Empires at Dusk: How Civilizations End

Latest episodes

• Egypt Alone: What Survived the Bronze Age Collapse

  October 25, 2026 · 30 min

  Egypt survived the late Bronze Age upheavals, but its New Kingdom empire did not remain intact. Empires at Dusk follows Ramesses III's victory reliefs, a long royal papyrus, a tomb-workers' stoppage, a literary journey abroad, and the…

• Hattusa Emptied | Empires at Dusk

  October 18, 2026 · 31 min

  The Hittite capital left behind walls, temples and thousands of clay records. How did a city that organised an empire cease to be its centre? Empires at Dusk follows Hattusa's stores, treaties, border pressures and the severe dry interval…

• The Sea Peoples and a Broken Bronze Age

  September 27, 2026 · 31 min

  Egypt carved a victory over the groups later called the Sea Peoples. Ugarit's last tablets describe danger at sea; Hattusa tells a different story of an emptied capital. Empires at Dusk follows the monuments, letters and archaeology to ask…

• Ugarit's Last Letter

  September 20, 2026 · 30 min

  A clay tablet warns of enemy ships while Ugarit's troops and fleet are away. This episode follows the late Bronze Age correspondence, separates the evidence from the famous final-letter legend, and asks how a connected kingdom could still…

• The Year the Bronze Age Ended

  September 12, 2026 · 28 min

  Around 1177 BC, almost every kingdom in the eastern Mediterranean fell apart — Ugarit, the Hittite empire, the Mycenaean palaces — inside roughly a lifetime. Marcus Vale traces the collapse from a pottery kiln full of letters that were…

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