Civilization · c. 3500 – 539 BCE
Mesopotamia
The land between the rivers where writing, cities and law were born.
Capital: Ur, Babylon, Nineveh · Middle East (West Asia)
Overview
Sumerian city-states invented cuneiform writing, the wheel, the sailboat and the concept of the sixty-minute hour. Successive Akkadian, Babylonian and Assyrian empires built on this foundation for three thousand years.
Timeline
- c. 4000 BCEUruk period — first true cities
- c. 3200 BCESumerian cuneiform writing
- 2334 BCESargon of Akkad founds first empire
- 1792 – 1750 BCEHammurabi's Babylon
- 911 – 609 BCENeo-Assyrian Empire
- 539 BCECyrus captures Babylon
Rulers
First imperial builder
Lawgiver of Babylon
Assyrian king and library-builder
Neo-Babylonian king
Wars & conflicts
- Sumerian city-state wars
- Assyrian conquests
- Fall of Babylon
Architecture
Ziggurats (Ur, Etemenanki), city walls, palace complexes.
Religion
Polytheistic; An, Enlil, Enki, Inanna, Marduk.
Economy
Barley and dates, wool textiles, long-distance river trade.
Technology
Cuneiform writing, sexagesimal number system, wheel, plow, sailboat, bronze.
Art
Cylinder seals, stelae (Naram-Sin, Hammurabi), the Standard of Ur.
Influence
Astronomy, mathematics and law reached Greece and beyond.
Decline
Persian conquest under Cyrus in 539 BCE ended native Mesopotamian statehood.
Key sites
- Ur
- Uruk
- Babylon
- Nineveh
- Ashur
- Nimrud