8th Century BC

Events in the 8th Century BC 7

• 14000 BC – 300 BC Jomon period World's earliest pottery — hunter-gatherers of the islands The Jomon period is named for the cord-marked (jomon) pottery its people produced — among the oldest pottery in the world. These were sophisticated hunter-gatherers, fishers and foragers who lived a largely sedentary life in the Japanese archipelago for over ten thousand years, long before agriculture arrived.
• 1500 BC – 500 BC Vedic period — the Vedas composed Sanskrit hymns and the roots of Hinduism Following the Indus decline, the Vedic period saw the composition of the Vedas — the oldest scriptures of Hinduism — in archaic Sanskrit. This era shaped Indian religion, the caste system, and the philosophical traditions later expressed in the Upanishads.
• 1200 BC – 550 BC Zoroaster and the rise of Zoroastrianism One of the world's earliest monotheistic faiths The prophet Zoroaster (Zarathustra) taught a dualist vision of a single supreme god, Ahura Mazda, locked in cosmic struggle with evil. Zoroastrianism became the dominant religion of the Persian empires for over a thousand years and influenced ideas of heaven, hell and judgement in later faiths.
• 753 BC – 716 BC Romulus — first King of Rome Romulus, legendary founder and first king of Rome, rules for 37 years according to tradition. He establishes the Senate (100 patrician elders), divides the people into tribes, and creates the basic military structure. His reign includes the Rape of the Sabine Women — the abduction of women from neighbouring tribes to populate the new city — and wars with the Sabines, Latins and Etruscans. He disappears in a thunderstorm in 716 BC, deified as the god Quirinus.
• 753 BC – 476 The Roman Civilisation The Roman civilisation — kingdom, republic and empire — shaped Western law, language, architecture, religion and governance more profoundly than any other ancient civilisation. From the legendary founding of Rome by Romulus in 753 BC to the deposition of the last western emperor Romulus Augustulus in 476 AD, Rome endured for over twelve centuries, governing at its peak an empire of 70 million people stretching from Scotland to Mesopotamia.
• 753 BC Founding of Rome According to Roman tradition, Romulus founds the city of Rome on the Palatine Hill on 21 April 753 BC, after killing his twin brother Remus in a dispute over the city's location and its sacred boundary. The story — wolves, augury, fratricide — is almost certainly mythological, but archaeology confirms continuous settlement on the hills above the Tiber from around this period. Rome begins as one of many Latin villages in central Italy.
• 715 BC – 672 BC Numa Pompilius — second King Numa Pompilius, a Sabine chosen by the Senate, transforms Rome from a warrior settlement into a functioning state. He establishes the Roman religious calendar, the Vestal Virgins, the College of Pontiffs, and the flamines (priests). Credited with 43 years of peace — an extraordinary reign. The Roman religious institutions he creates will survive, with modifications, for over a millennium.