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DESTRUCTION, DETERIORATION AND DISAPPEARANCE

The descriptions of the 2300 BC event by regional investigators are
graphic, sometimes eloquent, and sometimes dramatic.

ANATOLIA (TURKEY)

"Excavations in western and southern Anatolia, supplemented by field
surveys, expose a picture of utmost horror.  All through western
Anatolia, the burned and destroyed sites, dated by pottery to the end
of the E.B.2 period, around 2300 B.C., stretch in a broad belt.  They
range from below the Sea of Marmara, throughout northwest and
southwest Anatolia, through the plains of Konya and Cilicia to the
Amanus Mountains....In the Konya plain all the cities were destroyed
and of a hundred E.B.2 sites not more than six show signs of
reoccupation in the period that followed.  In the southwest, less than
a hundred out of three hundred sites show reoccupation in the
(following) E.B.3 period and, as in the Konya plain, whole areas lay
waste for hundreds of years.  In the northwest the destruction was
equally strong, but reoccupation followed quickly in certain
areas....No theory of local wars between kingdoms could possibly
account for this devastation or desertion of settlements; it was far
too widespread, too intense, too violent, and too unexpected."
[Mellaart]

"...the number of sites burnt or deserted has already reached the
number of 350, and in the following period not more than one out of
every four earlier settlements was inhabited, and often not more than
squatted on.  Whole areas, such as the Konya Plain and the Pisidian
plains south of Burdur revert to nomadism after thousands of years of
settled agricultural life." [Mellaart] 

"In all areas examined by the Cincinnati expedition, it was obvious
that the catastrophe struck suddenly, without warning, giving the
inhabitants little or no time to collect and save their most treasured
belongings before they fled.  All the houses exposed were still found
to contain the fire-scarred wreckage of their furnishings, equipment,
and stores of supplies.  Almost every building yielded scattered bits
of gold ornaments and jewelry, no doubt hastily abandoned in panic
flight." [Blegen]

"Nowhere on the Anatolian plateau is there such compelling evidence
for wholesale destruction at the end of the EB II period -- about 2300
BC in rough terms -- as in this plain.  As far as we can see not a
single major site escaped destruction by conflagration, and the
numerous deserted villages tell the same tale....From that day, no
living soul seems to have settled on these mounds but for the reed
shelters of a lone shepherd accompanied by his dog." [Mellaart]

GREECE

"...evidence of a general prosperity in the Aegean in the middle phase
of the Early Bronze Age......That all this wealth and power ended in a
catastrophic destruction is clearly documented at Lerna as it is at
most other mainland sites of the EH II period." [Weinberg]

"The word 'break' should be understood in its strongest sense.
Archaeological records are filled with changes of all kinds, but not
often with anything so massive and abrupt, so widely dispersed, as
occurred at this particular time.  In Greece nothing comparable was to
happen again until the end of the Bronze Age a thousand years later.
Settlements which were, for their time, rich and powerful, and which
had had a long history of stability and continuity, literally came
tumbling down, and what followed differed unmistakably in scale and
quality." [Finley]

"None of the central places survived the change in their old form.
Whether the House of Tiles was barely in use, or looted before
burning, it had now no future except as a mound with a ring of stones,
a monument for veneration.  Some of the inhabitants of the region must
have survived the disaster, to continue life elsewhere or still within
their altered communities.....But the increasingly swift course of
change which had been carrying an entire region toward a true
civilization was interrupted decisively, and for some centuries, human
life continued on a less ambitious scale." [Wiencke]

PALESTINE

"The final annihilation or abandonment of these cities was one of the
most fateful cultural crises in the history of Palestine: the entire
Early Bronze Age urban culture in western Palestine collapsed within a
short time, to be replaced by a totally different non-urban pattern
which lasted for about three hundred years.  The exact date, nature,
and causes of this crisis are among the major questions concerning the
period....It appears that the downfall of the cities was abrupt.
Excavations at Megiddo, Beth-Yerah, Ai, Yarmouth, and other EBIII
sites have shown that they were abandoned or destroyed when they were
at the peak of their urban development". [Mazor]

"Urban life was completely eclipsed throughout EB IV - a period of
nearly four centuries (c. 2400/2350-2000 B.C.).  No more dramatic
break is witnessed in the entire cultural sequence of Palestine, from
the Chalcolithic to the modern period.  When the country recovered, in
the Middle Bronze period, its urban character would be re-established,
but it would be qualitatively different, with little or no direct
continuity." [Dever]

"....the overwhelming observation drawn from both excavation reports
and settlement patterns is that the end of the EBA (Early Bronze Age)
was catastrophic, involving destructions of cities, widespread
impoverishment, dramatic shrinkage of population, abandonment of large
regions which were normally capable of supporting considerable
populations by either agriculture or grazing, and the dispersal of
population into areas which earlier had been wilderness and which were
technologically difficult to farm." [Thompson] 

"In ca. 2400-2350 BC, the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze subpluvial
climatic phase abruptly came to an end and was succeeded by an
excessively hot arid period of drought that lasted until about 1950
BC.  The shorter winters and longer, hotter summers, the lowering of
the water table, the reduction of rainfall...brought about an
agricultural collapse of disastrous proportions." [Thompson]

MESOPOTAMIA

"The earliest occupation lasted essentially unchanged from Ubaid
times  through Warka and Protoliterate into the Early Dynastic
Period.  Toward the end of that period and in the following period of
Agade, however, signs of a distinct setback became noticeable.  In Tel
Agrab, for instance, there is evidence of widespread abandonment of
settled areas in the town during the middle and later range of Early
Dynastic including even the main temple.  At Tel Asmar the remains
shown in the city beginning to shrink in size at the end of Early
Dynastic to contract during the Agade Period, leaving large areas of
houses and streets of these periods abandoned.  At Khafaje, finally,
the whole town, flourishing down to the end of the Early Dynastic
Period, had by Agade times been completely deserted by its
inhabitants.  To this evidence from major sites may be added that of a
large number of smaller towns in the region where the survey showed
end or interruption of occupation at these periods.  Our pictures of
how many such towns were deserted is, however, probably incomplete
since in many cases later reoccupation will have covered up traces of
previous abandonment." [Jacobsen]

"Down to around 2000 BC, cultivation in Mesopotamia still extended
some 50 km north of the present limit of feasibility of any such
activity and a density of human population seems to have grown up that
could no longer be sustained today." [Lamb]

SYRIA

"The soil record of the abrupt climate change reveals a weakening of
pedological transformations, an increase of surface crusting and wind
intensity, and an aerosol fallout rich in glass shards and calcitic
spherules.  These features characterize an aridification event unique
in comparison to the other environmental changes recorded over the
last 8000 years on the Habur Plains.  These changes are both greater
and different in nature than the effects of the droughts common to the
region's semi-arid Mediterranean climate." [Courty, Weiss]

EGYPT

The Fifth Dynasty in Egypt ended at about 2300 BC.  Famine had already
started at the end of this dynasty and by the cessation of the Sixth
Dynasty, corresponding to the end of the Old Kingdom, Egypt slipped
into a sharp decline that literally amounted to a Dark Age.  This
interval between the Old Kingdom and the Middle Kingdom is referred to
as the First Intermediate Period (FIP).  During this interval, there
was a breakdown of the central Egyptian government into small rival
kingdoms.  The unstable social control combined with severely arid
climatic conditions produced intense suffering. 

There is essentially no physical evidence of site destruction as in
the previous regions.  Settlements were located along the Nile River,
and repeated flooding and a densely concentrated population have
precluded significant excavation.  

"Lo, doors, columns, coffers are burning,...Lo, the ship of the South
founders (is broken up), Towns are destroyed, Upper Egypt has become
empty (waste)...It is destruction of the land..."; (4:14) "Trees are
destroyed, and branches stripped off.."; (5:7) "Indeed, terror kills"
[Admonitions of an Egyptian Sage (dated to FIP)]

INDIA AND CENTRAL ASIA

Northern India - "....somewhere around or after 2300 BC, a combination
of causes led to the fairly profound changes that mark the end of the
pre-Harappan stage at all the sites so far known...." [Encyclopaedia
Britannica]

Northern India - "The excavation revealed some very important evidence
regarding how the (Kalibangan) settlement of Period 1 came to an end.
At several places in the trenches was observed
cleavage-cum-displacement of the strata and walls, which evidently was
the result of some earth movement.  It appears, therefore, most likely
that the site was deserted because of an earthquake." [Lal]

"....at a fairly early date, perhaps even as early as 2300 BC, should
be considered for this period of tectonic activity.  The evidence
cited of layers of burning at many Chalcolithic sites in Baluchistan
(southern Pakistan) and tentatively explained as being due to the
arrival of invaders possibly from the West is equally explicable in
terms of earthquake damage....There does not seem to be any convincing
reason why between say 2300 BC and 1100 BC, the whole of Baluchistan
should not have been virtually abandoned, the peasant populations
having reverted to nomadic life as a result of natural disasters."
[Raikes]

"After the year 2200 BC, that is, at the beginning of the Middle
Bronze Age, the urban system begins to deteriorate and there is a
radical and rapid decline of the large centres in all the enclaves of
Central Asia.  None of the explanations proposed so far successfully
link up the numerous conditions of the archaeological evidence over
such a wide area." [Tozi, Shahmirzadi, Joyenda]

"The first half of the third millennium was characterized by
widespread sharing of technologies, aesthetic and cultic knowledge and
practices....Then with the middle of the third millennium there was an
abrupt and widespread abandonment of sites from Central Asia through
Siestan, southern Afghanistan and Baluchistan.  This was accompanied
by an almost total break in trade and significant cultural
interactions across these northern land routes." [Gupta]

ISLANDS OF MALTA AND GOZO, SOUTH OF ITALY

"The remarkable civilization,....after a long and unbroken development
that can be traced through many centuries, finally disappears from
view with great suddenness, and without leaving a trace in the
material culture of Malta during the succeeding centuries.  In its
place we find the remains of what appears to have been in all respects
a cruder and less advanced culture, except for its possession of some
simple metal tools and weapons.  The temple-builders vanish as if by
magic, and we know them no more.  The archaeological record, so often
ambiguous as to the fate of individual cultures, is for once clear and
unmistakable.  Here is no gradual decline, no evolution of a culture
into something different, not even the blend of a newly arrived
dominant culture with survivals from the old.  The temple culture is
seemingly at the very apex of its development when it disappears,
sinking in the stream of time like a stone and leaving no trace.  Its
successor has completely different traditions, technological,
aesthetic, religious.  Nothing in the later prehistoric material
warrant the assumption that any of the original people survived.  If
they did, they left no trace of themselves in the material remains of
the new period....We simply do not know what happened to them and
probably never shall." [Evans]