Timeline of Middle Eastern history

This timeline tries to compile dates of important historical events that happened in or that led to the rise of the Middle East. The Middle East is the territory that comprises today's Egypt, the Persian Gulf states, Iran, Iraq, Israel and Palestine, Cyprus, Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. The Middle East, with its particular characteristics, was not to emerge until the late second millennium AD. To refer to a concept similar to that of today's Middle East but earlier in time, the term ancient Near East is used.

This list is intended as a timeline of the history of the Middle East. For more detailed information, see articles on the histories of individual countries. See ancient Near East for ancient history of the Middle East.

Paleolithic period

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  • 16000 BC – Kebaran period
  • 13050 to 7050 BC – Natufian culture
  • 14400 BC – The world's oldest evidence of bread-making has been found at Shubayqa 1, in Jordan.[1]
  • 11000 BC – The oldest known evidence of beer found in Mount Carmel

Neolithic period

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9th millennium B.C.

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8th millennium BC

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7th millennium BC

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  • 7000 to 6500 BC – early undecorated, unglazed and low-fired pottery in Hassuna
  • 7000 BC — settlements in Byblos
  • 7000 BC — Neolithic farmers start to move in to Europe, stimulating the European neolithic for over 3 thousand years
  • 6000 to 4000 BC – invention of the potter's wheel in Mesopotamia

6th millennium BC

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5th millennium BC

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  • 4500 BC – civilization of Susa and Kish in Mesopotamia
  • 4570 to 4250 BC – Merimde culture on the Nile
  • 4400 to 4000 BC – Badari culture on the Nile
  • 4000 BC – first use of light wooden ploughs in Mesopotamia
  • 4000 BC – Egyptians discover how to make bread using yeast

Ancient Near East

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4th millennium BC

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Overview map of the Ancient Near East
  • 4000 to 3000 BC – domestication of the African wild ass in Egypt or Mesopotamia, producing the donkey
  • 4000 BC – city of Ur in Mesopotamia
  • 4000 to 3100 BC – Uruk period
  • 4000 to 3000 BC – Naqada culture on the Nile
  • 3760 BC – date of creation according to some interpretations of Jewish chronology
  • 3650 BC – The foundation of the city of Gaziantep
  • 3600 BC – first civilization in the world: Sumer (city-states) in modern-day southern Iraq[5]
  • 3500 BC – City of Ebla in Syria is founded
  • 3500 to 3000 BC – one of the first appearances of wheeled vehicles in Mesopotamia
  • 3500 BC – beginning of desertification of the Sahara: the shift from a habitable region to a barren desert
  • 3500 BC – first examples of Sumerian writing in Mesopotamia, in the cities of Uruk and Susa (cuneiform writings)
  • 3500 BC – first cities in Egypt
  • 3300 BC – Earliest Cuneiform writings
  • 3200 BC – Iry-Hor reigns as pharaoh of Upper Egypt, the earliest historical person known by name
  • 3100 BC – King Narmer unifies the Upper and Lower Egyptian Kingdoms, and gives birth to the world's first nation
  • 3100 to 2686 BC – early Dynastic Period (Egypt)
  • 3100 BC – Earliest hieroglyphs
  • 3000 BC – The temple of Haddad in Aleppo
  • 3000 to 2800 BC – Earliest evidence of Taxation found in Egypt

3rd millennium BC

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2nd millennium BC

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The Oriental Empires about 600 BC

1st millennium BC

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1st millennium AD

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Islamic Middle East

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1st millennium AD

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Ottoman Empire, 1481–1683
 
In blue, the Arab Empire in its greatest extent and in yellow the four Christian empires.

2nd millennium AD

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Contemporary Middle East

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2nd millennium AD

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3rd millennium AD

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ Arranz-Otaegui, Amaia; Carretero, Lara Gonzalez; Ramsey, Monica N.; Fuller, Dorian Q.; Richter, Tobias (July 31, 2018). Piperno, Dolores R. (ed.). "Archaeobotanical Evidence Reveals the Origins of Bread 14,400 years ago in Northeastern Jordan". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 115 (31). doi:10.1073/pnas.1801071115. PMC 6077754. PMID 30012614 – via PubMed.
  2. ^ "Which Society Cultivated Wheat First?".
  3. ^ McTavish, E.J., Decker, J.E., Schnabel, R.D., Taylor, J.F. and Hillis, D.M.year=2013 (2013). "New World cattle show ancestry from multiple independent domestication events". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 110 (15): E1398–406. Bibcode:2013PNAS..110E1398M. doi:10.1073/pnas.1303367110. PMC 3625352. PMID 23530234.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  4. ^ Carter, Robert (2012). "19". In Potts, D.T. (ed.). A companion to the archaeology of the ancient Near East. Ch 19 Watercraft. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 347–354. ISBN 978-1-4051-8988-0. Retrieved 8 February 2014.
  5. ^ King, Leonid W. (2015) "A History of Sumer and Akkad" (ISBN 1522847308)
  6. ^ Mukasa-Mugerwa, E. (1981). The Camel (Camelus Dromedarius): A Bibliographical Review. International Livestock Centre for Africa Monograph. Vol. 5. Ethiopia: International Livestock Centre for Africa. pp. 1, 3, 20–21, 65, 67–68.
  7. ^ Scarre, Chris (15 September 1993). Smithsonian Timelines of the Ancient World. London: D. Kindersley. p. 176. ISBN 978-1-56458-305-5. Both the dromedary (the seven-humped camel of Arabia) and the Bactrian camel (the two-humped camel of Central Asia) had been domesticated since before 2000 BC.
  8. ^ Bulliet, Richard (20 May 1990) [1975]. The Camel and the Wheel. Morningside Book Series. Columbia University Press. p. 183. ISBN 978-0-231-07235-9. As has already been mentioned, this type of utilization [camels pulling wagons] goes back to the earliest known period of two-humped camel domestication in the third millennium B.C.—Note that Bulliet has many more references to early use of camels
  9. ^ near the modern village of Al-Houz in Syria's Al-Qusayr District. see Kitchen, K. A., "Ramesside Inscriptions", volume 2, Blackwell Publishing Limited, 1996, pp. 16–17.
  10. ^ Eggenberger, David (1985). An Encyclopedia of Battles. Dover Publications. p. 214. ISBN 9780486249131.
  11. ^ Chen, Fei (2020). Study on the Synchronistic King List from Ashur. Cuneiform Monographs. Vol. 51. Leiden; Boston: Brill. pp. 199–203. ISBN 978-90-04-43091-4. ISSN 0929-0052. LCCN 2020014360.
  12. ^ Möller, Astrid (May 2005). "Epoch-making Eratosthenes". p. 249.