FormationThe 2nd millennium BCE

Formation in the 2nd millennium BCE

Every event in the Terralore archive tagged formation — origins, unifications and the founding of states as each nation's archive records them, narrowed to the 2nd millennium BCE — 10 of them, drawn from 9 nations, running from 2000 BCE to 1070 BCE. Each entry keeps the sources it was verified against and links back to the chronicle it came from.

Events
10
Nations
9
Earliest
2000 BCE
Latest
1070 BCE
Asia
3
Europe
3
Africa
2
North America
2

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

  1. c. 2000–1450 BCEEurope

    Greece

    Rise of the Minoan palaces on Crete

    The Minoan civilization built great palace complexes at Knossos and elsewhere on Crete, Europe's first advanced civilization, sustained by trade and a sophisticated artistic and administrative culture.

    Era: Minoan, Mycenaean and the Bronze Age Aegean

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

  2. c. 2000 BCEAsia

    Kuwait

    Dilmun settlement on Failaka

    Failaka island became a flourishing outpost of the Bronze Age Dilmun trading culture, with a town, temple, palace, and one of the largest concentrations of Dilmun seals known.

    Era: Failaka: Dilmun and the Greek Island of Ikaros

    Sources: Failaka Island: A Palimpsest of Human Civilizations (Tentative List) · UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Sa'ad and Sae'ed Area in Failaka Island (Tentative List) · UNESCO World Heritage Centre

  3. c. 1600 BCEAsia

    China

    Shang dynasty rules the Yellow River valley

    The Shang, the first Chinese dynasty with historical records, governs from cities such as Anyang and produces ritual bronzes and the oracle-bone script, the earliest known Chinese writing.

    Era: Bronze Age Kingdoms and the Hundred Schools

    Sources: China · Encyclopaedia Britannica, Zhou dynasty (ca. 1050-221 BCE), Teaching China with the Smithsonian · Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art, Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-220 A.D.) · The Metropolitan Museum of Art

  4. c. 1600 BCEEurope

    Greece

    Flourishing of Mycenaean civilization

    Fortified palace-citadels such as Mycenae and Pylos rose on the mainland, ruled by warrior elites who were the first attested Greek-speakers and traded across the eastern Mediterranean.

    Era: Minoan, Mycenaean and the Bronze Age Aegean

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

  5. c. 1500 BCENorth America

    Belize

    Maya settlement of the lowlands

    Maya-speaking peoples settled the lowland forests and river valleys of present-day Belize, founding farming villages that over centuries grew into towns and cities across the heart of the Maya world.

    Era: The land of the Maya

    Sources: History of Belize · Encyclopædia Britannica, Guyana and Belize: Country Studies (Federal Research Division) · Library of Congress, Our History · Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government of Belize

  6. c. 1500 BCEAfrica

    Nigeria

    Rise of the Nok culture

    On the central Nigerian plateau the Nok culture emerged, producing distinctive terracotta sculpture and, in its later phases, smelting iron — among the earliest such traditions in sub-Saharan Africa.

    Era: The Nok culture and Nigeria's early societies

    Sources: Nok Terracottas (Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History) · The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Nigeria (country overview and history) · Encyclopaedia Britannica, A Chronology of the Central Nigerian Nok Culture, 1500 BC to the Beginning of the Common Era · Peter Breunig and Nicole Rupp (academic study)

  7. c. 1200 BCEAsia

    Jordan

    Ammon, Moab and Edom emerge

    As the Iron Age began, three settled kingdoms took shape on the plateau east of the Jordan, each with its own capital, language and national god, controlling the caravan trade of the King's Highway.

    Era: The Kingdoms East of the Jordan: Ammon, Moab and Edom

    Sources: Jordan: History · Encyclopaedia Britannica, Jordan: A Country Study · Library of Congress, Federal Research Division

  8. c. 1200 BCENorth America

    Mexico

    Olmec civilisation flourishes

    The Olmec arise on the Gulf coast as the first complex society of Mesoamerica, carving colossal stone heads and shaping a cultural template inherited by later peoples.

    Era: Mesoamerican Civilisations

    Sources: Olmec · Encyclopaedia Britannica

  9. c. 1100 BCEEurope

    Spain

    Phoenician colonisation of the coast

    Phoenician traders founded Gadir (modern Cádiz) and other settlements, drawing Iberia into Mediterranean commerce and bringing eastern goods, writing and urban contact to the peninsula.

    Era: Iberia: Celts, Phoenicians, Rome and the Visigoths

    Sources: Spain · Encyclopaedia Britannica

  10. c. 1070 BCEAfrica

    Sudan

    Kush independent at Napata

    As Egypt's New Kingdom collapses, Kush re-emerges as an independent kingdom centred on Napata, near Gebel Barkal.

    Era: Nubia, Kerma and the Kingdom of Kush

    Sources: Kingdom of Kush · Wikipedia, Sudan — The kingdom of Kush · Encyclopædia Britannica