Culture & IdeasThe 2nd millennium BCE

Culture & Ideas in the 2nd millennium BCE

Every event in the Terralore archive tagged culture and ideas — art, language, science and learning, narrowed to the 2nd millennium BCE — 6 of them, drawn from 6 nations, running from 2000 BCE to 1200 BCE. Each entry keeps the sources it was verified against and links back to the chronicle it came from.

Events
6
Nations
6
Earliest
2000 BCE
Latest
1200 BCE
Asia
3
Africa
1
Europe
1
Oceania
1

Every entry below is the same record, with the same sources, as the one on its nation’s chronicle.

  1. c. 2000 years agoAfrica

    Namibia

    The engravings of Twyfelfontein

    San artists pecked thousands of petroglyphs into the sandstone at Twyfelfontein over roughly two thousand years, depicting animals and tracks bound up with hunter-gatherer ritual; the site was inscribed by UNESCO in 2007.

    Era: First peoples: the San, Khoekhoe, Damara and the engravings of Twyfelfontein

    Sources: Twyfelfontein · Encyclopaedia Britannica, Twyfelfontein or /Ui-//aes · UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Twyfelfontein · Wikipedia

  2. before European contactOceania

    Australia

    Hundreds of nations and languages

    By the time of European contact the continent was home to hundreds of distinct nations speaking around 250 languages, sustaining complex law, kinship, trade, art, and spiritual systems centred on connection to Country.

    Era: Aboriginal Australia: the world's oldest continuous cultures

    Sources: Australian Aboriginal peoples · Encyclopaedia Britannica, Defining Moments: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history · National Museum of Australia

  3. c. 1450 BCEEurope

    Greece

    Linear B and Mycenaean control of Crete

    Mycenaeans adapted Minoan script into Linear B to write an early form of Greek and extended their authority to Knossos, as Minoan power on Crete waned.

    Era: Minoan, Mycenaean and the Bronze Age Aegean

    Sources: Mycenaean Civilization · World History Encyclopedia, Minoan civilization · Encyclopaedia Britannica

  4. c. 1400 BCEAsia

    Syria

    The Ugaritic alphabet

    At the coastal city of Ugarit, scribes devise a cuneiform alphabet of about 30 signs — one of the earliest alphabetic writing systems in history, ancestral in spirit to later Semitic and Mediterranean alphabets.

    Era: Ebla, Mari, Ugarit and the First Alphabet

    Sources: Ugaritic alphabet · Encyclopaedia Britannica

  5. c. 13th century BCEAsia

    Türkiye

    Troy of the Iliad

    The fortified city at Hisarlık (Troy VI–VII) corresponds to the era of the Trojan War remembered in Homer's Iliad; the layered ruins were excavated from 1870 and inscribed by UNESCO in 1998.

    Era: Ancient Anatolia: Çatalhöyük, the Hittites and Troy

    Sources: Archaeological Site of Troy · UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Troy · World History Encyclopedia

  6. c. 1200 BCEAsia

    China

    Oracle-bone divination records

    Shang diviners inscribe questions to ancestors and deities on ox bones and turtle shells; these inscriptions are the oldest unambiguous Chinese writing and a primary source for early history.

    Era: Bronze Age Kingdoms and the Hundred Schools

    Sources: China · Encyclopaedia Britannica