Mesopotamia: Birthplace of Civilization

Ancient Mesopotamia    image source: medium.com 

The story of civilization itself begins in one place. Not Egypt, not Greece, not Rome. It's Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia is a region of southwest Asia in the Tigris and Euphrates river system that benefited from the area’s climate and geography to host the beginnings of human civilization. The word “mesopotamia” is formed from the ancient words “meso” meaning between or in the middle of, and “potamos” meaning river. Situated in the fertile valleys between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the region is now home to modern-day Iraq, Kuwait, Turkey and Syria. For five millennia, the small strip of land fostered innovation that would change the world forever. Unlike the more unified civilizations of Egypt or Greece, Mesopotamia was a collection of varied cultures whose only real bonds were their script, their gods, and their attitude toward women.

Map of Mesopotamia   image source: pinterest.co.uk

Inhabited for nearly 12,000 years, Mesopotamia's stable climate, rich soil and steady supply of fresh water made it ideal for agriculture to develop and thrive. About 6,000 years ago, seemingly overnight, some of these agricultural settlements blossomed into some of the world's first cities.

In the period between 4,000 and 3,100 BC, Mesopotamia was dotted with a constellation of competing city states. At one point they were unified under the Akkadian Empire and then broke apart forming the empires of Assyria and Babylon. Despite near constant warfare, innovation and development thrived in ancient Mesopotamia. They built on a monumental scale from palaces to ziggurats, mammoth temples served as ritual locations to commune with the gods. They also developed advanced mathematics, including a based 60 systems that created a 60-second minute, a 60-minute hour and a 360° circular angle. The Babylonians used their sophisticated system of mathematics to map and study the sky. They divided one earth year into 12 periods. Each was named after the most prominent constellations in the heavens, a tradition later adopted by the Greeks to create the zodiac. They also divided the week into seven days, naming each after their seven gods (Marduk, Ninurta, Nergal, Inanna, Nabu, Nanna-Seun, Utu) embodied by the seven observable planets in the sky.

Babylonian Numerals   image source: factsanddetails.com

But perhaps the most impactful innovation to come out of Mesopotamia is literacy. What began as simple pictures scrawled onto wet clay to keep track of goods and weak developed into a sophisticated writing system by the year 3200 BC. This writing system would come to be called cuneiform in modern times and proved so flexible that over the span of 3,000 years, it would be adapted for over a dozen different major languages and countless uses including recording the law of Babylonian king Hammurabi, which formed the basis of a standardized justice system.

Ancient Mesopotamian Writing   image source: ducksters.com

But Mesopotamia's success became its undoing. Babylon in particular proved too rich a state to resist outside envy. In 539 BC, the Persian king Cyrus conquered Babylon and sealed his control over the entirety of Mesopotamia. For centuries, this area became a territory of foreign empires. Eventually, Mesopotamia would fade like its kings into the mists of history. And its cities would sink beneath the sands of Iraq. But its ideas would prevail in literacy, law, math, astronomy and the gift of civilization itself.

Interesting Facts About Mesopotamia

• The Babylonian law created by King Hammurabi, the Code of Hammurabi, may be the oldest written law in the world.
• The Sumerians are often credited with inventing the wheel.
• At the center of each major city was a temple to the city's god called a ziggurat.
• The Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers are both well over 1,000 miles long.
• Because this is where people first began to write, Mesopotamia is often called the place where history began.
• Mesopotamia is part of a larger area that archeologists call the Fertile Crescent.
• Many of the buildings, walls, and structures were made from sun-dried bricks. These bricks didn't last long, so very little of Ancient Mesopotamian cities still stand.
• Much of what we know about Mesopotamian history comes from thousands of clay tablets found in the library at the Assyrian city of Nineveh.