Bronze Age

(proper noun)

A period in a civilization's development when the most advanced metalworking has developed the techniques of smelting copper from natural outcroppings and allows it to cast bronze.

Related Terms

  • lapis lazuli
  • steatite

Examples of Bronze Age in the following topics:

  • Art of the Bronze Age

    • The Bronze Age is part of the three-age system of archaeology, which divides human technological prehistory into three periods: the Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age.
    • Bronze Age cultures differed in their development of the first writing.
    • In Ancient Egypt, the Bronze Age begins in the Protodynastic period, circa 3,150 BCE.
    • Ireland is also known for a relatively large number of Early Bronze Age burials.
    • Assorted bronze Celtic castings dating from the Bronze Age, found as part of a cache, probably intended for recycling.
  • Bronze Age Advancements in Metallurgy

    • An important development of the Bronze Age was the evolution of metallurgy, which resulted in the discovery of bronze.
    • In approximately the fourth millennium BCE in Sumer, India, and China, it was discovered that by combining copper and tin, a superior metal could be made, an alloy called bronze, representing the beginning of the Bronze Age.
    • In the Bronze Age, two forms of bronze were commonly used.
    • The Únětice culture arose at the beginning of the Central European Bronze Age (2300-1600 BCE).
    • A hoard of axes from the Bronze Age found in modern Germany.
  • Greek Dark Ages

    • The Late Bronze Age collapse, or Age of Calamities, was a transition in the Aegean Region, Eastern Mediterranean, and Southwestern Asia that took place from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age.
    • The palace economy of the Aegean Region that had characterized the Late Bronze Age, was replaced, after a hiatus, by the isolated village cultures of the Greek Dark Ages— a period that lasted for more than 400 years.
    • Many historians attribute the fall of the Mycenaeans, and overall Bronze Age collapse, to climatic or environmental catastrophe, combined with an invasion by the Dorians or Sea Peoples—a group of people who possibly originated from different parts of the Mediterranean like the Black Sea, though their origins remain obscure.
    • None of the Mycenaean palaces of the Late Bronze Age survived, with the possible exception of the Cyclopean fortifications on the Acropolis of Athens.
    • Excavations of Dark Age communities, such as Nichoria in the Peloponnese, have shown how a Bronze Age town was abandoned in 1150 BCE, but then reemerged as a small village cluster by 1075 BCE.
  • Bronze Age Rock Carvings

    • However, some carvings date to the Bronze Age.
    • Glyphs from the Nordic Bronze Age (c. 1700-500 BCE) seem to refer to some form of territorial boundary between tribes, in addition to possible religious meanings.
  • The Norse

    • "Norse art" defines the artistic legacies of Scandinavia during the Germanic Iron Age, the Viking Age, and the Nordic Bronze Age.
    • "Norse art" is a blanket term for the artistic styles in Scandinavia during the Germanic Iron Age, the Viking Age, and the Nordic Bronze Age.
    • This could involve various types of design such as bulls, dolphins, gold lions, drakes spewing fire out of their nose, human beings cast in gold and silver, and other unidentifiable animals cast in bronze metal.
  • Advancements Under the Shang

    • During the Shang Dynasty, bronze casting became more sophisticated.
    • The Shang ruled China during its Bronze Age; perhaps the most important technology at the time was bronze casting.
    • The Shang cast bronze objects by creating molds out of clay, carving a design into the clay, and then pouring molten bronze into the mold.
    • They allowed the bronze to cool and then broke the clay off, revealing a completed bronze object.
    • Bronze objects were also buried in the tombs of Shang elite.
  • The Hittites

    • After c. 1180 BCE, the empire came to an end in the Bronze Age collapse, splintering into several independent "Neo-Hittite" city-states, some surviving until the eighth century BCE.
    • Although they belonged to the Bronze Age, the Hittites were the forerunners of the Iron Age.
    • The Bronze Age Hittite and Luwian dialects evolved into the sparsely attested Lydian, Lycian and Carian languages.
    • Bronze religious standard symbolizing the universe, used by Hittite priests, from the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations.
  • The Stone Age

    • Stone Age art illustrates early human creativity through small portable objects, cave paintings, and early sculpture and architecture.
    • The Stone Age is the first of the three-age system of archaeology, which divides human technological prehistory into three periods: the Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age.
    • The art of the Stone Age represents the first accomplishments in human creativity, preceding the invention of writing.
    • The advent of metalworking in the Bronze Age brought additional media available for use in making art, an increase in stylistic diversity, and the creation of objects that did not have any obvious function other than art.
    • By the Iron Age, civilizations with writing had arisen from Ancient Egypt to Ancient China.
  • Ottonian Metalwork in the Early European Middle Ages

    • Ottonian metalwork ranged from jewel-encrusted objects of precious metals to large-scale bronze reliefs of stylized yet dramatic figures.
    • The Ottonians were renowned for their metalwork, producing bejeweled book covers and massive bronze church doors with relief carvings depicting biblical scenes, a process so complex that it would not be repeated until the Renaissance.
    • They contain biblical scenes from the Gospels and the Book of Genesis in bronze relief, each cast in a single piece.
    • These bronze doors bear relief sculptures depicting the history of humanity from Adam to Christ.
    • Bernward had this victory column cast from bronze in conscious imitation of Trajan's column and the Column of Marcus Aurelius in Rome.
  • Ceramics and Bronze in the Yayoi Period

    • Artifacts brought to the Japanese islands by the Yayoi people bore Chinese and Korean influences and ushered Japan into the Iron Age.
    • The Yayoi period is an Iron Age era in the history of Japan traditionally dated 300 BCE to 300 CE.
    • Techniques in metallurgy based on the use of bronze and iron were also introduced to Japan in this period.
    • Three major symbols of Yayoi culture include the bronze mirror, the bronze sword, and the royal seal stone.
    • Yayoi craft specialists also made bronze ceremonial bells, known as dōtaku.
Subjects
  • Accounting
  • Algebra
  • Art History
  • Biology
  • Business
  • Calculus
  • Chemistry
  • Communications
  • Economics
  • Finance
  • Management
  • Marketing
  • Microbiology
  • Physics
  • Physiology
  • Political Science
  • Psychology
  • Sociology
  • Statistics
  • U.S. History
  • World History
  • Writing

Except where noted, content and user contributions on this site are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 with attribution required.