Ancient History (to 1 A.D.)

Beginnings of Civilization

Important factors in the advent of civilization:

· Toolmaking (technology)

· Agriculture (farming, production & processing)

· Writing (communication)

Factors determining where civilization developed:

· Climate

o Mediterranean climate (mild wet winters, long, hot summers) selects for plant species, especially the cereals and pulses, that evolved as annual plants that dry up and die in the dry season, but remain as seeds. The plants themselves are usually small and use their energy to produce large seeds. Annual plants comprise 6 of the world's 12 major crops. Since these plants were so productive in the wild, there was little needed done to change them. Just harvesting and planting them in one place was a revolution in nutrition. Contrast this to the development of corn in the Americas. Ancient teosinte was ancestor to corn.

o The Fertile Crescent had a high population of plants that self-pollinated. This was convenient because they didn't have to seek out and plant both male and female plants. They were also somewhat resistant to cross pollination. These made them predictable and at the same time useful for some hybridization

o Irrigation systems followed centralized government, not vice-versa. Fertile Crescent food production originated in the hills, not river valleys.

· East / West Axis of Continents:

o Ease of plant and animal species spreading among cultures

o Ease of population migration and trade between cultures

o Eurasia has long east/west axis, Africa and America have North-South Axes

· Local plant and animal species available for domestication

o Eurasia had many large-seeded grasses suitable for food production

o Many large mammals outside of Eurasia became extinct through hunting

· Consequences

o Domesticated animals caused earlier immunity to epidemic diseases in Eurasia. European diseases caused devestation of other populations, especially in the Americas

o Food, transportation, work or horse power

Agriculture

· Prior to 11,000 BC all peoples were hunter-gatherers. The Agricultural Revolution is the transition from nomadic hunting and gathering societies to settled agrarian societies that occured independently in at least four, possibly six, geographic areas

· Horticulture (gardening) is the critical intermediate step between hunting and gathering and agriculture. Passive gathering became active planting, tending and harvesting. As the garden reliably begins to produce a larger portion of the food supply, there is less wandering in pursuit of game, resulting in the settlement of villages around the garden plots. Horticultural villages usually move every few years when the garden soil is exhausted and fresh new plots are cleared.

· Large field crop agriculture occurs with the introduction of domestic animal power as well as metal working technologies. Agriculturalists can settle permanently in the prime agricultural lands of river valleys with their rich alluvial soils.

· Around 12,000 years ago, after several warm millennia, a melting ice sheet in North America collapsed and a gigantic lake drained into the North Atlantic through the St Lawrence seaway. The torrent of cool, fresh water altered the climate so drastically that the ice age, which had been in full retreat, resumed for a further 11 centuries. The Scandinavian ice sheet surged south. Western Asia became not only cooler, but much drier. The Black Sea all but dried out.

· 9000 The Fertile Crescent develops agriculture because of its: 1) Mediterranean climate. 2) Easily domesticated plants. 3) Most of the plants pollinate themselves.

o People in what is now Syria had been subsisting happily on a diet of acorns, gazelles and grass seeds. The centuries of drought drove them to depend increasingly on wild grass seeds. Abruptly, soon after 11,000 years ago, they began to cultivate rye and chickpeas, then einkorn and emmer, two ancestors of wheat, and later barley. Soon cultivated grain was their staple food. It happened first in the Karacadag Mountains in south-eastern Turkey—it is only here that wild einkorn grass contains the identical genetic fingerprint of modern domesticated wheat.

· 6000 China develops a distinctive set of domestic plants and animals: rice, millet, chickens, geese, dogs and pigs. Chinese agriculture may have begun in two separate areas. Millet is native to the cooler, drier climate of the Huangho River in northern China while rice grows naturally in the warmer, wetter climate of the Yangtze River in southern China.

· 5400 Wine is produced in Mesopotamia

· 4000 The Ox-driven plow is developed in Mesopotamia to turn the earth, burying weeds and breaking up the seedbed.

· By 3,000 BC wheat had reached Ireland, Spain, Ethiopia and India. A millennium later it reached China: paddy rice was still thousands of years in the future.

· 2800 The sickle is used in Mesopotamia

· 2400 Irrigation and canals are used in Sumeria, leading to an increase in food production

· 2100 Beer is made in Mesopotamia

· 1000 Horse harnesses develop in China (not in Europe until 900s AD) allow horses to be used for labor. By not pressing on the animal's windpipe, it enabled the animal to drag greater weight—and faster than an ox.

· 300 Iron plowshares (moldboards) first used in China, not adopted in Europe until 800 AD.

Wheat

· The wheat plant evolved three new traits to suit its new servants: the seeds grew larger; the “rachis” which binds the seeds together became less brittle so whole ears of grass, rather than individual seeds, could be gathered; and the leaf-like glumes that covered each seed loosened, thus making the grains “free-threshing”.

· Today’s wheat is derived from three wild ancestral species in two separate mergers. The first took place in the Levant 10,000 years ago, the second near the Caspian Sea 2,000 years later. The result was a plant with extra-large seeds incapable of dispersal in the wild, dependent entirely on people to sow them.

The Plow

· The plow can be regarded as a development of the pick or spade. When agriculture was first developed, simple hand held digging sticks or hoes would have been used in highly fertile areas, such as the banks of the Nile where the annual flood rejuvenates the soil, to create furrows wherein seeds could be sown. In order to regularly grow crops in less fertile areas, the soil must be turned to bring nutrients to the surface.

· Plows were initially pulled by humans, later by oxen, and later still in some countries, by horses. Modern plows are, in industrialized countries, powered by tractors.

· Plowing has several beneficial effects. The major reason for plowing is to turn over the upper layer of the soil to bring nutrient-rich soil to the surface. This may also incorporate the residue from the previous crop into the soil. Plowing reduces the prevalence of weeds in the fields, and makes the soil more porous, easing later planting.

· The very earliest plows were simple scratch-plows and consisted of a frame holding a vertical wooden stick that was dragged through the topsoil.

· These were much later developed into moldboard plows that turned the soil in one run across the field, depositing the weeds and undecomposed remains of the previous crop under the soil as compost and raising the rain-percolated nutrients back to the surface. This plow also allowed for plowing while the ground was wet. The water was drained due to channels formed under the overturned earth. The first linguistic evidence for the heavy wheeled moulded plow appears sometime before or in the 6th century with scattered Slavic groups.

· The moldboard plow is harder to turn around than the scratch plow, and its introduction brought about a change in the shape of fields -- from mostly square fields into longer rectangular "strips" (hence the introduction of the furlong).

· The first commercially successful iron plow was the Rotherham plow, developed by Joseph Foljambe in Rotherham, England, in 1730. The cast-steel plow was developed by U.S. blacksmith John Deere in the 1830s.

Area Date	Domesticated Plants	Domesticated Animals
Southwest Asia 8,500 B.C.	Wheat, Pea, Olive	Sheep, Goat
China 7,500 B.C.	Rice, Millet	Pig, Silkworm
Mesoamerica 3500 B.C.	Corn, Beans Squash	Turkey
Andes, Amazonia 3500 B.C.	Potato Manioc	Llama Guinea pig
Eastern United States 2500 B.C.	Sunflower, Goosefoot	None

Consequences of Agriculture:

· Food surpluses, food storage

· Permanent settlements (villages) around fields

· Support larger populations

o Within a few generations, wheat farmers were on the march, displacing and overwhelming hunter-gatherers as they went, and bringing with them their distinct Indo-European language, of which Sanskrit and Irish are both descendants.

· Allow division of labor and stratified societies, later political organization

· Writing developed as an accounting measure used in trade, taxes, and warehousing

· Wherever they went, the farmers brought their habits: not just sowing, reaping and threshing, but baking, fermenting, owning, hoarding.

Domesticated Plants

Area	Cereals & Grasses	Pulses	Fiber	Roots & Tubers	Melons
Fertile Crescent	wheat, barley	pea, lentil, chickpea	flax	------	------
China	Rice, millet	soybean	hemp	------	------
Americas	Corn	beans	cotton	potato	squashes
West Africa	Sorghum, millet		cotton	African yams	watermelon, gourd
India	------	beans	cotton, flax	------	cucumber
Ethiopia	millet	(coffee)	------	------	------
E. United States	maygrass, barley, knotweed, goosefoot	------	------	artichoke	squash
New Guinea	sugar cane	------	------	yams, taro	------

Animal Domestication

Species	Dates B.C.	Place
Dog	10,000	Mesopotamia, China, North America
Sheep	8,000	Mesopotamia
Goat	8,000	Mesopotamia
Pig	8,000	China, Mesopotamia
Cow	6,000	Mesopotamia (Crete), India
Horse	4,000	Ukraine
Donkey	4,000	Egypt
Water buffalo	4,000	China
Llama / alpaca	3,500	Andes
Bactrian camel	2,500	Central Asia
Arabian camel	2,500	Arabia

· Uses of animals: Food (meat, milk), transportation, military use, work (plowing) and clothing (wool, hides)

· Consquences:

o Populations with domesticated animals developed immunity earlier to epidemic diseases which had spread from animals to humans (measles, tuberculosis, smallpox, flu, pertussis, malaria)

o Larger populations supported due to improvement in agriculture

o Increased long-distance trade and travel

o Increased military power

Eurasia Africa America Australia

Candidates 72 51 24 1

Domesticated Species 13 0 1 0

% of candidates 18% 0% 4% 0%

Human Disease	Animal with related pathogen
Measles	cattle (rinderpest)
Tuberculosis	cattle
Smallpox	cattle (cowpox)
Flu	pigs and ducks
Pertussis	pigs, dogs
Malaria	birds

Technology

Overview

9000-6000 Mesolithic Period.

· 9000 Agriculture and fixed settlements develop in the Middle East. Fixed settlement and regular food supplies meant that there was more leisure time. Humans could think and specialise. Not everyone had to produce food. Farming could give a food surplus. Some individuals could develop other skills (like making pottery) which they could exchange for food.

· 7000 Walled settlement at Jericho.

· 7000 Copper is used in the Middle East.

6000-4000 European Neolithic Period

· 6000 Aurochs, the ancestors of cattle, are domesticated in Crete

· 5000 Earliest evidence of human culture in Mesopotamia. Egyptians begin using agriculture

· 4700 Pottery making in Mesopotamia

· 4400 Metal use in Mesopotamia

· 4000 Sail-powered ships are used on the Nile

· 4000 Chambered tombs appear in Spain and Brittany.

· 3900 Temple building in Sumer (ziggurats). 2700 Temple building in Egypt.

· 3500 Phonetic writing appears in Sumer. 3100 Heiroglyphic writing in Egypt

· 3500 Wheel first appears in Sumerian pictograph.

· 3000 Cities develop in Sumer and Egypt, including public buildings and water supplies. Chur, the oldest European town still inhabited, was settled in (modern) Switzerland. The town of Ohrid was settled in Macedonia

2000 Bronze Age in Northern Europe.

· 2000 Bronze first appears in Northern Europe beause both tin and copper (of which bronze is an alloy) were available

· 2000-1500 Alphabet develops in Egypt.

· 1700 First code of laws, by Hammurabi in Babylon

1400 Iron Age in western Asia and India

· 1300 Phoenician alphabet developed

Cities

· 9000 Agriculture and fixed settlements develop. Fixed settlement and regular food supplies meant that there was more leisure time. Humans could think and specialise. Not everyone had to produce food. Farming could give a food surplus. Some individuals could develop other skills (like making pottery) which they could exchange for food.

· 7000 Walled settlement at Jericho.

· 3000 Cities develop in Sumer and Egypt, including public buildings and water supplies. Chur, the oldest European town still inhabited, was settled in (modern) Switzerland. The town of Ohrid was settled in Macedonia

· 2900 The city of Mundigak (modern Kandahar in Afghanistan) was founded. Troy (modern Turkey) was first settled around 2500 BC.

· 2500 The oldest known fortress was built in Shisur (modern Oman); it was used until 1500 AD.

· 2500 The first planned cities are built on a grid system in the Indus Valley

· 2340 Sargon of Akkad maintains the first standing army and builds the first multi-city empire

· 2000 Sanitation and paved roads used by the Minoans

Law and Government

· 3000 Standard weights are introduced in the united Kingdoms of Egypt

· 2601 The first will is written in Egypt by Nik'ure, a pharaoh's son. His wealth is left to his wife, children and mistress

· 1700 The first written code of laws is produced by Hammurabi in Babylon (others say 2400 by by Uru Kagina, King of Lagash)

· 600 Metal coinage is first used in Lydia in Anatolia

· 478 The first known democracy appears in Athens, Greece

Money and Trade

· Various currencies circulated well beyond national borders, even without formal monetary union. In many cases, currency followed empire. In other instances, the ubiquity of certain currencies made them a convenient mode of exchange. The silver tetradrachms of Athens, known as Athenian Owls, were used by other Greek city-states from the sixth to the first century B.C. and became a symbol of Athenian power.

Artifacts, Metal Working and Pottery

· 7900 Pottery making is begun in China

· 6500 Weaving used in the Middle East

· 6000 Copper is used in the Middle East. By 5000 it is used in the Balkans. The use of fire allowed stone to be replaced by metal. Metals were first extracted from ores over a domestic fire. Metal was easier to mold into required shapes and was stronger. It could also be used for glittering ornamentation.

· 5000 Scales and balances used in Egypt

· 5000 Musical instruments – pipes made of bone – are produced in Europe

· 4700 Pottery making in Mesopotamia

· 3500 Woodworking practiced in Egypt

· 3200 Silk is used in China

· 3000 Bitumen is mined from surface deposits in the Middle East

· 3000 Glass is produced in the Middle East

· 3000 Candles are produced in Egypt and Crete

· 3000 Potter’s wheel is used in Mesopotamia

· 2600 Rope is made from hemp in China

· 2000 Bronze first appears in Northern Europe where both tin and copper (of which bronze is an alloy) were available

· 1800 Iron is first used by the Hittites

· 1500 Glazed pottery made in China

· 1400 Steel is produced by the Hittites by combining carbon and iron

· 300 Blast furnaces for cast iron develop in China, not existent in Europe until 700s AD in Scandinavia, and not widespread until 1300s AD. Chinese used soil containing iron phosohate, which reduced the melting temperature of iron.

· 100 Glass-blowing is used in Syria to make hollow glass vessels

Architecture

· 7500 Terraced roofs used in Catal Huyuk (modern Turkey)

· 6000 Granaries are built for storage of excess food in the Indus Valley

· 5000 Concrete used for slab floors in Central Europe

· 4000 Chambered tombs appear in Spain and Brittany; made by Neolithic peoples. Leads to the development of Megalithic monuments across Europe, including the Henge monuments in Britain by 2000.

· 5300-3900 Temple building in Sumer (ziggurats). 2700 Temple building in Egypt.

· 4000 Bridges first built in Africa

· 3200 Dams of earth and stone are built in modern Jordan

· 3100 Drainage systems are built in the Indus Valley

· 3000 Bricks are used by Egyptians and Sumerians

· 2500 Dikes are built in Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley

· 2500 The Arch is first used in Mohenjo Daro. It is re-invented by the Etruscans c 600 BC

· 2400 Irrigation and canals are used in Sumeria, leading to an increase in food production

· 2000 The first underwater tunnel is built in Babylon under River Euphrates connecting the king's palace with the temple

· 1500 Kiln-fired bricks used in Mesopotamia

· 750 Metal locks and keys are used in Rome

· 700 Iron scissors and saws are used by the Hallstatt Celtic culture in modern Austria

· 605 Windmills developed in Persia

· 600 The Arch is used by the Etruscans, later by the Romans

· 438 The Parthenon is built in Athens

· 221 The Great Wall of China is constructed

· 150 Central heating is developed by the Romans using under-floor spaces

· 100 Public baths are built in Rome

· 60 Window panes are made in Rome from blown glass

· 30 Domes are used in Rome

Transportation

· 4000 Sailing ships are used on the Nile

· 4000 Horses are domesticated in the Ukraine

· 3500 Oar-powered ships

· 3500 The Wheel first appears in a Sumerian pictograph. For thousands of years it is confined to Eurasia and Africa. Allowed large scale movement of goods and material

· 1500 The oar is used by the Phoenicians

· 1400 The chariot is introduced into Egypt by the invading Hyksos

· 1200 Ships with keels are used by the Phoenicians

· 1200 Navigation using the stars is developed by the Phoenicians

· 600 Lighthouses, bonfires on towers, are used in the Mediterranean to guide ships

· 600 The Phoenicians circumnavigate Africa

· 592 Anchors are used in Greece

· 500 The first highways are built in Persia

· 300 Metal bits are used by the Celts to control horses

· 200 Horseshoes are used in Rome. Horse collars and harnesses are used in China.

· 130 The Silk Road linking Europe to China is used.

· 100 The hinged rudder on boats is developed in China

Military

· 4000 Horses are domesticated in the Ukraine

· 2340 Sargon of Akkad maintains the first standing army

· 2000 Bronze is used in Europe. It arrives in Egypt by 1900. Bronze swords and armor are used in Europe by 1250.

· 1800 Iron is used by the Hittites in Anatolia.

· 1400 The chariot is introduced into Egypt by the invading Hyksos

· 1200 Metal swords are used by the Egyptians

· 900 Cavalry is first used by the Assyrians

· 700 Galley warships with multilevel oars are used by the Egyptians and Phoenicians

· 500 The crossbow is used in China

· 400 The catapult is used by Greece and Carthage

Science

· 2500 The first libraries and schools are built in Sumeria

· 2000 Astronomy develops in Mesopotomia

· 1700 Earliest evidence of diagnostic medicine in Egypt and Babylonia

· 450 Scientific specialization begins in Athens

· 323 The first museum is built in Alexandria

Astronomy and Physics

· From very ancient times, the five naked eye planets were known to be different to the stars. Whereas the stars appeared to be fixed onto the sky (which was thought to resemble a crystal sphere), the planets moved around relative to the stars ( the word planet is from a Greek word meaning "wanderer"). The planets were originally thought to revolve around the Earth. Casual observation showed that Jupiter would travel slowly across the sky in a West to East direction and takes about 12 years to complete a circuit of the sky, whereas Mars completes a similar circuit in just over 2 years.

· 2000 Astronomy develops in Mesopotomia. Records are initially kept by priests.

· 1500 Astronomy used in Egypt, India, China. The length of the day, month and year is known. The five naked eye planets are known.

· 1200 Navigation using the stars is developed by the Phoenicians

· By the time of the ancient Greeks, it was thought that all motion in the heavens was circular with a constant speed. The planetary orbits were called geocentric (meaning "centered on the Earth").

· 600 Anaximander notices that the stars appear to rotate around a pole. He suggests that the sky is a complete sphere around the Earth. He thought that the Earth's surface must be curved after hearing that travellers saw new stars appearing when moving north or south. He pictured the Earth as a cylinder.

· 500 Pythagoras and his followers taught that the Earth was a sphere. The idea came about from observations of Lunar Eclipses - the Earth's shadow on the Moon is always circular. The Pythagoreans thought that the motions of the planets were mathematically related to musical sounds and number. These ideas were called "The Music of the Spheres"

· 350 Heracleides suggests that the daily motion of the Sun, Moon, planets and stars around the Earth could be explained if the Earth rotated on its axis once every day

· 330 Aristotle writes a series of books which contain ideas that will influence humanity for 1800 years. He talks about the four elements (earth, fire air and water) which he says are only found on Earth. These elements each have their own tendencies: earth is heavy and falls, fire is light and rises. Motion is in straight lines. The heavier the object the faster it falls. A fifth element, the Aether, is only present in the objects of the sky. Its natural motion is circular so celestial objects travel around the Earth in perfect circles. Aristotle assumes that light travels infinitely fast. The Earth and the heavens were, therefore, subject to different natural laws. Things on Earth were corrupted and changed while the heavens were incorruptible and unchanging

· As observations became more accurate, it was noted that the planets would sometimes change direction in the sky and travel from East to West for a short while before resuming their general Easterly motion, called retrograde motion. To explain this complex motion they invented the notion of epicycles. These are circles on circles.

· 250 Aristarchus accurately measures the distance to the Moon using trigonometry applied to Lunar eclipses. He correctly shows that the moon is 25% as large as the Earth. He makes the first attempt to find the distance to the Sun but his figure is 5% of the correct value. Aristarchus also suggests that the Earth goes around the Sun. This would explain the retrograde motions. If the Earth was on the same side of the Sun as a planet, it would appear to overtake it and leave it behind, causing it to appear to move "backwards" as seen from Earth. It took 1800 years before this idea became accepted.

· 240 Eratosthenes measures of the size of the Earth. On the longest day of the year, the Sun was overhead in southern Egypt but 7° from the vertical in northern Egypt. Eratosthenes took the distance between these two points and multiplied it by the ratio between a full circle (360°) and the 7°. His measurement was within 1% of the correct value.

Mathematics

· 1800 Positional notation is used in Babylonia based on 60s. This is the origin of 60 seconds in a minute (both for time and angles), 60 minutes in an hour, and 360 degrees in a complete turn. They also worked out the concept of squares and square roots.

· 1650 Amhose, an Egyptian scribe, compiles a book on Egyptian mathematics

Mechanics

· 550 The screw is developed in Greece by Archytas

· 500 A 7km railway is built at Corinth to move boats

· 300 Steam power is used in Egypt for toys

· 250 Archimedes invents the lever and Archimedes Screw for irrigation

· 250 The piston is invented in Egypt by Ctesibius

· 150 The screw press is used in Rome for making wine and olive oil

Sports

· 776 The Olympic Games begin in Greece

· 600 Polo is played in Persia

Medicine

· 1700 Earliest evidence of diagnostic medicine in Egypt and Babylonia

Time-Keeping

· 3500 Water clocks are used in Sumeria

· The Solar Calendar was first used by the Sumerians.

· 3000 The Egyptians develop gnomons, vertical sticks used as the first sundials. The Egyptians used these to divide the day into 12 hours for the daytime and 12 hours for the night. Because of the seasonal variation in daylength throughout the year, the length of the hours was variable.

· 1500 Astronomy used in Egypt, India, China. The length of the day, month and year is known.

· The Babylonians standardised the length of the hour to 1/24th of the length of the Solar Day. The Week is another Babylonian invention. It is seven days because there were seven wanderers amongst the 'fixed stars' in the sky. These were the Sun, the Moon, and the five naked eye planets, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Indeed, the word planet means 'wanderer'. in English we have the Sun's Day (Sunday), the Moon's Day (Monday), Tiw's Day (Tuesday - Tiw is the Norse version of the god of war, Mars: in Spanish Tuesday is martes), Woden's Day (Wednesday - from Woden, the Norse version of Mercury - Miercoles in Spanish), Thor's Day (Thursday - Thor is the Norse king of the gods, like Jupiter - Jueves in Spanish - even in Hindi, Braspati is Jupiter and Braspativar is Thursday), Frigga's Day (from Frigga, the Norse Venus), Saturn's Day (Saturday). Around 580 BC when the Israelites were under Babylonian rule, they had to keep a seven day Week. Since their religion forbade them from worshipping the stars, they rewrote the Babylonian creation stories, replacing the many Babylonian gods with their single God. The creation was therefore said to have taken seven days.

· The word month is from the same root as moon and indeed that is where it comes from. The problem with the astronomical month is that there are two of them and both vary in length by significant amounts. If the Moon is followed against the starry background, it completes a revolution around the Earth in 27 days 7 hours 43 minutes and 11.5 seconds, on average. In fact, this period can vary by several hours because of the gravitational pull of the Sun and other planets. This is called the Sidereal Month. The period from Full Moon to Full Moon (or Half to Half, New to New, etc) is called the Synodic Month. It has a period of 29 days 12 hours 44 minutes and 3 seconds. The actual value can vary by as much as 13 hours from the above average.

· The Jewish calendar has its start point in 3761 BC. The Mayan calendar dates from 3300 BC. The Chinese calendar has its start point in 2698 BC. China recorded the earliest solar eclipse on 22 October 2137 BC.

· 312 Chronology is begun in the Seleucid Empire in Persia where years are counted sequentially and not by ruler

· 45 The Julian Calendar is used by the Roman Empire. The year was defined as 365.25 days. He divided the year into months (each with either 30 or 31 days alternating regularly) and invented the concept of a Leap Year. Each year had 365 days except Leap Years which had 366. Under the Romans the beginning of the year was moved from the Vernal Equinox to the beginning of January. The original 5th month (a 31 day month) was renamed July after Julius Caesar. Later, Augustus renamed the 6th month after himself (August) and increased its number of days to 31 to match July, leaving poor February with 28.

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Languages

See Appendix: Languages

Indo-European Migration

· 6000-4000 Proto-Indo-European unity and common language

· 4000-3500 Proto-Indo-European areal dialects

· 3500 Anatolian branch separates

· 2500 Indo-Europeans (Caucasians) appear in Europe, replacing the culture of earlier Neolithic peoples. By 2000, two cultures emerge, the "Beaker Folk" and the “Battle Axe Folk”, identified by the items found in their burial sites found across Europe. From these would develop the Celtic tribes.

· 2250 Achaeans migrate to Greece and Crete, probably from Anatolia. By 2000 a Minoan culture is developed on Crete.

· 2100 Hittites and Luwians, the first Indo-European peoples to appear in history and the inventors of iron and steel, settle in Anatolia.

· 2000 Italic tribes come to Italy.

· 2000 Illyrian (Doric) tribes settle in Illyria

· 1700 Aryans migrate to North India

· 1400 Slavs appear as a separate nation

· 1250 Phrygians migrate from Balkans to Anatolia.

· 1250 Baltic peoples move north and east

· 1230-1150 "Sea Peoples" destroy the Hittite Kingdom, invade Syria, Palestine, Egypt

· 1200 Achaeans migrate to Crete, Cyprus, Anatolia. Celtic cultures in Gaul and Germania. Illyrians invade South Italy and Greece (Doric Greeks).

· 1100 Thracian peoples arrive to Balkans. New wave of Italics comes to Italy. Medes and Persians migrate to Iran.

· 900 Etruscans settle in Italy

· 730 Cimmerians invade Europe and Asia

· 675 Scythians invade the Caucasus and eliminate the Cimmerians

· 650 Celts settle in Britain and Ireland

Writing

· 7000 The advent of a writing system coincides with the transition from hunter-gatherer societies to more permanent agrarian encampments when it became necessary to count ones property, parcels of land, animals or measures of grain.  The first evidence for this with incised "counting tokens" in Mesopotamia

· 4000 The tokens began to be symbols that could be impressed in clay to represent a record of land, grain or cattle.  One of the earliest examples was found in the excavations of Uruk in Mesopotamia. The pictures began as representing what they were, pictographs, and eventually, certain pictures represented an idea or concept, ideographs, and finally to represent sounds.

head	foot	sun "day"	hand	woman

· 3300 Sumeria developed the cuneiform script. Pictographs were stylized, rotated and in impressed in clay with a wedge shaped stylus. The pictograph for woman, as seen above became . The signs of the Sumerians were adopted by the East Semitic peoples of Mesopotamia. Akkadian became the first Semitic language and would be used by the Babylonians and Assyrians.  The Akkadian characters continued to represent syllables with defined vowels.

· 3100 China first used pictograms

· 3000 Egypt was using hieroglyphs. Unlike Akkadian, the Egyptian syllabic system had no definitive vowels.  Some hieroglyphs were biliteral, some triliteral.  Others were determinatives that at the end of the word gave a sense of the word and others were idiographs.  Eventually, however, certain Egyptian hieroglyphs such as meaning "mouth" (which was pronounced r'i) became the pictograph for the sound of R with any vowel.   The pictograph for "water" (pronounced nu) became the symbol for the consonantal sound of N.  This practice of using a pictograph to stand for the first sound in the word it stood for is called acrophony and was the first step in the development of an alphabet. The Egyptians used the acrophones as a consonantal system along with their syllabic and idiographic system, therefore the alphabet was not yet born

· 3000 The Gilgamesh epic is written in Sumer. It includes the first flood and ark story.

· 2500 The first libraries (centres of knowledge and study) were set up in Mesopotamia

· 2450 Use of papyrus (earliest form of paper) for writing in Egypt. Simultaneously ink is used in Egypt and China

· 2330 The earliest poetry was produced in Sumeria written by a high priestess called Enheduanna, daughter of Sargon of Akkad

· 2300 Mapmaking begins in Mesopotamia

· 1700 The first written code of laws is produced by Hammurabi

· 1700 The acrophonic principal of Egyptian influenced Proto-Canaanite/Proto-Sinaitic.  Inscriptions found at the site of the ancient torquoise mines at Serabit-al-Khadim in the Sinai use less than 30 signs, definite evidence of a consonantal alphabet rather than a syllabic system. This is the alphabet that was the precursor to Phoenician.

· 1500 The ancient city of Ugarit, modern Ras Shamra,  has produced texts in a cuneiform script that was also consonantal

· c. 1300 The Phoenician Alphabet is developed

· 1000 The first dictionary is produced in China

· 750 The Greek Alphabet is developed

· 180 The first book is produced in Greece from bound papyrus

· 100 Parchment is used in Pergamum in Anatolia

· It is not possible to determine which Language Family a language belongs to by looking at the writing system. For example, Hindi and Urdu are very similar languages but Hindi uses the Devanagari writing system derived from Sanskrit; Urdu uses the Nastaliq script derived from Arabic. Croatian and Serbian use the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets respectively even though the two languages are very closely related. Conversely, unrelated languages may use the same alphabet. Languages that use the Latin Alphabet include English, Malay, Quechua, Swahili, Hungarian, Vietnamese, and Turkish. A few languages have their own unique scripts, including Armenian, Amharic, Tamil, Korean, and Mongolian.

· Logograms: The oldest forms of writing used pictures or symbols for whole words.

§ The major systems are Hieroglyphs (picture writing used by Ancient Egyptian), Mayan Glyphs (drawings representing words) and Cuneiform (wedge shaped characters used by Sumerian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Hittite and Persian) are examples that are no longer used.

§ The modern languages of China (Mandarin, Cantonese) and Japanese are the only ones still written using logograms, called Chinese Characters (or Kanji in Japanese). Japanese uses two other writing systems (both syllabaries) alongside the Chinese characters. Korean stopped using Chinese Characters during the 14th Century AD when it developed its own alphabet.

· Alphabet: each symbol represents a single sound (for example P, K, A). Closely related is the Syllabary: each symbol represents a simple combination of sounds (for example KA, DI, LO). The North Indian Syllabaries have a symbol for consonants with a built-in short a (Ba, La, Ka). A further symbol is added to change the built-in vowel (for example Ba to BA, Ba to BE).

§ c. 1500 BC The alphabet was invented in Ugarit (in modern Syria). This Ugarit Alphabet was derived from a previous Cuneiform writing system. The original alphabet only contained consonants. The symbols were taken from words beginning with the sound represented. For example 'aleph is a Semitic word meaning ox, beth (for B) means house, gimmel (soft G - camel), daleth (D - door). This alphabet resembled the previous logogram writing of the region.

§ C. 1300 BC The Ugarit Alphabet slowly evolved into the Phoenician alphabet. The Phoenicians were great traders on the Mediterranean and their alphabet spread widely. With minor variations this alphabet has evolved to all the modern scripts in the world and is considered to be the ancestor of all modern alphabets and syllabaries.

§ Phoenician slowly evolved into Hebrew (via Aramaic) and Arabic (via Nabatean),

· The Arabic script spread with Islam and was adapted for use by other languages. The Nastaliq form of Arabic is used by Urdu and Farsi in Pakistan, North India, Iran, and Afghanistan. Maldivian (from the Indian Ocean) and Syriac (Middle East) also use adaptations from Arabic. These scripts generally only have symbols for consonants. Vowels are represented by various additional symbols over or below the consonants.

· Aramaic moved to Central Asia to give the Mongolian script and arrived in North India as Brahmi which became the alphabet of languages like Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujerati, and Tibetan. In Southern India, the North Indian syllabaries evolved into the curved syllabaries of languages like Pali, Tamil, and Singhalese (in Sri Lanka). The spread of Buddhism to South East Asia took these curved scripts further east (Burmese, Thai, Khmer, and Javanese). These scripts were originally written on palm leaves which split if a straight line is drawn on them; hence their curved appearance.

· The Aramaic alphabet also went south to Ethiopia to yield the script for Amharic.

§ Moving West the Phoenician alphabet spread to Carthage as the Punic Alphabet and also formed the Greek Alphabet. This was the first alphabetic system to use symbols for vowels.

· Greek was adopted by the Etruscans and adapted for their alphabet and from there became the Latin alphabet of the Roman Empire. The letters were A, B, C (from the original Semitic G sound which the Etruscans had changed to a hard C), D, E, F (another Etruscan invention), G (derived from the shape of the C), H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, V (which was used for the sounds of modern U and W), X, Y, Z. The letters Y and Z were near the beginning of the Greek alphabet. They were dropped from the original Latin alphabet and then re-added. During the Middle Ages, the letter I split into two forms (the modern I and J) while V split into U, V and W. Many modern languages that use the Latin script use extra forms of these letters (like Ñ, Ü, É).

· The Latin alphabet is used by the Americas (even for indigenous languages which were not previously written, like Quechua, Guarani), Western Europe, Africa (where it was taken by Europeans and is now used by languages such as Swahili and Xhosa), and a few areas in Asia (by languages like Vietnamese, Malay, Tagalog).

· The Cyrillic alphabet is based on Greek and Latin and is found in much of Eastern Europe amongst Orthodox Christian areas (Russian, Bulgarian, Serbian). It was developed in the 900s by St. Cyril and St. Methodius to facilitate the spread of Christianity among the Slavs.

· The Egyptian Coptic script, Armenian and Georgian are also based on Greek.

Religions

See Appendix: Religions

Religion	Place of Origin	Time of Origin	Numbers (Millions)	Where Active
Hinduism	Indus Valley	3000 BC	650	India / Nepal Indian Ocean Malaysia Bali East Africa Surinam
Judaism	Palestine	1200 BC	18	Israel North America Europe
Taoism	China	500 BC	30	China / Korea
Buddhism	Ganges Valley	480 BC	310	Indo-China Nepal / Tibet North East Asia
Confucius	China	500 BC	6	China / Korea
Christianity (Orthodox)	Palestine Asia Minor	30 AD	160	Eastern Europe Russia / Ukraine Greece Middle East South West India Central China
Christianity (Catholic)	Roman Empire	300s AD	910	Latin America Southern Europe Ireland Africa (West) Philippines
Islam	Arabia	600s AD	840	Central Asia South East Asia North Africa Middle East North India
Sikhism	Punjab (India)	1500 AD	16	India
Christianity (Protestant)	Germany	1500 AD	560	North America Northern Europe Africa Oceana
Bahais	Iran	1800 AD	5	Middle East

Civilizations

Seven Wonders of the Ancient World: Originally by Herodotus, finalized in Middle Ages:

The Great Pyramid of Giza (Built by Cheops, 2560)

Hanging Gardens of Babylon (Built by Nebuchadnezzar, 600)

Statue of Zeus at Olympia (Carved by Phidias, 400)

Temple of Artemis at Ephesus (Built 550, burned 356)

Mausoleum of Halicarnassus (Built for King Mausolus, 353)

Colossus of Rhodes (Statue of Apollo in harbor of Rhodes, built 282, destroyed by earthquake 226BC)

Pharos (Lighthouse) of Alexandria.(270BC, destroyed by earthquake, 1375AD)

Mesopotamia

Sumerians, 2900-1800

· 3000 Sumerians develop a city-state civilizations: Ur, Uruk, Lagash, Kish

· 2750 Gilgamesh, legendary king of Ur.

· 2450 Semitic people migrate from Arabia to Mesopotamia, later found Assyria and Babylon

· 2340-2125 Akkadians. Sargon I, first Akkadian king, conquers Mesopotamia.

· 1925 Hittites conquer Babylon

Old Babylonian Period, 1800-1170

· 1800-1530 Amorites (Old Babylonian Empire)

· 1728-1685 Hammurabi, first code of laws written.

· 1520-1170 Staggered periods of Hittite and Kassite dominance

Assyrians, 1170-612.

· 1116 Tiglath-pileser I conquers Babylon

· c. 1000 Aramean Invasion

· 935-860 Revival of Assyria

· 879 Ashurnasirpal II moves the Assyrian capital from Ashur to Nimrud

· 853 The ruler of Damascus leads a coalition of twelve kings against Assyrian king Shalmaneser III. Although initially successful, Israel and many other states are eventually forced to pay tribute.

· 745–727 Tiglath-pileser III launches a program in which thousands of people are moved from one area of the empire to another. Damascus conquered (732)

· 722-705 Sargon II conquers Samaria/Israel (722), Babylon (710). His capital at Khorsabad takes seven years to build.

· 714-681 Sennacherib, whose conquest of Judah resulted in the first deportations of the Hebrews. Establishes capital at Nineveh. 689 Assyrians destroy and flood Babylon. 682 Assyrians conquer Judah.

· 668-626 Ashurbanipal, the most energetic of the Assyrian conquerors. 663 Sacks Thebes, conquers Egypt.

· 650 Scythian and Cimmerian raiders sweep over Syria and Palestine.

· 626 Chaldeans retake Babylon

· 609 The last Assyrian king makes his final stand at the city of Harran and, with his Egyptian allies, is defeated by the Chaldeans and Medes

Neo-Babylonians (Chaldeans), 612-539

· 605-565 Nebuchadnezzar II. Defeats Egyptians, conquers Judah, destroys Jerusalem (586). Hanging Gardens of Babylon built (580).

· 539 Cyrus II of Persia conquers Babylon

Persians, 539-331

Seleucids (Hellenistic), 331–65

· 64 Roman general Pompey deposes the last Seleucid king Antiochus XIII

Rome, 64BC-476AD

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Egypt

5000 Earliest evidence of settled human habitation in the Nile delta. Egyptians begin using agriculture

c. 4000 Upper and Lower Kingdoms of Egypt established

3100-2650 Archaic period

· 3100-2900 The legendary king, Menes, unites the two kingdoms of Egypt. The city of Memphis (near modern Cairo), capital of a united Egypt, was founded by Narmer.

o The first kings seized control of the Nile where it narrowed to a mile across. Their settlement became Memphis; their necropolis, centered at Saqqara, served as the national cemetery.

· 2780-1640 Pyramid-building period; ~2780 Zoser builds the the "Step" pyramid. 2680 King Khufu (Cheops) completes construction of the Great Pyramid at Giza

2650-2134 Old Kingdom; beginning of the Third Dynasty

2134-2040 First Intermediate Period

2040-1640 Middle Kingdom

1640-1550 Second Intermediate Period

· 1730 Hyksos invaders, a Semitic people, drive Egyptians from Lower Egypt. 1570 Hyksos driven out of Egypt

1570-1070 New Kingdom

· 1550 Temple of Karnak built. ~1500 Earliest examples of the Book of the Dead

· 1420-1380 Amenhotep III begins “Golden Age’; Building of the Temple of Luxor

o Amenhotep III, ruled for 37 years and built an unprecedented series of monuments. These included elaborate constructions at Karnak and Luxor, religious centers of the god Amun, patron of Thebes. Amun became increasingly powerful after Thebes regained control of Egypt around 1520 B.C. His name means Hidden One, and he resided in the inner sanctum of his temple at Karnak, where his priests fed, washed, and clothed a statue of him. Amun soon merged with the ancient sun god Re and became Amun-Re. Pharaoh himself was regarded as the son of Amun-Re. His divine authority could be renewed only by the Hidden One each year in a festival called Opet. Late in his reign, and perhaps chafing from political friction with the priests of Amun, Amenhotep III decided that he was not only the son of Amun but also the incarnation of Re—and thus at least equal to Amun. He began building monuments to his own divinity, including a vast funerary temple across the Nile from Thebes. This temple featured two 65-foot-high, 720-ton quartzite statues of himself. The ruins of those statues are famed as the Colossi of Memnon.

· 1353-1336 Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten), who abandoned Egyptian polytheism for a monotheistic religion (Sun-God). His queen was Nefertiti

o Ancient Egyptians worshipped the sun as a god throughout their recorded history. A variety of deities—including Ra, or Re, Amun, and the combined Amun-Re—manifested different aspects of the solar orb. But the radical Pharaoh Akhenaten, who ruled the country from 1353 B.C. to 1336 B.C., elevated one god, Aten, the embodiment of the sun's radiating warmth, to a nearly exclusive position. Outlawing temples to other gods (along with the traditional festivals held in their honor), Akhenaten raised new temples to Aten, leaving them open to the sky to allow worshippers to feel the god's life-giving rays. Akhenaten proclaimed himself to be Aten's sole incarnation on Earth, the one human who could worship and communicate directly with the god. Following Akhenaten's death, the Aten temples were dismantled, as was the now heretical theology. Royalty, temple officials, and citizens throughout the realm once again took refuge in their belief in, and worship of, their own favored deities.

o

· 1347-1339 Tutankhamon, return to polytheism

· 1319 Ramses the Great. 1304 Ramses II. 1298 Battle of Qadesh between Ramses II and Hittites.

· 1182-1151 Ramses III. 1175 Invasion of Egypt by Sea Peoples, including Philistines, Greeks, Sardinians, Sicilians. Ramses III defeats them.

· 1065 New Kingdom ends with death of Ramses IX. Smedes, a rich merchant, becomes pharaoh.

1070-712 Third Intermediate Period

· 750 Rule by Kush under Kashta and then Piankhy

· 722-682 Ethiopian Kings rule Egypt.

712-332 Late Period

· ~670 Formation of a new Kushite kingdom at Meroë

· 525-404 Persian Rule. Conquered by Cambyses.

· 404-332 Egypt independent

· 332 Invasion by Alexander the Great. 330 Death of Alexander; Egypt governed by general Ptolemy. Founds Ptolemaic dynasty

332-31 BC Ptolemaic (Hellenistic) Egypt

· 320 Ptolemy captures Jerusalem and Libya. 305 Ptolemy decalred king, then pharaoh.

· 51-31 Cleopatra VII, last of the Ptolemaic monarchs. Battle of Actium: Cleopatra VII and Mark Antony defeated by Augustus Caesar

30 BC-395 AD Roman period

Hebrews

· 2000 Abraham leaves Ur, settles in Cannan (Palestine). In the ancient Middle East wives who could not bear children encouraged their husbands to procreate with slaves or concubines. Thus Sarah, who was barren, convinced Abraham to have a child with Hagar, an Egyptian slave who had probably stayed with them since the clan’s expulsion by the pharaoh.

· 1500 Israelites settle in Egypt to escape famine and are enslaved

· 1400 The Canaanites founded Urusalim (the modern Jerusalem)

· 1250 The Exodus: Moses leads Israelites out of Egypt into Canaan—Ten Commandments. Around this time Judaism develops.

· 1200 Period of the Judges begins

· 1050 Philistines conquer Israel

· 1020 Samuel, last of the Judges, anoints Saul, King of Israel.

· 1000 Saul killed at battle of Gilboa. Succeeded by David. 994 David defeats Philistines, captures Jerusalem. Unites the 12 tribes of Israel

· 961 Solomon succeeds King David, builds Jerusalem Temple (953).

· 922 Death of Solomon. Succeeded by his son Rehoboam. Rebellion led by his brother Jeroboam. Kingdom divided into Israel in north under Rehoboam, and Judah in the south under Rehoboam. Hebrew elders begin to write Old Testament books of Bible.

· 854 Ahab of Israel, kings of Damascus and others lead army against Assyrian king Shalmaneser III

· 842 Jehu, a soldier, establishes new Israelite dynasty

· 800–700 Prophets Amos, Hosea, Isaiah

· 783-748 Jerobam II, king of Israel. Period of prosperity.

· 722 Assyrians conquer Samaria - end of Kingdom of Israel

· 608 Egyptians kill Josiah, King of Judah, at Battle of Meggido

· 586 Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar conquers Judah, destroys Jerusalem including the Temple, Ark of the Convenant is lost. Babylonian Captivity of the Jews, enslaved in Babylon

· 539 Cyrus the Great of Persia conquers Babylon and frees the Jews

· 520-515 Temple in Jerusalem rebuilt

· 445 Nehemiah, prophet, rebuilds the walls of Jerusalem

· 400–100 Pentateuch—first five books of the Old Testament evolve

· 332-141 Greeks (Ptolemaics then Seleucids) occupy Israel.

· 167 Jewish revolt under Judas Maccabaeus, who is killed in battle in 164. His brothers Jonathan (164-143) and Simon (143-134) become leaders of the Jews. 141 Jews liberate Jerusalem from the Seleucids, declare Judaea an independent kingdom.

· 141-63 Kingdom of Judaea

· 63 Romans occupy Israel; Pompey captures Jerusalem

· 37-4 Herod the Great, Jew appointed King of Judea by the Romans. According to the Bible killed all males born in Bethlehem in one year because of a prophesy that the king of the Jews was born there. Rebuilt the Temple in Jerusalem.

· 4 Upon Herod’s death the kingdom is partitioned among his sons, Herod Arcaeleus etharch of Samaria, Philip tetrarch of Ituraea, and Herod Antipas tetrarch of Galilee, who has John the Baptist murdered. 6AD Romans depose Herod Archaeleus in Samaria and Judea and appoint roman procurators, including Pontius Pilate (26-36AD).

Phoenicia

· Although they're mentioned frequently in ancient texts traders and sailors, we know relatively little about these people. Historians refer to them as Canaanites when talking about the culture before 1200 B.C. The Greeks called them the phoinikes, which means the "red people" after their prized reddish purple cloth. They would never have called themselves Phoenicians. Rather, they were citizens of the ports from which they set sail, walled cities such as Byblos, Sidon, and Tyre.

· 3000-2450 Phoenician settlements on coast of what is now Syria and Lebanon (called Cannan). The culture later known as Phoenician was flourishing as early as the third millennium B.C. in the Levant, but it wasn't until around 1100 B.C., after a period of general disorder and social collapse throughout the region, that they emerged as a significant cultural and political force

· 1300 The Phoenician alphabet is developed

· 1300 Sidon flourishes as port-city. Other cities: Byblos, Beirut, Tyre develop.

· 1140 First North African colony founded at Utica

· 1000-400 Phoenicians colonize the Mediterranean. They grew rich trading precious metals from abroad and products such as wine, olive oil, and timber from the famous extinct cedars of Lebanon. The Phoenicians develop the modern alphabet and spread it to their ports of call. The Phoenicians disseminated ideas, myths, and knowledge from the Assyrian and Babylonian empires to the Greeks, which led to the Greeks' Golden Age and hence the birth of Western civilization. The Phoenicians imported so much papyrus from Egypt that the Greeks used their name for the first great Phoenician port, Byblos, to refer to the ancient paper. The name Bible, or "the book," also derives from Byblos.

o The association of royalty with the color purple stems from the ancient reddish-purple dye made from the glands of murex mollusks. The expense of producing the dye was so prodigious—many thousands of mollusks were needed to produce one ounce of dye—that only the very wealthiest could afford it.  It was said to be worth the price, because the dye, once set, would not run or fade. Tyre and other Phoenician cities traded fine garments dyed purple and spread the dye-making technology to their settlements around the Mediterranean. Archaeologists today still find huge piles of murex shells near the ruins of ancient Phoenician settlements—usually downwind from where people lived. After the Punic Wars when Rome emerged victorious, the Roman state took over production of the purple dye, and under Emperor Nero the wearing of purple garments was restricted to the emperor alone.

· 814 Phoenicians establish Carthage

· 500-400. Phoenicians sail to Africa, Britain.

· 400-332 The Levant is ruled by Assyrians, Persians. The peoples that conquered the Phoenicians destroyed or built over their cities. Their writings, mostly on fragile papyrus, disintegrated—so that we now know the Phoenicians mainly by the biased reports of their enemies. The Phoenicians themselves reportedly had a rich literature, it was totally lost in antiquity.

· 332 Alexander the Great conquers Tyre. Phoenicia is subsequently ruled by Seleucids

Anatolia

Hittites, 2000-700

· 2100 Hittites and Luwians (Indo-Europeans) settle in Anatolia. Strong commercial ties between Anatolia and Mesopotamia. Cuneiform tablets.

· 2000-1750 Early Hittite Period. 1,900 Hittite kingdom founded by Anitta (Labarnas). Hattusas built.

· 1660-1450 Old Hittite Kingdom. Hittite Kingdom leading power in the Mid-east.

· 1456-1190 Hittite Empire.

· 1456 Tudhaliyas I founds a new dynasty

· 1,380 - 1345 Suppiluliumas I, the Hittites' greatest ruler. He destroys the Kingdom of Mitanni and extends his borders into northern Syria.

· 1,275 Reign of Muwattalli. Battle of Kadesh between Hittites and Egyptians, and earliest known international treaty signed. Ramses withdraws from Syria.

· 1190-750 Late Hittite City-States

· 1,200-1,100 Anatolian civilizations destroyed by "Sea Peoples". Trojan war. Hattusas destroyed. Hittite Empire collapses and organized as small city states

· 1,100-1,000 Beginning of Greek migration to Aegean coast. Miletus the first Greek colony and city

1250 First mention of Lycians

Urartians, 860-590

· 860-840 Aramu, first known king. 840-830 Sarduri I makes Tushpa the capital. 764-735 Sarduri II. Urartian kingdom is at its peak. Aleppo taken from the Assyrians. 590 Urartu conquered by Medes

Phrygia, 750-620

· 1200s Phrygians migrate from the Balkans (Macedonia) into Anaolia

· 738–?696 King Midas rules Phyrigia, with the capital at Gordion. He undergoes constant conflict with the Assyrians. The wealth of this kingdom, due to its position at the crossroads of the Royal Road, is reflected both in the myth of Midas, and the richly appointed burials of the kings. Also home to the Gordion knot; it was believed that whoever untied the knot was to gain the key to Anatolia, many tried unsuccessfully until Alexander the Great cut it with his sword in 333.

· 696 Cimmerians invade Phrygia, Midas commits suicide

· 620s Lydians conquer Phrygia

Lydia, 687-546

· 687 Gyges founds the Mermnadae dynasty, with the capital at Sardis. He and his successors conquer Anatolia.

· 546 Croesus, Lydia’s last ruler, is conquered by Cyrus the Great of Persia and commits suicide; Lydia is absorbed into the Persian Empire. He is credited with first use of coined money, gave refuge to Solon of Athens, and gave Aesop a court appointment to write Aesop’s Fables

Persians, 546-333

· 499-479 Greco-Persian Wars. 479 Ionian cities encouraged by Athens began to revolt against Persian rule. 498 Sardis captured from Persians and burned by Ionian cities.494 Persians crush Ionian revolt at Battle of Lade and burn Miletus.479 Persians defeated at battles of Plataea and Mycale. Ionian cities temporarily regain freedom. 478 Delian League welcomes Ionian cities.

· 401 The ten thousand under Xenophon begins expedition through Anatolia into Persia. 395 Sardis besieged. 394 Battle of Cnidus. 386 Anatolia under Persian rule again by King's peace.

Greeks, 333-188

· 333 Defeat of Persians by Alexander the Great at Issus. Hellenistic Rulers: Antigonus 319-301, Lysimachus 301-281, Seleucids 281-30.

· 302 Kingdom of Pontus founded by Mithridates I

· 278 Gauls invade Anatolia. 275 Gauls defeated by Seleucids

· 263–241 Rise of Pergamu