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The 1st millennium BC, also known as the last millennium BC, was the period of time lasting from the years 1000 BC to 1 BC (10th to 1st centuries BC; in astronomy: JD 1356182.5 – 1721425.5). It encompasses the Iron Age in the Old World and sees the transition from the Ancient Near East to classical antiquity.
World population roughly doubled over the course of the millennium, from about 100 million to about 200–250 million after the birth of Jesus Christ and the establishment of the Julio-Claudian dynasty led by its founder Octavian.
Overview
The Neo-Assyrian Empire dominates the Near East in the early centuries of the millennium, supplanted by the Achaemenid Empire in the 6th century. Ancient Egypt is in decline, and falls to the Achaemenids in 525 BC.
In Greece, Classical Antiquity begins with the colonization of Magna Graecia and peaks with the conquest of the Achaemenids and the subsequent flourishing of Hellenistic civilization (4th to 2nd centuries).
The Roman Republic supplants the Etruscans and then the Carthaginians (5th to 3rd centuries). The close of the millennium sees the rise of the Roman Empire. The early Celtic culture dominate Central Europe while Northern Europe is in the Pre-Roman Iron Age. In East Africa, the Nubian Empire and Aksum arise.
In South Asia, the Vedic civilization gives rise to the Maurya Empire. The Scythians dominate Central Asia. In China, the Zhou dynasty rules the Chinese heartland at the beginning of the millennium. The decline of the Zhou dynasty during Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period sees the rise of such philosophical and spiritual traditions as Confucianism and Taoism. Towards the close of the millennium, the Han dynasty extends Chinese power towards Central Asia, where it borders on Indo-Greek and Iranian states. Japan is in the Yayoi period.
The Olmec civilization declines, and the Maya and Zapotec civilizations emerge in Mesoamerica. The Chavín culture flourishes in Peru.
The first millennium BC is the formative period of the classical world religions, with the development of early Judaism and Zoroastrianism in the Near East, and Vedic religion and Vedanta, Jainism and Buddhism in India. Early literature develops in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Sanskrit, Tamil and Chinese. The term Axial Age, coined by Karl Jaspers, is intended to express the crucial importance of the period of c. the 8th to 2nd centuries BC in world history.
World population more than doubled over the course of the millennium, from about an estimated 50–100 million to an estimated 170–300 million.
Close to 90% of world population at the end of the first millennium BC lived in the Iron Age civilizations of the Old World (Roman Empire, Parthian Empire, Graeco-Indo-Scythian and Hindu kingdoms, Han China).
The population of the Americas was below 20 million, concentrated in Mesoamerica (Epi-Olmec culture);
that of Sub-Saharan Africa was likely below 10 million. The population of Oceania was likely less than one million people.
Ancient history
Timeline
- 10th century BC
- Near East: Neo-Assyrian Empire
- Near East: Shoshenq I invades Canaan
- Aegean: Helladic period ends
- Sub-Saharan Africa West: Nok Culture slowly diffuse discernible ceramic sculpting, iron metallurgy and cereal farming cultures through the Niger Delta region, though debatable possible settling period and or foundation of proto Ile-Ife
- 9th century BC
- Chavín culture in Peru
- Egypt: 872 BC: Nile floods the Temple of Luxor
- Egypt: 836 BC: Civil war in Egypt
- South Asia: 872 BC: Jainism re-organized by Parshvanatha
- North Africa: 814 BC: Carthage founded
- China: 841 BC–828 BC Gonghe Regency
- 8th century BC
- 727 BC: Egypt: Kushite invasion (25th Dynasty)
- 771 BC: China: Spring and Autumn period
- Near East: 727 BC: Death of Tiglath-Pileser III, Babylonia secedes from Assyria
- Near East: 722 BC: Sargon II takes Samaria; Assyrian captivity of the Israelites.
- Greece: Archaic Greece, Greek alphabet
- Greece: Homer
- 776 BC: Greece: First Olympiad
- 753 BC: Europe: foundation of Rome
- 7th century BC
- 671 BC: Assyrian conquest of Egypt
- Near East: 631 BC: Death of Ashurbanipal, decline of the Assyrian Empire
- 6th century BC
- Egypt: 592 BC: Psamtik II sacks Napata
- Sudan: Aspelta moves the Kushite capital to Meroe
- Near East: 539 BC: Achaemenid conquest of Babylon under Cyrus the Great
- South Asia: Śramaṇa movement and "second urbanisation"
- South Asia: Early Buddhism
- Europe: 509 BC: Roman Republic
- 5th century BC
- China: 479 BC: death of Confucius
- China: 476 BC: Warring States period
- China: 486 BC: Grand Canal construction begins
- Near East: Second Temple Judaism, redaction of the Hebrew Bible
- Greece: beginning of the classical period (Greece in the 5th century BC).
- Greece: Greco-Persian Wars (Battle of Marathon, Battle of Thermopylae)
- Greece: 440 BC: Herodotus' Histories
- Greece: 431 BC: Peloponnesian War
- Oceania: Austronesian expansion reaches Western Polynesia
- 4th century BC
- Greece: 395 BC: Corinthian War
- Egypt: 343 BC: Achaemenid conquest
- Greece/Asia/Egypt: 330s BC: conquests of Alexander the Great, end of the Achaemenid Empire, Macedonian Empire, beginning of the Hellenistic period
- South Asia: Mauryan Empire
- 3rd century BC
- China: Qin Unified China
- China: 206 BC: Han dynasty
- South Asia: 261 BC: Kalinga war
- Rome: Roman expansion in Italy
- Rome/Carthage: Punic Wars
- 264 BC: First Punic War
- 218 BC Second Punic War
- 2nd century BC
- Rome/Carthage: 149 BC Third Punic War, Roman province of Africa
- Rome/Greece: 146 BC Battle of Corinth, beginning of the Roman era
- South Asia: 185 BC: Fall of the Maurya Empire
- China: Confucianism became the state ideology of China
- 1st century BC
- China: 91 BC: Records of the Grand Historian finished
- Rome/Europe: 58–50 BC Gallic Wars
- Rome: 32/30 BC: Final War of the Roman Republic (Battle of Actium)
- Rome/Egypt: 31 BC: Roman conquest of Egypt
- Rome/Europe/West Asia/Africa: 27 BC: Roman Empire
Inventions, discoveries, introductions
- 8th century BC
- Greek alphabet, the first alphabet with vowels.
- 7th century BC
- 6th century BC
- Paved trackway
- Pythagorean theorem
- Monotheism
- 5th century BC
- Blast furnace China
- Atomism
- Crossbow
- Siege engine
- 4th century BC
- formal grammar
- Kyrenia ship
- 3rd century BC
- Lighthouse of Alexandria
- Malleable Cast iron China
- Archimedes' principle
- Spherical Earth
- Water clock
- Qin built and unified various sections of the Great Wall of China.
- Qin built Qin Shi Huang's Mausoleum guarded by the life-sized Terracotta Army.
- 2nd century BC
Literature
- Greco-Roman literature
Archaic period
- Homer (late 8th or early 7th c.), Iliad, Odyssey
- Hesiod (8th to 7th c.), Theogony and Works and Days
- Archilochus (7th century), Greek poet
- Sappho, (late 7th to early 6th c.), Greek poet
- Ibycus
- Alcaeus of Mytilene
- Aesop's Fables
Classical period
- Aeschylus (c. 525–455 BC), Greek playwright
- Herodotus (484–425 BC), Histories
- Euripides (c. 480–406 BC), Greek playwright
- Xenophon: Anabasis, Cyropaedia
- Aristotle (384–322 BC), corpus Aristotelicum
Hellenistic to Roman period
- Septuagint
- Apollonius of Rhodes: Argonautica
- Callimachus (310/305-240 B.C.), lyric poet
- Manetho: Aegyptiaca
- Theocritus, lyric poet
- Euclid: Elements
- Menander: Dyskolos
- Theophrastus: Enquiry into Plants
- Old Latin Livius Andronicus, Gnaeus Naevius, Plautus, Quintus Fabius Pictor, Lucius Cincius Alimentus
- Classical Latin: Cicero, Julius Caesar, Virgil, Lucretius, Livy, Catullus
- Chinese literature
- I Ching (date unknown, between the 10th and 4th centuries BC)
- Classic of Poetry (Shījīng), Classic of Documents (Shūjīng) (authentic portions), Classic of Changes (I Ching)
- Spring and Autumn Annals (Chūnqiū) (722–481 BC, chronicles of the state of Lu)
- Confucius: Analects (Lúnyǔ)
- Classic of Rites (Lǐjì)
- Commentaries of Zuo (Zuǒzhuàn)
- Laozi (or Lao Tzu): Tao Te Ching
- Zhuangzi: Zhuangzi (book)
- Mencius: Mencius
- Sanskrit literature
- Vedic Sanskrit: Vedas, Brahmanas
- Vedanga
- Mukhya Upanishads
- Early layers of the Sanskrit epics (c. 3rd century BC to 4th century AD)
- Hebrew
- c. 8th to 7th c.: the Book of Nahum, Book of Hosea, Book of Amos, Book of Isaiah
- c. 6th c.: Psalms
- c. 5th century: redaction of the Torah
- 3rd century: Ecclesiastes
- 2nd century: Book of Wisdom
- Avestan
- Other (2nd to 1st century BC)
- Pali literature: Tipitaka
- Tamil:Sangam literature
- Aramaic: Book of Daniel
Archaeology
Astronomy
- Historical solar eclipses
Centuries and decades
References
- Temple, Robert (1986). The Genius of China: 3000 years of science, discovery and invention. New York: Simon and Schuster. Based on the works of Joseph Needham
- Zimmer, Heinrich (1952), Joseph Campbell (ed.), Philosophy of India, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd,
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