Multiple hypotheses have been advanced for the causes of this phenomenon: large-scale famines caused by prolonged droughts, earthquakes, epidemics, iron smelting and other technological innovations upsetting the balance of power, migrations of Dorians, Thracians or the enigmatic Sea Peoples mentioned by Egyptian texts, or a conjunction of some of these factors into a "perfect storm". The collapseAll these societies - Mycenaean, Troyan, Arzawan, Hittite - disintegrated in the early 12th century BCE, along with other contemporary states in the Eastern Mediterranean. The language spoken in Troy at that time remains unknown, though it is expected to belong to the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European family. Like the Luwian province of Arzawa, Troy may have been a vassal state (under the names Taruisa or Wilusa) of the Hittite Empire which ruled from central Anatolia. In the Late Bronze Age it hosted a thriving walled city engaged in cultural and commercial relationships with the Mycenaean world to the west and the Luwian-speaking lands to the south. The site, a low hill dominating a plain in the vicinity of the Hellespont, had been inhabited since at least 3.500 BCE. In the northwestern corner of Anatolia stood the settlement of Troia or Ilios (which we'll simply call Troy for the rest of this guide). The signature stonework of their fortifications, built from massive boulders, would impress later cultures who would dub it "cyclopean". Mycenaean societies were characterized by the key role of their palaces as administrative and economic centers. This culture used an Indo-European language which would eventually evolve into the Classical Ancient Greek. It subsequently expanded in the Cyclades, Crete, Cyprus and the southwestern fringe of Anatolia around Miletus and Rhodes. Around the 17th century BCE, a new civilisation arose on the Greek mainland: the Mycenaean culture.
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