Iron Age
6 recorded milestones at this point in the record.
City-states such as Tyre, Sidon and Byblos built cedar ships and ran regular routes across the Mediterranean, trading dye, glass, timber and metals.
Why it mattered
Phoenician shipping carried the alphabet west and made the Mediterranean a single commercial world.
The Zhou overthrew the Shang and justified their rule with the idea that heaven withdraws its mandate from unjust kings.
Why it mattered
It gave East Asia a political theory in which rulers can legitimately be replaced — a template used for three thousand years.
Teachers in the Ganges plain composed dialogues probing the self, consciousness and the nature of reality beyond ritual practice.
Why it mattered
These texts founded a philosophical tradition that shaped Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism alike.
A highland Andean temple complex drew pilgrims through stone galleries and water channels.
Why it mattered
Unified Andean religion and art centuries before the Inca.
Assyrian kings maintained surfaced roads with staged mounts and way stations so despatches could cross the empire in days.
Why it mattered
It is the ancestor of the Persian and Roman postal systems and of state communication as infrastructure.
Improved bitting, riding seats and horse breeding on the Eurasian steppe made mounted archers more effective than chariot crews.
Why it mattered
Armies became faster and cheaper to field, and steppe horsemen became a permanent force in Eurasian history.
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Levant
Iran
Levant
Greece
Italy
North Africa