21st century BC
century
The 21st century BC lasted from the year 2100 BC to 2001 BC.
Events
All dates from this long ago should be regarded as either approximate or conjectural; there are no absolute dates for this time period.
c. 2150–2040 BC – The First Intermediate Period of Egypt, a period of decline in Egyptian central power.
c. 2112–2004 BC – The Third Dynasty of Ur. The Ziggurat of Ur is built. Administrative power in Ur is pushed far, with an Ensi, an appointed civil servant, at the head of the constituencies. A meticulous and finicky bureaucracy manages, counts and controls the whole administration, which is as much concerned with the economy as with war or the service of the gods. The weight of such an administration arguably contributes to the collapse of the empire.
c. 2100–2000 BC:
Epic poetry is written in the Sumerian language, including the Epic of Gilgamesh.
In Chalcolithic Europe, the two circles of bluestones that form the inner part of Stonehenge are erected.
Shahr-e Sukhteh, "The Burnt City" in Persia, is abandoned.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “21st century BC” as century. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as century. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q205487. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2001, 2040, 2004 and 2000.
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.
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This entry incorporates text from “21st 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.