Historical Eras, Dates, and Timelines

Historical Eras, Dates, and Timelines

• The study of the past is divided into historical periods/eras, which represent changes in people's lives.
• The simplest way to divide the past is into four eras.
• Ancient Era: 3000 BC - 476 AD, featuring the first civilizations and empires in Asia, with the East being the most developed part of the world.
• Medieval Era: 476 - 1500 AD, the time between the Ancient Era and Modern Era, when the West expanded in power.
• Modern Era: 1500-1945 AD, the period when the West came to dominate the world and global wars occurred (World War I and World War II).
• Postmodern Era: 1945 - present, where the East aspires for parity with the West, the Fourth Industrial Revolution has been introduced, along with conflicts involving weapons of mass destruction, global pandemics and climate change.
• Christian historians use BC and AD for calendar dates, with BC (Before Christ) referring to events before Jesus' birth, and AD (Anno Domini) after Jesus.
• BCE (Before the Common/Current Era) and CE (Common/Current Era) are the latest date-marking methods.
• Timelines show the chronological order of dates or events, aiding historians and others in understanding data sequence.

Civilization, Culture, and Conflict

• Civilization, according to National Geographic, is a complex way of life that developed when people formed urban settlements, requiring resources, and skills in religion, government, law, economy, arts, sciences, and military.
• Barbarian/barbaric people are opposites of a civilized society.
• Culture and conflict are two significant, recurring experiences in civilizations.
• Culture is the sum of human achievements in a society, including religion, language, customs, laws, institutions, economy, arts, crafts, music, etc.
• Conflict comes from disagreements, differences of ideas/interests, rivalry, and challenges within or outside societies.
• Civilization comes when crude and barbaric people develop cultural and civil activities, like what happened in Mesopotamia.
• Conflicts and natural events destroyed civilizations.
• The Mesopotamians quarreled about nearly everything
• The history of the first civilizations showed the pattern of culture in future civilizations.

The Fertile Crescent

• West Asia has a crescent-shaped region known as the "cradle of the first civilization."
• The Tigris and Euphrates rivers originate in the mountains of Turkiye to the north and drain in to the Mediterranean Sea to the west and the Persian Gulf to the south.
• The Fertile Crescent is essential because the earliest writings and cultural achievements happened there.
• Fertile crescent kings and emperors built the first empires and made the first laws
• It is the location of the earliest people, places, and events mentioned in the Bible.
• The Fertile Crescent is the birthplace of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
• The Fertile Crescent is prone to conflicts and wars.
• The Fertile Crescent is part of the Middle East, which has the largest number of overseas Filipino workers (OFW).
• Sumerian civilization (ca. 3500 – 5500 BC) developed earlier than the Egyptians.
• Goebekli Tepe, or "Potbelly Hill," in Southeast Turkiye, existed earlier (ca. 9500 BC), but was a small temple with inconsistent carbon dating.
• Fertile Crescent (Mesopotamia) is the first cradle of civilization because it has been extensively studied, is conveniently located on the oldest rivers, and has an abundant supply of oil in West Asia.
• The oldest archaeologically dated "Fountains of Oil" is along the banks of the Euphrates River in Iraq.
• The Sumerians (5500 – 2300 BC), the first inhabitants of Mesopotamia, invented cuneiform (the first written language and literature), the first farms and houses, the first cities and temples, and the first governments/written laws.
• Henry Rawlinson discovered Behistun Rock - the location with the first written language.
• Sumerians were the first farm and houses, and the first city builders.
• Sumerians settled into the first city-states and organized the first social classes and governments.
• Sumerians wrote the first government and written laws, and aristocracy as well as the Code of Ur-Nammu (2100 BC).

The First Empires

• Empires differ from city-states because they are wealthier, more significant in area and population, and militarily assertive.
• Empires are traditionally founded by an ambitious leader who conquers other tribes or kingdoms.
• Two ways to fall into an empire are via tributary or vassal states.
• A tributary state pays regular tribute to the conqueror but retains some independence, potentially in the form of gold, land, slaves, or services.
• A vassal state loses independence and becomes a slave of the emperor, surrendering everything (independence, people, and land).
• Akkadia (2334-2154 BC) was the first regional empire, the largest, and most unpopular.
• Akkadia occupied the largest area in Mesopotamia (800,000 sq.km).
• Akkadia cruelly forced others to worship their Akkadian gods.
• Sargon the Great was the first Akkadian king, and Naram-Sin captured Anatolia, as well as parts of Arabia and Persia.
• Akkadia set a military pattern for other empires (military conquest, dictatorship, and cruel treatment of people), founded the first political dynasty, and introduced the government system of dictatorship through theocracy and union of church and state allowing only one religion.
• The chief female priestess leading the state religion was Enheduanna, the first female high priestess.
• The mixture of religion and politics made Akkadia the most despised empire in Mesopotamia and the shortest lived.
• The First Babylonian Empire was the brightest, most popular, and influential.
• The First Babylonian Empire had Amorites of the Bible, defeated the Akkadians and other Mesopotamians rulers.
• Hammurabi made good laws for people, and the Code of Hammurabi is the world's first written legal code.
• Babylonians were the first with the numerical system; calendar to measure by 30 days, 12 months, and a year instead of lunar seasons; used astronomy to track heavenly bodies (sun, moon, and stars); had formal schools for boys with professional full-time teachers; 2,000 books of knowledge; emphasized Cuneiform; had best practices in medicine; the code of Hammurabi and had economic democracy.
• The Assyrians, known as the fiercest, were the first tribal group converted to Christianity.
• The Assyrians invented horse cavalry and chariots, siege towers, and battering rams.
• Tiglath-Pileser III was greatest King of the Assyrians.
• The Assyrian empire was the longest lasting empire in Mesopotamia, nearly two millennia.
• The Assyrians spread cuneiform language across a large area, making minorities still speak it today.
• The road built by the Assyrians outlasted their empire.
• Assyrians developed a well documented tablet library, and were the first to create a professional army.
• The Second Babylonian Empire (Chaldean Empire) consisted of dark-race Semitic people from the marshes of south Mesopotamia.
• The Second Babylonian Empire extended itself from Babylonia by calling itself the New Babylonian Empire.
• The Second Babylonian was led for the shortest time (86 years), remembered for taking the Jews to their 7-year Babylonian captivity (586-516 BC), conquered by Cyprus the Great Persian, and Nebuchadnezzar (developed the Hanging Garden and Babylon’s capital).
• Nebuchadnezzar's Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
• The Second Babylonian Empire had a king's dream that would never end anticipated the coming of Christ.
• The Hittite Empire represents iron and the first peace treaty and was the last Mesopotamian empire to dissolve in the bronze age.
• The Hittite Empire’s ancestors are Turks.
• The Hittite Empire made their own iron tools and weapons from their mines.
• The Hittites, “the people of Hatti,” were named after Hatti, their southwestern Asian homeland.
• The Hittite Empire was named after what is now the Turkey
• The Hittite Empire created part of Egypt and challenged Pharaoh Ramses II for supremacy in the Battle of Kadesh (1274 BC), the largest chariot battle ever fought.
• Hittites invented and used iron metal, as well as writing agreements (treaties) with other groups on important matters.

How Civilization Spreads

• Mesopotamian peoples directly transferred their culture through marriage, colonization, imitation, trade, migration, and adoption.
• Archaeological discoveries reveal connections between Mesopotamia, India, and China.
• Mesopotamians and Indians shared gods, food (bread), town design, walled cities, houses, writing, wheels, bronze tools/weapons, pottery, prayers, hymns, rituals, and farms.
• Mesopotamians and the Indus Valley people both planted cereals, figs, dates, and vegetables.
• North-central China grows wheat instead of rice, like the Mesopotamians
• Artifacts in the Indus Valley are Sumerian in antiquity and amazing form.
• Social networks have existed in the past, spreading social and political practices.
• The Phoenicians are an ancient social network that spread trade, information, and the skill of writing.
• Civilizations and culture may spread by cultural fusion, producing a third or new hybrid culture, like in the Philippines (Asia, Europe, Latin America, and North America).

How Civilization Ends

• Around 1200 BC, the first civilizations in West Asia faced collapse, leading to famine and migrations.
• Climate change, earthquakes, drought, famine, economic depression, and invasion caused it.
• The decline of the first civilizations in Asia paved the way to the Classical civilizations in Greece and Rome in the Middle Ages.
• The Bible, history, and science confirmed the Bronze Age collapse; Genesis 10 states building the Tower of Babel led to everyone speaking the same language, only to be scattered everywhere after.
• The Tower of Babel was the Ziggurat, that was never finished.
• History notes of social and natural conflicts, "invasions by the sea people," natural calamities, and conflicts and rivalries.
• From science, scientists point to natural calamities in the Mediterranean around 1200 BC.
• severe climate change that reduced rainfall (30-50 percent), as well earthquakes and drought.
• The drought lasted for 300 years, preventing return to the homeland.
• The collapse affected Mesopotamia, Egypt, nearby Greek islands, and South Asia.
• The Bronze Age has a lesson, human beings have survived conflicts and catastrophes when they come one at a time, civilizations and cultures would find survival impossible if these conflicts and calamities occurred simultaneously or quickly.

Mesopotamia's Contributions to the World

• The first political organization of people into class, sex, age, wealth, and functions (rulers, priests, warriors, farmers, slaves, etc.).
• The first cities or walled organized colonies of families, clans, and tribes, with planned houses, streets, public buildings, and water systems.
• The first plow and wheel, domesticated animals, cultivated crops, and irrigated agricultural farms.
• The first written language.
• The first written literature (Epic of Gilgamesh), historical records, poetry, tales, proverbs, and romantic stories.
• The first written laws, the Code of Ur-Nammu (ca. 2050 BC) and the Hammurabi Code (ea. 1750 BC).
• The first number system that measured distance, area, space and time, and the first calendar to record times and seasons.
• The first system of astronomy and astrology to study the heavens.
• The first metal tools, pottery, waterwheel, milling machines, the first houses, schools, libraries, sailboats, hanging gardens, palaces, and scriptures.
• The first permanent religious temples (ziggurats).
• The first polytheistic gods, system of religion, priests, and priestesses.
• The first system of medicine using diagnosis, bandages, creams, and pills.
• The first economic systems using debt, barter, trade, stores, and accounting records.
• The first governments with kings and emperors, laws, and international treaties.
• The first absolute rule of tyrants or dictators; customary cruel treatment of opponents and prisoners.
• The first written treaty to end the war.
• The prophecy on the rise and fall of empires and God's everlasting kingdom.