ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS

Mesopotamia

STANDARD: Locates the temporary space where ancient civilizations developed, explaining the social, economic and cultural characteristics of these groups.

Ever wonder when the first written records ap-peared, when the wheel was invented, or where our modern counting system came from? Believe it or not, these and many other innovations – like glass, farming, complex legal systems, and basic astron-omy – came from one civilization, the very first: Mesopotamia.

Mesopotamia

MesopotamiaFor kids who want to discover the roots of modern–day life, this issue is key. What most people don’t know is that Mesopotamia in-cludes the Sumerian, Babylonian, and Assyr-ian empires, which followed one after an-other, from 3500 B.C. to 612 B.C., and all failed for different reasons.

Mesopotamia

MesopotamiaMesopotamia (Ancient Greek: Μεσοποταμία "[land] between rivers"); is a name for the area of the Tigris–Eu-phrates river system, in modern days roughly corresponding to most of Iraq plus Kuwait, the eastern parts of Syria, Southeastern Turkey, and regions along the Turkish-Syrian and Iran–Iraq borders.

Mesopotamia

MesopotamiaWidely considered to be one of the cradles of civilization by the Western world, Bronze Age, Mesopotamia included Sumer and the Akkadian, Babylonian, and Assyr-ian empires, all native to the territory of modern-day Iraq. In the Iron Age, it was controlled by the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Empires.

The Sumerians and Akkadians (including Assyrians and Babylonians) dominated Mesopotamia from the beginning of written history (c. 3100 BC) to the fall of Babylon in 539 BC, when it was conquered by the Achaemenid Empire. It fell to Alexander the Great in 332 BC, and after his death, it became part of the Greek Seleucid Empire.

Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia

Around 150 BC, Mesopotamia was under the control of the Parthian Empire. Mesopotamia became a battleground be-tween the Romans and Parthians, with parts of Mesopotamia coming under ephemeral Roman control. In AD 226, it fell to the Sassanid Persians and remained un-der Persian rule until the 7th century Muslim conquest of Persia of the Sasanian Empire. A number of primarily neo-Assyrian and Christian native Mesopotamian states existed between the 1st century BC and 3rd century AD, including Adiabene, Osroene, and Hatra.

Mesopotamia

MesopotamiaMesopotamia is the site of the earliest devel-opments of the Neolithic Revolution from around 10,000 BC. It has been identified as having "inspired some of the most important developments in human history including the invention of the wheel, the planting of the first cereal crops and the development of cursive script, mathematics, astronomy and agricul-ture."

HistoryThe pre-history of the Ancient Near East begins in the Lower Pale-olithic period, but writing began with a pictographic script in the Uruk IV period (ca. 4th millennium BC), and the ancient history of lower Mesopotamia — commence in the mid-third millennium BC with cuneiform records of early dynastic kings, and ends with either the arrival of the Achaemenid Empire in the late 6th century BC, or with the Muslim conquest and the establishment of the Caliphate in the late 7th century AD, from which point the region came to be known as Iraq. During this period Mesopotamia housed some of the world's most ancient highly developed and socially complex states.

Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia

The region was one of the four riverine civilizations where writing was invented, along with the Nile valley in Egypt, the Indus Valley Civilization in the Indian subcon-tinent, and the Yellow River in China. Mesopotamia housed historically important cities such as Uruk, Nippur, Nineveh, Assur and Babylon, as well as major territorial states such as the city of Eridu, the Akkadian kingdoms, the Third Dynasty of Ur, and the various Assyrian em-pires.

Mesopotamia

MesopotamiaSome of the important historical Mesopotamian leaders were Ur-Nammu (king of Ur), Sargon of Akkad (who es-tablished the Akkadian Empire), Ham-murabi (who established the Old Babylo-nian state), Ashur-uballit II and Tiglath-Pileser I (who established the Assyrian Empire).

Studies have reported that most Irish and Britons are descen-dants of farmers who left modern day Iraq and Syria 10,000 years ago. Genetic researchers say they have found compelling evidence that four out of five (80% of) white Europeans can trace their roots to the Near East. In another study, scientists an-alysed DNA from the 8,000-year-old remains of early farmers found at an ancient graveyard in Germany. They compared the genetic signatures to those of modern populations and found similarities with the DNA of people living in today's Turkey and Iraq.

Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia

 

-Kids Discover. Com. (n.d.). Mesopotamia. Retrieved from http://www.kidsdiscover.com/shop/issues/mesopotamia-for-kids/ -Wikipedia. (n.d.). Mesopotamia. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesopotamia

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