Civilization · Early Bronze Age · Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia

c. 5300–539 BCE

Mesopotamia, the land between the Tigris and Euphrates, was the cradle of civilization. Farming villages grew into the first cities here, and empires rose and fell on its plains for four thousand years. Persia conquered the last of them, Babylon, in 539 BCE.

Facts

Founded: c. 5300 BCE, with the first farming towns; cities from about 4000 BCE.; Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Mesopotamia
Ended: 539 BCE, when Cyrus the Great took Babylon for Persia.; Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Mesopotamia
Heartland: The Tigris Euphrates valley, in present day Iraq and eastern Syria.; Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Mesopotamia
Major rulers: Sargon of Akkad; Hammurabi of Babylon; Ashurbanipal of Assyria; Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon.; Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Mesopotamia

Images

The Ishtar Gate of Babylon, rebuilt in Berlin, glazed brick from the age of Nebuchadnezzar II. (Wikimedia Commons)

Comments

Loading comments…