The Bronze Age is known for its epic heroes, grand civilizations — the ruins of some still stand today — and of course, the increasing development of precious objects as some cultures became more socially stratified.
At the simplest level, the term “Bronze Age” is used to denote the period when cultures in Europe, Asia, and Africa began the first major use of metalworking. The Bronze Age roughly lasted from 3000 B.C.E. to 1200 B.C.E., after the Stone Age and before the Iron Age in most cultures.
Aside from advances in working with metal, the period often includes a number of other important developments in human societies such as writing systems, urbanization, and more complex state systems. Other technologies like the plow and the wheel also appeared in this time.
What kinds of things were considered luxurious by people of this age? Luxury, like beauty, is a perception of the beholder, and some cultures valued certain things more than others. Just the same, items that humans of the past cherished were often quite different from what we might consider valuable today. We’ve picked out a few strange but striking Bronze Age artifacts to highlight below.
