Over 3,000 years ago, a mysterious and unique culture held sway in the far north of Europe.

Far beyond the limits of the Mediterranean world, in the realm, known to the Greeks as Hyperborea,

in later ages, said to be populated by giants living beyond the North Wind. An elite class

of God kings held sway. Clad in gold, riding upon the backs of mighty chariots, wielding magnificent

swords of bronze, this elite class of warrior kings ruled

over an astonishingly complex and, for the first time in history, connected society. To the Greeks and Romans of the later classical age, the lands beyond the Mediterranean

were seen as a world apart, inhabited by illiterate barbarians, capable of little

more than warfare and slavery.

In reality, by the time the great city of Rome was founded in the 8th century BC,

Scandinavia had already been part of a vast interconnected trade system for more than a thousand years. In the process, creating some of the most impressive artefacts found anywhere during that time period,

and regularly seeing ambitious chieftains on war canoes, ferrying out amber and skins from the Baltic,

down the river systems of Eastern Europe in return for resources

from half a world away. The most important of all these trade goods and the one that

kick-started this ancient societal revolution in the first place was bronze. For many experts, the catalyst for the birth of the modern world.

A composite of tin and copper moulded together in intense heat with a bellows.

Bronze making has developed uniquely in many places on earth.

But arguably the earliest and the most important for our story

was in Mesopotamia in the middle of the 4th millennium BC.

Copper had been smelted before, but when combined with tin, the metal entered into a new league,

being much more solid and versatile than any other resource ever known.

A material culture never before seen, nor available, soon began to take hold.

Bronze was used to make agricultural tools, hunting spears, daggers, status symbols, ornamental grave goods, drinking vessels, jewelry, and weapons of war.

...