1600s BC (decade) explained

The 1600s BC was a decade lasting from January 1, 1609 BC to December 31, 1600 BC.

Events and trends

• Egypt—End of Fourteenth Dynasty.^[1]
• The creation of one of the oldest surviving astronomical documents, a copy of which was found in the Babylonian library of Ashurbanipal: a 21-year record of the appearances of Venus (which the early Babylonians called Nindaranna).
• The end of the Indus Valley civilization.
• The overthrow of the ruling Amorite dynasty in Aleppo, Syria.
• The date of the earliest discovered rubber balls.
• Egypt conquered by Asian tribes known as the Hyksos—see History of ancient Israel and Judah.
• 1600 BC—Shang dynasty instituted in China.
• 1600 BC—Tumulus culture started.
• —Nebra skydisk created in what is now Germany.
• The foundations of the Olmec civilization in southern Mexico.
• —Cycladic civilization ends.
• –1550 BC—"Mask of Agamemnon" Funerary mask, from the royal tombs at Mycenae, Greece, is made. Grave Circle A. It is now at National Archaeological Museum of Athens.
• –1200 BC—Hittite (Anatolia) iron tools and weapons.
• – 1200 BC—Tiryns, Ancient Greece, is inhabited.
• —Kings and princes on the mainland Greece have begun building large aboveground burial places commonly referred to as beehive tombs because of their rounded, conical shape.
• —Hittites establish capital at Hattusa (near modern Boğazkale, Turkey).

Significant people

• 1602 BC—Death of Shem, son of Noah, according to the Hebrew Calendar

Notes and References

1. Kim Ryholt, The Political Situation in Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period, Museum Tusculanum Press, (1997)