Bronze Age Civilizations
Periodization based on tools
3000B.C.E. – 1200B.C.E.
Bronze Age Civilizations
Mesopotamia
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Sumerians 2750
Akkadians 2340-2125
Neo-Sumerians 2100-2000
Old Babylonian Period 1900-1600
Staggered Hittite Conquest 1600-1100
Old Assyrian Period 1200-612
Neo Babylonian Period 612-539
Persian Conquest 539
Extent of
the Old
Babylonian
Empire
Iron Age
Mesopotamian Civilizations
Sumerians
and the rise of City-states
• A language unlike any we have seen since
• Urbanization
• Monarchy: a priest king and his bureaucrats
– bureaucrats acted as “middle management”
• responsibilities included land distribution, food
distribution, and record keeping
• records, which kept track of distribution and trade, were
the first writings in the world
– Soon the writing was made simpler  from pictographic
to cuneiform (“wedge-shaped”)
Akkadians 2340-2125
• Semitic peoples who spoke a language related
to Hebrew and Arabic
• A people from Arabia who expanded into
Mesopotamia
• Sargon’s empire based in Akkad (which will
later become Babylon)
– Maintained and even adopted Sumerian religion,
culture and traditions
• Semitic peoples will control Mesopotamia for
centuries
Amorites:
The Old Babylonian Empire
• Capitol City: Babylon
• All powerful monarch who was believed to be a god
• Centralization: While the Sumerian civilization
consisted of independent and autonomous city-states,
the Old Babylonian state was a behemoth of dozens of
cities.
– Monarchy/emperor
– as a result, an entirely new set of laws were invented
by the Old Babylonians: laws which dealt with crimes
against the state
• Code of Hammurabi
Hittites and the
Beginning of the
Iron Age
• Indo-Europeans who expanded from Anatolia in 1600 BCE
• Adopted customs and traditions of the Mesopotamians
• First civilization to smelt iron, which gradually spread,
probably along the trade routes, to other Mediterranean
civilizations.
Northern and Eastern Africa
Egypt and Nubia
Nubia
Nubia 3100-350
• “Land of the Bow”
• Rich in natural resources, including the Egyptian favorite:
Gold
• (upper) Nile River: irrigation essential in a rocky, severely hot
area that lacked rainfall.
• Trade was mutually beneficial for Egypt and Nubia, and
continued even during times of hostility
– Trade corridor to riches of sub-Saharan Africa
• Back and forth: Kingdom of Kush, based in Kerma 1750 BCE
– Egyptians conquer Kush in 1500
– Kush gains strength with its capital of Napata and takesof
Egypt
Egypt
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“Gift of the Nile”
Upper Egypt (south) and Lower Egypt (north)
Infatuation with afterlife
Black Land and Red Land
Lack of urbanization, instead pharaoh and his
court
• Ease of living
• North/South
diffusion?
China’s Yellow River Valley
Shang and Zhou
Shang Period
The Shang period 1750-1027 BCE
• Started using Bronze in 2000, approx. 1000
years later than the Middle East.
• Earliest written records (pictograms) anywhere in
China.
• Warrior Aristocracy
• Ancestor Worship with king as mediator
• Slave labor
• Early feng shui orientation of buildings to
maintain the order established by the gods
• Early Trade: as far away as Mesopotamia
(chariot?)
• Silk!
Zhou Period
Zhou Period 1027-221BCE
• The Zhou ruler, Wu defeated the last Shang king
in 1027
– Preserved the essentials of Shang culture and added
new elements of ideology and technology
– Est. the “Mandate of Heaven”  Chief deity was
“Heaven” and the king was called “Son of Heaven”
– “Spring and Autumn Period” 771-481 and “Warring
States Period” 480- unification of China in 221
• 600BCE iron metallurgy  first to forge steel by
removing carbon during the iron-smelting process
• Legalism: men are evil and need strict rules to
behave in an orderly fashion.
Europe
Celtic Europe
1000-50 BCE
Celts
• Warrior Aristocracy
– Disunity: not one empire,
rather many separate tribes
– Same, similar linguistic
group
• Society
– Women may have been given
more rights in Celtic
society…but lets not get
carried away
– Druids
– Head Cult?
• Celtic Migrations
• Rome conquered in 390BCE…
Aegean Civilizations
Minoan and Mycenaean
Aegean: Minoans and Mycenaeans
Minoans
• the islands of the Aegean
• rulers of the sea and controlled trade in the
area
• palaces and apartments had sewer systems,
flush toilets and beautiful frescos.
• very wealthy society
• capitol at Knossos, was no match for the
eruption of Thera and the devastation
that followed
Mycenaeans
• Early Greeks 1600 BCE
• Began to rise in strength as the Minoans were
beginning to disappear
• Greeks conquered the Aegean and may have
attacked Troy, a city along the Hellespont, in
the 13th C. BCE
• Collapse into a Dark Age in approx 1100 and
vanish for 300 years. But why?
• Then, out of the Dark Age the Greeks establish
city-states, such as Sparta, Athens and Corinth