2900BC
Pyramid
The necropolis at Sialk in Iran is built as a 3 stepped terraced pyramid on a mound (Ziggurat)
The necropolis at Sialk in Iran is built as a 3 stepped terraced pyramid on a mound (Ziggurat)
Egypt unified when the kingdom of Upper Egypt defeated Lower Egypt
The necropolis of Pharaoh Djoser at Saqqara becomes one of Egypt's 1st big Pyramids
Several pyramids built at Caral a city in Peru.
Sunflower domesticated in Mexico
Pyramids built at Giza (Egypt)
Large stones transported from Wales by the Beaker People to form the stone circles of Stonehenge.
Some Standing Stones, Burial Mounds, Hill forts & Stone Circles can be found in this area of the Neolithic and Bronze Age style, but few have been dated with any precision.
In 2002 a Gold Sun Disc was found at the ancient Cwmystwyth copper mine 23km East of Aberystwyth. On detailed examination its probable date of manufacture was found to be somewhere between 2500-2100 BC
Being stronger than stone or copper, bronze makes more durable tools, but it's more difficult to produce. For hundreds of years the small number of bronze tools to be used in Britain were imported. In around 2100BC the technology to create bronze is found in Britain, making bronze tools much more common.
A Sumerian physician's favourite prescriptions and remedies is the worlds oldest known medical text. The clay tablet, with cuneiform script writing, was found at the city of Nippur in Iraq
The earliest known sets of written laws is known as the
Ur-Nammu codex.
It was written for Ur-Nammu the ruler of Sumeria between 2112BC and 2095BC and found in Iraq.
cf Hammurabi Code in 1760BC
A text called the Kahun Gynaecological Papyrus covers medical issues relating to fertility, pregnancy, childbirth etc, was found at the village of El-Lahun in Egypt
Copper is mined at Plynlimon (Mountain 15km east of Aber and the wettest place in Britain where it rains 2 out of 3 days)
The best preserved set of laws from the ancient world is a large stone engraved with 282 laws
know as the
Hammurabi Code and was found in
Susa (Iran)
cf Ur-Nammu codex in 2095BC
Mathematics practised in Sumeria (Southern Mesopotamia [Southeastern Iraq])
The world's last remaining population of Woolly mammoths (on Wrangel Island Russia) becomes extinct.
Volcanic eruption of the Greek Aegean island of Santorini produces very cold winter
A text called the Edwin Smith Papyrus is part of a text on trauma surgery. Egypt
A water clock has been found in the tomb of the Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep I
Tutankhamun is buried at Thebes Egypt
About 2000 years after the start of the Bronze Age, furnace technology achieved even higher temperatures which allowed the smelting of iron ores which are much more plentiful then copper ores.
Starting in the same area as the Bronze Age around 1300BC, the Iron Age spread out from the around the Eastern Mediterranean and to the east of the Black Sea. Around 100 years later is was in India and it would be a further 200 years before started to spread into Europe.
Stone circle at Stonehenge completed
After a period where the wages and promises due the builders and artisans at the Thebes' necropolis (Egypt) are forgotten, the workers go on strike. This is the world 1st ever recorded strike. When this proves ineffective they begin to loot the tombs.
Homer inscribes the Iliad and Odyessy - collections of myths, folk tales and history from the previous couple of hundred years! (Greece)
This is a period of about 900 years which started with the ability to smelt iron. Iron tools became more much plentiful than bronze tools were, which led to many cultural changes. It is the distinctive cultural practices of this period that define it, and it is the cultural change that followed the Roman invasion of Britain that starts to end the British Iron Age.
1st recorded Olympic Games (Greece)
Rome Founded Italy
Astronomy in Babylon has advanced to the point where they able to predict eclipses (Iraq)
Isotopes in the ice core indicate a solar storm many times larger than the one recorded in 1859.
Coinage invented in Lydia Turkey
World's 1st university formed at Taxila Pakistan
Pythagoras (Greece)
Buddha born in what is now Nepal
Confucius the Chinese philosopher is born
Persian Empire absorbs Egypt
Rome becomes a Republic (Italy)
On Pendinas (the hill on the southern edge of Aberystwyth) are the remains of one of the largest Iron Age hillforts in west Wales. The stone walls of this fort are covered by top soil but the ramparts and ditched defences can still easily be seen. Excavations revealed a smaller, older, inner fort and a larger, later, outer fort that is believed to have supported a population of about 100 The fort is believed to have been built by invaders from the sea.
Buddhist university formed at Nalanda India
Socrates (Greece)
Parthenon (in Athens) completed (Greece)
Plato (Greece)
'Celts' enter Britain.
Note that work on stonehenge started 1700 years before the Celts arrived in Britain.
Genetic and archaeological evidence indicates that the Celts didn't arrive in huge numbers and overrun the island, but rather that
the local population adopted many of the new technical advances and cultural fashions that a small number of people from the mainland brought with them.
Celts overrun Rome (Italy)
Aristotle (Greece)
Amongst work on many subjects, Theophrastus, produces, Historia Plantarum and De Causis Plantarum which would remain the most important books on botany for 1500 years. (Greece)
Aristotle returns to Athens to open a lyceum containing a museum of natural history and a library (Greece)
Large amounts of wheat is grown in south-east England and threshed in large barns
Euclid's 13 volume compendium on geometry Elements remained the most important work on mathematics for over 2000 years. (Greece)
Egypt conquered by Alexander the Great
Huangdi Neijing: Oldest known chinese medical text (China)
Archimedes born in Syracuse (Italy)
Built in 323BC, the library and museum at Alexandria are, by this time, being used by the scholars of many nations
Philo of Byzantium builds a thermoscope (thermometer without the scale) in which a water-air meniscus moves along a tube as the temperature changes. (cf Mercury thermometer 1714 and 100° 1742)
A long wall is built in China. This is a 1st major wall of many Great Walls that were be built over a thousand year period. Little of this wall now remains cf the wall that was started in 1368
After many years of unrest Rome conquers Greece turning it into a province of the Roman Empire
The first coins start to be produced in Britain. These are thick copies of coins used in Gaul with the head of Apollo on one side and a bull on the reverse. They were made of an alloy of copper, zinc, lead & tin called 'potin'. A horde of these was found in Thurrock (in Essex), so this type is now called Thurrock potins.
The 8000km trading route called the 'Silk Road' extends out of China as far west as Iran
In the year 1900 divers off the Greek island of Antikythera recovered a corroded geared mechanism from an ancient shipwreck. Subsequent research has shown this to be a sophisticated Astronomical Calculator and points to it having been built around the year 87BC to a refined design to that originally devised by Archimedes over 100 years earlier.
Julius Caesar leads expedition into Britain
Julius Caesar leads invasion of Britain. Having won a few battles he returns. It would not be until 43AD that the Romans would return to colonise Britain.
The Julian calendar with an average year length of 365¼ days is introduced into the Roman world
In the current western calendar the year 1BC is followed by the year 1 AD - there is no year zero