Chronology of the ancient Near East
| The ancient Near East |
|---|
| Regions and States |
|
Mesopotamia • Akkadian Empire • Assyria • Babylonia • Neo-Assyrian Empire • Neo-Babylonian Empire • Sumer Egypt • Ancient Egypt |
| Archaeological Periods |
| Chronology • Bronze Age • Bronze Age collapse • Iron Age |
| Languages |
| Akkadian • Aramaic • Assyriology • Cuneiform script • Elamite • Hebrew • Hittite • Hurrian • Phoenician • Sumerian • Urartian |
| Literature |
| Babylonian literature • Hittite texts • Sumerian literature |
| Mythology |
| Babylonian mythology • Hittite mythology • Mesopotamian mythology • Egyptian mythology |
| Other topics |
| Assyrian law • Babylonian astronomy • Babylonian law • Babylonian mathematics • Cuneiform law |
Egypt • Ancient Egypt
Persia • Achaemenid Empire • Elam • Medes
Anatolia • Hittites • Hurrians • Neo-Hittite states • Urartu
The Levant • Ancient Israel • Phoenicia
The chronology of the ancient Near East provides a framework of dates for various events, rulers and dynasties. Individual inscriptions and texts customarily record events in terms of a succession of officials or rulers, taking forms like "in the year X of king Y". Thus by piecing together many records a relative chronology is arrived at, relating dates in cities over a wide area. For the first millennium BC, the relative chronology can be tied to actual calendar years by identifying significant astronomical events. An inscription from the tenth year of Assyrian king Ashur-Dan III refers to an eclipse of the sun, and astronomical calculations among the range of possible dates identify the eclipse as having occurred 15 June 763 BCE. The date can be corroborated with other mentions of astronomical events and a secure absolute chronology established, that ties the relative chronologies into our calendar.
For the third and second millennia, the correlation is not so fixed. A key document is the Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa, preserving record of astronomical observations of Venus, as preserved in numerous cuneiform tablets during the reign of the Babylonian king Ammisaduqa, known to be the fourth ruler after Hammurabi in the relative calendar. In the series, the conjunction of the rise of Venus with the new moon provides a fixed point, or rather three fixed points, for the conjunction is a periodic occurrence. Astronomical calculation can therefore fix, for example, the first dates of the reign of Hammurabi in this manner either as 1848, 1792, or 1736 BC, depending on whether the "high" (or "long"), "middle" or "low (or short) chronology" is followed.
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