31st century BC

Millennium:	4th millennium BC
Centuries:	32nd century BC 31st century BC 30th century BC
Timelines:	32nd century BC 31st century BC 30th century BC
State leaders:	32nd century BC 31st century BC 30th century BC
Decades:	3090s BC 3080s BC 3070s BC 3060s BC 3050s BC 3040s BC 3030s BC 3020s BC 3010s BC 3000s BC
Categories:	Births – Deaths Establishments – Disestablishments

The 31st century BC was a century which lasted from the year 3100 BC to 3001 BC.

Events

Spiral design altar block from the Tarxien Temples of Malta, uncovered by Sir Themistocles Zammit

Front and Back Sides of Narmer Palette, this facsimile on display at the Royal Ontario Museum, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Palette depicts Narmer unifying Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt

• c. 3090 BC: Narmer (Menes) unifies Upper and Lower Egypt into one country; he rules this new country from Memphis.
• c. 3100 BC: The Anu Ziggurat White Temple is built in Uruk
• c. 3100 BC: Predynastic period (Neolithic) ends in Ancient Egypt (other date is 3150 BC).
• c. 3100 BC: Early Dynastic (Archaic) period starts in Ancient Egypt (other date is 3150 BC).
• c. 3100 BC: The first temple of Tarxien is in use by the Neolithic inhabitants of Malta.
• c. 3100 BC: First stage in the construction of Stonehenge.
• c. 3100 BC – 2600 BC: Skara Brae, Orkney Islands, Scotland is inhabited.
• c. 3100 BC: The first known human writing system, the cuneiform script, is developed in Sumer.
• c. 3051 BC: The oldest currently living organism, a Great Basin bristlecone pine, undergoes germination in the White Mountains of California. It is still alive at the present day.

Significant people

• Scorpion II, presumably the last pre-dynastic pharaoh of ancient Upper Egypt
• Narmer, founder of the first dynasty of Egypt
• Neithhotep, wife of Narmer and possibly the earliest woman known by name
• Hor-Aha, the second pharaoh of the First dynasty of Egypt
• Djer, the third pharaoh of the First dynasty of Egypt
• Ötzi, the oldest natural mummy ever found in Europe, lived around this time.

Inventions, discoveries, introductions

• Drainage and sewage system in the Indus Valley
• Dams, canals, stone sculptures using inclined plane and lever in Sumer and the Tigris-Euphrates Valley
• Copper was in use, both as tools and weapons
• Senet is one of the oldest known board games in the world.
• c. 3100 BC – Invention of writing in Mesopotamia and Egypt
• The Sydney rock engravings date to around 3000 BC (Sydney, Australia).