650s BC

Millennium:	1st millennium BC
Centuries:	8th century BC – 7th century BC – 6th century BC
Decades:	680s BC 670s BC 660s BC – 650s BC – 640s BC 630s BC 620s BC
Years:	659 BC 658 BC 657 BC 656 BC 655 BC 654 BC 653 BC 652 BC 651 BC 650 BC
Categories:	Births – Deaths – Architecture Establishments – Disestablishments

Events and trends

• Occupation begins at Maya site of Piedras Negras, Guatemala.
• 657 BC—Cypselus becomes the first tyrant of Corinth.
• 656 BC—Psamtik I extends his control over all of Egypt. End of Twenty-fifth Dynasty.
• 653 BC—Atta-Khumma-In-Shushinak and Khumbanigash II succeed Shilhak-In-Shushinak and Tempti-Khumma-In-Shushinak as kings of the Elamite Empire.
• 652 BC—Babylonia rises in revolt under Shamash-shuma-ukin against the Assyrians.
• 652 BC—Guan Zhong urges the Duke of Qi to maintain the respect of the other states by refusing the offer of the son of a recently defeated state's ruler to ally himself with Qi if Qi would help him depose his father.
• 651 BC—Zhou xiang wang becomes King of the Zhou Dynasty of China.
• 650 BC—The Messenians, resentful of the Spartans' harsh rule, revolted. Beginning of the Second Messenian War.
• 650 BC—Aristomenes traditional Messenian hero wins the battle at Stenyclerus against the Spartans but is eventually defeated.
• 650 BC—The town of Abdera in Thrace is founded by colonists from Clazomenae.
• 650 BC—A climate change affects all the Bronze Age cultures in Europe with colder and wetter climate, and tribes from the Scandinavian Nordic Bronze Age cultures are pushed downwards into the European continent.
• 650 BC–625 BC—Wine pitcher (oinochoe), from Rhodes, is made. It is now at Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Significant people

• 653 BC—Death of Tantamani, last king of the Twenty-fifth dynasty of Egypt
• 652 BC—Death of Gyges, king of Lydia
• 652 BC—Death of Zhou hui wang, king of the Zhou Dynasty of China
• 652 BC—First recorded mention of King Kuras of Parsumas, possibly the same as King Cyrus I of Anshan, head of the Achaemenid dynasty