HUNGARIAN HISTORICAL CHRONOLOGY

GENESIS 10, 8-13:
Cush was the father of Nimrod, who began to show himself a man of might on earth; and he was a mighty hunter before the Lord, as the saying goes, 'Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord'. His kingdom in the beginning consisted of Babel, Erech, and Accad, all of them in the land of Shinar*. From that land he migrated to Asshur and built Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah, and Resen, a great city between Nineveh and Calah. [The New English Bible, Cambridge University Press, New York, p. 10]

* Shinar: the land of Sumer in Mesopotamia [Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary].

MESOPOTAMIA

10 000-8000 years Before Common Era (BCE)
The Neolithic revolution: the invention of agriculture and animal domestication in the ancient Near East, the "Fertile Crescent" - the region between the Eastern Mediterranean and the Zagros mountains of Western Iran - by the peoples who formed the distinct (non-Semitic and non-Indo-European) ethno-linguistic group from which the Sumerians, the creators of the first civilization, originated.

5500 BCE
Beginning of the Copper Age: Mesopotamia becomes the culturally dominant region of the Near East: first Northern Mesopotamia (Subir-ki/Subartu), and from 4500 BCE, Southern Mesopotamia, the land of Sumer. Due to the demographic and economic growth resulting from the Neolithic revolution, the Near Eastern population begins to expand, settling in the Mediterranean and Danubian basins, Eastern Europe, Iran, India, and Central Asia, laying the foundations of civilization in those regions and exerting a determining cultural influence upon the later formation of the various Eurasian ethno-linguistic groups.

SUMER

3200 BCE Beginning of the Bronze Age: Height of the Sumerian civilization; development of numerous cultural and technological inventions (writing, the wheel). First Sumerian Empire extends from the Eastern Mediterranean to Western Iran, including all of Mesopotamia.

3000 BCE - 2000 BCE
Sumerian colonies are established from the Atlantic Ocean through the Mediterranean and Danubian basins to India and Central Asia (Turan), and from the Caucasus to Northeast Africa. The vast belt of Eurasian grasslands stretching from the Carpathian mountains to the Altay range, bordered in the North by the Eurasian forest belt and in the the South by the Caucasus and the Iranian plateau, is gradually settled by Sumerians and Sumerian-related peoples from Mesopotamia, Transcaucasia and Iran. These Near Eastern settlers of the Eurasian grasslands became the peoples which were later referred to as the Scythians, Huns, Avars and Magyars among others, and collectively known as the Turanians. The Turanians were therefore the descendents of the Sumerian-Mesopotamian peoples, and the inheritors of this ancient Near Eastern culture. The Turanian peoples had a profound cultural impact on their Celtic, Germanic, Slavic, Finnic, Siberian and East Asian neighbours, which have preserved numerous Turanian ethno-linguistic and cultural elements.

3000 BCE - 2455 BCE
First appearance of nomadic Semitic tribes in Sumerian Mesopotamia. Semitic peoples begin to settle in increasing numbers in Mesopotamia. The Sumerian civilization exerts a dominant influence upon the development of later Semitic cultures.

2455 BCE - 2356 BCE
The Semitic Accadians impose their hegemony upon the Sumerian city-states. Mesopotamia is devastated by wars, the population is decimated, oppressed and enslaved by the Accadians. Many Sumerians flee to their colonies.

2356 BCE - 1900 BCE
The Sumerian city-states and their allies overthrow the Semitic Accadian hegemony, liberating themselves from foreign oppression.

1900 BCE - 1733 BCE
The Semitic Babylonians impose their hegemony upon Mesopotamia.

1733 BCE - 1163 BCE
The Kassites, one of the Sumerian-related peoples inhabiting Western Iran, overthrow the Semitic Babylonian hegemony and establish their rule over Northern Mesopotamia. A Sumerian dynasty rules over Southern Mesopotamia from 1860 BC to 1492 BC.

1115 BCE - 612 BCE
The Semitic Assyrians impose their hegemony over the Near East after centuries of warfare. The ensuing devastation, decimation, deportations and oppression alter the ethnic composition of the Near East, including Mesopotamia, as the Semitic element increases and the Sumerians decrease.