Mysterious Civilization of 'Sea Peoples' Were Wiped Out by 'World War Zero' 3,000 Years Ago

More than 3,000 years ago, the flourishing Bronze Age civilizations of the eastern Mediterranean suddenly met their downfall.

The Trojan War erupted as one of the final events culminating an era of chaos which one archaeologist has named ‘World War Zero’, plunging the region into a Dark Age soon after.

And, it was all begun by a mysterious and powerful civilization which came to be known as the ‘Sea Peoples,’ a new theory suggests.

The new ideas presented by Luwian Studies propose a scenario that could explain the fall of the Bronze Age around 1200 BC, and the events leading up to the Trojan War. 1177 B.C.: The Year Ci... Eric H. Cline Best Price: $6.50 Buy New $10.82 (as of 10:53 UTC - Details)

In the new scenario, it’s argued that the many Luwian-speaking petty kingdoms and western Asia Minor, a peninsula also called Anatolia, joined together in a coalition to attack the neighbouring Hittites.

As these Luwian kingdoms spoke a common language, they can be discussed as a single civilization, Eberhard Zangger, head of the Zurich-based non-profit, explained to New Scientist.

‘During the second millennium BCE people speaking a Luwian language lived throughout Asia Minor,’ Luwian Studies explains.

‘They were contemporaries, trading partners, and at times opponents of the well-known Minoan, Mycenaean, and Hittite cultures of Greece and Asia Minor.

When the Bronze Age drew to a close, the Greeks lost the art of writing for many centuries. But, the Luwians maintained this for roughly half a millennium, the researchers say.

Texts from the Luwians were discovered in the 19th century, before the Mycenaean, Minoan, and Hittite documents.

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