From Bronze Age to Iron Age: Anatolia and Greece
Chapter – 6
- During the third millennium BC (between 3000 and 2000 BC), several Bronze Age cultures emerged in Anatolia, Greece, and other parts of the eastern Mediterranean.
- By 2000 BC, almost a thousand years after the rise of Sumerian and Egyptian civilizations, conditions were ripe for the emergence of new Bronze Age civilizations in the region.
- The historical development of Anatolian and eastern Mediterranean societies reached a stage suitable for the transition to civilization.
- The presence of two major Bronze Age civilizations, Mesopotamia and Egypt, had a profound influence on neighboring peoples, many of whom were less developed.
- Internal changes within Anatolian and eastern Mediterranean societies were crucial in their development.
- An extensive trading network had been established, involving multiple communities in the region.
- After c. 2500 BC, the second half of the millennium saw significant tribal movements and displacement, including groups broadly referred to as the Indo-Europeans.
- West Asia and the eastern Mediterranean experienced constant migration of various tribes over nearly 1500 years.
- The history of many of these tribes is obscure, but their interactions with settled agrarian societies were occasionally recorded.
- Scholars classify these tribes based on their language, dividing them into two broad groups: Indo-European and Semitic.
- There are also some linguistic groups that don’t belong to either category.
- Prominent Semitic tribes included the Amorites of Syria, who contributed to the formation of the Babylonian empirein Mesopotamia, and later the Canaanites in Syria and Palestine.
- A branch of the Canaanites, the Phoenicians, played a significant role in Mediterranean history.
- Among the Indo-Europeans, notable tribes included the Indo-Aryans, Nesians (Hittites), Greeks, and Mitanni.
- The Hurrians, a people settled in northern Iraq and Syria, spoke a language unrelated to either Indo-European or Semitic.
- Over time, an Indo-European group emerged within the Hurrian population, the Mitanni.
- By c. 1500 BC, the Mitanni had become the aristocracy among the Hurrians and worshipped deities such as Indra, Mithra, and Varuna.
- The Mitanni are credited with introducing the art of horse training from the Russian steppes and popularizing the use of the horse in West Asia.
- Another tribe, the Kassites, likely related to the Mitanni, moved toward the Zagros mountains in northern Iraq.
- The Kassite incursions into southern Mesopotamia contributed to the overthrow of the Old Babylonian empire.