Region
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.
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.
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.
Nineveh was captured and destroyed; the Assyrian Empire collapsed by 609 BC and its lands passed to Babylon and the Medes.
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.
Decisive Babylonian victory; Egypt lost Syria and the Levant, and Babylon replaced Assyria as the leading power of the Near East.
The tablet is the oldest surviving map that tries to show the whole known world, as Babylonians imagined it.
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.
Judah's royal family, elite and craftsmen were deported to Babylonia; after the Persian conquest of Babylon some returned to rebuild the Temple, while a lasting Jewish community remained in Mesopotamia.
Babylonian victory; Jerusalem and the First Temple were destroyed, the Kingdom of Judah ended and much of its elite was deported to Babylonia.
The fighting stopped, a peace treaty was sealed by a royal marriage, and the Halys River became the border between Lydia and Media.
The gate became the best-known monument of ancient Babylon; its front section was reconstructed in Berlin, while its foundations remain at the site in Iraq.
