Bronze Age - shortly about culture and art

The Bronze Age was the second late period of the metal age. It covers the centuries from XXV to XI BC. And conditionally divided into three stages:

• Early - XXV through the XVII centuries.
• Middle - XVII through XV centuries.
• Late - XV through IX centuries.

The bronze age is characterized by the improvement of tools and hunting, but so far scientists can not understand how ancient people came to the idea of melting copper ore in a metallurgical way. Bronze became the first metal obtained by alloying tin and copper, often with the addition of antimony or arsenic, and superior in properties to soft copper: the melting point of copper is 1000 ° C, and bronze is about 900 ° C. Such temperatures were achieved in small crucible furnaces with a sharp bottom and thick walls. Forms for casting tools and hunting were made of soft stone, and liquid metal was poured with clay spoons.

The development of bronze casting led to the improvement of productive forces: some shepherd tribes moved to nomadic cattle breeding, and the settled ones continued to develop and moved to plow farming, which was the beginning of social changes within the tribes. In addition, the culture of the Bronze Age begins to change: patriarchal relations are established in the family - the power of the older generation is strengthened, and the role and position of the husband in the family is strengthened. Witnesses are the twin burials of a husband and wife with traces of a violent death of a woman.

The stratification of society begins, social and property differences between prosperous and poor layers become more and more: large multi-room houses with a clear planning appear, rich settlements grow, concentrating around themselves smaller ones. Gradually expanding, they form the first cities in which trade and crafts are actively developing, writing is being born in the Bronze Age. This was a very important moment.

The art of the Bronze Age developed along with the improvement of the instruments of labor: the rock art acquired clear, stern outlines, and the geometric patterns replaced the colorful drawings of the beasts. In this period, there is a sculpture, ornaments (in jewelry tools and household items), plastic. It was in the ornaments that the symbolic pictorial language appeared, which in each genus had its own. Ornamental painting wore the character of amulets: protected vessels for food from evil spirits, attracted abundance, gave health to the family.

Interesting are the famous paintings of Karakol, depicting strange creatures in whose figures the animal and human features interwoven. The combination of full face and profile in one human image brings these figures closer to the ancient Egyptian art - all these pictures reflected the cosmogonic representations of the ancients about the origin of man, about the interactions of people and gods in the transition to the world of the dead. Such drawings were made with black, white and red paint on the walls of funerary boxes, and traces of drawings made with red paint were found on the skulls of the deceased. In addition to the necessary tools, the ancient people learned to make cast and forged bronze, gold copper ornaments, which were decorated with chasing, stones, bone, skin and shells.

The bronze age was the precursor of iron, which raised civilization to a higher level of development.