The 10th Century BCE

The 10th century BCE runs from 1000 BCE to 901 BCE. This period is considered part of the early Iron Age in the Middle East, Anatolia, and the Mediterranean region, following the collapse of the major Late Bronze Age civilizations.

Written sources for this period are limited compared with earlier and later centuries. Historians therefore rely on archaeology, sparse royal inscriptions, and later accounts retelling the events. Chronologies for this century are mostly estimates, and there is often disagreement between different chronological systems.

Middle East

In Mesopotamia, the Assyrian kingdom was in a middle phase with power confined to the middle Tigris; a major expansion began in the following centuries. Babylon had several successive dynasties. The eastern Mediterranean held various small Aramean and Canaanite states, and Phoenician city-states such as Tyre and Sidon, which developed maritime trade and purple-dye production on their coasts.

Egypt and Africa

Egypt was in the Third Intermediate Period, with power divided between rulers based in the north (Tanis) and the high priests of Amun at Thebes. Libyan-origin dynasties later gained influence. To the south, in Nubia, local power gradually emerged and gave rise to the Kushite state in the following centuries.

Europe, Asia, and general development

Greece was largely in what is known as the 'Dark Ages', marked by limited writing and cultural change; pottery styles from the Protogeometric and Geometric periods characterize this period. In China, the early Zhou dynasty ruled the middle Yellow River valley. India was experiencing the later Vedic period and the spread of iron-working in the Ganges plain. Overall, the use of iron, shipbuilding technology, and the spread of the Phoenician alphabet became the foundation for changes in the following centuries.