one of the most interesting periods in history in my opinion, such a soup of cultures and civilizations just beginning to coalesce. so much otherworldly stuff that was lost in the chaos.
I especially enjoy bronze age artifacts, they really show off the imagination of ancient man finally being able to play around with his world for the first time.
not to mention writing where it is available, ill post some interesting bits.
this Tocharian female is a Tarim mummy and lived around 1,000 BC. She was tall, with a high nose and long flaxen blond hair, perfectly preserved in ponytails. The weave of her clothing appears similar to Celtic cloth. She was around 40 years-old when she died.
statues from Sumeria
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Lion gate of the Hittite city of Hattusa
Sardinia has some of the most amazing ruins I've ever seen. there are ruins almost on every hilltop.
also a great example of the social divide that developed between "lowland" peoples and "highland" peoples
my professor write his thesis on this and it was really interesting.
Minos is my favorite archaic society
also here's a great article on the misconceptions of Minoan society being hyper-peaceful
academia.edu
and of course the Elite of Bronze age societies
>also a great example of the social divide that developed between "lowland" peoples and "highland" peoples
>my professor write his thesis on this and it was really interesting.
Really interesting, I would like to read that.
These are some bronze figurines found in a burial dating back to 1100-900 bc, they depicted heavily armored arciers, similar to those employed in campaigns in the Near East, especially by Assyrians and Arameans, archaeologists have interpreted these finds in Sardinia as Sardinian mercenaries who campaigned in Syria during the late bronze age and early iron age, and that wanted to celebrate their adventures with this kind of artifacts.
They've also found statuettes depicting centaurs really similar to those found in Aramean and Neo Hittitie temples.
The corpses found in these Sardinian burials also were found with a bronze plate, probably part of the armor.
Was the ancient middle east part of western civilization?
SANXINGDUI
>You will never be cheered on by topless women for making short work of primitive people
Thanks for posting all the neat stuff. I love chalcolithic and bronze age cultures, especially the extinct branches of Indo-Europeans, such as Hittites and Tocharians, and Old Europeans.
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BACKSCABBARD ALERT
Way to shit up a thread with your unfunny meme.
Can't you at least keep this /pol/ bullshit into your threads?
Aren't your daily "Why has African never known civilizations" threads enough for you?
Now you have to shit up other threads too?
I mean, the /pol/ tier threads on Veeky Forums were already out of place, but at least I could easily ignore them, now you have to go to other unrelated threads too?
The Yangtze River had some interesting Bronze Age activity too
For those who can't read bug runes
The Celts had the most decorative pommels in the world at the time. They took their metallurgy seriously. Some of the best smiths in their cultures were considered magical people
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Of course, the cradle of civilization had crazy diversity. Every village had the potential to be a settled population of nomads who were isolated from other humans for thousands of years
To be the first settled village would have been tough. What's to stop some nomads from stealing or raiding your village's crops?
That's why we find the villages that lasted from that age in swamps and hills. Much easier to defend in those areas.
That is, until Sumeria was able to field enough men to stomp any group who tried to mess with them.
They favored phalanx style combat as shown in this relief. I can imagine it was because giving a lot of untrained peasants a pointy stick and shield was the easiest way to make them successful.
It was not until horses entered the battlefield that Sumeria was finally beaten. Charging the phalanxes proved costly for lives of both men and horses - who were not in surplus back then unless you wanted to tame more wild ones.
The horse tribes found that circling the formation with bows and lassos worked well. With enough arrows, the formation would tighten up out of panic.
When dense enough, another warrior could toss in the lasso. It would grab a man's head, neck or arm with enough force to break it immediately.
Scary stuff
>the first time
Keep believing that nonsense
Too soon, bro. Humanity lost a lot of potential during those times. Truly a dark age
That helmet was never found in Greece.
It only appears in depictions of the Sherden mercenaries and royal guards working for the Pharaoh, who also wore a different type of armor.
That sword looks like something out of Final Fantasy.
Shut your mouth whiteboi. Us black men were kings, we invented mathematics, astrology and art while those Greek homos were still sitting in caves.
We were so advanced you cumskins had to cover it up and pretend YOU did it. It's over, cumskin, people are waking up, your facade is no more.
Reconstruction
lol
Any more info? Archaeological finds? Oral or written evidence? Legends?
Genuinely curious.
What role did the spikes on the helmet serve? Was it merely to be more intimidating?
>one of the most interesting periods in history in my opinion
You ought to check out this alt-history trilogy;
KANGZ
muh dick
Go back to picking cotton, porch monkey. By the way, hope you love the race war in America and the Chinese ripping apart Africa because they can't pay them back. Almost forgot, the Arabs are coming back to make you slaves. Have fun.
Anyone got any info on Bronze Age era infrastructure, particulary regarding domestic technology like refridgeration and plumbing?
I recall reading that ancient Persians had some neat air conditioning system, and the Minoans had clay pipes running through some of their houses which could provide showers and flushable toilets.
Anyone have info on how cellars could be used to refridgerate food or serve as a place to cool down?
Ancient home conveniences sound so fascinating to me.
Pls be bait
It's just a dumb meme my man
They kind of copied termites
The Nords are up to it right now
youtube.com
Well also take into account it as long as pretty all history after it
muh lesbians
muh wiccans
I think the picture stands for itself
Are you guys sure the Nuragics weren't proto-Greeks?
I am pretty sure they were not, you can find some of their stuff in Sardinia today. Does that mean they are from there? No.
Just gives a strong hunch
So there was at least partial influence
Good to know
Well sure. The Bronze Age might seem primitive to us, but we have to remember that once humans reached the Bronze Age that made us thee most advanced species to ever exist. Ever.
They were figuring out wind directions, seasons, coastal charts, not sure about star charts yet but who knows. These little tiny civilizations were all interacting with one another.
"Oh, you're wearing PURPLE TOGAS?! Where can I buy them? I've never seen one before."
>I can sell you this one, and I can bring ten more from Tyre for a price
Within a year, purple togas are all the rage across Anatolia, or Minos, or Egypt, or wherever. They were all learning from one another.
"You took a bunch of bronze and did WHAT with is?"
>We made a long metal blade from it. See? Cuts through meat like it does wheat stalks.
There must have been thousands of languages, hundreds of religions, and many more diverse things going on back then. It must have been a hell of a time to be alive because despite living in the Bronze Age, some nomads still lived as if they were in the Stone Age.
Kind of like how we in the First World peek at uncontacted native tribes in awe
Thank you for all your pics and descriptions. been lurking. thx bronze age bro
People fought major wars too. A few thousand warriors gathered in what is now Germany for reasons that we still do not know.
Seriously, in a time when a village with 100 able bodied men could arm them with spears was considered strong there was a battle involving thousands. Some came as far as Greece. GREECE.
Despite bronze weapons being on the scene, y'know, it's the Bronze Age and all, most of the weapons were not metal. Wood and stone were still prevalent.
Must have been insane to try and fight one of these fellows armed with nothing more than a wooden baseball bat.
sciencemag.org
If you have not read up on it, here is a good link
Anytime
Once the Bronze Age was nearing its end, many cultures had entire factories dedicated to casting bronze weapons, tools and armor. Bronze could be cast with amazing precision and strength in the right hands.
It was an amazing process though. It had to be mined from somewhere. It was either purified on site into ingots or just shipped as is to the city. There, the metal was purified or melted down if pure already.
The molten metal was then put into prepared clay casts. These casts had to be prepared well in advance by trained sculptors or the smiths themselves. Bronze swords could be cast into an almost ready to use state.
The best smiths could pump out ten swords a day. Ten. That is incredible considering how long it would take for the next big metal, iron, to be smelted and formed into any kind of sword: a couple days for one.
There is no uniform kind either. One Celtic tribe in what is now Hungary had straight blades. Their neighbors to the south however had leaf shaped blades. No doubt they KNEW how each other crafted blades... just preference I guess.
>. No doubt they KNEW how each other crafted blades... just preference I guess.
Perhaps they had the basic idea, but my impression tends to be this knowledge was very much passed down teacher to student.
the bronze age is really interesting and i didnt really know much about it prior to sitting down and reading about it this year. now i think it's one of the most fascinating historical eras. especially since there's so much more of it than i was aware of.
i find the middle bronze age (the amorite period, i guess) kind of dull in comparison to the early (sumerian) and late (egyptian new kingdom/hittites/middle assyrian empire/kassite babylon/mitanni) periods. now i'm spending more time going back and reading about prehistory and that's just as fascinating if a little more dry.
WE
This thread has gven me a new appreciation for the Bronze Age. Very interesting stuff.
Can you recommend me any academic works that go into further detail about the civilizations that existed during this period? Is there any kind of Bronze Age encyclopedia that briefly or in-detail covers all the known tribes and societies that existed at this time and what we know of them? Thanks.
Nuragics used wells as fridges, inside them archaeologists have found grape seeds, melon seeds, mulberry seeds and other types of seeds.
These finds have surprised archaeologists since the seeds have been dated to 1350-1100 bc, but before these finds it was thought that melon was spread by the Romans and Greeks in the first century AD from Egypt.
Also they've found a vase dated to 1300 bc with white wine in it, but it was thought that white wine was first produced by the French in the middle ages.
Archaeologists have also found a Nuragic aqueduct which brought water to a settlement and the nearby sanctuary.
They also had fountains, ritual baths and such, so they did have some basic knowledge of hydraulics.
No, they were distinct ethnicities, but Nuragics and Myceneans did often interact, this is why Mycenean and Cypriot materials have been found in Sardinia and vice versa Nuragic pottery was found in Crete, Cyprus, Sicily and elsewhere.
So which of these civilizations were black?
Seima-Turbino phenomenon
Finns were kangz
>She was tall
How tall was she?
The Nok culture some 4000 years later.
For the love of god will you stop feeding memecunts with (You)s. You are complicit in their shitposting.
>It must have been a hell of a time to be alive because despite living in the Bronze Age, some nomads still lived as if they were in the Stone Age.
I was always struck by Chinese mythology acknowledging that they used to be primitive barbarian people before they developed civilization. "Yeah, we used to wear animal furs and live in caves like savages before these legendary figures discovered how to farm and write and make proper clothing" You get Promethean figures in many myths but a huge component of early Chinese mythology seems to have been "Thank heaven we are not like those barbarians anymore!"
I always found it weird how so many great figures or peoples always tried to tie their greatness to some other factor like "it was heavenly mandate" or "we're descended from gods" rather than the actual fact that "we just kicked ass despite our humble beginnings, it was all us"
Like the whole of a "self-made man" wasn't even a thing
Dude. Kicking ass, being filial, and being just pretty much gets you Mandate of Heaven. Not the other way around.
If you read the Manifestos of Accession of a lot of Chinese Emperors, they say something like
>Country was in danger, we had to do something about it.
>We have the power to make things right, despite being simple peasants.
>We succeeded and thus heaven shows favor upon our sacrifices.
And so on.
Hell, the First Chinese Emperor was stone cold "You can't govern yourselves, so here I am."
>Anime v1
bump
If you're gonna bump at least post something mang.
If you rule bacause you could kill anyone that tried to stop you, what is going to stop ambitious warlords and usurpers from doing the same to you?
Most of these "devine right"kind of setups are in place to give the sitting monarchs some legitimacy, and weaken the position of any contenders to the throne.
the chinese mandate of haven is kind of the odd one out in this bunch, aa the ruling dynasty only maintains the mandate as long as things go smooth. once hunger or rebellion or whatever happens and the country is in chaos, obviously the heavens are displeased with the emperor,, and a new dynasty is needed.
WE what?
Seima-Turbino actually were probably Satemic Indo-Europeans who gave Germanic languages their Satemic substrate.
They also seem to have genocided the Kiukaistenculture in Finland and Sweden because it disappears simultaneously with the arrival of these nomadic smiths.
Your daily reminder that bronze is the most aesthetically pleasing practical metal and its decline was a tragedy to beauty
>timetravel will never be a thing
>I can never go see bronze age culture for myself
Just gas me already
I've always liked that Qin Shi Huangdi, the founder of "China" as a thing, whose life is to this day impacting the Chinese culturally, politically, and linguistically, is openly accepted as one of histories villains by his own fucking people.
On the bright side, you are closer to understanding the Bronze Age today than anyone else aside from people who actually lived in it. In fact you know more than they do, since they had a very limited geographic and cultural knowledge of the societies around them.
While I disagree that he really was a villain as there is plenty of evidence for people to villainize him during his time ( pissed off the Confucianists who later gained power, destroyed the feudal nobility to irreperability, outlawed slavery, established meritocracy and opened government service to commoners = all this pissing off the surviving nobility which toppled his dynasty) there is an acknowledgement in popular Chinese history th that he was an oppressive figure.
However, popularly, the Chinese do see him as a necessary evil to end the shitshow that was the Warring States. If you managed to watch Zhang Yimou's "Hero," western audiences scoffed at the scene when the [spoiler]assassin refuses to kill a supposed tyrant because one country under a despot is better than an eternity of war[/spoiler], but holy shit, was it a view that went against meme Chinese history.
Bronze Age
Silver Age
Gold Age
>these pills are fuckin shit hot lad
recommended books on the bronze age? asking this here so it doesnt get lost in the book thread
A History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000 - 323 BC
>studded
>leather
legitimizing one's rule in one way or another has been a fundamental part of society since the beginning, and it will likely continue until its end.
Calling yourself a god-king works well because it is gods that the people were most in awe for.
The ancient Irish were master smiths, I like the rapier in pic related dated to around 1500BC, which then was replaced by the short fat swords so associated with the ancient world.
Wow, impressing.
It was made of leather and bronze actually.
>tfw in 3000 years they will discover 1000s of ancient tiger tanks lodged in the earth somewhere in russia and have no idea what happened.
>Tuatha de Danaan
>Ancient Irish
Bronze Age is so fascinating, what are some good books, documentaries or podcasts on the subject. Is there any historian before Herodotus who wrote about the Bronze Age?
okay, this made me laugh a bit too loudly
>tfw you will never be one of these dudes doing epic elderscrolls-tier shit
SO YOU SAYIN WE WUZ CHINESE N SHIET?
those are fishing tools
trojan war
Not him, but those are rapiers.
>oi fuck off with the whip m8
DAS RITE
So did the girls all walk around with their tits out like that?