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Note from the Lost Worlds webmaster: This website does tend to give an emphasis to “first-ever” dates as regards any related questions of history of technology in history-in-general. This approach works well enough for Modern (scientific) history but less so for archaic history. In March 2007 the webmaster found a seemingly reliable website on prehistory of India which suggested that by now, many of the “first-ever”dates relating in various literature to Sumeria/Mesopotamia are out of date by now, or misleading. Given that the books consulted for this set of webpages were a little old, even when the pages were originally started, this can probably be applied to information given below on Sumeria. Which in turn might affect some dates for Ancient Egypt. Netsurfers then should regard this as a caution as they explore their topics. - Ed

From 10,000BC to 2000BC

2000BC: Brittany - Carnac: Major megalithic work: Erection of lines of great stones, or standing stones, maybe in parallel lines, running east to west, in sets half a mile long, ending in a semi-circular set of stones.

2000BC: Or earlier, the Beaker People (named for design of their drinking vessels), who know how to work copper, appear in France and the Low Countries, and British Isles. They came from either Spain or Central Europe.

2000BC: Uruk (Mesopotamia) reaches 60,000 population.

2000-1600BC: Brutal climate change in North Africa.

Circa 2000BC: First waves of [invading] Aryans arrive from, Persia into India. (This view by the 1990s was being widely discredited by both international and Indian researchers working in a wide range of fields, from archiac climatology to demographics to linguisitics to literary history of the Rig Veda. The reader is warned that ideas of an Aryan invasion of India, whenever, are myths cast about by Eurocentric writers who ended up becoming thoroughly confused. But whether the Aryans were some of the, more or less, indigenous Indians, as some Indian writers declare, is less clear. The entire scenario needs much fresh research. -Ed)

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2000BC: (Gardner, Genesis) Soon after 2000BC, Ur is sacked, by the king of nearby Elam. The city of Ur is rebuilt but is a lost power. Abraham's family resorted to Haran in the kingdom of Mari.
Note: Ur is located 200 miles upstream of Persian Gulf, on River Euphrates, URUK is 40 miles further north, as is called Erech in Bible, URUK is site of today's city, WARKA, Nippur was 10 miles south of today's Baghdad.

2010BC: In 2010BC at Ur is king of Ur-Nammu. (Gardner, Genesis, p. 18) says the ziqqurat of Ur housed tablets for the extraction of square and cube roots, and triangulation formulae, though Euclid's work in geometry did not appear till some 1700 years later.

2030BC: Sumerian King Amar Sin erects at Eridu a ziggurat, or step-pyramid. It was evidently built on top of earlier structures, perhaps as many as 17 temples. The earliest of these were perhaps one-roomed, with altars, offering tables and good-quality pottery. Dating the pottery might proceed back in time to 5000BC - and might make Eridu an antediluvian city?

2040-2010BC: Thebes: Pharaoh Mentuhotep II reunites Egypt and founds new capital at Thebes. New era for royal authority, prosperity, Egyptian arts progress. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

2050BC or later: A basic Sumerian belief is/was that rulership is derived from the gods. First, this was used by priests, then by rulers. From 2050BC, Sumerian rulers claimed descent from the Gods, or divine status of their person, but did they import this idea from the Egyptians? (Source: McNeill, p. 66.)

2050BC: Before now, Sargon and Hammurabi have ruled in Mesopotamia, but now arrive the Gutians, moved into the flood plain from the north-east, and who rule for a century, to be replaced after revolt from within by the Third Dynasty of Ur, 2050-1950BC.

050BC: A destruction of Troy. (Mellersh)

2060BC, Sumeria, some revival, with Third Dynasty of Ur, which falls to the Babylonians about 1950BC.

2050BC, Seahenge is built on coast of England.

2065BC: Terah: Terah is born son of Nahor, who is aged 29. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

2094BC: Nahor: Nahor is born son to Serug, who is aged 30. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

2100BC: Ur: Sumeria, The Ziggurat of Ur built by king Ur-Nammu. He establishes the first law code. Empire extends from Persian Gulf to Northern Mesopotamia. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

2100BC, first constructions at Stonehenge, southern England. Druids. Problem of how such large stone is transported. Is Stonehenge an astronomical observatory of any kind?

2100BC: A prince of Lower Egypt founds the United Middle Kingdom.

2100BC: Greece: The Mycenaean tribes invade the Peninsula of Greece. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

2100BC: Approx, Boeotian Flood of Ogyges. (Ogyges as King of Thebes in Boeotia.) (Oppenheimer, Eden In The East)

2124BC: Serug: Serug is born son to Reu, who is aged 32. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

2150-2100BC: Nimrod: Nimrod the grandson of Ham is said to found an empire including cities of Babel (Babylon), Erech, Accad (Akkad), in lower Mesopotamia. Then he goes north to found Nineveh and other large cities of Assyria. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

2150BC: Approx: Groups of incursive Semites, called "the Habiru" by the Sumerians, begin to make their way into Mesopotamia from the west. These are not the Hebrew who followed Moses during the Exodus. (Robert Feather, The Copper Scroll Decoded)

2156BC: Reu: Reu is born son to Peleg who is aged 30. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

2160BC: Shinar-Tower of Babel: By legend, all people are united with one language, and in the land of Shinar, Mesopotamia, a great city is builded and a tower also of baked brick and bitumen. God scatters the people all over the earth, and confuses languages. That city is called Babel-Babylon. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

2150-2100BC: Japheth: The descendants of Japheth are said to found the nations of Asia Minor and the Aegean Sea. The descendants of Ham are said to be ancestors of peoples in Canaan, Egypt, Crete, and Ethiopia. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

2160BC-1786BC, Egypt, Ninth to Twelfth Dynasties.

2180BC, Akkadian Empire falls to barbarians invading from the north-east.

2180BC, Babylonians build first underwater tunnel under Euphrates using bricks and “cut and cover” method.

2185BC: Peleg: Peleg is born to Eber, who is aged 34. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

2200-2040BC: Egypt: Intermediate period between dynasties 7-10, a time of political and social chaos. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

2200BC, serious drought throughout world, and especially in Middle East.

2200-2113BC, Period known as Ur III for Mesopotamia, Sumerian Revival, Law code known as Ur-Nammu formed, King Shulgi.

2200-1900BC: Palestine: Canaanite Palestine shows little cultural life. Nomadic shepherds overtake the countryside. Trade mostly ceases, cities decline, many cities are abandoned. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

2200-1450BC: Crete: Palace culture develops. Fine craftsmanship used for buildings at Knossos, and in other palaces also. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

2200-1766BC: China: Legend tells of the Hsia dynasty, few facts are available. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

2200BC: Serious drought in Middle East.

2200BC-2000BC -3000BC: A problem of global climatic change:
Regarding an SBS documentary screened in Australia on Ancient Apocalypse on 17 March 2002, on the Egypt of 5000 years ago. The Sphinx already exists at Giza, the Old Kingdom flourishes. Changelessness is the theme for the daily life of average Egyptians, but about 2200BC the Old Kingdom collapses. Egypt enters a dark age for 200 years.
This era has mystified Egyptologists, there are no explanations for the chaos,, etc. Why? Was a fall due to death of a Pharaoh, and a following battle for power? No, it was not due to political unrest. We find a little-known tomb, with "an astonishing story to tell"... the tomb of a local governor of an area just after the collapse of the Old Kingdom, an outstanding tomb which tells a story of famines, suffering of ordinary people, a poignant account of famine-horrors, giving succinct reports such as: the land is like "a starved grasshopper". Despair and atrocities are committed in Southern Egypt. People ate their children, and what is written on the tomb walls is not folk tales, not mythology, it is an account, a proper report.
But can any corroborative evidence be found? Recent new archaeological evidence from Egypt's far north reveals an extent of suffering on the Nile delta. One researcher is Donald Redford (US), who finds group-burials under reed matting, with tightly-packed bodies, nearly 9000 bodies, supine or on their side. But there are few grave goods found. The conclusion is that these people were very poor, but they all dated at the same period of death, from a community reduced to extreme poverty. Across Egypt, society, art religion are all breaking down, literally everything of the Old Kingdom is breaking down. This devastation was apocalyptic, could it have had to do with the environment? Was it a really sudden event?
The Nile dominates, of course, as with anything to do with Egypt. A researcher - is this tantamount to heresy in history? - finds variations in the behaviour of Nile. It is not a steady river, and one in five floods anyway is a bad flood. Is such any clue to the collapse of the Old Kingdom, as a small drop in a flood can be a disaster, as Napoleon found when he came to Egypt and conquered it after a bad flood, as the country was weakened. Could the Nile possibly have faltered for as long as 200 years? Was something bigger involved?
What other natural features could be examined? A botanist examines various sites, including a desert zone once quite-populated. Evidence includes small cairns of stones from campfire areas. Traces of acacia tree, which no longer grows in the area, and charcoal of acacia, which grew with underground water. Thousands of pieces of such charcoal in the area are logged, dating to about 5000BC, indicating a dry savannah with trees, where people could live over long stretches of time. It seems that North Africa dries and becomes desert. Sand causes devastation, so do dust storms. (Poetry exists about such concerns).
Dates about desertification don't quite fit a new theory, as this is all a gradual trend, over millennia, and nothing to do with the collapse of the Old Kingdom.
A breakthrough for researchers comes from the hills of nearby Israel, in caves, forming a record of past climatic behaviour, from limestone stalactites and stalagmites. A record of ancient rainwaters, and ancient rain has two different types of oxygen; light for wetter periods and heavy oxygen for dry periods. Use is made of a mass spectrometer to find ratios of light and heavy oxygen. One sample is found, 4200 years-old, fitting the period circa 2200BC. Something unusual; an important change in the amount of rainfall, a 20 per cent drop, and a sudden and significant climate change; the largest climatic event noticeable, even though Israel and Egypt have different climate systems.
It is now necessary to know if the Israeli weather pattern is local or broader. Evidence is found from the glaciers of Iceland, where Gerard Bond, a geologist, examines ice near Greenland. He finds icebergs streaked with black ash from volcanic activity, dumped on glaciers, which become icebergs in North Atlantic, and dropped their ash to the ocean bottom. Bond has collected cores of ocean-bottom mud back 10,000 years, and in his searches for volcanic ash has found it in strange places, very much south, off Ireland. It also seems that then, icebergs were bigger, from colder areas; there is a pattern to mini-ice-ages, and every 1500 years a distinct cold period occurs, lasting "a couple of hundred years". Could this have affected Egypt? One such cycle would have been affecting Egypt about 2200BC.
An even more dramatic climate change is found by yet another researcher, looking for climate signals on ocean floors, who finds a far-reaching set of circumstances affecting the Mediterranean, off Africa, North Atlantic areas, the Greenland ice sheet, the US continent, and evidence is later found for the Indonesian region. The situation seems global, and it seems to coincide with the demise of the Old Kingdom in Egypt, a time which is colder and drier, harvests fail, people starve, all victims of a weather cycle. Maybe the sufferings are most acute in Egypt? Donald Redford on the Nile delta in 1999 made an extra-macabre new find, indicating the extent of chaos, via a group of skeletons under a temple wall. Everywhere nearby is destruction, and if the dead are victims of a massacre, therefore matters are not accidental. Redford had found 18 bodies, including an old man (found as though he was warding off blows) over an old woman who lies over a child; also a man with part of a wall fallen on his back. Elsewhere are two men by a pig's body. Also a fallen male teenager (decapitated) with a rat in his hands. The 18 people who died might have been murdered, though the bodies were not buried. It is a grisly scene, since no one came back to retrieve the bodies, no one cared. There was a hiatus in community life, so was the place abandoned as a temple is destroyed?
Once piece of a puzzle is still missing: what of Egypt itself? Does the Nile fail for decade after decade? Crucial evidence comes from a lake, which is long-linked to the Nile by a tributary which enlarges with each flood. Is it possible to find the size of the lake at the time the Old Kingdom ends?
The mud at bottom of this lake is searched, cores are found, and there is a fascinating absence, there is no evidence of any sediments for the timeframe of the existence of the Old Kingdom - sediments and mud did not date back that far. So did the lake not exist prior to 2200BC? But if it did exist before then, it must have dried-up completely for a long period, and perhaps any "Old Kingdom sediments" were simply blown away? The Nile had been so low, it had stopped feeding the lake, and this was the only time the lake did disappear. This seems clinching evidence of a series of low-Nile floods, and a land turned to dust. Which would explain famines all over Egypt, and help explain scenes as described in the report-making tomb noted above.
A researcher wonders, if all of upper Egypt had been driven to eating their children? He finds from a first-hand account of 1200AD, when a doctor sees a famine in Cairo, the poor were so hungry they ate corpses, dogs, filth, and they roasted and cooked children - no sentimentality here, the truly unimaginable. So it may have been that one of the world's great civilizations, the Old Kingdom of Egypt, ended hideously.

220BC Circa: (Follows from a university press release on the Net):
Dr. Norman Hammond is Professor of Archaeology at Boston University and Associate in Maya Archaeology at the Peabody Museum, Harvard University. The leading authority in the field of Maya Archaeology, Dr. Hammond has directed numerous research projects and important excavations in Belize, Ecuador and in the Andes, and has also conducted field work in Libya, Tunisia and Afghanistan, and on Harvard University's project in Guatemala. He directed his survey in Ecuador under the auspices of the British Museum. Dr. Hammond's research interests include the emergence and decline of complex societies, as well as the history of archaeology. His current La Milpa project, begun in 1992, has as an international staff and is funded by the National Geographic Society and Boston University. Dr. Hammond has been a Visiting Professor at numerous academic and research institutes throughout the world, including Cambridge, Oxford, the Sorbonne, Jilin University (China), and the University of Bonn. He has also held a Dumbarton Oaks Fellowship. Dr. Hammond serves on the editorial boards of Ancient Mesoamerica, Antiquity, and the Journal of Field Archaeology, and is the archaeology correspondent for The Times (London). Among his many publications, Dr. Hammond is perhaps best known for his books, Cuello: An Early Maya Community in Belize (1991); Nohmul: A Prehistoric Maya Community in Belize (1985); Ancient Maya Civilization (5th ed.,1994); Lubaantun: A Classic Maya Realm (1975); and his co-edited volumes The Archaeology of Afghanistan (1978); Maya Archaeology and Ethnohistory (1979).
Dr. Harvey Weiss is Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology in the Departments of Anthropology and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Yale University. From 1968 to 1973 he excavated at and directed a variety of prehistoric and early historic archaeological sites in western Iran, including Hajji Firuz, Godin Tepe, Hasanlu and Qabr Sheykheyn. In 1978 he initiated the Yale Tell Leilan Project in northeastern Syria, which aimed at elucidating important developmental patterns in the agricultural practices of northern Mesopotamia. In the early 1980s and through the 90s, Dr. Weiss's attention moved to the forces that determined rain-fed agriculture in early historic West Asia. In 1993 he and his colleagues published the hypothesis and confirmatory data for a major and abrupt climate change that affected the region from the Aegean to the Indus at ca. 2200 BC. Since 1993, this climate change has become the focus of considerable research attention among scholars in the paleo-climatic and archaeological research communities and beyond. Dr. Weiss's most recent studies have appeared in a range of publications including Science, The Sciences, Orient Express, The Dictionary of Art, and The Encyclopedia of the Ancient Near East. His research on climate change was published in numerous edited volumes, including most recently, Confronting Natural Disaster: Engaging the Past to Understand the Future (2000) and was the subject of his co-edited volume Third Millennium B.C. Climate Change and Old World Collapse (1997).
Dr. John Malcolm Russell is Professor of Art History and Archaeology at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston, where he teaches the archaeology of the ancient Middle East and Egypt. He is also the Associate Director of excavations at the ancient Assyrian city of Til Barsib, on the Euphrates river in northern Syria. Prior to the Gulf War, Dr. Russell was Associate Director of archaeological excavations at Nineveh, Iraq. The author of four books and numerous articles on ancient Assyria, his most recent book, The Final Sack of Nineveh (1998), investigates the destruction of Sennacherib's palace in Iraq as a result of the looting precipitated by UN sanctions. Dr. Russell's discovery of a lost Assyrian sculpture in an English boy's school and his exposure of the looting of Assyrian palaces in Iraq have been widely reported in the media both here and abroad. He has conducted excavations under the auspices of the University of LiŠge and the Universities of Berkeley and Columbia. Dr. Russell earned the distinguished Arthur Kingsley Porter Prize for best article in 1988, and his book Sennacherib's "Palace without Rival" at Nineveh received the Archaeological Institute of America's James R. Wiseman Award for best archaeology book of 1991. He is author of The Writing on the Wall: Studies in the Architectural Context of Late Assyrian Palace Inscriptions (1999), and From Nineveh to New York: The Strange Story of the Assyrian Reliefs in the Metropolitan Museum and the Hidden Masterpieces at Cranford School. (1997).
For further details, please contact the Department of Art and Art History, University of Connecticut, 860 486-3930. Web: www.art.uconn.edu

2220BC: Eber: Eber is born son to Shelah who is aged 30. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

2250BC: Shelah: Shelah is born son to Arpachshad, who is aged 35. Tradition, and a generational problem, is also that Shelah is son of Cainan who is son of Arpacshad. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

2276BC: Sargon dies subduing a revolt. (Mellersh)

2284BC: Noah's Ark : Noah's Ark comes to rest on a mountain in the Ararat Range in northern Mesopotamia. Noah and family leave the ark after one year and ten days. Noah offers a sacrifice, God promises never to again send such a flood. For the first time, humans are allowed to eat meat. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

2283BC: Noah: Noah becomes the first keeper of vines. Also in 2283BC: Arpacshad is born son to Shem, who is aged about 100. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

2285BC: Noah: The great flood comes, Methuselah, oldest of the biblical patriarchs, dies at age of 969. Noah is saved in the ark he builds, as in Genesis. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

2294BC: Pharaoh Pepi II: Comes to throne as child and reigns for nearly a century. Kingdom begins to disintegrate. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

2300BC approx: The first recorded insult, depicted on a wall of the tomb of Egyptian Ti in Saqqara, Egypt. "Come here, you copulator!"

Circa 2300BC: In Egypt, provincial rulers revolt and Semites from the North and Nubians from the South pour into Egypt.

2300BC: Appearance in Egypt of the Pyramid Texts.

2300 BC: Sargon unites Mesopotamia around capital, Akkad.

2300BC: All Mesopotamia including Sumer is conquered by Sargon of the Akkadians, a Semitic people, long-time neighbours of the Sumerians. Sargon wants a unified kingdom not sets of city-states, Sargon reigns for 56 years, the world's first empire. When Sargon dies the hill-people of the Gutians from the north-east move in on the country, before the rise in Sumeria of Ur-Nammu.

Circa 2380BC: Amorites from Arabia infiltrate Syria, Palestine and Mesopotamia. (Is this a time of climate difficulty setting off people's movements?)

2300BC, 4th millennium BC: Re transition from gathering to hunting. Some cattle raisers. Dead are buried in villages, children in jars. Use of ground stone axes. Settled mixed farming by 4th mlnm, Indus Valley. Mature Indus civilization 2300BC to 1750BC. Trade with Sargonid Sumer and the Harappans in Mesopotamia. Bahrain the depot. Traded with India, Afghanistan, Iran and Arabia. Weights and measures mean efficient organisation. Note port at coastal town of Lothal on Gulf of Cambay. May have domesticated elephants by now.
About 1800-1700BC the Indus civilization collapsed, a change in nature, floods or drought, or due to the advance of the Aryan hordes. But eg, town planning ceased. Iron came in about 1000BC with no break in settled culture. 1800BC and 1000BC, arrive waves of Aryan invaders into Iran and north India. About 1000BC to 600BC, is a change of geographical focus in Aryan literature. Trade with south India is important after 100BC, especially for spices, and by then, the Romans used the monsoon for the sea crossing. Early Buddhist caves in India, used by 200BC and later.

Circa 2300BC: World's earliest known poet, Enheduanna, daughter of Sargon of Akkad, writes hymns in honour of great temple and gods of the land, signed by herself as priestess of the Moon god. (James/Thorpe)

2331BC: Sargon of Akkad usurps the throne. (Mellersh)

2385BC: Noah: Noah aged 500 has three sons this year, Shem, Ham and Japheth. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

2340-2180BC, Mesopotamia, Akkadian Empire rises, Sargon (C2371-2316) united Mesopotamia around capital Akkad, later named Baghdad.)

2340BC: Sargon: King Sargon creates first Mesopotamian empire by uniting Sumerian cities. Founds Akkad as his capital. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

By 2350BC: Tin has to be brought to Sargon's rule in Sumeria from as far as Central Europe. By now, chronic warfare due to improved metal weapons, bothers the unity of Sumer's city states.

Circa 2375BC: Lugalzaggisi, of Umma, is the first recorded king of Sumer to unite most cities under his lordship. More unification a generation later with conquests of Sargon of Akkad. (Akkadian is a Semitic tongue unrelated to Sumerian). (Source: McNeill, p. 60.)

2400BC-2200BC: Egypt, Belief arises about Osiris from 3000BC are more formalized by 2400BC-2200BC in the Pyramid Texts. (Robert Feather, The Copper Scroll Decoded)

2400BC: Circa, Semitic king Sargon I of Akkad conquers Sumerians and establishes empire extending from Persian Gulf to Mediterranean.

2400BC: Date for discussion of Chinese Neolithic life. And re China, it seems use of grain agriculture moves from Middle East to Northern China.

2400BC: Troy commands sea traffic into the Black Sea. (Mellersh.)

Circa 2400BC: Urukagina is king of Lagash, Sumeria. Perhaps, the king protects the weak from priestly oppression. A central act of the king is annual ceremonial marriage between king and goddess of the city. By now from 3000BC, major cities can dominate smaller cities, though unstably. (Source: McNeill, p. 61).

2400BC: Mining: Egyptians mine copper in the Sinai, and import much cedar from Lebanon. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

2400BC: Use in Egypt of Star Clocks.

2400BC: Use of canals, The governor of Upper Egypt of the 6th Dynasty builds a shipping canal to bypass the waterfall at Aswan, the first cataract of the Nile. Large canals were also used about now at Lagash, in Sumer, Southern Iraq.

2430BC, earliest known date for slaves being sold in Mesopotamia.

2450BC: World's earliest-known metal pipes (water transfer?), from an Egyptian Fifth Dynasty mortuary temple of Pharaoh Sahure at Abusir.

2450BC: Heliopolis: Priests at Heliopolis promote worship of sun god, Ra, and pyramid texts show use of funerary customs, prayers, hymns, and spells. Ptah-Hotep, vizier of the pharaoh, composes a book of wisdom for his son, as much used in later generations. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

2475BC: Central America: Corn (maize) is domesticated for foodstuffs. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

2500BC, Walled cities in Mesopotamia suggest period of insecurity. Independently of Ukraine, horse is domesticated in China.

2500BC, Egypt uses ships to import gold from parts of Africa. In China, establishment of system re equinoxes and solstices and lunar year of 360 days changes to a sun-moon cycle. Austronesian Expansion reaches Indonesian areas, Celebes, North Borneo and Timor.

2500BC: Start of period of moves of stone-age people from mainland South-East Asia to islands of Indonesia.

2500BC: Use of walled cities in Egypt and Mesopotamia suggests insecurity.

2500BC: The beginnings of the great respect for Isis and Osiris in Egypt; The Snake and the Bull are chief religious symbols in Minoan Crete; Ishtar worship is prominent in Mesopotamia.

2500BC: India: The Indus Valley civilization is at its peak (Indus-Sarasvati), a prehistoric culture with about six large inland cities, with populations of about 30,000, many villages, and ports on the coast and up rivers. Its territory embraces today's Pakistan and stretches into Iran to the west, to Turkmenia and to Kashmir in the east, to beyond Delhi in south-east. Architecture is governed by various astronomical principles. Weights and measures demonstrate mathematical sophistication. (Hancock, Underworld)

2500BC and before: In the Indus Valley, major cities flourished from around 4,500 (YearsBeforePresent) to 3,700YBP in areas now desert. We know the local farmers grew wheat, barley, melons, dates, and perhaps cotton. Between 15 and 30 inches of rain fell yearly, allowing rhinoceroses, elephants, and water buffalo to flourish. Lamb attributes this fertile period to the warmer climate, which led the monsoon rains to spread farther north.
(From a website reviewing book on climate change by H. H. Lamb, Climate History and the Modern World)

2500BC: Earliest record of a voyage into unknown seas: A four-year expedition from Egypt to "mysterious" land of Punt, for incense, myrrh, gold, ebony and dwarfs.
See J. H. Parry, (Consultant), Reader's Digest Discovery: The World's Great Explorers: Their Triumphs and Tragedies. Sydney, Reader's Digest, 1978.

2500BC: Helwan, Egypt: Australian researchers (from Macquarie University in Sydney) find a tomb in an ancient cemetery from 4500 years ago, at Helwan, cemetery for Memphis, near the Cairo of today. Team leader for the researchers is Dr. Christiana Kohler, Australian Centre for Egyptology. The mostly-intact and mostly-undisturbed tomb (with skeleton) belonged to a craftsman circa 2750BC. (Reported 29 April 2000)

Circa 2500BC: Climate problems: (From a website): Records for the past 4,500 years generally indicate that temperatures were lower than the Holocene thermal maximum. A general cooling, known as the Iron Age neoglaciation, occurred between 2,500 and 4,500 years ago.

2500BC: Death pits of Ur: Royal cemetery of Ur, dated circa 2500BC, unknown till the 1920s, when discovered by Sir Leonard Wooley, human sacrifice re grave of Queen Shubad, skeletons of 68 women of the court with gold or silver head-dresses, mass sacrifice of attendants, and with Queen Shubad also, soldiers armed with spears, and two ox-wagons with slain animals, no signs of violence, all died voluntarily, maybe with poison or narcotics.
See Reader's Digest, History of Man: The Last Two Million Years. Sydney, The Reader's Digest Association, 1973-1974., p. 53.

2500BC: First known explorations by sea as deliberate attempts to find new lands, as Egypt sails down Red Sea to the mysterious Land of Punt, presumably the coast of Somalia. By 1500BC, Egypt has sailed the Arabian Sea as far as the island of Scotra. Egypt being largely treeless relies on supplies of cedar timber from Lebanon.

2500BC: First use of fortified castles, in Southern Spain and Portugal.

2500BC: Egyptians used potters wheel but did not see any use for wheeled carts for nearly 1000 years more, to 1500BC.

About 2500BC: At Thetford in Eastern England, are miners at Grimes Graves, who sink more than 2000 shafts, into the chalk. Looking for superior supplies of flints. Artefacts here include skeleton of a miner killed by a rock fall.

2500BC: Evidence of dental surgical technology arises in Stone Age Denmark, eg, drilling an upper molar to relieve an abscess. By AD100, a Syrian doctor, Archigenese, had developed methods of drilling to enable cleaning of diseased material from decaying teeth. In Roman times, bad teeth were pulled by barbers. In medieval China, teeth fillings are conducted. (Toothpicks are known in Sumer from 3000BC; toothbrushes were used in China by AD1000).

About 2500BC: Beaker People from Holland and the Rhineland move into Britain and introduce metalwork. Their origins are uncertain.

2500BC: Approx: First Kingly Dynasty of Ur, Mesopotamia. (Oppenheimer, Eden In The East)

C2500BC: Use of skis in Norway by "the Rodoy man". Rodoy is a small island of Northern Norway.

2500BC: South America: Craftsmen in Peru use gold for decorative objects. In Egypt, use of papyrus as a form of paper, made from reeds growing by the Nile. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

2500BC: Pakistan: A complex civilization develops in Indus Valley, India. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

2500BC: Third Pyramid at Gizeh: Pharaoh Menkure builds Third Pyramid at Gizeh. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

2500BC or earlier: James/Thorpe, suggest world's earliest irrigation works are by early farmers of Geokysur, southern Russia. By about 2800BC-2500BC, the Egyptians began possibly the earliest major dam, near Helwan, south of Cairo. Canals are used in Iraq by 2500BC, the Al-Gharrif waterway, from River Tigris.

2500BC: Sumerians are first to develop cooking ranges on which pots and pans could be placed for a variety of cooking purposes from 2500BC. (James/Thorpe).

King Midas: 1957AD-2500BC: Turkey, Following a discovery of a tomb in Turkey, chemical analysis by 1999 reveals what wealthy people dined on. Barbecued lamb or goat, plus spicy stew (olive oil, honey and wine) with lentils. A mixed drink of grape wine, barley beer, mead. At Gordion, capital of the then-powerful Phrygian kingdom. The area is now that of central Turkey, Ankara. A king aged 60-65 was buried in a log coffin in a mound 50 metres high and 300 metres round. See a 1999 issue of the journal, Nature. The tomb was discovered in 1957 by University of Pennsylvania researchers including Dr Rodney Young, and supposedly held King Midas.

By 2500BC: McNeill suggests that the distribution of European megaliths suggests that seafarers have travelled and have influence from the Middle East to Western Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts. (From McNeill).

From 2500BC: Indus River allows development of a civilization with writing, use of copper and bronze, monumental structures of burned brick, carved statues and distinctive seals. Great cities appear of the Mohenjo-daro and Harappa. Systematic city-planning. Trade with Indus and Mesopotamia by 2500BC, possible sea-borne contact with Sumer. (From McNeill).

2500BC: Armour, first use being the helmet, of electrum, an alloy of gold and silver. Possibly, earlier helmets had been of leather? By Mycenaean times, full body armour was in use. The Chinese used armour, bronze plates with leather, by 1400BC. Similar in Egypt by same date. (Independent inventions?) (Source: James/Thorpe).

2500BC: With "The Standard of Ur", the world's first-known army. Sumerian warriors wear leather armour and carry pikes. Around 2300BC, Sargon the Great of Babylonia creates the world's first empire. Earliest-known professional army, 5400 soldiers. Use of chariots. (Source: James/Thorpe)

2500BC: Earliest known police force, in Egypt during the Fourth Dynasty.

2500BC; Date for regular use of honey as a sweetening agent.

2500BC: Swiss lake-dwellers use poppy seeds, possibly for cakes, or crushed, as oil.

2500BC: A form of today's sitting toilet probably invented in the Indus Valley, built of brick, evidence found at Mohenjo-Daro, Pakistan, by Sir Mortimer Wheeler by 1944 or after. Similar by 2300BC at Eshunna, Diyala River, Iraq. Also at Mohenjo-Daro by now, large public baths or temple bath? Plus, houses with private bathrooms. (James/Thorpe)

2500BC: Hunting economies give way to herders and agriculturalists in Kazakhstan and Central Siberia. (The hunters arrived about 3500BC.) (Source, McNeill, p. 38). Some use of bronze, mining.

2575BC: Egypt, building of pyramids.

2550BC: Sphinx: Pharaoh Khafre builds second Gizeh pyramid and the Sphinx. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

2520BC-2494, Egypt, Reign of 4th dynasty Pharaoh Khafre. (Date from Hancock and Faiia).

2430BC: Earliest record of slaves being sold in Mesopotamia.

2480BC: Great Pyramid at Giza begun?

2570BC: Gizeh: Pharaoh Khufu builds Great Pyramid at Gizeh. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

2589-2566BC: Cheops: Reign of Pharaoh Khufu (Cheops). (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

2600BC, first use of paved roads in Egypt.

2600BC: First recorded voyage on Mediterranean, as 40 shiploads of cedar are exported Lebanon to Egypt. Egypt has little affinity with the sea and relies for commerce on the Minoans and the Phoenicians.

2600BC: China: Silkworms are first cultivated in China. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

2600BC: Third millennium BC, Dilmun (Tilmun) is Sumerian name for the island of Bahrein. Now an important trading centre.

2600BC: Crete, with first flowering of Greek Bronze Age culture. from 2600BC-2000BC. Strong influence of eastern ideas. Middle Minoan or first palace period, 2000-1700BC, second palace period, 1700BC-1400BC, during which population of island increases greatly. Knossos built.

2600BC-2300BC: Building dates for Pyramids of Giza, Egypt, coinciding with major building period for Stonehenge in Southern England. (Was there any connection?) (Date from Hancock and Faiia)

2600BC-2500BC: Egyptian youths might customarily be circumcised with copper knives. The custom arose in Africa and spread into the Middle East.

2600BC: Possibly apocryphal: In China, the mythical Yellow Emperor lays the foundation of medical knowledge, which includes an early sex manual. (A man finds ways to absorb yin without losing yang.)

2600BC: The Eskimo Aleut language is separated from other Eskimo languages. Re Aleutian Islands being isolated - those islands once part of the Bering Strait land bridge. The Chaluka midden is about 1000BC, midway between pre-Eskimo and Eskimo (Inuit) era.

2600BC: The Early Minoan Period on Crete: Beginning of trade and contact with the East, especially Anatolia and Egypt. Bright period is from 2000BC to 1700BC. Crete may have some dependencies on the Greek mainland.

2600BC: Sumerian royal funerals: In Sumeria, royal cemetery of Ur, kings buried with retinue of relatives and servants who apparently are mass-poisoned when their master dies. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

2600BC: Egyptians: conquer Sinai and Lower Nubia. They also sail to Phoenicia for cedar timber. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

2650BC: one of the first major Egyptian pyramids built, rather more a mastaba design.

2650BC: Egypt: Start of great pyramid building. (Financial Times World Desk Reference)

2650BC-2500BC: Fourth Dynasty in Egypt.

2670BC: The First Pyramid: as a stepped pyramid, is built for Pharaoh Zoser at Sakkarah, the necropolis of Memphis, capital of Egypt. Also, Imhotep, physician of Zoser, writes first known treatise on surgery. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

2657BC: Gilgamesh of Uruk revolts against Kish. (Mellersh)

2675BC: Mesopotamian flood as in Epic of Gilgamesh. (Mellersh)

2686BC: And less, end of the Egyptian Archaic period which formed what was distinctive of Egypt's pharonic civilization, and beginning of period to 2181BC, forming the Old Kingdom, the great age of pyramid building and peaks in artistic and intellectual endeavour. Then troubles, and order not restored until 2040BC.

From about 2700BC to 1700BC: The civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt and Indus develop separately, (McNeill, p. 187.) By 1700BC, steppe warriors are more active and destabilise more settled areas. Barbarians have better war technology.

2700BC: Ur, graves show fine arts, distant trade for gold, gems, spices.

2700BC, Graves of Ur give evidence of long distance trade,

2700BC: Evidence that by about 2700BC, domestication of horse, by a nomadic Aryan people with an Indo-European language ranging the steppes of Black and Caspian seas. Their horses are mentioned in the clay tablets of their southern neighbours. (Caspian pony of Iran). The Medes raised Nisean horses in west Iran. In Afghanistan were the Bactrian horses. (Arabia was once a land of trees and rivers.) (Edwards).

Circa 2700BC: Earliest-known Chinese medical writing is attributed to The Yellow Emperor, Shih Huang Ti, partly due to conversations with his ministers, Qi Bo and Lei Gong. A proposition was than in ancient times, people used to live 100 years instead of the 50 years more common in their own, due to proper practise of The Tao, the way. (See general theories on breathing, yin and yang, etc.)

2700BC: Evidence that by about 2700BC, domestication of horse, by a nomadic Aryan people with an Indo-European language ranging the steppes of Black and Caspian seas. Their horses are mentioned in the clay tablets of their southern neighbours. (Caspian pony of Iran). The Medes raised Nisean horses in west Iran. In Afghanistan were the Bactrian horses. (Arabia was once a land of trees and rivers.) (Edwards).

Circa 2700BC: First stone-built tomb for an Egyptian king. (One of the last kings of the Third Dynasty.)

2700BC: A biblical walled city west of the Dead Sea, Israel, is destroyed in 2700BC; resettled about 1100BC - inscribed pottery about 600BC.

2700BC: China: Herbal medicine and acupuncture first used in China. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

2700BC: Sumerian city of Ur comes into prominence. (Mellersh.) The world's first-known doctor, Lulu, practiced in Sumer around 2700BC. (Doctors also begin to appear in Egyptian records 2600-2100BC.)

2750BC: Tyre: Tyre founded as city by Phoenicians. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

2750BC: Helwan, Egypt: Australian researchers (from Macquarie University in Sydney) find a tomb in an ancient cemetery from 4500 years ago, at Helwan, cemetery for Memphis, near the Cairo of today. Team leader for the researchers is Dr. Christiana Kohler, Australian Centre for Egyptology. The mostly-intact and mostly-undisturbed tomb (with skeleton) belonged to a craftsman circa 2750BC. Reported 29 April 2000.

2750BC: Likely date of founding of Troy on the Turkish coast. (Mellersh).

About 2800BC-2500BC: Britain: Building of Stonehenge I by Neolithic or New Stone Age people. Stonehenge II from 2130BC (probably built by Beaker People, since as mariners they imported Welsh bluestone). Stonehenge III about 2075BC. Follows, building by the Wessex People of Stonehenge IIIa, IIIb, IIIc. Theories have been advanced that the builders of Stonehenge were Druids, Danes, Romans, Saxons, Phoenicians, Hypoboreans, the Irish, Atlanteans, or Mycenaean Greeks. Or, ancient astronauts (?).

2750BC: Babylon: Writing of the Gilgamesh Epic; earliest-known written story, with story of Utnapishtim, saved in an ark from a Great Flood. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

2800BC, Pyramid of Djoser built near Cairo.

2800BC: Gilgamesh; Pyramid of Djoser near Cairo.

2800BC: Stone: Stone is now used for much building and for carved statuary. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

2800BC: China: Legend tells that the emperor Fu Hsi develops concept of yin and yang as a means of referring to the equilibrium of all things. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

2885BC: Noah born: Noah is born son of Lamech, who is aged 182 years. Noah is first patriarch born after death of Adam. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

2900BC: In Sumer, the Shurrupak Flood. Shurrupak is an antediluvian city about 100km north of Eridu on the Euphrates River, the birthplace of Zisudra, "the Sumerian Noah". This was a riverine flood, not a sea inundation as with Ur/Eridu. The furthest-inland of any antediluvian city of Sumer would have been Sippar, which was dedicated to the sun-god, Utu. By legend, Sippar (City of the Sun) is where knowledge of the antediluvian race was hidden "before the flood" and preserved for the use of survivors. But in the story of Sippar, the Noah figure is named Xisouthros, who when asleep is visited in a dream by a god who warns him humanity will be destroyed in a terrible deluge and orders him to build a large boat. Sacred wisdom is to be inscribed on precious tablets and buried underground at Sippar. (Hancock, Underworld)

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2900BC: Major period of Mesopotamian chronology; period when city states flourished under separate dynastic rulers, to end with the founding of the dynasty of Akkad in 2334BC.

2900BC: Greek sub-Neolithic period, to 2500BC; Dimini in Thessaly, new pottery, break with earlier culture.

2900BC: "Tower as Babel" appears as in the building of Sumerian temple towers. (Mellersh)

2900BC: Mesopotamians use square-sailed boats; Mesopotamian canals for irrigation also used for boat passage and cargo, and Magar supplies timber for boats. Egypt had ships by 2780BC. The Code of Hammurabi mentions shipping. Pharaoh Necho in 600BC asks Phoenicians to circumnavigate Africa. Time of the Sea People was first naval battles. Navigation is by "knowing the wind and stars", use of sounding lead and line for depth. (See E. G. R. Taylor's history of navigation).

2954BC: Enoch dies: Enoch, who lived close to God, is rewarded by not dying, but by being taken bodily to heaven at an age of 365 years. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

3000BC: Large villages begin to appear in South America. (Financial Times World Desk Reference)

3000BC, Bantu expansion of Africa, West Africans move north and displace Pygmies and Khoisan groups. Philippines settled by Austronesian expansions. First art with genuine “religious” content, first map of Moon found at Knowth, Ireland. Concepts used such as bureaucracy, surplus, warehousing, taxes, accounting, gold mines.

3000BC, Start of Bronze Age in Greece, Minoans, Mycaeneans.

3000BC: Sea level reaches present level, temperatures two degrees warmer than currently.

3000BC: The Dawn of the Dingo?: DNA data released at a recent conference at University of New South Wales, Sydney, on origins of modern humans, seems to indicate that the Australian Dingo may be the descendant of a single pregnant female dog brought to Australia from Indonesia about 3000BC. Some 211 dingos from all states of Australia have been compared in terms of their mitochondrial DNA by researchers, geneticist Alan Wilton and Prof. Peter Savolainen of Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden. The oldest Dingo remains in Australia have otherwise been dated around 3500 years ago, or about 1500BC. It anyway seems that only a few dogs, a pair, or just one pregnant dog started the Australian population. In return, it seems that lice common to kangaroos have been found on dogs in "South East Asia". Otherwise, the research on human origins presented at the conference tended to support the "out-of-Africa" theory. (Reported 30 September 2003 in Australia)

4000BC-3000BC: Beginnings of the use of copper in Medit/Near East. Possibly, some domestication of horse by 3700BC? (Note from Edwards)

3000 BC: Bureaucracy, hoarding of surplus, warehousing, taxes, accounting, gold mines.

3000BC: Reports arise by 1 April 2003 that in a desert area near Cairo, a 5000-year old mummy is found in a wooden coffin found within an area of mud-brick tombs from Egypt's First Dynasty.

3000BC to 500BC: Period of Early Mythopoeic Thought in religious/cultural life:

3000BC: Evidence that the Scythians of the Altai mountains of Western Siberia had been tenders of reindeer before they became horse people, but they are horse people by 3000BC.

3000BC: Domesticated horse used in Europe, eg Sweden; there is also a mystery horse, Tundra Horse, remains of which have been found with mammoths in Siberia, such horse remains in Valley of the Yana, in north-east Siberia, where winter temperatures are below those of the North Pole. (Edwards)

3000BC: Presumed introduction of horses into Europe.

3000BC: Cross-fertilisation of people and cultures as horse cultures swept back and forth across Asiatic steppes, the Ukraine, to west Europe and to present day Iran and Iraq, over Medit, to India and China, for five thousand years the horse contributed, say from 3000BC? (Edwards)

3000BC: Horses, domesticated on the Eurasian steppes. About 3000BC, horses introduced into Palestine by Hyksos in 2nd Millennium BC, about 1500BC, with war chariots. First biblical mention of the horse is Joseph, Genesis 47:17; Jews/Hebrews are forbidden to keep large numbers of horses as for war purposes.

3000BC: Beginning of period as Pharaoh is worshiped by the Egyptians

3000BC: Iran - South-East: City, river and trading life exists by now.

Pre-3000BC: Philippines: First immigrants arrive to Philippines (7000 islands). They are from Malaysia, a primitive people with no knowledge of agriculture. Hunters and gatherers. Later joined by a more advanced people from Indonesia, the two peoples merging into a tribal system termed "Barangay".

3000BC: People to be known as Iberians go to Spain from Africa, mingling with Celtic tribes from the north during C4thBC - the so-called Celiberian culture.

3000BC: Iran - South-East: City, river and trading life exists by now.

Pre-3000BC: Philippines: First immigrants arrive to Philippines (7000 islands). They are from Malaysia, a primitive people with no knowledge of agriculture. Hunters and gatherers. Later joined by a more advanced people from Indonesia, the two peoples merging into a tribal system termed "Barangay".

3000BC: People to be known as Iberians go to Spain from Africa, mingling with Celtic tribes from the north during C4thBC - the so-called Celiberian culture.

3000BC: Use of written numbers is found in both Egypt and Mesopotamia.

3000BC: Use of hieroglyphs (sacred carvings) in Egypt, with some 700 characters.

3000BC: Egypt, Belief arises in Osiris. Views on Osiris are more formalized by 2400BC-2200BC in the Pyramid Texts. (Robert Feather, The Copper Scroll Decoded)

3000BC: The population of Egypt is 870,000 by 3000BC. (Robert Feather, The Copper Scroll Decoded)

3000BC: Oldest furniture used by humans? See Catal Huyuk, Turkey. By 3000BC, Stone Age Scotland, Orkney Islands, beds, dressers or sideboards. Also in the Orkneys, the oldest-known lavatories and sewage-disposal systems. (Orcadian site, Skara Brae, Orkneys). At this same time, spring-mattress beds in Egypt. (James/Thorpe)

3000BC: Uruk in Iraq has a population of 50,000 people. (James/Thorpe)

3000BC: Inter-city warfare is already a defect in Sumerian life. Cities tend to be unprotected by hordes from elsewhere. Priestly rule cannot cope and secular kingship arises. Kingship is conferred on rulers of Kish (in the North, speakers of Akkadian, after a major flood. (Source: McNeill, p. 59). The model for kingship is perhaps the authority of a field commander.
Sumerian civilization a city civilization, and a "city" may have developed from "an overgrown village"; mostly farmers, but irrigated land is in tracts "owned by a god", and administration is on its behalf by priests, One or more temple communities constitute "a city". This magnified work forces, perhaps even several-thousand strong. Sumerian theology has it that men is created to free the gods from working for a living. (Source: McNeill, p. 51.)

3000BC: Papyrus, first made by Egyptians.

3000BC: Approx: Sumeria: Earliest written evidence of a calendar system using both lunar and solar data, using an intercalary month. This gives a year of 360 days (the reason a circle is divided into 360 degrees). By 1300BC, the Chinese use a lunar calendar similar to that of the Sumerians.

3000BC: Date for carving of jade in Liaoning Province, north-east China. (James/Thorpe).

3000BC: Date for use of bread and beer (from the same cereal) on large scale in Egypt and Iraq. Sumerians were "the first great beer drinkers". (James/Thorpe). The Sumerians make wine from dates as well as grapes. Perhaps 40 per cent of Sumerian grain goes to beer-making. (James/Thorpe)

3000BC: By 3000BC, grain-growing agricultural people are working in Europe, along the coast of North Africa, into India, across the Iranian plateau to Central Asia. Of such areas, it was Mesopotamia which had the best-irrigable river valleys.

3000BC: Or before: Use of the traction plow in Middle East. Crude plows are used as recorded in earliest Sumeria and Egypt. After now, rise of the river valley civilizations. But in China, first use of plow perhaps as late as 350BC during Chou Dynasty.

3000BC: Chariot: First known depiction of a chariot. At Tell Agrab, Iraq. Four wild asses (onagers) pull a chariot. The chariot with scythed wheels as used by the Celts against Romans in Britain date from the Persian emperor Cyrus (559-529BC). (Source: James/Thorpe).

3000BC: By now, The rivers Nile and Indus now seem "tamed for human purposes' via use of irrigation. (Source: McNeill, p. 82). Their civilizations begin to rival Mesopotamia.

Before 3000BC: Sumerians etc, a cluster of great inventions, irrigation, wheeled vehicles, sailing ships, metallurgy, oven-baked and/or wheel-turned pottery,

The Third Dynasty of Ur is 2050BC-1950BC. (Source: McNeill, p. 53).

3000BC: Crete: Beginning of Bronze Age Minoan culture on Crete. Also date for first settlement of "Greeks" at Athens. World population is now about 100 million. In Europe are now seen great stone monuments. The Sahara area, previously well-wooded, but overworked and overgrazed, begins to suffer desertification. (Date/items from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline. The Five Mile Press Ltd., Balwyn, Australia, 1992)

An Australian archaeologist, Dr Christiana Kohler, of Macquarie University, Sydney, hopes to be able to illustrate the cultural forces shaping the first Egyptian forms of society and rulership after researching a burial ground Helwan, south of Cairo. Helwan is about 25km south of Cairo, and one of three sites used for the burial of people from Memphis, Egypt's first capital city, from about 5000 years ago. The site in question, with about 10,000 tombs, is about 1.5km by 800m, officially under the control of the Egyptian Antiquities Authority, but in fact is under pressure of modern development. The Helwan area was researched in the 1940s, but artefacts in up to 157 boxes could not be displayed for lack of space. They remained forgotten in a museum basement until Egypt's antiquities were re-inventoried only a few years ago. Dr Kohler then became aware of their existence, and, amazingly, managed to gain permission to pursue research, ahead of a world-wide field of other interested scholars. A question is: how did Egypt become a unified kingdom?
(Reported 21 February 1998, The Sydney Morning Herald)

3000BC: approx, The First City appeared in Mesopotamia, about BC3000. Christian op cit says Uruk was a city of 50,000 people with well-fortified walls by 3000BC. Soon, the entire population of southern Mesopotamia lived in cities.

See Lewis Mumford, The City in History. 1961.
Mumford died in 1990 and believed that modern cities (worth living in) had been created by the civilising of technology in the name of society.

Lewis Mumford defines the city as, "a structure specially equipped to store and transmit the goods of civilisation, sufficiently condensed to afford the maximum amount of facilities in a minimum of space, but also capable of structural enlargement to enable it to find a place for the changing needs and the more complex forms of a growing society and its cumulative social heritage"... - in his book The City in History.

3000BC: Approx, Date for erection of stone circles in Britain, at Callanish in the Outer Hebrides; probably older. (Date from Hancock and Faiia.)

3000BC: Women practice medicine in Egypt; a school of medicine operates at Heliopolis. (See Rosalind Miles' book)

3000BC: Ukraine, Engraved on a vessel of silver is "the world's earliest map". By 2300BC: in Northern Iraq, a local map indicates canals and a landholding. By 1500BC appears a map drawn to scale of the Babylonian city of Nippur. 60BC, Appearance of a Babylonian "world map", the first such world map. Note that by the time of Alexander the Great, Greeks thought that India was a small peninsula jutting into the sea forming "the edge of the world". Alexander's travels proved this wrong.

3000BC: Flood is mentioned in Nippur stele about 3000BC. (Bacon, Atlas)

3000BC: The Goddess appears everywhere in the known world, in statues, shrines and written records, and [see Jaynes' book here]; the double-eye figure was a symbol of the (human) vulva; Ishtar of the Babylonians is the cosmic uterus, the stars of the zodiac her raiment. (Miles)

3000BC: Evidence that the Scythians of the Altai mountains of Western Siberia had been tenders of reindeer before they became horse people, but they are horse people by 3000BC.

3000BC: Domesticated horse used in Europe, eg., Sweden; there is also a mystery horse, Tundra Horse, remains of which have been found with mammoths in Siberia, such horse remains in Valley of the Yana, in north-east Siberia, where winter temperatures are below those of the North Pole. (Edwards)

3000BC: Legend of Arabia that Baz, great-great-grandson of Noah, was the first to attempt domestication of the wild horses of the Yemen. Arabs divide the history of the horse into four periods, Adam to Ishmael, the son of Abraham and first ancestor of the desert Bedouin, reputed to be the first man to ride a desert horse, Ishmael to Solomon, Solomon to Mohammed and then from the Prophet onwards.

3000BC: Cross-fertilisation of people and cultures as horse cultures swept back and forth across Asiatic steppes, the Ukraine, to west Europe and to present day Iran and Iraq, over Medit, to India and China, for five thousand years the horse contributed, say from 3000BC? (Edwards)

3000BC: Approx, Sumer, first king of Sumer is Etana of Kish, about 3000BC; he stabilized the lands, his temple to Enlil at Nippur. Origins of the Sumerian people are still unknown.

3000BC to 1500BC: Assur a city on the Tigris, named for its god, Assur, a god similar to Enlil and Marduk.

Before 3000BC: Megaliths erected in Europe and Palestine. (See J. I. Packer, Merrill C. Tenney, William White Jnr, (Eds.), The Bible Almanac. Nashville, Thomas Nelson, 1980.)

3000BC: Beginning of civilization in Crete.

3000BC: Horses, domesticated on the Eurasian steppes. About 3000BC, horses introduced into Palestine by Hyksos in 2nd Millennium BC, about 1500BC, with war chariots. First biblical mention of the horse is Joseph, Genesis 47:17; Jews/Hebrews are forbidden to keep large numbers of horses as for war purposes.

3000BC: Continuous occupation at Benin, Southern Nigeria, since 3000BC to present day; at some point, bronze is cast by lost-wax method.

3000BC: or earlier, Founding of Byblos, present day Gebeil, later the chief Phoenician port, East Medit, north of Beirut. main centre of trade with Egypt. Byblos is origin of the word "bible".

3000BC?: Latter half of 3rd Millennium BC, Corded ware/battle axe culture, North European plain, individual burial as a practice, especially for adult males; use of twisted cord, horse bones, so perhaps nomadic herdsmen (?). In this period, wheeled vehicles first reached Northern Europe, with wooden wheels of solid wood in three pieces as in Holland and Denmark. More contact for these peoples.

3000BC-1750BC: Peru develops a "vertical economic system", as lower villages traded food with the seasonally nomadic herders of the higher elevations.

3000BC: Casting of large statues by the lost-wax method, in Mesopotamia. (Lost-wax is cire perdue.)

About 3000BC to 2000BC: Human occupation at South Siberia, Neolithic stock breeders and hunters, burials using low mounds, stamped pottery, some copper work.

3000BC: By about 3000BC in Egypt on a great roll of leather, the original of the later famous Memphite Theology is set down, possibly on a leather scroll, with a reference to the creator God Ptah; quarrels of the gods Horus and Seth, describes the construction of the royal god-house at Memphis, and indicates the various gods are variations of Ptah's voice or "tongue".

3000BC: The wheel in use in Sumeria. (Mellersh).

BC: Babylon is now a prosperous city: The Assyrians now use the block wheel as imported from lower Mesopotamia. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

3000BC: Presumed introduction of horses into Europe.

3000BC: Use of pigs in New Guinea highlands. (Oppenheimer, Eden In The East)

3000BC: Approx, Arrival of post-flood arrivals in Australia. Use of the (domesticated) dingo dog. (Oppenheimer, Eden In The East)

Circa 3000BC: The speakers of Austronesian languages begin to populate Taiwan, Philippines, Malaysia, the Indonesian Islands, Madagascar and the more remote islands of the Pacific Ocean. (Item from text by Paul Lunde, in magazine Saudi Aramco World, The Indian Ocean and Global Trade, issue July/August 2005)

3011BC: Adam dies: Adam dies at age of 930 years. (Many of the first generation of biblical patriarchs live about 1000 years) (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

3400BC: Appearance of first writing in Egypt.

3300BC, invention of writing, Sumerians with cuneiform, maybe used also in Egypt, Sumerian city-states emerge, Sumerians develop the wheel, and the 60 second minute.

3300BC: Use of numerical notation tablets; "Iceman" mummified in Swiss Alps.

3300BC: Otzi "the iceman"...

October 1991: Otzi, "the iceman", is discovered by German tourists in the South Tyrol region of Italy, in the Otztaler Alps on the Austrian-Italian border near Switzerland, altitude 3200m above sea level. His head is seen emerging from meltwater of the Similaun Glacier. The tourists take a picture, notify the caretaker of a lodge nearby, and move on. Later, police damage Otzi's bow as they extract the body from the ice. Some of his clothes are torn, a hole is accidentally drilled in his hip. Later the body is forced into a coffin and an arm is broken. He becomes "the find of the century". He has a fascinating tool kit, a superbly-crafted bow, and near him are animal bones, grain and dried fruit. New Scientist magazine reports on him by January 1992. Otzi-mania developed. About 20,000 museum visitors now view him per year in a specially-designed chamber.

Various scenarios arise on Otzi's situation. One of the first was from Konrad Spindler, director of Institute of Alpine Studies at University of Innsbruck, who thought Otzi lost his way and died of cold in a storm or blizzard, quoted in New Scientist. Was he a shepherd who had lost his way? Other views were that he was a warrior, a hunter, a chieftain, or a shaman. Was he injured, did he have a stroke? Had he been ostracised? About 60 teams of scientists were to range over the remains and surviving artefacts. Otzi's people were farmers raising cattle, sheep and goats. They hunted red deer, Ibex and Chamois and by 2900BC, thousands of their villages dotted Europe.

Otzi was aged about 46, about 160cm tall. If a reconstruction of him is accurate, he was quite handsome. By 11 August 2003 (in The Australian newspaper, story by Leigh Dayton), he is depicted as aged about 46, killed or dying about 3300BC after being shot from behind with an arrow, which a companion removed before he stitched the wound. The friend was also injured, and DNA tests have shown the friend's blood was on the back of Otzi's jacket. But blood from different people was on the arrowhead and a nearby knife blade. Otzi's tools bore traces of animal blood, and included a copper axe, a stone-tipped knife, bow and arrows, a drill, a multi-purpose scraper, a stone-flaker, flintstone and tinder for fire-making. Otzi was evidently born in the South Tyrol area of Italy, and his DNA resembles that of modern Europeans living in Northern Europe. His remains reside with South Tyrol Archaeology Museum, Bolzano Italy while his artefacts are kept in Mainz. He lived near Juval, a copper-age (Neolithic) site in the area. He was possibly a skilled/specialist hunter of the mountain goat (Ibex). Why did he die? One scenario is that he and his companion, on an ordinary hunting trip, became involved in a territorial fight on a high alpine pass. Both are injured, and Otzi shortly dies, lying knife-in-hand in the shelter of a rock face. Before August 2003, scientists interested in the case had not realized Otzi was with a companion, though they knew he had been shot by an arrow. A revised scenario lately arises from archaeologist Tom Loy, who is expert in prehistoric tools and is director of Institute of Molecular Bioscience in Brisbane at University of Queensland. Loy believes Otzi was expert at hunting Ibex and also Chamois, which might have led him into disputed territory. Otzi's gear when he died was in neat condition. He did not simply collapse, but was organized. Loy and his students have examined blood specimens from Otzi's antler-skinning tool, his stone-tipped knife, two of his arrows, and his axe-handle. Three sequences of DNA came from three different people. It appears, one such person had been leaning on Otzi's shoulders for support. The wounding arrowhead bothering Otzi had been discovered in 2001 by pathologist Eduart Egarter-Vigal and radiologist Paul Gostner of the Bolzano hospital. Examination of DNA proposes new scenarios.

3067BC: Lamech: Lamech is born as son to Methuselah, who is aged 187 years. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

3100BC-2650BC: First three dynasties of Egypt. Sumeria influences the development of Egypt.

3100BC-2650BC: Egypt develops with influences from Mesopotamian culture, as indicated by evidence from art, metallurgy, use of the potter's wheel, mud-brick monumental buildings. Before 3100BC, nothing like a Sumerian city state. exists in Egypt. (From McNeill)

3100BC, in Egypt, first crushing of grapes, fermenting and wine-making.

3102BC: Date given in Indian tradition for the beginning of the Age of Kali (Kali Yuga), when people will become more wicked and violent. This is also one date for the traditional death of Krishna. Hancock sees it as a date for the end of the city of Dwarka. (Hancock, Underworld)

3100BC: First-known clay tablets used, carrying "writing".

3100BC: When areas of the Nile Valley are still "uncivilized" (ie, Neolithic), arises Menes, a single ruler, and his political unification lasted about 900 years. His rule may have been pre-dated by priests, chieftains or priest-kings governing limited areas. Was Menes a pastoralist-conqueror from the south? Early Egyptian civilization becomes a product of the ways of the royal household "which became a city in itself". (Source: McNeill, p. 87.)

3100BC: Evolution of hieroglyphs, pictorial script evolved for writing the ancient Egyptian language.

By 3100BC: Scribes are at work writing in Mesopotamia. (Cambridge Hist)

3100BC: Legend has it that Thebes was founded by Menes, north Egypt capital, seat of creator God Ptah (who created by an utterance), on west bank of Nile opposite Cairo. Not originally called Memphis, burials over period of 3000 years. Lost tomb of King Horemheb found there. Mastaba - and the Iseum, the newly-found burial place of the mothers of the Apis bulls. Memphis, Egyptian creator God Ptah, chief cult centre, earthly manifestation was The Bull. Sacred Apis bull quartered at Memphis. Embalmed bodies of Apis bulls were at Saqqara. Re Temple of Serapis lined by sphinxes. A small temple built by a 30th Dynasty Pharaoh, before which stood a semi-circle of Greek poets and philosophers. See Serapeum; Ramses II's reign put two Apis bulls in embalmed state. Apis bull cult probably predates Egyptian dynastic history, as bulls were buried in cemeteries in Badarian culture. Pharaoh probably ate dead Apis bulls to regain strength. Only one Apis bull per time, selected from all Egypt per markings. Bull was interred like a pharaoh, had his own harem of cows. Dead Apis bulls became the funerary god, Osiris-Apis. Mothers of Apis bulls were sacred cows. (Anything such as a link re Indian sacred cows - Hindus? Cows were associated with Isis. Miles says, first mention of Thebes, the Goddess ordered a wooden lingam of Osiris set up in her temple, as a phallus. (Miles)

3100BC-2900BC: Jemdet Nasr, a small site northeast of Babylon. Protoliterate period in Mesopotamia. Use of pictograph tablets.

3100BC: Approximate date for the construction of Newgrange, in Ireland. Newgrange, ostensibly a neolithic tomb, also has the remarkable properties of a precise solar (and lunar) calendar, which allow the sun's rays to illuminate the inner chambers only on the Winter Solstice. It is also the site of the oldest-known map of the Moon (carved on a rock called Orthostat 47, circa 4800 years old). Newgrange is one of the most important, and most ancient, scientific sites in the world. It is conservatively estimated to be at least 500 years older than the Egyptian pyramids and 1000 years older than Stonehenge.
Submitted by Matt Johnston, 20 January 2001

3100BC: Pharaoh Menes: Unites scattered tribes of upper and lower Egypt and near modern site of Cairo founds major city, Memphis. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

3100BC: Begins the classical dynastic period for Egypt, uniting upper and lower Egypt by legendary king, Menes, possibly the historical King Narmer. Archaic period here to 2686BC.

Magan: a distant land trading with Mesopotamia, 3rd and 2nd mlnm. Possibly Gulf of Oman and Indus Valley. But at times, texts describe it as "Ethiopia". Trade in timber, gold, copper and semi-precious stones. The people named Cush are equal to the Kish, according to (Packer et al. Cush is Ethiopia.)

3100BC: Use of oared boats/ships in Egypt. Somewhat later the Egyptians are exploring the Mediterranean Coast. By 2300BC the Egyptians have an organised navy of merchant transport vessels.

3200BC, Egypt, First formation of the first single Old Kingdom by Narmer, more development of hieroglyphics in Egypt, embalming of the dead.

3200BC: Pictographs of Sumeria: In Sumeria is developed form of writing known as pictograph. In Canaan, Palestine, a culture develops, and is unbroken till nomads overtake it in 2300BC. Walled cities are found, with "narrow cobbled streets". Trading centres include Hazor, Megiddo, Shechem and Jebus. By 3200BC, Canaanites at Megiddo erect a large stone altar (8 metres in diameter) as a high place for worship. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

Circa 3200BC: Menes has united Upper and Lower Egypt for irrigation control.

3200BC: Stringed instruments (lyres?), used at Ur in Sumer. Invention of the lyre credited to the god Enlil. The lyre seems to have inspired the lute by 2300BC; and the lute long later gave rise to the guitar. In India via the Greeks, the lute became the sitar An adapted lute became the violin. A 1487 opinion is that the Catalans had invented the guitar. (James/Thorpe) The Sumerians used a seven-noted scale like our own, allowing harmonies.

Circa: 3200BC: Early evidence of use of wheeled vehicles in Sumer.

3200BC or earlier: Possibly rediscovery of Sodom and Gomorrah. Two of five lost Cities of the Plains, located probably north of the ancient northern coast of the Dead Sea, Palestine, Sodom and Gomorrah, may be rediscovered. NASA satellite pictures now appear to indicate sunken buildings where they cities may have been. Mysteries of the research here involve cemeteries for up to 500,000 people, in an area now a desert, cemeteries perhaps as old as 3200BC. Perhaps, the area was devastated 5000 years ago by an earthquake which let loose pitch which caught fire? Hence the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by fire? Later, the waters of the northern Dead Sea rose. A mini-submarine will be needed to explore a test area about 365m deep. The researchers involved in the story include: NASA satellite picture editors, Michael Sanders, biblical scholar born in Leeds, now in Irvine, California, and a scuba-diver, Rich Slater. And a late 1960s-working archaeologist, P. W. Lapp, who had excavated on the Lisan Peninsula of the Dead Sea. Archaeologists Walter Rast and Thomas Schauh worked in the same area during 1973-1979. (Reported by 19 October 1998)

3250BC: Earliest wheeled vehicles in Sumeria used for both farm vehicles and war chariots.

3250BC: Wheeled cart is in use in Mesopotamia and Caucasus. Use of solid wooden wheels, which are in three parts strapped together.

3254BC: Methuselah: Methuselah is born as son to Enoch who is aged 65. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

3300BC: China: First ruler of China is Fu Xi.

3300BC: Domestic lighting: By 18000BC, Stone Age cave artists use stone lamps filled with animal fat to light their way. By 3300BC, ordinary homes in Egypt are lit with pottery bowls with a wick floating in oil. (James/Thorpe).

3319BC: Enoch: Enoch is born as son to Jared, who is aged 162 years. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline.)

3309BC: March 10: A primordial Maya god, named GI by scholars, begins his mythical reign.

3350BC: More to come

3400BC: More to come

3500BC, Austronesian expansions, settlers from South China reach Taiwan.

3500BC, first pyramids made of earth are built in Peru.

3500BC-2400BC, Sumerian period in Mesopotamia, cit states arise of Ur, Uruk, Kish, Lagash, Gilgamesh, ziggarauts, use of cuneiform. By 3500, population of Uruk is about 10,000 (?).

3500BC: City of Kish in Mesopotamia, first known use of writing, a scribe carves a tablet of solid limestone with a foot, a hand and a sledge, picture-writing. Plus some marks which are probably numbers.

3500BC: Beginning of colonisation of Britain, a process completed by 30000BC.

Circa 3500BC: (Gardner, Genesis, p. 21): By 3500BC is ate for a stone-built tomb in an area with no stones, Ur, with riches as splendid as those for Tutankhamun, for wife of A-bar-gi, Queen Shub-ad.

3500BC: Ugarit, or Ras-Shamra, on Syrian coast of Mediterranean. Opposite Cyprus, means "field", 5 major phases, 3500BC and before, blasted by the Sea Peoples in about 1200BC, most important texts are about 1400BC; seafaring is important. An important God is Baal. 3rd mlnm 1200BC, the Sea People destroy Ugarit an ancient Syrian city near the coast, going back to 3rd mlnm.

Mid-3rd mlnm BC, Copper mining at Los Millares, inland from coast of s/e Spain, cemetery of passage graves. Millaran culture of south Spain and Portugal.

Phoenicians: Semitic inhabitants on coastal Levant; Egyptians and Akkadians wanted their wood from 3rd mlnm. Phoenicians turned to trade as their coastal fringe could not support city populations. Traded in cedars and murex dyes; Phoenician monopoly of Tyrian purple. Developed writing for their trading, the alphabet. Byblos, Sidon, Tyre, and their Punic colonies were at Moroccan coast, Malta, Cadiz in Spain, Carthage, Sardinia, Palermo, Sicily.

"Eye temple": Re Jaynes and eyes, at Tell Brak, Akkadian frontier outpost, on tributary of River Khabur on Syrian-Iraq border, at beginning of 3rd millennium, four eye temples, re use of votive amulets, re use of imagery of eyes.

3rd mlnm, lapis lazuli only mined at Badakhshan in Afghanistan, so its occurrence is useful in tracing trade indications.

Luwians, or, Luvians: Indo-Europeans invading Anatolia in 3rd Mlmn BC, in province of Assuwa, west of the Hittites, and Hieroglyphic Hittite and Lycian are dialects of Luwian. Rock mounts and springs near Manisa may have religious significance.

3rd mlnm BC: In Europe, colonization of North European plain and introduction of the plough, first necessitated mining for flint, as stone needed for axes to clear forests. North Europe, across to Russia, mines put through chalk to get to flint. 4th mlnm copper mined at Bulgaria and Yugoslavia.

Iron Age: Use of iron begins in 3rd mlnm, developed by the Hittites and kept a closely-guarded secret until they fall to the Sea People. about 1200BC. Iron technology spread quickly through West Eurasia. Established in Greece and Italy soon after 1000BC, then spread through Europe. It is no accident that as iron spread, bronze-based wealth collapsed, and the decline of Greece after Peloponnesian Wars, 431-404BC, Greek imports disappeared from Celtic Central Europe and less than two years later, Celts began their expansion south to Southern Italy and sacked Rome in 385BC, east via Danube to Greece, an attempt to lessen the impact of Greek trade.

3400BC: Hieroglyphics: Priests in the Nile Valley begin to develop form of writing known as hieroglyphics. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

3400BC: One date for beginning of hieroglyphic writing began in Egypt.

3400BC: Prehistory ends in Iraq when the Sumerians became literate. Same in Greece by 1000BC. Rene has 3400BC as one of the earliest dates for Sumer.

3400BC: Flood: Major flood at Sumerian city of Ur. (Origin of the people of Sumeria is still unknown). (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

3400BC: North America: Date for Watson Brake Mound Complex of eleven mounds, with connecting ridges on about 20 acres and seems to have been little-inhabited and also not used for ceremonial purposes. About 1400BC, appearance of Poverty Point Mounds, and 2000 years later, the Mississippi Temple Mounds were built. See Science Now, 19 September 1997)

For timelines for Antiquity 45000BC to 3501BC, Check Website:
http://www.mediahistory.com/time/prehist.html/

Circa 3450BC: One of various dates given: The first cities appear along the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, north of what is now the Persian Gulf. The cities made up the Uruk culture named after the principal city of Uruk, which corresponds to the Biblical Erech. The culture invented writing, the lunar calendar, used metal and built monumental architecture. The cities remained independent for almost a thousand years.

3440BC: Desertification of Sahara begins/proceeds.

3481BC: Jared: Is born as son to Mahalalel, who is aged 65. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

Circa 3400 BC: The opium poppy is cultivated in lower Mesopotamia. The Sumerians refer to it as Hul Gil, the 'joy plant.' The Sumerians would soon pass along the plant and its euphoric effects to the Assyrians. The art of poppy-culling would continue from the Assyrians to the Babylonians who in turn would pass their knowledge on to the Egyptians.
From website based on book: Opium: A History, by Martin Booth Simon and Schuster, Ltd., 1996. e-mail info@opioids.com

3500BC: Uruk's cities reach 10k population; use of cylinder seals; the wheel.

2001AD- 3500BC: Approx: Newly-discovered rock art sites reveal that prior to what is now regarded as "Egyptian civilisation", before and after the building of the pyramids, areas distant from the Nile were populated by "an unknown pastoral people, driving their cattle from one watering place to another", about 4000BC if not earlier. The people producing the rock art were, stylistically, the same as the people producing pottery art in Egypt. The areas being researched are Wadi Hammamat and Wadi Barramiya. Some recurring images are the dragging of boats, and figures with large plumes in their hair. Egypt began to turn into desert from about 3500BC. Before then, the landscape was rather like today's African savannah. The Egypt of 4000BC is going to need a rethink, is one early conclusion. A researcher helping analyse the rock art is Dr. Toby Wilkinson of Christ's College, Cambridge University. (Reported in world press on 30 December 2000)

6700BC: From 6700BC to 5500BC or so, and then from 3800BC to 3400BC (or 4000BC to 3600BC?), occurs the desertification of the Sahara, not due to human misuse of environment, but by changes in the earth's orbit and a tilt of the axis. This has been claimed by Martin Claussen and co-researchers of Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, engaged in climate-modelling research on variables including weather, oceans, vegetation over several thousand years. (See a 15 July 1999 issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters. The effects were very severe, ruining ancient civilizations and socio-economic systems. The change to North Africa's climate and vegetation was abrupt, and a green Sahara only supported desert shrubland within a few hundred years. Rivers and streams dried up. The habitations of the area are now remembered only via rock paintings. The people may have been forced to move west to the Nile Valley and other river valleys which could support civilization - especially the Tigris and Euphrates. Similar changes occurred in what is now Arabia. The changes were added to by atmospheric and vegetation "feedback", more than by effects from oceanic reactions. The model used by the researchers led to a conclusion that the desertification of North African began about 3400BC plus or minus 30 years, with the area earlier covered by annual grasses and low shrubs, as assessed from fossilized pollen. Another factor modified by the change in the tilt of the earth's axis, from 24.14 degrees to the present 23.45 degrees, was that the Northern Hemisphere, which had enjoyed more summer sunlight, had also amplified the African and Indian summer monsoon.
Credit for material here goes to American Geophysical Union. The above is based on material found at the ClimateArk website: http://www.climateark.org/articles/1999/sahturnd.htm

3500BC: Sumerians and Babylonians use sexigesimal (base 60) number system, according to historian Eric Temple Bell.

3500-3100BC: In Egypt the "Knife of Gebel-el-Arak" was made with an ivory handle carved with hunting and battle scenes. (It is now in the French Louvre.)

3500BC: First Neolithic farmers inhabit Denmark.

3500BC: Earliest-known evidence of olive oil cultivation/production, in Bronze Age Palestine.

3500BC: Model for town-planning using right-angles, an early example is about 3500BC for a population of 12,000 from Rahman Dehri, on the Western Indus Plain. (James/Thorpe)

3500BC: Cotton is cultivated on the coasts of Peru and by 2000BC cotton textile manufacture is common at 2000BC in Ur, Sumeria. (James/Thorpe)

3500BC: And later: During its heyday, Babylon had probably a population of 500,000. James/Thorpe. Their model for town-planning used right-angles, an early example is about 3500BC for a population of 12,000 from Rahman Dehri, on the Western Indus Plain. (James/Thorpe).

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3500BC: Beginning of institutions, and "ideas", ceremonies, techniques, so that by 3000BC, begins the civilization of the Sumerians, whose origins are unknown. Their language is unknown, skeletons provide no information on their racial origins. Their religion and art give prominence to animals. Did they arrive by sea from the south as some recorded traditions indicate? Their records have little "word magic". (Source: McNeill, p. 49.)

3500BC to 1600BC: Tepe Hissar, site in Northern Iran, near Caspian Sea, Sassanian palace found.

3500BC: Uruk/Warka, Biblical Erech, important site, 3500BC to 3100BC. Proto-literate. Linked to Nippur. Shrines to Anu and E-anna. Later ziggarauts.

3500BC: Chasseen culture widespread in France (Celts?) - Middle Neolithic culture.

Date ? but 3500BC, From the 4th Millennium onwards, currency was hoarded, often in large quantities, exchanged in precisely measured amounts by weight. Not really in common use till 500BC. Currency of two kinds. Special and general purpose. General can be used for most purposes, and was bronze, which could not be hoarded to be equivalent to gold prices. Gold coinage for gift exchange or bride prices, never to be used for subsistence goods. Currency might not even be exchanged, but used as a standard for relative values of things or even people.

3500BC: probable painting of "Boats of the Dead Caves" (third flooding) in Niah Caverns, Borneo. (Oppenheimer, Eden In The East)

3500BC: Evidence that the solid wheel is being used as a roller, Sumerian graves. (Edwards)

3500BC: Sumeria: Sumeria now has a group of commercially-orientated city states, including Ur, Erech, Nippur, Larsa, Eridu, Lagash, Kish. About 3500BC, Semitic peoples, probably from Arabia, invade Mesopotamia and Phoenicia. In Europe, farmers begin using cattle for pulling ploughs and carts, also for meat and milk. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline.)

3546BC: Mahalalel: Mahelalel is born as son to Kenan who is aged 70. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline.)

3600-3000BC: On Malta the Gantija/Gigantija phase, with the construction of the first megalithic temples.

3600-1700BC: Neolithic jade pieces represent some of the oldest of Chinese art.

3600BC: Metals in Asia: In Southwest Asia, Bronze is developed as an alloy of copper and tin, as harder, and better for tools and weapons. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline.)

3616BC: Kenan: Kenan is born as son to Enosh who is aged 90. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline.)

3700BC: Wheel: The wheel is invented, probably in Sumeria. Development of basket-making. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline.)

3706BC: Enosh: Enosh is born as son to Seth who is now 105 years old: (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

Circa 3761BC: The first year of the Jewish calendar that begins with Rosh Hashana. [1997 was year 5758]

3800BC: By 3800BC appears Sumerian city of Uruk with its temple, "the first true city on earth", (though what of Catal Huyuk?) Uruk has municipal/local councils, evolved from 5500BC, with cobbled streets and drainage systems. From (Gardner, Genesis, p. 9) the inheritors of the farming Halfans of Tel Halaf, Mesopotamia have become "world leaders" from about 10,000BC, but there is a baffling cultural expansion from after 4000BC.

3811BC: Seth: Adam and Eve have son Seth, to replace Cain as legitimate heir of Adam, who is now aged 130 years. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

3880BC: Murder: Cain murders Abel in a squabble over the nature/content/intent of proper sacrifices. God drives Cain into exile in eastern lands. Cain marries and builds a city. Between 3880-2500BC, many of Cain's descendants help develop human culture: life for nomadic herders and urban dwellers, art of music, crafts of metalwork. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

3882BCL (Gardner, Genesis): An "average" date for appearance of Adam is about 3882BC, in era of Near Eastern Bronze Age.

3881BC: Rivalry develops between Cain and Abel. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

3938BC: Abel : Adam and Eve have son, Abel, whose name means "vapor". (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

3939BC: Cain: Adam and Eve have son Cain, whose name means "spear". (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

3940BC: Expulsion from Garden of Eden Adam and Eve after The Fall are expelled from Garden of Eden. They are forced to work in "agriculture". (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)
Circa 3940BC: The downturn in temperatures and the drying of the climate led to the disappearance of several civilizations and to great disturbances in those that did survive. The earlier period of fine warm weather, Lamb hypothesizes, may be the origin of archetypal landscapes such as the Garden of Eden. After the warmest period, the earth seems to have cooled.
(From a website reviewing book on climate change by H. H. Lamb, Climate History and the Modern World)

3941BC: Garden of Eden Adam and Eve are placed in the Garden of Eden. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

4000BC: Height of the present warm interglacial, and seas rise about now. (Shreeve, Neandertal)

4000BC, domestication of horse in Ukraine. First iron object appears in Egypt. In Sligo, Ireland, is a tomb observatory re both sun and moon.

4000BC: People of Taiwan off China move to Malay Peninsula and the Moluccas of Indonesia. (Levathes, When China Rules The Seas)

4000BC; If about 16,000BC is the end of the Last Glacial Maximum, meaning rising seas, then possibly the lower-lying areas of Mesopotamia are inundated around 4000BC? Or to 3500BC? Oppenheimer in Eden in the East calls such relatively short-term flooding, the Flandrian transgression, affecting many parts of Asia. If so, Hancock speculates that Eridu of Sumer may have been the last old city to be built at the post-glacial high water point. Or, was it simply not flooded? (Eridu is a little north-west of modern Basra in Iraq, Ur was about 20km away.) In addition, about 2030BC, Sumerian King Amar Sin erects at Eridu a ziggurat, or step-pyramid. It was evidently built on top of earlier structures, perhaps as many as 17 temples. The earliest of these were perhaps one-roomed, with altars, offering tables and good-quality pottery. Dating the pottery might proceed back in time to 5000BC - and might make Eridu an antediluvian city? (Hancock, Underworld)

4000BC: Plowing with oxen, irrigation by Nile, earthworks; deforestation? 4000BC: Sheep are favoured for wool in some areas.

4000BC-2000BC: North Africa: Sahara is desertified, its people to the north go to Egypt, to east and south, and mingled with existing peoples. Built cities, founded empires with high levels of civilization. The first Negroes were probably fishermen of the Niger and Nile about 4000BC.
(Reader's Digest, The Last Two Million Years, p. 204)

Circa 4000BC: People of France develop a culture of farming.

4000BC: Cyprus in the Mediterranean is inhabited, by 2200BC it is the world's largest supplier of copper.

1997: 4000BC: The comet Hale-Bopp visits the inner solar system about this time. It next appeared in 1997.

4000BC: India has civilization on Indus River. By 2400BC, Indus River civilization in present day Pakistan, from farmers of the area since 4000BC - several cities notably are Harappa and Mohenjo Paro, these cities abandoned about 1750BC: (does this fit a climate-change theory?). Evidently as floods change course of the Indus River, cities were mud-buried. Not discovered till 1922. These people also invented the bullock cart. One of their gods is later called Shiva. Indus legacies are inherited by the lighter-skinned Aryans, who came to the Indus after 2000BC.
See Reader's Digest, History of Man: The Last Two Million Years. Sydney, The Reader's Digest Association, 1973-1974.

Circa 4000BC: The Pistol Star, located between the Earth and center of the Milky Way, was first seen with infrared equipment in the early 1990s. Estimated to be 25,000 light-years away with a radius of 93-140 million miles, to be formed 1-3 million years ago and shed much of its mass in violent eruptions estimated to have occurred about 6000 years ago.

4000BC: Sumerians appear soon after 4000BC, though it is not known where they appeared from, the Sumerian language stands alone. In Sumeria is a great flood about 4000BC, or 3800BC, by when the kingly and priestly empire is firmly cemented. (Gardner, Genesis, pp. 37-40).

4000BC: Gardner in Genesis of the Grail Kings gives rise of Mesopotamian city states at about 4000BC, as soon after 4000BC begins Sumer.

4000BC: Circa: On Malta, the Hypogeum, a complex of rock-cut chamber tombs, dated to this time. They were discovered in 1902. (Much discussed in Hancock, Underworld.)

4000BC: The Orkney Islands are inhabited since about this time.

Circa 4000BC: In Poland the archaeological site at Oslonki uncovered some 30 longhouses and 80 graves.

4000BC: Chiefdoms of northern Europe are trading in amber.

Circa 4000BC: The last wooly mammoths, Mammuthus primigenius, become extinct on Wrangel Island, north of the Arctic Circle.

4000BC-3000BC: The Indo-European language group divides into different branches

4000BC: McNeill feels that Mediterranean seafaring must have begun about 4000BC, when Neolithic settlements first appeared on Crete. By 3000BC, the Cretans are unmistakably trading much with Egypt. By 2000BC, the Trojans have a seafaring influence based on a Cretan model. (From McNeill).

4000BC: By 4000BC, when surface-available flint was used up, sub-surface flint-mining began, in Western Europe. But copper mining began at Rudna Glav, in Serbia, by 4500BC. Miners used antler-picks. The Balkans are a major source of copper. (James/Thorpe)

4000BC: Approx: Date for use of sugarcane (from New Guinea) in Hindu India, which regarded sugar as a basic necessity. Oddly, by 75AD, sugar was still a novelty to Romans. (James/Thorpe) By which time, 75AD, Rome imported spices from the Moluccas (Indonesia) cloves and cinnamon. Peppers came from Alexandria/India, white pepper from Southern India, cassia from Vietnam.

4000BC-3500BC: Dates for earliest use of lapis lazuli, (blue gemstone) from southeast Afghanistan, for decorations. It is found at Egyptian sites as early as 3000BC.

4000BC: The Hittites settle around Cappadocia in present-day Turkey.

4000BC: Skilled goldsmiths (Thracians) live in the area of Varna, now in Bulgaria, on the Black Sea.

4000BC: Stone tablets show use of cheese as early as this time.

4000BC: Evidence is found of tuberculosis in a Neolithic burial ground near Heidelberg, where the skeleton of a young man shows fusion of the fourth and fifth dorsal vertebrae.

4000BC: Circumcision is part of religious rites in Egypt and Greece dated at about this time.

4000BC: The Nile: Groups of settlements appear on Nile Delta and south along the river. (Date from Thomas Robinson, The Bible Timeline)

4000BC: Beginning of use of irrigation in major river valleys. (Source, McNeill, p. 45.) Eg., Tigris and Euphrates.

4004BC: St Augustine counted about 6000 years of bible genealogies, Johannes Kepler in 1598 calculated the earth was made on 3877BC, Sunday, 27 April, at 11 am. Bishop James Ussher of the Anglican Bishop of Armagh, a respected Bible scholar, in 1654 (and assuming that the various ages given of the various patriarchs meant something useful) found the universe separated from the void in 4004BC at 9 am on Sunday, 23 October. Ussher also found Adam and Eve to be in Eden for 18 days only, and that Noah landed on Mt Ararat on Wednesday, 5 May, 1491BC. (Note from Cloud)
In Thomas Robinson's, The Bible Timeline, (The Five Mile Press Ltd., Balwyn, Australia, 1992.), many problems of chronology are noted. Robinson notes that Judaism since the C15th has counted 3761BC as the "date of creation". The Early Christian Church using the Septuagint, dated the creation at about 5500BC.

For timelines for Antiquity 45000BC to 3501BC, Check Website:
http://www.mediahistory.com/time/prehist.html/

4000BC: British archaeologist Leonard Wooley at Tel Muqayiar, possible site of Ur, a flooded clay level Wooley dated about 4000BC. (Note from Friedrich)

From 4000BC: Wine in use in Nile Valley, and also beer, the belief being with Egyptians that Osiris had taught them how to brew beer. See re Noah's later reference to wine - re technology of viticulture and wine-making.

4000BC: First written language appears, in temple of Goddess as Queen of Heaven, at Erech, modern Uruk, in Sumeria, and "her girlishly erotic love poetry", explicit, with her "brother". At Nineveh; the goddess Ishtar beds the Assyrian king, Ashur-bani-pal. Matriarchy abounds. (Miles)

4000BC-3000BC: An Eastern Neolithic culture in provinces of Southern Shantung, Northern Chekiang.

4000BC: By 4000BC, groups venture about the Mediterranean, in boats. Eg, to Italy, Sicily, Malta, Northern Africa, to Southern France. Eastern Spain and Portugal.

4000BC: In Iran and south-west Europe, smiths now make copper axes.

4000BC: Urbanisation begun: Greece, as with Myceneaen civilization.

4000BC: About now, extensive occupation at a huge tell at Hama, the old Syrian city of Hamath. Long sequence of occupation.

4000BC-3000BC: Beginnings of the use of copper in Medit/Near East. Possible, some domestication of horse by 3700BC? (Note from Edwards)

2001AD- 3500BC-4000BC: Approx: Newly-discovered rock art sites reveal that prior to what is now regarded as "Egyptian civilisation", before and after the building of the pyramids, areas distant from the Nile were populated by "an unknown pastoral people, driving their cattle from one watering place to another", about 4000BC if not earlier. The people producing the rock art were, stylistically, the same as the people producing pottery art in Egypt. The areas being researched are Wadi Hammamat and Wadi Barramiya. Some recurring images are the dragging of boats, and figures with large plumes in their hair. Egypt began to turn into desert from about 3500BC. Befo