Perhaps an era that is missed by most people, yet every human should know their roots. That is why today I will be explaining the Bronze Age and its contributions to modern society.
Before the Bronze Age, people used to live in small groups but there was no unification nor any civilization. That ought to change in the late 4th millennium BCE, thought to be around 3300-3200 BCE.
But the real question is who started the bronze age and how it started. To answer that, we need to know more about the first civilizations of the world.
Before the Bronze Age, there were 2 leading states in the world, those being: The Sumerians and the Egyptians. But to be clear, they were not fully developed states by then.
The Bronze Age’s start is mostly regarded as the founding of writing, but that was not the only reason, as that was only Sumer’s part. Egyptians would form the first unified state around that time as well. But most importantly, it was the use of bronze that gave the era its name.
As time passed, more humans started to receive the gift of civilization. New states started to form as time passed and new people started to join the world scene, some of them being: the Chinese, Greeks, Assyrians,
Elamites,Babylonians,Hittites,Akkadians.
While we know some of these new states, most of them would end up erased by history. But still their writings would and truly that is what makes the Bronze Age so amazing.
The first Empires of the world would also be formed in the Bronze Age. They would be the founders of big cities that we still know the names of today. They would gather big armies for their wars. They would create laws to govern their people. It all sounds so familiar, doesn’t it?
At its peak, many empires would prosper, many new things would be found and utilized by these empires. The nomad humankind would become the torch of civilization for the next generations.
The Greeks became famous for their navies, the Egyptians for their buildings, the Babylonians for their laws, the Sumerians for their knowledge, the Hittites for their agriculture. The common thing is that hey all contributed to society in one way or another.
And yet, like everything the Bronze Age also fell, many humans wrote stories to connect it to something more holy or honorable for religious reasons or wars. But the truth stands totally open and can be clearly seen.
These Empires had stood for a very long time and eventually, internal problems started to arise. That added to droughts and seafaring people who would ravage the great cities of old for food, would destroy all Empires except the Egyptian Empire in a catastrophic event called the Bronze Age Collapse, which occurred around 1200 BCE.
While they may have fallen, we still know of their stories,their lives,the things they found, the civilizations they formed, and the history that they changed.
And one thing is certain, change is the only constant. As the Bronze Age fell, the Iron age arose and so it went on until the modern day and it will keep going until the end of time.