The Mesopotamian Empires

Between the rivers: 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 one of the world's first two civilizations, the other being Egypt. Both are established a little earlier than 3100 BC. 

• Unlike 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 shelter within thick protective walls. 

 

Sumerians

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 center 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.

• Sumerian culture came from the Uruk civilization and city-state.

• Epic of Gilgamesh: World’s earliest surviving work of literature (Leader of the Sumerians) Semi-historical work

Sumerians

Sumer and Gilgamesh: 3100-2500 BC 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.

In about 2300 BCE both Ur and Uruk yield to a conqueror from beyond Sumer.

Akkadian Empire

Sargon: Akkadian King who elevated the “city-state” into an Empire.

Subsequent Kings who succeeded Sargon maintained the scope of the Empire (agriculture in particular)and sophisticated political and economic organization.

Babylonians

King Hammurabi establishes Empire uniting the region once controlled by Sargon.

“Code of Hammurabi” Constantly challenged by the “Hittites” of the

north.

Assyrians

Rose from the city-state “Ashur”Often over-shadowed early by Babylonians Used “brutality” and advances in war-

machinery like siege engines (battering rams, siege towers), to force regional rivals to conform.

First society to make “militarism” the central policy of state.