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681 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

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.