Visualizing Advanced Bronze Age Civilizations

Angela

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Since I'm reading about the collapse of the Bronze Age, I thought I should check to see what's available on line in terms of visualizing these cultures.

This film about the Minoan civilization by Bettany Hughes doesn't go into very much depth, but there are nice scenes of the setting, the ruins themselves, and some of the artifacts and material culture, including a great recreation of one of their ships...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXjbvB4w_no

I love 3D recreations. This is the palace at Knossos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XJd88cTRsU

A virtual reality tour of Mycenaean civilization.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZghtMHBpdVI
 
Since I'm reading about the collapse of the Bronze Age, I thought I should check to see what's available on line in terms of visualizing these cultures.

This film about the Minoan civilization by Bettany Hughes doesn't go into very much depth, but there are nice scenes of the setting, the ruins themselves, and some of the artifacts and material culture, including a great recreation of one of their ships...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXjbvB4w_no

I love 3D recreations. This is the palace at Knossos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XJd88cTRsU

A virtual reality tour of Mycenaean civilization.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZghtMHBpdVI

Thanks, Angela. I think it would be fascinating if we could go back in time and live in Knossos or one of those Mycenean palaces. Of course, 99% of the population would have lived a life of drudgery in one of the many dusty villages that made the life of the elite possible, and I doubt if that was much fun. However, the average people from that time period probably left so few traces that archeologists can't tell us much about them.
 
Thanks, Angela. I think it would be fascinating if we could go back in time and live in Knossos or one of those Mycenean palaces. Of course, 99% of the population would have lived a life of drudgery in one of the many dusty villages that made the life of the elite possible, and I doubt if that was much fun. However, the average people from that time period probably left so few traces that archeologists can't tell us much about them.

I guess my romanticism is showing? :) When other girls were playing with dolls, I wanted to be a female Indiana Jones type archaeologist.

You're absolutely right, of course, in that the lives of most human beings, past, and even to some extent, present, are lives of drudgery. I know something of the backbreaking work that it takes to wrest a living from the soil. Still, so long as you had some autonomy, and taxes and payments to landlords weren't too onerous, and you had your family and your community, there was a certain satisfaction, even a joy in that kind of life, or at least so I've been told. I tend to think it's because physical labor is good for the mind and the soul as well as the body, as is a connection to the rhythms of nature, close bonds with family and community, and a ritual that makes sense of it all.

I think I've always been drawn to the culture of Crete in particular because those frescoes seem to portray a happy, healthy, athletic and, from their artifacts, artistic people living in harmony with their surroundings, their community and their gods (and goddesses).

You can tell so much about a people from their art works...even the fish and animals seem happy!
Akrotiri_dolphins.jpg


crete-fresco.jpg


And their city...
Minoan_Miniature_Frieze_Admirals_Flotilla_Fresco_Art_Thera_Scene_650px.jpg




And could they be any more lovely, and sophisticated, and elegant, at least some of them...no wonder a French archaeologist labeled one of the women "La Parisienne"! I personally like this one the best, however. :)

Minoan_Adorants_Fresco_Art_Closeup_650px.jpg


I do know things took a turn for the worse with climate change and famine, and there's even some indication of human sacrifice at that time, but as ancient civilizations go, I like this one.
 

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