Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. It corresponds roughly to the territory of modern Iraq. Just beyond it lies southwestern Iran, where the region transitions into the Persian plateau, marking the shift from the Arab world to Iran.
Mesopotamia is the site of the earliest developments 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, the development of cursive script, mathematics, astronomy, and agriculture." It is recognised as the cradle of some of the world's earliest civilizations.
The Sumerians and Akkadians, each originating from different areas, dominated Mesopotamia from the beginning of recorded history (c. 3100 BC) to the fall of Babylon in 539 BC. The rise of empires, beginning with Sargon of Akkad around 2350 BC, characterized the subsequent 2,000 years of Mesopotamian history, marked by the succession of kingdoms and empires such as the Akkadian Empire. The early second millennium BC saw the polarization of Mesopotamian society into Assyria in the north and Babylonia in the south. From 900 to 612 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire asserted control over much of the ancient Near East. Subsequently, the Babylonians, who had long been overshadowed by Assyria, seized power, dominating the region for a century as the final independent Mesopotamian realm until the modern era. In 539 BC, Mesopotamia was conquered by the Achaemenid Empire under Cyrus the Great. The area was next conquered by Alexander the Great in 332 BC. After his death, it was fought over by the various Diadochi (successors of Alexander), of whom the Seleucids emerged victorious.
Around 150 BC, Mesopotamia was under the control of the Parthian Empire. It became a battleground between the Romans and Parthians, with western parts of the region coming under ephemeral Roman control. In 226 AD, the eastern regions of Mesopotamia fell to the Sassanid Persians under Ardashir I. The division of the region between the Roman Empire and the Sassanid Empire lasted until the 7th century Muslim conquest of the Sasanian Empire and the Muslim conquest of the Levant from the Byzantines. 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.
Present
In the broader sense, the historical region of Mesopotamia also includes parts of present-day Iran (southwest), Turkey (southeast), Syria (northeast), and Kuwait.
Modern Assyrians remain direct descendants of the native Mesopotamians.
Etymology
The regional toponym Mesopotamia (, Ancient Greek: Μεσοποταμία '[land] between rivers'; Arabic: بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن Bilād ar-Rāfidayn or بَيْن ٱلنَّهْرَيْن Bayn an-Nahrayn; Persian: میانرودان miyân rudân; Syriac: ܒܝܬ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ Beth Nahrain "(land) between the (two) rivers") comes from the ancient Greek root words μέσος (mesos, 'middle') and ποταμός (potamos, 'river') and translates to '(land) between rivers'. It is used throughout the Greek Septuagint (c. 250 BC) to translate the Hebrew and Aramaic equivalent Naharaim. An even earlier Greek usage of the name Mesopotamia is evident from The Anabasis of Alexander, which was written in the late 2nd century AD but specifically refers to sources from the time of Alexander the Great. In the Anabasis, Mesopotamia was used to designate the land east of the Euphrates in north Syria.
The Akkadian term biritum/birit narim corresponded to a similar geographical concept. Later, the term Mesopotamia was more generally applied to all the lands between the Euphrates and the Tigris, thereby incorporating not only parts of Syria but also almost all of Iraq and southeastern Turkey. The neighbouring steppes to the west of the Euphrates and the western part of the Zagros Mountains are also often included under the wider term Mesopotamia.
A further distinction is usually made between Northern or Upper Mesopotamia and Southern or Lower Mesopotamia. Upper Mesopotamia, also known as the Jazira, is the area between the Euphrates and the Tigris from their sources down to Baghdad. Lower Mesopotamia is the area from Baghdad to the Persian Gulf and includes Kuwait and parts of western Iran.
In modern academic usage, the term Mesopotamia often also has a chronological connotation. It is usually used to designate the area until the Muslim conquests, with names like Syria, Jazira, and Iraq being used to describe the region after that date. It has been argued that these later euphemisms are Eurocentric terms attributed to the region in the midst of various 19th-century Western encroachments.
Geography
Mesopotamia encompasses the land between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, both of which have their headwaters in the neighboring Armenian highlands. Both rivers are fed by numerous tributaries, and the entire river system drains a vast mountainous region. Overland routes in Mesopotamia usually follow the Euphrates because the banks of the Tigris are frequently steep and difficult. The climate of the region is semi-arid with a vast desert expanse in the north which gives way to a 15,000-square-kilometre (5,800 sq mi) region of marshes, lagoons, mudflats, and reed banks in the south. In the extreme south, the Euphrates and the Tigris unite and empty into the Persian Gulf.
The arid environment ranges from the northern areas of rain-fed agriculture to the south where irrigation of agriculture is essential. This irrigation is aided by a high water table and by melting snows from the high peaks of the northern Zagros Mountains and from the Armenian Highlands, the source of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers that give the region its name. The usefulness of irrigation depends upon the ability to mobilize sufficient labor for the construction and maintenance of canals, and this, from the earliest period, has assisted the development of urban settlements and centralized systems of political authority.
Agriculture throughout the region has been supplemented by nomadic pastoralism, where tent-dwelling nomads herded sheep and goats (and later camels) from the river pastures in the dry summer months, out into seasonal grazing lands on the desert fringe in the wet winter season. The area is generally lacking in building stone, precious metals, and timber, and so historically has relied upon long-distance trade of agricultural products to secure these items from outlying areas. In the marshlands to the south of the area, a complex water-borne fishing culture has existed since prehistoric times and has added to the cultural mix.
Periodic breakdowns in the cultural system have occurred for a number of reasons. The demands for labor have from time to time led to population increases that push the limits of the ecological carrying capacity; should a period of climatic instability ensue, central government can collapse and populations can decline. Alternatively, military vulnerability to invasion from marginal hill tribes or nomadic pastoralists has led to periods of trade collapse and neglect of irrigation systems. Equally, centripetal tendencies amongst city-states have meant that central authority over the whole region, when imposed, has tended to be ephemeral, and localism has fragmented power into tribal or smaller regional units. These trends have continued to the present day in Iraq.
History
The prehistory of the Ancient Near East begins in the Lower Paleolithic period. Therein, writing emerged with a pictographic script, Proto-cuneiform, in the Uruk IV period (c. late 4th millennium BC). The documented record of actual historical events—and the ancient history of lower Mesopotamia—commenced in the early-third millennium BC with cuneiform records of early dynastic kings. This entire history 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. In the long span of this period, Mesopotamia housed some of the world's most ancient highly developed, and socially complex states.
The region was home to one of the four riverine civilizations where writing was invented, along with the Nile valley in Ancient Egypt, the Indus Valley civilization in the Indian subcontinent, and the Yellow River in Ancient 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 empires. Some of the important historical Mesopotamian leaders were Ur-Nammu (king of Ur), Sargon of Akkad (who established the Akkadian Empire), Hammurabi (who established the Old Babylonian state), Ashur-uballit I and Tiglath-Pileser I (who established the Assyrian Empire).
Scientists analysed 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.
Periodization
Pre- and protohistory
Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (10,000–8700 BC)
Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (8700–6800 BC)
Jarmo (7500–5000 BC)
Hassuna (~6000 BC)
Samarra (~5700–4900 BC)
Halaf cultures (~6000–5300 BC)
Ubaid period (~6500–4000 BC)
Uruk period (~4000–3100 BC)
Jemdet Nasr period (~3100–2900 BC)
Early Bronze Age
Early Dynastic period (~2900–2350 BC)
Akkadian Empire (~2350–2100 BC)
Third Dynasty of Ur (2112–2004 BC)
Middle Bronze Age
Isin-Larsa period (19th to 18th century BC)
First Babylonian dynasty (18th to 17th century BC)
Minoan eruption (c. 1620 BC)
Late Bronze Age
Old Assyrian period (16th to 11th century BC)
Middle Assyrian period (c. 1365–1076 BC)
Kassites in Babylon, (c. 1595–1155 BC)
Late Bronze Age collapse (12th to 11th century BC)
Iron Age
Syro-Hittite states (11th to 7th century BC)
Neo-Assyrian Empire (911 BC – 612 BC)
Neo-Babylonian Empire (626 BC – 539 BC)
Classical antiquity
Fall of Babylon (539 BC)
Achaemenid Babylonia, Achaemenid Assyria (539 BC – 331 BC)
Seleucid Mesopotamia (4th to 3rd century BC)
Parthian Babylonia (141 BC – 226 AD)
Meshan (141 BC – 222 AD)
Osroene (2nd century BC to 3rd century AD)
Adiabene (1st to 2nd century AD)
Hatra (1st to 2nd century AD)
Roman Mesopotamia (2nd to 7th century AD), Roman Assyria (2nd century AD)
Late Antiquity