In Mesopotamia the new weapon is a light chariot, drawn by two horses

Shamshi-Adad I conquers Ashur and the surrounding areas, beginning Assyria's first brief period as a regional power

Babylonian astronomers name many of the constellations and identify the planets

Zimri-Lim builds himself a spectacular palace with some 300 rooms in his capital city of Mari in northern Mesopotamia

Priests in Babylon make loans from the temple treasure, introducing the concept of banking

The Babylonians introduce an important step in the story of arithmetic - the concept of place value in numbers, with digits on the left having greater value than those on the right

Shamshi-Adad I conquers the rich and ancient kingdom of Mari, and puts on the throne his son Yasmah-Adad

Hammurabi inherits the relatively minor kingdom of Babylon

Hammurabi begins a programme of conquest and coalition which will vastly extend the Babylonian empire

The Code of Hammurabi gives a detailed picture of Babylonian law and society

The Code of Hammurabi is the first surviving document to record the law relating to slaves

Hammurabi, in the process of winning control over the whole of Mesopotamia, conquers the northern territories of Mari and Ashur

Hammurabi destroys Mari (concealing for posterity an extraordinary cuneiform archive not discovered until 1933)

More than 25,000 cuneiform tablets (unearthed since 1933 at Mari) provide a detailed account of Assyria in the late 18th century BC

Ashur, or Assyria, sinks into almost a millennium of fluctuating but largely diminished fortunes

Babylon is destroyed by the Hittites, invaders from Anatolia, but reestablishes itself in subsequent centuries

All the separate regions of Mesopotamia are by now ruled by aristocracies of warriors fighting from light chariots

The abacus is used as an everyday method of calculation by Phoenicians and Babylonians

Assyria, during the reign of Ashurnasirpal II, once again recovers an extensive empire

Ashurnasirpal II creates a spectacular new capital at Nimrud (and claims to have had 69,574 guests at his palace-warming party)

An annual event in Assyria is the departure of the army in spring for an expedition of ruthless and brutal conquest

The Assyrians develop the battering ram into a mobile and powerful siege engine

The technique of glazing pottery is discovered in Mesopotamia, though used at this stage only for decorative arts arts purposes

The Assyrian army makes good use of the new technology by which iron can be hardened into steel suitable for weapons

The first known lock and key is fitted in the new palace of Sargon II at Khorsabad, in Assyria