All Events

The Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh is known in its complete form from texts in the library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh

Ashurbanipal commissions a magnificent relief of a lion hunt for his new palace at Nineveh

The Areopagus, named from the hill on Athens where it meets, is the council through which the nobles keep power in their own hands

The Medes and the Babylonians destroy Nineveh and bring to an end the power of Assyria

The Babylonians defeat an Egyptian army at Carchemish, but do not press on into Egypt

Nebuchadnezzar comes to the throne of Babylon, beginning a prosperous reign of more than forty years

The choros, originally danced in a circle by temple virgins, is the centrepiece of the developing Greek theatre

An Olmec sculptor creates the piece known today as the Wrestler

Frenzied dances, in honour of the god Dionysus, become part of Greek theatre - deriving probably from the northeast, in Thrace

Isis, who is able to restore her husband Osiris after he has been chopped into pieces, becomes one of the most popular deities in Egypt

Phoenicians sail round the Cape of Good Hope and bring back the surprising news that the sun was seen to the north of them

The swirling decorative arts arts lines of Celtic metalwork at Hallstatt begin a tradition which lives on in illuminated manuscripts and stone Celtic crosses

The poems of the Shi Jing, China's earliest work of literature, are gathered together

The free smallholding peasants of Attica fall increasingly into debt, compelled to pay a sixth of all their produce to a creditor

Solon is elected archon in Athens, immediately cancelling the debts of the peasants of Attica and making it illegal to enslave a debtor

Solon makes every Athenian citizen a member of the ecclesia, responsible for the election of archons, thus laying the first cornerstone of Athenian democracy

After a long siege Jerusalem is taken by Nebuchadnezzar and the city, including Solomon's Temple, is destroyed

The Jews, taken into captivity in Babylon, form the first community of the Diaspora

Thales of Miletus, traditionally the first philosopher, is credited with the prediction of a solar eclipse

The Babylonian king Nebuchadrezzar II begins a siege of Tyre which lasts for thirteen years before the city capitulates

Nebuchadnezzar builds the hanging gardens of Babylon, supposedly to comfort a homesick wife

The synagogue, as a simple place of Jewish worship, develops during the Babylonian captivity

The Iranian prophet Zoroaster teaches that there is one god, Ahura Mazda

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