Timeline of Middle Eastern history.
ORIGINAL SOURCE: en.wikipedia.org
| ANCIENT NEAR EAST | ||||
| 4th millennium BCE | ||||
| FROM | TO | DETAILS |
||
| 4000 | 3000 | Domestication of the African wild ass in Egypt or Mesopotamia, producing the donkey | ||
| 4000 | City of Ur in Mesopotamia | |||
| 4000 | 3100 | Uruk period | ||
| 4000 | 3000 | Naqada culture on the Nile | ||
| 3760 |  |
DATE OF CREATION according to some interpretations of Jewish chronology | ||
| 3600 | First civilization in the world: Sumer (city-states) in modern-day southern Iraq | |||
| 3500 | 3000 | One of the first appearances of wheeled vehicles in Mesopotamia | ||
| 3500 | Beginning of desertification of Sahara: the shift from a habitable region to a barren desert | |||
| 3500 | First cities in Egypt | |||
| 3300 | Earliest hieroglyphs | |||
| 3200 | Iry-Hor reigns as pharaoh of Upper Egypt, the earliest historical person known by name | |||
| 3100 | King Narmer unifies the Upper and Lower Egyptian Kingdoms, and gives birth to the world’s first nation | |||
| 3100 | 2686 | Early Dynastic Period (Egypt) | ||
| 3000 | First examples of Sumerian writing in Mesopotamia, in the cities of Uruk and Susa (cuneiform writings) | |||
| 3rd millennium BCE | ||||
| FROM | TO | DETAILS: | ||
| 3000 | 2000 | First domestication of the dromedaries in Somalia and southern Arabia | ||
| 2900 | 2350 | First ziggurats in Sumer | ||
| 2800 | Beginning of Uruk’s decline | |||
| 2600 | 2350 | Early Dynastic III period in Mesopotamia | ||
| 2560 | Completion of the Great Pyramid of Giza | |||
| 2500 | First domestication of the camel in central Asia | |||
| 2500 | Ur-Nina first king of Lagash | |||
| 2340 | 2280 | Reign of Sargon of Akkad, founder of the dynasty of Akkad | ||
| 2334 | 2154 | Akkadian Empire | ||
| 2254 | 2218 | Naram-Sin of Akkad, under who the empire reached its maximum strength and the first taking the title “god of Akkad” | ||
| 2200 | Akkad taken by the Guti | |||
| 2112 | 2094 | Ur-Nammu, founder of the Third Dynasty of Ur | ||
| 2111 | 2004 | Third Dynasty of Ur | ||
| 2052 | 1570 | Middle Kingdom in Egypt | ||
| 2004 | Elamites destroy Ur | |||
| 2004 | 1763 | Rise of the Amorites who established several city-states in Mesopotamia | ||
| 2000 | First use of the spoke-wheel by the Andronovo culture and soon after used by horse cultures of the Caucasus region in war chariots | |||
| 2nd millennium BCE | ||||
| FROM | TO | |||
| 1900 | Hittites Old Kingdom in Anatolia | |||
| 1800 | Civilization in Canaan | |||
| 1800 | 1200 | Emergence of the city of Ugarit when it ruled a coastal kingdom, trading with Egypt, Cyprus, the Aegean, Syria, the Hittites and others | ||
| 1792 | 1750 | Reign of Hammurabi of the First Babylonian Dynasty, extended control throughout Mesopotamia, known for the Code of Hammurabi, one of the earliest codes of law | ||
| 1763 | 1595 | Paleo-Babylonian Empire | ||
| 1600 | 1360 | Egyptian domination over Canaan and Syria | ||
| 1594 | Cassites take Babylon | |||
| 1595 | 1155 | Cassite Dynasty | ||
| 1550 | 1077 | New Kingdom of Egypt | ||
| 1500 | 1300 | Kingdom Mitanni, a Hurrian-speaking state in northern Syria and southeast Anatolia | ||
| 1500 | 539 | Phoenicia and the spread of their alphabet from which almost all modern phonetic alphabets derived | ||
| 1457 | Battle of Megiddo | |||
| 1380 | 1336 | Shuppiluliuma, king of the Hittites who challenged Egypt for control of the lands between the Mediterranean and the Euphrates | ||
| 1370 | 1200 | Hittite Empire | ||
| 1350 | 1050 | Middle Assyrian Empire | ||
| 1300 | Discovery of iron smelting and smithing techniques in Anatolia or the Caucasus: start of the Iron Age | |||
| 1274 | Battle of Kadesh between the Egyptian Empire under Ramesses II and the Hittite Empire under Muwatalli II, largest chariot battle ever fought | |||
| 1245 | 1208 | Tukulti-Ninurta I, king of Assyria, first native Mesopotamian ruler in Babylon, took on the ancient title “King of Sumer and Akkad” | ||
| 1237 | Battle of Nihriya, resulting in Assyrian victory over the Hittites for control over remnants of the former empire of Mitanni in Asia Minor and the Levant | |||
| 1234 | Babylon taken by Assyrians | |||
| 1200 | 1050 | Bronze Age collapse | ||
| 1200 | Oldest Phoenician alphabet inscription engraved on the sarcophagus of King Ahiram | |||
| 1200 | 884 | Sea Peoples, conjectured groups of seafaring raiders, invaded Anatolia, Syria, Canaan, Cyprus, and Egypt | ||
| 1200 | 546 | Lydian Empire | ||
| 1190 | Hattusha, capital of the Hittites, taken by the Sea Peoples | |||
| 1184 | Fall of Troy | |||
| 1180 | 700 | Neo-Hittite kingdoms | ||
| 1155 | Babylon taken by Elamites | |||
| 1100 | 539 | Neo-Elamite period | ||
| 1087 | Babylon destroyed by Assyrians | |||
| 1070 | 350 | Cushites, an ancient African Nubian kingdom in Sudan | ||
| 1102 | 850 | Estimated period in which Homer lived | ||
| 1069 | 664 | Third Intermediate Period of Egypt | ||
| 1050 | 930 | |
Kingdom of Israel | |
| 1041 | |
King David captures Jerusalem, designates it the capital of the united Kingdom of Israel | ||
| 1004 | |
King Solomon lays the foundation for the First Temple | ||
| 1st millennium BCE | ||||
| FROM | TO | |||
| 927 | |
Jerusalem becomes the capital of the (southern) Kingdom of Judah after the split of the United Monarchy | ||
| 884 | 858 | Ashurnasirpal II, king of Assyria, embarked on a vast program of expansion, known for his harshness, moved his capital to the city of Kalhu (Nimrod) | ||
| 884 | 612 | Neo-Assyrian Empire | ||
| 800 | 480 | Archaic period in Greece with the rice of the city-states, Greek colonies and Epic Greek poetry: onset of Classical Antiquity | ||
| 776 | First Olympic Games | |||
| 745 | 727 | Tiglath-Pileser III, king of Assyria who introduced advanced civil, military, and political systems into the empire | ||
| 689 | Babylon destroyed by Sennacherib, king of the Assyrians | |||
| 678 | 549 | Median Empire | ||
| 672 | 525 | Twenty-sixth dynasty of Egypt | ||
| 626 | 539 | Chaldean Empire (Neo-Babylonian Empire) | ||
| 612 | Fall of Niniveh by a coalition Babylonians, Medes, Persians, Chaldeans, Scythians and Cimmerians, leading to the destruction of the Neo-Assyrian Empire | |||
| 597 | |
King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon capturing Jerusalem | ||
| 587 | |
King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon destroys Jerusalem and the Solomon’s Temple | ||
| 600/576 | 530 | Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon and created the Persian Achaemenid Empire | ||
| 550 | 330 | Achaemenid Empire | ||
| 539 | Fall of Babylon | |||
| 537 | |
Cyrus allows the Israelites to return from the Babylonian captivity and rebuild the Temple | ||
| 522 | 486 | Reign of Darius the Great, third king of the Persian Achaemenid Empire | ||
| 516 | |
Completion of the Second Temple | ||
| 510 | 323 | Classical Greek period with large annexations by the Persian Empire and a powerful influence on the Roman Empire and western civilization | ||
| 500 | Ionian Revolt | |||
| 499 | 449 | Greco-Persian Wars, finally won by the Greek city-states | ||
| 480 | 479 | Xerxes invades Greece, start of Second Persian invasion of Greece | ||
| 477 | Founding of the Delian League, an association of Greek city-states under Athenian hegemony | |||
| 431 | 404 | Peloponnesian War between Sparta and Athens leading to the end of Athene’s hegemony and weakening of Greece | ||
| 353 | 350 | Mausoleum at Halicarnassus built in Persia | ||
| 330 | Alexander the Great conquered Persia | |||
| 323 | 31 | Hellenistic period with Greek influence in Europe, Africa and Asia, in the arts, exploration, literature, theatre, architecture, music, mathematics, philosophy, and science | ||
| 247 | ||||
| CE | CE | Parthian Empire | ||
| 224 | ||||
| 100 | 44 | Julius Caesar | ||
| 31 | Emergence of the Roman Empire as signified by the Battle of Actium | |||
| 48 | 642 | Destruction of the Library of Alexandria, one of the largest and most significant libraries of the ancient world | ||
| 92 | 629 | Roman–Persian Wars | ||
| 1st millennium CE | ||||
| FROM | TO | |||
| 30 | 100 | Apostolic Age, onset of Christianity | ||
| 66 | 136 | |
Jewish-Roman Wars and Jewish diaspora | |
| 135 | Roman Emperor Hadrian renamed Iudaea Province into Syria Palaestina | |||
| 285 | 628 | Byzantine–Sasanian wars | ||
| 376 | Large-scale irruption of Goths and others, and the subsequent onset of the Fall of the Western Roman Empire | |||
| 394 | Theodosius I suppressed the Olympic Games as part of the campaign to impose Christianity as the state religion | |||
| 330 | 1453 | Byzantine Empire, continuation of the Roman Empire in the east, until it fell to the Ottoman Empire | ||
