Bronze Age

The Bronze Age marked the first time humans started to work with metal. Bronze tools and weapons soon replaced earlier stone versions. Ancient Sumerians in the Middle East may have been the first people to enter the Bronze Age. Humans made many technological advances during the Bronze Age, including the first writing systems and the invention of the wheel. In the Middle East and parts of Asia, the Bronze Age lasted from roughly 3300 to 1200 B.C., ending abruptly with the near-simultaneous collapse of several prominent Bronze Age civilizations.

Humans may have started smelting copper as early as 6,000 B.C. in the Fertile Crescent, a region often called “the cradle of civilization” and a historical area of the Middle East where agriculture and the world’s first cities emerged.

Ancient Sumer may have been the first civilization to start adding tin to copper to make bronze. Bronze was harder and more durable than copper, which made bronze a better metal for tools and weapons. Archaeological evidence suggests the transition from copper to bronze took place around 3300 B.C. The invention of bronze brought an end to the Stone Age, the prehistoric period dominated by the use of stone tools and weaponry.

Different human societies entered the Bronze Age at different times. Civilizations in Greece began working with bronze before 3000 B.C., while the British Isles and China entered the Bronze Age much later—around 1900 B.C. and 1600 B.C., respectively.

By the fourth millennium BCE, Sumerians had established roughly a dozen city-states throughout ancient Mesopotamia, including Eridu and Uruk in what is now southern Iraq.

Sumerians called themselves the Sag-giga, the “black-headed ones.” They were among the first to use bronze. They also pioneered the use of levees and canals for irrigation. Sumerians invented cuneiform script, one of the earliest forms of writing and built large stepped pyramid temples called ziggurats.

Sumerians celebrated art and literature. The 3,000-line poem “Epic of Gilgamesh” follows the adventures of a Sumerian king as he battles a forest monster and quests after the secrets of eternal life. Babylonia rose to prominence in the Bronze Age around 1900 B.C., in present-day Iraq. Its capital, the city of Babylon, was first occupied by people known as the Amorites.

The Amorite King Hammurabi created one of the world’s earliest and most-complete written legal codes. The Code of Hammurabi helped Babylon surpass the Sumerian City of Ur as the region’s most powerful city.

The Bronze Age ended abruptly around 1200 B.C. in the Middle East, North Africa and Mediterranean Europe. Historians don’t know for sure what caused the Bronze Age collapse, but many believe the transition was sudden, violent and culturally disruptive.

Major Bronze Age civilizations, including Mycenaean Greece, the Hittite Empire in Turkey and Ancient Egypt fell within a short period of time. Ancient cities were abandoned, trade routes were lost and literacy declined throughout the region.

Scholars believe a combination of natural catastrophes may have brought down several Bronze Age empires. Archaeological evidence suggests a succession of severe droughts in the eastern Mediterranean region over a 150-year period from 1250 to 1100 B.C. likely figured prominently in the collapse. Earthquakes, famine, sociopolitical unrest and invasion by nomadic tribes may also have played a role.

History.com