Phoenician scribes in cities such as Byblos and Tyre wrote with just 22 letters. The Greeks later adopted this alphabet, and the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets descend from it. The early Hebrew script was very close to it.
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In the Bible · c. 1000 BC · Jerusalem
David takes Jerusalem
Anointed king over all Israel, David captures the Jebusite city of Jerusalem and makes it his capital, the City of David.
2 Sam 5:1–12
Then all the tribes of Israel came to David at Hebron and said, “Here we are, your own flesh and blood. Even in times past, while Saul was king over us, you were the one who led Israel out and brought them back. And to you the LORD said, ‘You will shepherd My people Israel, and you will be ruler over them.’” So all the elders of Israel came to the king at Hebron, where King David made with them a covenant before the LORD. And they anointed him king over Israel. David was thirty years old when he became king, and he reigned forty years. In Hebron he reigned over Judah seven years and six months, and in Jerusalem he reigned thirty-three years over all Israel and Judah. Now the king and his men marched to Jerusalem against the Jebusites who inhabited the land. The Jebusites said to David: “You will never get in here. Even the blind and lame can repel you.” For they thought, “David cannot get in here.” Nevertheless, David captured the fortress of Zion (that is, the City of David). On that day he said, “Whoever attacks the Jebusites must use the water shaft to reach the lame and blind who are despised by David.” That is why it is said, “The blind and the lame will never enter the palace.” So David took up residence in the fortress and called it the City of David. He built it up all the way around, from the supporting terraces inward. And David became greater and greater, for the LORD God of Hosts was with him. Now Hiram king of Tyre sent envoys to David, along with cedar logs, carpenters, and stonemasons, and they built a palace for David. And David realized that the LORD had established him as king over Israel and had exalted his kingdom for the sake of His people Israel.At the same time in the world
David took Jerusalem around 1000 BC and made it his capital. Outside the Bible his name first appears about a century and a half later, on a stone from Tel Dan that speaks of the “House of David”. Here is the world of about 1000 BC.
Mesopotamia and the Near EastThe alphabet spreadsc. 1050 BC
EgyptA divided Egyptc. 1069–664 BC
Egypt was split between kings ruling from Tanis in the delta and the high priests of Amun at Thebes. 1 Kings 3:1 says Solomon married a pharaoh’s daughter; which pharaoh this was is debated.
ChinaThe Mandate of Heavenc. 1046 BC
In China the Zhou overthrew the Shang. To explain their victory they taught that Heaven gives the right to rule to a just king and takes it away from an unjust one — the “Mandate of Heaven”, an idea that lasted some three thousand years.
Greece and RomeThe Greek Dark Agec. 1100–800 BC
After the Mycenaean palaces fell, Greece had few towns and had forgotten how to write. Iron tools and weapons were coming into use.
IndiaVillages of the Ganges plainc. 1200–600 BC
In northern India, farming villages spread east into the Ganges plain, and iron came into use. Archaeologists know these people by their fine Painted Grey Ware pottery and link them with the later Vedic age.
Eastern Europe and the steppeHill forts in the forest-steppec. 1025–700 BC
In the forest-steppe of today’s central Ukraine, farmers of the Chernoles culture grew grain and built hill forts against raids from the steppe. By one view they were among the ancestors of the Slavs; by another, there is no such link.
