Atlas - Daily Life Timeline

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Life

DAILY LIFE TIMELINE

All Dates BC

c.5,000-4,000
Egyptians invent calendar with 360 days/year (12 months with 30 days each)

c.4,000-3,500
Harps and flutes played in Egypt

3,760
First year of Jewish calendar

c.3,500-3,000
Linen is produced in Middle East

c.3,000-2,500
First reports of domesticated dogs in Egypt
Egyptians make glass beads
Egyptians use metal mirrors
Sumerians use oil-burning lamps
Sumerians bake bread & make beer
Sumerians introduce numerical system based on multiples of 6 and 12
Sumerians begin replacing barley with metal coins as legal tender
Egyptians, Babylonians, Indians & Chinese begin systematic astronomical observations

2,772
Egypt introduces calendar with 365 days, without adjustments

c.2,500-2,000
Domestication of horse in Central Asia
Egyptians discover use of papyrus
Egyptians build libraries
Egyptian literature features lamentations and skepticism about meaning of life Chinese determine equinoxes and solstices
Chickens domesticated in Babylon
Potter's wheels and kilns used in Mesopotamia

c.2,000-1,500
Babylonia uses highly developed geometry as basis for astronomic measurements
Minos palace has light & air shafts & bathrooms with water supply
Decimal system developed in Crete
Egyptians use contraceptives
Percussion instruments added to Egyptian orchestral music
Egyptians use alphabet of 24 signs
"The Story of Sinuhe," oldest form of a novel, written in Egypt
Irrigation system in Egypt uses Nile floods

c.1,500-1,000
Silk fabrics made in China
First Chinese dictionary, with 40,000 characters, appears
Height of sun in relation to incline of polar axis measured in China
The Phoenicians import tin from mines in England
Kikkuli of Mitanni writes the 1st treatise on horse breeding and training
Possible existence of a first "Suez Canal"
Egyptians used obelisks as sun dials
Head of Nefertiti sculpted
Beginning of Iron Age in Syria and Palestine