Timeline of ancient history explained

This timeline of ancient history lists historical events of the documented ancient past from the beginning of recorded history until the Early Middle Ages. Prior to this time period, prehistory civilizations were pre-literate and did not have written language.

Millennia:4th millennium BC -3rd millennium BC -2nd millennium BC -1st millennium BC -1st millennium

Centuries:34th BC -33rd BC -32nd BC -31st BC -30th BC -29th BC -28th BC -27th BC -26th BC -25th BC -24th BC -23rd BC -22nd BC -21st BC -20th BC -19th BC -18th BC -17th BC -16th BC -15th BC -14th BC -13th BC -12th BC -11th BC -10th BC -9th BC -8th BC -7th BC -6th BC -5th BC -4th BC -3rd BC -2nd BC -1st BC -1st AD - 2nd AD -3rd AD -4th AD

Early history

Classical antiquity

See main article: Classical antiquity.

Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. It refers to the timeframe of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome.[38] [39] Ancient history includes the recorded Greek history beginning in about 776 BC (First Olympiad). This coincides roughly with the traditional date of the founding of Rome in 753 BC and the beginning of the history of Rome.[40] [41]

End of ancient history in Europe

The date used as the end of the ancient era is arbitrary. The transition period from Classical Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages is known as Late Antiquity. Late Antiquity is a periodization used by historians to describe the transitional centuries from Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages, in both mainland Europe and the Mediterranean world: generally from the end of the Roman Empire's Crisis of the Third Century (c. ACE 284) to the Islamic conquests and the re-organization of the Byzantine Empire under Heraclius. The Early Middle Ages are a period in the history of Europe following the fall of the Western Roman Empire spanning roughly five centuries from CE 500 to 1000. Not all historians agree on the ending dates of ancient history, which frequently falls somewhere in the 5th, 6th, or 7th century. Western scholars usually date the end of ancient history with the fall of the Western Roman Empire in CE 476, the death of the emperor Justinian I in CE 565, or the coming of Islam in CE 632 as the end of classical antiquity.

Horizontal timeline

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Period = from:-3000 till:400TimeAxis = orientation:horizontalScaleMajor = unit:year increment:500 start:-3000ScaleMinor = unit:year increment:100 start:-3000

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bar:Time color:period from: -3000 till: -1200 text:Bronze Age from: -1200 till: 400 text:Iron Age bar:Mideast color:era from: -3000 till: -550 text:Mesopotamia from: -550 till: -322 shift:(0,-10) text:Achaemenid from: -322 till: -247 shift:(0,0) text:Seleucid from: -247 till: 224 shift:(0,-10) text:Parthian from: 224 till: 400 text:Sassanid bar:Africa color:age from: -3000 till: -800 text:Ancient Egypt from: -800 till: 350 text:Kingdom of Kush from: 350 till: 400 text:Axumite Empire bar:Med/Europe color:era from: -3000 till: -1200 text:Archaic from: -1200 till: -650 text:Phoenicia from: -650 till: -146 text:Ancient Greece from: -146 till: 400 text:Ancient Rome bar:Indus color:age from: -3000 till: -1200 text:Indus Valley from: -1200 till: -180 text:Iron Age India from: -180 till: 1 text:Indo-Greeks from: 1 till: 400 text:Middle kingdoms bar:China color:era from: -3000 till: -2000 text:Sovereigns and Emperors from: -2000 till: -200 text:Ancient China from: -200 till: 400 text:Imperial China bar:N.Americas color:age from: -3000 till: -1500 text:Archaic from: -1500 till: 400 text:Classic bar:C.Americas color:era from: -3000 till: -1500 text:Archaic from: -1500 till: 250 text:Formative from: 250 till: 400 text:Classic bar:S.Americas color:age from: -3000 till: -1900 text:Archaic from: -1900 till: 200 text:Preclassic from: 200 till: 400 text:Classic

Dates are approximate, consult particular article for details

See also

References

Notes and References

  1. https://www.worldhistory.org/writing/ The invention of writing
  2. "Beginning in the pottery-phase of the Neolithic, clay tokens are widely attested as a system of counting and identifying specific amounts of specified livestock or commodities. The tokens, enclosed in clay envelopes after being impressed on their rounded surface, were gradually replaced by impressions on flat or plano-convex tablets, and these in turn by more or less conventionalized pictures of the tokens incised on the clay with a reed stylus. The transition to writing was complete Book: W. Hallo . The Ancient Near East . W. Simpson . New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich . 1971 . 25.
  3. Book: Gardiner, Alan . Egypt of the Pharoahs . Oxford University Press . 1961.
  4. Caroline Alexander, "Stonehenge," National Geographic, June 2008.
  5. Augustin F. C. Holl. The Origins of African Metallurgies. Anthropology. Oxford research encyclopaedias. Published online 30 June 2020. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190854584.013.63
  6. Hildebrand, Elisabeth; et al. (2018). "A monumental cemetery built by eastern Africa's first herders near Lake Turkana, Kenya". PNAS. 115 (36): 8942–8947. doi:10.1073/pnas.1721975115. PMC 6130363. .
  7. Book: Biggs, Robert D. . Inscriptions from Tell Abū Ṣalābīkh . . 1974 . 0-226-62202-9 . Oriental Institute Publications . Robert D. Biggs . 99.
  8. Two fragmentary Akkadian versions survive, from the 15th century BCE and from the end of the second millennium BCE: "Its great antiquity and popularity is evidenced by the large number of manuscripts of it that have survived" (Beaulieu in Clifford 2007:4).
  9. Book: Mogens Herman Hansen . A comparative study of six city-state cultures: an investigation . Københavns universitet. Polis centret . 2002 . Kgl. Danske Videnskabernes Selskab . 978-87-7876-316-7 . 40– . 2 June 2011.
  10. Book: Jeremy A. Black . The Literature of Ancient Sumer . Jeremy Black . Graham Cunningham . Eleanor Robson . 13 April 2006 . Oxford University Press . 978-0-19-929633-0 . 325– . 2 June 2011.
  11. Samuel Noah Kramer, The Sumerians, Chicago University Press, 1971,
  12. Book: Withington, John . Assassins' Deeds: A History of Assassination from Ancient Egypt to the Present Day . 2020-11-05 . Reaktion Books . 978-1-78914-352-2 . en.
  13. De Mieroop, Marc Van. (2004). A History of the Ancient Near East: c. 3000-323BC. (pp.67) Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing
  14. Movses Khorenatsi, History of Armenia. Ed. by G. Sargsyan. Yerevan: Hayastan, 1997, (pp. 83,286)
  15. Book: Shaw, Ian . The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt . Oxford University Press . 2000 . 0192804588.
  16. Book: Dalley, Stephanie . Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others . Oxford University Press . 2000 . 9780199538362 . 45.
  17. Book: Mitchell, T . The Bible in the British Museum . The British Museum Press . 1988 . 70.
  18. Book: Hardy DA . "Therea and the Aegean World III", Volume III - Chronology (Proceedings of the Third International Congress, Hardy DA, editor) . 1989 . 2008-03-16.
  19. Paris, Raphael, et al., (2022). "A Minoan and a Neolithic tsunami recorded in coastal sediments of Ios Island, Aegean Sea, Greece", in: Marine Geology, Volume 452, October 2022, Abstract: "...tsunami deposits on the coasts of Ios Island, Aegean Sea, Greece...marine sediments and pumices from the ~1600 BCE Minoan eruption of Santorini volcano. This is the first evidence of the Minoan tsunami in the Cycladic Islands North of Santorini."
  20. Antonopoulos, J. . 1992 . The great Minoan eruption of Thera volcano and the ensuing tsunami in the Greek Archipelago . Natural Hazards . 5 . 2 . 153–68 . 10.1007/BF00127003 . 1992NatHa...5..153A . 129836887.
  21. Lee . Yun Kuen . 2002 . Building the Chronology of Early Chinese History . Asian Perspectives . 41 . 1 . 15–42 . 10.1353/asi.2002.0006 . 1535-8283. 10125/17161 . free .
  22. Ramsey . Christopher Bronk . Dee . Michael W. . Rowland . Joanne M. . Higham . Thomas F. G. . Harris . Stephen A. . Brock . Fiona . Quiles . Anita . Wild . Eva M. . Marcus . Ezra S. . Shortland . Andrew J. . 2010 . Radiocarbon-Based Chronology for Dynastic Egypt . Science . 328 . 5985 . 1554–1557 . 2010Sci...328.1554R . 10.1126/science.1189395 . 20558717 . 206526496.
  23. Book: Diehl, Richard A. . Richard Diehl . The Olmecs : America's First Civilization . Thames and Hudson . 2004 . 0-500-28503-9 . London . 9–25.
  24. Book: Flood, Gavin D. . An Introduction to Hinduism . Cambridge University Press . 1996.
  25. Book: Anthony, David W. . The Horse The Wheel And Language. How Bronze-Age Riders From the Eurasian Steppes Shaped The Modern World . Princeton University Press . 2007.
  26. Book: Thapar . Romila . Which of us are Aryans? rethinking the concept of our origins . Witzel . Michael . Menon . Jaya . Friese . Kai . Khan . Razib . 2019 . Aleph . 978-93-88292-38-2 . New Delhi.
  27. Millek . Jesse . 2021 . Why Did the World End in 1200 BCE . Ancient Near East Today . 9 . 8.
  28. Reinecke . Paul . 1922 . Chronologische Übersicht der vor- und frühgeschichtlichen Zeiten . Bayer. Vorgeschichtsfreund . 1–2 . 1921–1922 . 18–25.
  29. Book: Gurney, O.R. . The Hittites . 1966 . Penguin . 0140202595.
  30. Book: Markoe, Glenn E. . Phoenicians . University of California Press . 2000 . 0520226135 . Berkeley, CA.
  31. Lee . Yun Kuen . 2002 . Building the Chronology of Early Chinese History . Asian Perspectives . 41 . 1 . 15-42 . JSTOR.
  32. Peiyu . Zhang . 2002 . Determining Xia-Shang-Zhou Chronology Through Astronomical Records in Historical Texts . Journal of East Asian Archeology . 4 . 1 . 347-357 . Brill.
  33. Ehret. Christopher. 2001. Bantu Expansions: Re-Envisioning a Central Problem of Early African History. The International Journal of African Historical Studies. 34. 1. 5–41. 10.2307/3097285. 3097285. 0361-7882.
  34. Tishkoff, S. A.; Reed, F. A.; Friedlaender, F. R.; et al. (2009). "The Genetic Structure and History of Africans and African Americans". Science. 324 (5930): 1035–44. Bibcode:2009Sci...324.1035T. doi:10.1126/science.1172257. PMC 2947357.
  35. Book: Serge Lancel . Carthage . 1995 . Oxford: Blackwell . 20–23 . Antonia Nevill.
  36. Picard, Life and Death of Carthage (1968, 1969) at 28–35 - Picard specifically favors 750-25 BC, closer to Apion than Timaeus.
  37. Book: Török, László . The Kingdom of Kush: Handbook of the Napatan-Meroitic Civilization . November 1, 1997 . Brill Academic Pub . 9789004104488 . Leiden, NL.
  38. It is used to refer to various other periods of ancient history, like Ancient Egypt, ancient Mesopotamia (such as, Assyria, Babylonia and Sumer) or other early civilizations of the Near East. It is less commonly used in reference to civilizations of the Far East.
  39. William Smith, A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. J. Murray, 1891
  40. Chris Scarre, The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Rome (London: Penguin Books, 1995).
  41. Adkins, Lesley; Roy Adkins (1998). Handbook to Life in Ancient Rome. Oxford: Oxford University Press. . page 3.
  42. Clist, Bernard. (1987). A critical reappraisal of the chronological framework of the early Urewe Iron Age industry. Muntu. 6. 35-62.
  43. Paul Lane, Ceri Ashley & Gilbert Oteyo (2006) New Dates for Kansyore and Urewe Wares from Northern Nyanza, Kenya, AZANIA: Journal of the British Institute in Eastern Africa, 41:1, 123-138, DOI: 10.1080/00672700609480438
  44. Schmidt, P.; Avery, D.H. (1978). "Complex iron smelting and prehistoric culture in Tanzania". Science. 201 (4361): 1085–89. Bibcode:1978Sci...201.1085S. doi:10.1126/science.201.4361.1085. . S2CID 37926350
  45. Chap Kusimba and Randal Pouwells. The Rise and Fall of Swahili States. The International Journal of African Historical Studies 33(2):437. DOI: 10.2307/220701. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274126407_The_Rise_and_Fall_of_Swahili_States/link/58cBC7c458515b6361d58ee/download
  46. Book: Török, László . The Kingdom of Kush: Handbook of the Napatan-Meriotic Civilization. 1997. Brill. 978-90-04-10448-8.
  47. Book: MacGregor . Neil . A History of the World in 100 Objects . 2011 . Viking . New York . 9780670022700 . 221–226.
  48. Book: Shillington . Kevin . History of Africa . 2012 . Palgrave . London . 9780230308473 . 54.
  49. The Voyage around the Erythraean Sea Available from: https://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/periplus/periplus.html