THE BRONZE AGE
A little less than 5,500 years ago, the Sumerian society in ancient Mesopotamia – modern-day Southern Iraq – developed the ability to smelt copper and alloy it with other metals, initially arsenic but later zinc and tin. The Bronze Age was born and, with it, the birth of civilisation as we know it: over the next 1,000 years the Sumerians – and those around them – would develop a written alphabet, central government, medicine, religion, laws, pottery, architecture and economic administration.
The Sumerians
