History of Mesopotamia, history of the region in southwestern Asia where the world’s earliest civilization developed. The name comes from a Greek word meaning “between rivers,” referring to the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, but the region can be broadly defined to include the area that is now eastern Syria, southeastern Turkey, and most of Iraq. The region was the centre of a culture whose influence extended throughout the Middle East and as far as the Indus valley, Egypt, and the Mediterranean.
This article covers the history of Mesopotamia from the prehistoric period up to the Arab conquest in the 7th century ce. For the history of the region in the succeeding periods, see Iraq, history of. For a discussion of the religions of ancient Mesopotamia, see Mesopotamian religion. See also art and architecture, Mesopotamian.
The streams that join to form the Tigris River begin in high mountains that rim Lake Van in eastern Turkey. Leaving Turkey, the Tigris touches the northeastern border of Syria and then flows southeastward across Iraq. In Iraq it is joined by tributaries from the east—principally the Great Zab, Little Zab, and Diyala. The Euphrates, west of the Tigris, runs in the same general direction.
In ancient times the two rivers had separate mouths. Now they meet in a swamp in southern Iraq and form a single stream, the Shatt al ’Arab, which flows into the head of the Persian Gulf. The Tigris, 1,180 miles (1,900 kilometers) long, is shorter than the Euphrates, but it is more important commercially because its channel is deeper.
The fertile region between the Tigris and the Euphrates was called Mesopotamia by the ancient Greeks. Here flourished the earliest known civilization. The Tigris was the great river of Assyria. The ancient city of Assur, which gave its name to Assyria, stood on its banks, as did Nineveh, Assyria’s splendid capital. Much later the Macedonian general Seleucus built his capital city Seleucia on the Tigris, and across the river from Seleucia the Parthian kings built Ctesiphon. The chief cities on the river today are Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, and Mosul, farther upstream. Basra, on the Shatt al ’Arab, is Iraq’s major port.
Since ancient times the people of Mesopotamia have depended on the water of the two rivers to irrigate their hot, dry land. The soil itself is largely a gift of the rivers, which deposit tremendous quantities of silt on their lower course and in the northern part of the Persian Gulf. As a result of these deposits, ruins of cities that were once gulf ports now lie far inland.
The term civilization basically means the level of development at which people live together peacefully in communities. Ancient civilization refers specifically to the first settled and stable communities that became the basis for later states, nations, and empires.
The study of ancient civilization is concerned with the earliest segments of the much broader subject called ancient history. The span of ancient history began with the invention of writing about 3100 bc and lasted for more than 35 centuries. Humankind existed long before the written word, but writing made the keeping of a historical record possible (see human origins).
The first ancient societies arose in Mesopotamia and Egypt in the Middle East, in the Indus valley region of what are now Pakistan and India, in the Huang He (Yellow River) valley of China, on the island of Crete in the Aegean Sea, and in Central America. All these civilizations had certain features in common. They built cities and invented forms of writing. They learned to make pottery and use metals. They domesticated animals, and they created fairly complex social structures with class systems.
Apart from written records and carved inscriptions, the knowledge about ancient peoples is derived from the work of archaeologists. Most of the significant archaeological findings have been made in the past 200 years. The Sumerian culture of Mesopotamia was discovered in the 1890s, and some of the most important archaeological digs in China were made after the late 1970s.
Babylon, Babylonian Bab-ilu, Old Babylonian Bāb-ilim, Hebrew Bavel or Babel, Arabic Aṭlāl Bābil, one of the most famous cities of antiquity. It was the capital of southern Mesopotamia (Babylonia) from the early 2nd millennium to the early 1st millennium bce and capital of the Neo-Babylonian (Chaldean) empire in the 7th and 6th centuries bce, when it was at the height of its splendour. Its extensive ruins, on the Euphrates River about 55 miles (88 km) south of Baghdad, lie near the modern town of Al-Ḥillah, Iraq.
The story of Western civilization began on a small plain in southwest Asia. Here 50 centuries ago cities rose, government developed, and great inventions—including writing—were made. The civilization that was born here spread westward to Palestine, Greece, and Rome. From these Mediterranean lands it entered the mainstream of Western civilization.
The Babylonian plain is very fertile. The land was built up of mud and clay deposited by two great rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates. These twin rivers come down from mountains in the north, cut southeastward through hilly grasslands, and finally cross the plain they created to reach the Persian Gulf. The Greeks named the land between them Mesopotamia, “land between the rivers.” Today it is called Iraq. Tradition says the Garden of Eden was here.
Three main peoples contributed to the civilization of Mesopotamia. The earliest group were the Sumerians. They lived in a small county-sized area located around the mouths of the two rivers in a land called Sumer (in the Bible, Shinar). These people, who probably came from Anatolia (Asia Minor) in about 3300 bc, developed a culture that spread to nearby Semitic peoples. By 1800 bc political power had moved north up the Euphrates to the Semitic city of Babylon in Akkad. The entire plain then became known as Babylonia. Centuries later the center of power moved north once more to warlike Assyria, in the rolling hill country of the upper Tigris Valley.
Before the Sumerians appeared on the land, it had been occupied by a non-Semitic people, referred to as Ubaidians. Their name comes from the village of Al Ubaid, in which their remains were first found by archaeologists.
The Ubaidians settled the region between 4500 and 4000 bc. They drained the marshes and introduced agriculture. They also developed trade based on small handicraft industries such as metalwork, leather goods, and pottery.
Cuneiform, system of writing used in the ancient Middle East. The name, a coinage from Latin and Middle French roots meaning “wedge-shaped,” has been the modern designation from the early 18th century onward. Cuneiform was the most widespread and historically significant writing system in the ancient Middle East. Its active history comprised the last three millennia bce, its long development and geographic expansion involved numerous successive cultures and languages, and its overall significance as an international graphic medium of civilization is second only to that of the Phoenician-Greek-Latin alphabet.
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