Ancient World
Battle of Chengpu (632 BC): Jin Checks the Rise of Chu
Jin and its allies defeated Chu; Duke Wen of Jin was recognised by the Zhou king as hegemon and Chu's advance into the northern states was halted.
Era · c. 3000 BC – AD 500
Ancient World
The first cities, empires and written records, from the pyramids of Egypt to Greece and the Roman Empire.
Ancient World
Lydian Coins: The Invention of Coinage in Ancient Anatolia
Lydia and its Ionian Greek neighbours created standardised stamped metal coins, an invention that spread across the Greek world and Persia and became the basis of later Western money.
Ancient World
Sappho of Lesbos (c. 630 BC): The Lyric Poet and Her Fragments
Sappho's lyric poetry, admired throughout antiquity, survives mainly in fragments, with new pieces still being recovered from ancient papyri.
Ancient World
Nabopolassar and the Rise of the Neo-Babylonian Empire
Babylonia won independence from Assyria, and Nabopolassar's dynasty went on to rule an empire from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean until 539 BC.
Ancient World
Cyaxares and the Median Kingdom: Iran Before the Persians
The Medes helped destroy the Assyrian Empire and became the dominant power of the Iranian plateau until Cyrus the Great overthrew them around 550 BC.
Ancient World
Draco's Law Code (621 BC): The First Written Laws of Athens
Athens received its first written law code; most of it was repealed by Solon about 594 BC, but Draco's homicide law stayed in force for centuries.
Ancient World
Fall of Nineveh (612 BC): The Collapse of the Assyrian Empire
Nineveh was captured and destroyed; the Assyrian Empire collapsed by 609 BC and its lands passed to Babylon and the Medes.
Ancient World
Etemenanki: The Babylon Ziggurat Behind the Tower of Babel
A temple tower about 90 metres square at the base, completed under Nebuchadnezzar II, later dismantled; it is widely seen as the historical background to the biblical Tower of Babel.
Ancient World
Battle of Carchemish (605 BC): Babylon Defeats Egypt
Decisive Babylonian victory; Egypt lost Syria and the Levant, and Babylon replaced Assyria as the leading power of the Near East.
Ancient World
Babylonian Map of the World: The Oldest Known World Map
The tablet is the oldest surviving map that tries to show the whole known world, as Babylonians imagined it.
Ancient World
Hanging Gardens of Babylon: The Lost Wonder of the Ancient World
Listed among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, but no trace has been securely identified at Babylon and their location and existence remain debated.
Ancient World
El Mirador: The Lost Preclassic Maya Metropolis of Petén
El Mirador was largely abandoned around AD 150, centuries before the Classic Maya cities reached their height.