Key: Ref=Reference | AKA=also known as | Mod.=Modern
Disclaimer: Terms of address indicating special valuation be given to a person are omitted. This definitely is not out of disrespect but totally from adherence to actual fact. Therefore, for example when King Faisal 1 is recorded in this timeline it will be 'King Faisal 1' and not 'His Highness King Faisal'. This will apply to all personages and exceptions will not occur. That being said titles will be recorded if there is sufficient evidence in the opinion of the editor that said title was actually used or conferred upon the person by a legitimate body.
Looking for a year, or a standout name? Try here first:
Year
Day Month
Fact / Detail
7000 BC
Jarmo (Qal'at Jarmo) exists as the oldest agricultural community in human history. Link. Located in Northern Iraq on the foothills of the Zagros Mountains east of Kirkuk city,
near and to the east of the town of Chamchamal. The site was originally discovered by the Iraqi Directorate of Antiquities in 1940. Researched later by the archaeologist Robert Braidwood from 1948 to 1955. Link.
Note: to date - 8/15/2011 - Gobekli Tepe appears to be hunter gatherer built and not agricultural based and was around circa 11,000 BC - Link.
Uruk Period 3500-3100 BC. Image at right shows Uruk (Mod. Al Warkaa) Girl in white marble (3100 - 2900 BC) National Museum of Iraq.
The great Ur flood, has been dated with a high degree of certainty to about 3500 BC. Link.
The earliest known wheels, were constructed in ancient Mesopotamia, and date from about 3500 to 3000 B.C. (17)
Although the embedded Youtube videos aren't as accurate and definitive in its describing as I would desire, they still contain many true facts and very beautiful pictures of artifacts. The time frame covered in the clips starts approximately around the 3500 BC era, except for the fact about agriculture which ocurred before this mentioned time. Editor Dhia.
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3400 BC
Writing was invented in Iraq sometime between 3400 and 3300 BC. (2) This form of writing is called cuneiform writing. See more at : Link. The accomplishment was actually by the Sumerians. The last known cuneiform inscription was written in 75 AD. Thus it was employed in Mesopotamia for about 3000 years. Cuneiform inscriptions were applied on clay tablets which were the primary media for everyday written communication and were used extensively in schools. Tablets were routinely recycled and if permanence was called for, they could be baked hard in a kiln. A theory is that many of the tablets found by archaeologists were preserved because they were baked when attacking armies burned the building in which they were kept. Clay was an ideal writing material when paired with the reed stylus writing tool. Link. The invention of writing occurred in the Uruk/Warka region in the south of ancient Iraq. Link. Map. The first...More
Cuneiform Writing
3200 BC
Writing appears in Egypt. (3) The heiroglyphs (picture characters) seem to have originated from Mesopotamia (24). The hieroglyphs that were originally used for recording agricultural products and handicrafts led to the birth of linear and cuneiform script, widely used by the Sumerians, Assyrians and Babylonians.
A natural year calendar of twelve months was introduced by the ancient Sumerians and perpetuated by the subsequent inhabitants of Mesopotamia. Link. It divided the year into 30-day months, divided the day into 12 periods (each corresponding to 2 of our hours), and divided these periods into 30 parts (each like 4 of our minutes). Link.
Early Dynastic III Period Shuruppak and Abu Salabihk (2600-2500 BC). Link.
2600-2400 BC:
Burial of 'Queen' Pu-abi (Sumerian queen) in the Royal Cemetery at Ur, in southern Iraq, along with several lyres, and bodies of ten women. Originally discovered by Leonard Woolley (1880-1960). Link. Link
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Above is an impressive replica of the 'Queen's Lyre', which looks very nice and was finished in 2006. Photo.
Sargon of Akkad reigned from 2334 to 2279 BC, creating an empire that united all of Mesopotamia. He was an Akkadian Semite from the Arabian Peninsula. When he conquered the dominant Sumerians, he created the first great Semitic empire. This empire included all of southern Mesopotamia as well as parts of Syria, Anatolia, and Elam (western Iran). His capital city of Agade, which he built, has not yet definitively been located and excavated. The name of the city of Agade (Akkad), became the basis for the name of his people. This great capital of the largest empire humans had ever seen up until that point later became the city of Babylon. Babylon (AKA Babil - Map) was the commercial and cultural center of the middle east for almost two thousand years. Link 1. Link 2.
The image to the right: Life-size bronze or copper head of an Akkadian king, perhaps Sargon of Akkad, found as loot at Ishtar Temple in Nineveh. 30 cm. (Baghdad: Iraq Museum). From: http://www.hp.uab.edu/image_archive/ue/ueg.html
2250 BC
2000 BC
The signs of the Zodiac originate in Mesopotamia. Some believe this occurred as early as 2000 BC (17, 18, 19) . Others believe this occurred later closer to the 1st millenium BC. Either way the Greeks "borrowed" and established the zodiacal scheme circa late 6th-century BC. Link.
1792 BC
Hammurabi, born in Babylon (AKA Babil - Map), a famous king of Babylonia, reigned from 1792 BC till his death in 1750 BC. He was the sixth and best-known ruler of the 1st (Amorite) Dynasty of Babylon, noted for his surviving set of laws (Document), once considered the oldest promulgation of laws in human history.(20) His law code was produced in the second year of his reign. Many new legal concepts were introduced therein, and many have been adopted by other civilizations. These concepts include: Legal protection should be provided to lower classes; The state is the authority responsible for enforcing the law; Social justice should be guaranteed; The punishment should fit the crime. The quote,"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" comes from the HammurabiCode. See code number 196 at (Document). Law codes in Babylonian times were so involved that "not even a dog that entered the city could be put to death untried."(Link)
A copy of the code is engraved on a block of black diorite nearly 2.4 m (8 ft) high (see image to the right). A team of French archaeologists at Susa, Iran, formerly ancient Elam unearthed this block, during the winter of 1901-2 (some later conqueror of Babylon must have carried it there in triumph - Link). The block, broken in three pieces, has been restored and is now in the Louvre Museum in Paris.(23)
Ipiq-Aya writes the Babylonian version of Atrahasis during the reign of Ammi-saduqa, king of Babylon (1702-1682 B.C.), probably in the city of Sippar. (16)
1700 BC
Clear evidence of sophisticated Babylonian mathematics. The pictures depicting chords of circles and "Pythagorean" triplets. Excerpt from Link: 'Though many ancients practiced a form of basic arithmetic, the various peoples and ruling dynasties of Mesopotamia centered around Babylon (mod. Al Hillah, Iraq) were the first to achieve correct solutions of engineering and accounting problems with repeatable mathematical applications. [Neugebauer 1969, 1975]? Credited with the invention of place-value numerical notation, the Babylonians used a sexagesimal (based on 60) system, portions that are still in use today (our ?minutes? and ?seconds?), and which readily enabled work with fractions, multiplication, square and cubic roots, as well as ?Pythagorean" triplets a millennium before Pythagoras was born.'
Chords of Circles
"Pythagorean" Triplets
1500 BC
1250 BC
1000 BC
900 BC
Birth of the IronAge:The Assyrians were the first to use iron extensively in weapons, and ingots from the birth of the Iron Age (about 900 B.C.) are on display at the Museum of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Link.
883 BC
King Ashurnasirpal II Neo-Assyrian, (883-859 BC)
From Nimrud (ancient Kalhu), northern Iraq.
This statue (in the British Museum) of King Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 BC) was placed in the Temple of IshtarSharrat-niphi. It is made of magnesite, and stands on a pedestal of a reddish stone. These unusual stones were probably brought back from a foreign campaign. Kings often boasted of the exotic things they acquired from abroad, not only raw materials and finished goods but also plants and animals.
The king's hair and beard are shown worn long in the fashion of the Assyrian court at this time. Ashurnasirpal holds a sickle in his right hand, of a kind which gods are sometimes depicted using to fight monsters. The mace in his left hand shows his authority as vice-regent of the supreme god Ashur. The carved cuneiform inscription across his chest proclaims the king's titles and genealogy, and mentions his expedition westward to the Mediterranean Sea.
The statue was found in the nineteenth century by Henry Layard, the excavator of the temple.
Notes above were summarized from: Link.
Click on image for a better quality one.
750 BC
668 BC
The era of the last great Assyrian king, Ashurbanipal (668-631 BC). An interesting cultural note about ancient Assyria, was that lion-hunting was considered the sport of kings, symbolic of the ruling monarch’s duty to protect and fight for his people.
In the accompanying slide show some of the sculpted reliefs illustrate the sporting exploits of the day. The reliefs were created for King Ashurbanipal’s palace at Nineveh (in modern-day Mosul of northern Iraq).29
625BC
Naboplashar (625-605 BC) of the Neo-Babylonian dynasty rules as the Mesopotamian civilization reaches its ultimate glory. Link.
604 BC
Nebuchadnezzar II (604-562 BC; son of Naboplashar)31 is credited for building the legendary Hanging Gardens. It is said that the Gardens were built by Nebuchadnezzar to please his wife or concubine who had been "brought up in Media and had a passion for mountain surroundings." Babylon (AKA Babil - Map), is sited on the East bank of the River Euphrates, about 50 km south of Baghdad, and contained the Palace with the legendary gardens.
Greek historian Diodorus Siculus wrote: "The approach to the Garden sloped like a hillside and the several parts of the structure rose from one another tier on tier... On all this, the earth had been piled... and was thickly planted with trees of every kind that, by their great size and other charm, gave pleasure to the beholder... The water machines (raised) the water in great abundance from the river, although no one outside could see it." Link.
The molded bricks of the Ishtar Gate and the Processional Way at Babylon were built for Nebuchadnezzar II (which depict the snake dragon ‘mushussu’).Ref-Link.
500 BC
331 BC
Oct 1
At the Battle of Gaugamela,Ref-Link, near modern Irbil in Iraq, Map (or more likely near Mosul ? Map), Alexander the Macedonian (356-323 BC) (AKA Alexander the Great in the Western World) engages a Persian army led by King Darius III (c. 380?330 BC), the last king of the Achaemenid Empire of Persia. Ref-Link
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The Persian side was comprised of Greeks, Bactrians, Indians, Medians, Sogdians, even Albanians from the Caucasus. The two armies met on the battlefield in the morning. The Persian army was defeated and Darius fled to Ecbatana in Media. Alexander then occupied Babylon. Ref-Link.
Link for a better image depicting this historical battle.
323 BC
Jun 7
Alexander the Macedonian (356-323 BC), AKA Alexander the Great in the Western World, dies with fever in Mesopotamia at the age of 33. Link.
 3100 - 2900 BC National Museum of Iraq.gif)
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