I'm very much on with "Five Senses" writing. Isaac Asimov made a long and fruitful career without describing as much as the color of a character's hair, but I gravitate towards fiction with enough look and feel to make me feel as much physically embedded in the setting as I am intellectually engaged with the story.
This is not always the easiest stuff to research, especially as one moves back in time. It is also not the easiest thing to describe. The colors in a sunset or the odors of a cooking fire are easy enough to translate to modern eyes and nostrils, but how does one economically carry across design motifs, clothing styles, technologies?
This is exacerbated by the fact that it is much easier to find the name "khopesh" or "krater" than it is to find out how heavy it is, how it breaks, how it smells, how to carry it; in short, all the five-senses stuff that is at the forefront of the experience of someone actually living around and using these things. The name is of use mostly to those who are cataloging them, so of course so many sources both contemporary and modern tend towards lists of names.
Names are also an often necessary short-hand. In a modern-day setting the writer can say "Paris" or "Taxi" or "Starbuck's Coffee" without having to explain and describe. The look and feel comes across to the reader because they have their own sensory experience with the thing to draw upon. Or at least have encountered sufficient other descriptions to be able to fill in.
But for those things which are not modern (or referred to frequently within modern contexts?) Well, there's one peculiarity to note right off. There appear to be certain genres or periods -- Victorian era and Roman era leap to mind -- where part of the contract with the reader is an assumption that the reader knows what a cravat, a Hansom Cab, a spatha, a legate is. And there are sufficient depictions so said reader can get a little of the five-senses impression of how loud, uncomfortable, effective, powerful, etc. these things are, in addition to the general size and shape and color.
This is not like, say, shogun, samurai, kimono and katana, which are more-or-less assumed to be part of our general cultural knowledge (as inaccurate as common understanding of these things might be). This is instead a special expectation; that someone drawn to stories set around Rome or with a Lost Legion on patrol will know or will make an effort to know what the lorica and gladius are and have at least some idea what it means to be a Roman.
I'm pretty sure the Bronze Age isn't one of these exceptions. So the names alone are insufficient. The names are often problematic anyhow. For every wonderfully expressive, essentially self-translating term like "ox-hide ingot," you have two like "krater" that need translation, and two like "stirrup jar" that seem useful until you realize stirrups hadn't been invented yet.
This latter is a tremendous problem for the writer. Not only do many terms in English have specific, known (and therefor culturally inappropriate) origins, so do individual words. "The point of no return" comes from aviation, "running the gauntlet" came to English in the 17th century and had a Swedish origin (although there is a Greek equivalent, "Xylokopia," that just puts it back into the other problem of needing translation.)
You need to catch as many of them as you can, because once the reader's attention is attracted, they are going to realize how many of the words you are using in an ordinary 20th century English-language text are quite obviously derived from other languages, and that brings up too many questions you don't want them to have.
I ran into this during Shirato when I wanted to mention a certain blue glow but "Cherenkov" is both a personal name and the name of a Russian. Which didn't fit at all with my pseudo-Japanese setting. It yanks the reader out of the text while the ordinary anglo-saxon (despite its also complex cultural origins) sneaks by unremarked.
And what do you do with something like "Wanax?" It is the appropriate name of a Mycenaean ruler of the palatial period. It is similar to "king" but there are important differences. Put "King" in the book and the reader will make certain assumptions that don't fit the culture under discussion. But put "Wanax" and you have to explain it, slowing the narrative. Or -- from a later period -- there is the entirely appropriate word "tyrant," which was applied then without the pejorative sense we give it today thus would, again, require explanation.
I'm willing to bet there is no global rule. Each item has to be approached on a case-by-case basis. "King" will do because we're not going to meet many of them, but "Basileus" (which is a later Greek transliteration of a fortunately quite similar Mycenaean term) is a better match for the former functionaries/local governors who during the LHIIIC phase of Mycenaean culture take over from the fallen palaces and morph over the years into local chieftains/warlords.
"Khopesh" is fine because it is vaguely familiar to the audience and (vowels aside) is a faithful recreation of the Egyptian "ḫpš." "Naue-II" is out because it is obviously an academic coinage and contains the name of the German archaeologist who categorized them. Since they were traded all over the place there are probably some authentic names for them out there, but as that doesn't help visualize them it would be best to describe them from an in-universe point of view; "One of the long narrow swords that had come out of the North in recent years."
And, yeah; this little game is even harder when it comes to the names of entire peoples. I am perhaps fortunate that in the period I am writing few have a national identity per se; they are mostly tribal, with a certain affiliation towards cities in some places. My Mycenaean may self-identify as Athenian, for instance; Athana or perhaps Athenai goes back as a city name to at least the late Bronze Age. My Laconian is less lucky, as his people (quite possibly Mycenae fleeing from the collapse of the palatial system) didn't move from the lower Peloponnese into Laconia until a few hundred years later.
And of course "Egypt" is a modern transliteration of classical Greek; the earlier Linear B inscription is "a-ku-pi-ti-yo" which possibly derived from the Amarna-period name "Hikuptah." Which is back to the original naming problem; "Egypt" is expressive but wrong, but "Hikuptah" would take a bunch of explanation. The one advantage I have in my particular story is my characters are a polyglot bunch; the moment one of them says one name, another will correct or amplify with the name that their people use!
Just as well the Bronze Age is not one of the periods with a special dispensation. Because this research is tough enough without having to face those critical and well-informed readerships.
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