Day 7 - Ankara (1/13/25)

Hello everyone and welcome to the tenth day of our journey. I can’t believe that we are already halfway through the course. We started the day early, with all of us boarding the bus before the crack of dawn to catch our flight to Ankara! 

After a turbulent flight we explored the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations I can confidently say it was worth every groggy moment. Walking into the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations today was a moment I’ll never forget. As someone with a deep appreciation for metallurgy and materials, this visit felt personal, almost like stepping into a world I’ve spent years imagining through books and articles. I’ve spent countless hours reading about the Paleolithic, Neolithic, and Bronze Ages—about the innovations, tools, and societies that shaped human history. But seeing these artifacts in person? That was something else entirely.

We started in the Paleolithic era (early Stone Age). The tools on display were exactly what you’d imagine in a cartoon depiction of cavemen. Picture a rock tied to a stick, and that’s essentially it. 

It is hard to imagine but, at the time this was probably an ingenious discovery. We continued to the Neolithic era, though, was when things started to get really interesting. Humans transitioned from nomadic lifestyles to settled agricultural communities, which sparked a wave of creativity. For the first time, tools weren’t just functional; they became works of art. Obsidian, with its sharp edges and mesmerizing beauty, became a material of choice for both tools and jewelry. 

This period also marked the birth of religion, as people associated gods to their fears and desires. 

This is when people started carving more complex symbols and patterns into their creations, infusing meaning and spirituality into everyday objects. It’s fascinating to think about how these early communities used creativity not just to survive but to connect with something greater than themselves.

Then came the Bronze Age, which is where things got really exciting (at least for a metallurgy nerd like me). Then in this period people started using other metals such as gold, silver, and electrum (a mix of gold and silver). Standing in front of bronze artifacts that were thousands of years old, I couldn’t help but marvel at the ingenuity it took to develop the proper techniques of casting metal and achieving the desired properties that is bronze. 

The rise of the Bronze Age was the peak of the Hittites, as a civilization that mastered bronze technology and dominated their world. The ability to combine copper and tin to create stronger tools and weapons, it’s wild to think how much this one innovation reshaped history. 

We learned that the bronze era was not just about the mastery of metals. It was also the age of the first written records carved into clay tablets. For the first time in history, we could hear the voices of people who lived thousands of years ago. Writing didn’t just document events; it preserved thoughts, transactions, and even emotions, bridging the gap between past and present.

But the Bronze Age also serves as a cautionary tale. Its collapse was a perfect storm of disasters: invasions, environmental changes, and internal instability. This interconnected web of problems led to the loss of technologies, trade networks, and even writing systems. It was a stark reminder of how fragile progress can be, especially when societies fail to adapt to changing circumstances. The lessons from this era feel eerily relevant today, as we grapple with global challenges that require resilience and innovation to overcome.