Up until the invasion, the regional system of the Late Bronze Age, with its two levels of kings (small and great kings) and its complex network of equal and unequal relations, had managed to survive well despite its difficulties and adaptations. However, the arrival of the Sea Peoples and other internal migratory movements led to the destruction of many palaces, the essential centres of this system. In many cases, these destructions were not followed by reconstructions, but created even more gaps in the territory. Consequently, the entire system of inter-regional relations collapsed without being reconstituted. It would take a long time for a different system to be implemented.
The simultaneous destruction of several palaces in the Near East marked the end of diplomatic relations, its correspondence and formal political relations. Therefore, it removed both the protagonists of these interactions (namely, the kings residing in these palaces) and their instruments (scribes, messengers and administrative centres). Tributary relations linking small kings to great kings ceased to exist, since they either collapsed or were anyway unable to provide or expect tributes. The commercial activities of the palaces also ceased to exist. These activities required the physical presence of a palace and its administration, responsible for the provision of grants, warranties, protection and presentations. The destruction ofpalaces, then, which had an impact on a system inextricably linked to the palaces, also meant the destruction of the political system of inter-regional relations.
Among the great kingdoms, the most significant collapse was the fall of the Hittite empire. The destruction of its capital (no matter who was responsible for it) was much more effective than the arrival of the Sea Peoples, who only devastated the southern Hittite territories on the Mediterranean coast. Following the collapse, the entire region was forced to return to far simpler forms of political organisation and relatively elementary administrative systems. This decline was also due to the momentary disappearance of writing.
It is, however, necessary to make a distinction between two different situations attested within Anatolia. In the southeast, in the territories dependent on Tarhuntassa and Carchemish, a certain continuity of the imperial legacy was maintained. The area from the Konya plain to the Euphrates also experienced a division of the land into local kingdoms, roughly mirroring the Hittite ‘provinces’ or vassal states. The rest of the peninsula was far more sparsely inhabited and more directly affected by the arrival of groups from the Balkans. It therefore began to develop political formations more influenced by ethnic factors. A visible effect of the collapse of the Hittite empire was the reversal to pre-urban settlements, both in terms of structure and organisation. Only later on, would new urban centres, belonging to the new type of cities characteristic of the Iron Age, begin to spread in Anatolia.
A similar picture could be reconstructed for the Aegean, which is relevant here only in comparison to the situation in the Near East. This area also experienced the fall of palaces and their administrative structure. This led to the temporary reversal to smaller settlements. The arrival of new groups from the north also led to the slow formation of political organisations based on new concepts. Cyprus itself, which in the Late Bronze Age had experienced political unity and a strong participation in the network of commercial and diplomatic relations of the time, was now broken down into small city-states. Moreover, the island experienced the arrival of new groups from the west and the first conflicts between different ethnic groups.
As far as Egypt was concerned, despite being internally unharmed by the invasion, it still had to give up its territories in the Near East and reduce its inter-regional relations. The Philistines established themselves in the Levant. The entire Syro-Levantine region experienced a period of political autonomy, without great kings requiring tributes and threatening the local population with their armies. Assyria survived unharmed on the other side of the Euphrates. However, it did not have the strength to take advantage of the power vacuum created by the invasion to fulfil the dream of reaching the Mediterranean. This distant ambition belonged to the Middle Assyrian kings of the thirteenth century bc, in a time when this dream was impossible to achieve. The problem was that even areas located more inland, which therefore were left unaffected by the invasion of the Sea Peoples, were affected by other phenomena. Before resuming their inter-regional contacts, they also experienced a critical adjustment period.
On a political level, the crisis of the twelfth century bc led to a marked bipartition of the Near East. East of the Euphrates, despite the constant raids of nomadic groups, the three regional powers of Assyria, Babylonia and Elam continued to rule. These three powers also maintained their tri-polar relations. The latter were characterised by an alternation of phases of peace with phases of war and equally interchanging alliances, such as the one of Babylonia and Elam against Assyria, or the one of Babylonia and Assyria against Elam. All these elements determined these powers’ long-term stability. West of the Euphrates, the marked fragmentation, without hierarchies or agreements between states, replaced the old regional system with a new one. The latter was partly based on previous political divisions. In this regard, it may be worth remembering that in the Late Bronze Age the Syro-Levantine area was a region of small kings, while Anatolia had been ruled by local kinglets even at the time of the Hittite empire. However, this new system also acquired new connotations, due to the impact of new ethnical groups and tribes settling in the area.
World History
