The apparently Egyptian-controlled city of Stratum XII on the Upper Tell ended in collapse, localized faulting, and fire. An overlying silt layer suggests that the site was abandoned for perhaps “as much as one hundred years” afterwards (Tubb and Dorrell 1991:69). At the same time, the cemetery on the Lower Tell appears to have been abandoned.

A rich corpus of pottery from the Western Palace in Area EE was used to date the Stratum XII destruction to about 1150 BCE, approximately coinciding with the Late Bronze Age Collapse and Egyptian withdrawal from the region. Although Ferry et al. (2011), citing Tubb (1988:86), noted that there were no indications “as to the source of the destruction,” since “there were neither bodies nor signs of conflict amidst the ruined buildings of the Upper Tell,” the combination of these observations with localized fractures and faulting, including downward displacements of up to 50 cm, may point to an earthquake as the cause. Tubb and Dorrell (1991:72) observed that Stratum V in Area AA 900 was founded at a lower level, and that this “depression” of the overlying stratum V was “due to the subsidence of the underlying stratigraphy, resulting ultimately from the unusual configuration of stratum XII.” Similarly, Tubb and Dorrell (1993:56) reported a substantial depression of the stratigraphy in AA 900, “resulting most probably from earthquake faulting with related subsidence.” In Area MM, Tubb, Dorrell, and Cobbing (1996:31–33) noted an “apparent depression on the north-east slope of the Upper Tell.”

A construction-related site effect may be present, since the buildings were constructed of mudbrick and lacked stone foundations. Instead, “a dense matrix of pisee (rammed earth)” supported “the embedded wall foundations.” Tubb, Dorrell, and Cobbing (1996:27) noted that this technique, like the rest of the architecture, was “characteristically Egyptian.”