c. 7000 BCE to 75 CE
Timeline
Four societies, about 3,700 years, one line, plus what came before and after. See who came when, and how they overlapped.
The short version
The main story starts around 4000 BCE, when villages in southern Iraq grew into the first cities. That is about 6,000 years ago.
- Sumer comes first. Sumerian cities like Uruk and Ur invented writing and ruled themselves for many centuries.
- Akkad arrives around 2334 BCE, when King Sargon joins the cities into one empire. It lasts about 180 years.
- Assyria grows up in the north, around the city of Assur. It rises and falls and rises again, for about 1,400 years, until 609 BCE.
- Babylon rises in the middle of Iraq under King Hammurabi, around 1792 BCE. It is a rival of Assyria for centuries, helps bring it down, then rules its own empire until Cyrus of Persia takes the city in 539 BCE.
The grey rows show the bookends. Before the cities, farming villages had already been growing barley and herding sheep in Iraq for about 3,000 years. Afterwards, Persian, Greek and Parthian rulers came and went, while scholars in Babylon kept writing in cuneiform until about 75 CE. Those two ends of the line are squeezed so everything fits.
"BCE" means "before the Common Era". BCE years count down, so 3000 BCE is older than 2000 BCE. Tap a dot on the timeline to read what happened.
The timeline
Click a dot, or press Tab to reach the dots, then Enter. Left and right arrow keys move between events.
Dates follow the "Middle Chronology", the system most books use. Early dates are estimates; scholars disagree by up to about 60 years, so we put "c." (short for circa, "about") in front of them. From 911 BCE, Assyrian dates are exact.
How long is that, really?
Assyria
Assyria lasted about 1,400 years (c. 2025 to 609 BCE). That is about as long as from the 620s CE to today. Imagine one country lasting from then until now.
Akkad
Sargon's empire lasted about 180 years. Melbourne was founded in 1835, about 190 years ago, so Akkad's empire lasted a little less time than Melbourne has existed.
Writing
When Assyria fell in 609 BCE, writing was already about 2,700 years old. That is about as long as the time between Assyria's fall and you (about 2,630 years).
Dig deeper
Why are the early dates fuzzy?
Before about 1400 BCE, historians build dates by joining up king lists, a few records of the planet Venus, and radiocarbon results. Different ways of fitting these together give the "High", "Middle" and "Low" chronologies, which can differ by several decades. The Middle Chronology, used here, puts Hammurabi of Babylon's reign at 1792 to 1750 BCE. Newer tree-ring and radiocarbon studies add evidence, but the debate is not over.
Why are the late Assyrian dates exact?
Every Assyrian year was named after an official called a limmu, and scribes kept lists of these names in order. One list records a solar eclipse that astronomers can date to 15 June 763 BCE. Counting forwards and backwards from that eclipse fixes Assyrian years from 911 BCE onwards.
The bands overlap, and that is the point
Sumerian and Akkadian speakers lived side by side in the same cities for centuries, and Old Assyrian merchants were trading while Ur III kings ruled the south. The colour bands show which power was strongest, not separate peoples who replaced each other. The Sumerian King List even mixes real rulers with legendary kings said to have reigned for thousands of years, so historians use it with care.
Still debated
- Whether Gilgamesh was a real king of Uruk.
- How much a long drought (around 2200 BCE) helped bring down Akkad.
- Where wheeled vehicles were first used: Mesopotamia, Central Europe and the Caucasus all have early evidence.
Further reading: Marc Van De Mieroop, A History of the Ancient Near East, ca. 3000 to 323 BC; Karen Radner, Ancient Assyria: A Very Short Introduction; Chronology of the ancient Near East (Wikipedia overview).