The first man directly faces the bull grabbing the bull by its horns. The second man is upside down with his front facing the bull’s head on top of the bull. The third man faces the back of the bull and has his arms extended in front of him.
Before You Read This Chapter
STORY LINES
During the second millennium B.C.E., new peoples migrated into Eurasia and settled around the eastern Mediterranean, introducing a related set of Indo-European languages that are the ancestors of several modern language groups.
In Egypt, the rise of the Eighteenth Dynasty fostered imperial expansion beyond the Nile Valley for the first time.
During the Late Bronze Age, an interconnected network of alliances bound societies together in new ways. But these civilizations were eventually destroyed or weakened by the raids of mysterious Sea Peoples.
In the wake of these events, both oppressive new empires and smaller-scale states emerged.
In the Iron Age, the worship of Yahweh (among the Hebrews) and of Ahura-Mazda (among the Persians) fostered a new view of the world: one in which a single creator god ruled over all peoples.
CHRONOLOGY
1900–1400 B.C.E.Minoan civilization flourishes
1800–1300 B.C.E.Formation of the Hittite Kingdom and Empire
1792 B.C.E.Rise of Babylon under Hammurabi
1700–1200 B.C.E.Mycenaean civilization flourishes
1650–1550 B.C.E.Hyksos rule in Egypt (Second Intermediate Period)
1550–1075 B.C.E.New Kingdom of Egypt established
C. 1200 B.C.E.Invasions of the Sea Peoples begin
1100–1000 B.C.E.Philistine dominance in the Levant
1000–973 B.C.E.Hebrew kingdom consolidated
924 B.C.E.Israel and Judah divided
883–859 B.C.E.Neo-Assyrian Empire founded
722 B.C.E.Kingdom of Israel destroyed
612–605 B.C.E.Fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire
586 B.C.E.Fall of the kingdom of Judah
539–486 B.C.EPersian Empire consolidated
CORE OBJECTIVES
DESCRIBE the impact of new migrations and settlements on ancient civilizations.
DEFINE the differences between Egypt’s New Kingdom and the previous Old and Middle Kingdoms.
EXPLAIN the workings of commercial and cultural networks during the Late Bronze Age.
IDENTIFY the new empires and kingdoms that emerged during the Iron Age.
UNDERSTAND the historical importance of monotheism.
According to Hesiod, a Greek poet who flourished during the eighth century B.C.E., all of human history falls into five ages. The dawn of time was a golden age, when men lived like gods. Everything was good then, food was plentiful and work was easy. The next age was silver, when men took gods for granted, killed one another, and lived in dishonor. So the gods destroyed them, sending a mighty flood that spared only the family of Deucalion, the son of wily Prometheus, who built an ark. Then came the age of bronze, when everything was made of bronze—houses and armor and weapons and tools. Giants fought incessantly from huge strongholds, causing destruction so great that no man’s name survives. The time following was short but bright, a heroic age, the time of men who traveled with Theseus and fought with Achilles and sailed with Odysseus, men whose names will live forever. But Hesiod’s own age was iron: a dull age, a time of tedium and strife and bickering and petty feuds.
Hesiod’s periodization captures an understanding of history that had evolved with humanity itself and that reflects actual developments. The stories he knew told of a time before cities and the need for agriculture. They recalled a time when the harmony between gods and men broke down, and the human race was saved by one man’s ingenuity: the Sumerian Utnapishtim, the Hebrew Noah, or the Greek Deucalion. These stories chronicled the wars of the age we still call Bronze, when the enormous, abandoned palaces still visible in Hesiod’s day were built. And they remembered the race of heroes whose glory was measured by their abiding fame, and who bequeathed to us a further round of stories. Thanks to new archaeological finds, new linguistic discoveries, and new efforts at decoding the historical record, we can both confirm and correct Hesiod’s perspective on the past.
In the second millennium B.C.E., Western civilizations were transformed by the arrival of new peoples and by the emergence of extensive land-based empires built up through systematic military conquest. These migrations and conquests caused enormous upheaval, but they also led to cultural contact and economic integration. The movement of people, goods, and ideas not only encompassed the Mediterranean but extended from Scandinavia to China. The last few centuries of the Bronze Age (1500–1200 B.C.E.) were a period of intense diplomacy, trade, and exchange. By the thirteenth century B.C.E., peoples from the southern Balkans to the western fringes of Iran had been drawn into a wide-ranging web of relationships.
More information
Short description
A map of the transformation of civilization in The Bronze Age dating from 2000 to 1400 B.C.E.
Long description
The focused areas in this map include Egypt, Arabia, Assyria, Anatolia, Asia Minor, the Hittite Empire, Mesopotamia, Sumer, Akkad, Phoenicia, and Babylonia. In general, this map represents what is referred to today as Northern Africa, specifically Egypt, and the Middle East. This map displays arrows, which point the direction of the migration of the Indo-Europeans and the Semitic peoples. The Indo Europeans in 2000 B.C.E. migrated from today’s known Europe to the near east, east of Arabia, and Asia Minor just above the Mediterranean Sea. As for the Semitic people’s migration, in 2000 B.C.E. they seemed to migrate to Babylon, Mesopotamia, the Hittite Empire, which lies to the east of Asia Minor, and The Lebanon Mountains, just east, about 100 miles, from Phoenicia and the Mediterranean Sea. As for other specific dates given, in 1900 B.C.E., the Assyrians organized trade networks and there was the rise of the Old Babylonian Empire in 1800 B.C.E. From 1800 to 1400, B.C.E., there was the formation of the Hittite, Kassite, and Mitanni kingdoms.
MIGRATIONS OF THE BRONZE AGE, 2000–1400 B.C.E. Notice the geographical relationships among the older centers of Mesopotamia and Egypt, and among newer civilizations such as Babylonia, Assyria, Phoenicia, and the Hittite Empire. ■ Which of these emerging cultures was most likely to come into contact with Egypt, and why? ■ Where did the Indo-European peoples come from? ■ What was the impact of Indo-European settlements?
Yet this extraordinary system proved more fragile than its participants could have imagined. Around 1200 B.C.E., a wave of mysterious invasions led to the destruction of nearly every established Mediterranean civilization. As a result, around the turn of the first millennium B.C.E., we enter a world organized along profoundly different lines. In this Iron Age, iron would slowly replace bronze as the primary component of tools and weapons. New and more brutal empires would come to power, while new ideas about the divine and its relationship to humanity would emerge. Two of the Western world’s most enduring religious traditions—Judaism and Zoroastrianism—were born, fundamentally altering conceptions of ethics, politics, and the natural world. This age would prove a fateful historical crossroads, as elements both old and new combined to reconfigure the ancient world.
