Bronze Age | EPFL Graph Search

Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?

Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of GraphSearch.

The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second principal period of the three-age system proposed in 1836 by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen for classifying and studying ancient societies and history. It is also considered the second phase, of three, in the Metal Ages. An ancient civilization is deemed to be part of the Bronze Age because it either produced bronze by smelting its own copper and alloying it with tin, arsenic, or other metals, or traded other items for bronze from production areas elsewhere. Bronze is harder and more durable than the other metals available at the time, allowing Bronze Age civilizations to gain a technological advantage. While terrestrial iron is naturally abundant, the higher temperature required for smelting, , in addition to the greater difficulty of working with the metal, placed it out of reach of common use until the end of the second millennium BC. Tin's low melting point of and copper's relatively moderate melting point of placed them within the capabilities of the Neolithic pottery kilns, which date back to 6,000 BC and were able to produce temperatures greater than . Copper and tin ores are rare, since there were no tin bronzes in Western Asia before trading in bronze began in the 3rd millennium BC. Worldwide, the Bronze Age generally followed the Neolithic period, with the Chalcolithic serving as a transition. Bronze Age cultures differed in their development of writing. According to archaeological evidence, cultures in Mesopotamia (cuneiform script) and Egypt (hieroglyphs) developed the earliest practical writing systems. The Bronze Age is said to have ended with the Late Bronze Age collapse, a time of widespread societal collapse during the 12th century BC, between 1200 and 1150. The collapse affected a large area of the Eastern Mediterranean (North Africa and Southeast Europe) and the Near East, in particular Egypt, eastern Libya, the Balkans, the Aegean, Anatolia, and the Caucasus.

About this result

This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.

Related concepts (716)

Related courses (35)

Related lectures (192)

MATH-233: Probability and statistics

The course gives an introduction to probability and statistics for physicists.

MATH-447: Risk, rare events and extremes

Modelling of rare events, such as stock market crashes, storms and catastrophic structural failures, is important. This course will describe the special models and methods that are relevant to such mo

MATH-115(a): Advanced linear algebra II

L'objectif du cours est d'introduire les notions de base de l'algèbre linéaire et de démontrer rigoureusement les résultats principaux de ce sujet.

Linear Algebra: Orthogonal Bases and Hermitian Forms

Covers orthogonal bases and Hermitian forms in linear algebra.

Estimating R: Maximum Likelihood Method

Explores estimating parameters in statistical models using the maximum likelihood method and the method of moments.

Exception Handling in Python

Covers exception handling in Python, including try, raise, except, else, and finally blocks, with examples.

Neolithic

The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Greek νέος 'new' and λίθος 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Europe, Asia and Africa. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts of the world. This "Neolithic package" included the introduction of farming, domestication of animals, and change from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to one of settlement. The term 'Neolithic' was coined by Sir John Lubbock in 1865 as a refinement of the three-age system.

Bronze Age

Bronze

Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids such as arsenic or silicon. These additions produce a range of alloys that may be harder than copper alone, or have other useful properties, such as strength, ductility, or machinability. The archaeological period in which bronze was the hardest metal in widespread use is known as the Bronze Age.