1700 BC-The Westcar Papyrus

The Westcar Papyrus (inventory-designation: P. Berlin 3033) is an ancient Egyptian text containing five stories about miracles performed by priests and magicians. In the text, each of these tales are told at the royal court of Pharaoh Cheops (4th dynasty) by his sons. The story in the papyrus is usually rendered in English as "King Cheops and the Magicians"^[1] and "The Tale of King Cheops' Court".^[2] In German, in which the text of the Westcar Papyrus was first translated, it is rendered as Die Märchen des Papyrus Westcar ("the fairy tales of Papyrus Westcar").^[3][4]

The surviving material of the Westcar Papyrus consists of twelve columns written in hieratic script. Miriam Lichtheim dates the document to the Hyksos period (18th to 16th century BC) and states that "The works are written in classical Middle Egyptian; the papyrus dates from the Hyksos period."(ca. 20th century BC).^[5] Linguist and Egyptologist Verena Lepper thinks it may be possible that the Westcar Papyrus had already been written during the 13th dynasty. The papyrus has been used by historians as a literary resource for reconstituting the history of the 4th dynasty.

The papyrus is now on display under low-light conditions in the Egyptian Museum of Berlin.^[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westcar_Papyrus

https://mjn.host.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/egyptian/texts/corpus/pdf/Westcar.pdf

http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/texts/westcar_papyrus.htm

1700 BC-Zoroaster born

Zoroaster (/ˌzɒroʊˈæstər/ or /ˈzɒroʊˌæstər/, from Greek Ζωροάστρης Zōroastrēs from Persian: زرتشت‎‎ Zartosht)—also known as Zarathustra (/ˌzɑːrəˈθuːstrə/; Avestan: 𐬰𐬀𐬭𐬀𐬚𐬎𐬱𐬙𐬭𐬀] Zaraθuštra), Zarathushtra Spitama, or Ashu Zarathushtra — was the prophet of ancient Iran, whose transformation of his inherited religion, Zoroastrianism, inaugurated a movement that eventually became the dominant religion in Iran up until the triumph of Islam. He was a native speaker of Old Avestan and lived in the eastern part of the Iranian Plateau, but his exact birthplace is uncertain.^[1][2]

Zoroaster dating is uncertain as there is no scholarship consensus,^[3] on linguistic and socio-cultural evidence is dated around 1000 BCE and earlier, while others put him in the 7th and 6th century BCE as a contemporary or near-contemporary of Cyrus the Great and Darius I.^[4][5][6][7] Zoroastrianism was already an old religion when was first recorded, and it was the official religion of Persian Empires (Modern Iran) and its distant subdivisions from 6th century BCE to 7th century CE.^[8] He is credited with the authorship of the Yasna Haptanghaiti as well as the Gathas, hymns which are at the liturgical core of Zoroastrian thinking. Most of his life is known through the Zoroastrian texts.^[1]

By any modern standard of historiography, no strictly historical evidence can place him into a fixed period, and the historicization surrounding him is part of a trend from before the 10th century which historicizes legends and myths.^[9]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroaster

1750 BC-Anitta Text

Anitta, son of Pithana, was a king of Kussara, a city that has yet to be identified. He is the earliest known ruler to compose a text in the Hittite language.

His high official, or rabi simmiltim, was named Peruwa.^[2]

https://lrc.la.utexas.edu/eieol/hitol/10

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anitta

1780 BC-Epic of Zimri Lim / Mari Letters

Zimri-Lim was king of Mari from about 1775 to 1761 BC.

Zimri-Lim was the son^[1] or grandson^[2] of Iakhdunlim, but was forced to flee to Yamkhad when his father was assassinated by his own servants during a coup. The city was occupied by Shamshi-Adad I, the king of Assur, who put his own son Yasmah-Adad on the throne. Shortly after the death of Shamshi-Adad I, Zimri-Lim returned from exile and was able to oust Yasmah-Adad from power with the help of Yarimlim, the king of Yamhad.

Zimri-Lim ruled Mari for about thirteen years, and campaigned extensively to establish his power in the neighbouring areas along the Euphrates and the Khabur valley. He extended his palace in the city, which was possibly the largest at the time, and certainly the envy of other kings.

He was also active on a wider stage, and at one time (perhaps about 1764 BC) was allied with Hammurabi in his wars against Eshnunna.

Zimri-Lim's personal life is partly known through tablets preserved in the state archive of Mari. He married Shibtu, a princess of Yamkhad (Aleppo and surrounding territory), and is known to have had at least eight daughters through various wives. Several of his daughters were married to rulers of local towns, and two others are known to have become priestesses. Correspondence between the king and his daughters provides evidence that Zimri-Lim thought highly of women and considered them competent at making decisions.

In 1762 BC, Hammurabi conquered and sacked Mari (though it may be that the city had surrendered without a fight), despite the previous alliance. At this time Zimri-Lim disappears from historical view, and is presumed to have been killed.

https://discoverarchive.vanderbilt.edu/bitstream/handle/1803/3562/King%20and%20I.pdf?sequence=1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimri-Lim

1780 BC-Code of Hammurabi

The Code of Hammurabi is a well-preserved Babylonian law code of ancient Mesopotamia, dating 

back to about 1754 BC (Middle Chronology). It is one of the oldest deciphered writings of significant length in the world. The sixth Babylonian king, Hammurabi, enacted the code, and partial copies exist on a seven and a half foot stone stele and various clay tablets. The code consists of 282 laws, with scaled punishments, adjusting "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" (lex talionis)^[1] as graded depending on social status, of slave versus free man.^[2] Nearly one-half of the code deals with matters of contract, establishing, for example, the wages to be paid to an ox driver or a surgeon. Other provisions set the terms of a transaction, establishing the liability of a builder for a house that collapses, for example, or property that is damaged while left in the care of another. A third of the code addresses issues concerning household and family relationships such as inheritance, divorce, paternity, and sexual behavior. Only one provision appears to impose obligations on an official; this provision establishes that a judge who reaches an incorrect decision is to be fined and removed from the bench permanently.^[3] A few provisions address issues related to military service.

The code was discovered by modern archaeologists in 1901, and its editio princeps translation published in 1902 by Jean-Vincent Scheil. This nearly complete example of the code is carved into a basalt stele in the shape of a huge index finger,^[4] 2.25 m (7.4 ft) tall. The code is inscribed in the Akkadian language, using cuneiform script carved into the stele. It is currently on display in the Louvre, with exact replicas in the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, the Clendening History of Medicine Library & Museum at the University of Kansas Medical Center, the library of the Theological University of the Reformed Churches(Dutch: Theologische Universiteit Kampen voor de Gereformeerde Kerken) in the Netherlands, the Pergamon Museum of Berlin, and the National Museum of Iran in Tehran.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi

http://www.constitution.org/ime/hammurabi.pdf

1800 BC-Atra-hasis epic

Atra-Hasis ("exceedingly wise") is the protagonist of an 18th-century BCE Akkadian epic recorded in various versions on clay tablets. The Atra-Hasis tablets include both a creation myth and a flood account, which is one of three surviving Babylonian deluge stories. The name "Atra-Hasis" also appears on one of the Sumerian king lists as king of Shuruppak in the times before a flood.

The oldest known copy of the epic tradition concerning Atrahasis^[1] can be dated by colophon (scribal identification) to the reign of Hammurabi’s great-grandson, Ammi-Saduqa (1646–1626 BCE), but various Old Babylonian fragments exist; it continued to be copied into the first millennium BCE. The Atrahasis story also exists in a later fragmentary Assyrian version, having been first rediscovered in the library of Ashurbanipal, but, because of the fragmentary condition of the tablets and ambiguous words, translations had been uncertain. Its fragments were assembled and translated first by George Smith as The Chaldean Account of Genesis; the name of its hero was corrected to Atra-Hasis by Heinrich Zimmern in 1899.

In 1965 W. G. Lambert and A. R. Millard^[2] published many additional texts belonging to the epic, including an Old Babylonian copy (written around 1650 BCE) which is our most complete surviving recension of the tale. These new texts greatly increased knowledge of the epic and were the basis for Lambert and Millard’s first English translation of the Atrahasis epic in something approaching entirety.^[3] A further fragment has been recovered in Ugarit. Walter Burkert^[4] traces the model drawn from Atrahasis to a corresponding passage, the division by lots of the air, underworld and sea among Zeus, Hades and Poseidon in the Iliad, in which “a resetting through which the foreign framework still shows”.

In its most complete surviving version, the Atrahasis epic is written on three tablets in Akkadian, the language of ancient Babylon.^[5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atra-Hasis

http://www.markfoster.net/rn/texts/the_atra_hasis.pdf

1800 BC-Enûma Eliš

The Enûma Eliš (Akkadian Cuneiform: 𒂊𒉡𒈠𒂊𒇺, also spelled "Enuma Elish"), is the Babyloniancreation myth (named after its opening words). It was recovered by Austen Henry Layard in 1849 (in fragmentary form) in the ruined Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh (Mosul, Iraq), and published by George Smith in 1876.^[1] The Enûma Eliš has about a thousand lines and is recorded in Old Babylonian on seven clay tablets, each holding between 115 and 170 lines of Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform script. Most of Tablet V has never been recovered but, aside from this lacuna, the text is almost complete.

This epic is one of the most important sources for understanding the Babylonian worldview, centered on the supremacy of Marduk and the creation of humankind for the service of the gods. Its primary original purpose, however, is not an exposition of theology or theogony but the elevation of Marduk, the chief god of Babylon, above other Mesopotamian gods.

The Enûma Eliš exists in various copies from Babylon and Assyria. The version from Ashurbanipal's library dates to the 7th century BCE. The composition of the text probably dates to the bronze age, to the time of Hammurabi or perhaps the early Kassite era (roughly 18th to 16th centuries BCE), although some scholars favor a later date of c. 1100 BCE.^[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En%C3%BBma_Eli%C5%A1

http://www.csun.edu/~rlc31920/documents/History%20110/Enuma_Elish.pdf