 | History of the Levant: Encyclopedia II - History of the Levant - The Bronze age
History of the Levant - The Bronze age
The first cities started developing in southern Mesopotamia during the 4th millennium BC. With these ties of religion began to replace ties of kinship as the basis for society. Each city had a patron god, worshipped in a massive central temple called a ziggurat, and was ruled by a priest-king (ishakku). Society became more segmented and specialized and capable of coordinated projects like irrigation and warfare.
Along with cities came a number of advances in technology. By around the 31st century BC, writing, the wheel, and other such innovations had been introduced. By now the Sumerian Peoples of south Mesopotamia were all organized into a variety of independent City-states, such as Ur and Uruk, which by around 26th century BC had begun to coalesce into larger political units. By accommodating the conquered people's gods, religion became more polytheistic and government became somewhat more secular; the title of lugal, big man, appears along side the earlier religious titles, although his primary duty is still the worship of the state gods.
This process came to its natural conclusion with the development of the first empires around the 24th century BC. A people called the Akkadians invaded the valley under Sargon I and established their supremacy over the Sumerians. They were followed by the empires of Ur during the 21st and 2nd centuries BC and the Old Kingdom of Babylonia during the 17th and 18th centuries BC.
Parallel developments were meanwhile occurring in Egypt, which by the 32nd century BC had been unified to form the Old Kingdom of Egypt, and amongst the peoples of the Indus Valley in north-western India. All of these civilizations lie in fertile river valleys where agriculture is relatively easy once dams and irrigation are constructed to control the flood waters.
This started to change around the end of the third millennium as cities started to spread to the nearby hilly country: among the Assyrians in north Mesopotamia, the Canaanites in Syria-Palestine, to the Minoans in Crete, and to the Hittites in eastern Anatolia. Around this same time various immigrants, such as the Hittites and Achaeans, started appearing around the peripheries of civilization.
These groups are associated with the appearance of the light two-wheeled war chariot and typically with Indo-European languages. Horses and chariots require a lot of time and upkeep, so their use was mainly confined to a small nobility. These are the "heroic" societies familiar to us from epics like the Iliad and the Ramayana.
Around the 17th and 16th centuries BC most of the older centres had been overrun. Babylonia was conquered by the Kassites, and the civilization of the Indus Valley was annihilated by the Indo-Aryans. Their kin, the Mitanni, subjugated Assyria and for a time menaced the Hittite kingdom, but were defeated by the two around the middle of the 14th. Various Achaean kingdoms developed in Greece, most notably that of Mycenae, and by the 15th century BC were dominant over the older Minoan cities. And the Semitic Hyksos used the new technologies to occupy Egypt, but were expelled, leaving the empire of the New Kingdom to develop in their wake.
In the 13th century BC all of these powers suddenly collapsed. Cities all around the eastern Mediterranean were sacked within a span of a few decades by assorted raiders. The Achaean kingdoms disappeared, and the Hittite empire was destroyed. Egypt repelled its attackers with only a major effort, and over the next century shrank to its territorial core, its central authority permanently weakened. Only Assyria escaped significant damage.
Other related archives10th century BC, 114, 11th, 12th century BC, 13th century BC, 141 BC, 1453, 14th, 15th century BC, 16th, 16th century BC, 17th, 18th, 21st, 224, 24th century BC, 26th century BC, 2nd, 2nd century BC, 31st century BC, 323 BC, 32nd century BC, 338 BC, 391, 449 BC, 476, 492, 4th millennium BC, 550s BC, 610, 636, 64 BC, 650, 7th century BC, 9th century BC, Achaeans, Agriculture, Akkadians, Alexander the Great, Anatolia, Antigonids, Arabian Desert, Arabian Peninsula, Arabs, Arameans, Assyria, Assyrians, Babylonia, Bactria, Bronze age, Byzantine Empire, Byzantines, Canaan, Canaanites, Caucasus Mountains, Christianity, Cilicia, City-states, Crete, David, Egypt, Gaza Strip, Greece, Greek, Hadrian, Hebrews, Heraclius, History, History of Egypt, History of Islam, History of Israel, History of Jordan, History of Lebanon, History of Palestine, History of Syria, History of ancient Israel and Judah, History of present-day nations and states, History of the Middle East, Hittite, Hittites, Hyksos, Iliad, India, Indo-Aryans, Indo-European, Indus Valley, Iran, Islam, Israel, Israelites, Jerusalem, Jews, Jordan, Judaism, Khosrau II of Persia, Kingdom of Israel, Lebanon, Levant, Lydia, Macedon, Manichaeism, Medes, Media, Mediterranean Sea, Mesopotamia, Middle East, Minoans, Mitanni, Mycenae, Names of the Levant, Natufian culture, Neolithic, New Kingdom, Old Kingdom of Egypt, Palestine, Parni, Parthia, Parthian, Persia, Persians, Philistines, Phocas, Phoenician, Phoenician alphabet, Pre-Pottery Neolithic A, Ptolemies, Ramayana, Roman Republic, Rome, Sassanids, Seleucids, Seleucus I Nicator, Sinai, Southwest Asia, Stone age, Sumerians, Syria, Taurus Mountains, Trajan, Ur, Xenophon, Zoroastrianism, coalesce, militias, monotheist, nomadic, satrapies, united, ziggurat
 Adapted from the Wikipedia article "The Bronze age", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki |
