The city became one of the most important centres in the Hittite Empire, during the Late Bronze Age, and reached its apogee around the 13th century BC. While the Hittite empire fell to the Sea Peoples during the Bronze Age collapse, Carchemish survived the Sea Peoples' attacks to continue to be the capital of an important Neo-Hittite kingdom in the Iron Age, and a trading center. Although Ramesses III states in an inscription dating to his 8th Year from his Medinet Habu mortuary temple that Carchemish was destroyed by the Sea Peoples, the city evidently survived the onslaught. King Kuzi-Tesup I is attested in power here and was the son of Talmi-Teshub who was a contemporary of the last Hittite king, Suppiluliuma II. He and his successors ruled a "mini-empire" stretching from Southeast Asia Minor to Northern Syria and the West bend of the Euphrates under the title "Great King". This suggests that Kuzi-Tesub saw himself as the true heir of the line of the great Suppiliuma I and that the central dynasty at Hattusa was now defunct. This powerful polity lasted from c.1175 to 975 BC when it began losing control of its farther possessions and became gradually a more local city state centered around Carchemish.