BronzeAge

Around 2000-1800 BC various new groups started appearing all around the periphery of civilization, armed with powerful new technologies: bronze implements, horses, and the light two-wheeled chariot. These weapons were used to good advantage, and by around 1600 BC all the older civilization centers had been overrun.

Of particular importance were the Iranian groups who spread off the plateau into neighboring regions. The KassitePeoples? conquered Babylonia and the IndoAryans? more or less annihilated the declining foreign civilization they found in the IndusValley?. A related group, the Mitanni, set up a kingdom over much of Syria and Assyria.

Egypt was temporarily occupied by the Semitic Hyskos, but these were ejected and the NewKingdomOfEgypt? - its first empire - grew up in their wake. The HittitePeoples? also developed into an empire at this time. All of these were continually at war for domination of the middle east.

Horses and chariots require a lot of time and upkeep, and so their use was restricted mainly to warrior nobilities. These are the feudal "heroic" societies vaguely familiar to us from epics like the Iliad and Ramayana. They are often associated with IndoEuropean languages, which probably spread out from a homeland on the caspian sea along with bronze working.

Around 1200 BC most of the bronze age kingdoms collapsed and urban centers all across the eastern meditteranean were sacked by raiders, all within a few decades. The following few centuries were dark ages for Greece and the Near East. By the time civilization had recovered, iron tools had become common, and a new era had begun.