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c. 7000 One of the world’s oldest known permanent settlements at Jarmo in northern Iraq; crude mud houses; goats, sheep, and pigs herded; wheat grown from seed.

6000 Farmers from northern areas migrate south to settle in the region between Babylon and Persian Gulf.

c. 5500 World’s first irrigation systems used. Fine pottery is invented. Trading begins from Persian Gulf to Mediterranean.

c. 5000 First religious shrines in Eridu—called the “first city.”

c. 4500 First use of sail.

4000–3500 Sumerians settle on the banks of the Euphrates. First use of the plow.

3500 Emergence of the first city-states.

3400 Clay counting tokens and first written symbols in use.

3200 Evidence of wheeled vehicles in Sumer, along with sailboats, potter’s wheels, and kilns.

3100 Development of cuneiform script to record land sales and contracts.

3000–2500 Sumerians grow barley, bake bread, make beer.

Metal coins are used to replace barley as means of exchange.

c. 2700 Reign of Gilgamesh, legendary king of Uruk.

c. 2500 Array of grave goods placed in royal graves at Ur.

2334 Powerful Semitic-speaking Akkadian dynasty founded by Sargon I, uniting city-states of southern Mesopotamia; the world’s first “empire.”

c. 2100 Construction of the ziggurat at Ur.

Hebrew patriarch Abraham leaves Ur (date is speculative).

1800 Ammorites from Syrian desert conquer Sumer-Akkadia.

1792–1750 Old Babylonian Period. Hammurabi ascends the throne of Babylon and brings most of Mesopotamia under his control.

Babylon made the Mesopotamian capital.

Hammurabi institutes one of the first law codes in history.

1595 Babylon sacked and occupied by invaders from Iranian plateau known as Kassites.

1363 Assyrian Empire founded by Ashur-uballit.

1300 Alphabetic script developed in Mesopotamia is a refinement of the simplified cuneiform alphabet.

1295–1200 The Jewish Exodus from Egypt (date is speculative).

1240–1190 Israelite conquest of Canaan (date is speculative).

1200 The Gilgamesh epic is composed, the first known written legend.

1193 The destruction of Troy (date is speculative).

1146 Nebuchadrezzar I begins a twenty-three-year reign as king of Babylon.

1116 Tiglath-pileser I begins a thirty-eight-year reign that will bring the Middle Assyrian Empire to its highest point.

1005–967 Reign of King David in Israel; Jerusalem established as capital.

967–931 Reign of King Solomon in Jerusalem.

c. 850 Homer composes The Iliad and The Odyssey.

722 Conquest of Northern Kingdom of Israel by Assyria—the so-called Ten Tribes, some thirty thousand Israelites, are deported to Central Asia by Sargon II; they will disappear from history and be known as the “Lost Tribes of Israel.”

693–689 Assyrian king Sennacherib destroys Babylon.

663 Assyrians attack Egypt, sack Thebes, and leave vassal rulers in charge.

612 Fall of Assyrian capital of Nineveh to the Chaldeans (neo-Babylonians).

605 Persian religious leader Zoroaster (Zarathustra) founds a faith that will dominate Persian thought for centuries.

604 King Nebuchadrezzar II revives Babylon and builds the Hanging Gardens, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the ziggurat that inspired the Tower of Babel as a temple to the Babylonian god Marduk.

597 Nebuchadrezzar II conquers Jerusalem. Judah’s king deported to Babylon.

587/6 Fall of Jerusalem and destruction of the Great Temple. Jewish exile in Babylon begins. During this time, many of the books of Hebrew scripture are first written down.

539 Persian Empire: King Cyrus captures Babylon and incorporates the city into the Persian Empire.

538 Cyrus allows the exiled Jews to return to Jerusalem.

522–486 Darius I of Persia is defeated by the Greeks at Marathon in 490.

336–323 The reign of Alexander the Great. In 330, the Persian Empire falls to Alexander, beginning the Hellenistic Era, in which Greek civilization and language spread throughout the Near Eastern world. Alexander dies in Babylon in 323.