What Would a Bronze Age "Industrial Revolution" Look Like?

There were ancient societies where 10-20% of the population were not food-producing, and there could be some ways imo, potatoes and maize are fuckin amazing (a-maize-ing?) but so is three field rotation, intercropping with nitrogen fixers, mechanical mills, etc.
Plus, that's assuming that contact wouldn't at least be attempted with the New World by this kind of blatantly mercantile, perhaps thassalocratic group of city states.
 
Bronze Age industrialisation (IMO) would likely have to be largely about large-scale use of water-driven mechanical energy. Bronze furnaces aren't great, boilers are going to be more fragile, and stone is a pain to warm up.

As with most Bronze Age scenarios, I'd look towards Egypt for 3 reasons.

1) The Nile - an incredible amount of mechanical power.
2) Noria - according to this the Ancient Egyptians had the Noria, so they already understood the idea of using the Nile for mechanical power
3) Agriculturla fertility - the Nile valley had some of the largest food surpluses in history.

The problem is "Why do it?" We aren't doing transport as the Nile covers that. Weaving en-masse? Lots of cheap labour.

But I think there is only possibility. Response to the droughts associated with the Bronze Age Collapse. If we accept that drought was a major issue, that impoverished Egypt - then one solution is to increase the supply of stored water. Potentially by damming lesser tributaries of the Nile, or even water towers that could be used to release water to farms during dry periods.

Using the nile to power water-lifts to store water is one way that the Nile could provide industrialisation, as all the mechanics for water lifting could be used for bellows for forges, helping Egypt with Iron, could help with mechanised weaving (if thats remotely possible at this point.)

Plus, this is EGYPT. They can build big if they saw a need to. Perhaps a Pharaoh has a particular affinity for the Nile, and so chooses to mix it up with their burial - building a dam on a tributary as their funerary 'palace' so they can be a "Giver of Water" for all eternity.
 
Why do it? Aliens?

I suppose you could also rustle up some Chinese or something who have in this scenario evolved and traveled, but not brought conquest, so that the Bronze Age societies look at them and go: OH SHIT, WE BETTER GET MOVING!
 
There were ancient societies where 10-20% of the population were not food-producing, and there could be some ways imo, potatoes and maize are fuckin amazing (a-maize-ing?) but so is three field rotation, intercropping with nitrogen fixers, mechanical mills, etc.
who knows, maybe this bronze age industrial society appears in America... i mean if we are going balls to the wall like that why not?
caral-supe is really fucking old yet not much is talked about it.
 
Bronze Age industrialisation (IMO) would likely have to be largely about large-scale use of water-driven mechanical energy. Bronze furnaces aren't great, boilers are going to be more fragile, and stone is a pain to warm up.

As with most Bronze Age scenarios, I'd look towards Egypt for 3 reasons.

1) The Nile - an incredible amount of mechanical power.
2) Noria - according to this the Ancient Egyptians had the Noria, so they already understood the idea of using the Nile for mechanical power
3) Agriculturla fertility - the Nile valley had some of the largest food surpluses in history.

The problem is "Why do it?" We aren't doing transport as the Nile covers that. Weaving en-masse? Lots of cheap labour.

But I think there is only possibility. Response to the droughts associated with the Bronze Age Collapse. If we accept that drought was a major issue, that impoverished Egypt - then one solution is to increase the supply of stored water. Potentially by damming lesser tributaries of the Nile, or even water towers that could be used to release water to farms during dry periods.

Using the nile to power water-lifts to store water is one way that the Nile could provide industrialisation, as all the mechanics for water lifting could be used for bellows for forges, helping Egypt with Iron, could help with mechanised weaving (if thats remotely possible at this point.)

Plus, this is EGYPT. They can build big if they saw a need to. Perhaps a Pharaoh has a particular affinity for the Nile, and so chooses to mix it up with their burial - building a dam on a tributary as their funerary 'palace' so they can be a "Giver of Water" for all eternity.

The Nile was and did until recently flood and inundate the shores for months at a time, waterwheels won't do much good underwater. But suppose they got around to controlling the upper Nile and damming it then yes, a mega project for sure.

The Nile is also very isolated militarily by desert and sea plus it facilitates trade by flowing north while the winds blew south.
 
The Nile was and did until recently flood and inundate the shores for months at a time, waterwheels won't do much good underwater. But suppose they got around to controlling the upper Nile and damming it then yes, a mega project for sure.

The Nile is also very isolated militarily by desert and sea plus it facilitates trade by flowing north while the winds blew south.

I wouldn't damn the nile itself, only tributaries. It is too valuable.

But all the flooding does is limit the best places to put a water wheel.
 
I wouldn't damn the nile itself, only tributaries. It is too valuable.

But all the flooding does is limit the best places to put a water wheel.

The Nile has no significant year-long tributaries (as opposed to seasonal widian which remain dry most of the time) north of the fourth cataract.
 
The Nile has no significant year-long tributaries (as opposed to seasonal widian which remain dry most of the time) north of the fourth cataract.

Neither is the Wadi Adhanah but the Marib Dam was still built. It still makes its feasible to capture water. Obviously it is easier with Wadis that are narrower, and this is water storage dams rather than mechanical power dams.
 
Neither is the Wadi Adhanah but the Marib Dam was still built. It still makes its feasible to capture water. Obviously it is easier with Wadis that are narrower, and this is water storage dams rather than mechanical power dams.

Fine, yes, it is possible to dam a wadi in order to store its seasonal water. However, I think that Yemen was and still is quite a bit rainier than Egypt, making the whole enterprise a lot more feasible there than in Egypt.
 
Fine, yes, it is possible to dam a wadi in order to store its seasonal water. However, I think that Yemen was and still is quite a bit rainier than Egypt, making the whole enterprise a lot more feasible there than in Egypt.

Oh, ofc. Mountainous Yemen gets 560-700mm of rain a year, whereas Egypt has an average of only 200mm. Hence why it'd likely be manually filled, only slightly topped up naturally. (Side note - unintentional source of new rainfall). Although I can't find (atm) any decent numbers for rainfall in Egypts mountains, so it would likely only be used for storing water siphoned from the nile.
 
as for machinery, is there a good reason why machinery like watermills and windmills weren't invented until the Iron Age?
Because the Iron Age was a revolution in the quantity of metal available. Early iron wasn't necessarily stronger than bronze - but it was cheaper and more readily available.

In turn, this meant that metal tools could be created more cheaply and for a greater range of uses. This leads to more tools, easier to shape timber, stone, gearing etc, and makes water mills much more feasible.
 
Because the Iron Age was a revolution in the quantity of metal available. Early iron wasn't necessarily stronger than bronze - but it was cheaper and more readily available.

In turn, this meant that metal tools could be created more cheaply and for a greater range of uses. This leads to more tools, easier to shape timber, stone, gearing etc, and makes water mills much more feasible.
IIRC Didn't tin usually have to be imported from Britain, which at that time was a backwater collection of tribes?
 
IIRC Didn't tin usually have to be imported from Britain, which at that time was a backwater collection of tribes?
Britain wasn't the only source. There was also tin in Spain, Brittany and in the Erzgebirge on the modern German-Czech border. But tin was certainly valuable enough to be traded from Britain at least as far as the eastern Mediterranean.
 
(A) tin was available from several sources, including Britain. (B) most of everywhere was a backwater collection of tribes during the Bronze Age.

Britain wasn't the only source. There was also tin in Spain, Brittany and in the Erzgebirge on the modern German-Czech border. But tin was certainly valuable enough to be traded from Britain at least as far as the eastern Mediterranean.
That's all fair, but my essential point still stands: Tin was ultimately difficult and expensive to get until the advent of ironworking.
 
I was reading about the Indus Valley civilization, with their infrastructure and assembly-line style production, and I figured it would absolutely be possible for an industrial revolution of sorts in a bronze age culture assuming the population was relatively dense and urbanized.

Could I have a source on that? I'd like to read more about that, especially their assembly-line style production. Never heard that before.
 
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