Sometime after 1200 BCE, civilization collapsed, and a dark age prevailed. The Late Bronze Age collapse of societies throughout the Levant, the Near East and the Mediterranean some 3,200 years ago has been a mystery. Powerful, advanced civilizations disappeared, seemingly overnight. Now an archaeologist believes he has figured out what lay behind the cataclysm. The trigger seems to have been the invasion of ancient Egypt in 1177 BCE by marauding peoples known simply as the “Sea Peoples,” as recorded in the Medinet Habu wall relief at Ramses III' tomb. The relief depicts a sea battle (and also carts full of...