Ancient Mesopotamia & the Fertile Crescent

Introduction Mesopotamia, in Southwest Asia, was one of the earliest known human civilizations. Historians use the term civilization to describe a culture that has reached a certain level of development. These cultures used systems of writing, built cities, and assigned workers to specific jobs, such as farmers, blacksmiths, builders, and priests.

Geography of Ancient Mesopotamia Mesopotamia lay between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in what is now Syria and Iraq. Mesopotamia means “between the rivers”. This area of rich farmland was the site of the first permanent human settlement.

Geography of Ancient Mesopotamia The region is often called the Fertile Crescent. The era of Mesopotamia is known as the Bronze Age because they made wide use of the metal bronze, which is a combination of copper and tin.

Farming in Ancient Mesopotamia The area of Mesopotamia was settled around 4500 B.C. Wandering peoples who hunted animals and gathered plants for food settled in large numbers along the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Then people saw rich, fertile soil left by the waters from the yearly floods and knew it would be a productive area to farm.

Farming in Ancient Mesopotamia Over the next 500 years, the settlers built an irrigation system to control the flooding of the rivers and to better water the land. They created a 12-month calendar based on the phases of the moon to better predict the floods. They grew grain and wheat for the first time.

Government in Ancient Mesopotamia Some of the villages and towns grew into cities of up to 40,000 people. The city-state of this time was made up of the city and farmland around it. The city-state was a theocracy - it was ruled by an individual who was both the religious leader and the king.

Sumer The earliest of the city-states was Sumer, located near the Persian Gulf. The Sumerians created a form of writing known as cuneiform. It was written with wooden triangular-shaped sticks on moist clay tablets. This system of writing includes hundreds of wedge-shaped forms.

Akkad and Babylon Around 2300 B.C., Akkad conquered Sumer and several other city-states to create the first empire, which is a group of states under one ruler. Babylon took over the empire around 1800 B.C. Babylon’s greatest king was Hammurabi who wrote a set of laws in an attempt to create justice and fairness.

Akkad and Babylon The set of laws known as Hammurabi’s Code helped people know the laws and the punishments for breaking the laws. The Babylonians developed a number system based on 60. Our 60-minute hour, 60-second minute, and 360-degree circle came from this Babylonian system.

The Phoenicians The Phoenicians were important traders of the time. They lived in what today is Lebanon. The Phoenicians traveled far and used the sun and stars to navigate. They developed an alphabet that grew into the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin alphabets that are still in use today.