Urban Life in Sumer
Settlements such as Uruk grow into complex cities organised around temples, workshops, irrigation networks and trade.
Five thousand years of change
Ancient History Timeline
Follow the emergence of cities, kingdoms, empires, religions and ideas from the first writing to the end of the ancient Mediterranean world.
c. 4000–2500 BCE
The First Cities
Writing Emerges
Administrative marks evolve into cuneiform in Mesopotamia and hieroglyphic writing appears in Egypt.
Egypt is Unified
Upper and Lower Egypt are brought under one kingship, beginning the long tradition of pharaonic rule.
c. 2500–1200 BCE
The Bronze Age
The Great Pyramid
Khufu’s pyramid at Giza becomes the largest stone monument of ancient Egypt.
Hammurabi Rules Babylon
Babylon becomes a major power and royal law is publicly represented in the famous law stele.
Egypt and Hatti Make Peace
After conflict in Syria, Ramesses II and the Hittite king formalise one of the earliest surviving peace treaties.
c. 1200–550 BCE
Kingdoms of the Iron Age
Bronze Age Systems Collapse
Palatial centres fall across the eastern Mediterranean amid migration, conflict and disruption of trade.
Assyria Expands
Assyrian kings build a formidable territorial empire supported by siege warfare, roads and provincial government.
Traditional Founding of Rome
Roman tradition later fixed the city’s foundation in the eighth century BCE.
550–323 BCE
The Classical Age
Cyrus Founds the Persian Empire
The Achaemenids unite Iranian peoples and rapidly conquer Lydia, Babylon and territories across western Asia.
The Persian Invasion of Greece
Thermopylae, Salamis and Plataea become defining episodes in the conflict between Persia and the Greek alliance.
Peloponnesian War
Athens and Sparta lead rival coalitions into a destructive struggle for dominance in the Greek world.
323–31 BCE
The Hellenistic Age
Death of Alexander
Alexander’s generals divide his conquests, creating powerful successor kingdoms.
The Punic Wars Begin
Rome and Carthage enter a century of wars for control of the western Mediterranean.
Battle of Actium
Octavian defeats the forces of Antony and Cleopatra, ending the last major Hellenistic kingdom.
27 BCE–476 CE
Empire and Late Antiquity
Augustus Establishes the Principate
Rome’s republican institutions continue in form while imperial authority is concentrated in one ruler.
Christian Worship is Legalised
The agreement associated with Milan ends official persecution and transforms the religious future of the empire.
Last Western Emperor Deposed
Romulus Augustulus is removed from power, a conventional marker for the end of the western Roman Empire.