Ancient Times

Time-line of the Ancients by Maxwell Latham.

This is a concise time-line from Antiquity and the Classical world, compiled from just three bespoke literary sources, from trusted historians. My hope is that anyone studying ancient history might find this useful or interesting.

Unless otherwise stated, all dates (Before Common Era) stem from the Oxford Reference Library. Before Common Era is four years prior to B.C. "Before Christ". (e.g Jesus of Nazareth lived between 4 BCE-29 CE) (2011, Ole Peter Grell, page 23 of A151 Book 2, "Contexts"; 2008, John Wolffe, page 74 of AA100 Book 2, "Tradition and Dissent"; also Trevor Fear, page 3 of Book 1, "Reputations").

Entries in italics (B.C.) quite often with [square bracket pages references] are drawn from "Lempriere's Classical Dictionary" as a source. §

A quote from Lempriere "...the first year of the Christian era... falls on the 4,714th of the Julian years, the number required either before or after Christ, will easily be discovered by the application of the rules of subtraction or addition. The era from the foundation of Rome (A. U. C.) will be found with the same facility, by recollecting that the city was built 753 years before Christ; and the Olympiads can likewise be recurred to by the consideration, that the conquest of Corœbus (B.C. 776) forms the first Olympiad, and that the Olympic games were celebrated after the revolution of four years..." (1788 [1845], J. Lempriere, page vii)

Dates with page numbers specified in squiggly brackets are from "...Commanders of the Ancient... World". Δ These dates are given in italics and usually indicate the lifespan of the general in question.

TIME-LINE by Maximus Fleximus (Maxy Waxy)

5,300 BCE: The Neolithic period of Egyptian culture begins in the Nile delta.

3,200 BCE: Hieroglyphic signs are used in inscriptions.

3,100 BCE: Egyptian civilization begins to develop when a patchwork of competing territories along the Nile become unified.

3,000 BCE: An easily portable writing surface is developed, from the papyrus plant of the Nile.

2,620 BCE: Imhotep creates the earliest known pyramid, the 'step pyramid' at Saqqara, as a tomb for the pharaoh Zoser.

2,530 BCE: The largest sculpture of the ancient world, a sphinx, perhaps with the face of the pharaoh Khafra, is carved from the rock at Giza.

2,188 BC: The kingdom of Egypt is supposed to have begun under Misraim the son of Ham, and to have continued one-thousand six-hundred and sixty-three years, to the conquest of Cambyses. §

2,089 BC: The kingdom of Sicyon is established. [Peleponnesus, page 630] §

2,059 BC: The kingdom of Assyria begins. [page 97] §

2,040 BCE: Mentuhotep [the second] wins control of all Egypt, establishing the period known as the Middle Kingdom.

1,900 BCE: Knossos and other such palaces are built for dynasties in Minoan Crete.

1,856 BC: The deluge of Ogyges, [page 453] by which Attica remained waste above two-hundred years, till the coming of Cecrops [pages 148-149].

1,700 BCE: The biblical account suggests that around this period the Hebrews are [a] captive tribe in Egypt.

1,640 BCE: The Hyksos, arriving from west[ern] Asia, win control of the Nile valley and rule for nearly a century.

1,550 BCE: The Hyksos are expelled and Egypt achieves a renewal of centralized government in the New Kingdom.

1,582 BC: The chronology of the Arundelian Marbles [Atlas Stones] begins about this time, fixing here the arrival of Cecrops into Attica, an epoch which other writers have placed later by twenty-six years. §

1,571 BC: Moses is born. §

1,556 BC: The kingdom of Athens begun under Cecrops, who came from Egypt with a colony of Saites. This happened about seven-hundred and eighty years before the first Olympiad. §

1,500 BCE: Hatshepsut takes power in Egypt,...a female pharaoh. The temples of Karnak and Luxor begun in the Middle Kingdom, are now greatly extended with massive stone architecture. Amun, the god of Thebes, becomes associated with the sun god Re - and as Amon-Re becomes 'king of the gods'. Texts written in the script known as Linear B are the earliest surviving version of Greek. 1,546 BC: Scamander migrates from Crete, and begins the kingdom of Troy. [pages 608 and 693-694] §

1,525 BCE: The eruption of a volcano, on he island of Thera, entombs and preserves houses with frescoes in the Minoan city of Akrotiri.

1,520 BCE: Thutmose [the first] extends Egyptian control far up the Nile into Nubia. 1,479 - 1,425 BCE: The reign of Thutmose [the third]. {pages 20-27} Δ

1,458 BCE: Death of Hatshepsut. {page 20} Δ

1,453 BC: The first Olympic games celebrated in Elis by the Idæi Dactyli. [pages 244-245] §

1,410 BCE: Amenhotep [the third] commissions the colossi of Memnon and the great temple at Luxor.

1,406 BC: Minos flourishes in Crete. [pages 413-414] §

1,375 BCE: Amenhotep [the fourth], changes his name to Akhenaten, introduces the monotheistic cult of the sun god Aten.

1,360 BCE: Nefertiti, wife of Akhenaten, is depicted in a now famous limestone bust.

1,354 - 1,224 BCE: The life and death of Joshua Bin Nun.{pages 36-43} Δ

1,352 BCE: Tutankhamun, a pharaoh aged about eighteen, dies and is buried in appropriate surroundings;
1,356 BC: The Eleusinian mysteries introduced at Athens by Eumolpus. [pages 242-244 and 258] §

1,350 BCE: Mycenæ prevails as the dominant power throughout the Pelonnese and the entire Ægean.

1,326 BC: The Isthmian games first instituted by Sisyphus, king of Corinth. [pages 330 and 634] §

1,300 BCE: The Treasury of Atreus at Mycenæ is constructed, a spectacular example of a beehive tomb. An indecisive battle betwixt the Hittites and the Egyptians, at Kadesh, stabilizes the frontier between the two empires.

1,290 - 1224 BCE: Ramses [the second] perhaps the best known of Egypt's pharaohs, begins a reign of sixty-six years; 1,290 - 1224 BCE: {pages 28-35} Δ

1,270 BCE: The city of Troy is destroyed, possibly by Mycenæan Greeks in an event remembered in Homer's Iliad.

1,263 BC: The Argonautic expedition. The first Pythian games [in honour of Venus?] celebrated by Adrastus, king of Argos. [page 10] §

1,248 BCE: A spectacular temple is created at Abu Simbel in honour of Ramses [the second].

1,225 BC: The Theban war of the seven heroes against Eteocles. [page 253] §

1,222 BC: Olympic games celebrated by Hercules. [pages 289-300] §

1,213 BC: The rape of Helen by Theseus, and, fifteen years after, by Paris. [pages 291-292] §

1,184 BC: Troy taken after a siege of ten years. Æneas sails to Italy. [pages 17-18] §

1,150 BCE: Mycenæ and other states of the Peloponnese are overwhelmed, possibly by invading Dorian Greeks.

1,152 BC: Alba Longa built by Ascanius. [page 94] §

1,124 BC: Migration of the Æolian colonies. [page 19] §

1,104 BC: The return of the Heraclidæ into Peloponnesus, eighty years after the taking of Troy. Two years after they divide the Peloponnesus among themselves; and here, therefore, begins the kingdom of Lacedæmon under Eurysthenes and Procles. [pages 296, 340-341 and 262 respectively] §
...work in progress. Max