Pylos — whose Linear B archives have survived because the palace fire that destroyed the city baked the clay tablets hard enough to preserve them — was burned around 1200 BCE.

The tablets from the final period at Pylos show preparations for defense: men being sent to guard the coast, temple goods being collected, emergency measures being taken.

And then the palace burned, and the administrative system that had maintained it vanished.

Mycenae itself continued to be occupied, but in much diminished form.

The palace there was not rebuilt.

The writing system disappeared.

The complex trade networks that had sustained the palace economies ceased to function.