The Masters of Fire. The Bronze Age in France. 2300-800 BC.
Faton| N° d'inventaire | 31738 |
| Format | 22 x 26 |
| Détails | 183 p., numerous color figs., paperback |
| Publication | Dijon, 2025 |
| Etat | Nine |
| ISBN | 9782878443929 |
The Bronze Age remains little known, framed by two major periods covered in schools, the Neolithic (6000 to 2300 BC) and the Iron Age (800 to 30 BC). The fifteen centuries of the Bronze Age (-2300 / - 800 BC) correspond to the invention and then the development of bronze metallurgy. This alloy results from a combination of copper and tin which gives it new qualities far superior to those of copper known from the 5th millennium BC in Eastern and Central Europe. Its fusion at around 950 °C allows castings thanks to refractory envelopes of stone or clay. Its mechanical resistance favors the manufacture of weapons (swords, spears, etc.) and tools (hammers, sickles, knives, etc.); Its beautiful gold color is used for jewelry (bracelets, torques, beads and pendants, etc.); its sound is also used for trumpets (lurs) and rattling bells. Its hammering allows the production of thin sheets of metal used for dishes, helmets and breastplates.
Copper and tin deposits are very unevenly distributed across Europe, and the materials will have to circulate across the continent for this technical revolution to affect all territories. The development of bronze metallurgy requires the presence of metal specialists: miners, "geologist" prospectors, bronze artisans, and goldsmiths. With metal, societies become more efficient because the tools are more robust; more competitive because production increases considerably; and more complex because exchanges and social relationships multiply. The art of bronze workers suggests that they are part of the social elite or close to it due to their skills.
Today, with the expansion of research driven by preventive archaeology, hundreds of excavations in France and Europe are highlighting the many innovations of this period. With this recent data, different images of the Bronze Age in France emerge: ways of being and appearing, of producing, of inhabiting, of living. The exhibition at the National Archaeology Museum, developed in partnership with the National Institute of Preventive Archaeology and the Association for the Promotion of Research on the Bronze Age, aims to present all this new data with the support of the accompanying catalog.
This millennium and a half of technical innovations from the Bronze Age definitively marked our human history. The hierarchies and specializations of this period were expressed within dispersed and rural populations in Western Europe where the sedentary peasant-herder held a prominent place. However, interconnections were established on a continental scale thanks to the amplification of exchanges and contacts, the mobility of products, ideas and knowledge, and people. The Bronze Age marked the definitive entry of metal into the society in which we still live, with the social complexities and specializations that this imposes.
The Bronze Age remains little known, framed by two major periods covered in schools, the Neolithic (6000 to 2300 BC) and the Iron Age (800 to 30 BC). The fifteen centuries of the Bronze Age (-2300 / - 800 BC) correspond to the invention and then the development of bronze metallurgy. This alloy results from a combination of copper and tin which gives it new qualities far superior to those of copper known from the 5th millennium BC in Eastern and Central Europe. Its fusion at around 950 °C allows castings thanks to refractory envelopes of stone or clay. Its mechanical resistance favors the manufacture of weapons (swords, spears, etc.) and tools (hammers, sickles, knives, etc.); Its beautiful gold color is used for jewelry (bracelets, torques, beads and pendants, etc.); its sound is also used for trumpets (lurs) and rattling bells. Its hammering allows the production of thin sheets of metal used for dishes, helmets and breastplates.
Copper and tin deposits are very unevenly distributed across Europe, and the materials will have to circulate across the continent for this technical revolution to affect all territories. The development of bronze metallurgy requires the presence of metal specialists: miners, "geologist" prospectors, bronze artisans, and goldsmiths. With metal, societies become more efficient because the tools are more robust; more competitive because production increases considerably; and more complex because exchanges and social relationships multiply. The art of bronze workers suggests that they are part of the social elite or close to it due to their skills.
Today, with the expansion of research driven by preventive archaeology, hundreds of excavations in France and Europe are highlighting the many innovations of this period. With this recent data, different images of the Bronze Age in France emerge: ways of being and appearing, of producing, of inhabiting, of living. The exhibition at the National Archaeology Museum, developed in partnership with the National Institute of Preventive Archaeology and the Association for the Promotion of Research on the Bronze Age, aims to present all this new data with the support of the accompanying catalog.
This millennium and a half of technical innovations from the Bronze Age definitively marked our human history. The hierarchies and specializations of this period were expressed within dispersed and rural populations in Western Europe where the sedentary peasant-herder held a prominent place. However, interconnections were established on a continental scale thanks to the amplification of exchanges and contacts, the mobility of products, ideas and knowledge, and people. The Bronze Age marked the definitive entry of metal into the society in which we still live, with the social complexities and specializations that this imposes.