age collapse.

Cyprus first appears in the sections on periodization and trade. Its chronology is defined ceramically from Late Cypriot I, and Cypriot pottery was widely exported across the Levant and Near East. In the section on the economy, the late 14th-century Uluburun shipwreck is described as having a Syrian, Canaanite, or possibly Cypriot crew and a cargo containing Cypriot ceramics and 354 copper ingots, nearly ten tons in weight, almost certainly from Cyprus.

A dedicated section identifies Cyprus with the kingdom of Alashiya, where power was likely distributed among local elite families alongside a recognized king. Cyprus developed urbanism late, with Enkomi founded late in the Middle Bronze Age and becoming the island's largest city. The island exported copper as oxhide ingots, reflected in the bronze Ingot God from Enkomi, and had major centers at Hala Sultan Tekke, Maroni-Vournes, Kalavasos-Ayios Dhimitrios, and Alassa-Paliotaverna. At Palaepaphos, the sanctuary of Aphrodite housed a conical black stone baetyl found in excavation and depicted on Roman coins. The narrator also notes the late foundations at Maa-Palaeokastro and Pyla-Kokkinokremos, built either by Cypriot cities or as Mycenaean colonies.

Finally, the narrator cites letters from Cyprus to Ugarit warning of twenty approaching enemy ships and urging defensive preparations.