Around 2200 BC a single drought may have hit three civilisations at once.
Many scholars link it to the collapse of the Akkadian Empire, the end of Egypt's Old Kingdom and the decline of the Indus cities.
The events
- 4.2-kiloyear droughtc. 2200 BC–2100 BC · Northern Mesopotamia. Around 2200 BC the climate from the Mediterranean to India turned sharply drier for about a century. The drought is linked, in a widely discussed but debated hypothesis, to the fall of the Akkadian Empire, the end of Egypt's Old Kingdom and the decline of Indus cities.
- Sargon founds the Akkadian Empirec. 2334 BC · Akkad. Sargon of Akkad conquered the city-states of Sumer and Akkad and built a realm stretching from the Persian Gulf toward the Mediterranean. Often called the first empire, it made Akkadian the lasting language of Mesopotamia.
- Rise of Mohenjo-daroc. 2500 BC · Mohenjo-daro. Mohenjo-daro became one of the largest cities of the Indus Valley Civilisation, with a grid of streets, brick houses, covered drains and the Great Bath. Its script remains undeciphered to this day.
More amazing facts
- 2300 BC Early Bronze Age Britain's richest grave was found near Stonehenge during a housing development, and its owner came from the Alps.
- 2285 BC The earliest named author in history was a woman: Enheduanna, daughter of Sargon of Akkad and high priestess of the moon god at Ur in the 23rd century BC, to whom hymns to Inanna are attributed.
- 2250 BC Around 2250 BC a boy pharaoh wrote a letter bursting with impatience: he wanted a live pygmy.
- 2250 BC Pepi II is often called the longest-reigning monarch ever: 94 years, from the age of six. But the figure comes from Manetho, writing some 2,000 years later, and firm records reach only about his 62nd year.
- 2100 BC The first king in the Sumerian King List ruled for 28,800 years.
- 2100 BC · 1754 BC Hammurabi's code was not the first.