Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia (Western Civilization to 1689)

Introduction

Mesopotamia often called the cradle of civilization; Mesopotamia was the site of the world's first cities. This urban development involved not only just a large group of people living in close proximity but also a revolution in social organization, in farming, and in technology. This cultural leap was a transition from the primitive settlement to the modern society.

Beginning around 5500 BCE and continuing for the next 2,000 years, people gradually began to move from the mountains into the Mesopotamian plain and settled in cities. In addition to the development of cities, these people developed irrigation, canals, and flood control. They learned how to drain marshes and to turn them into farmland. They also invented the plow, the wheel, and metallurgy (copper and bronze). During this time, the Sumerians moved to this area and became the dominate people.

Origins and history

The Middle East refers to the “fertile crescent” between the Nile River basins in the west and the Euphrates and Tigris in the east and historically consists of one of the world's most important regions for the emergence of settled life, cities, state institutions, and civilizations. It is the birthplace of three of the most significant global religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, all monotheistic. The Middle East has thus had a global impact on human culture and society and has been influenced by global trends and powers from ancient times.

The Nile and its fertile flood-plain gave rise to Egyptian civilization beginning around 3500 BCE, which created the world's first imperial orders; and Mesopotamia—which literally means “the area between the two rivers” (Euphrates and Tigris)—became the cradle of the great empires of the Acadians, Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and Persians. The Middle East has been called the crossroads of the world: Relations between the early civilizations involved wars, crises, treaties, colonies, and trade, producing social, cultural, and religious interactions and influenced from ancient to modern times by imperial expansions from Mesopotamia to Egypt.

Discussion

Sumeria

Contemporary with the establishment of the Old Kingdom in Egypt, the Sumerians settled in Mesopotamia at the other end of the Middle East and built their civilization of city-states. Unified in and centralized by the first kingdom in 2800 BCE, the Sumerians organized an advanced irrigation system on the Euphrates and Tigris rivers for agricultural development. Mesopotamia was also called Aram Naharayim in the Hebrew Bible, which like its Hellenic-Roman equivalent meant “the land between two rivers.”

Trade also developed among the Sumerian cities Ur, Uruk, and Lagash and with neighboring Assyrian and Babylonian cities. The Sumerians also engaged in seafaring commercial activity from their Basra port to the coastlines of the Indian Ocean. Cuneiform writing, perhaps the earliest form of record keeping, originated in the Sumerian citystate Uruk, ruled by the legendary king Gilgamesh. Sumerian society had strong hierarchical differences and was formed by the ruling elite, the clergy, and the producers.

The wealthy Sumerian civilization sustained attacks by Akkadian and Elam forces in 2100 BCE, who then took over the rule of Sumerian ...