Gold death-mask known as the Mask of Agamemnon from Mycenae, Greece 1550 BC, photograph by Xuan Che used as image in Wikipedia “Bronze Age” under licence https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en
TOP 10 BRONZE AGES / BRONZE AGE ICEBERG
After the Stone, comes the Bronze – and my Top 10 Bronze Ages!
Yes, it’s another one of my (mostly) tongue in cheek top ten lists where I look at a subject which has a fundamental continuity or unity, but which can also be broken up into distinct parts or perspectives. Alternatively, you can think of it as my Bronze Age iceberg meme.
I could have argued for distinct Bronze Ages. While the focus of the Bronze Age tends to be Europe and western Asia, it occurred in different ways even within that focus, let alone the different times or regional variations throughout the world. I could have at least argued for the usual three-part demarcation of the Bronze Age into Early, Middle and Late Bronze Ages.
But no – it’s (mostly) more fun as different levels or parts of my Bronze Age iceberg.
As such, like my other top ten lists for “ages”, this will be more one of my shallow dip top ten lists – with shorter entries – than my deep dive top ten lists on other subjects.
A-TIER (TOP TIER)
(1) BIBLICAL BRONZE AGE – CANAAN
The Bronze Age Dreaming – and foremost cultural artefact of the Bronze Age in Western culture.
Well, not exactly – it’s the Iron Age dreaming of the Bronze Age, the Bronze Age preceding the kingdoms of Israel and Judah which emerged in the power vacuum left by the collapsing or retreating Bronze Age great powers before being swallowed up again once more by new great powers.
God is bronze – or Bronze Age. I remember a passage in the Old Testament where his divine war-winning power was stymied by iron chariots. (Looking it up it’s in the Book of Judges 1:19, which implies that God could not drive out the Canaanites with their chariots of iron – iron chariots pop up in a few references in that book and the preceding Book of Joshua).
(2) CLASSICAL BRONZE AGE – MYCENAE & TROY
The other Bronze Age Dreaming apart from the Bible – and other foremost cultural artefact of the Bronze Age in Western culture with Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.
Well, again not exactly – it’s the Iron Age dreaming of the Bronze Age, since Homer as well as the composition of the Iliad and Odyssey are usually dated to the Iron Age. The historicity of the Trojan War is also an open question, although often identified as part of or leading up to the Late Bronze Age Collapse.
Speaking of which…
(3) BRONZE AGE COLLAPSE
You didn’t think I was going to have a Top 10 Bronze Ages without featuring the Bronze Age Collapse or more precisely Late Bronze Age Collapse, did you?
The Bronze Age Collapse – the widespread societal collapse of Mediterranean Bronze Age civilization in the 12th century BC, argued to be worse than the collapse of the western Roman Empire or even argued to be the worst case of societal collapse in human history. A dozen ancient civilizations collapsed or declined – “Almost every significant city in the eastern Mediterranean world was destroyed, many of them never to be occupied again.”
(4) EGYPTIAN BRONZE AGE
Egypt would have to be hands down the most prominent Bronze Age civilization, thanks to its enduring monumental art or architecture and the equally enduring fascination with it in Western popular culture.
Also like my quip about God in the Biblical Bronze Age, Egypt was bronze – or more precisely, Bronze Age Egypt was peak Egypt. It didn’t too well in the Iron Age, falling to the Assyrians and succeeding great powers after them – as Egypt was increasingly not one of those great powers after the Bronze Age.
(5) MESOPOTAMIAN BRONZE AGE
The archetypal Bronze Age civilization – the various river valley city-states, states and empires of Mesopotamia.
(6) MINOAN BRONZE AGE
The Bronze Age’s model matriarchy – and topless too! Or in the parlance of social media – Minoan mommy milkers!
Or not – we just don’t know, although certainly some archaeological evidence suggests it. The Minoan scripts have not been fully deciphered and hence we do not have the Minoans in their own words, only what we interpret of them through their art and architecture they left behind for archaeologists.
However, that hasn’t stopped Minoan civilization being mythologized or held up as a model matriarchy from Arthur Evans onwards and not coincidentally, more broadly a model society – from Robert Graves through Fritz Leiber (influenced by Graves) to David Graeber.
B-TIER (HIGH TIER)
(7) HITTITE BRONZE AGE
It may not have the prominence of Egypt or Mesopotamia (despite some fame for the Battle of Kadesh it fought against the former) but the Hittites or Hittite Empire deserves a place in any Bronze Age top ten.
Apart from being one of the major Bronze Age civilizations, the Hittites feature prominently in both of those two foremost cultural artefacts of the Bronze Age in Western culture – the Bible and the epic poems of Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey.
The Hittites are frequently referenced by name in the Bible, although there is substantial debate about whether or to what extent the Biblical Hittites correspond to the Bronze Age Hittites and their successors.
The Hittites are less obviously referenced by Homer. That reference is with Troy itself, which is often seen as or argued to be a city within a confederation that was effectively a Hittite satellite state.
Of course, given the Roman myths of their Trojan origin, wouldn’t that make the Roman Empire…the neo-Hittite Empire?! It’s even more ironic when you think that for a large part of its history, the eastern Roman Empire had a similar geographic area to the Hittite Empire.
(8) INDUS VALLEY BRONZE AGE
The Indus Valley Civilization features prominently in the Bronze Age of my imagination, with the mystique of its two leading cities, Harappa (for which the Indus Valley Civilization and its inhabitants are alternatively named as Harappan) and Mohenjo-daro.
That and the famous Dancing Girl statue from the latter, because you can never have too many dancing girls. She’s nude too.
(9) EUROPEAN BRONZE AGE
Usually eclipsed by the more prominent Aegean Bronze Age (of Greek and Minoan civilizations), the rest of Europe also had its Bronze Age, across a diverse array of cultures and span of time through at least the entire second millennium BC, if not usually before and after as well.
(10) CHINESE BRONZE AGE
The usage of Bronze Age has been transferred to the archaeology of China from that of western Eurasia – not always smoothly or without debate as to its demarcation, but such that it usually has included two imperial dynasties, the Shang Dynasty and the Zhou Dynasty
