Complete the argument.
Bronze needs copper and ______, which almost never occur together, so every Aegean palace depended on a long-distance chain for the metal that armed it. When enough links broke around 1200 BCE the network could not re-form, because no palace alone could reach the source. And ______ B vanished completely because it was a palace accounting tool: kill the institution and the skill dies with it. Greece stayed illiterate for four ______ before re-acquiring writing from the Phoenicians.
Word bank: tin · Linear · centuries · iron · decades
Hints
- The metal trade linking distant regions was the fragile element.
- Literacy was confined to administration and died with it.
Show the answer
Bronze needs copper and tin, which almost never occur together, so every Aegean palace depended on a long-distance chain for the metal that armed it. When enough links broke around 1200 BCE the network could not re-form, because no palace alone could reach the source. And Linear B vanished completely because it was a palace accounting tool: kill the institution and the skill dies with it. Greece stayed illiterate for four centuries before re-acquiring writing from the Phoenicians.
Tin, Linear, centuries. The interconnection that made them rich is what killed them, and the literacy was always thin enough to die with its employer.
Practise The Bronze Age Aegean
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More questions on The Bronze Age Aegean
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- Sort each factor in the 1200 BCE collapse.
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