Ramesses III was certainly one of Egypt’s nice warrior pharaohs. A temple he constructed at Medinet Habu, close to the Valley of the Kings, highlights why. On its partitions, carvings inform the story of a coalition of fighters that swept throughout the japanese Mediterranean 3200 years in the past, destroying cities, states and even entire empires. “No land might stand earlier than their arms,” this account tells us. Finally, the invaders – identified right now because the Sea Peoples – attacked Egypt. However Ramesses III succeeded the place others had failed and crushed them.

Within the 200 years since hieroglyphics had been first deciphered, permitting us to learn Ramesses III’s extraordinary story, proof has come to mild to corroborate it. We now know of quite a few cities and palaces throughout the japanese Mediterranean that had been destroyed round that point, with the Sea Peoples usually implicated. So widespread was the devastation that, for one of many solely instances in historical past, a number of complicated societies went right into a steep decline from which they by no means recovered. Little marvel, then, that this so-called Late Bronze Age collapse has fascinated students for many years. So, too, has the id of the mysterious sea-faring marauders.

As we speak, new genetic and archaeological proof is giving us the firmest image but about what actually went on at this dramatic time – and who, or what, was accountable. This reveals that lots of our concepts in regards to the Sea Peoples and the collapse want utterly rethinking. It additionally hints at a shocking concept: the top of civilisation may not all the time be as disastrous as we predict.

Earlier than the Sea Peoples arrived, life…