Mesopotamia

MESOPOTAMIA

Mesopotamia, meaning "between the rivers," is a collection of relatively flat fertile plains in what is now Iraq and northern Syria. The rivers are the Euphrates in the west and the Tigris in the East. Rising in the Taurus mountains of southern Turkey these two rivers flow south towards the Persian Gulf. A little over halfway to the sea, the two rivers approach each other closely, then diverge once more. Neatly dividing the region into northern and southern zones, this point has been home to a succession of the world's most important cities: Babylon, Seleukeia & Ktesiphon, Samarra, Baghdad, all fed by the fertile land between the rivers.   

It was in the far north that agriculture was first invented, around ten thousand years ago. When agriculture reached Mesopotamia some two thousand years later, it proved capable of reaping vast rewards and supporting populations on a scale hitherto unknown. From around 5,000 BC, people in the southern portion of Mesopotamia gathered at central places for reasons that are still uncertain - trade, worship, defence have all been suggested. In time the central places gained all three functions, becoming the world's first cities. 

Around 3300 BC, the people of this burgeoning civilization produced a second innovation: cuneiform, the world's first writing system. These are the first people who speak to us. We call them the Sumerians. Their many cities, each with their own king and their own god, contended among each other for advantage and for primacy: Kish, Uruk, Lagash, and (largest of all by far) Ur all achieved the top position for a time. For a thousand years this continued, even as their civilization spread to their neighbours.

The Akkadians, distant cousins to the Jews, Arabs, and Egyptians were among these neighbours. Around 2300 BC, one of them, Sargon, conquered all Sumeria, and the northern reaches of Mesopotamia as well. Their regime lasted for a hundred and fifty years before it was toppled by nomads from the east. After a confused period, another Sumerian regime, the Third Dynasty of Ur followed, and then finally the dynasty of Isin until around 1850 BC. By then Akkadian had taken over as the normal language of commerce and everyday life - Sumerian became the first attested language to die.

The Akkadians, now, had two centres. In the north, in the foothills of the Taurus mountains, was Assyria. Further south, at the point where the Euphrates and Tigris have their closest approach, was Babylon. In general, Assyria tended to be more martial and more mobile, raiding south from its earliest days. Babylon was more urbane and more diverse. Often conquered by nomadic forces, its conquerors inevitably found themselves conquered by Babylonian culture. Even its founders were foreigners - Amorite nomads, among whom was Hammurabi, famous for his (very traditional) law code. Under him Babylon gained a regional ascendency which lasted until about 1700 BC. 

Then Babylon's rule splintered. The Assyrians reasserted their independence. In the far north, the Mitanni, cousins of the Persians and Indians set up an empire. In the marshes of the far south a neo-Sumerian regime, Sealand was established. Finally, in 1600 BC, a new group of nomads, the Kassites, took over the city and ruled it for five hundred years. In the short term, the Mitanni were the winners, warring on equal terms with the Egyptian forces which now dominated the Levant. Ultimately they were swallowed by the ever more powerful Assyria. The Babylonians passed under a series of weak dynasties, termed the Middle Babylonian period, until they were conquered by the Assyrians in 728 BC under Tiglath-Pileser. The rest of the world followed under Ashurbanipal: Elam (southwestern Iran), Media (western Iran), Urartu (Armenia), Israel, Judaea, Cyprus, even Egypt. 

Ruling the world is harder than conquering it, and Babylon proved the most unfortunate conquest. It was happy to receive a foreigner as its king, but it demanded that that foreigner take up residence and become a Babylonian king. The Assyrian king intended to remain the Assyrian king. Babylon revolted, and revolted, finally leading a force in alliance with Media, Elam and the nomads of Anatolia which destroyed Assyria forever. The Neo-Babylonian empire took over Assyria's Mesopotamian and Levantine territories and prospered, reaching its height under Nebuchadnezzar II around 600 BC. A short-lived height. It was absorped into the Persian Achaemenid empire in 539 BC.

Mesopotamia, as a phenomenon in the history of civilization is generally taken to have ended then, and I therefore detail its subsequent history on the PERSIA page. The Achaemenids were based in Iran and unlike the Assyrians, their regime proved enduring. But this is not quite right. Babylon continued to be a major centre, and the Achaemenid king visited frequently. After Alexander, one of his successors, Seleukos, made it the base of an enduring empire - fed in large part by the Mesopotamian floodplain. The Parthian and Sassanid empires both had their main capital at Ktesiphon near Babylon. With the arrival of Islam, another great world city rose on the plains of Mesopotamia - Baghdad. For a time almost the whole Muslim world was ruled from there. The real end of Mesopotamia's importance comes with the Mongol Sack of Baghdad in 1258 AD. Thereafter the region limped as a province of distant realms: Persia, Ottoman Turkey, Britain. For the last fifty years it has been independent as Iraq, under a dictator who often appealed to the region's Babylonian past. With the American Invasion, a division between Kurdish and Arab regions has become pronounced, on very similar lines to that which long existed between Assyria and Babylon.