The Late Bronze Age in the Middle East was a “cosmopolitan” era of shared lifestyles and technologies. Patterns of culture that had originated long before in Egypt and Mesopotamia persisted into this era. Peoples such as the Amorites, Kassites, and Chaldaeans, who migrated into the Tigris-Euphrates plain, were largely assimilated into the Sumerian-Semitic cultural tradition, adopting its language, religious beliefs, political and social institutions, and forms of artistic expression. Similarly, the Hyksos, who migrated into the Nile Delta and controlled much of Egypt for a time, adopted the ancient ways of Egypt. When the founders of the New Kingdom finally ended Hyksos domination, they reinstituted the united monarchy and the religious and cultural traditions of earlier eras.
The Late Bronze Age expansion of commerce and communication stimulated the emergence of new civilizations, including those of the Minoans and Mycenaean Greeks in the Aegean Sea. These new civilizations borrowed heavily from the technologies and cultural practices of Mesopotamia and Egypt, creating dynamic syntheses of imported and indigenous elements.
Ultimately, the very interdependence of the societies of the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean made them vulnerable to the destructions and disorder of the decades around 1200 B. c.E. The entire region slipped into a “Dark Age” of isolation, stagnation, and decline that lasted several centuries. The early centuries after 1000 B. c.E. saw a resurgence of political organization and international commerce, as well as the spread of technologies and ideas. The Assyrians created an empire of unprecedented size and diversity through superior organization and military technology, and they maintained it through terror and deportations of subject peoples.
The Israelites began as nomadic pastoralists, then settled permanently in Canaan. Conflict with the Philistines forced them to adopt a more complex political structure, and under the monarchy Israelite society grew more urban and economically stratified. While the long, slow evolution of the Israelites from wandering groups of herders to an agriculturally based monarchy followed a common pattern in ancient western Asia, the religious and ethical concepts that they formulated were unique and have had a powerful impact on world history.
After the upheavals of the Late Bronze Age, the Phoenician city-states along the coast of Lebanon flourished. Under pressure from the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the Phoenicians, with Tyre in the lead, began spreading westward into the Mediterranean. Carthage became the most important city outside the Phoenician homeland. Ruled by leading merchant families, it extended its commercial empire throughout the western Mediterranean, maintaining power through naval superiority.
The far-reaching expansion of the Assyrian Empire was the most important factor in the transformation of the ancient Middle East. The Assyrians destroyed many older states and, directly or indirectly, displaced large numbers of people. Their brutality, as well as the population shifts that resulted from their deportations, undercut support for their state. The Chaldae-ans and Medes led resistance to Assyrian rule. After the swift collapse of Assyria, the Chaldae-ans expanded the Neo-Babylonian kingdom, enlarged the city of Babylon, and presided over a cultural renaissance.
KEY TERMS
Iron Age p. 81 Hittites p. 84 Hatshepsut p. 85 Akhenaten p. 85 Ramesses II p. 86 Minoan p. 88
Mycenae p. 90 shaft graves p. 90 Linear B p. 90 Neo-Assyrian Empire p. 92 mass deportation p. 94
Library of Ashurbanipal p. 95 Israel p. 96 Hebrew Bible p. 96 First Temple p. 98 monotheism p. 99
Diaspora p. 102 Phoenicians p. 102 Carthage p. 106 Neo-Babylonian kingdom p. 109
EBOOK AND WEBSITE RESOURCES
® Primary Sources
An Assyrian Emperor's Resume; Ferocious Conquests a Specialty
Moses Descends Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments
® Interactive Maps
Map 4.1 The Middle East in the Second Millennium b. c.e.
Map 4.2 Minoan and Mycenaean Civilizations of the Aegean
Map 4.3 The Assyrian Empire
Map 4.4 Phoenicia and Israel
Map 4.5 Colonization of the Mediterranean
Plus flashcards, practice quizzes, and more. Go to:
Www. cengage. com/history/bullietearthpeople5e
SUGGESTED READING
Barber, Elizabeth Wayland. Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times. 1994. An intriguing account of textile manufacture in antiquity, with emphasis on the social implications and primary role of women.
Bryce, Trevor. The Kingdom of the Hittites, new edition. 2005. The most up-to-date treatment of the history of the Hittites.
Chadwick, John. The Mycenaean World. 1976. A still valuable reconstruction of the earliest complex Greek society by a scholar who helped to decipher the Linear B tablets.
Curtis, J. E., and J. E. Reade, eds. Art and Empire: Treasures from Assyria in the British Museum. 1995. The catalogue for a museum exhibition, with chapters relating the art to many facets of Assyrian life.
Hornung, Erik. Akhenaten and the Religion of Light. 1999. Focused on religious innovations, but deals more broadly with many facets of the reign of Akhenaten.
Krzyszkowska, O., and L. Nixon. Minoan Society. 1983. Examines the archaeological evidence for the Minoan civilization of Crete.
Kuhrt, Amelie. The Ancient Near East, c. 3000-300 b. c., 2 vols. 1995. The best introduction to the historical development of western Asia and Egypt.
Lancel, Serge. Carthage: A History. 1997. A wide-ranging treatment of Carthaginian history and civilization.
Lesko, Barbara, ed. Women's Earliest Records: From Ancient Egypt and Western Asia. 1989. A collection of papers on the experiences of women in the ancient Middle East.
Markoe, Glenn. Phoenicians. 2000. A general introduction to the Phoenicians in their homeland.
Pritchard, James B., ed. Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, 3rd ed. 1969. A large collection of primary texts in translation from ancient western Asia and Egypt.
Saggs, H. F. W. Babylonians. 1995. Devotes several chapters to this more thinly documented epoch in the history of southern Mesopotamia.
Sandars, N. K. The Sea Peoples: Warriors of the Ancient Mediterranean. 1978. Explores the disruptions and destructions in the eastern Mediterranean in the Late Bronze Age.
Sasson, Jack M., ed. Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, 4 vols. 1995. Fundamental for all periods in the ancient Middle East, with nearly two hundred articles by contemporary experts and bibliography on a wide range of topics.
Shanks, Hershel, ed. Ancient Israel: From Abraham to the Roman Destruction of the Temple (revised and expanded edition). 1999. A general historical introduction to Israel throughout antiquity, with chapters written by leading experts.
NOTES
1. Plutarch, Moralia, 799 D, trans. B. H. Warmington, Carthage (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1960), 163.
ISSUES IN WORLD HISTORY
World History
