The Late Bronze Age (c. 1600–1100bce), an Area Unified around the Eastern Mediterranean

The collapse of the Indus civilization was accompanied by a decrease in trade both in the Persian Gulf and along the terrestrial routes east of Mesopotamia. The demise of the Sumerian world at this time “cannot be a mere coincidence.” De-urbanization occurred at the same time in Iran, while in Babylonia Hammurabi’s successors had to deal with a social and economic crisis, aggravated by the Kassite invasions. The “Old Babylonian Period” ended in 1595 with the looting of Babylon by the Hittites (MC) (in 1499 in the ultra-short chronology of Gasche et al. 1998).