Early Iron Age · 1100-900 BC

After the Bronze Age collapse: a new world

Around 1200 BC the great Bronze Age kingdoms fell: the Hittite Empire vanished, Mycenaean palaces burned and Egypt barely held on. Students explore the smaller world that grew in the ruins, where iron, the alphabet and new peoples such as the Aramaeans got their start.

Teach it live New Open on the map
Length
50 minutes
Ages
11–14
On the map
3 steps, 1150 BC to 1000 BC
Live lesson
7 rounds, 3 on the map
Worksheet
Two A4 pages, with Classroom
You need
A projector; phones for live

Live lesson · new in Classroom

Teach it live. The class answers on their phones.

Put the board on the projector. Students join with a six-digit code, no account needed, and tap the map: where was the frontier, where did the grain come from. Their pins drop in together when you reveal, and the closest student takes the round.

€19 per month: every lesson live, every worksheet, cancel anytime. Rome at its height runs live for free.

A live lesson on the projector: the class's pins on the map around Alexandria, the closest students listed beside it A student's phone: the question and a map to tap
7 rounds
3 places to find on the map, quiz questions, a class vote and a one-line answer.
About 15 minutes
Run it as the map step, or to open the discussion. You move on with the space bar.
A report
Every answer, per student and per round, to read back or print after the lesson.
1

Introduction

5 min

Read aloud

Around 1200 BC the great Bronze Age kingdoms fell: the Hittite Empire vanished, Mycenaean palaces burned and Egypt barely held on. Students explore the smaller world that grew in the ruins, where iron, the alphabet and new peoples such as the Aramaeans got their start.

By the end of the lesson, students can

  • Name two Bronze Age powers that collapsed around 1200 BC and one cause historians suggest.
  • Describe what the map of the Near East looked like around 1000 BC: many small kingdoms instead of a few giants.
  • Explain why the period 1100-800 BC in Greece is called a "Dark Age", and what that label leaves out.
2

Explore the map

15 min

Project the map, or let students follow on their own devices. Each step opens the map at the right year and place.

a

1150 BC

The drought years

Open the map in 1150 BC. Turn on Weather of History and look at the eastern Mediterranean: a long drought is marked for 1200-1100 BC. Which kingdoms around this sea would suffer first when harvests fail?

Open this view on the map
b

1000 BC

A world of small kingdoms

Jump to 1000 BC and look from the Nile to the Tigris. Instead of two or three giants, the map now shows a patchwork: Arameans, Phrygians, Assyria, Babylonia and small kingdoms in between. Count the names between Egypt and Assyria. Who are the newcomers?

Open this view on the map
c

1000 BC

Greece goes quiet

Move to Greece in 1000 BC and turn on the Cities layer. Few cities show, and the palaces of Mycenae and Pylos are gone. Writing (Linear B) disappeared with them. What do historians lose when a society stops writing?

Open this view on the map
3

Class discussion

15 min

Pick two or three. They run from what happened to why it mattered.

  1. Around 1200 BC the Hittite Empire fell, Mycenaean palaces burned and Egypt fought off the "Sea Peoples". Why do historians say there was no single cause?
  2. Iron ore is far more common than the copper and tin needed for bronze. Why might the spread of ironworking have helped small kingdoms more than big ones?
  3. The map in 1000 BC still shows a "Hittites" label in Anatolia. Small cities such as Carchemish kept the Hittite name, script and gods after the empire fell. Does a culture end when its state does?
  4. Greece stopped writing for about 300 years, yet stories of the Trojan War survived by word of mouth until Homer. How reliable is a story passed on this way?
  5. Some historians now avoid the term "Dark Age" for 1100-800 BC. What might be wrong with the name?
4

Game round

10 min

No ruler in Rule History lived through the collapse, so play one round as Ramesses II, the pharaoh who died about a generation before the "Sea Peoples" attacked Egypt. Ask the class: which of his decisions left Egypt stronger or weaker for the hard century that followed?

Open Rule History
5

Worksheet

5 min

This worksheet comes with Classroom

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