Before Christ History (1001 BC)

8000 BC Invention of the wheel, most likely. With the cultivation of grains in river valleys, the age of agriculture begins. Wine and beer is produced.

7000 BC Use of pottery.

6000 BC Linen is made from the flax plant.

5300 BC Romania Turda-Vinča culture writes the Tărtăria tablets.

5000 BC Mesopotamian civilization. Development of irrigation. Cultivation of maize. Use of copper.

4241 BC Earliest recorded date in Egyptian calendar.

4000 BC Meslim, King of Kish, rules Sumeria (Southern Babylonia). Development of plowing and taming of horses. Illustration of a wheel in the Sindh Province of India.

3760 BC First year of Jewish calendar.

3500 BC First phonetic writing and formation of numbering system by Sumerians, who also were among the first to use wagons for carrying goods and people. Oldest known zoo established in Hierakonpolis (now Nekhen), Egypt.

3100 BC First Egyptian Dynasty founded; Menu (Narmer) becomes first pharaoh.

3000 BC The Megalithic tombs constructed Newgrange, Ireland. Building of temples and canals in Sumeria, ruled by Ur-Nina. Diamond polishing practiced in China.

2950 BC First period of Stonehenge construction. (Some estimate 3100 BC.)

2850 BC Fu-Hi becomes first Emperor of China.

2800 BC Development of the calendar. First recorded revolution: people from the Sumerian city of Lagash overthrew bureaucrats who were lining their own pockets but kept raising taxes.

2700 BC The Epic of Gilgamesh, in poetry form, written (One of the oldest works of literature. Fragments of the Epic of Gilgamesh were found on clay tablets in the 19th century in the ancient city of Nineveh. It tells the story of a semidivine king named Gilgamesh who sought immortality. The king was probably based on an historical king of Uruk in Mesopotamia.)

2680 BC Great Pyramid at Giza completed.

2650 BC Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia founded by Sargon.

2637 BC First year of the Chinese calendar.

2600 BC Sixth Dynasty in Egypt ends the ancient Egyptian Empire. Pepy II reigns 94 years, longest reign in history.

2550 BC The Old Egyptian Empire under Khufu, his son Khafre, and his grandson Menkure, start the construction of the great pyramids. Invention of glass.

2500 BC Minoan Age of Cretans begins. Domestication of camels. First libraries appear in Assyria, Egypt and China. Soap used. (The first mention of soap was on Sumerian clay tablets dating to this time – the soap was made of water, alkali and cassia oil.)

2400 BC Ur-Engur establishes Dynasty of Ur in Sumeria.

2350 BC Mesopotamian kings lay down the first recorded law, known as the Urukagina’s Code. (The code has never been discovered but it is mentioned in other documents.)

2300 BC Paper made from the papyrus plant in Egypt.

2100 BC First Dynasty of Babylon established by Sumu-Abu. Abraham born in Ur in Mesopotamia.

2050 BC The earliest known written legal code, Ur-Nammu’s Code, dates from this time. Although called Ur-Nammu’s Code, it is generally agreed that it was written by his son Shugli. (The code allowed for the dismissal of corrupt men, protection of the poor, giving testimony under oath, and the ability of judges to order damages be paid to a victim by the guilty party.)

2000 BC Twelfth Egyptian Dynasty begins, with Thebes as capital. Hammurabi, King of Babylon, reforms law and introduce agricultural improvements. Abraham leaves Ur.

1850 BC Earliest known written legal decision. (A clay tablet reveals the case of the murder of a temple employee by three men. The victim’s wife knew of the murder but remained silent. Eventually, the crime came to light and the men and woman were charged with murder. Two witnesses testified that the woman was not part of the murder, that she had been abused by her husband, and that she was worse off after her husband’s death. The men were executed in front of the victim’s house but the woman was spared.)

1800 BC Kyksos rules Egypt.

1750 BC Hammurabi, a king of the the Babylonian Empire, establishes laws for many aspects of daily life, including marriage, divorce, trade, and prices. The code’s punishments include cutting off of a finger or hand for theft, cutting out a tongue for defamation, and cutting off a man’s lower lip if he kissed a married woman. The code included the law of retaliation, from which came the phrase “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”

1700 BC Assyria becomes independent of Babylonia.

1500 BC The Book of Job written by an unknown Israelite. The sacred works of Hinduism, the Vedas, a collection of hymns is written in Sanskrit.

1446 BC The Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) are written between 1446 and 1406 BC.

1400 BC Use of iron by the Hittites in Anatolia (Asia Minor).

1415 BC Amenophis IV of Egypt replaces old religion with sun worship.

1375 BC Ikhnaton develops monotheistic religion in Egypt.

1355 BC Ramesses I begins Nineteenth Dynasty in Egypt.

1300 BC Moses received The Ten Commandments directly from God.

1280 BC India’s Laws of Manu written, regulating almost all facts of rules, from contracts to criminal law. It also forms the basis of the caste system, where people were classified by their social standing. Members of higher caste were punished more severly that those of lower castes. (Various dates of recording given, even as late as 880 BC.)

1200 BC Ramesses III leads in Twentieth Egyptian dynasty.

1193 BC Greeks destroy Troy.

1186 BC The Trojan War.(Troy was attacked a number of times.)

1020 BC Saul becomes the first Israelite king.