The collapse of the Hittite Empire is…

Suppiluliuma II is known from two inscriptions in Hieroglyphic Luwian that record wars against former vassal Tarhuntassa, and against Alasiya in Cyprus.

He has managed to win some victories, including a naval battle against the Sea Peoples off the coast of Cyprus, but it is too late.

Based on records in Ugarit, the threat had originated in the west, and the Hittite king had asked for assistance from Ugarit.

"The enemy [advances(?)] against us and there is no number [...]. Our number is pure(?) [...] Whatever is available, look for it and send it to me." (translated by Astour (1965) 256).

he Sea Peoples have already begun their push down the Mediterranean coastline, starting from the Aegean, and continuing all the way to Philistia—taking Cilicia and Cyprus away from the Hittites en route and cutting off their coveted trade routes.

This leaves the Hittite homelands vulnerable to attack from all directions, and Hattusa is burnt to the ground sometime around 1180 BCE following a combined onslaught from Kaskians, Phrygians and Bryges.

The Hittite Empire thus vanishes from the historical record.

The Hittite kingdom is destroyed by the invading Sea Peoples and Kaskians in the early 1170s BCE.

The Kaskians are probably in control of Hatti after the fall.

Hattusa itself is destroyed, its site only reoccupied by a Phrygian fortress some five hundred years later.

Shutruk-Nahhunte, the second king of the Shutrukid Dynasty and the most vigorous of the so-called Middle Elamite kings, ascends the throne in 1185 and wages war in Babylonia.

Ninurta-apal-Ekur, the great-great-great grandson of Adad-nirari I, had in 1182 seized the throne from Enlil-kudurri-usur, a son of the powerful king Tukulti-Ninurta I.

Ninurta-apal-Ekur is succeeded after his reign of either three or thirteen years by his son, Ashur-dan I.

Egypt's dominion over southern Canaan has waned by the beginning of the twelfth century, and the Hittites have collapsed under the assault of enemies from the north and west.

According to the Bible, the Canaanites, who continue to hold the stronger cities of the region in the coastal plain and the Plain of Esdraelon, oppose the Hebrews' infiltration from eastern and southern Palestine.

The urban Canaanites could potentially overwhelm the scattered and unorganized Hebrew clans, but this is prevented by the great invasion of the Sea Peoples in the early decades of the twelfth century BCE.

Ramesses II completes the colonnaded hypostyle hall at Abydos, with fine funerary reliefs.

Flanked by four massive statues of the king, his grandiose rock temple at Abu Simbel, hewn from a pink sandstone cliff with an entrance one hundred and five feet (thirty-two meters) high, extends two hundred feet (sixty-one meters) into the mountain.

He also adds to the Temple of Luxor, erecting a colossus of himself in the forecourt.

The Assyrians’ short-lived conquest of Babylon remains strong in the Assyrian national consciousness, celebrated in the “Epic of Tukulti-Ninurta,” a description and glorification of the late-thirteenth century wars and conquests of the Assyrian King Tukulti-Ninurta I against Kashtiliash IV, King of the Kassites.

Elam under Shutruk-Nahhunte has amassed an empire that includes most of Mesopotamia and western Iran.

Under his command, Elam defeats the Kassites and establishes the first Elamite Empire, which will prove to be very short-lived.

Egypt's second war against the Sea Peoples occurs in the reign of Ramesses III (reigned 1182-51), who, in his eighth regnal year, engages the invaders successfully on two frontiers: a land battle in Palestine and a naval engagement in one of the mouths of the Delta. (Because of the victories of Merneptah and Ramesses, Egypt will not undergo the political turmoil or experience the rapid technical advance of the early Iron Age in the Near East.)

Forced away from the borders of Egypt, many of the Sea Peoples sail farther westward, and some of their groups may give their names, or become the ancestors of, the Sicilians, Sardinians and Etruscans.

Elamite king Shutruk-Nahhunte, having sacked Babylon and toppled the long-reigning Kassite dynasty, …

…has removed many Babylonian monuments to Susa, including the famous Law Code stele of Hammurabi.

After amassing an empire that includes most of Mesopotamia and western Iran, he dies in 1158, succeeded by his son Kutir-Nahhunte III, whom he had made king of Babylon.