History
The fourth period in the Mesopotamian timeline is the Late Era, which includes the Babylonian, Assyrian, and later civilizations. The Babylonian timeline is derived from the Babylonian King Lists and continues where the Sumerian King Lists end. The Babylonian civilization was largely a continuation of the Akkadian civilization, however, the capital city of Babylon was north of the marshlands. The fact that the Babylonian King Hammurabi was around at the same time as the Egyptian King Neferhotep I requires moving the entire Old Babylonian Empire to circa 3352 to 3038 BC ULT. This does not affect the dating of the later periods, as there was a dark age after the Fall of Babylon at the end of the Old Babylonian Empire. The Hittite sacking of Babylon is considered one of the most important events in the Babylonian timeline and generally dated to somewhere between 1499 and 1736 BC depending on the version of the CMT used. If the ULT is used then the Fall of Babylon took place around 3038 BC, around 200 years after the collapse of the Egyptian Middle Kingdom. The ULT also sees the reign of the last Neo-Sumerian King, Damiq-ilishu, ending in 3227 BC, around the same time the Egyptian Middle Kingdom collapsed, shortly after the Great Shock of 3250 BC. This is the point in time that the world’s climate changed significantly into a neo-glacial period that lasted until around 1500 BC.