Archaic Greek - Aegean Bronze Age, 293 mm- long bronze sharp spearhead, 3200 BC -1050 BC; Length: 293 mm = 29.3 cm = 11.5 inches; Weight: 117.93 g. Condition: the edges are sharp, genuine green & brown patina. «In the second half of the nineteenth century, archaeologists began to focus on understanding prehistoric Greece and its extraordinary flowering during the Greek Bronze Age (about 3000–1050 B.C.). Heinrich Schliemann's discovery of wealthy tombs at Mycenae in 1876 brought to life the Heroic Age immortalized in the epic poetry of Homer, in which King Agamemnon’s palace was described as "rich in gold."» Twenty-four years after Schliemann's find, the British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans began excavations at Knossos, on the island of Crete, that would yield a vast complex of buildings belonging to a sophisticated prehistoric culture, which he dubbed Minoan after the legendary King Minos. The Aegean Bronze Age began around 3200 BC, when civilizations first established a far-ranging trade network. This network imported tin and charcoal to Cyprus, where copper was mined and alloyed with tin to produce bronze. Bronze objects were then exported far and wide and supported the trade. Isotopic analysis of tin in some Mediterranean bronze artefacts suggests that they may have originated from Great Britain.[81] The Aegean collapse has been attributed to the exhaustion of the Cypriot forests causing the end of the bronze trade.[86][87][88] These forests are known to have existed in later times, and experiments have shown that charcoal production on the scale necessary for the bronze production of the late Bronze Age would have exhausted them in less than fifty years. The Aegean collapse has also been attributed to the fact that as iron tools became more common, the main justification for the tin trade ended, and that trade network ceased to function as it did formerly.[89] The colonies of the Minoan empire then suffered drought, famine, war, or some combination of the three, and had no access to the distant resources of an empire by which they could easily recover. The Thera eruption occurred c. 1600 BC, 110 km (68 mi) north of Crete. Speculation includes that a tsunami from Thera (more commonly known today as Santorini) destroyed Cretan cities. A tsunami may have destroyed the Cretan navy in its home harbour, which then lost crucial naval battles; so that in the LMIB/LMII event (c. 1450 BC) the cities of Crete burned and the Mycenaean civilization took Knossos over. If the eruption occurred in the late 17th century BC (as most chronologists now believe) then its immediate effects belong to the Middle to Late Bronze Age transition, and not to the end of the Late Bronze Age, but it could have triggered the instability that led to the collapse first of Knossos and then of Bronze Age society overall. One such theory highlights the role of Cretan expertise in administering the empire, post-Thera. If this expertise was concentrated in Crete, then the Mycenaeans may have made political and commercial mistakes in administering the Cretan empire. Archaeological findings, including some on the island of Thera, suggest that the centre of the Minoan civilization at the time of the eruption was actually on Thera rather than on Crete.[90] According to this theory, the catastrophic loss of the political, administrative and economic center due to the eruption, as well as the damage wrought by the tsunami to the coastal towns and villages of Crete precipitated the decline of the Minoans. A weakened political entity with a reduced economic and military capability and fabled riches would have then been more vulnerable to conquest. Indeed, the Santorini eruption is usually dated to c. 1630 BC,[91] while the Mycenaean Greeks first enter the historical record a few decades later, c. 1600 BC. The later Mycenaean assaults on Crete (c. 1450 BC) and Troy (c. 1250 BC) would have been a continuation of the steady encroachment of the Greeks upon the weakened Minoan world. Provenance: Private collection in New York, USA