| Date |
Place |
Event |
| 4000 |
Babylon |
Sumerian writing, done on clay tablets, shows about 2000
pictographic signs. |
| |
Babylon |
Earliest Babylonian omen tablets. |
| 3500 |
Babylon |
Sumerian wedge-shaped (cuneiform) writing, the earliest
known - Click
Here To See Example. |
| 3000 |
Babylon |
Sumerian cuneiform writing reduces pictographs still in
use to about 550. |
| 2750 |
Sumer |
Numerical system based on multiples of 6 & 12. |
| 2550 |
Babylon |
Script changes from Sumerian style (horizontal, left to
right) to Semitic style (verticle, right to left). |
| 2500 |
Egypt |
Discovery of papyrus. |
| |
Norway |
Oldest pictorial representation of skiing carved on a rock
located at Rodoy. |
| |
Babylon |
Earliest map of Babylon. |
| 2000 |
|
First Hittite cuneiform inscriptions. |
| |
Egypt |
Use of alphabet of 24 signs. |
| |
Egypt |
The "Story of Sinuhe" oldest form of novel. |
| |
Egypt |
Wadi el-Hol, the earliest examples found of alphabetic
writing - phonetic symbols representing individual sounds. These
letters were carved by Semetic people living & working in Egypt. (Dig,
Feb./Mar. 2000 p. 6) |
| 1880 |
Egypt |
The "Book of the Dead" written. |
| 1600 |
America/
Mexico |
Olmec, an ancient people in habit the American Southwest
and Central America. Symbols found on their artifacts resembled
Chinese inscriptions from the Shang dynasty in China. (Discover,
Feb. 2000, p. 20) |
| 1500 |
Cnossus |
Primitive Greek alphabet in use. |
| |
China |
Dictionary with 40,000 characters. |
| 1300 |
Egypt |
Date of world's oldest book that would be discovered at
the oldest known excavated shipwreck, the Uluburun (1984-94). A
gold scarab was found with it that had the name of the Queen of Egypt,
Nefertiti. (Dig, Feb./Mar. 2000 p. 17) |
| 1000 |
Greece |
Greek script, based on old Semitic-Phoenician characters
with additional vowels, uses only capital letters (to 800). |
| |
China |
Script fully developed. |
| |
Israel |
Hebrew alphabet, as opposed to earlier Semitic alphabets,
developed. |
| |
Babylon |
Cuneiform writing in Urartu. |
| |
China |
Textbook of mathematics includes planimetry, proportions,
"rule of 3" arithmetic, root multiplications, geometry,
equations with one and more unknown quantities, theory of motion. |
| 879 |
|
Leather scrolls with translations of Old Babylonian texts
into Aramaic and Greek represent link between early clay tablets and
Greek papyrus. |
| 746 |
Greece |
Hesiod |
| 586 |
Greece |
1st reports of the introduction of papyrus. |
| 520 |
Greece |
Beginning of historical writings by
Hecataeus & Dionysius of Miletus. Hecataeus mentions India in
his writings. |
| 500 |
Greece |
Pindar begins to write his odes. |
| 400 |
Greece |
Thucydides (Greek historian) writes
"History of the Peloponnesian War." |
| 395 |
Greece |
Death of Thucydides, historian. |
| 354 |
Greece |
Death of Xenophon, historian. |
| 340 |
Greece |
Aristotle lays the foundations of musical
theory. |
| 325 |
|
Earliest extant Greek papyrus: "Persae
of Timotheus of Miletus"; Loeb: 3v. |
| 275 |
Egypt |
Manetho, high priest of Egypt, writes
history of Egypt in Greek. |
| 250 |
Pergamum |
Parchment produced. |
| 233 |
|
Sun-tzu: Chinese philosopher who
wrote"The Art of War." |
| 200 |
Egypt |
Rosetta Stone engraved. |
| 149 |
China |
Hu Shin produces dictionary of 10,000
characters. |
| 8 |
Rome |
Death of the
poets Virgil and Horace. |
| |
|
|
