18th century BC
century
The 18th century BC was the century that lasted from 1800 BC to 1701 BC. Manning (2008) tentatively estimates the world population in 1799 BC as 85 million.
Events
1800 BC: Beginning of the Nordic Bronze Age in the period system devised by Oscar Montelius.
c. 1800 BC: Sedentary Mayan communities in Mesoamerica
c. 1800 BC: Hyksos start to settle in the Nile Delta. They had the capital at Avaris in northeastern Nile Delta.
1800 BC: Adichanallur urn-burial site in Tirunelveli district in Tamil Nadu. In 2004, a number of skeletons dating from around 3,800 years ago.
1800 BC: Beginning of the Indo-Aryan migration
1800 BC – 1700 BC: Decline of the Indus Valley Civilisation
1800 BC – 1300 BC: Troy VI flourishes.
c. 1792 BC – 1750 BC: (middle chronology) – Hammurabi rules Babylonia and has to deal with Mari, which he conquers late in his career.
c. 1792 BC – 1750 BC: (middle chronology) – Stela of Hammurabi, from Susa (modern Shush, Iran) is made. It is now in Musée du Louvre, Paris.
“18th century BC” enters the record as century. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what 18th and century can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“18th century BC” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, 18th and century provides the most credible route into that argument.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q189456. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1800, 1701, 2008 and 1799.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
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- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “18th century BC”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow 18th century BC primary sources, 18th century BC archive and 18th research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “18th 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.