12th century BC
century
The 12th century BC is the period from 1200 to 1101 BC. The Late Bronze Age collapse in the ancient Near East and eastern Mediterranean is often considered to begin in this century.
Events
1200 BC: the first civilization in Central and North America develops in about 1200 BC in the coastal regions of the southern part of the Gulf of Mexico. Known as the Olmec civilization, its early site is at San Lorenzo.
1200 BC: the Phoenicians found the port of Lisbon, Portugal
1197 BC: the beginning of the first period (1197 BC–982 BC) by Shao Yong's concept of the I Ching and history.
c. 1194 BC: the beginning of the legendary Trojan War.
1192 BC: Wu Ding, King of the Shang dynasty, dies.
1191 BC: Menestheus, legendary King of Athens, dies during the Trojan War after a reign of 23 years and is succeeded by his nephew Demophon, a son of Theseus. Other accounts place his death a decade later and shortly after the Trojan War (see 1180s BC).
1186 BC: end of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt, start of the Twentieth Dynasty.
The public source identifies “12th century BC” as century. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around 12th and century.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q171812. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1200, 1101, 1197 and 1194.
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This entry incorporates text from “12th century BC” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.