Assyrians named each year after an official. In the year of Bur-Sagale they noted an eclipse of the sun, which astronomers date to 15 June 763 BC. This fixes the Assyrian year list — and with it Assyrian mentions of Ahab and Jehu, which anchor the dates of Israel’s kings.
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In the Bible · 8th century BC · Nineveh, in Assyria
Jonah in Nineveh
Jonah preaches in Nineveh, a great city of the Assyrian Empire on the river Tigris, and the city repents.
Jonah 3:1–10
Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time: “Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message that I give you.” This time Jonah got up and went to Nineveh, in accordance with the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, requiring a three-day journey. On the first day of his journey, Jonah set out into the city and proclaimed, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned!” And the Ninevites believed God. They proclaimed a fast and dressed in sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least. When word reached the king of Nineveh, he got up from his throne, took off his royal robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. Then he issued a proclamation in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let no man or beast, herd or flock, taste anything at all. They must not eat or drink. Furthermore, let both man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and have everyone call out earnestly to God. Let each one turn from his evil ways and from the violence in his hands. Who knows? God may turn and relent; He may turn from His fierce anger, so that we will not perish.” When God saw their actions—that they had turned from their evil ways—He relented from the disaster He had threatened to bring upon them.At the same time in the world
2 Kings 14:25 places the prophet Jonah in the reign of Jeroboam II of Israel (c. 786–746 BC), the time of the prophets Amos and Hosea, when Assyria was the great power of the East. Here is the world of the early 8th century BC.
Mesopotamia and the Near EastThe eclipse that fixes the dates15 June 763 BC
Greece and RomeThe first Olympic Games776 BC (traditional date)
Later Greek lists begin with a footrace at Olympia in 776 BC, and Greeks came to count years in four-year “Olympiads”. In the days of Amos and Hosea the Games were still a small festival.
ChinaThe Zhou move east771 BC
Nomads sacked the Zhou capital in the west, and the court moved east to Luoyang. The kings kept their title but lost real power, and China’s “Spring and Autumn” age of rival states began.
EgyptKings from Kushc. 744–656 BC
Kings from Kush, in today’s Sudan, conquered Egypt; around 728 BC King Piye marched down the Nile, and his family ruled as Egypt’s 25th dynasty. One of them, Taharqa, appears in the Bible as “Tirhakah king of Cush” (2 Kings 19:9).
The AmericasLa Ventac. 900–400 BC
In the swamps of Tabasco in Mexico, the Olmec center of La Venta raised one of the earliest pyramids of the Americas, a mound of earth more than 30 meters high.
Eastern Europe and the steppeThe Cimmerians8th century BC
In the steppes north of the Black Sea lived the horse-riding Cimmerians, known from Homer and from Assyrian reports of their raids. Later in the century Scythians from the east began to push them out.
