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653 BCE

This year falls in the Iron Age (c. 1200–500 BCE). Iron tools and weapons spread, and new powers rise, among them Assyria, Babylon, the Zhou dynasty in China and the Greek city-states. Alphabets and coined money spread, and the Persian Empire is founded in the sixth century BCE.

Within fifteen years

Country · JapanJapan660 BCE–Japan is an island country in East Asia with the world's oldest continuous monarchy. Tradition dates the imperial line to 660 BC. The modern state was forged in the Meiji Restoration of 1868 and is now a parliamentary constitutional monarchy.

Ruler · Iron Age · IraqAshurbanipalr. 668–c. 627 BCKing of Assyria from 668 to about 627 BC, the last great king of the Neo Assyrian Empire. He built a library at Nineveh that gathered thousands of clay tablets, preserving works like the Epic of Gilgamesh. The palace reliefs of his lion hunts are among the finest sculptures of the ancient Near East.