Jim's Blog

Jim's BLOG

To : Marshalltown Commentary
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Bronze Age
We all know of the Dark Ages between the fall of Roman and the Renaissance. But even historians know little of the Dark Age that followed the collapse of the Bronze Age of a few hundred years until classic antiquity was resurrected on the old. The Bronze Age ended with the civilized worlds of the Hittite Empire, Babylon and Egypt. We know much about them because of a level of literacy in hieroglyphics and cuneiform recording trade, events and laws. About 1200 BC this all ended There was significant disruption; empires and civilizations fell ; literacy virtually ended. Historians can only hint at the cross currents of the period of several hundred years. Aramaean in 1200BC replaced Chaldean who replaced Babylonians. Phygians replaced Hittites about 1100BC were in turn destroyed by the Cimmerians. Sea Peoples conquered Egypt. Minoans were replaced by Myceniaeans who were destroyed by Dorians.

The whole Bronze Age did not fall to tribes of wild barbarians coming with new weapons, but fell from an excess of government spending on palaces to show their power, bureaucracy and temples, and armies and wars until each of the empires were so weak they collapsed with the people and nation unable to provide for themselves. There were frontier tribes ready to move in. Frontier folks were actually brought in to serve, often as soldiers, and once inside they observed the weaknesses and easily took over during times of increasing unrest. Whole civilizations just disappeared as migrants moved in and great nations were absorbed out of existence. The capital cities were burned and new built in the image of the replacement people. These new kingdoms repeated the cycle and were replaced by others. The Bronze Age went dark age for several centuries until the Classic Civilizations of the Iron Age grew out of the ashes and conquered the world (ie. Alexander, Greece, Rome) . They offered grandeur in government,, dispensed perks to the people, and spent tax monies as if there were no tomorrow until there was none and collapsed into another Dark Age. Centuries later a Renaissance developed into the Technological Age which spread over the earth.

There is extreme correlation with today and our future. Government grandeur, liberal gifts to the people, financial irresponsibility, social leisure, mass migration into centers of civilisation by people from the frontiers. It is hard to imagine a new Dark Age with of several hundred years of chaos, destruction, war, poverty and hard times. But history says we can look forward to both that and to the light at the end of those centuries, to a rebirth, to a new awakening, to a civilization created by The Singularity and peopled by robots.

Jim