MESOPOTAMIA-TIMELINE
Mesopotamia means “The Land Between the Rivers” (Tigris and Euphrates) :
4500-3100 BC
From about 4500 BC there are settlements on the edges of the marshes where the Tigris and the Euphrates reach the Persian Gulf. Mesopotamia, the region
between these two rivers, will be the area of the world's first civilization (SUMER) - established a little earlier than 3100 BC.
Unlike the other early river civilization of this region, that of Egypt (where a stable society is established along hundreds of miles of the Nile), Mesopotamia
will be characterized by constant warfare and a succession of shifting empires: Towns here, unlike in Egypt, shelter within thick protective walls.
Sumer and Gilgamesh:
3100-2500 BC
Sumer, close to the mouths of the Tigris and the Euphrates, is where the first Mesopotamian towns develop. Each grows up round a local temple, which acts
as the centre of the region's economic activity. The Sumerian temple priests, needing to keep accurate accounts, are the first people to develop a system of
writing.
The region can also claim other significant innovations. The first known potter's wheel, dating from around this period, has been found in Mesopotamia. And
a Sumerian ruler, the semi-historical Gilgamesh, is hero of the world's earliest surviving work of literature, the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Gilgamesh is listed in later Sumerian records as the king of Uruk and builder of its great city wall. He may be largely legendary, but his city is real enough
as an early centre of civilization. The wall, dating from a little after 3000 BC, is about six miles long. And it is from Uruk that the earliest written tablets
survive.
Uruk is soon eclipsed by a neighboring city state - that of Ur, famous later for its great ziggurat and (in the Bible) as the home of Abraham. The discovery
of the royal cemetery at Ur has revealed an astonishing level of sophistication in objects created in around 2500 BC for the local ruling family. But in about
2300 BC both Ur and Uruk yield to a conqueror from beyond Sumer.
Sargon and Akkad: c.
2350 BC
The conqueror of Ur (a Sumerian city) is a usurper, which is no doubt why he adopts the name Sargon - meaning the 'true king'. He is Semitic in origin, and
tradition states that he begins life as a fruit grower. He gradually conquers the Sumerian cities - first Kish, then Uruk, then Ur - before founding a capital city
of his own, Akkad. He then adopts a new title, 'King of the Nation'. (He is considered the world’s first emperor)
His is the first Semitic dynasty in history, and his civil servants use a cuneiform script which is an important innovation in the history of writing. Like the
scribes of Ebla, whose archive has recently been discovered, they adapt the Sumerian cuneiform to meet the needs of a Semitic language (a different
language than ancient Sumerian). Writing systems will often, in later centuries, demonstrate a similar flexibility.
The exact location of Akkad, Sargon's capital, is unknown. Its remains lie hidden somewhere in the region where the Tigris and Euphrates come closest to
each other. This is the natural place for a capital city (Babylon and Baghdad are later built in the same area). Sargon's achievement has been to establish the
first Empire.
The Akkadian Empire’s (named after Sargon’s capital city) sphere of influence, either through direct conquest or effective control of trade, stretches at its
peak from the Mediterranean coast of Syria to the head of the Persian Gulf. The empire of Sargon and his descendants lasts for some 150 years, before
slowly disintegrating and being overrun by tribes from the north.
Babylon, Assyria and others:
from 2200 BC
Over the next 1500 years or more, Mesopotamia goes through many periods of chaos, with small city states struggling for power or for survival. But there
are also times of imperial stability, when centralized control is reestablished. The two centers, on which the greatest empires of the region are based, are
Babylon and Assyria.
There are also periods when much of Mesopotamia is controlled by powers outside the area, notably the Hittites (from central turkey) from the 17th century
BC. And eventually the independence of Mesopotamia is brought to an end by the Persians (today’s Iran), who overwhelm New Babylon in 539 BC.
Thereafter the region of the two rivers becomes, for the next 1000 years and more, a province within a succession of alien empires - those of the Persians,
the Hellenistic Greeks (Alexander the Great), the Parthians (from Iran), the Sassanians (from Iran).