Mark Gagnon

One Hittite text, known as the Alexandu Treaty, records this agreement between the Hittite king and the ruler of Wailusa, this man named Alexandu.

Now, Alexandu, interesting, sounds a lot like Alexander.

Anyway, that's a little side fact.

And Paras, the guy from Troy, his other name in the Greek tradition was Alexander.

You see what's happening?

You have the Alexandu Treaty, right?

Alexandu, and then you have Paris, and his name is Alexander.

Now, many scholars see this as a genuine linguistic connection, a possible historical kernel behind this Paris tradition.

Yet others caution that it might be just completely coincidental and it was just a common naming pattern in the region.

But either way, we have Hittite records mentioning a place that sounds a lot like Troy, ruled by a man whose name is literally Paris's or Paris's alternative name in diplomatic contact with people who sound a lot like the Greeks of Homer's story.

Now, again, none of this proves that the Iliad is literally history, but it strongly suggests that the Trojan War legend was rooted in real Bronze Age conflicts between the Mycenaean Greeks and the peoples of Western Anatolia.

And then, around 1200 BC, the entire system collapsed.

Within a span of roughly 50 years, nearly every major civilization in the Eastern Mediterranean was either destroyed or just severely diminished.

The Hittite Empire fell.

Mycenaean Greece was devastated, and the great palaces burned down, writing lost, trade networks destroyed.

Egypt barely survived, and the cities across Levant were just completely demolished.

Now, scholars call this entire phenomena, the collapsing of all these civilizations in the region, the Late Bronze Age Collapse.

And it remains one of the great mysteries of ancient history.

Like, what caused it?

And no one really knows, but there's, of course, many explanations.