Bronze Age -- Ancient History Encyclopedia

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6200 BC

First copper smelting in Anatolia.
3800 BC

Earliest bronze working.
3650 BC

Invention of the wheel.
3500 BC

Farming has spread across Europe.
3400 BC

Priests become the rulers of Mesopotamian cities.
c. 3000 BC

First Bronze Age settlement in Jerusalem.
2800 BC - 1900 BC

Bell beaker culture in western Europe.
2300 BC

Bronze is used in the Aegaean.
2100 BC

First ziggurats in Ur, Eridu, Uruk, and Nippur.
2000 BC

Early Greeks settle the Peloponnese.
2000 BC

Domesticated horses introduced in Mesopotamia.
2000 BC - 1500 BC

Wessex culture introduces bronze working to Britain.
1894 BC

Amorite dynasty established in Babylon.
1800 BC

Bronze working introduced to Egypt.
1795 BC - 1750 BC

Life of Hammurabi, king of Babylon.
1787 BC

Hammurabi of Babylon conquers Uruk and Isin.
1760 BC

The Code of Hammurabi: One of the earliest codes of law in the world.
1757 BC

Hammurabi of Babylon destroys Mari.
1700 BC

Horse-drawn chariots.
1680 BC

Hurrians occupy Assyria.
1595 BC

King Mursilis of the Hittites sacks Babylon. Begin of Babylonian "dark ages."
1550 BC

Kingdom of Mittani is founded.
1523 BC - 1070 BC

The New Kingdom of Egypt.
1504 BC - 1492 BC

Egyptian empire reaches greatest extent under Tuthmosis I.
1500 BC

Pastoral farming spreads across Eurasian steppes.
1500 BC

Egyptian empire extends to the Euphrates.
1472 BC

Mittani annexes Assyria.
1400 BC

Assyria regains its independence.
1328 BC

Western Mittani is conquered by the Hittites.
1100 BC

Hillforts in western Europe.

Definition

The Bronze Age is, with respect to a given prehistoric society, the period in that society when the most advanced metalworking (at least in systematic and widespread use) included smelting copper and tin from naturally-occurring outcroppings of copper and tin ores, creating a bronze alloy by melting those metals together, and casting them into bronze artifacts. The Bronze Age also included the domestication of the horse.

The place and time of the invention of bronze are controversial. It is possible that bronzing was invented independently in the Maikop culture in the North Caucasus as far back as the mid 4th millennium BC, which would make them the makers of the oldest known bronze; but others date the same Maikop artifacts to the mid 3rd millennium BC. However, the Maikop culture only had arsenic bronze, which is a naturally occurring alloy. Tin bronze, which developed later, requires more sophisticated production techniques; tin has to be mined (mainly as the tin ore cassiterite) and smelted separately, then added to molten copper to make the bronze alloy.

Based on Wikipedia content that has been reviewed, edited, and republished under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0 license. Last reviewed by Jan van der Crabben. Please help and improve this definition!