c. 2,500 BCE
Medicine
Indus Valley
Indus urban sanitation
Mohenjo-daro and Harappa build grid streets, covered drains and private baths.
Why it mattered
The earliest municipal water and waste infrastructure.
Bronze Age
2,500 BCE
2 recorded milestones at this point in the record.
c. 2,500 BCE
Communication
Mesopotamia
Cuneiform accounting and schools
Scribal schools in Sumer trained clerks in arithmetic, contracts and letters.
Why it mattered
Institutionalised literacy as a profession.
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Nearby in the record
c. 2,800 BCEMedicine
Ebers and Edwin Smith surgical practice
Egypt
c. 2,700 BCETransportation
Sewn-plank seagoing ships
Egypt
c. 2,600 BCETechnology
The Great Pyramid engineering
Egypt
c. 2,600 BCESociety
Standardised weights of the Indus
South Asia
c. 2,400 BCEScience
The abacus
Mesopotamia
c. 2,400 BCESociety
Urukagina's reforms
Mesopotamia