The Bronze Age Mediterranean is one of the most interesting periods in world history for countless reasons.

Egypt was thriving, Mesopotamia was popping off, the people of North Africa and Asia Minor were inventing so many things humanity needed to be awesome.

And Mycenaean and Minoan Greeks were humanity needed to be awesome.

And Mycenaean and Manoan Greeks

were giving Homeric bards the inspiration

for the Iliad and the Odyssey.

And then something happened.

The history bros will tell you that out of the blue entire civilizations collapsed and disappeared,

that to this day it remains an utter mystery what happened to the Mycenians just poof gone without a trace

They'll tell you that Grace descended into a dark age where they lost the ability to read or write and that from that dark and dreary period of nothingness.

Homer sprung fully formed like Athena from Zeus's head.

What actually happened is obviously far more complicated,

considerably less mysterious and alien,

but far, far more interesting. Mostly because, well, it's the real history of so many ancient people, and at least in Greece, laid the groundwork for what would go on to become the ancient Greece that gave us the Iliad and the Odyssey and everything that we have come to love.

And while maybe it wasn't quite so mysterious, it was incredibly dramatic.

Throughout the month of April, I'll be bringing you episodes covering a brief history of the Bronze Age in Greece and beyond,

and what happened across the Mediterranean that was dramatic enough that it became known as the Bronze Age collapse.

You might be surprised to hear that it's far more relevant today

than ever before.

Even more than I realized before I started digging.

Because it turns out the collapse of the Bronze Age

Mediterranean can tell us a lot about where

...