
The collapse of the Late Bronze Age (LBA) civilizations in the Eastern Mediterranean remains one of the greatest historical enigmas. Between the mid-13th and 12th centuries BCE, powerful empires such as the Hittites in Anatolia and Egypt’s New Kingdom fell into decline, disrupting extensive trade networks—including the crucial supply of Cypriot copper—and bringing an end to a period of remarkable prosperity. But what triggered this widespread collapse? Migration, invasions, political instability, environmental changes, natural disasters—or a complex interplay of these factors?
A team of researchers from AMGC is embarking on a case study to investigate these questions through an in-depth examination of Hala Sultan Tekke and its surrounding landscape, a key archaeological environment in Cyprus. This will be the first time that a single site and its direct hinterland is meticulously documented to explore the broader collapse dynamics and its aftermath in the Larnaca Bay region.
Led by Dr. Ralf Vandam from the VUB’s AMGC research group, the project adopts a novel interdisciplinary, long-term, and bottom-up approach to better understand the multifaceted nature of the LBA collapse. “Hala Sultan Tekke was a thriving Late Bronze Age center of international trade,” explains Vandam. “With over two decades of VUB-led research at the site, we have access to rich archaeological and environmental data, offering untapped research potential.”
A key aspect of the study will focus on the closure—whether natural or human-induced—of the coastal lagoon near the site, which is now a salt lake. “This lagoon may have been cut off from the open sea at the end of the LBA,” Vandam notes. “We plan to conduct sediment coring to refine the dating of these environmental changes and use modeling techniques to determine their causes, which may include sea level fluctuations, climate change, or human-induced landscape modifications.”
To gather a comprehensive dataset, the research team will employ cutting-edge archaeological prospection and dating methods, alongside geoarchaeological, paleobotanical, and coastal modeling techniques. The findings will contribute to a deeper understanding of the LBA collapse phenomenon and broader discussions on crisis and resilience in ancient societies.
With this new microregional approach, the VUB aims to shed light on both natural and human-driven changes—an often-overlooked dimension in traditional, top-down narratives. The project, a collaboration with geographers from KU Leuven, is funded by an FWO junior research grant.
Read more in the VUB press release (Dutch)